of-state representatives as they become organized to make use of the information services. Also at this time a reasonable fee or subscription schedule for other State Education Agencies will be devised to make the continuation of these services financially feasible.

3. EVALUATION

Evaluation will be an important part of Phase I and II, consisting of both a continuing monitoring process and formal assessments at given points of the development of the program, including evaluation by outside agencies. The Educational Research Specialist will be responsible for designing and implementing formal evaluation procedures. Generally, these will entail an initial survey of needs in the area of educational information and services (described above) and follow-up surveys to measure the extent to which needs are being met and areas (both topical and geographical) in which they are not. Primary techniques will include questionnaires, site visits with structured interviews, tabulation uses of services and materials, and individual staff reports and ob servations. Periodic progress reports circulated among the staff will record these findings and provide the basis for discussion and planning as the program develops.

In as much as divisions now existing within the state agency will be involved in the provision of basic services, their own methods of evaluation will also be instrumental in achieving overall assessment. Individual users of the service will provide feedback, and consultants will informally report any observations or reactions obtained in the field. Both the process (the operations themselves and the various staff functions) and the product (the overall structure as it evolves and accomplishes the goals stated in the objectives) will be subject to close observation. Evaluation obtained during Phase I will influence the structure of Phase II, and all evaluation will provide the basis for going into the fully operational Phase III. Data will also be retained for the purpose of ac cumulating a long-range profile of both client and Center characteristics with a view toward continuous improvement of materials and services.

Naturally, Mr. Chairman, we see the two initial Phases of the Center's work as research and development, and as such we fully hope that they will be fundable by the National Center for Educational Research and Development under the Cooperative Research Act authority and the authority of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

But as I look to the future I am aware that the regular operation of such an institution will be to carry out perhaps the single most important phase of the research task: the dissemination of research results. Would it be overambitious to suggest that a network of such dissemination institutions might legitimately become part of the apparatus of the National Institute of Education?

CONCLUSION

I have outlined here, Mr. Chairman, the hopes of Hoosier educators for new educational forms to be created as experimental schools, and I have outlined the shape and process of an institution we hope to help create, the Educational Information Center.

We at the State level are taking part in the same work as those at the Federal level, yourself included, who are working to create the National Institute of Education. Let me join you and the members of your subcommittee, Mr. Chairman, in hoping that these initiatives together can mesh to remake American education.

If you have any questions, I shall be glad to answer them.

APPLICATION

EXPERIMENTAL SCHOOLS PROGRAM

U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION

Washington, D.C. 20202

TELEVISION COMMUNICATIONS APPROACH

TO A MULTI-CULTURAL SCHOOL EXPERIENCE

FOR A COMMUNITY IN THE URBAN CONDITION

The East Chicago, Indiana, Public School System is a school corporation serving a highly industrialized community. The city of East Chicago itself has all the typical problems of a city in the urban condition. Its population is declining although new arrivals are drawn to the city from the rural South, Southwest, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The school system is beset by typical inner-city problems, namely, poor achievement in skill subjects, hostile attitudes of alienated pupils and a professional staff that in many instances does not understand the needs and desires of disadvantaged minority group pupils.

The school populus is 10,165 pupils housed in eleven elementary
schools, one junior high school and two high schools. Of the
total pupil population, 33% are Spanish surnamed, 40% are Negro
and 27% Caucasian. The pupil population is decreasing but there
is much intra-city transfering which adversly affects the learn-
ing process. It is estimated locally that more than 50% of the
pupils in the school system are at least six months below grade
level norms in reading achievement. The school system has been
beset recently by student walk-outs and boycotts at the senior
high school level. There are indications of further pupil un-
rest at the junior high and elementary grade centers. In addition
to the three broad racial and ethnic representations of Spanish,
Negro and Caucasian, there are pupils representing every country
on the continent of Europe. European ethnic groups represented
approximately twenty-five. A total of fifty-seven racial and
ethnic groups are represented. Threading its way through this
diverse, disadvantaged pupil population is the problem of non-
English speaking pupils, most of whom are Latin American. The
other non-English speaking pupils are Greek, Serbian, Croatian
and Hungarian in origin. This tremendous diversity in culture
impinges on the learning situation immediately upon the pupils
initial introduction to our school system.

a

The School City, in the past, has proved it's competency to
design worthwhile educational projects by being funded with
Headstart Program, MDTA, a Neighborhood Youth Corps Program, a
Settled-Out Migrant Education Program, ESEA, Title I and II
Programs and a Work-Study Program for Disadvantaged and Handi-
capped Youth and a Juvenile Delinquency Program. The School
City currently has on file with H.E.W. in Washington proposals
for ESEA, Title III and Title VII Projects. The School City has
also taken part in EPDA Projects.

In addition to having the expertise necessary to design and implement the above named federal programs, the School City has operational, in it s Joseph L. Block Junior High School, a very sophisticated, professional quality television studio that is used for live television broadcasting in addition to video taping of

educational programming for retrieval purposes. The television installation, a complete closed circuit television studio, includes the following equipment:

2.

11.

12.

13.

One Multiplexer System

Monitor Speaker

Monitor Amplifier

Television Tape Recorder-with VTR Table-1" tape

RF Modulators

14. One Empire 488 Turntable With Cartridge

The overriding problem is the racial and cultural alienation, isolation and polarization of an urban community. The physical and psychological decay inherent in the urban condition demonstrates poor skill subject achievement. All these conditions are manifest in the typical symptomatology: poor attendance patterns, poor selfconcept, hostility, juvenile delinquency and a high incidence of drop-outs. This is all related ultimately to its base cause seen from a psychological perspective which is a poorly developed self-concept. This poor development results in the lack of coping mechanisms. These coping mechanism deficits result in inappropriate reactions to the stimuli of the urban condition with its attendant physical and psychological pressures.

as

(a)

(b)

(c)

These problems are attendant to the urban condition and are replicated throughout the country. The attempt at improving a cultural self-concept is not typically done with the large group scale we are proposing in this project. Never before has a community been ready for the type of program planning in this design and neither has the technology been available previously in an urban site.

The target population in this case, East Chicago, Indiana,
with its selected target area evidences all the problems.
This is the urban condition; these are the problems.

Mass communications media has demonstrated that it is a
viable vehicle for breaking through barriers of hostility,
learning problems and lack of motivation while reaching
large groups. An emerging educational trend has illustrated
the validity of a multi-cultural experience as a basic need
for growth in a search for individual and cultural identity.
Active community participation has been seen as an absolute
necessity in creating a positive image of the schools in an
urban setting. These three themes, community involvement,
a multi-cultural experience and modern communications
techniques all speak to a resolution of the problem: polar-
ization and decay of the urban condition.

Of

The target population to be involved in this design numbers
approximately 5,000 pupils, grades K through 12 housed in five
elementary centers, one junior high school and one senior high
school in one geographic section of the total community.
these approximately 5,000 pupils located in the target community,
1,717 or 34% come from low income families and meet Title I
income guidelines.

The social economic aspects of the target population and of the
community indicate that this is a typical inner-city population
in that most of the families reside in housing units that are
either dilapidated or deteriorating and are over crowded. There
is a high concentration of welfare and township relief recipients
in the area. The rate of unemployment is unusually high for an
industrialized urban community of this type. There is a basic
language communications problem among most of the inhabitants of
the target area and they suffer the social implications that are
a natural outgrowth of economic and cultural deprivation. Most
of the residents of the target area exhibit a ghetto life style
in which they view outsiders, whether they be educators or not,
with distrust.

In comparison, the target population to be involved in this
design is a microcosm of the total client le served by the school
system differing only in that the social economic problems that
are common in the entire community are present to a greater degree
having greater impact upon this select group.