Annual report. [1946]

S'~

1... Background to Learning
5

YOU, the citizens of Detroit, are
quite properly concerned with the fact that
the present often gives an inkling of what
the future will be. Your public schools
accept a good share of responsibility for the
necessary job of building well for tomorrow.
Inasmuch as today's boys and girls are the
citizens of only a few years from now, it is
important that they get a good education
in the beginning. Detroit offers such an
opportunity to all children.
Your schools share with the home, the
church, and the whole community the vision
of the sort of adult citizens that boys and"
girls ought to become. Toward the achievement of this vision, we must implant in our
children the ability to get along well with
others, a sound mind in a healthy body, an
appreciation of the privilege of making the
laws, the responsibility of participating in
civic life, and the capacity and will to build
for world peace.
Such civic qualities-all of which are
means to achieve the vision-can be realized
to the fullest for all youth only with public
understanding and support of the schools.
This suggests that Detroiters are not without important obligations towards their
schools. It is not enough merely to pay the
annual tax bill for education. Citizens also
contribute through a good understanding
of their schools, so that they can better
interpret them to their children and to
other citizens. Too, people will profit from
a knowledge of what is currently taught,
the quality of tbday's teachers, and the
part education plays in making for better
times. But greatest appreciation will follow

the realization that in the long run education is the only defense of peace.
Although the war ended two years ago,
the job of converting to a full peacetime
program of education is not complete. There
are many reasons why this is true. Adequate
school housing is a number one problem in
Detroit today; but progress in relieving this
need is slow. Recurring delays in school
building construction are frequent because
of a scarcity of materials and an inadequate
supply of skilled help. And then there is the
matter of how to pay for the buildings that
are needed now. While school construction
costs are now more than three times what
they were in 1937, school income during that
period has scarcely doubled. Full conversion
is complicated by other important problems.
The great increase in the birthrate which
always accompanies periods of prosperity
and war years is already being registered in
the kindergarten and the first grade.
Schools Serve All the Children
What to teach is as challenging a problem
today as is how best to teach it so as to
develop citizens with world understanding.
The schools are currently faced with the
real problem of a declining labor market for
youth. This, fortunately for children, puts
them back in school where education can
serve them best.
Education, to be effective, must be
geared to the varying ability of boys and
girls. Just how well Detroit's schools do the
job of educating youth today must be
answered by the performance of the schools'
product judged against certain fundamental