The Improbable Era: The South since World War II

VI. Turbulent Progress in Education

VI. Turbulent Progress in Education Southern faith in formal education reached new heights in the postWorld War II years. The unparalleled prosperity of the times seemed to be partly the result of the great educational efforts made by the southern people during the first half of the century, and thus it appeared to fulfill the prophecies of earlier generations who had looked to the schools as the cure for the ills of the region. Every prominent public figure—whether Democrat, Dixiecrat, or Republican, whether liberal, moderate, or conservative in social and political outlook —gave unflagging support to the expansion and improvement of the schools. The region made strides toward excellence in education, but in the early 1970s it still had not attained its goal of parity with the rest of the country. The increased birth rate of the war years and immediately thereafter created unprecedented demands for teachers, classrooms, and educational equipment in an area where the proportion of children of school age within the population was already well above the national ratio. Between 1940 and 1972 the number of pupils in elementary and secondary schools of the former Confederate states increased almost 60 percent, and there was a dramatic shift in the major centers of the school population. For example, during this period the number of pupils in Mississippi actually declined slightly, while the number in Texas more than doubled and the number in Florida more than quadrupled . Fortunately, the rising productivity and income of the region made possible an immense program of educational expansion. State legislatures, local authorities, and taxpayers all cooperated in providing Progress in Education gg Table 5 SOUTHERN SCHOOL ENROLLMENTS 1940,1971 Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Louisiana Mississippi N. Carolina S. Carolina Tennessee Texas Virginia Total South Public elementary and high schools 1971 (thousands) 821 460 1,570 1,136 874 545 1,198 649 936 2,812 1,110 12,110 % change since 1940 + 21 - 1 +325 + 54 + 85 - 8 + 35 + 35 + 44 + 1 1 2 + 95 + 67 Colleges and universities 1971 (thousands) 112 53 252 136 130 77 185 76 142 463 164 1,790 % change since 1940 +460 + 3 8 2 + 1 9 1 + 4 9 1 +400 +450 + 4 7 8 +375 +468 + 5 1 7 + 5 3 1 + 5 4 2 Source: U.S., Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1943, P- 2 1 3; Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Digest of Educational Statistics, 1974, p. 32. ever-increasing sums for the construction of new public schools and the enlargement and improvement of those already established. By 1973 the yearly appropriations for capital outlay were approximately equal to the total value of school property at the end of World War II. A majority of the new institutions were located in the booming cities and suburbs, but new facilities were required for the rural areas as well. Not only were the prewar country school plants often outworn and dilapidated; they were considered archaic in design and ill-suited to the spirit of economic and social progress now astir in the region. Also, the rural school consolidation movement, which was well under way before the war, came into its final stage with the paving of country roads and the use of fleets of busses to bring the scattered pupils to central locations. During the 1950s and 1960s the yellow school bus became a symbol of educational advance in the region, while the disappearing one-, two-, and three-teacher schools came to be looked upon as relics of a backward and indigent past. Bigness was considered a virtue by most school authorities; it made possible the ioo Progress in Education concentration of funds for hiring a more adequate faculty and staff, for the erection of superior buildings, and for the purchase of more and better teaching and recreational equipment. It also assembled enough husky boys and girls to enable the country schools to develop competitive athletic teams. Many of the consolidated rural schools became as large as those of the smaller cities. Within a decade after the war most of the region's schools were in newly constructed, streamlined buildings of concrete, steel, and glass. Their libraries and laboratories often were as extensive as those of the smaller colleges before the war. They were heated with automatically controlled central furnaces, and by the 1960s many of them were air-conditioned against the heat of the spring...