Following is an excerpt of the Graduate School of Education's report on the secondary schools of Pittsburgh. This section of the report deals with the Ed School's concept of "educational centers."

The Graduate School of Education undertook a study of Pittsburgh's secondary schools in September 1965 at the request of the city's Board of Education. The Board was about to embark on a new secondary school building program (the last high school in the city was constructed in 1927) and wanted recommendations about the nature and locations of the new buildings. One of the major criteria, the Board said, should be the elimination of de facto segregation.

The Ed School's subsequent report, released late this summer, advised that the city build five large "educational centers" to replace all its high schools. The centers would serve approximately 5000 students each and would draw their enrollments from large districts that would cut across the borders of Negro neighborhoods. The report estimated that the student bodies of these centers would vary between 21.3 and 34 per cent Negro. Now, there are at least three high schools with student bodies more than 90 per cent Negro, and a number of other schools which are virtually all-white.

>The educational centers should not be merely clusters of school buildings, the report said. Rather they should be part of large urban developments (see text for this part of the report).

Mixing school facilities with commercial, residential and recreational buildings was related to another proposal of the report: sending students out into the community for training in vocational and advanced subjects.

"In the main," it said, "the application of learning to specific tests, complex machinery, or elaborate faciliites should occur out of schools in places such as auto body shops, hospitals, the Allegheny Observatory, and the Westinghouse labs." The report conceded that this recommendation involved a "major administrative undertaking," but contended that fair "financial arrangements could be worked out between the school department and participants in these cooperative programs."

In general, the report urged a closer relationship between schools and the community, recommending that schools be used for adult education programs, community meetings, and educational television.

The construction of new secondary facilities

To carry out the secondary educational program broadly outlined in the previous section, construction of each of Pittsburgh's secondary school buildings should be planned so as to fulfill at least four basic needs: sufficient space to bring together the necessary equipment and personnel to offer a full range of courses in science and technology, the arts, language and mathematics, social studies, and physical educaiton; efficient physical relationships between the spaces and equipment of related courses, such as science laboratories and shops for technology; provision of a means of maintaining the individual student's sense of identity and importance despite the large facility and student body; and space for non-school personnel working in collaboration with school personnel on the parts of the educational program provided within the school. Furthermore, buildings should be located so that they are within easy reach of community faciliites used in carrying out the educational program and the ancillary services.

Pittsburgh's present high schools cannot fulfill these basic requirements. The secondary plant is crowded, racially segregated, old, and lacking in facilities and sites adequate for the educational program of grades 9-12. The enrollment of Pittsburgh's thirteen regular high schools was 23,336 as of March 30, 1966. The total capacity of these buildings as calculated by the Harvard staff is 19,881. The crowding is most acute in Allderdice, Langley, South Hills, Perry, Gladstone, and Westinghouse, where there are enrollments of 3082, 1910, 2218, 1353, 1291, and 2642, respectively, in buildings rated by the Harvard staff at capacities of 2374, 1180, 1570, 1049, 1046, and 2188.

The most extreme racial segregation occurs in Westinghouse, which is 92.9 per cent Negro, Herron Hill, which is 99.8 per cent Negro, and Fifth Avenue, which is 92.9 per cent Negro and in several high schools which are virtually all-white.

Last Building in 1927

Allderdice, constructed in 1927, is the newest of Pittsburgh's high schools. Allegheny and Fifth Avenue, the two oldest, were both constructed before 1900. The average high school age is fifty-four years. The facilities within the schools are generally outdated for a contemporary education program for grades 9-12. And in many cases, the sites are not adequate for purposes of physical education at this age level.

Although the facilities in these buildings are generally inferior for carrying out an educational program for children in the ninth through twelfth grades, they would, for the most part, provide improved facilities for secondary school children below the ninth grade. Thus, the availability of such facilities as gymnasiums, auditoriums, and science laboratories recommends the present secondary buildings temporarily for the education program for these middle school children, who, in their present buildings, often lack such equipment.

Moreover, most of the secondary buildings are large enough to accommodate the assembly of services and equipment necessary to provide a broad range of courses appropriate to children in grades 5 through 8. Of course, assignment of the middle school children to those existing buildings must be done in a manner which will prevent overcrowding or racial segregation.