IT HAS long been a cherished hope of the American school system

to make secondary education quite as much the common heritage of youth as elementary education. To make this ideal a reality, much hard work has been done many careful studies of the problems involved have been made; intriguing plans and objectives have been formulated; daring experiments have been undertaken; promising programs of action have been proposed. Despite these widespread efforts to universalize secondary education and the significant progress in this direction already made, statistics for 1947-48 reveal that only about 7 youth out of 10 enter senior high school and fewer than 5 of them remain to graduate.

A number of conditions are responsible for this disparity between the widely held educational ideal and the disturbing fact that even today about 30 percent of the youth do not even begin high school and 30 percent more do not complete the work begun. Foremost among the deterrents to high-school attendance are: The need or the desire to help earn an income; lack of funds, clothing, or similar personal problems of the pupils; inaccessibility of suitable schools and courses of instruction; and, finally, failure of too many schools or teachers to provide high-school instruction having sufficient meaning, value, and appeal to the pupils and their parents to overcome deterrents to high-school attendance.

It has been abundantly demonstrated that almost any apparent block to high-school attendance can be overcome where there is an all-impelling interest in doing so. The last-named factor, therefore, entails all of the others. It is this factor-namely, the development, try-out, and spread of programs of instruction which will have greater value, meaning, and appeal to more of the youth of high-school age which is the major concern of this report and the regional and national conferences to which it relates.

This report consists of three major parts: Part I explains the purposes and proposed activities of the recently appointed Commission on Life Adjustment Education for Youth; part II describes the origin, composition, and recommendations of the National Conference on "Life Adjustment Education" (Prosser resolution) held in Chicago, May 8-10, 1947, preceding the appointment of the commission; and part III presents "Common Understandings for a Program of Action." The purpose of parts I and II is to provide information on the steps thus far taken as a result of the Prosser Resolution (quoted in full early in part II); part III represents an effort to show illustratively what the resolution means in terms of problems and changes to be faced by American secondary education.

In using the Prosser Resolution as the point of departure for inaugurating certain activities looking toward narrowing the gap between the ideal and present practices of the schools in making a meaningful program of secondary education the birthright of every youth, the Office of Education fully recognized that a great many important steps had already been taken in that direction. So much was this Office aware of the significant progress already made toward the desired goal that part III of this report seeks to achieve common understanding of the meaning and implication of the Prosser Resolution by borrowing freely from reports and pronouncements which already had wide circulation and acceptance among educational leaders.

The question may well be raised at this point: Why should another effort be made at this time to effect major improvements in the programs and processes of secondary education when so many significant attempts have already been made or are now in progress? There are basically two reasons for making the Prosser Resolution the point of departure for the conferences already held and the proposed action programs recommended by these conferences. The most obvious reason for yet another effort to broaden and improve secondary education, with a view to serving every youth, is that despite the significant progress made to this end during recent years, there is still so much to be done. The schools of today are failing many youth, and these failures are far reaching and irrevocable both as they concern the future of individual boys and girls and as they concern the welfare of society.

The second reason for using the Prosser Resolution as the point of departure for another effort to improve the services of the high schools is that this resolution originated with the Nation's outstanding leaders in vocational education. The major gap in the services of the secondary schools, as pointed out by Dr. Prosser, lies between collegepreparatory education on the one extreme and vocational education on the other. Since the original programs of secondary education were largely limited to preparing the few for success in college, the major improvement in the services of the high school has been the development of a basic program of vocational education. To this basic program, additions have been made from time to time to prepare youth for a growing variety of vocations. Leaders in vocational education are now recognizing that despite the successes achieved by the systematic programs they devised, there are many vocations for which training cannot very well be provided within the walls of the school. It can be done better on the job. The Prosser Resolution, therefore, made the unique proposal that proponents of general education and those of vocational education join forces in a genuine

effort to work out mutually acceptable solutions to the problems of modernizing secondary education. To this end, the resolution specified that representatives of the two groups consider the problems involved and formulate essential programs of action.

It would seem clear that if there are any basic differences among educational leaders concerning the objectives of secondary education and the ways and means through which these objectives can best be achieved, these differences should first of all be completely composed. If the plans herein described should in any way further common understanding of how secondary education can be improved, and if they should help young people better to fill their niches in life, the purposes of this bulletin, and the action programs to which it relates, will have been fulfilled.

The Office of Education is indebted to the large number of educational leaders who participated in the conferences herein reported. Without them this whole project would have no meaning. Gratitude is extended to those who rendered services as officers of the several committees and to persons who, through their writing and other labors, contributed to this project. Foremost among those is Charles A. Prosser, author of the resolution, and a never-ending source of inspiration.

Thanks are due Fred T. Wilhelms, associate director, Consumer Education Study of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals, who, at the request of Committee No. 1 prepared the section of part III of this report entitled "Consumer Education.” Thanks are also due Georgia Howe, board of education, Portland, Oreg., and Roy G. Fales, supervisor of industrial arts, in the State Education Department, Albany, N. Y., who at the request of the committee put their ideas relating to life adjustment education into writing. Their statements are published in this report as An Emphasis Upon Reality, appendix A, and the Role of Practical Arts Education, appendix B.

This report is the product of the efforts of many persons, but chiefly of the staff members of the Divisions of Secondary and Vocational Education of the Office of Education. The following staff members were responsible for formulating the final report: J. Dan Hull, assistant director, Division of Secondary Education, Walter H. Gaumnitz, specialist for Small and Rural High Schools, and Mrs. Grace S. Wright, research assistant. Roosevelt Basler until recently chief, Instructional Problems, and now superintendent, Millburn (N. J.) Township public schools, as a member of the Office staff carried heavy responsibilities in planning the regional and national conferences, and in preparing many of the original documents published in this connection. JOHN W. STUDEBAKER.

Suggestions for Uses of This Bulletin by Local School Systems and Teacher Education Institutions

LOCAL

VOCAL PROJECTS need wait for neither the initiative of the National Commission nor the direction of State commissions. Indeed, it seems evident that the eventual plans and activities of the National Commission on Life Adjustment Education for Youth, already under way, and those of similar State-wide commissions when these come into being, will greatly gain from whatever independent experimentation and demonstration is undertaken.

To facilitate such experimentation, and to achieve some degree of unity of outcome, an effort is made below to suggest how this bulletin can be used by those in charge of local school systems and by institutions educating teachers.

A. Careful study of the ideas proposed in part II, especially those of Committee No. 2, will suggest many projects which may be undertaken immediately either by leaders in charge of secondary education of city or county school systems or by deans, department heads, or professors concerned with preparing the administrators and teachers for this field. In many cases joint action by both groups would best produce the desired results. Adaptations to fit local conditions will of course be necessary. A few of the projects proposed by the committees (see part II) are cited by way of illustration:

1. To determine the need for more emphasis upon life adjustment education, leaders in secondary education can make or supervise local studies of the occupations, continued education, successes or failures, and criticisms or commendations of present high-school programs by such groups as highschool drop-outs, honor students, outstanding athletes, the lowest 25 percent of the graduating classes, the highest 25 percent, etc.

2. To develop more effective teaching methods and materials, deans of education and high-school superintendents can lead their staffs in studying, developing, and experimenting with specialized methods, materials, and equipment which

are most successful in teaching various types of high-school youth, e. g., rapid, average, and slow learners; those destined for college, for managerial positions in business and industry, for the skilled trades, or for common labor, etc. Such studies can also test the validity of the specialized teaching techniques and materials already in use with such groups.

3. Heads of teachers colleges and high schools can encourage teachers to visit schools which have been identified as more successful than others in (a) providing meaningful educational experiences to all high-school youth; (b) keeping drop-outs to a minimum; (c) finding many ways of relating education to the problems of everyday life, etc.

4. Graduate professors can develop seminar courses and workshops for high-school principals, supervisors, and teachers concerned with such fundamental problems as (a) formulation of a philosophy of high-school education which will embrace every youth of high-school age rather than the selected few; (b) development of a sound balance between common objectives for all and specialized objectives for selected groups; (c) devising workable procedures for making maximum educative use of community problems, personnel, and other resources; (d) development of sound policies for lengthening and reorganizing the school schedule, the school day, and the school year; and (e) evaluating, accrediting, and certificating progress toward high-school objectives in life adjustment education.

5. Teacher-education institutions can appoint committees consisting of members of their own staffs and of nearby highschool leaders to reexamine and reorganize their curriculums. Undergraduate courses for educating high-school teacherscourses in philosophy of education, principles of education, social foundations of education, and teaching methods and aids in special fields-need to be reoriented toward and provide realistically for the educational needs of every youth of high-school age rather than the selected few for whom the programs of these schools were originally devised.

6. The local school authorities can give leadership to county- or city-wide committees of local laymen in determining for themselves the extent to which existing high-school programs are or are not serving various types of youth. These committees can be given opportunities to appraise the purposes and the effectiveness of the various school services-curriculums, test