Education: The Outcasts

When Labor Secretary James Mitchell describes the lives of migrant farm workers, his mildest phrase is "national disgrace." Following the crops northward in three circuits, from Florida to New York, Texas through the Midwest, and California to Washington, migrants are the unskilled outcasts of a skilled economy. Some 500,000 migrants have no chance to vote, no effective union, no minimum wage protection, no unemployment insurance. In 1958 they averaged $961 a year. The victims of this disgrace—affecting 45 states—are children.

The black-skinned or Spanish-speaking migrant child lives in a world so alien to U.S. culture that missionaries enter mi grant camps to harden themselves for Asia and Africa. The child is a full-fledged field hand at nine—often at six. When he invades a new area, crowded schools wink at attendance laws. Falling behind, he quits school by the fourth grade. He is the nation's greatest single source of illiteracy, and by that handicap, condemned to repeat the hopeless life of his parents. He desperately needs education—and a sense of worth.

Obligation. What can be done has been made clear in Colorado, where boys and girls called Juan and Carmen have stooped in the sugar-beet fields for 40 years. For at least a decade. Colorado educators agitated for mandatory attendance in summer schools. The state still has no attendance law: growers oppose it. But four years ago, the state finally launched the first of five summer schools.

Explains one unsentimental official: "We have an obligation to these people because they help with our largest industry."

Last week, in blazing sun, an army of migrants, stooping across Weld County's fertile fields, picked beans, carrots, tomatoes and onions. But their children had a different job. After breakfasting on Coca Cola, the youngsters boarded a bus for school in Fort Lupton, where they listened intently to a second-grade teacher: "Armando, get me the cup-cup-cup. Luisa, pick up the plate-plate-plate." In the fifth-grade room, a shy girl of twelve whispered in Spanish: "I want to be a teacher someday. A fifth-grade teacher." After paying 13¢ apiece, the youngsters downed a hefty lunch, wrapped seconds in paper napkins to take home. Each child brushed his teeth and had a shower. "Now at least they're neat and clean," said Principal Paul Knight. "That's progress."

Birds v. Beans. But Colorado is still educating only 800 of the state's 6,000 migrant children. Other states are beefing up attendance laws, designing interstate report cards, training teachers to accompany migrants. But coordination is scarce and money is scarcer. In New Jersey last week, state officials announced that an effort to get local support for summer schools was a complete failure. Typical local reaction: "If you make it too good for migrants, they'll stay."