LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, SIR: The problem of teachers' salaries is one in which compilations of exact data are peculiarly important. School superintendents, members of boards of education, teachers, and the general public need to have constantly at their disposal accurate up-to-date information with regard to the economic returns of the teaching profession in their own and other communities. The accompanying manuscript contains information of this definite character; it continues the data presented in Bulletin, 1914, No. 16, including salary figures for cities and towns between 2,500 and 5,000 population for the year 1914-15; it shows the amount paid for teachers' salaries as compared with other items of school expenditure for certain city school systems; it gives salaries of rural-school teachers in typical counties, with the school term in days, and salaries of county superintendents in the several States; it seeks to analyze and interpret certain of the 1912-13 figures, previously published; and it institutes useful comparisons between the remuneration of school workers and persons in other occupations. The report herewith presented is made possible by a cooperative arrangement between the Bureau of Education and the National Education Association Committee on Teachers' Salaries and Cost of Living. The statistical work, which makes up the bulk of this report, was in charge of Miss Roberta King, one of the authors of "The Tangible Rewards of Teaching." The interpretative comment for the comparative tables (Part III) was furnished by Dr. Harlan Updegraff, professor of school administration in the University of Pennsylvania. Acknowledgment is also due to Dr. Joseph Swain, chairman of the Committee on Teachers' Salaries, for helpful suggestions in the preparation of the report. I recommend that this manuscript be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education. Respectfully submitted. THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. P. P. CLAXTON, Commissioner. 5 PREFATORY STATEMENT. The Committee on Teachers' Salaries and Cost of Living presented its first report to the National Education Association in January, 1913. This report, prepared by Dr. Robert C. Brooks, professor of political science in Swarthmore College, the executive secretary to the committee, was published by the National Education Association, and copies may still be purchased from the secretary, Durand W. Springer, Ann Arbor, Mich. This report treats of the attempts that have been made to measure the cost of living and its probable causes, and presents the economic and social condition of teachers in five typical cities as obtained through a detailed questionnaire answered by over 1,600 teachers. The last section is devoted to a presentation of salary schedules, tenure, and pensions in States and cities throughout the United States. The following year, through the cooperation of the United States Bureau of Education, the committee was able to present to the association the actual salaries paid in 1912-13 to all teachers in practically every city in the country having a population of 5,000 or more. This volume, published as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education (1914, No. 16), also contained the salary schedules of certain city school systems in that year and in previous years, thus showing their historical development. Other important features of the compilation were salaries paid in universities, colleges, State normal schools, and other State educational institutions, and the laws relating to salaries in the various States of the Union. At the same meeting of the association in St. Paul in 1914 the committee also presented to the association a paper prepared by Dr. Scott Nearing, associate professor of economics in the University of Pennsylvania, which dealt with the problem of determining what is a reasonable standard of living for teachers and whether present salaries are adequate to maintain teachers upon that standard. This paper is published in the Proceedings for that year. In the present report the committee is able to carry out in part one of the purposes which it has had in mind from the beginning of its labors, namely, a comparison of salaries paid in 1903-4-as recorded in the report of the committee of the National Education Association on salaries, tenure, and pensions-and salaries paid in 1912-13. Elementary school teachers have been chosen first for comparison because they constitute the largest number of teachers and receive the lowest salaries. The other features of the present report help to keep the information regarding salaries up to date and to present material which is valuable in the consideration of local questions regarding salaries. Their character may be easily seen from the table of contents. JOSEPH SWAIN, Chairman of the committee 1 of the National Education 1 The members of the committee in addition to the chairman are: Ernest C. Moore, professor of education, Harvard University; Grace C. Strachan, district superintendent of schools, New York, N. Y.; David B. Johnson, president of Winthrop Normal and Industrial College, Rock Hill, S. C.; Harlan Updegraff, professor of educational administration, University of Pennsylvania; Margaret Haley, Chicago, Ill.; and James Ferguson, San Francisco, Cal. |