Conant Asks State Control of Schools

James B. Conant 13, President Emeritus of the University, has called for states to be given primary control over educational policy in his new report on American education published today.

In the book entitled Shaping Educational Policy, Conant asks for strong state education boards to determine primary and secondary educational policy and for the adoption of master plans to co-ordinate education on the college level. He also offers a plan for a national education commission and a program for desegregating the nation's high schools.

Shaping Educational Policy is the eighth report Conant has written on American education since he started an intensive study of the subject seven years ago. Conant, who is 71, considers the 139-page book the culmination of his work in the field.

Citing the New York State system as a model, he says that elementary and high school education should be controlled by state boards composed of qualified laymen and highly competent state education commissioners. These boards, he feels, should have primary authority in determining educational policy throughout the state.

Depose 'The Establishment'

This plan would have the effect of taking control of educational policy out of the hands of "the establishment" of professional educators. Conant asserts that most of the problems that have arisen in education since World War II "fall outside of the interest and competence of the establishment."

Conant also calls for each state to follow California's lead in adopting master plans to co-ordinate its colleges and universities. In calling for these plans he warns that "in the long run, decisions based on local or personal influences...lower the quality of the educational program."

Although advocating state-wide control of education, Conant bitterly attacks most existing state educational systems. "Too often," he says, "educational leadership at the state level...has been open to the charge that it was unwilling to examine public school needs critically."

Patronage Should End

He charges that state education positions are now often filled through "the old bogey of political patronage" and that incompetent members of "the establishment" are placed in key positions.

Advocating what he calls a voluntary "cooperative exploration of educational problems between the state and the federal government." Conant suggests that at least 15 or 20 of the more populous states form an interstate commission to plan educational policy.

As a solution to the problem of segregated schools, Conant suggests that neighborhood schools be kept in the elementary grades but that children in junior and senior high schools be bussed as much as necessary to enure that each school's racial mixture is "as comprehensive as the total school district."