Elementary schools, $2.56. High schools, $25.37. A high school, with its laboratories, requires a greater expenditure per pupil than an elementary, but a relation of 10 to I between the two expenditures is unjustifiable. For the care of the 250 elementary schools, the Board provides one committee. For the care of the seven high schools, the Board provides three committees. The disproportionate results shown above are the inevitable outcome of such a system of committee control. Three committees, looking after the welfare of seven schools, can do their work far more effectively than one committee, struggling to provide for 250 schools. The high schools are moderately well equipped. The elementary schools are infamously neglected. I. Conclusion-No large Board can transact the volume of business coming before the Philadelphia Board of Education. Only small bodies deliberate, and only by deliberation can business be efficiently transacted. The Philadelphia Board acknowledges these facts by referring its business to committees of five and seven men and accepting their decisions as final. The large Board of Education, as a business body, is a selfacknowledged failure. II. A CONTRAST BETWEEN THE WORK OF LARGE AND SMALL BOARDS An estimate of the character of the work done by a large Board may readily be made by contrasting the proceedings of small and large boards. The following are condensed statements of the proceedings of the boards in question. They were made from the official minutes of the several boards and show, as clearly as can be shown in a brief space, the working of the different boards. The most notable fact in these contrasted proceedings is that the small boards hear all of the business which the Board is supposed to transact, while the large Board is dependent wholly upon its committees. A. Albany Board (3 members) January 9, 1907 I. Seven communications acted on 2. Report of Superintendent heard and approved March 3, 1907 (next regular meeting) 1. Three bills ordered paid 2. Three communications acted on 3. Board of Contract and Supply instructed to secure 4. Report of Superintendent heard and approved B. Rochester Board (5 members) January 25, 1907 1. Five communications acted on 2. Recommendations of Superintendent approved 4. Secretary instructed to advertise for two sets of es- February 4, 1907 (next regular meeting) I. One communication acted on 2. Report of enrollment and attendance ordered printed 3. Budget disposed of 4. Secretary instructed to advertise for two sets of estimates 5. Salary of a teacher fixt C. Boston Board (5 members) January 20, 1908 I. Twelve communications acted on 2. Superintendent reports on 14 topics-acted on 4. Five communications referred to the Superinten- 5. Report of the business agent heard and accepted 6. Five miscellaneous motions past February 3, 1908 (next regular meeting) 1. Five communications acted on 2. Superintendent reports on 17 matters-acted on (a) Property (b) Supplies and textbooks (c) Normal school and qualification of teachers (d) By-laws and rules (e) Elementary schools (f) By-laws and rules. (g) Finance and accounts (h) Special committee on finance These seven committee reports, which contained 40 separate motions, were all past unanimously and in six cases without debate. To approve one report, the rules were suspended. 3. Three miscellaneous motions were past E. From these contrasts it becomes apparent that the small board of education is a truly deliberative body, receiving the reports of educational experts, and acting upon them; directing school policy, and intrusting to its paid agents the detailed work. On the other hand, the large board of education exists as a deliberate body only in theory. In reality it approves the work of its committees, usually without deliberation. The work of the committees is painfully detailed, as may be gathered from a perusal of the committee reports. The following analysis of the Report of the Philadelphia Committee on Elementary Schools (January 8, 1907) will give a definite idea of the detailed, administrative work performed by the committees under the large board. Committee on Elementary Schools recommends: 1. Appointment of 25 teachers 2. Appointment of a supervising principal 4. Appointment of a principal 5. Establishment of a new class 6. Establishment of a new class 7. Authorization of three new classes 8. Dropping of one class. 9. Election of a clerical assistant 10. Election of three attendance officers II. That a certain salary be paid 12. Appointment of ten telephone operators 13. That 18 teachers be relieved from loss of salary under Rule XXX 14. That Rule XXVII § 3 be suspended for the purpose of confirming the Principal of a grammar school 15. That a new salary schedule be adopted (schedule given and covering 13 pages of the minutes) Under a small board, the above detailed work is wholly performed by paid experts, the board merely passing judgment upon their work. Under a large board, unpaid amateurs struggle to solve the intricate. problems of educational detail and the board approves the result of their efforts. F. These summaries of typical business meetings of the boards in question show that with a small board of education, in the absence of committees, all business comes before the board directly. The detailed business is presented by experts and is received or rejected by the board. The board is primarily a director of educational policy. In Philadelphia the Board transacts little business. It exists for the purpose of approving committee reports. The detail work that is performed in other cities by paid experts is largely performed in Philadelphia by the committees, so that, instead of securing high class professional service, Philadelphia is receiving low class amateur service. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCOTT NEARING V REMARKS, MATURED AND OTHERWISE, ON Our present system of education endeavors to follow a single, unbroken, straight line from the lowest grade of the elementary school to the highest degree of the university. It is an ideal line and an impractical line. It is ideal because it attempts to carry out the democratic idea in education. It is impractical because it makes this attempt in a most undemocratic manner. Democracy no longer asserts that all men are equal; it asserts merely that the opportunities of all men should be equal to their abilities. Our present educational system is based on the false notion that all have the same ability and that the opportunity to develop this ability should be offered to all. The result is not equal opportunity, but unequal opportunity. The opportunity the system offers is that of scholastic training, and since the great majority of our young people has not the ability to progress along this line, it deprives this majority of its rights. The present dissatisfaction with the whole system, from elementary school to university professional school, is not without its good and sufficient reasons. Until recent years our colleges laid the course and set the pace in educational affairs. More recently our newly fledged universities have undertaken to be the arbiters in the educational world. Secondary schools submitted humbly to this dictation on the part of their scholastic superiors, and the elementary schools trailed along after their superiors. The consequences are fairly well known. The one overshadowing consequence is a scholastic system of education. Here are some of its practical results: Hardly 50 per cent. of the scholars enrolled in the first elementary grade complete their course. |