June 3, 1974
Page 17292
WITHOUT BUSING, WOULD ANYONE REALLY CARE?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, there is no way to "prove" the degree to which busing and desegregation bring us closer to our goal of equality in education, and in society at large. But what I thought were some particularly instructive observations about the value of desegregation were made recently by a teacher in one of our local school systems, and were reprinted last Friday, May 31, in the Washington Post column of William Raspberry.
The teacher, Phoebe E. Cuppett, is a reading specialist in the Prince Georges County, Md., public school system. She reported that desegregation – through busing – has made visible progress in correcting inequalities, ranging from "little inequities," like the availability of chocolate milk and ice cream, to "more profound discrepancies," like the quality and quantity of teaching materials. And she found that desegregation brought new cooperation and positive attitudes among students and parents, bringing black and white together, "learning compassion and coming to understand each other's values."
Ms. Cuppett's observations may not qualify as scientific proof of the value of busing in her county, and they do not pretend to demonstrate that the details of that desegregation plan are perfect. But they illustrate well an important reason for maintaining our commitment to desegregation – that without busing, we would have no insurance that anyone would "care enough to spend equal time, effort and money on neighborhood schools."
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the William Raspberry column containing Ms. Cuppett's comments be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, May 31, 1974]
WITHOUT BUSING, WOULD ANYONE REALLY CARE?
(By William Raspberry)
Phoebe E. Cuppett, a teacher in the Prince George's County schools, takes impassioned exception to some things I had to say recently against the primacy of racial balance in the public schools.
She took particular exception to a paragraph that said:
"Granted the popularity of the antibusing sentiment doesn't make it right. But if you're going to push a clearly unpopular program, you ought to be damned sure that the struggle and the risk of losing are worth it."
Here are excerpts from her response:
In the last analysis, you seemed to advocate that it may be better simply to shore up the neighborhood schools and forget the painful continuation of forced busing to achieve the dubious value of racial balance. "The time, effort and money spent on busing could be better used for other things. Like better schools, for instance."
The question in my mind is that if busing were removed (like the Ten Commandments from society), what would insure that anyone would care enough to spend equal time, effort and money on neighborhood schools?
Even with the busing, certain hardcore conservative factions in and out of the county school system would like to curtail the momentum made since Jan. 29, 1973. The County Council is proposing a gigantic funding cut. This will affect the sizes of classrooms and will place a greater burden on the possibility of the integration plan working more and more smoothly.
Most appalling, the school board proposes to do away with Head Start and to concentrate on developing the lack of modern, innovative methods by reinstating corporal punishment. If these proposals are carried through, the disadvantaged children of the lower socio-economic areas will not receive the chance to "catch up." Many of the human relations programs set up last year will be axed. Remember, this is what is happening with busing. Are we to be intimidated to lose the significant gains we made last year? .
I was hired in 1970 as a reading specialist. It was my assignment to visit four or five schools a week to offer my services. Some of the things I saw were little inequities, such as children never seeing chocolate milk or ice cream in their cafeterias. (Later on when white children arrived at some of these schools, the chocolate milk and ice cream did, too.)
More profound discrepancies were observed in the ways resources were supplied to the schools.
A lack of materials and a surfeit of out-of-date textbooks were often in evidence in the poorer neighborhood schools. Sometimes the attitudes of individual teachers were not tolerant ...
I remember my feeling of shock and helplessness shortly after arriving in 1972 at my present school. I found that 75 per cent of the school was reading two or more years below grade level. How could one reading teacher ever begin to help two or three hundred children with individual and specific needs so severe?
Shortly afterward, the order to desegregate came. A great many of those children needing crucial help were bused out to more prosperous neighborhood schools. A large number of children from those schools came to ours. A strange mixture of white and black adult liberals suddenly joined hands to try to make this important changeover work. Perhaps 10 or 15 persons came to me, volunteering to work without pay, helping children learn to read.
It is not a Utopia. We have little friction and sometimes fights on the playground. But we also have children making friends and children acquiring knowledge of each other's culture. Most significant to me, we have a larger part of the school population reading on grade level. The children who were the farthest behind have caught up by one, two and sometimes three grade levels within little more than a year's time. This is exciting!
Was busing worth it? I have only to look at two of my sixth grade student volunteer reading tutors in order to know. Michael is black. Cathy is white. Both sets of parents have helped as volunteer aides and tutors during the changeover.
Before the January order, Michael was a fifth grader reading on a 3.2 level. This year he is on a sixth grade level in reading. Michael and Cathy and I have many rap sessions together. After watching "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," we talked about it.
Cathy's eyes grew wide with shock and sadness. "I never knew white people had treated black people in that way," she said. Her friend Michael made the evils of past humanity more real and more unjust than a thousand abstract lectures could have.
As an adult I am learning, too. Being a WASP from a tiny Pennsylvania town where seeing a black American is a rarity has made me dig deeply into my own set of prejudices and lack of them to "know where I am at."
It is partly because the busing forced us to be together that we are together, learning compassion and coming to understand each other's values.