School Segregation

The Ford Foundation last week announced a $0.3 million grant to the Ed School to finance a thorough study of the effects of de facto segregation in northern schools. While the investigation will obviously cover the school systems of many northern cities, there is some question whether Boston's will be one of those studied.

Until now, the Boston School Committee has consistently refused to allow any such study although action by the Massachusetts Department of Education finally produced a tabulation of the school population by race a month ago. The size of the Ford award should insure a careful and complete investigation, and the School Committee should permit it to proceed. If de facto segregation does not exist or does not have any impact upon the quality of education in the Boston school system, Mrs. Hicks should have no objection to scholarly confirmation of her intuition.