A special 21-member state committee Wednesday attacked de facto segregation in schools throughout Massachusetts and recommended a detailed problem to end racial imbalance.

Aiming the bulk of its criticism at Boston the committee asked that a member of the city's older and preliminantly Negro schools be closed immediately and that 5000 white and Negro elementary school students be between schools.

As a long-range objective, the committee proposed "the larger neighborhood school." Located "as close as possible to boundaries between white and white areas" and drawing students zones "sufficiently large to enable of racial balance even population shifts."

Negative Reaction

Reaction from the Boston School committee to the 140-page report was shift and highly negative. Mrs. Louise Hicks, the chairman, said yesterday that she was "appalled" at the idea students to achieve racial balance. She and her colleague, committeeman William O'Connor, urged a public referendum to resolve the issue.

Joseph Lee, another committeeman, said that "white children do not want to be transported into schools with a large proportion of backward pupils from un-prospering Negro families who will slow down their education." Both Lee and Mrs. Hicks termed the price of exchanging students "too high."

Lone Voice

Only one member of the school committee voiced support of the report. Arthur Gartland declared that "There is racial imbalance in the Boston schools...and it should be redressed."

A boycott of Boston schools 14 months ago by nearly 20,000 students prompted the state Board of Education to set up the special committee to study de facto segregation in March 1964. The boycott, the second in the city, emphasized the growing bitterness between civil rights groups and the Boston School Committee. which refused to recognize that segregation existed in the city's schools.

In yesterday's report, the special committee declared that de facto segregation harms both Negroes and whites. "White children rarely meet Negro children as individuals. Their thinking often becomes stereotyped. Negro children growing up in ignorance of whites also tend to develop a distorted and fearful picture of all whites."

The report estimated that 20,000 non-white students attend racially imbalanced schools and urged that legislation be passed compelling localities to correct imbalance. It also recommended "as a last resort" that the state withold aid to force change.

Includes Cambridge

Despite the report's emphasis on Boston, it asked four other cities--including Cambridge--to take measures towards easing racial imbalance.

To continue its work, the committee also counseled the creation of a "statewide citizens' committee to work in close cooperation between the state Board of Education and interested school systems."