School fund

“ If, then, one system is superior to all others, it is that which is best calculated to beget in the popular mind a realizing sense of the necessity of educating all our youth in good schools. If this can be done in a state which has a large school fund, without diminishing the interest of the people in education, or relaxing their efforts to maintain improved schools, then may such a fund prove serviceable, as it will lessen the general tax. ”

“ Many of our state legislators seem more disposed to favour the borrowing of school money than to promote education. If competent lecturers were sent among the people, urging the value of education, both in a pecuniary and political view, these same demagogues would find it for their interest to become clamorous for the cause. I have been at the head of the Senate’s Committee on Education, and have had great difficulty in sustaining the integrity of our school fund. ”

“ The same old shabby school-houses, fifteen by twenty, still do duty, and the district committee annually figure with the many youthful candidates for teachers—who, it used to be said, came there on a horse—to make the per-head allowance of the school fund, with boarding around thrown in, pay for their three months' services. Had the people understood they must hand out the whole school expenses, and seen personally to the education of their children, they would have had a livelier interest in the whole business ”

“ The curse of many of the rural schools is their easy money, for all the Southern states have a system of state school funds, the income of which is subdivided among the districts, and is in some of them about enough to keep up [Pg 298] school three or four months on the usual scale of payment to teachers. When the school fund is exhausted, great numbers of districts close their schoolhouses, and the result is that the average number of school days in a year is far below that of Northern schools. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In our budget for the coming year, I'm doubling the size of the accountability fund to $250 million and doubling our support for after-school and summer school programs, so that every child in a low-performing school has the opportunity to participate. ”

“ The very law which, in good faith, and with no attempt at secrecy, takes into consideration the Congressional township fund, in providing a mode for the distribution of the school funds of the State, also takes from the county seats, throughout the State, their hitherto exclusive school fund, known as the seminary fund, and intermingles it with the funds from other sources, of which the educational fund of the State is composed. ”

“ The educational fund has been so greatly increased that the government has not only been enabled to add to the number of schools and teachers, but also to improve salaries, to provide instruction for a greater number of pupils, to build and repair school-houses, acquire new and modern pedagogical materials, maintain normal institutes, including one for the instruction of teachers in manual training, and send teachers to the United States for normal school training. ”

“ An act was passed creating an irreducible school fund out of all moneys in any way devoted to school purposes, whether by donation, bequest, sale, or rent of school lands, or in any manner whatever, the interest of which was to be divided among the school districts in proportion to the number of children between 4 and 21 years of age, with other regulations concerning educational matters. ”

“ So, if we wish to educate the great mass of American children, we must go to the primary grades to do it.
There are, in the public schools, 533,606 teachers, four-fifths of whom are women. These teachers are at work in 267,153 school buildings having a total value of $1,221,695,730. Each year some four hundred and fifty million dollars are devoted to maintaining and adding to this educational machine.
The school system is the greatest saving fund which the American people possess. The total value of school property is greater than the entire fortune of the richest American. ”

“ It should fund innovative charter schools so that parents and teachers can bring the benefits of choice and competition to our public schools. It should fully fund after-school programs, so young people learn their lessons in the classroom, not the streets. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But a trifling sum is paid to officers for their services, and nearly the entire revenues are applied to the maintenance of schools. Great care should be taken to preserve the same economy now practiced in the disbursement of this fund, and radical changes in a law that has worked well should always be avoided. ”

“ The heightened level is strict scrutiny under which the State would have to show, first, that it has a compelling interest to support disparate treatment in funding between school districts and, secondly, that the school-funding system is narrowly tailored to serve that interest. ”

“ It appears that preparatory to the plan pointed out by the yearly meeting last year, there are two schoolhouses under the direction of this meeting. Schools in general among us, both as to tutors and to school government, are in a better state than they formerly were; and some property has been vested in the meeting towards a fund for the use of schools. [421]
The form of subscription above mentioned was used for raising funds till 1793 when a committee on schools incorporated it with a few other suggestions in their plans. ”

“ These funds shall not be used for athletic purposes or programs. (d) The recruitment of superior graduate students. (2) The treasurer shall disburse not more than fifty percent of the monies in the Support Fund as that money is appropriated by the legislature and allocated by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for any or all of the following elementary and secondary educational purposes: (a) To provide compensation to city or parish school board professional instructional employees. ”

“ The pupil seldom thinks of costs. The teacher usually overlooks the fact that the community is interested in what schools cost. Yet funds are a prime necessity in organizing a public-school system. We turn, accordingly, to fiscal problems as among the first and most concrete examples of educational problems which must be studied by one who would be intelligent about the school system. ”

“ Program students who receive tutoring aid and remain enrolled in traditional public schools therefore direct almost twice as much state funding to their chosen school as do program students who receive a scholarship and attend a private school. ”

“ Very often members of the board of education will disclaim any knowledge of the course of study or of the qualifications of teachers and say that it is their sole duty to supervise expenditures. Consideration of the real problems of school finance soon brings to the surface the fact that financial expenditures are merely means to the end of supplying adequate opportunity for all the children who are required by legislation to attend schools. School finance is one aspect of school organization. ”

“ But even this argument, strong as it seems, can hardly stand, for I believe it could be shown that the majority of those who are successful in obtaining scholarships and exhibitions at school or at the University are boys whose parents have been able to pay the highest price for their children's previous education. If all these prizes were abolished, and the funds thus set free used to lessen the price of education at school and in college, I believe that the sons of poor parents would be far more benefited than by the present system. ”

“ I will continue to press for tuition tax credits to expand opportunities for families and to soften the double payment for those paying public school taxes and private school tuition. Our proposal would target assistance to low- and middle-income families. Just as more incentives are needed within our schools, greater competition is needed among our schools. Without standards and competition, there can be no champions, no records broken, no excellence in education or any other walk of life. ”

“ As we have not recommended that secondary education shall be provided free of cost to the whole community, we deem it all the more needful that ample provision be made by every local authority for enabling selected children of poorer parents to climb the educational ladder.... The assistance we have contemplated should be given by means of a carefully graduated system of scholarships, varying in value in the age at which they are awarded and the class of school or institution at which they are tenable. ”

“ To what extent, and from what resources, the nation should grant this educational aid to its children, and through what channels and upon what basis the distribution of that aid should be made, are subjects that will now command our attention.
The burden of educating the children of the nation is a heavy one—a fact perhaps not as fully realized by our rulers and legislators as it ought to be. From the report of the Commissioner of Education, 1882-3, it appears that the estimated real value of sites, buildings, and all other school property in all the states and territories, is $216,562,197. ”

“ Liberal and wealthy individuals contribute funds, and the legislatures of the States also lend assistance, so that every State in this Nation has from one to twenty such endowed institutions, supplied with buildings, apparatus, a library, and a faculty of learned men to carry forward a superior course of instruction. And the use of all these advantages is secured, in many cases, at an expense, no greater than is required to send a boy to a common school and pay his board there. ”

“ To guard against any competition with the public schools as now organized, a special tax should be levied for the support of vocational schools, which, with the State grant for their support, should not be taken from the funds now provided by law for the support of the public school system. ”

“ Next year it ought to cost us at least two thousand million dollars. We should spend enough money to hire the best teaching force possible—the best organizing and directing ability in the land, even if we have to strip the railroads and meat trust. We should dot city and country with the most efficient, sanitary, and beautiful school-houses the world knows and we should give every American child common school, high school, and college training and then vocational guidance in earning a living. ”

“ My fiscal year 2005 budget includes an overall 49 percent increase for elementary and secondary education over 2001 levels, and it proposes $219 million for charter school grants and $100 million for charter school facilities. Together, funding for these two charter school programs has increased 68 percent over 2001 levels. By raising expectations, insisting on results, and refusing to accept failure, we are strengthening our public schools and improving education for all children in America. ”

“ Indeed, what is a school worth when a man will pay a premium to be exempt from sending his children to it? The State, boasting of its splendid Public Schools, is also like that poor fellow who wore a gold watch and boasted of it. ”

“ If the Congress will act on these proposals, more flexible funding will enable each Federal dollar to meet better the particular need of each particular school district. Advance funding will give school authorities a chance to make each year's plans, knowing ahead of time what Federal funds they are going to receive. Special targeting will give special help to the truly disadvantaged among our people. College students faced with rising costs for their education will be able to draw on an expanded program of loans and grants. ”

“ As a result of those conditions the patrons who were able financially to bear the expense sent their children out of the community to school as soon as they were ready for the high school, at an annual cost of from $150 to $200, while the larger number were forced to turn aside to take up life’s duties and responsibilities with only the meager training obtained in these little schools. ”

“ Requirements.—A school that chooses to use funds from such other programs shall not be relieved of the requirements relating to health, safety, civil rights, student and parental participation and involvement, services to private school children, maintenance of effort, comparability of services, uses of Federal funds to supplement, not supplant non-Federal funds, or the distribution of funds to State educational agencies or local educational agencies that apply to the receipt of funds from such programs. ”

“ Is it not time for all who are interested in college foundations to call for large donations for the increase of ‘the wages fund?’ Ought not the college authorities to keep in the background their desire for better buildings, and insist that adequate means must first be provided for the maintenance of instruction? ”