Urban Educators Termed Isolated

Professional educators in the big cities are isolated from political pressures, Robert H. Salisbury, Professor of Political Science at Washington University said last night.

As a result, he said, urban schools have not responded to the specialized educational needs of the diversified metropolis.

Salisbury spoke to 350 educators on "Big City Politics and the Schools" at the Fogg Large Lecture Hall last night. The lecture, the first of three Alfred Dexter Simpson Lectures, will be published next fall. "The Federal Poverty Program is intriguing," Salisbury said, "because it provides money for education unevenly," and because it answers the needs of the impoverished classes directly.

The perspective of the urban educator, he said, is often limited by "the myth of the unitary community"--the belief that the city is an organic whole, without important interest group cleavages. Thus, they tend to overlook special needs and impose a single curriculum on the whole city.

If the schools were more completely and overtly involved in politics. Salisbury said, improvement might be smoother.