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~(.:C u''· N1 ~ K.Niw 4 -- 1720 THE WORKS PROGRAM Wor l:s Progress Administration e For Release to Morni ng Newspapers Tuesday , July 5 , 1938 ~:JPKnrs CITES FIFTH YEA.:.~ OF GROWTH IN Wl'A EDUCATION PROGRAM; SAYS l .LLITERACY REDUCED 25 PER CENT. In sp ite of economy reductions both in the teachi ng st ~df and the number of classes, enrollment under the education program of the Works Progres s Administration during the 1937-38 school year showe d an increase for the fifth cons ecutive year, Administrato r Harry L. Hopkins announced tod9-y. Total enrollment was 1,586,211 as c ompared with 1, 569 ,529 a year ago . At the same time, he ad.d ed, a five- year goal of t eaching one million illiterate adul ts to read and write has been r eached a nd passed. The '\1PA pro- gram, he sa id, h.:1.d reduced illiteracy in t he United. States by app roxim.'1.tely one-four th d1.r ri ng the five years of its existence. From a r eport submitted. by Dr . L. R. Aldermnn, VIPA educational director, showing the accomplishments of the program during the school year just closed, Administrato r Hopkins cit ed gains showing a consist ent growth in the scope and value of the work. "Proof is no w at hand, 11 he said, "that a l a rge s egment of Etdul t America is hungry for educational advantages which it missed in its youth. Digitized by Original from NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 4 -- 1720 "Until the inception of the eme r gency education program under the Federal Emergency Relief Admi nistration in 1933, publicly supported adul t educati on in this country hnd been limited to a small number of states. As begun then Md continued under the WPA, educational opportunities, gee.red especially to the needs of the l ower i ncome gr oups , have been extended to an ever-growing number of people. "Participat ion in these classes is, of course , voluntary and without cost. The fact that mo r e than one and one-hnlf million pe rsons of 'au age s, creeds a,nd colo rs we re enrolled during the l ast school year is convincing proof not only of the need for such a p r ogr am but also that those who have l acked in educational opportunities a r e eager for a chnnce at s elf-improvement •" The gain of 16,782 enrollment s during the past year was spread over all phases of the progrrun, Dr. Alde r man 's repo rt showed. The gnin was made in the f ace of~ twenty per cent decrease in the num9er of t eache rs and a simila r decrease in t he number of individuru cl a sses. In April of this year , 26,271 t eachers we r e offering 101,602 cl asses as agai nst 34,230 tea chers and 139,756 cl a ss es o.. year ago . declared, 11 0ut sk~ndi ng RIDong the accomplishments of t he year, 11 Dr. Alderman 11 has been the achi evem.ont of a five-year goal of t eaching 1,000,000 men ~nd women, hithe rt o illiterate, the fundament als of r eading , writing and arithmetic. Efforts t o eradicate illit er acy will continue undiminished, how- ever, for there n.re at least 3,000 ,000 more a dult illit er ates i n t he nati on ." The . r eport is based on comparative statistics for Ap ril i n the years 1937 and 1938 . Cumulative t ot al s f or the entire year, all owing f or n,:m en- r oll ee s and drop- outs, a re no t maintained, Dr. Alderman explained, a dding that the Ap ril figures a re r ep resent a tive of the net enrollment for the year. Digitized by Original from NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 4 1720 - 3 - Enrollment in literacy -and naturalization classes t ot aled 2'/8 , 440 in Ap ril, an tncrease of more than 37,000 ove r the s ame month l as t year, the rep ort showed . The lit eracy educati on program will not cl ose down for the traditi onal summer vacation this year. in many l oco.lities fo r its expansion. On t he cont r ary , plans Rre being made In a t -least three st ates--Nort h Carolino., Georgia and L oui siano.-- the p ro g r run is being augme nted by the u se of suppl emento.l st a t e a nd l occl public funds. Classes in home-mr>king--cooking, nutriti on , household budgeting, sewing , hygiene ::md car e of the sick-- we re ntt~nded mothers duri ng the mont h covered by the r eport . by 1 33 ,562 wives and Sixty-five t housand others participated i n clc,sses rel E:,t ed to child wo lfo,r e and f amily rel a tionships. So p opul a r h.-:i,s this type of instructi on b ecome '.vith lov; income f amili e s, the report st ates , tmt plans n r e being made cooperatively v:ith t he Office of Educati on o..nd the Depc:,rt ment of Ag riculture to p r ovide a higher type of training for the homemn2dng D.nd par e nt education t eache rs during tbe summer . Cl o s ely n.ssoc i n.ted with the above a r e nursery s chools for children two to f our ye:,,rs old. Fifte en hundred of those schools, rri t h enrollments tot a ling 44,1 90 , wero i n operation during the month studied_. I n additi on to environment furnishing a heclthy/ f or play nnd r ec rea ti on , the nurs9ry schools gr1v e nourishing .q,nd. well-balo,nced lunches whi ch , in many cases , the r ep0rt points out , proved to b e the only a dequate meal hundreds of children received during the day . One of the most significant educationa l fields ,1hich the WPA r..as entered, Dr. Alderman decl a r e d, is that of furnishing c o rr e spondence courses for pers ons living i n remot e f a rm and mou_~tain r egions. Whil e only e i ght st a tes c onducted p rog r ~~ s of this sort, enrollments were distributed over the entire ru,,tion and inc re~sed from 23,409 in 1936-37 to more than 30,000 last year. Digitized by Original from NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 4 -- 1720 - 4 Such co11rses, of either high school or college level, are conducted cooperatively with state universities in Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahomn, Oregon n.nd Washington, and with state departments of education in California o.nd Id~ho. All te1ching personnel is taken from WPA rolls while the universities furnish quarters and general supervision. Trade and pro- fessional subjects dominn.te the courses of study selected by the correspondence students, the report indicates, yet the most popular single subject is English. Others in order of popularity A.re Diesel engineering, a1,,1to mechanics, mathem[l.tic practical arts, forestry, history and aeronautics . Business subjects are also popular, as are several courses in the liberal arts . Other types of education offered under the program, ruid the numbers participating, are as follows: workers ' education, 38,424; public affairs, 56,754; vocationnl education, 202,891; leisure time and avocational activities, 315,282; college subjects, 6,985; generru. adult education, 353,503; miscellaneo 60,836. "The year ho,s also been marked, 11 the report concludes, 11 by the streng1 ening of cooperative relations between the WPA and state and local educational agenc ies. In every state but one the WPA educational program is now under the sponsorship of the state department of education , while in practically every city end tovm, V,TA teachers and classes are under the supervision of local school officials . 11 The WPA progr/1,lll is thus r1'lally an extension of the servic es of the publi c schools into the tv,o relatively new fields of ndul t education ond nursery schools. 11 The following summnry shons by sto.tes the numbers of teachers, classo and enrollees in the WPA education program for April, 1938. Digitized by Original from NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 4 -- 1720 Teachers Alabama Arizona Arkansas California (northern) California ( southern) Colorado Connecti c.ut Delawar8 Dist. of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indi ana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minne sotn. Mississippi Mi ssouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Ne,1 York Std e New York City North Carolina North D/1.kota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvctni a Rhode Island South Cr.1.roliUD, South Dakota Tennessee Texa s Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming TOTAL Digitized by 572 197 196 599 676 343 275 5 111 353 529 16 161 1316 429 172 505 596 686 72 113 543 394 344 735 505 160 252 31 61 832 98 1276 4589 591 154 1307 261 248 1547 147 473 220 394 1005 180 87 494 498 516 343 64 26271 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Classes 1718 372 996 9429 6351 1060 628 5 287 744 1549 13 2178 3782 1574 555 1779 2433 3208 94 161 1099 1682 2866 2140 1278 303 1171 41 492 1254 271 6123 9097 2834 942 44'-12 780 782 8497 609 1302 362 3181 2210 407 1529 1096 2587 1433 1383 503 Stud.ent s Enrolled 21,898 5,640 19,400 73,569 71,513 16,508 1 0,386 218 4,531 7,1 06 20,149 311 8,363 67,189 33,567 8,963 23,403 25,806 35,378 1,498 3,662 28,697 28,353 23,040 35 ,747 25,222 5,428 11,443 589 2,074 28,033 3,184 246,653 118,69t.l: 32,412 17,07,6 84,126 17,351 15, 303 137,770 6,795 23,790 7,743 53,537 46,196 7, 470 13,155 22, 1~16 39, 64·'.b 23,837 18,240 3,305 10161::briginal from l, 586,314 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
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