The county is used more or less everywhere as a unit for school administration, except in the New England States. The town in New England and the analogous township in the North Central States also are used as units for school administrative control. The city as a unit is found everywhere, and the school district, in the sense of a small rural area under the control of an elected board of three local school trustees, is found by the thousands in approximately three fourths of the States. Long experience has demonstrated the inefficiency and wastefulness of the little school district, and the tendency everywhere is to limit their powers and to abolish them for some larger unit of school control. Approximately one-fourth of the States have already made this transition, and have only county and city school districts beneath the State, while another fourth of the States have made important progress in this direc tion. The ultimate outcome of the process is that the State, for subordinate administrative control, becomes organized into only as many school districts as there are counties and cities in the State, with each county and each city under a separate representa tive board for school control. In a very few of the States the city has even been made a part of the county organization. For each county and each city the people then elect a small lay board of education, which in turn elects its own executive officer—county or city superintendent of schools—and exercises control over the schools in its jurisdiction as required by the State school law and the rules and regulations of the State board of education. The result of such a transformation, where effected, has been to abolish thousands of little independent school districts, and to substitute in their stead from 25 to ioo county school districts, and an approximately equal number of city school districts. One classification then provides for the education Of rural and village children, and the other for the education of the children who live in cities.
With the reorganization of all the district and village schools of a county into one county unit for educational administration, supervision and finance; the election by the people of one lay county board of education to select the educational experts and to determine the larger questions of policy and educational pro cedure for the schools of the county; and the reorganization and redirection of rural and village education so as to meet modern educational needs, with independent organization for the cities only because of their size and the diversity of their educational problems, an efficient State educational system is being evolved. The school affairs of any large commonwealth have grown into a large and very important business undertaking, costing the people millions of dollars each year, and the direction of this business is being placed under a form of administration dictated by the best American experience in educational and corporation control. The form of subordinate educational organization, then, which any State has evolved determines, to a large extent, the effectiveness of the educational system it maintains.
The present_ tend ency is toward a centralization of administration, with a more or less clear demarcation between State and locus powers and duties in matters of school control. In such matters as statistical and
financial returns State uniformity naturally is to be prescribed. In all such matters as minimum length of term, types of schools to be maintained, sanitary standards, maximum rates for taxation for school support, standards for the training and certification of teachers, minimum salary laws, compulsory attendance and child labour laws, it is clearly the duty of the State to determine the minimum standards which shall be permitted. Still more, from time to time, as changing needs and conditions may seem to re quire, it is clearly the duty of the State to raise these minima. To do these things successfully involves a carefully thought out edu cational policy which looks to a series of progressive changes and the securing of results over a period of time.
In carrying out a constructive State educational policy a number of distinctively State educational problems call for careful con sideration. These group themselves about the nature and extent of State oversight and control; the proper division of powers and functions, as between the State and its subordinate units ; the provision of adequate professional supervision for all schools; the best subordinate unit or units for local administration ; proper methods in taxation for education, and the apportionment of school funds; the scope of the educational system to be main tained; the large social and educational problems surrounding rural and village education; vocational training; part-time, extension, and adult education; the material equipment of schools; health and sanitary control; the training of teachers, both before and after beginning service ; salary schedules, tenure and pensions; the protection of the child ; and the relation of the State to non State educational agencies.
wholly different set of edu cational problems relate to school organization and administration in the cities. These relate to the grading of schools, instruction of special classes, playgrounds and vacation schools, kindergartens and pre-school training, schools for delinquents, compulsory edu cation, health work in the schools, vocational instruction and guidance, business organization, school plant, professional super vision and similar matters. Practically everywhere in cities the schools, while regarded as State schools in theory and under the provisions of the general State school law, are for control placed under the immediate oversight of a local school board, generally known as the board of education. Standard procedures have been established which are quite generally followed, namely: that the superintendent of city schools shall be the recognized executive officer of the board of education, responsible to it for the proper carrying on of the school business of the city; that the board shall legislate, and the superintendent and his staff shall execute; that the superintendent shall be in immediate charge of the educa tional department, but with supervisory oversight of all other de partment heads; and that the initiative in all such matters as the determination of the courses of study, the selection of text-books and teaching supplies, the nomination and placement of teachers, the supervision of the instruction, the progress of pupils in the schools, and the determination of records to be kept and reports to be made shall rest with the superintendent of schools.