School committee

“ Under other conditions the school board designates which of the appointed members of the committee shall be its chairman. In towns where the number of teachers exceeds sixty, the school board may direct that the school committee shall consist of the superintendent and the principals of the several schools as ex officio members and any determined number of other teachers selected by the body of teachers. The elected members are to be male and female in proportion [Pg 59] to their respective numbers on the teaching staff, exclusive of those who are ex officio members of the committee. ”

“ A school committee for each district was to be elected annually by the owners and occupiers of land and the householders within the district. The teachers were to be elected by the school committees, no election being valid until the person elected produced a certificate of fitness from H.M. Committee of Privy Council on Education, or from the Board's Inspector of Schools. School fees were authorised to be levied from the scholars attending the several schools ”

“ Your Committee believes that in many systems of elementary schools there is injury done by too much formality in ascertaining whether the pupils of a given class have completed the work up to a given arbitrarily fixed point, and are ready to take up the next apportionment of the work. In the early days of city school systems, when the office of superintendent was first created, it was thought necessary to divide up the graded course of study into years of work, and to hold stated annual examinations to ascertain how many pupils could be promoted to the next grade or year’s work. ”

“ All the instruction, discipline, and management were supplied by the boys themselves; and when a number of elder boys joined, a committee, appointed by themselves, regulated the affairs of the community. However, this did not last long. The hot young blood and immature young brain needed a stronger curb than self-appointed committees could supply; and by a general request, the school has since been worked by authority—this authority itself guided by a general vote in many matters of choice immediately concerning the scholars. ”

“ It is understood that the committee is to treat of city school systems, which are so large that persons chosen by the people to manage them, and serving without pay, cannot be expected to transact all the business of the system in person, nor to have personal knowledge of all business transactions, and which are so large that one person employed to supervise the instruction cannot be assumed to personally manage or direct all of the details thereof, but must, in each case, act under plans of organization and administration established by law and through assistants or representatives. ”

“ Although the School Committee has a responsibility to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination from the system over time, the Committee also has a responsibility to address the harm those vestiges currently impose on African-American and Hispanic students. ”

“ One advantage, and that not an inconsiderable one, is that it teaches the boys the manner in which public meetings ought to be conducted; a species of knowledge in which, if we may judge from some late specimens, the present generation is particularly ignorant. But the effect of most importance attending this mode of governing is that it has the best effect upon the morals of the scholars. Of course the committee will consist of boys whose age or superior acquirements give them a lead in all the affairs of the school ”

“ It is now easy for each town, or for any inhabitant, to know what has been done in any other town; and, as a consequence, those that do best are a continual example to those that, under ordinary circumstances, might be indifferent. The establishment and efficiency of the school-committee system is due also to the same agency. There are, I fear, some towns that would now neglect to choose a school committee, were there not a small annual distribution of money by [Pg 330] the state ”

“ All power and authority in school affairs should reside ultimately in the board of education, consisting of not more than eight persons appointed by the mayor of the city, to hold office four years, two members retiring annually and eligible for reappointment once and no more. This board should appoint as its chief officer a superintendent of instruction, whose tenure should be during good behavior and efficiency, and whose powers and duties should be to a large extent defined by statute law, and not wholly or chiefly by the regulations of the board of education. ”

“ He gets into a contention with the school committee, that formidable foe to the projects of all scheming teachers; and it would not be very difficult to find many actual cases where the individual has, in consequence of some such idea, quietly planned and taken measures to establish some new institution, where he can carry on unmolested his plans, and let the world see the full results of his wonderful discoveries. ”

“ And in that control they have security for two things: first, that the committee shall not be suspected of partiality; and secondly, that they shall not be actually guilty of partiality. In the same manner, there is security for the proper connection between the high school and the schools below. But in the school at Norwich—of which I speak because it is now prominent—you have a board of twenty-five men, irresponsible to the people. They select a committee of nine; that committee determines what candidates shall be transferred from the grammar schools to the high school. ”

“ Committee of men and women appointed for schools
In 1794, the London Grove Monthly Meeting, just created, began its educational work by appointing a committee to take subscriptions for a fund to support a “regular school.” [622] In 1795, the preparative meeting proposing that a standing committee be appointed to inspect the necessities of the poor and the school education of their children, the following were named to unite with a committee of women on that concern, viz.: Samuel Swayne, Josiah Hoopes, John Man, and Jonathan Buslow. ”

“ They need not be highly educated, but should be able [162] to read and write intelligently and earnest friends of education.” Membership in the committee is purely honorary, no fee accompanying the appointment. The members of the committee are to take an annual census of children of school age and to see that they attend school; they are to keep tab on the teacher and report him if he be guilty of immoral conduct or fails to advance his school. ”

“ By legislative enactment, section 2, "All school-teachers shall hereafter be examined in their knowledge of the elementary principles of physiology and hygiène, and their ability to give instructions in the same."
The School Committee consists of two members from each of the twelve wards of the city, chosen annually, and assisted by the Mayor and President of the Common Council. The average expense of each scholar at the primary schools is 25s. per annum, at the higher schools three guineas. ”

“ Whether academic studies have any legitimate place in a normal or training school is a question much debated. It cannot be supposed that your committee can settle in a paragraph a question upon which many essays have been written, many speeches delivered, and over which much controversy has been waged.
If training schools are to be distinguished from other secondary schools, they must do a work not done in other schools. So far as they teach common branches of study, they are doing what other schools are doing, and have small excuse for existence ”

“ Judge Selya's opinion demonstrates that the school committee plan under attack here does involve racial preference, whatever the complexity of the plan and subtlety in expression. Yet, this court concluded more than a decade ago that purposeful discrimination had ended so far as assignments were concerned and that the school committee was proceeding in good faith. See Morgan v. Nucci, 831 F.2d 313, 326 n. 19 (1st Cir.1987) . To survive, the school committee's plan must serve a compelling state interest and be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. Croson, 488 U.S. at 505-08, 109 S.Ct. ”

“ Indeed, it is a very great improvement in the management of the school, as from the nature of the magistrate’s reward, every one is interested in his performing his duty as much as possible to the satisfaction of the master. Another improvement in the discipline of the school is a regulation made a few months ago, which is that when a boy above the age of twelve leaves the school, a subcommittee is appointed to draw up his character, subject to the revisal of the general committee, after which it is entered in a book kept for the purpose, and read aloud before the whole school. ”

“ The local education authority shall throughout their area have the powers and duties of a school board and school attendance committee under the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, and any other Acts, including local Acts, and shall also be responsible for and have the control of all secular instruction in public elementary schools not provided by them, and school boards and school attendance committees shall be abolished. ”

“ Summary of committee’s report
1. We have considered the relative situation of the members in our compass.
2. The affairs of education have not yet received the attention they deserve.
3. We find several school houses have been erected, but
4. The demands made by the yearly meeting are not met, therefore,
5. Friends must subscribe funds, either in monthly or preparative meetings.
6. The funds must be available for application for meetings. Friends are so scattered and few that they cannot support a school alone and have been forced to patronize “mixed schools.” ”

“ THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE Ten powerful educational associations and the two State administrative
departments (since merged into the Department of Education) each sent a
delegate to a central committee, which took the name of "Conference
Committee," and consisted of Chairman, Myron T. Scudder, principal State
Normal School, New Paltz, representing the Normal Principals' Council ”

“ Every well-organized Christian Endeavor society has a Sunday-school committee, whose members put themselves under the direction of the superintendent, and make it the one object of their term's work to push in all possible ways the interests of the Sunday-school. ”

“ As indicated by the discussion of the Supreme Court and First Circuit precedents in Part II, that strong basis is provided by a prima facie case of causation. In voluntarily undertaking remedial measures, the School Committee did not have to establish an airtight case for its own liability to minority students. By setting the bar of proof for the School Committee unrealistically high, the majority has ignored precedents that impose only a prima facie burden on the School Committee. ”

“ I would go farther than the majority of the Committee, and insist that, except in rare cases, there should be no specialization of the teaching force below the high school, and that even in the first years of the high school, so far as possible, specialization should be subordinated to a general care of the child’s welfare and oversight of his methods of study, which are impossible when a corps of teachers give instruction, each in one subject, and see the student only during the hour of recitation. ”

“ The fact that it adds the important element of interest to the dry details of common school life makes it especially attractive to progressive and earnest teachers, and this Committee should recognize its importance and make such an utterance upon it as will guide the average teacher to a clear comprehension of its meaning and to a wise use of it in the schoolroom. ”

“ The School Committee believes that extreme care is taken to avoid the inclusion upon the so-called Authorized List of any unfit or improper books for use in the public schools, and whenever in the past it has appeared that any books to which reasonable objections may be made have been so included prompt steps have been taken to discontinue the use of such books. ”

“ Attempts to eliminate partisanship from school administration, by arraying an equal number of partisans against each other in school boards, do not, at best, lead to an ideal organization. In some instances they have proved fairly successful; in others, very mischievous. The true course is to insist that all who have any share in the management of the schools shall divest themselves of partisanship, whether political or religious, in such management, and give themselves wholly to the high interests entrusted to them. ”

“ These cards are collected, the calls made, and then the Endeavorers report to the teacher.
A kindred ministration is the gathering of new scholars. In many cities the Sunday-school committee has conducted a fruitful house-to-house canvass for new scholars, sometimes canvassing at the same time for new members of their society. Other committees distribute printed cards of invitation. Others organize "recruiting squads" among the scholars, and give little rewards to those that do the best work. ”

“ There is found no statement in the committee’s reports to indicate the amount of tuition usually demanded. The following bill may be of interest, however, since it shows various items of expenditures of the school committee. [1208]
[245]
Committee of education, to Othneil Alsop, Dr.
Summer and winter sessions
From available records it is impossible to give more than an elementary knowledge of how the school was run. Nothing is found concerning the inner organization. ”

“ The name of the legislative branch of the school government is not material, and the one to which the people are accustomed may well continue to be employed. There is no name more appropriate than the “Board of Education.” ”