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FREEDOMWAYS    FOURTH QUARTER 1968

Atlanta School officials have decided the time has come to institute programs designed to measure the effects o preschool education on disadvantaged youth.  As a result the city school system this year will participate in the federally sponsored Project Follow-Through, an attempt to give deprived children n the primary grades the same specialized care provided by the summer Head Start Program. (Italics mine.)

In passing, it should be indicated that only 225 of the thousands of children who will attend the Atlanta Public Schools (pre-schoo, early childhood, kindergarten, and first grades) will be given this follow-through treatment.  It was stated that school officials indicated that the school system will not have the funds itself to accommodate all of the city's disadvantaged children and the project will be regarded as in the "pilot stage" and take place in two "Negro" elementary schools.  The objectives of this program, typically of hundreds all over the United States, are:

1. To help each child develop intellectually by providing programs designed to compensate for his deprivation.

2.  To help each child develop socially by relating the contents of subject matter to attitudes and behavior.

3.  To help each child avoid losing the benefits of his education by including parents as active members of the educational program.

4. The main purpose is to help each child (to teach each child) to be an independent learner.  The model for the sequential program of instruction is that developed by Dr. Lassar G. Gotkin of New York University.

Miller, in Education for the Disadvantaged, indicates that programs for the disadvantaged may be criticized on the grounds that they do not emphasize what should be emphasized, and they are uncreative.  However, the reviewers go further and state that this does not constitute the most serious charge which may be leveled against them.  Educators tend to become concerned with outcomes (changes in behavior?) which are long delayed or even unmeasurable.  The "new" literature and the programs they describe, such as the Educational Improvement Projects funded by Ford, are so anxious to see success for their expensive efforts and to justify the millions of dollars which are involved that the directors and advisory committees become strongly committed to whatever the project or program is alleged to be about.  Moreover, the agency personnel responsible for the large grants are also strongly desirous of success for efforts and for 

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