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Historical Summary 1950-1959 |
1950 President: Reinard Wilson, Centralia.
Television, according to reports, is monopolizing children's time and attention at
home.
"Keeping up with the Stork," headlines one Journal article, which
notes the need for more school buildings because elementary enrollment is up 50 percent
and high school enrollment will double by 1963.
1951 President: Reinard Wilson, Centralia
Illinois School Board Journal begins to accept paid advertising.
School crossing stop signals are needed.
Illinois' program of education for exceptional children is considered the leading
program in the nation.
1952 President: Robert Krebs, Mount Vernon
IASB changes its address to 223 1/2 East Washington Street, in Springfield.
Researchers report that 60 percent of all youths drop out of school before completing
the 12th grade. Also, one of every six young people attends college and 10 percent
graduate.
It is projected that by 1954 there will be a demand for 168,000 new teachers across the
nation and, over the next ten years, nearly 1.5 million additional teachers will be
needed.
During the past five years, the number of one-rooms schools has been reduced from 7,181
to 2,502, according to the Kansas Department of Public Instruction.
Edward Tuttle, Executive Secretary of the National School Boards Association, points
out that 2 percent of the national income now is being spent for public schools compared
to 5 percent during the depression years.
1953 President: Robert Krebs, Mount Vernon
A University of Wisconsin survey states that the average beginning salary for women
elementary school teachers is $3,005 per year, while women high school teachers earn
$2,945.
A new gadget is invented called a "time compressor." This machine, which is
used for audio-visual instruction, can take speech or music and compress it without
changing the pitch. This idea is based on the principle that we can hear and understand
much faster than we can speak.
The International Business Machines Corporation exhibits at the Joint Annual Conference
and displays a new electric typewriter with an innovative keyboard that offers repetitive
underscoring, line spacing and space bar operations.
1954 & 1955 President: Harold Dean, Mendota
1956 President: Donald M. Stevenson, Elburn
Blackboards are now being replaced by green chalkboards, which are sheets of plastic
and glass fiber with a silent surface called "K-lite." These new chalkboards
claim to reduce glare and make for easier reading.
Bay City, Michigan, experiments with "teacher aides" to solve the teacher
shortage problem. Teacher aides are not legal in Illinois.
Professor A.E. Florio, University of Illinois, recommends that Illinois adopt a driver
education program for high school students.
1957 President: Harold S. Dawson, Champaign
The cost of public education is spread out among levels of government in these
percentages: local property taxes, 58.1 percent; state taxes, 37.1 percent; federal taxes,
4.5 percent.
A new trend emerges C air conditioning in schools.
1958 President: Harold S. Dawson, Champaign
Overcrowded classrooms are weakening America's educational system.
1959 President: Joseph Ackerman, Chicago
People who pay attention to schools are asking: Does Illinois need a state board of
education? If so should it be elected or appointed, what is the trend in other states, and
should such a board select the chief state school officer?
Modern math is among the latest developments in education.
Westinghouse Corporation and the Ford Foundation launch a program for televising
classroom instruction to midwestern schools from an airplane flying over northern Indiana.
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