Word: owen
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GREENSVILLE CO. SCHOOL BOARD OFFICE, WHERE PROMOTION IS BASED ON ACHIEVEMENT. So proclaims a sign posted outside the small, red brick headquarters of the superintendent of schools for Greensville County, Va. (pop. 16,000). Inside sits Sam Owen, a folksy, pipe-smoking administrator who four years ago announced that he was fed up with handing out "rubber diplomas" to high school graduates who could barely read or write. Greensville is one of the poorest counties in Virginia, and at the time the 3,700 stu dents, 65% of them black, in its integrated school system ranked in the bottom third...
...Owen, 54, was born just twelve miles up the road and has been a teacher, principal and school administrator in the area for nearly 30 years. He was able to convince his four-member school board that what the system needed was promotion based on a student's performance, not automatic passing based on age. In the fall of 1973, Greensville announced that twice a year students would have to take a standardized test to determine whether they had mastered their grade's material. Thereby Greensville became one of the first school systems in the country to inaugurate...
...following June, on the basis of low test scores, 800 students (21% white, 79% black), compared with only 239 the previous year, were ordered to repeat their grades. What is now known as the Greensville experiment was well under way. In Owen's innovative program, students held back because of below-average performance do not sit in their old classrooms while other classmates move ahead. They are assigned to new rooms and teachers, and usually grouped with children of similar ages, while they begin a special remedial course of study that focuses on basic reading, writing and math...
...those who either cannot or do not want to earn a high school diploma, Owen's system has a four-year Occupational Proficiency Training course. Students who are at least 14, and two or more grades behind in achievement, can opt for the O.P.T. program, but only after a written request from their parents. Besides receiving instruction in such crafts as masonry or mechanics, they are drilled in reading, spelling and arithmetic. They "graduate" with a certificate that details their job-related skills...
...generally agree with the David Owen-Andrew Young approach to the problems of southern Africa...