There are three distinct systems of local ad ministration of schools in operation in this coun try. These are known as the district system, the township system and the county system. The district system is the one which was first estab lished. When it was first necessary to organ ize schools a few families living in the same neighborhood associated themselves together, employed a teacher and maintained a school. When school systems were organized in States which had adopted this system, the organization already established was utilized and in some of the States, as in New York, that system is still in operation. In each town throughout a State in which this system is in operation there are several separate school districts. Each of these districts maintains an independent organization with its own local officers, and each is a tax district; so that in each township there are all the way from 8 to 35 separate and independ ent authorities in charge of the schools of a single town, and possessing the power to assess taxes upon the property of such districts for the maintenance of schools. This kind of • an organization for the administration of rural schools has been demonstrated to be cumber some, obsolete and inefficient. This system has been discontinued in many States and must be in all States before rural schools can be im proved and modernized and enabled to serve the people of the agricultural sections as the schools should and as present conditions de mand.
In New England and many of the western States, the township is the unit of administra tion. Under such systems a town board of education is usually chosen at a town school meeting and is given general authority over the supervision and administration of all the schools of a town. In other words, it is the substitution, in rural communities, of an economical and professional system in the ad ministration of schools for the inefficient and unbusinesslike plan which is followed in school districts generally where the school district sys tem is in operation. It gives all the schools of a town the same businesslike management which is generally afforded in cities where all the schools are under the control and supervision of one board of education. In most of the western States the general form of government followed in administering public affairs has been followed in the administration of school mat ters. In these States, the county is the unit of school administration. Where this system pre vails, there is a county board of education and a county superintendent of schools. These offi
cers perform the functions which are generally performed in towns and districts by the town and district boards.
The local school officers, whether under the district, town, or county system, have the direct charge of the administration and operation of the schools. These officers employ the teach ers, determine the period of time school must be maintained 'beyond the period required by law, determine the salary to be paid in advance of that required by statute, make repairs to buildings, construct new buildings, purchase supplies and equipment, and perform such other functions as may be required to operate the schools or to make effective a State plan of education.
A sound, effective, equitable State system of education must rest upon a legal foundation similar to the following: 1. There should be a constitutional mandate which requires the legislature to provide for a free system of common schools. This consti tutional provision should require school officers for every unit of school administration in the State, with powers not conditioned in any way whatever upon the action of municipal officers. It should also provide for raising such funds as are necessary for the operation of the schools. In other words the absolute manage ment and control of the schools, independent of all local municipal authority, should be guaran teed the school authorities by the constitution. It should further require the establishment of a State department of education with sufficient authority to administer a sound, progressive educational policy.
2. The legislature should confer on the chief educational officer of the State sufficient power and provide him with sufficient funds to be a real leader of power and influence in directing and supervising the educational activities of the State.
3. A unit of school administration and tax ation for the rural communities should be es tablished, embracing not less than the territory of the town, so that rural school facilities may be provided which shall be equal, so far as may be possible, to the facilities provided in the cities and other populous centres.
4. State aid in much larger proportion than has yet been provided should be furnished and distributed upon a basis which shall enable the community having less property values to maintain schools which shall give the children in these less favored sections advantages as nearly equal as may be possible to those ad vantages afforded children whose homes are in more favored centres.