Elementary school standard classrooms not used for regular classroom purposes, by elementary area, school and address Far Northeast 8: Aiton, 534 48th Pl. NE Drew, 56th and Eads Sts. NE.. Hayes, 5th and K Sts. NE Houston, 1100 50th St. NE. Kenilworth, 44th St. between Nash and Ord Sts. NE Hearst, Tilden St. between Idaho Ave. and 37th St. NW_. Total____ Friendship Heights 19: Janey, Wisconsin Ave. and Albemarle St. NW_ Southwest 22: Amidon, 4th and I Sts. SW_ Syphax, Half and N Sts. SW. Total----- Washington Highlands 14: Draper, Wahler Pl. between Wheeler Rd. and 9th St. SE. Capitol Hill 20: Giddings, G St. between 3d and 4th Sts. SE Randle Highlands 10: Orr, 22d and Prout Sts. SE.. Grand total of classrooms available in all sections of the city------ 56 12 rooms used for administrative office, foreign language department; approximately 40 employees. 3 rooms used for administrative office, health, physical education, athletics, and safety; approximately 16 employees. 1 room used for administrative office. Administration Annex No. 1, Ross Build- 8 rooms used for administrative ing, 1730 R Street NW. offices. Administration Annex No. 3, Anacos- 8 tia-Demountable, 16th and Q Streets rooms used for administrative offices, will be used for pupils September 1963. rooms used for administrative offices. 8 rooms offices. used for administrative used for administrative rooms used for administrative offices. rooms used for administrative School, 3d Street between N and O offices. (The following material was filed with the committee:) Hon. JOHN L. MCMILLAN, WASHINGTON, D.C., February 6, 1963. SIR: May I share with you and your colleagues the views of myself and many other people of our community during your joint session of Congress today considering ways to combat crime in the District of Columbia that you will consider the revision of the Civilian Conservation Corps or something similar which will send these offenders to learn a trade or skill and prepare them to be better citizens upon their return but not jail or reform school which would only make them harder criminals upon their release. Respectfully yours, HERBERT COLES. WASHINGTON, D.C., March 2, 1963. Hon. JOHN MCMILLAN, Chairman, House District Committee, At a public meeting of citizens of the District held at Shiloh Baptist Church last evening, addressed by Hon. Augustus Hawkins, Congressman from California, Hon. Clarence Mitchell III, member of Maryland State Legislature, and Mrs. Mildred Mosley, a parent, the following resolution was unanimously passed and I was instructed to convey the following message to the committee. 1. Whereas there is widespread crime in the District of Columbia growing worse daily; and 2. Whereas the largest reported increase in crime is among youth between the ages of 15 and 21; and 3. Whereas it is conceded that the vast majority of these delinquents are unemployed dropouts both unskilled and functionally illiterate; and 4. Whereas there is ample evidence that this illiteracy rise in the United States in spite of great outlays of public funds for schools is directly traceable to academic permissiveness and severe deficiencies in the total educational program of the District of Columbia public schools; and 5. Whereas sex-stimulating literature and crime-producing movies claim greater and greater respect on part of youth over and above academic knowledge and mastery of basic skills; and 6. Whereas there are adults abroad in the community contributing lucratively toward the delinquency and waywardness of minors by promising them but spurious contracts to sing in night clubs, to make recordings or to participate in dubious forms of entertainment; and 7. Whereas the flourishing traffic in liquor and the profits thereof are related to the Madison Avenue promotion of its consumption at the expense of the welfare check and the care of children; and 8. Whereas the Board of Education as now constituted does not include a single parent of the more than 84 percent Negro pupil population; and 9. Whereas there has been for sometime a breakdown in communication be tween parents and school officials to the point of a rapidly developing cold war situation with sporadic surprise outbursts: therefore, be it Resolved, That the National Capital Voters Association, Inc., petitions the District Committee, Congress of the United States, to 1. Enact legislation for outlawing the sale and distribution of sexstimulating literature and crime-inspiring movies, and 2. Enact legislation providing for stronger legislation against trafficing in narcotics, and 3. Enact measures for the apprehension of those contributing to the delinquency of minors and their waywardness through attractive contractual offers in the entertainment field, and 4. Enact legislation placing the distribution and sale of liquor or alcohol directly under the authority of the Government, with the accrued returns thereof channeled towards education, and 5. Authorize an enlarged elected Board of Education of citywide representation with a proviso stipulating that a specified number be actual parents of pupils enrolled in the public schools, and 6. Make special scrutiny of the disproportionate allocation of the total budget for nonteaching services in the District of Columbia public schools bearing no direct relationship to the instruction of the masses of the children, and 7. Provide for a congressional factfinding committee on school administration, policies and procedures, parent-teacher relationship, the quality of ed-ucation or lack of quality, guidance, and counseling standards and qualification, and 8. Halt of future appropriations for so-called school needs without further justification of their true relationship to education's worth being more clearly and convincingly shown. JOHN THORNTON, President. WASHINGTON, D.C., March 4, 1963. Hon. JOHN MCMILLAN, Chairman, House District Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.: The Capitol Hill Southeast Citizens Association urges your committee on the Mallory decision question to continue the present practice due to stop March 15 until an adequate proposed substitute for investigative arrest can be evolved. All possible efforts must be made to control crime in the Nation's Capital. ELIZABETH DRAPER, Secretary. [From U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 18, 1963] STORY OF SCHOOL CRISIS AND CRIME THE BLIGHT IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL (Now out in the open are problems that have been accumulating quietly for years. Washington, D.C., residents at last are being told about a serious breakdown of discipline in their public schools. Police are turning to Congress for help in combating a surge of violent crime in the city's streets. Officials are expressing concern about the future of a Capital City that is being abandoned by white people, taken over by Negroes.) President Kennedy, on January 18, said of Washington, D.C.: "Let us make it a city of which the Nation may be proud-an example and a showplace for the rest of the world." A few days later, on February 5 at a meeting with congressional leaders, the President was speaking about Washington with concern-rather than pride. What concerned the President was the blight that is spreading across the Nation's Capital. That blight is one of crime in the streets, crisis in the schools, and growing social unrest throughout this racially changing city. On February 4 the Washington Star quoted the city's Superintendent of Schools as saying that the disciplinary situation in the schools is deteriorating, and has become so acute that teachers have reached the breaking point. The Superintendent, Dr. Carl F. Hansen, suggested that the city schools no longer should undertake to educate pupils who refuse to submit to discipline. He proposed that those pupils be expelled. In Washington, 83.4 percent of all public school pupils are Negroes. Racial integration of the Washington schools was ordered in 1954. School problems have been growing gradually since that time. The school problems were brought forcibly to public attention by a race riot that occurred last Thanksgiving Day. The riot followed a high school football game in which an all-Negro eleven lost to a predominantly white eleven. After the game. Negro spectators attacked whites. More than 300 persons—nearly all of them whites were injured. Tensions in the Washington schools, already acute, are reported to have increased since that riot. ON CONGRESS DOORSTEP Crime has been a growing problem in the National's Capital for years. Streets in Washington are becoming unsafe. One of the most dangerous areas in the city is near the Capitol, where Congress meets. Many congressional employees have been attacked. Just recently, one Congressman was beaten and robbed; the wife of an official was injured by a robber. On February 6, Representative John L. McMillan, Democrat, of South Carolina, called a joint meeting of two congressional committees to discuss "the increasingly serious crime situation in the District of Columbia." Police Chief Robert V. Murray told those congressional committees that Washington ranks high among cities of comparable size in the rate of robberies and ' aggravated assaults. And the rate of serious crime, he said, has been increasing steadily in this city since 1957. Police records show this: Of all persons arrested for serious offenses last year 84.6 percent were Negroes. THE SICK CITY The blight that is spreading across Washington affects the whole social picture of the Nation's Capital. Illegitimacy is a real problem in the public schools. In the last school year, 265 illegitimate babies were born to girls in Washington schools who were 12 to 15 years of age. Of those 265 girls, 250 were nonwhite. In the city of Washington as a whole more than a fifth of all children born are illegitimate. In 1961 there were 358 white and 3,893 nonwhite children born out of wedlock. No other big city in the United States comes even close to matching Washington's rate of illegitimacy. Venereal disease is spreading like an epidemic through the youth of Washington. Among those 15 to 19 years of age, the rate in Washington is 5,728 per 100,000. The national average for this age group is 416 per 100,000. Public welfare in Washington has been exposed by recent investigations as a program afflicted with frauds and rackets on a big scale. Washington is a city of declining population. The census of 1950 showed a population of 802,178. Ten years later in 1960, the census showed a population of only 763,956, a decline of nearly 5 percent. What accounts for the population decline in Washington is a mass movement of white residents out of Washington and into the suburbs. Negroes are moving into Washington almost as fast as the whites move out. Result has been a big and rapid increase in the proportion of Negroes in Washington's population. In 1950, Negroes were 35.4 percent of the city's population. By 1960 they had increased to 54.8 percent. If this trend continues, it is forecast, Washington's Negro population will approach 75 percent by 1970. AN UNEVEN PATTERN In spite of the rapid growth of the Negro population, large sections of the city remain almost entirely white. In upper Northwest Washington, where many officials and Congressmen live, there are some public schools that contain no Negroes and other schools have few Negroes. In other parts of the city, where Negro population is concentrated, schools are often all Negro. Today, what you find in Washington is official integration but de facto segregation-or segregation in fact. Migration of Negroes into the Nation's Capital has been encouraged by official reports about the city's integrated public schools and its opportunities for equality in Government jobs. Many Negroes come to Washington expecting more than they find. Over the years, the official policy has been to play down the problems that have developed in Washington. The Thanksgiving Day riot, however, forced many things out into the open. A biracial committee that was appointed to investigate that riot made a frank report. It said the riot was a "symptom of a larger problem"-a reflection of "frightful conditions that abound in our city." An "atmosphere of lawlessness" was found to exist in the city's public schools. And an "element of racism" was found to be impairing the city's community relations. Since that riot and the report that followed, schoolteachers have revealed some of their problems and officials have begun to talk publicly about the city's troubles. THE HOME-RULE QUESTION Washington has a unique form of city government. Washingtonians do not elect their own officials. The President is, in effect, the city's mayor. The Congress of the United States acts as the city council, enacts the city's laws. A Board of Commissioners, appointed by the President, actually runs the city's affairs. For years there has been talk about giving home rule to Washington, letting the Capital's residents elect their own city government. As the proportion of Negroes in Washington's population grows larger, the talk of home-rule appears to diminish. In Congress and among Washington residents you find much opposition to turning the government of the Nation's Capital over to a Negro majority, many of whom have no real roots in the city. A Negro mayor is recognized as a strong possibility if home rule is-granted. The present chairman of Washington's Board of Commissioners is Walter N. Tobriner, a lawyer appointed to that post by President Kennedy. In a discussion of Washington's problems with a member of the staff of "U.S. News & World Report," Mr. Tobriner was asked: "Is the large, economically depressed Negro population at the root of Washington's problems?" "You know it as well as I do," Mr. Tobriner answered. What about the possibility of attracting more white persons to live in Washington? Said Mr. Tobriner: "The Commissioners can't do much about it. You can't pass a law to make people move in. "We can and do try, however, to make the city more attractive * * *. We hope for some rise in the white population. There has been some reversal of the trend toward the suburbs and some white people are moving back to the city." PROBLEM HOMES, PROBLEM PUPILS Dr. Hansen discussed the city's school problems with a member of the staff of "U.S. News & World Report." Dr. Hansen said: "Our teachers in Washington face unusual problems. The biggest problem is the unusually large number of children from problem homes. In many cases there is a total lack of home supervision. "This is a problem that our schools are not equipped to handle. "It is about time for people to realize that the school can't perform the functions of the home and the church." What about the effects of school integration in Washington? On this subject, Dr. Hansen said: "In Washington, there is a great amount of de facto segregation. "Our schools are now 84 percent Negro. One factor is the inmigration of Negro children. Since 1956 we have enrolled 32,881 pupils whose families came to Washington from other places. Most of those children are Negroes. "Meanwhile, in that period, there has been a large movement of white children away from our schools. "This city is becoming impacted with people from around the countrymany of them Negroes-who come here seeking things that few of them find. |