This study is limited to the mathematics performance of two intact groups of culturally deprived kindergarten students, mostly blacks, with a few whites and Mexican-Americans, who were enrolled at Robert E. Lee Elementary School (Denton, Texas) for the entire school year of 1970-1971. The purposes of the study are to compare the effectiveness of two methods of teaching mathematics to culturally disadvantaged children and to check for interaction of treatments when these children are classified by sex.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is the identification of conditions, situations, and events that are important problems faced in the public elementary schools of Texas. Problems are categorized into sixteen areas: finance, desegregation and busing, school organization, school personnel, preschool and kindergarten, instructional improvement, reporting systems, pupil behavior, curriculum, in-service staff training, humanizing the schools, public relations, minority groups, migrant children, special education, and recent trends. The purpose of the study is to determine perceived importance of problems and to establish priorities of current issues from information obtained from education leaders of elementary schools.