Experimenting with Children Under the Gary Plan in New York City
- Author:
William E Grady,
Public School No. 64, Manhattan, N. Y.
To say that New York City has been experimenting with the Gary plan of school organization during the past year probably suggests “carrying coals to Newcastle” or in current terms “carrying steel to Gary.” The net outcome of the employment of Superintendent Wirt by the Board of Education during the school year just closed, has been an increased interest in school matters by the parents at large because of the propaganda carried on in different newspapers, an incomplete demonstration of the work, study, and play program in two schools,?P. S. No. 45, located in the Borough of the Bronx, and P. S. No. 89 in the Borough of Brooklyn,?together with a paper organization for a group of additional schools in the Bronx, several of which have recently begun to operate although with inadequate equipment. In order that the schools thus organized may have the benefit of Superintendent Wirt’s personal supervision, he has been re-engaged for the current year, not by the Board of Education but by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, which claims to see in the plan a means of effecting certain economies.
Disregarding certain political aspects of the controversy due to the attempt of the city administration to arrogate to itself a control over educational policy for which there is no warrant either in the statute law or the legal decisions of the state, a brief survey of the situation and a statement of the mooted points in the plan may be of passing interest.
As the records of Bluffton, Indiana, show no novel features of school administration other than a short lived attempt to lengthen the school year, it may be assumed that Superintendent Wirt developed his theory of duplicate school organization after his appointment in Gary, Indiana, that unique town created in 1906 by the decree of the United States Steel Corporation at a cost of $75,000,000. During the past ten years there has been developed in three of the nine schools in Gary (the Emerson, the Froebel, and the Jefferson), a type of organization which has aroused curiosity, commendation, and condemnation because of such features as (a) Enriched equipment, including shops, playgrounds, auditoriums, studios, swimming pools. (19) (6) An alternating or duplicate school program permitting, and in fact necessitating, the accommodation of two schools of a twelve years’ span in one building. (c) A type of program which in terms of time and subject distribution enables the pupils to attend school at such times as will best conserve the co-ordination of the school and related social agencies such as the home, the church, the library and private teacher. id) An alleged reduction of cost in equipment and maintenance insuring a twelve months’ school year, a longer school day, prevocational and vocational training and a co-ordination of social agencies at a cost either equal to or less than the current cost in well organized school systems of admitted efficiency.
As a result of a cursory inspection of the Gary schools by the Mayor and the President of the Board of Education of this city in June, 1914, Superintendent Wirt was employed to advise concerning the feasibility of securing pre vocational training for all pupils by means of a wider use of school facilities. After considerable vexatious delay, Superintendent Wirt was assigned to reorganize two schools already mentioned in which the congestion tended to make advisable a duplicate organization such as is essential to the operation of the Gary Plan. To date both these demonstration schools are inadequately equipped to permit a real demonstration of the so-called work, play, and study program. Moreover the group of twelve schools in the Bronx, several of which have just begun to operate under the program, have not yet been completely equipped with the very limited additional play space, auditoriums and shop equipment which Superintendent Wirt has planned.
What then shall be claimed for the experiment to date? The consensus of professional opinion is that the alleged economies and the pedagogical merits of the plan are still open to serious question. For example, a committee of the Teachers’ Council representative of all the teachers in the city and a Committee of Principals representing the principals of the city both reported that in view of the incomplete character of the experiment, it would be inadvisable to attempt either to pass final judgment on the plan or to make the so-called demonstration the basis of a claim for an extension of the scheme. While a real contribution to duplicate school organization, the Gary Plan has yet to demonstrate to the satisfaction of professional educators its stability, economy, and effectiveness when subjected to the exaction of conditions as they exist in New York City.
The instability of the plan is such that many are seriously perplexed as to just what are its basic administrative features. Thus in Superintendent Wirt’s report to the Board of Education of July, 1915, and in a public address delivered in June of that year, Superintendent Wirt advocated a teacher for each class in the school organization; two principals in each duplicate school; 120 square feet of play space per pupil; co-ordination of school and church by means of a certain method of programming the school day; and prevocational training through maintenance work done in connection with the school plants. More recently he estimated that the city system could be reorganized on the basis of his program in six month’s time at a maximum cost of $6,000,000.
At the present time he either specifically recommends or his practice and plans conform to the following: He saves 10 per cent of the number of teachers hitherto employed; asks for one principal in each duplicate school organization even though that be in excess of 3000 children; plans for only 40 square feet of play space per pupil; states that the co-ordination of school and church is unessential and possibly inadvisable; and provides industrial training but does not limit it either in amount or method to the opportunities such as a maintenance plan can afford. Although the Board of Superintendants has not yet submitted a final report on the problem of the cost of the re-organization of schools in congested districts on the work, study and play program, it is stated on good authority that the estimated cost of such changes will be $15,000,000.
Such kaleidoscopic changes in the fundamental aspects of the scheme, recommended by certain zealous advocates as a panacea for school ills and recommended even by the Mayor and the Controller as a basis for the re-organization of the entire New York school system, make the judicial reflect on the possibility of the irreparable damage that may be done through a chaotic reconstruction based on a relatively novel plan of school organization that is as yet untried in a school system of any city with a population of 300,000 inhabitants. Open to serious dispute are the economies alleged to be possible under the Gary plan. No sane person will hold that economy is out of place in school management. If, however, economy means placing the dollar above the needs of the children, educators who fail to enter a vigorous protest are recreant to their duty. It is important to examine the economies which are said to be possible. These are? 1. Two schools may be housed in one building. Apparently this saves part of the cost of an additional site and building and results in a decrease in the cost of maintenance.
2. The duplicate school organization may be administered on the basis of the “Model 72 Class Program” which requires but one principal and permits a 10 per cent reduction in the teaching staff. This reduction is macle possible by massing pupils under a limited number of teachers in the auditorium and the playground, by distributing class units as monitors, as teacher assistants, or as pupil helpers in the shops and laboratories and by sending classes, for part of the school day, to various neighborhood agencies.
3. The school equipment may be maintained in proper repair through the joint labor of the shop teacher, and pupil assistants. By this device the salary of the instructor is offset by his productive work and is therefore not a salary charge but a charge against the fund for the maintenance of building and equipment.
4. The school day is lengthened one hour or 20 per cent without additional cost and with a reduction in the number of teachers. 5. Such agents as truant officers and home visitors may be dispensed with and the work of investigating truancy and unsatisfactory conditions affecting pupils’ welfare can be assigned to teachers. It is aside from my purpose to argue the converse of these propositions at any length, but I will suggest the following facts: 1. Superintendent Spaudling of Minneapolis found, despite the low wage given to both teachers and principals, despite the maintenance plan of industrial training and the various other devices already enumerated, that the per capita cost of schooling in Gary as the schools were being operated at the time of his visit was 38 per cent higher than in his own system.
2. According to Superintendent Wirt’s frank admission the “Model 72 Class Program” is the fruit of fifty earlier programs originated during the past ten years. The acceptance of it involves features, which although apparently economical may be expensive indeed if interpreted in terms of child life. Up to the time the program was presented Superintendent Wirt had very limited experience with a type of unit school large enough to permit the use of a “72 Class Program ” and the reduction in the number of principals, teachers, and accommodations are based on theory rather than practice. Furthermore, part of the plan calls for the vacation of 200 old buildings and the resultant introduction of duplicate schools in organizations already too large. Such radicalism suggests that due consideration be given to Professor McMurry’s recommendation in the “Report of the Committee on School Inquiry” that the present tendency to increase the size of schools should be checked and a desirable size should be agreed upon for the future, possibly not exceeding approximately thirty teachers. Superintendent Wirt himself admits “that cities can finance adequate work, study and play programs, only when all the facilities of the community for the work, study and play of the child are properly co-ordinated with the school.” He admits moreEXPERIMENTING WITH CHILDREN. 23 over that since the independent social agencies represented by the libraries, churches, and settlement houses are not yet co-ordinated with the school, all classes programmed for out of school periods must necessarily be accommodated by the school itself even though an increase in cost is thus involved.
3. None of the schools re-organized by Superintendent Wirt are making any serious attempt to apply the maintenance scheme so as to provide prevocational training and at the same time keep the school in proper condition. In all cases the salary of the shop instructor is a charge against the general salary fund.
4. In the schools in which the operation of the longer school day has been observed, it is obvious that the time lost through departmental changes within and without the building more than offset the additional hour. Moreover the additional hour is practically on an optional basis and when the facilities are not ample or do not meet with the approval of the parents in the neighborhood, the retention of the children at home has led to a reduction rather than a lengthening of the school day. 5. The substitution of the teacher for the trained social worker, either truant officer or home visitor, is in keeping with other suggestions whose value has never been proved. Many of the educational features of the Gary plan are either novelties in elementary education whose value is unknown or features concerning the value of which school men are in serious doubt. The proposed innovations to which most serious objection has been raised are the following:
1. The constant use throughout the school day of all parts of the equipment such as gymnasium, swimming pool, auditorium. However desirable it may be to have these facilities it does not necessarily follow that it is best for the pupils to use them at all hours of the day. For example: the assignment of a first grade class of six year old children whose day begins at 8:30 to the playground for the first period and to the auditorium for the second period would seem to be emphasizing the use of the equipment at the expense of the real needs, mental and physiological, of the child. 2. The departmental plan of teaching for all grades, involving approximately forty minute changes of teachers, room, and subject matter for all pupils including the little tots of the lowest grades, in a school day extending from 8:30 to 3:50. Extended experience in the schools of this city with a departmentalized scheme of instruction limited to the mature pupils of the 7th and 8th school years has not led to a general adoption of the plan because of such generally recognized limitations as lessened disciplinary control, lack of personal influence and overemphasis on instruction in subject matter at the expense of those finer influences that really constitute the art of teaching.
3. The assignment of pupils for extended daily periods as monitors in halls, auditoriums, and classrooms in order to effect certain economies in the teaching force. May it not be argued that the value of such assignments as contrasted with intensive instruction under a skilled sympathetic teacher is certainly a matter open to debate. 4. The promiscuous grouping of younger and older children who work in auditorium, laboratories, and shops in spite of the obvious difficulties of securing seats capable of accommodating both a first grade child and an eighth grade child, and the desirability of having homogeneous pupil groups to insure economy in the instruction process.
5. The paternalistic scheme of extending the school day of all children young and old from 8:30 to 3:50 and compelling the pupils of the so-called second or Y school to do intensive mental work late in the forenoon and late in the afternoon. The crux of the duplicate school problem is the Y school which must be proven to be the equal or superior of the ordinary well equipped single type of school. If all our experience shows that the best time for doing intensive mental work is not only between the hours of 9:00 and 3:00 but also the best time within these limits is the early morning and the early afternoon: mental work late in the morning and late in the afternoon is at a disadvantage. Again, any duplicate school organization based on the slogan that “Each parent can have the kind of school he wants” conceals the specious assumption that 50 per cent of the parents will choose the Y school, a choice hardly possible as soon as they become aware of the limitations of the Y program.
6. The device of dividing the school year into semesters during which special subjects are taught for a third of the year and then dropped for the remainder of the year, is a novelty in elementary education, the value of which has yet to be proven.
7. The substitution of outside activities in the home, church, studies of private teachers, social centers and libraries as equivalent to regular school activities, although such agencies are beyond the control of educational authorities.
8. The substitution of casual, unorganized shop instruction based on the maintenance theory for the type of organized, sequential instruction given to mature children in the vocational and prevocational schools throughout the country, in most of which productive work is done, but in which the doing of jobs is incidental to the instruction and training of pupil workers.
Despite the fact that the consensus of opinion is that sufficient time has not elapsed to permit a proper evaluation of the work in the two schools that Superintendent Wirt organized, City Superintendent Maxwell assisted by his chief statistician, Mr. Burdette Buckingham, conducted tests in March and in June, 1915, which included the two schools administered on the Gary plan and a group of so-called control schools organized in the ordinary way. The examinations were in fundamental subjects: arithmetic, spelling, English, grammar, geography, and history, and were intended to test the increment of progress made by the pupils between the dates indicated. The results are given in the following tabulation:
IMPROVEMENT IN ALL SUBJECTS BY GRADES. BASED ON THE NUMBER OF PUPILS WHOSE SCORES WERE BETTER IN THE FINAL THAN IN THE INITIAL TEST. Grade 7A. 7B. 8A. 8B. All grades. GARY SCHOOLS Pupils in both tests 1,541 1,366 1,216 1,126 5,249 No. who improved 839 770 686 640 2,935 Per cent who improved 54.4 56.4 56.4 56.8 55.9 CONTROL SCHOOLS Pupils in both tests 4,702 4,114 3,894 3,591 16,301 No. who improved 2,824 2,571 2,297 2,117 9,809 Per cent who improved 60.1 62.5 59.0 59.0 60.2
The City Superintendent states, “While I would be the last to claim that this test is final or that it renders an effective decision against the Gary system for this city, it is fair to say that it raises a strong presumption against the general introduction of the Gary system into this city.” Mr. Buckingham says, “Meanwhile, the Gary plan is on the defensive and it is inevitable that it should be. It is a new system, expressive of a new creed: it sets up new principles based upon new educational values. It is an important attempt to put into practice theories which are already accepted. But it will have to prove itself superior as a working program to the system which it seeks to supplant.”
Finally if in order to secure a proper perspective we disregard the New York situation, ignore the adverse criticisms of the superintendents of Elizabeth, N. J., and Syracuse, N. Y., and turn to other localities in which the plan has either been adopted in whole or in part, a number of interesting facts are brought to light which do not bear out the claims of its advocates. In not one of these communities is either the extent or the mode of adoption such as to warrant a belief that the Gary plan is in anything but an experimental stage. Sewickly, Pa., has a school population of about 800, all housed in one building; New Castle, Pa., has a limited application of the plan in four buildings; Winnotka, 111., Troy, N. Y., and Los Angeles, Cal., have adopted the plan in one school. Kansas City follows the plan in two of her seventy-two schools, but after a trial of two years is unwilling to give any judgment as to its value. Philadelphia, Chicago, and Cleveland have not adopted nor do they contemplate adopting Superintendent Wirt’s theories, and this fact is doubly significant, since the educational problem in these cities is comparable, both in magnitude and complexity, with that of New York.
Whether, then, the Gary plan be regarded either from the standpoint of stability or of economy or of the novel pedagogical features that seem to be integral to it, or in the light of its limited adoption by various communities, the inevitable conclusion is that it is as yet only an experiment, neither superior nor even equivalent to the best program of the orthodox type. But what shall we say to those enthusiasts who regard the Gary plan as the last word in educational practice? A touch of idealism, or a spirit of generous enthusiasm frequently makes appreciation march far in advance of achievement.
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