Quality
Education
By BILL SHARPE
First
Installment
“Quality education" promised by
last year’s increased appropriations al¬
ready is coming to North Carolina’s
public schools. Educators have been
warning the public not to expect to
sec much difference for some years.
However, the program was not con¬
fined to increased salaries, and many
substantial benefits already may be
counted.
Many of these improvements still arc
unknown by the average citizen. At
least, they were unknown to the writer
until he visited the schools and saw
them. The survey represents visits to
over 100 school systems in North Caro¬
lina. and interviews with school of¬
ficials from the mountains to the sea.
There arc some obvious benefits:
Smaller teacher loads, permitting
more individual attention.
Releasing principals from classroom
work, leading to improved discipline.
Enrichment of school programs,
through employment of librarians,
guidance counsellors, speech therapists,
etc.
Recruitment of better teachers. The
program is too young for this to be
significant, but it already is underway.
Employment of secretarial help,
giving principals time to think and
plan.
But some other things already at
work may not have been anticipated.
Some schools are cutting back their
extracurricular activities, so as to de¬
vote more time to learning — less to
athletics and play.
Teachers arc almost feverishly up¬
grading themselves by attending spe¬
cial workshops.
Morale is amazingly high in the
schools, superintendents, principals
iand teachers arc NOT displaying a
“well, we had it coming” attitude.
Rather, they arc almost desperately
[eager to prove the new program is
justified by results.
You can almost feel this buoyant,
(confident spirit when you walk into a
THE STATE. March 31. 1962
Quality cducotion — in Salem 150 ycorc ago. Rccontlructcd school room at Wachovia museum shows
"gyroskutus," a gadget which rolls uphill. Background shows ancient abacus.
school. Personnel is proud, eager, and
alert. It was the most striking impres¬
sion we received on a trip which cov¬
ered almost every county in the state.
And what about the public? We be¬
lieve. from our tour, that the average
school patron is for the program. But
he is not yet aware specifically of what
is going on. When he is aware of it.
we believe North Carolinians will de¬
velop a pride in their schools such as
we have not seen for a long time.
Here are observations made in some
of the counties. Almost every obser¬
vation was repeated dozens of times,
so only representative situations arc
published.
Jones
Supt. Gerald James, of Jones
County, talked of a long list of items
of improvements the program already
has brought to the schools. ‘‘Up until
now,” he said, “there wasn’t a single
full-time librarian in the county. Now
we have four in our school system, and
you have no idea what this means to
pupils learning to use books.”
And now. for the first time, the
children of Greene County have an
opportunity to take four years of Latin
and four years of French.
Pitt
Both Mr. James, and D. H. Conley,
of the Pitt County system, mentioned
v
