School consolidation

“ Wherever centralization is not adopted, the consolidation of two or three schools—a modified form of centralization—may prove helpful. Where the district school still persists, there are one or two imperative requirements. Teachers must have considerably higher wages and longer tenure. There must be more efficient supervision. The state must assist in supporting the school, although only in part. ”

“ But natural evolution proved too slow a process, so we find as early as 1869 that the legislature enacted a law empowering a town to raise money by taxation for the transportation of children to larger schools. Thus consolidation for the betterment of rural schools began. Later the state passed a law extending the minimum length of the school year to thirty-two weeks, a measure which materially helped to close small schools and to promote the growth of larger ones. At the present time consolidated schools are found in nearly every county of the state. ”

“ But the consolidated schools in the five eastern provinces, with their gardens, manual training and domestic economy, now bring 97 of 100 children to school every day, and with no additional expense.”
Consolidation is simply efficiency applied to the rural school situation. Instead of perhaps eight separate schools, housed in badly ventilated and insanitary buildings, with very poor equipment, there is one central building, modern in construction and satisfactory in every detail. ”

“ When consolidation is accompanied by improved means of transporting children to school, the advantages of the plan are numerous. Because consolidation is a more economical arrangement than the old district plan, it allows larger salaries to be offered. This in turn allows the rural school to secure a higher grade of teacher. The trained educator is also attracted by the fact that the consolidation of rural schools allows curricula to be standardized and enlarged. Scientific agriculture and allied subjects are slowly finding their way into the rural grade school. ”

“ But recently rural education has shown many signs of improvement. In most sections of the country the development of farm machinery has so reduced the amount of manual labor on the farm that rural children are enabled to remain in school for a longer period than formerly. The district school is in many cases being supplanted by the consolidated school. Under the consolidation plan, a single large and well-equipped school-house takes the place of a number of separate, small schools, indifferently equipped. ”

“ To begin with, the majority's questions concerning the practicality of consolidation of school districts need not give us pause. The State clearly has the power, under existing law, to effect a consolidation if it is ultimately determined that this offers the best prospect for a workable and stable desegregation plan. ”

“ Some states have enacted laws which make it necessary to build another school-room and employ another teacher when the attendance of the school reaches a maximum number, say sixty. Through consolidation of schools and the transportation of pupils a widespread movement is going on to decrease the number of small, poorly attended and isolated rural schools, and at the same time to encourage longer and more regular attendance of pupils. ”

“ The present system is bungling and short-sighted; continuation schools patch up some of its defects; they do not overcome them, nor do they enable the pupils to achieve a belated intellectual growth, where the maladjustment of the elementary school has served to check it. The ideal is not to use the schools as tools of existing industrial systems, but to use industry for the reorganization of the schools. ”

“ Though there is much interest in all these higher institutions of learning, as well as in the normal schools and academies, many of which are prosperous and important, yet the common schools more particularly engage the attention of the people and of the successive legislatures, resulting in a complication of school laws scarcely balanced by the improvement in the school system. ”

“ Once again we must turn to the consolidated school as the solution of our difficulty. The isolated district school will not be able to demand and secure a worthy grade of preparation for teaching. The educational standards will not rise high enough under this system to create a public demand for skilled teachers. Nor can such salaries be paid as will encourage thorough and extensive study and preparation for teaching. And, finally, the professional incentives are not sufficiently strong in such schools to create a true craft spirit toward teaching. ”

“ Though the junior high school has so great a popularity, its work is eclipsed by the still more revolutionary program of those educators who advocate the complete abolition of any line between the elementary and the high school, and the establishment of a public school of twelve school years. This plan, coupled with promotion by subjects rather than by grades, replaces the machine method of promotion and the gap between elementary and high schools by an easy, natural progression adaptable to the needs of any student, from the end of the kindergarten to the beginning of the university. ”

“ The changing character of society caused the earliest private schools to be transformed into semi-private and semi-religious schools, and these to tax-maintained schools. The graded schools in the larger communities were found to be more efficient than the ungraded. In country districts the advantages of the graded system could only be brought about by consolidating several small schools thus enlarging the districts to get sufficient pupils. This made distances from home so great that walking to and from school was no longer possible ”

“ The situation, therefore, calls at once for examination reform, but it calls also for far more: we must harmonize under a sufficiently large ideal the various phases of developmental education. The elementary school, the secondary school, the college, have not yet been viewed and organized as essentially a single educational institution. Pending and in aid of their reorganization on this basis, I urge the colleges to emphasize the vital, not the mechanical, side of preparatory teaching; to establish fixedly no machinery that may impede the creation of a system subtly adapted to the individual. ”

“ Any process, or public provision, by which our best colleges (and by such we mean those which have the least lowered their own standard in obedience to popular clamor) should be enabled to plant each year one of its most intelligent graduates in every county in the State, would do more to promote common school education than all the money that has been thrown broadcast over the land for the past quarter of a century. ”

“ To keep the proceeds of the public lands from going to the agricultural colleges and scientific institutions, he is willing to resign all claim upon them for the benefit of the classical colleges; at the same time, if the money is expended for the extension of high-schools, as the doctor says, "these schools would aid colleges far more powerfully than a direct grant to them." Yet, as long as the two systems of education remain so diverse that the regular high-school graduation is not accepted as preparation for college, there will be conflict for the control of these establishments. ”

“ The territorial schools now established are far too few to accomplish the desired end. The National Government should make an ample appropriation. It ought to put a public school in every city ward and every considerable village. It ought to equip them with the best appliances and the best teachers. ”

“ The board that distributes the funds will in the last analysis control the policy. Certainly the conservatism of the professional educator is far less to be feared than the narrowness and self-interest of employers’ associations. In following the provisions of the federal bill that the aided schools shall be below college grade, for children over fourteen, the state board will control the standards of the individual schools. Whichever form of control is adopted, the trend towards state centralization of the school system is likely to be greatly strengthened. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The way to improve education for all our children is to increase standards, accountability, and choice within the public schools. I urge the Congress to send me legislation I have proposed to reduce class size, modernize our schools, end social promotions, raise academic standards for all students, and hold school systems, schools, and staff accountable for results. ”

“ The State may choose to divide up its public schools into a dozen different options and label them magnet schools, community schools, or whatever else it decides to call them, but the State is still required to provide a public education and it is the State’s decision to fund private school education over and above its traditional obligation that is at issue in these cases. ”

“ We're not going to leave the table until we invest in modernizing our schools and continue our efforts to hire 100,000 quality teachers for smaller classes. We're going to keep fighting to strengthen accountability, to turn around failing schools or shut them down or put them under new management, to expand after-school programs and college opportunities for young people, and to ensure a qualified teacher in every classroom. Our children deserve 21st century schools. ”

“ The principle of higher education by taxation of all the people is no longer questioned; it is no longer an experiment. The state university is relied upon to furnish the country with the leaders of the future—and leaders will always be in demand, for they are always sorely needed.
Progress in Normal Schools.—While the state universities have been enjoying this marvelous development, nearly every state has been establishing normal schools for the professional preparation of teachers. The normal school as an institution is also modern. ”

“ Oftentimes, at the first, private societies came forward as volunteers in the task of education, but the states early recognized their duty, and usually established schools as soon as they were deemed practicable, either taking over the existing private school or creating one of their own. After a time, as another stage in their development, the schools were made free by express provision, or have become so to all practical purpose. ”

“ First, under our plan districts and States will soon receive money dedicated entirely to turning around failing schools. This accountability fund will enable districts to take firm measures, putting in a tougher curriculum, helping teachers get the skills and training they need, and if necessary, closing down a failing school and reopening it under new management or as a public charter school. ”

“ Modern opinion has so far transcended the modest proposal of Chalmers, that instead of a preparatory school in each university seat, the demand is now for adequate secondary schools scattered over all the land. ”

“ At a time when we have to give every child, everywhere, a fair shot – this Congress would actually allow states to make even deeper cuts into school districts that need the most support, send even more money to some of the wealthiest school districts in America, and turn back the clock to a time when too many students were left behind in failing schools. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The yearly expansion of our school enrollment is matched by increases in our school facilities and in our teaching force. And the provision for a free subsidized education has periodically been stretched upward to higher levels of schooling. ”

“ The settlement of the question of general taxation for education, the elimination of the rate-bill by the cities and later by the States, the establishment of the American common school as the result of a long native evolution, and the complete establishment of public control over the entire elementary-school system, all tended to bring the semi-private tuition academy into question. Many asked why not extend the public-school system upward to provide the necessary higher education for all in one common state- supported school. ”

“ Since the revival the state has seen a steady growth of sentiment for universal education and improved schooling, and never again has such an upheaval of the educational strata been necessary. The income of the state school fund and additional appropriations have been steadily increased, their apportionment among the towns has been rendered more equitable from time to time, and an effort has constantly been made to distribute them in such a way as to encourage local effort and coöperation. The school term has been lengthened to ten months and the average attendance of pupils to seven years. ”

“ There are no adequate provisions for the pupils who are supposed to be studying, because this one teacher in the one room must be hearing a class recite on some subject at practically every period in the day. The one-room building does not satisfy the progressive community. The device which has been adopted is that of consolidating a number of one-room schools and transporting the pupils through the necessary distances to make possible large schools with separate rooms for pupils of different ages. A consolidated school has facilities which are impossible in a one-room school. ”