Conant Advises States to Conduct 'Academic Inventory' of All Schools

States can best help local schools by rating them academically, James Bryant Conant '14, President Emeritus, stated last night in the annual Gustav Pollack Lecture on Government. But he warned against a rapid increase of the use of state power as a means of improving schools.

Conant said that a state "academic inventory" would "furnish the facts upon which parental action at the local level will be based." He counted on knowledge of the schools' quality to stimulate local pride and inter-city competition.

Conant's lecture, called "The Child, the Parent, and the State," was largely based on a study he has made of United States high schools since 1957. The results of the first phase of this study were published recently in his book, The American High School Today.

The distribution of abilities and ambitions "varies considerably from one type of community to another," Conant said. He added that state requirements are wise "only to the degree that these requirements are sensible ones when applied to each and every community in the state." Continuing in the same vein, he asserted that "unless one were prepared to...establish a system of state schools, I believe no set of state regulations can establish a state system of uniform excellence."

State No Guarantee

State minimum requirements cannot insure that able students are "sufficiently encouraged to elect a broad, stiff program of academic subjects," he pointed out, adding that "At the local level, however, a good deal can be done by counselors and by the development of the proper spirit in the school and the community by the principal and superintendent."

Conant disagreed with those who would "establish priorities as between the educational needs of different types of children." "All the youth of the community can be well served by a school system," he asserted, "but not by providing one uniform curriculum, grades one through twelve."