Local education authority

“ The common district school, supported jointly by local taxation and State subvention, gives elementary education to the children of all classes. As the towns grow the tendency to graft manual and technical courses upon the ordinary public school curriculum is unmistakably strong. ”

“ A restoration of American education grounded in the principles of our founding that is accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling must ultimately succeed at the local level. Parents and local school boards must be empowered to achieve greater choice and variety in curriculum at the State and local levels. ”

“ Local people's governments at or above the county level shall strengthen regulation, reduce excessive homework and off-campus tutoring for students in the stage of nine-year compulsory education, open up channels of communication between schools and families, and promote collaboration between school education and family education. ”

“ In educational matters, the city areas are completely exempt from State control. Their schools and training schools are managed by local authorities, and supplied for the most part by local funds. Hence it follows that City Normal and Training Schools show even greater diversity of methods and arrangement than is found in State Normal Schools, for their lines of work and efficiency are entirely dependent upon the respective City Boards of Education. One effect of local school administration is distinctly undesirable. ”

“ The State Commission on People’s Education is by no means a central power governing the institutions of instruction and education. On the contrary, the entire school work ought to be transferred to the organs of local self-government. The independent work of the workers, soldiers and peasants, establishing on their own initiative cultural educational organisations, must be given full autonomy, both by the State centre and the Municipal centres. ”

“ You all know what a mighty factor it is in shaping public opinion. I merely call attention to the fact that it is an educational institution; that it appeals not, as do the schools, to the children, but to the parents of the children: and then that in Grand Forks it goes into almost every home in the city. I suggest that this agency be used to bring about a frank, open discussion, and therefore a better understanding, of the function and the work of our public schools—local, state, and national. For our people, in addition to being busy, are both intelligent and enterprising. ”

“ The older education of the district school was defective, and the new education is not enjoyed by many a farmer's boy or girl, because they cannot be spared in the later years of youth for long schooling. An adaptation of the idea of continuation schools for rural young people so that they may apply the new sciences to country life is greatly to be desired. The local school principal or county superintendent or an extension teacher from a State institution may be found available as director, and it belongs to the community to provide the necessary funds. ”

“ New features of the common schools, such as efficient teachers for the rural districts, 326 county supervision, state normal training, and free higher education in state universities, have gradually rendered the state systems more consistent and complete. ”

“ I believe that the responsibility of parents in every home creates a responsibility of localities in every community or parish in the land. It is an absolute duty of local administration that the heads of such administration should take care that every child within their limits is duly educated. I believe, however, that the contribution of parents and the local rates, with assistance from the Treasury, will suffice for a voluntary system of national education. ”

“ Now, to meet the needs of the generations to come, we have established a Department of Education to express our national commitment to education, to promote equal educational opportunity, to assist local authorities in their efforts to improve our schools, and to administer Federal education programs more efficiently. ”

“ We know to-day that every center in a state is involved in the behavior of each of its communities. Indeed, our generation is witnessing the assumption by the federal government of an influence and authority in education which is without precedent in American history. This is not the place to comment at length on these changes, but one result is absolutely certain—the simple district control of schools is gone. ”

“ The Public Schools.—Public education is another department of municipal activity. [4] City governments spend great amounts of public money for this purpose. The work of our educational institutions is constantly being enlarged; courses in commerce, manual training, and domestic science are intended to strengthen the practical side of education. In some cities special schools are maintained for the defective classes and for truants. ”

“ If the application requests exceed the funds available, the State educational agency shall prioritize projects that support students in high-need local educational agencies and ensure geographic diversity, including serving rural, suburban, and urban areas. ”

“ A few states have already established county-schools of agriculture and domestic science for those boys and girls who have completed the work of the ordinary district-school. This movement to give a high-school education to country pupils is one of the most important reforms of the present time. So important, in fact, is it that a plan to have the national government make special appropriations for the support of these schools has been prepared and considered by Congress. ”

“ In the majority of cases the parents control the local school inspection and direction. Such democratic control would be desirable provided the parents were as enlightened and expert in school training and education problems in general as school-teachers and their inspectors and superintendents. As a matter of fact, the parents, especially in the rural districts, are quite backward, and often even ignorant, in these problems. ”

“ But, in order fully to carry out the views we have expressed with regard to the adequate provision of schools throughout the country, it will probably be necessary, for some years, to supply the wants of particular parts of India by the establishment, temporary support, and management of places of education of every class in districts where there is little or no prospect of adequate local efforts being made for this purpose, but where, nevertheless, they are urgently required. ”

“ Unlike the governing bodies of cities and counties, school boards have only one responsibility: the education of the youth of our country during their most formative and impressionable years. Apart from health, no subject is closer to the hearts of parents than their children's education during those years. For these reasons, the governance of elementary and secondary education traditionally has been placed in the hands of a local board, responsible locally to the parents and citizens of school districts. ”

“ The central and local administrations are wisely balanced, and while the one determines scholastic standards through its professional requirements, the other establishes schools and appoints teachers.
Unification of the several stages of education.
The system of elementary schools, high schools, and universities, is fully unified, and the work of each stage fits into the others even more exactly than in the ‘ladder’ system of the United States. ”

“ It should be remembered that the character of the school work of a city is not merely a matter of local interest, and that the maintenance of the schools does not rest merely or mainly upon local authority. ”

“ All education is under State supervision, in which the State may associate the Local Authorities. Such supervision is exercised by senior officials with special training.
Article 145.
Education is universally compulsory. It is effected in elementary schools, with at least eight years' attendance, and in continuation schools, up to the completed eighteenth year. Education and educational apparatus in elementary and continuation schools are free of charge. ”

“ By this means the control of education by the State will become more and more the control of the people by themselves and for themselves, and the chief function of officials and inspectors will then be to advise central and local authorities how best to realise the educational aims desired by the common will of the people. ”

“ For the present, the State must devote her energies to the building of school-houses, and the establishment and maintenance of common schools, without attempting very much in the line of higher education. ”

“ Sufficient school places, and sufficient teachers, scientific and technical apparatus, material, tools, or plant, et cetera, shall be provided to enable every continuation scholar controlled by the education authority to be instructed in industry or agriculture, or in domestic economy, in the English language and literature, in the principles of hygiene, and in the duties and obligations of citizenship, and the scheme and curriculum of each continuation school shall be subject to the approval of the Board of Education. ”

“ By the Education Act of 1902 the council is given large authority within the domain of education. It must see that adequate provision is made for elementary schools, and it may assist in the maintenance of agencies of education of higher grades. ”

“ To promote in the country the development of literature, the arts, and sciences, together with immigration, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, without privileges such as would obstruct the action of the local governments. (3) To create institutions of higher instruction and of high school education in the States. (4) To provide for high school instruction in the Federal District. Article 36. Save the exceptions named in article 27, all bills may originate, indifferently, in the Chamber or in the Senate, and may be introduced by any of their members. ”

“ This centralized administration in education, as in other departments, represents the Napoleonic heritage of the Republic, and, although there has been an increasing tendency of recent years to study local conditions in the internal organization of schools, anything approaching to local autonomy is unknown in educational affairs. The necessary checks upon bureaucracy are supplied not by popularly elected municipal bodies but by a strong infusion of the pedagogic element in the administrative machinery. ”

“ There is no other public institution in the country so varied in its organization, its strength, its methods and ways as the elementary public-school system. It ranges from a shanty-like to a palace-like building, from a teacher almost illiterate herself to a teacher with an education and training which fit her for a college chair, from a few hundred dollars of yearly appropriation to tens of thousands of dollars for upkeep of a single school, from one teacher to a staff of teachers in one school, from an almost voluntary attendance to a rigid compulsory attendance. ”

“ The educational service embraces not only the work of the common schools preparatory to the college, but manual training, and sometimes technical education, night schools, vacation schools, libraries, and museums. The municipality in undertaking the work of elementary education and poor relief is acting as the agent of the State, and is subject to more or less central control so far as these activities are concerned. ”

“ Heretofore, the municipal and city governments have had, by law, the responsibility of maintaining all elementary instruction. But in order that the purpose of the Constitution may be accomplished, it has been necessary for the National Government to assume the burden of supporting the primary schools, leaving to the local governments only the maintenance of intermediate instruction. ”

“ In seeking to attain the cultural objectives set forth in the Directive, the United States occupational authorities have caused funds to be set aside for training courses in industry and agriculture, have encouraged the establishment of teacher training schools and of summer and winter institutes for the reeducation of teachers and have in general devoted their efforts to the restoration of schools, the enforcement of new system of education and expansion of school facilities. ”

“ Since 1902 all elementary schools have been considered as part of one comprehensive system, and the board schools have been distinguished as ‘provided schools’ and the voluntary as ‘nonprovided.’ Moreover, under the legislation of 1902 steps were also taken to coördinate secondary with elementary education, and bring it somewhat within the public system. ”

“ In the Southern States its work for colleges is similar to that done in the North, and, in addition, it seeks to promote public high schools through the State universities and the State Department of Education, to promote elementary education (or common schools) by increasing the productive efficiency of rural life, and to aid in developing schools for the training of leaders among the colored people. ”

“ Or an inquiry might be made as to whether the educational system of the country, which should remain under exclusive state jurisdiction, is well adapted to the extremely complicated purpose of endowing its various pupils with the general and special training most helpful to the creation of genuine individuals, useful public servants, and loyal and contented citizens of their own states. In this matter of education the state governments, particularly in the North, have shown abundant and encouraging good will ”