Recommendations for reorganization of the public school system of the city of Chicago

UC-NRLF

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OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

Recommendations for

Reorganization of the Public School System
of the City of } Chicago.

Report of

An Investigation by the Committee on
Schools, Fire, Police and Civil Service of
the City Council of the City of Chicago.

Testimony of

Educational Experts who Appeared before
the Committee.

CONCURRED IN BY THE CITY COUNCIL
DECEMBER 7, 1917

Recommendations for

Reorganization of the Public School System
of the City of Chicago.

Report of

An Investigation by the Committee on
Schools, Fire, Police and Civil Service of
the City Council of the City of Chicago.

Testimony of

Educational Experts who Appeared before
the Committee.

CONCURRED IN BY THE CITY COUNCIL
DECEMBER 7, 1917

EXCHANG1

Ml

V

BARNARD £ MILLER

137

CV/923

COMMITTEE ON SCHOOLS, FIRE, POLICE
AND CIVIL SERVICE

THOMAS J. LYNCH, Chairman

OSCAR DE PRIEST THOMAS O. WALLACE

CHARLES MARTIN HERMAN E. GNADT

FRANK KLAUS JOHN C. KENNEDY

HERMAN KRUMDICK THOMAS F. BYRNE

JOHN POWERS ROBERT R. PEGRAM

HERMAN E. MILLER ROBERT M. BUCK

WILLIAM P. ELLISON JOSEPH C. BLAHA

SUBCOMMITTEE

ROBERT M. BUCK. Chairman
JOHN C. KENNEDY THOMAS F. BYRNE

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Page

Beport of the Committee 1-8

Findings of the Committee 2

Eecommendations : 4

For new legislation 4-6

To the Board of Education 6-8

For an administrative code 7

Testimony:

Ben Blewett, Supt. of Public Instruction, St. Louis, Mo 9

Charles E. Chadsey, Supt. of Schools, Detroit 23

Frank E. Spaulding, Supt. of Schools, Minneapolis 42

Prof. Charles H. Judd, University of Chicago 61

Prof. F. W. Eoman, Syracuse University 66

William H. Maxwell, Supt. of Schools, New York 72

Dr. Leonard P. Ayres, Eussell Sage Foundation 75

Bibliography 84

CITY COUNCIL SCHOOL PLAN.

The report of the Committee on Schools, Fire, Police and
Civil Service of the City Council, containing recommendations
for new state legislation and reorganization of the school system,
was concurred in by the City Council of the City of Chicago,
December 7, 1916, pages 2387-2401 of the proceedings.

The following is the report as adopted:

Chicago, November 25, 1916.

To the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Chicago in Council Assembled:

Your Committee on Schools, Fire, Police and Civil Service, which was
ordered (June 30, 1916, page 4151 of the Proceedings) to "make a thorough in-
vestigation into the causes, methods of adoption, purposes and results of the
so-called Loeb rules, adopted by the Board of Education and to investigate the
actions of the Board of Education and other bodies or persons contributing to,
or responsible for, the present disorganization in the management of the public
schools," begs leave to report as follows:

Numerous hearings were conducted during the course of which the committee
came to believe that the condition of Chicago's education system with reference
to discipline, organization and efficiency was not alone or even chiefly attributable
to the controversies raging in and around the Board of Education.

Thereafter, throughout the summer, plans were drawn to direct the attention
of the Council, through its committee and the community through the Council,
away from the controversial features of our situation and toward the constructive
side. The committee is especially indebted to Prof. Charles H. Judd, head of
the school of education of the University of Chicago, and to Prof. George H. Mead
of the same university for help in interesting prominent educators from other
cities in our situation.

ADVICE OF EXPERTS SOUGHT.

Invitations were sent to educational experts to discuss problems of school
administration with the committee and a number of them came at no expense to
us except their railway fare, giving generously of their time and talents, so that
the committee had the advantage of the following program of discussions:

October 14, Ben Blewett, Superintendent of Instruction of St. Louis, outlined
the features of the school charter of that city under which its schools have
advanced to a prominent position in the educational world.

October 24, Charles E. Chadsey, Superintendent of Schools of Detroit, de-
scribed an intensely interesting period of transition of the school system of his
city, where rapid progress is being made under his leadership.

October 28, Frank E. Spaulding, Superintendent of Schools of Minneapolis,
told the committee how the present high efficiency of that system was built up
by the establishment of correct, modern principles of school management.

October 30, Prof. F. W. Boman of Syracuse University told of his study of
vocational education development in Germany, and Prof. Judd described modern
methods of measuring efficiency of schools and teachers.

November 4, Dr. Leonard P. Ayres, director of the education department of
the Eussell Sage Foundation of New York City, leading educational expert, dis-
cussed and made plain for the committee fundamental principles of correct school
administration. At the same hearing letters were read communicating ideas of
William H. Maxwell, Superintendent of Schools of New York City, who was pre-
vented from coming only by poor health.

In its studies made subsequent to the testimony of the experts from other
cities, the committee is deeply indebted to Prof. John F. Bobbitt, of the school
of education, University of Chicago.

CONSTRUCTION MUST REPLACE STRIFE.

Testimony of these experts confirmed the opinions of the committee that
fundamental theories and practices are in need of correction; that Chicago's
school system is improperly organized; that the real faults and causes of present
discord lay far beneath the surface and that the Loeb rules, the battles between
Board and Superintendent, Board and teachers, teachers and Superintendent,
principals and janitors, Board and City Council, Secretary and Superintendent,
Secretary and teachers, to say nothing of skirmishes involving the independent and
semi-independent bureau and department heads with any or all of these, were not
causes, but effects.

Grave difficulties have followed in the wake of long years of controversy.
It is time for controversy to cease. Eancor and bitterness have sapped at the
life of our schools, which are the foundation of Americanism. Sad will be the
conceptions of civic duty and patriotism of our future citizens if controversy and
rancor are not eliminated.

Continued fighting of individuals and factions cannot possibly result in
cessation of bitterness, but must increase the poisonous effects of continued
intolerance.

The committee believes that the schools and the civic life of our city would
best be served by the harmonizing of the energetic, struggling forces of the
community and that if those forces could apply their splendid energies to pulling
together instead of pulling and hauling apart, destruction would give way to
construction, animosities would be replaced by reasoning together and recognition
of the rights of each by each would emerge in the process of union to build up
instead of scrambling to tear down.

The committee realizes that the system of management that now obtains in
Chicago schools is one of long standing — the heritage of many past boards of
education. The members of the committee were surprised to find out how many
things they had to learn. The more fundamental of these are here listed as
findings of the committee:

OPINIONS OF THE COMMITTEE.

First. The Board of Education of Chicago, consisting of twenty-one members,
is too large to govern the school system efficiently. Educators are unanimous in
the opinion that large boards of education cannot operate satisfactorily.

Second. The Board of Education of Chicago udertakes close administrative
control of the schools. This is an expert's work and should be delegated to the
Superintendent of Schools. The Board's work properly, according to all recog-
nized educators, should be to legislate, inspect and exercise custody of school
property and finances. The executive work should be lodged in the hands of
trained educators. The result of the present practice in Chicago is a confused
situation which is not conducive to developing the full efficiency of either Superin-
tendent or Board.

Third. Lack of definition of functions, powers and duties exists to a de-
structive degree in the Chicago school system. The field of the Board overlaps
that of the Superintendent. The status of the Superintendent's assistants and
of teachers is not clearly defined. The distribution of functions of school man-
agement among school officials and Board committees is confusing, to say the
least. No logical plan seems to have been followed in the assignment of bureaus
to the respective departments under which they operate. In fact, the most
unfortunate feature of this lack of definition is the division of the Chicago
school system into two departments — educational and administrative. These have
separate heads, neither responsible to the other. The Superintendent is the educa-
tional head and the secretary is the administrative chief. The business manager
is under the latter as also are the chief engineer, the superintendent of supplies
and other bureau heads. This is by no means the only division of authority how-
ever. The committees of the Board infringe on the territory of both departments.
For instance, under the rules of the Board, the Committee on Buildings and
Grounds each year invites "proposals from dealers in stationery, slates, pencils,

pens and other articles and materials used in school work" and "with their
proposals, dealers shall furnish the business manager samples of all articles or
materials proposed to be supplied." It is not apparent why the committee should
invite the proposals, but it is incomprehensible that the samples of ' ' articles and
materials used in school work" should be supplied to the business manager who
is subordinate to the secretary and not to the Superintendent of Schools— The
School Management Committee is charged similarly with the duty to solicit
proposals for textbooks and the bidders supply samples of these to the business
manager also. The same defective organization removes the janitors in school
buildings from any responsibility to the principals in charge of the schools. This
system is of many years standing.

SCHOOL AUTHORITY IS DIVIDED.

Fourth. The division of authority between the Board of Education and the
City Council in the financial affairs of the Board constitutes an intolerable com-
plication, prevents location of responsibility, causes delay in the transaction of
business and makes efficient management extremely difficult.

Fifth. The fact that the Board is appointed by the Mayor, subject to
ratification by the City Council and not removable, makes it easy for the members
to consider that they are responsible to the Mayor instead of to the people and
again creates division of responsibility. A large majority of trained school men
recommend that Board members be elected at large. If the Board is to control
its own finances and the Council is to surrender that control, it seems clear that
the Board should be elected by the people upon whom it will have the power
to levy taxes.

Sixth. The election of a Superintendent from year to year, with the result
that he automatically resigns his position annually and is required to line up
every year eleven affirmative votes in order to hold his place, is a grave error
of school administration in the view of every educator who advised with the
•committee. There seems to be no logical reason why he should not be uninter-
rupted in his employment as long as he renders satisfactory service, as the head of
any similarly large enterprise would be in private business.

Seventh. The Board of Education has not only provision for an educational
expert at the head of the system, but has also a large corps of trained educators
employed as assistant superintendents, supervisors, principals and teachers. The
aid of these is not regularly sought in passing upon questions of school policy.
The committee believes that much more of the dissatisfaction and distrust in the
teaching force is due to this lack of confidence and co-operation than to questions
of salary or pensions. The experts .in the educational field are unanimous in
declaring in favor of consultation with the teaching staff on. educational questions.

DESTRUCTION OF MERIT RULE WRONG.

Eighth. A grave administrative error was committed by the Board' in de-
stroying continuity of tenure of teachers based on satisfactory service. Every
educator that appeared before the committee stated the opinion that tenure of
teachers should be uninterrupted during efficient service.

Ninth. The educators, including superintendents of schools, were a unit in
declaring that seeking to control by rule or otherwise the organizations or kinds
of organizations to which a teacher may or may not belong, is not a proper
function of a Board of Education.

Tenth. The experts were unanimous in denouncing the dismissal of teachers
by failure to elect or otherwise, without charges, without hearing, without
opportunity to improve if inefficient and without notice.

Eleventh. There is no adequate machinery in the Chicago school system for
recording efficiency of teachers, although such machinery is easily devised and
although much material showing recent progress in that field is readily available.

Twelfth. A still more unfortunate lack has followed the failure to provide

means of measuring the efficiency of the schools. The educators informed the
committee that definite modes have been devised for reaching accurate and
reliable conclusions on the effectiveness of the schools.

SCHOOL REORGANIZATION RECOMMENDED.

Based upon these findings and the testimony, books and documents supporting
them, the committee recommends:

1. That the City Council adopt as its policy the constructive program herein-
after set forth and seek to unite the forces of the city who are patriotically, loyally
and unselfishly interested in the welfare of the greatest of our institutions — the
public school — in a campaign to obtain the recommended legislation at Springfield;
to induce the Board of Education to enact an administrative code such as is
hereinafter recommended and which it can now do under its present powers with-
out waiting for new legislation; and in a city- wide effort to educate the voters of
the city to an awakened understanding of the progress that has been made in the
science of education and to train them in efficiency in government of the school
system that moulds our future citizens and makes them American or not as it is
efficient or inefficient.

2. That the Legislature be requested to amend at this session the school law
governing cities of more than 100,000 population, so that it shall provide as
follows:

(I) The Board of Education shall consist of seven members elected at large,
subject to recall.

(II) The term of office of members of the Board of Education shall be six
years. At the first election three members shall be elected for six years; two shall
be elected for four years and two for two years. Thereafter there shall be elected
every two years for six-year terms the number of members whose terms are
about to expire.

(III) Each member shall receive a salary of $5,000 a year.

NONP ARTISAN ELECTION OF BOARD MEMBERS.

(IV) The members of the Board of Education shall be elected at the regular
city election each even-numbered year on a non-partisan ballot. If the election
of other city officers is placed upon a non-partisan basis, they shall be elected upon
the regular city ballot. In the absence of a non-partisan election for other city
officers, the names of candidates for member of the Board of Education shall be
placed upon a separate ballot bearing no party name, symbol, circle or column.
At the regular city primary election the same practice shall prevail, the names
appearing on the primary ballot by petition, the same ballot being used by the
voters of all parties. If, at the primary election, any candidates obtain a majority
of all the votes cast, they shall be declared elected. The names of twice as many
as fail to obtain a majority shall be placed upon the ticket at the election in the
order of the number of votes received at the primary, beginning with the one
receiving the greatest number. The names shall be rotated upon the ballots by
wards or precincts, both at the primary and at the election, the top name in one
division being dropped to the bottom in the next. Women may vote for members
of the Board of Education and are eligible to be elected to membership. Vacancies
may be filled by the Board until the next regular city election, when they shall
be filled by the voters.

(V) The powers of the Board 'of Education shall be:

a. To control such of the finances and property of the city as are for
educational purposes;

"b. To appropriate money for all educational purposes, but for no other
purpose;

c. To acquire property for school, playground or other educational sites
by purchase or under the law of eminent domain, taking title for the city
in trust for educational or playground purposes;

d. To erect, purchase or lease buildings for educational purposes;

e. To furnish schools, playgrounds, libraries and other educational com-
munity centers and to employ and fix the compensation of the necessary per-
sons to conduct, maintain and manage the same; provided, that the Board
shall not be required to appoint or employ any person annually or for a term
of only one year, except teachers during their period of probationary service;

f. To improve and lease school property and to lend moneys belonging
to the school fund;

g. To grant the use of any portion of the educational equipment for
public lectures, concerts or other social or community interests;

h. To install and maintain a system of health inspection for employes and
pupils;

i. To have and possess all the rights, powers and authority required for
proper government of the education system, with power to enact such ordi-
nances as may be deemed necessary and expedient for such purposes;

j. To appoint an attorney and a comptroller who shall be directly re-
sponsible to the Board in the discharge of its legislative, inspectorial and
custodial functions and who shall not be under the control of the Superintend-
ent;

k. To appoint disinterested experts from time to time to report directly to
the Board concerning the efficiency of the schools and the employes of the
Board;

FOUR- YEAR CONTRACT FOR SUPERINTENDENT.

1. To execute a contract with the General Superintendent of Schools for
not to exceed four years; such contract to contain provisions for cancellation
for cause; also for inefficiency or for neglect of duty in determining which
the decision of the Board shall not be subject to review by the courts; pro-
vided, however, that the charge of inefficiency or neglect of duty shall be
based upon data compiled by a bureau of inspection and appraisal, created
by ordinance, or by a commission of disinterested experts; and, provided
further, that such charges shall be presented in writing to the General
Superintendent of Schools at least ninety days prior to a decision, and that
the General Superintendent of Schools shall have opportunity to present a
written answer and shall have the right to cause publication of the charges
and answer within the said ninety days;

m. To submit questions of educational policy to the people by referendum
either by passing ordinances contingent upon approval by referendum or by
submitting questions of public policy;

n. Eepeal of Sections 132 and 133 of the present School Act (Kurd's Re-
vised Illinois Statutes, 1913) for which new sections containing the foregoing
provisions shall be substituted.

(VI) It shall be the duty of the board:

a. To organize, maintain 'and control a free system of public education
and report annually or oftener to the people the results; provided, that such
free system of public education shall be for all the people without discrimina-
tion against any class;

"b. To legislate for the city on all school questions, to inspect the results
of its policies and control and to exercise custody of such of the property and
moneys of the city as are for school purposes and such as belong to the
school fund;

c. To enact by ordinance an Administrative Code to govern the education
system, which shall define the functions, powers and duties of the General
Superintendent of Schools, his assistants, teachers and other employes;

d. To appoint a General Superintendent of Schools to whom shall be
delegated by ordinance power to organize and administer the education
system;

NEW POWERS FOR SUPERINTENDENT.

e. By ordinance in the Administrative Code, to invest authority in and
impose the duty upon the General Superintendent of Schools, subject to

6

approval by the Board of Education, to initiate courses of study, choice of
textbooks, supplies and equipment, appointment, dismissal and disciplining
of all employes who are not under civil service and preparation of the annual
•budget and of building plans; provided that he shall consult with the trained
educators of his staff on all questions of courses of study and textbooks,
making of permanent public record the recommendations (althcagh not bound
by them) of each group including all groups of teachers concerned in the
courses of study or textbooks under consideration; and provided, further,
that he may refer to the education staff any other questions of school policy
at his discretion;

f. To provide by ordinance for the organizing of self-governing councils
of supervisory officials, principals and teachers, consisting of representatives-
chosen by all members of each group; provided, that in addition to the duty
of recommending concerning questions of policy submitted by the general
superintendent of schools, the councils may initiate recommendations of school
policy to the Superintendent;

g. To establish by ordinance standardized salary schedule for all
employes;

(VII) Eepeal Section 134 of the present School Act (Kurd's Eevised Illinoi?
Statutes, 1913), for which the foregoing section is to be substituted.

COUNCIL TO SURRENDER SCHOOL POWERS.

(VIII) All of the powers of the Board shall be its own powers independent
of the City Council except as to the levying and collection of needed taxes. None
of the powers of the Board shall be exercised except in public meetings of the
Board. Eecords of the education system shall be public records.

(IX) The Board shall elect a chairman who shall preside at all its meetings,

(X) Eepeal Section 130 of the present School Law (Kurd's Eevised Illinois
Statutes, 1913) thereby abolishing the statutory requirements to elect a secretary
and a president.

(XI) Eepeal Section 139 of the present School Law (Kurd's Eevised Illinois
Statutes, 1913), which provides that the City Council shall not exercise the powers
of the Board and which is unnecessary under the proposed plan which gives the
Board exclusive powers of self-government free of financial or other control or
interference by the City Council.

(XII) Amend first paragraph of Section 61 of the Cities and Villages Act
(Kurd's Eevised Illinois Statutes 1913),' only if necessary, to limit the City
Council's control of the finances and property of the city so that it shall not
include the finances and property which are for school purposes.

(XIII) All 'employes of the Board of Education except the education staff
shall be under civil service administered by a civil service commissioner appointed
by the Board of Education.

(XIV) Teachers shall be appointed from year to year for a probationary
period of three years, after which they shall be removed only for cause following
a full hearing; or for inefficiency or neglect of duty after notice of unsatisfactory
service and opportunity to improve their work. On the charge of inefficiency or
neglect of duty, after notice and opportunity to improve, the decision of the
Board shall not be subject to review by the courts; provided, however, that such
decision shall be based upon the written, detailed recommendation of the general
superintendent of schools and upon the teacher's answer, which recommendation
shall be filed simultaneously with the Board and with the teacher against whom
the charge is made, at least thirty days before a decision by the Board; and
provided, further, that the teacher shall have opportunity to answer in writing
and shall have the right to cause publication of the recommendation and answer
within the said thirty days.

3. That the Board of Education devote its attention more to consideration
of broad policies of general application and devote less time to deciding small
details of specific application. The habit of boards for many years has been the
reverse of this recommendation.

4. That the Board of Education make use of its power numbered six in
Section 133 of the school act " generally to have and possess all the rights,
powers and authority required for the proper management of schools, with power
to enact such ordinances as may be deemed necessary and expedient for such
purpose," and enact by ordinance, which cannot be temporarily suspended as can
its rules, an administrative code, denning the powers, duties and functions of its
officers and employes and of itself; that it proceed to do this at once.

ABOLITION OF STANDING COMMITTEES.

5. That, if the Legislature shall give Chicago a new school law reducing the
size of the Board as requested, the Board then abolish all standing committees,
in accordance with the opinions of a large majority of the educational experts
of the country, as a' measure to prevent interference with the administrative work
of the Superintendent of Schools.

6. That a budget system be established which shall place the detailed
estimates for all expenditures in a single budget instead of in two separate ones
as now, the budget to be prepared by the Superintendent of Schools before the
tax levy rather than afterwards.

7. That the Board abandon the practice of electing annually its Superintend-
ent.

8. Establishment of health inspection independently of the City Health
Department and in connection with hygiene instruction.

9. Greater co-operation with the public library and development to the fullest
extent of this splendid agency for aiding the work of the schools.

10. Appointment of a system of accredited advisory committees to voice, for
the aid of the Board, the special educational interests of the various constituent
social groups or classes of which the city is composed.

11. That a representative commission be appointed to conduct a thorough
and expert study of Chicago's needs for vocational education.

12. Continuation and development of the policy of the present Board of
Education of establishing community centers generally throughout the city.

13. That the Board take steps before the Legislature to secure more funds
for current expenditure to permit the scope of its work to be enlarged to fit
modern eduactional methods, even to the extent of reversing its tax arrange-
ment and reducing the amount available for buildings and which never is levied
to the limit, to secure a corresponding increase of the tax available for educational
purposes.

14. That the Board place more emphasis on instruction in the duties of
citizenship and patriotism, to the end that our boys and girls will leave our
public schools imbued with love of flag and country, of democracy and justice
and able to approach the problems of self-government with understanding and
inspiration.

15. The committee has recommended that the Council be stripped of any
and all functions and control with reference to school matters, also that activities
in all departments be separated from corresponding activities in the city depart-
ments. These recommendations are made on the basis of the present scheme of

, organization of our city government. The abolition of Council financial control
in school matters must be done by legislation and this recommendation is embodied
in the various sections of proposed school law amendment. If this legislation is
not passed and the Council still is required to exercise financial control, the com-
mittee recommends that in that event the Council require a detailed budget from
the Board of Education before levying a tax or appropriating money for school
purposes.

ADMINISTRATIVE CODE UNDER PRESENT LAW.

16. That the administrative code enacted by the Board by ordinance re-
organize the school system along the following lines:

a. Abolish the dual system of organization and establish a general
Superintendent of Schools at the head of the entire system, with the adminis-
trative as well as the education department under his management.

b. Define by ordinance his functions, powers and duties, conferring upon
him authority to select (subject to appointment by the Board) an associate

superintendent in charge of business affairs, an associate superintendent in
charge of health inspection and instruction and such other associate and dis-
trict superintendents and department and bureau heads as may be necessary.
He should have a salary of not less than $10,000 a year, should be the best
educational expert available in the United States and should be a citizen
of the United States.

c. The general superintendent should have authority and the duty to
initiate courses of study and choice of textbooks after consultation with such
portions of the teaching staff as are concerned in the courses of study or
textbooks under consideration.

d. Teachers' councils should be created strictly according to the plan
outlined in No. Vlf of the recommendations for state legislation contained in
this report.

e. The general superintendent should have authority and the duty to
initiate appointment, subject to existing civil service regulations, of all em-
ployes including teachers, the re-election of teachers during the period of
probation and the dismissal or disciplining of all employes, subject to the
approval of the Board.

f. The Board should establish standardized salary schedules by ordinance.

g. With reference to courses of study, choice of textbooks and appoint-
ment, dismissal and disciplining of employes, the Board should retain only
the right to confirm or reject the recommendations of the general superin-
tendent; in case of rejection, returning these matters to him for new recom-
mendations.

METHODS TO MEASURE EFFICIENCY.

h. The Superintendent should be required by ordinance to devise methods
for measuring the efficiency of the schools and the Board should, upon his
recommending efficient methods, establish the necessary machinery by ordi-
nance. The Superintendent should be required to make reports annually or
more frequently on the educational efficiency of the schools, based on the
most modern methods of measuring such efficiency. These reports should
include statistics and analysis of nonpromotions.

i. The Superintendent should devise and the Board adopt by ordinance,
a supervisory organization over the teachers that shall furnish personal contact
and mutual encouragement and inspiration between the superintendents and
teachers, a cardinal principle of which should be that no criticism of a
teacher's or principal's work should be made without, in the document that
records it, a recommendation of how to overcome the fault.

j. The Superintendent should devise and the Board should adopt by
ordinance a standard for recording the efficiency of teachers which should
furnish a permanent record to which the teacher should have access with
freedom to discuss the markings with the supervisory official who gave the
mark.

k. The general superintendent should have power to transfer teacher?
without reference to the Board except upon appeal by a teacher.

In accordance with the foregoing recommendations for new legislation, the
committee recommends the adoption of the following order:

Ordered, That the Committee on Schools, Fire, Police and Civil Service
prepare and submit to the Council for its approval drafts of a bill or bill?
embodying the proposed amendments to the school law. And be it further

Ordered, That any Bill or Bills submitted to the City Council covering thi?
subject shall provide for a referendum by the people of the City of Chicago.

We transmit herewith a stenographic report of the hearings of the committee,
together with a bibliography of the most recent and reliable publications on
school organization and administration, brought to the attention of the committee
by the educators who contributed their co-operation; and other documents related
to the investigation.

Respectfully submitted,

(Signed) EGBERT M. BUCK,

Acting Chairman.

TESTIMONY OF EXPERTS.

Stenographic report of appearance of educators before the

committee :

MR. BEN BLEWETT,

Superintendent of Public Instruction, St. Louis, Mo.

Mr. Blewett appeared October 14, 1916.

Alderman Buck: Mr. Chairman, the sub-committee that has had in charge the
preparation of a program for the hearing now in progress, adopted during the
summer months, a policy of trying to bring to the attention of the committee the
fundamental things that are at fault in our school system.

The sub-committee thought that perhaps the committee would want to
recommend a complete program of legislation, so that while we have this situa-
tion, with pressure of public opinion, we could cure as many as possible of the
ills that center in the school law.

With that in mind your sub-committee asked two of America's well known
educators here in Chicago to co-operate with us — Professors Judd and Mead of
the University of Chicago — and the subject was canvassed as to how we could
get the information before the committee as to what other cities were doing
who have struggled with these problems. Some of the cities have mastered them
at least in part; and so finally the sub-committee invited several widely known
educational experts from various sections of the country to come here. With
splendid public spirit a number of these gentlemen have responded.

We have with us today Mr. Ben Blewett, the first of these experts to be
presented to the committee, superintendent of instruction of St. Louis, Missouri.
St. Louis has perhaps the most complete school charter of any large city in the
country at the present time, under the provisions of which they have worked
out to more satisfaction than perhaps any other city of its size many of the
problems that we are struggling with here; St. Louis has also a very highly
efficient and harmonious school organization — the teaching force. Mr. Blewett
has consented to discuss these two propositions for us in the order in which I have
named them, first, to outline the provisions of the St. Louis school charter, and,
second, the organization of the teaching force of St. Louis and how it is kept
efficient and harmonious.

ST. LOUIS SCHOOL CHARTER.

Mr. Blewett: Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I had not expected to do other
than answer questions this morning, getting right at the things that concern the
City of Chicago and your committee. I shall, however, endeavor to follow the
suggestion of Mr. Buck, and I shall ask you to interrupt me if you choose to do it.

I realize that I have a great opportunity here in trying to be of service to
what I believe is the greatest institution of the second city of our nation. I do
not believe that there is any institution that Chicago or any other great city holds
in such dear regard as its public school system, and it is entirely natural that in
the management of a great institution of this kind, with all the varied
interests that are involved in it, that difficulties should arise. It seems to me
quite as evident, out of experience, that there are no reasons why these difficulties
should not be composed and why a great school system in any of our great cities
might not be managed for the comfort of all those engaged in the work to the end
that we may efficiently educate our young people. May I now, as suggested by
the chairman, tell you of the charter under which the public schools of St. Louis
work?

St. Louis had troubles of its own, you can readily imagine, and 19 years ago
those troubles had become so acute that it was necessary for the people of the city
to get together in a concerted endeavor to better the situation. They went be-
fore the state legislature with a charter that had been prepared by men of long
experience in actual connection with the school work and men of large experience

10

in affairs generally. The charter was adopted and put into force in 1897 and
our- institution has been working under that charter since. I believe it will be
generally admitted as a fact that after the initial troubles of the introduction
of the work under that charter we have moved along to a better efficiency in the
administration of the schools and have accomplished the things very well that
I said a moment or two ago we ought to attempt to accomplish.

FUNCTIONS AND DUTIES DEFINED.

The charter places the complete control of the schools in the Board of
Education, — as the title reads, "In the Board of Education and Superintendent
of Instruction, and a Commissioner of School Buildings." It was, of course I
presume you will understand, granted by the state legislature, so that the board is
working under a statute provision. The charter defines certain officers, certain
departments, and names by title these officers and specifically outlines their powers
and their responsibilities. In these different departments the officer has com-
plete initiation in anything that refers to his department. This holds in the
instruction department and all that touches it, applying to even such things as
supplies that pertain to the work of instruction.

In the building department it places complete initiative in the hands of the
commissioner of school buildings, and in the commissioner of school supplies it
places complete initiative in the work that pertains to his department. Of course
the board has veto power upon any recommendation that either of these officers
may make. The board itself may, under the provisions of the charter, levy a
tax to the maximum amount of 6 mills, or as you probably will be familiar
with it, 60 cents. This tax money is collected by the city collector and is paid
over to the treasurer of the board of education.

PREPARATION OF ST. LOUIS BUDGET.

At the end of the school year, looking forward to the coming school year,
the board requires of the heads of departments estimates of their needs for the
following year and then the joint committee of instruction and finance goes over
these recommendations of the heads of departments and does what the committees
may feel could be done in recognition of the request. When these appropriations
have been agreed upon and made in that committee, the heads of the
department are instructed and are required, in the administration of their work
for the coming year, to keep within those appropriations; they have no power
to expend money outside of those appropriations. There is always an unappropri-
ated balance held at the disposal of the board to meet emergencies that may
come up, and if a head of a department has an emergency that he wants to present
it is presented and if the request is approved by the board the additional allow-
ance is made.

BOARD IS ELECTED AT LARGE.

The board divides itself into four important committees, consisting of three
members each. The board itself consists of 12 members elected at large by the
city. May I say that by what is called "a gentleman's agreement " that has
prevailed for all of these years, with rare exception, that the parties have
agreed that the board shall be bi-partisan in politics. The term of the mem-
bers of the board is six years, and four members are elected by the two great
parties. It is the practice of the two great parties in making their nomina-
tions to put up four men, four republicans and four democrats, but the committees
get together before the election and agree that two of the names of democrats
shall be taken off and the names of two republicans shall be taken off, so that
the ballot has gone through all these years, with the rare exception I speak
of, to the people with two republicans and two democrats named. It is my candid
belief from many years of experience with the work that the question of politics
does not come at all into the administration of school affairs. This is an ideal
to which the city has become devoted, and I think that any man or woman in the
city of St. Louis who would suggest a departure from the custom would imme-
diately draw down popular censure upon himself or herself.

11

ORGANIZATION OF ST. LOUIS BOARD.

The committee on instruction consists of three members; the committee
on finance of three members; the committee on buildings of thr^e members, and
the committee on supplies of three members. The president of the board is elected
by the board annually. He appoints these committees annually, and each com-
mittee is the advisory and controlling committee of the board touching that de-
partment. By control I do not mean tha.t they have any legislative authority what-
ever, but the officer of that department makes his report to the committee, which
sits only once a month, and that committee approves or disapproves the recom-
mendation and- makes report to the board at the following meeting of its approval
or disapproval of the recommendation of the officer; but the committee itself
has no authority to initiate any legislation or to initiate any act pertaining to
the schools at all.

The report of the officer and the report of the committee are put in galley
form and are sent to all the members of the board some two or three days before
the meeting of the board of education, so that each member has an opportunity
to canvass carefully and minutely every suggestion that is made and comes up
for action at the meeting of the board. The committee meetings last through
two or three hours of discussion and the members follow with minute care the
points that are brought out.

While the committee of three conducts the business, in most instances the
majority or the whole of the board is in attendance as listeners and as coun-
sellors at times. The committees' reports go before the board at a subsequent
meeting, and the usual course is that the board's entire business — and you can
imagine that it would be a large business, the board only meeting once a month —
is transacted in from 15 to 30 minutes; but all of the work has been previously
canvassed in the way I have pointed out.

SUPERINTENDENT RECOMMENDS TEACHERS.

Mr. Buck, I hope if I am not proceeding in the line of information that you
want that you will just stop me and ask questions. It may be, and I think it will
be, of interest to the gentlemen to have me state the minute workings of the
department with which I am immediately connected. I have suggested what
authority the statute gives the superintendent. Under the statute the superin-
tendent has the sole nomination of teachers. Neither a member of the board, a
committee of the board, nor the board itself can nominate a teacher, nor can a
committee of the board nor a member of the board, nor the board itself dismiss
a teacher. All of that responsibility and authority is placed upon the shoulders
of the superintendent; so that should a condition arise in any one of the schools
that was evidently wrong the superintendent cannot hide behind a committee
or the board itself and say "If I had been left alone things would have been
different. " The board can say "You have the authority, you have the entire
authority of initiative and if things are not right you are responsible for it.'7

I presume you gentlemen are familiar with the complications in school systems
that come up from such questions as text books. You know how important a
part it has played in great city school administrations, and in small city school
administrations, and in town and district administrations. You know the things
that have been said, some true and some untrue, in regard to that. The law and
the rule of the board, following the fundamental provisions of the law, places
upon the superintendent the responsibility of the recommendation for any text
book or any supply that is to be used in connection with the work of instruc-
tion, and if there is any text there that is not right, or if there is any supply
there that in its adaptation to the work of the school is not right, or anything
questionable, the superintendent of instruction is made responsible for it. This
not only is the law, but it has been the practice under the law through these
years, and the observance of this provision of law has been one of the things
that has made possible a smooth administration of the schools,

12

THINGS THE BOARD MAY NOT INITIATE.

Alderman Buck: Let me interrupt, to emphasize that point. The Board of
Education is not permitted under the charter to recommend teachers, nor to
recommend the dismissal of teachers, nor to select, nor to initiate the selection
of text books, that is, to make recommendations, nor to recommend courses of
study, but they can only pass on those questions after they have been started
by the proper department heads?

Mr. Blewett: Of course every act of an officer is subject to veto by the
board and is vetoed if the board thinks it should be.

Alderman Buck: If the superintendent designs one course of study and sub-
mits it to the board, or one text book, and the board rejects that, can the board
submit another to the superintendent?

Mr. Blewett: It cannot. The superintendent would have to come back with
another recommendation. The initiation is actually in the hands of the super-
intendent.

I do not know how much it will suit your purpose to have me go into the
details of the employment of teachers, regarding their efficiency or the reports
upon inefficiency and upon dismissal. If those matters are of vital interest
to you I shall be glad to tell them.

Alderman Buck : Very much, if we might hold those until we finish the whole
question of the relations of the superintendent, the tenure of the superintendent
and manner of his selection and so on.

FOUR-YEAR TERM FOR SUPERINTENDENT.

Mr. Blewett: The superintendent is selected by the board of education for
a term of four years. Under the provisions of the law his salary cannot be de-
creased during the time of his term of office, and under the rules of the board
it can be neither decreased nor increased. The superintendent, as any public
officer ought to be, is subject to dismissal by the board if there is reason for his
dismissal. He is held in the spot light, of course, of public attention, as he ought
to be. He would not last very long if he did not try to do right.

Alderman Buck: What is the method of getting rid of a superintendent if
he does not behave himself?

Mr. Blewett: I have never seen it tried there. I will say this, at the be-
ginning of this great work in St. Louis it was under the administration of Dr.
Soldan, one of our great educators, and it was to his tact and power, and to the
wisdom of the board of education that was first elected by the people, that the
provisions of the charter were started right. I presume the gentlemen here would
agree with me that it does not make any difference how exactly right a statute
may be or a charter may be, unless those who are charged with the administra-
tion of the charter are competent and honest, the thing will go to pieces, and
St. Louis was fortunate in having as its superintendent at the initiation of this
work Dr. Soldan and a group of great men on its Board of Education.

Alderman Powers: Are your teachers under civil service?

Mr. Blewett: They are not, I presume, in what you might think was the
best way.

Alderman Buck: What is the salary of the superintendent?

Mr. Blewett: Eight thousand dollars.

Alderman Buck: Is there anything in the charter to provide the manner in
which he shall be elected by the board?

Mr. Blewett: It just provides that the board shall elect him; no limitation
upon the board.

Alderman Buck: Is a method set forth for the disciplining of a superintendent
against whom there may be charges?

Mr. Blewett: No, only it provides that any citizen may bring the board
of education into court to answer for any unsatisfactory situation in the school
administration.

Alderman Buck: You have said something about the manner in which the
budget is prepared; you have an annual budget, have you?

Mr. Blewett: Yes, sir.

13

Alderman Buck: Can you go into detail a little more with respect to that,
bearing in mind that we have here a separate fund, one for educational purposes
and one for building purposes and that our school board attempts to make a
budget for each fund?

BOAED FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT.

Mr. Blewett: All of the school moneys as I have said are in the hands of
the board of education. They are not under the necessity of going to another
municipal body to make requests for money for the maintenance of the schools
or for any other purpose, so that the money is under the board's complete control.
I have to go into my committee with a detailed statement showing what moneys
will be needed for principals, what moneys will be needed for assistant teachers,
what moneys will be needed in all of the different departments of my work. The
building commissioner has to do the same thing; the supply commissioner the
same thing, and so far as he is in need of a budget the auditor would have
to do the same thing.

Alderman Buck: Are there any department heads except the three you have
mentioned?

Mr. Blewett: Four, the secretary and treasurer in addition to those already
named. He is at the head of the finance department, but, of course, he has to
make the same kind of a detailed request.

Alderman Buck: Is his position provided for in the statute?

Mr. Blewett: It is; and also the commissioner of supplies and the commis-
sioner of school buildings.

Alderman Buck: Are they all elected?

Mr. Blewett: Only by the board, in the same manner as the superintendent
is elected.

Alderman Buck: Their relations in their departments are the same as those
of the superintendent to the board?

Mr. Blewett: In general.

Alderman Buck: They have the initiative and so on.

Mr. Blewett: They have, for instance the commissioner of buildings has
absolute authority to dismiss a janitor without having to make recommendation
to the board; the board does not review his work.

Alderman Buck: Has the superintendent of schools that power over the
teachers?

METHOD OF RE-ELECTING TEACHERS.

Mr. Blewett: No. The teachers are appointed annually, and at the end of
the year he reports the entire body of teachers as reappointed, with the excep-
tion of those whom he cannot recommend and does not recommend. Then the
board cannot place those teachers that the superintendent does not recommend
upon the list, but can refuse to approve of his recommendation for reappoint-
ment. The board safeguards its right in that particular by requiring of the
superintendent that his recommendations for reappointment shall be made in May
and shall lie over until the June meeting, giving the board a month's time to
review his recommendation and to disclose any defects in it.

Alderman Buck: Do the commissioner of supplies and the secretary- treasurer
have the same power that the commissioner of buildings has over the employment
of janitors, as to employes in their department?

Mr. Blewett: They have.

Alderman Buck: What are the relations of these department heads to each
other?

SUPERINTENDENT INITIATES BUILDING PROJECTS.

Mr. Blewett: They are independent in all matters that pertain solely to
the departments, if such a thing is possible, or as near as such a thing is possible.
Their work must necessarily connect up closely with the work of the school sys-
tem. For instance, no building can be initiated except by the recommendation
of the superintendent of instruction. No committee will come in and recom-

14

mend that a building be located here or a site be purchased there. That recom-
mendation for the building has to be made by the superintendent, and he has to
show the actual needs for that building. That is provided for by the rules of
the board.

Alderman Buck: But not by law.

Mr. Blewett: Not by law.

Alderman Buck: Does the law make any provision as to how a new building
shall be equipped, the charter itself?

Mr. Blewett: It throws upon the superintendent and gives him the authority
to make that recommendation initially. It makes it his duty, yes sir.

Alderman Buck: The commissioner of buildings cannot initiate a proceeding
for a new building without the approval of the superintendent of instruction.

Mr. Blewett: No, he cannot, nor can a member of the board nor a committee
of the board, nor can the board itself.

Alderman Miller: Without the recommendation of the superintendent?

Mr. Blewett: Bight. The rules of the board provide further that, if any
material alteration of the building is necessary, the recommendation shall pro-
ceed initially from the superintendent of instruction.

Alderman Buck: With reference to the care of buildings by janitors and
engineers, has the superintendent of instruction any authority or any responsibili-
ties for that?

Mr. Blewett: He has not.

Alderman Buck: Another subject that we are interested in here is the method
for having the engineering and janitor service performed in the schools, what is
the arrangement there, is it done by contract or are the engineers paid as they
are here, by the cubic foot, and permitted to employ their own help, or are all of
the employes hired directly by the board?

JANITORS UNDER CIVIL SERVICE.

,Mr. Blewett: All of them are employed directly by the board and under
regulations of the board, which are observed by the commissioner. An examina-
tion is made for all of these positions, an examination, that is a suitable test of
their proficiency or fitness for the work they are to undertake, and that eligible
list is reported to the board of education as a matter of its records in its printed
proceeding, and the commissioner has to make his selection for these positions
from it. A man who is put in charge of the heating plant has to be selected
from a group that has been passed upon, and the commissioner has to take the
men in the order of their rank in examination. He has to select the men out of
the group as he thinks a man will fit the particular position best. The only ap-
pointments under the building commissioner that are not under that kind of civil
service regulation are the scrub women.

Alderman Buck: Are the other employes of the other departments under civil
service or any kind of a merit system?

Mr. Blewett: Not as being on a list, on an accredited list. The official
takes the responsibility of their being suitable people. He is responsible to the
board for evidence that he has made the right selection.

Alderman Buck: Is there a regular schedule of salaries?

Mr. Blewett: A regular schedule of salaries for all of the kinds of janitors;
that is, a man who is in charge of a moderate heating plant and a janitor who
simply does ordinary janitor service. There are different scales for the different
kinds of work, but men are appointed on the scale and they do not have any
right to appoint sub-workers under them.

Alderman Buck: Is there a regular scale of salaries in the education de-
partment?

Mr. Blewett: Oh, yes, sir, a scale of salaries.

Alderman Powers: The only examination, however, is for engineers?

Mr. Blewett: No, the janitors are put on the list after the examination.

Alderman Powers: The superintendent can select anybody he thinks is eligible
upon that list.

Mr. Blewett: The commissioner of school buildings is the title of the office,
yes, sir.

Alderman Buck: He may dismiss those men without trial?

Mr. Blewett: Yes, sir, he takes the sole responsibility and has the authority
under the law to do that and does it.

Alderman Buck: And without review by the board?

Mr. Blewett: He simply reports to the board. The board has no authority
under the law to reverse his action.

Alderman Buck: To what extent does the charter set forth the status or
duties of the various officers, the superintendent and the other three?

Mr. Blewett: Only in such general terms as I have presented here. Its
general terms cover the situation and locate the responsibility in him. For in-
stance, it names such things as I have given, as pertaining to the department
of instruction and definitely locate the authority in the superintendent, making
him responsible to the board of education for the administration of his de-
partment.

Alderman Buck: Will you tell us about the relations of the teachers to the
board and the superintendent, how they are selected?

METHOD OF SELECTING TEACHERS.

Mr. Blewett: Under the present rules of the board all of our teachers
for our elementary schools must be graduates of the Harris Teachers College, which
is the training school for teachers for the elementary grades maintained by the
board of education. That limitation is made because, in spite of the fact that
our standard for admission to the college is very high, the graduates of the
college are an ample supply of teachers for the elementary grades. The board
does not maintain training schools for teachers for the higher work. The rule
of the board merely sets up this standard, that the teacher selected shall have
what is equivalent to the education that is indicated by a university degree,
and it is liberal as to that. It does not say there must be a degree, but there
must be that standard of scholarship. It requires, further, that he shall have a
reasonable number of years of practical school experience before he may be
appointed to that work.

Alderman Buck: Is that set forth in the rules?

Mr. Blewett: Yes, sir.

Alderman Buck: How many years experience are they required to have?

CHOOSING HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS.

Mr. Blewett: It is left indefinite, throwing the responsibility upon the
superintendent. Then the rule opens the entire country to the superintendent
for selection of teachers. It does not require that an examination for these high
school positions be held, the theory being that if such a requirement were made
only a very limited number of people would present themselves for the exam-
ination, and that the city would be deprived of the opportunity of getting the
best that could be had from any part of the country. Applications are made and
they are placed on file in the office with all the testimonials attached in reference
to scholarship and to practical success. When a vacancy comes up in a certain
subject the filling of it is taken up by the assistant superintendent who is in
charge of high schools. He goes over the applications and brings to the super-
intendent a group of papers, indicating the ones he thinks are suitable for the posi-
tion. The superintendent and his assistant superintendent go over and make the
selection and the superintendent reports the recommendation to the board of
education. All teachers for special work, manual training, physical training,
domestic science and so forth are selected with the same sort of a liberal oppor-
tunity to the superintendent to make what seems to be the best selection for
the interest of the schools. That covers the entire field of the selection of
teachers.

Alderman Buck: The teachers in the elementary schools; are they examined?

Mr. Blewett: No. They are placed on the list in the order of time and in
the order of their standing in their class and they are called out without excep-
tion in the order in which they stand upon that list.

16

Alderman Buck: Is that a board rule?

Mr. Blewett: Yes. They are then sent into service and are held as sub-
stitutes for a period of eight months, getting the same salary that a regular
teacher in that work would get, but not being appointed until eight months of
successful service has proven that they are promising material for future work —
eight months on probation and with a salary that is the same salary that they
would have in the first year's service. We divide our elementary teachers into
three classes or ranks.

SALARY SCHEDULES FOR TEACHERS.

Alderman Powers: But the elementary, it is all one salary for the ele-
mentary teachers?

Mr. Blewett: No, oh no, they begin with the same salary. We have head
assistants — first assistants, and second assistants — assigned to schools. The quota
of each rank in each school is determined by the size of the school. The salaries
run in each rank over a gradually increasing schedule.

Alderman Buck: The board fixes the salaries of teachers?

Mr. Blewett: By schedule and appointing to a certain rank. The teachers
advance theoretically upon that schedule without any action of the board at all,
but promotion to a higher r^ank is on the recommendation of the superintendent
to fill a vacancy in that rank. It is reported first to a committee which approves
or disapproves; then it goes to the board; then the final action is by the board
with the exception I have told you in the building department and clerical assist-
ants in the other departments.

Alderman Buck: Having fixed the salary schedule the board takes no further
action in the matter of salary; it does not fix it from year to year except in the
budget when they pass the budget.

Mr. Blewett: As I stated, when financial conditions actually showed con-
ditions that suggest to the board the propriety of improving salaries, —

Alderman Buck: They have no periodical readjustment?

Mr. Blewett: No.

Alderman Powers: If they increased the salaries in one place would they
increase all the salaries all along the line?

Mr. Blewett: In all of the cases, where the schedules have been changed,
there has been little exception to that. There have been some cases in which
there was evidently a part of a schedule that was not equitable, and the
board has under such conditions addressed itself to fixing that, equalizing it.

HOW PRINCIPALS ARE CHOSEN.

School principals are selected in the same way that the high school teachers
are selected — by the superintendent who makes the nomination. We have free
access to all the educators of the world to select from. The natural procedure
is to promote from the lower ranks where they are worthy of promotion. Our
accessions to our principals' positions are usually from the lower ranks of young
people who have the quality and promise in them.

Alderman Buck: Is it your practice to select them from the teaching force,
promote them from teachers, or head assistants?

Mr. Blewett: Sometimes the selection is made from those in the high school
force who have had the advantage of a study of administrative problems; and
not infrequently, from those teachers who have prepared themselves. We do not
pick out a teacher who has just simply drifted along with the current, without
any consideration of the fact that she needs to make herself or he needs to make
himself bigger, to occupy a position of that kind; but we have these teachers
who are fitting themselves by professional study for that work, and, of course,
those are our natural choices for those positions. But there is no simply
slipping on into a principalship because you have held a position lower than that.

Alderman Buck: The matter of the selection of head assistants, second as-
sistants, etc., is that done in the same way?

Mr. Blewett: The first appointment is as a substitute, as I have said, for a

17

period of probation of eight months. If that has been successful they are ap-
pointed to the lower rank of second assistant, and then they proceed automatically
to the maximum salary, and stay there, unless promoted to the rank of first
assistant.

RECORDING EFFICIENCY OF TEACHERS.

Years ago, it was in St. Louis as I presume it was in all of the large-cities.
The matter of the efficiency of teachers, of all ranks of teachers, principals,
assistants, assistant teachers, kindergarteners and kindergarten assistants, was
merely a matter of the memory that held in the minds of the administrative
officers. The board of education of St. Louis that had on it some men of great
practical experience saw the unfairness of a plan of that kind to the schools,
first, and to the teachers quite as well — probably unfairness to them as much as
to the schools themselves — of depending upon a man's memory, the principal's
memory, or the assistant superintendent's memory, or the superintendent's mem-
ory, of what this teacher had been doing through all of those years, and saw that
it was an unsafe reliance. No man would conduct any part of his large business
in any such way. So the suggestion was made that there ought to be. in the
office of the superintendent a permanent card record of the efficiency of teachers,
and twice a year the principals of the schools are required to make a report upon
the points, six points, that are given, upon the efficiency of teachers in the
work.

The assistant superintendents are required to make a report of the same nature
upon the principals of the schools, and the heads of departments upon others in
the employ of the board that are not covered by the cases that I have already
spoken of. Those reports are recorded in a card catalog of the teachers, and the
report of the principal coming in is subject to the review of the assistant super-
intendent, who, if he does not approve of the report made by the principal, records
his objection, and his estimate. So that when a question of promotion comes up,
there is the permanent record in the office of the board, that was made without
any regard to a particular case. We make out a list ready for the inspection
of the board in the spring, showing the people whose efficiency stands on a high
record; and when a vacancy occurs, the promotion is made from that list. It is not
confined to the selection of a teacher from the school in which the particular
vacancy occurs. Of course, it is good administration, we believe, to have the pro-
motion occur out of that corps, if there is any reasonable approach to the best
standing there. I mean by that, there might be in the system, in some other
school, a teacher whose record would show that she was a more efficient teacher
than the particular teacher in that school; but if that teacher's efficiency is of
a high order, we believe it to be to the best advantage of the work of the
schools to advance that teacher there. Other things being equal, length of
service is an important element in determining the promotion. The cards, the
record of the teachers, are accessible to the teachers. If the principal feels some
hesitation, as they used to do — although I hope they do not any longer — in talking
frankly with a teacher about his estimate of her work, and his report upon her
work, the teacher may come to the superintendent's office, and the whole thing
will be gone over with her.

BASIS FOR GRADING ST. LOUIS TEACHERS.

Alderman Kennedy: What are the points covered in those reports, Mr.
Blewett, and what weight have those reports?

Mr. Blewett: In a general way, these natural points. First, of the teacher's
professional skill. That shows itself in her relation to her pupils; it shows itself
in her relation to the administration of the school itself, and her cooperation
with the principal in the plan of work. It shows itself in her relation to the
parents. And then, with all the other points that are recorded, comes the question:
Is she dead or alive? Is she realizing the fact that she has got to be improving
all the time? Is she taking the sort of an interest in the work that will make
her want to be progressive? They arc just the same kind of things, gentlemen,
I think that any man in charge of a great business would want to know in
regard to the efficiency of the people who were working for him.

18

Alderman Kennedy: Are those reports on a percentage basis?

Mr. Blewett: No, no. It is just a grouping by excellent, good, moderate,
poor, unsatisfactory.

Alderman Buck: Is it a matter of guesswork, fixing those five grades?

Mr. Blewet: It ought not to be, surely. Of course, it has got to be a mat-
ter of judgment. You attempt to measure the work of a teacher, and say, "She
is a 99 per cent teacher, " or "She is a 99.8 per cent teacher, " and you get
into a ridiculous situation. And then when you get into even such a rough classifi-
cation as "She is excellent/' or "She is good," you have got to remember that
you are handling a very delicate question. Great care must be used in that
kind of classification. For instance, there has got to be a marked distinction that
would carry the teacher into the group of excellent. She ought to stand, or he
ought to stand, quite head and shoulders above the others who are marked, as the
great body of us would be, of course, as good.

Alderman Buck: Is there any standardization?

Mr. Blewett: There is an attempt to make a standardization, and, of course,
you can plainly realize the difficulty of doing that. We have 120 principals, say.
Now, the certainty, unless that is carefully handled, of there being nearly 120
different standards, is very great. That we seek to overcome by talking with
the teachers and by talking with the principals as to what these letters signify,
and we reduce the element of human mistakes in it by such processes as much as
we can. Of course, we realize that, do all that we can, there must be some of
that in it. But with all of that possibility, there is the certainty that the record
which the principal of a school and the superintendent may be held responsible
for, is a great deal fairer arrangement for the teachers than to just say, "I
remember so and so. This was Miss So and So's work or Mr. So and So's work, a
year or two ago." There is the record made at the time, and it ought to be made
impartially, and it ought to be made with the best judgment that the man or
woman has who is making it.

TEACHER HAS ACCESS TO EFFICIENCY RECORD.

Alderman Buck: Does the teacher have access to it?

Mr. Blewett: The teacher may have access to it at any time she wants
to; and, as I say, if there is any case in which the principal of a school refuses
to tell the teacher just exactly how he has marked her, if she will come to the
superintendent's office, she will see the whole record, and we will canvass the
whole record for her, just as we know we ought to in our relation to her, and
in our relation to the great work.

Alderman Buck: Do you have district superintendents there?

Mr. Blewett: We call them assistant superintendents. They are practically
superintendents, in their own geographic fields.

Alderman Buck: How do they review these efficiency markings?

Mr. Blewett: They take the markings as they come in twice a year, and
go over them carefully one by one, and scrutinize them, and make any recorded
objection that they think ought to be made, relying on their own observation
of the work, right in the school room.

Alderman Buck: Have you any other assistant superintendents except those
who have geographic districts?

Mr. Blewett: No. We have supervisors of special subjects, though. Eeally,
the proper term for them is ' ' special teachers, ' ' I think.

Alderman Buck: You have no one whose particular business it is to assign
teachers to sundry schools?

Mr. Blewett: It is all done from the office. You see, the assignment to the
elementary schools takes place in an automatic way. A vacancy occurs in a
school; for instance, there may be a vacancy for a day. There is our list of
the graduates of the Harris Teachers College. Those teachers must be called
out in the order in which they appear on that list; and we have telephonic
communication with all of those teachers, and the teachers ' clerk calls up the
next teacher, and sends her to that temporary vacancy; and that may develop
into a permanent vacancy. They are on the list in the order of the time they
graduated from the Teachers College, and in the order of their standing in their

19

class at the end of their two years in the college. They are called out in that
order.

Alderman Buck: Do the teachers ever object against their markings as
unjust?

Mr. Blewett: Naturally. There are cases of that kind, but I am glad to
say that they are rare.

Alderman Buck: What happens then? To whom does the teacher object?

Mr. Blewett: She naturally would first make objections to her principal,
and next to her assistant superintendent, and next to the superintendent. And
when objection is made, there is no question in our minds but that very careful
attention ought to be paid to the objection, and that it ought to be reviewed, to
see whether it is justified or not. If it is an injustice it will be corrected.

TEACHER MAY APPEAL TO BOARD.

Alderman Buck: Does she ever go as far as board members?

Mr. Blewett: Oh yes, of course. Their practice is to present the matter to
the superitnendent, and ask him to look into the matter, and see if there is any
injustice done. I can make as strong a statement as this,. I believe the actual
practical working out of the plan is such that it does not occur once in a year
that a member of the board of education comes to the superintendent's office in
urgent insistence upon something being done for a particular teacher. If he
comes, the whole situation is laid before him, as it ought to be. Of course, he
has a right to know the whole situation, for he is a trustee, and has some respon-
sibility, so the ground for the superintendent's action, and the ground for the
principal's action, is laid before that member of the board and he has the same
opportunity to judge, insofar as his experience would allow him, as the officer
has. But it is my happy experience that the gentlemen of the board are not
under the necessity of urging the reappointment or retention of a teacher to whom
the officer has objected, or rather, of whom the officer has taken the responsibility
of saying that it is not to the interest of the schools to return him or her.

Alderman Buck: Is anyone eligible to election on the board?

Mr. Blewett: Well, there are certain conditions of citizenship, you know,
the ordinary conditions of that kind, but nothing else.

Alderman Buck: Are women eligible?

Mr. Blewett: No.

Alderman Kennedy: In the efficiency markings, does it very often happen
that the assistant superintendent or the superintendent has changed the markings?

Mr. Blewett: Barely. You see, those things are all a matter of consulta-
tion at the school, with the principal and with the teacher. They ought to be,
too. Those are things that touch vitally the interests of the school. No interest
is subserved by having inefficiency. The teacher's interest is not subserved by
remaining inefficient. A teacher may be inefficient because of inexperience; she
may be inefficient because she has not been properly helped. But if the oppor-
tunity is taken, as it should be taken, of taking the matter right up with hei
in the school, so that the final record may be made there, as it ought to be, then
that has been very carefully gone over beforehand.

Alderman Kennedy: Occasionally, I suppose, as the result of the markings
a teacher is removed from the force?

Mr. Blewett: Yes. The process is for the superintendent not to recommend
her reappointment at the end of the year.

Alderman Kennedy: Is there any appeal to the board, or any trial, or any
thing of that sort?

Mr. Blewett: No, that is the final action, as I explained before. Thf
superintendent is charged with the responsibility of making the nominations,
and if he does not nominate, the teacher cannot be appointed, and if he does
nominate, she can be rejected by the board.

Alderman Powers: That does not very often happen, though, does it, for
the board to take action of that kind — not to concur in the recommendation of
the superintendent?

Mr. Blewett: No, sir. And, ' of course, it ought not to happen very often
If a man in charge of this work is not competent he ought not to stay there.

20

HELP INEFFICIENT TEACHERS TO IMPROVE.

Alderman Buck: What happens when a teacher begins to slide down tho
scale in her efficiency markings, and she finally gets to unsatisfactory corre-
sponding to our "inefficient" here?

Mr. Blewett: Why, of course, all down that process of decay there is a
consultation with her, an attempt to help her, and to restore her to efficiency, to
build her up. In other words, our relations with the teachers are what they ought
to be. We are there as helpers of the teacher, we believe.

Alderman Buck: When a teacher is marked down from one grade to a lower
grad«, is there any kind of notice required to be given to a teacher?

Mr. Blewett: Not required — that is, not by rule of the board nor by rule or
regulation of the department; but the practice is that, and it ought to be.

Alderman Buck: Are your principals afraid to mark down teachers?

Mr. Blewett: I do not think so — with rare exception, possibly, of course.
But I think the relations are the proper relations of honorable people to each
other, both the assistants and the principals.

Mr. Buck: Do teachers generally keep track of their marks?

Mr. Blewett: I do not think they concern themselves greatly about their
marks. I do not think that they have occasion to concern themselves greatly
about their marks. I think the whole situation is so plain to the teaching corps,
as a whole, that they know whether they are doing efficient work or not; and I
think the case is, as it ought to be, very rare when a teacher is anxious about
whether justice is being done her, or not.

DROP ONE PER CENT AS INEFFICIENT.

Alderman Powers: About what percentage do you eliminate each year of your
teachers?

Mr. Blewett: About one per cent. I suppose, in fifteen years, that would be
about the average. The elimination in recent years has been where it ought to
be, before a long period of inefficiency. At the beginning of this system there
was naturally a lot of inefficiency that had accumulated. Now our whole
thought of proper administration is to keep inefficiency out. The inefficiency that
is already in is reduced to the minimum. We take the young teacher, and give
her a proper opportunity to show whether she is likely to prove to be an efficient
teacher, or not; and if within a reasonable time she does not show that she is
likely to be efficient, we simply say that we do not recommend her to be con-
tinued. So there is where, even of this small percentage, the large amount of it is,
in keeping out inefficiency rather than putting out inefficiency.

Alderman Kennedy: What percentage of substitutes fail to get appointments
after the eight months time?

Mr. Blewett: Oh, I have not got it in per cent, but I do not suppose it is a
quarter of one per cent. Those women are all trained in that college, and we do
not admit them to the college unless they stand in the upper two-thirds of their
high school classes, or are able to pass an examination that will come up to the
average of that. They are all selected people, in the first place. They have been
selected by processes of elimination, until they get into the high school, and then
they have got to maintain, for their four years, such standing as to give them a
rank in the upper two-thirds; and then they are subjected to two years of as
excellent professional training as we can give them; so the percentage of failure
is very small.

Alderman Kennedy: And in admitting students to the teachers college, are
graduates of St. Louis high schools given preference?

Mr. Blewett: No — well, they are given preference in this way, that the upper
two-thirds are admitted without examination. The lower third has to submit
itself to an examination, as candidates from the outside have to submit themselves
to an examination.

Alderman Kennedy: Have the members there formed themselves into any
organization?

Mr. Blewett: A number of organizations.

Alderman Kennedy: What is the type of organization?

21

Mr. Blewett: A type of professional people getting together for their own
improvement, and for the improvement of their profession.

Aldermen Kennedy: You have never had any trouble with them in the way
of lack of harmony — like the controversy in Chicago, for instance?

Mr. Blewett: No.

Alderman Powers: Do you object to your teachers organizing for mutual
protection, or becoming members of such an organization?

Mr. Blewett: I would object to a situation where they would have to
organize for mutual protection.

Alderman Powers: But you would not object to their becoming members
of the Federation of Labor, would you?

Mr. Blewett: I do not believe that we in public offices ought to be asso-
ciated with an organization that may draw us into a situation that will make
us disregard some or all of the interests that we have in our charge. I am a
democrat, and I vote the democratic ticket, and I believe in it thoroughly; but
I do not get out and preach it, and I do not think it is my business to do it.
I do not think it is proper for me to serve on committees of my party. I
think it is my business to be there as a teacher, and, while maintaining my own
rights as a man, not to put myself in a position where I will be possibly, by
somebody else's act, forced into a lack of consideration for the great interests
that I have in my charge. That is my profession and confession. I believe I have
never made it before in public.

BOARD SHOULD NOT FORBID ORGANIZATION.

Alderman Buck: Do you have any rules — does your board of education have
any rules — prescribing the conduct of teachers outside of the class room?

Mr. Blewett: No, sir.

Alderman Buck: Do you believe in such rules, as an educator? For instance,
do you think that the board of education should pass a rule prescribing what
kind of an organization a teacher should or should not have membership in?

Mr. Blewett: I do not believe that it should. I do not believe that the
selection of the teachers — answering you in somewhat the same way that I did
before — ought to make it possible for that kind of thing to be necessary. If
the man or woman in charge of a class room, or in charge of one of these
schools, Cannot by his walk or her walk before the people of the great city
that he or she is serving, show that he or she is a worthy person in every respect,
and that he or she has no other concern but to be of service to that great in-
stitution, I think he or she ought to be out of the service. It ought to be a matter
of devotion to our work; and if our lives do not show that it is, I think we
ought not to be kept; but then, if our lives do show that, it is for no man to
question to what we belong, or what we do.

Alderman Buck: Do you think that it is a question to be solved by a rule
of the board of education, as to what rights of citizenship teachers shall exercise?

Mr. Blewett: No, sir, I do not.

Alderman Buck: Are your rules governing the members of the education
department, and their conduct, complicated or simple?

Mr. Blewett: Oh, they are simple.

Alderman Buck: Are they numerous, or few?

Mr. Blewett: Few.

Alderman Buck: Have you any merit system for teachers there, prolonging
their tenure, or making it continuous, contingent on satisfactory service?

Mr. Blewett: There is no rule to that effect. You see, the teachers are
appointed annually, but the practical result is what I have said. A teacher who
is efficient in our schools has as sure a tenure of office as the sun has.

Alderman Buck: Under the present management?

Mr. Blewett: Oh, yes, and under any. I have been with those schools for
forty years, and I have never known any other condition.

Alderman Buck: Well, would it, in your judgment, be possible for a super-
intendent of instruction —

Mr. Blewett: It might be entirely possible; but under the proper organiza-
tion of schools, with the responsibility located upon a man or woman at the head

22

of the schools, such location of responsibility is as I have said, such that a
man or woman cannot hide behind someone else. If there is a wrong act done, it
can be said, ''Here you have done an ^injustice. You have done it." A man or
woman could not maintain a position "at the head of one of these great school
systems, if the school system was properly organized, and continuously act weakly
or unjustly. He could not possibly do it. He would not last a year, and he
ought not to.

ELIMINATE SHIFTING OF RESPONSIBILITY.

Alderman Buck: Do you think that the biggest thing that the new charter
has done for the public schools of St. Louis is to define the relations and duties
of the superintendent?

Mr. Blewett: Unquestionably. There is no escaping responsibility. There is
broad authority, but there is no escaping responsibility.

Alderman Buck: That is to say, there are not so many different agencies
that participate in doing the same thing, that one may shift responsibility to
another?

Mr. Blewett: There is no participation in the essential conduct of any part of
the work, — that is, in the initiative of it. No man or woman in any part of the
work can say that it is the other fellow's fault.

Alderman Buck: I believe you said, in the early part of your statement —
and if yo*i did, 1 should like to emphasize it, if I am correct — that the average
business session of the school board lasts about 20 minutes.

Mr. Blewett: I do not think it is much longer than that. Half an hour is
a long session of the board, but it is not a long session for a committee. The
committee addresses itself with minute care to the report of the officer, and to
all of the business that is presented to it, to review it, criticise it, and discuss
it; and in most instances the majority of the board are present at that committee
meeting, listening to the whole procedure; and they are sometimes asked to take
part, and give opinions, before final action of the committee is recorded.

Alderman Miller: Mr. Blewett, are the board members on salary?

Mr. Blewett: No, sir. I was saying to one of the gentlemen out here that
I do not believe that anybody, not placed in a situation similar to the one that
I have been placed in during all these years, has any realization of the services
that men on boards of that kind render to the great city, and frequently render
without any adequate recognition on the part of the city, of the sacrifice of time,
and the very great discomfort that often comes to them. Now, I sit with those
people, and I work with them, and I know that their other business is pressing
upon them, and all that; and I see, and have been through all these years, how
faithful they have been to this public work.

TEACHERS WARNED OF UNSATISFACTORY WORK.

Alderman Buck: Do the teachers receive notice of unsatisfactory service, or
of their reappointment each year, or of their failure to be reappointed?

Mr. Blewett: A teacher is talked with, worked with, counselled with, and
helped, whenever conditions are such as show that her work is questionable.

Alderman Kennedy: It would not be possible for a teacher in your schools
to be dismissed without warning, or without notice?

Mr. Blewett: No, sir.

Alderman Buck: Well, those that are reappointed, are they notified?

Mr. Blewett: All of them, yes, sir. They are notified after the board has
appointed — that is, the notices of appointment are already made out, ready to put
into the mail immediately after the board, in the June meeting, has approved
the recommendations of the superintendent. It goes over from May to June, you
understand. Action is taken in June, and then immediately after the meeting
of the board in June, taking action, these appointments are all put in the mail,
and the teachers have them the next morning.

Alderman Powers: What is the extent of your system there? In other words,
how many schools and teachers have you in St. Louis?

Mr. Blewett: We have, roughly speaking, 120 schools, 2,500 teachers, and an
enrollment of 100,000.

23

BOARD INDEPENDENT OF CITY.

Alderman Kennedy: Is there any connection whatever between the city
council, or the mayor, or any other public official of St. Louis, and the manage-
ment of the schools, outside of the board of education, Mr. Blewett1?

Mr. Blewett: None whatever. The board is an independent body, esta Wished
by this charter, granted by the legislature. It has the independent authority to
levy taxes up to the constitutional limit. The only connection that the board of
education has with the other municipal officers is that the law requires the mayor
of the city to appoint annually an expert accountant, who shall go over the entire
accounts of the board of education, and report back to the mayor and to the
public.

Alderman Kennedy: Is there any sort of a pension system?

Mr. Blewett: No, sir, there is no public pension system. There is an asso-
ciation of teachers, about half the body of teachers there. They are in an asso-
ciation that is taking care of a very considerable number of needy teachers.

Alderman Miller: How do you determine or establish the age of teachers for
retirement?

Mr. Blewett: Well, that need not necessarily be caused by age. We just
simply determine whether the teacher is inefficient, or not. There is no age limit
of service. In promotion, all other things being equal, length of service is the
deciding question.

MR. CHARLES E. CHADSEY,

Superintendent of Public Schools, Detroit, Mich.

Mr. Chadsey appeared Oct. 14, 1916.

Alderman Buck: Today we have with us Mr. C. E. Chadsey, superintendent
of public schools, Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Chadsey was formerly superintendent
of schools at Denver, Colorado, and has been active in educational work. He
is chairman of a committee on the relation of school superintendents to boards
of education of the department of superintendence of the National Educational
Association. He has a very general knowledge of school matters and is one of
the noted educators of the country, and he has come this morning to advise with
with this committee concerning questions of school policy, and if the committee
please, I shall ask him to make a stataement of his views concerning questions
of educational administrataion, relations of boards of education ^ to the people
and the city government, relations of superintendents to the boards of educa-
tion, and then the relataions of teachers to the superintendents and the schools
generally. We have with us this morning, I am happy to announce, a member of
the board of education, Mr. Max Loeb. The sub-committee sent invitations to
all of the members of the board of education, including the superintendent and
the assistant superintendent, to attend these hearings and participate in them.
Mr. Max Loeb is the only member who has taken advantage of the invitation so
far as I know, and I trust the committee, Mr. Chairman, will do him the courtesy
to invite him to participate in the discussion, and to ask questions of Mr. Chadsey
whenever there is something he wants to bring out.

Mr. Chadsey: Gentlemen of the committee, I will state that I received a
letter from the chairman of your sub-committee asking me to come here and I
agreed to come, not knowing at all definitely what I was expected to say, and I
appear before you this morning without any preparation of any sort, not knowing
even now exactly about what you wish me to speak.

I understand, after conversation this morning with Mr. Buck, that this com-
mittee has before it the general idea of framing a law that can be acted upon
by the state legislature which may bring about a condition that will make foi
more efficient school administration than is practical unless some changes of some
sort are made.

In general I wish to say that I have a very meager acquaintance with the
local conditions in Chicago. What I am saying or may say will have, so far as 1
am concerned, no particular relation to Chicago conditions. I am generalizing in
nearly all I have to say.

24

STATUS OF SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS.

The office of superintendent of schools is historically comparatively a new
one, and there does not as yet exist any definite standardized ideal as to what his
powers and duties should be as contrasted with the powers and duties and limi-
tations of a board of education. In the majority of cases the superintendent isr
an official who has no powers whatever save such as may be given him formally
by Jthe board of education either through certain rules which may have been
adopted, or through what might be called a usurping of powers which ^ properly
speaking belong to the board of education. The active, aggressive superintendent
in most of our city school systems is doing much of his work as a usurper, that is,
he simply assumes the power and his assumption of power is acquiesced in more
or less unconsciously by a board of education, and the active constructive work of
schools goes on in that way. If a superintendent does not happen to be active
and aggressive there often arise conditions which may make him little more than
a figurehead or a clerk of the board of education. The board of education in those
cases will actively do those things which in other places or with superintendent?
of a different caliber would be done, and I think should be done, by the superin
tendent.

That is my first general conclusion: that in some form or other there should be
established in every school system a definite statement of the powers and limita-
tions of the board of education and an almost equally definite statement of the
powers and limitations of the superintendent of schools.

There are certain powers which should be possessed by superintendents, and
which should not be possessed by the board of education, and certainly the con-
verse is equally true. The question as to how those laws should be passed is largely
a local one, depending upon the limitations of the city charter under which the
school system may be operated or the statutory requirements of a state, and in
some cases possibly by limitations of the constitution itself. But whether these
laws should be passed by the legislature, or should be in the form of ordinances
passed by city councils is from my point of view, with reference to the relative
powers and duties of the superintendent and board of education, of minor impor-
tance.

BOARD OF EDUCATION SHOULD BE SMALL.

A board of education, as I conceive it, should be of a reasonably small size.
It should be a board whose duties are largely legislative. The executive part of the
work of the city school system, in my judgment, should be entrusted to the super-
intendent of schools, and he should be held responsible by the board of education
for the proper conduct of those duties, and he should in some definite way make
reports which will enable the board of education from meeting to meeting to be
advised of the executive work of the superintendent, but it should be the duty and
function of the board of education, as a board or in committees, to perform these
executive acts. The failure to discriminate between legislative and executive duties
is in many cases the cause of inefficiency in school administration.

In that connection I would also add that the question of the tenure of office
of a superintendent is a matter of considerable importance. I am aware of the
fact that in the City of Chicago the school superintendent is elected annually. It
seems to me that if we were looking for one particular thing that ought to be
changed it would be that particular thing; that is, I cannot see how you can hope,
in the City of Chicago, to have a definitely constructive policy in operation unless
the executive officer has some reasonable assurance of a tenure of office sufficiently
long for him to show to his board of education and to the city at large, which is of
even more consequence, that his policies and his ideas are correct. Under normal
conditions superintendents are human. Bear in mind, I have no reference to the
past or present conditions in Chicago, but all superintendents have a reasonable
ambition to remain in their position, at any rate not to be compelled to withdraw.

EVILS OF ONE- YEAR SUPERINTENDENT'S TERM.

If the question of the election of superintendents is more or less of a political
issue every year, it follows that a considerable time and energy of a superintend-

25

ent may be given to the securing of a sufficient number- of votes to secure his re-
election. At any rate, his policy may be somewhat modified by the fact that within
a very few weeks or a month it is going to be necessary for him to have the
friendly support of a certain number of board members. I think a superintendent
unconsciously may be influenced by that fact and may fail aggressively to de-
mand those things which are for the welfare of the school system, if he realizes
that there does exist a strong active opposition to these policies. There might be a
tendency to postpone any of these things until the election, and then often a
policy cannot be worked out, and be successful within the comparatively few
months of his term that remain. I know in my own case, having been elected for
a term of three years, that, at the conclusion of the three years of my first term,
despite my very best efforts I could not avoid a great many people coming to me
and discussing with me the situation. I could not prevent the papers discussing
the question as to just how many votes I was going to have, and with the very
best efforts on my part I could not avoid feeling it was rather hard to accomplish
effective work with so much agitation and so much talk in the school system. I
submit that a condition of that sort, even if the superintendent is absolutely honest
in his actions, is not best for the school system, because of the uncertainty which
exists in the minds of teachers in general, and an uncertainty which will be re-
flected in many cases in the actual efficiency of the work.

The question as to whether there should be a long term of office or whether
there should be an indefinite tenure of office is a somewhat different one. I have
felt that probably in large cities a reasonably long term of office was somewhat
better than an indefinite tenure, although I do not wish to go on record as being
absolutely convinced as to which is the better policy. I can see some strong argu-
ments in favor of the indefinite tenure. By indefinite tenure I mean that the
question of re-election does not come up unless there is a definite desire to dis-
miss a superintendent. In the case of indefinite tenure I think that the law govern-
ing the appointment of the superintendent, or his dismissal, should demand more
than a plurality of the votes of the board of education. If a superintendent cannot
be dismissed save by a reasonably large majority, three-fourths for example, it may
be perfectly proper indeed to have him subject to a termination of his term at
any time. In general, though, I am inclined to think that the long term of office
is the better solution. Certainly it is far better than having every year a definite
issue as to whether a school superintendent can command a certain number of
votes in order to be able to remain in his position. I repeat that in my judgment
that particular reform is one of the fundamentally necessary things if there is to
be definitely constructive work in this or in any other city which has the annual
term.

INEFFICIENCY OF LARGE BOARDS OF EDUCATION.

The question as to the appointment of boards of education is again a very de-
batable one. Most educational thinkers agree that the most efficient board of
education is the small board of education. The term "small" however is more or
less flexible. In many cases "small" is interpreted to mean five, and we have
cases of boards of education, such as Indianapolis, Denver, Boston, and others,
where we have a board of education of five. In my judgment a large city cannot
do its business to the best advantage with a board as small as five, unless there
is a very radical change as to the limitation of the duties of the board of educa-
tion. Any large city, such as Chicago, should have more than five. It should not
have a large board, but I am inclined to think that the board of twenty-one as we
have in Detroit, and I understand you have the same in Chicago, is rather larger
than can work efficiently. There is a tendency to have more committees than
there should be, and there is a pretty strong tendency to have the activities of
those committees work in such a way that a superintendent or administrative
official is compelled to work with what amounts to two or three boards of educa-
tion more or less ignorant of the activities of each other.

I know that is true to a very great extent in Detroit, that the various com-
mittees are practically supreme in their work and are practically ignorant of the
equally important work of other committees. A small board has an opportunity
to work out important things, which are directed and determined in the committee
of the whole, and there is a general appreciation of the problem of the school sys-

y v. 26

tern. There has been a tendency to give to board committees the detailed work
which always, in my judgment, should be transacted by those who are expert
in their field, rather than by those whose tenure of office is necessarily limited and
who enter into responsible duties without training of any kind.

SEPARATE BUSINESS DEPARTMENT UNSOUND.

In almost all cities at the present time another element of weakness, in my
judgment, is found in the complete separation of the educational and business
functions of the board, or of the officials appointed by the board. A very common
condition is the existence of the office of the superintendent of schools, who is
more or less in charge of the educational side of the work, and of the business
manager, and often of the supervisor of buildings, some times the two latter
positions being combined into one; the two or three officials being coordinate in
power, each reporting directly to the board of education. From my point of view
efficiency in management can be secured only when there is one chief executive
officer to whom all other officers are subordinate. A business manager, in my
judgment, in other words, should be necessarily equal in authority to any other
subordinate officer, but directly under the authority of the superintendent, the
board of education dealing directly with the superintendent of schools. Under
those conditions we have a framework out of which efficiency arises.

Alderman Buck: The same principle that you would apply to the business
manager, would you apply to all the department heads outside of the teaching
force? I mean such as secretary or treasurer, or whatever official it might be, the
head of the janitor service, and all that, you would have all those under the super-
intendent? • ,

Mr. Chadsey: Yes, I would have the superintendent the chief officer and en-
trusted with the executive work, all other officers being subordinate to him. I
will add that the superintendent should have the nomination of all his officers,
subject in all cases to the approval of the board of education. I make a very
sharp distinction there because it is a power which I do not have at the present
time, which I think results in relative inefficiency in Detroit. In Detroit the
superintendent, as in many places, has no power definitely except such as may be
given him by implication, and the power of nominating the officials and principals
is not his. So far as the appointment of teachers is concerned, he has had no
difficulty in having all of his nominations accepted by the board of education, and
practically in all cases the promotions to principalship or to positions of greater
responsibility. This, however, at all times is merely a usurpation. The rules do
not require that the superintendent shall nominate. I think the superintendent
should nominate, and if there is any reason for thinking that there is a miscarriage
of justice, or that his judgment is at fault, there can be a check upon Jiim by the
failure to confirm. So I think the same thing should be true of the business side.

BUSINESS MANAGER SHOULD BE AN EDUCATOR.

I am inclined to think that a custom, which is very common in our cities, of
appointing a man as business manager who is more or less successful as a business
man but is not an educator, is a great mistake, because a man who has had his
experience, who has lived his life in different surroundings, and in studying other
problems, is not in a position to know definitely the needs of a school, not nearly so
much so as those who have risen to their positions from the ranks of the school,
and therefore know the necessities of the school and the urgent needs of the things
which will be demanded. A business manager, in my judgment, should be an edu-
cator, who has shown in other ways qualifications which will enable him to per-
form the business work. In a large city there is no difficulty in securing such indi-
viduals. In the first place teachers are educated to their trade, and their numbers
in large cities are so great that among them will always be found those who have
the capacity, who have shown their ability in educational work as well as their
ability to serve in positions of executive responsibility.

Alderman Buck: On the question of the relations of the board of education
to the city council under circumstances such as we have here, for instance, do you

27

think that the control of the financial affairs of the schools should be divided in
that way, between two bodies, such as the council and the board of education?

Mr. Chadsey: You are speaking about the present condition or an "ideal"
condition?

Alderman Buck: No, I am speaking about an ideal condition.

ELECTED OFFICIALS SHOULD CONTROL FINANCES.

Mr. Chadsey: I am inclined to think that, in the last analysis, individuals
who are elected by the people should have the final responsibility of determining as
to the amount of expenditure which the city may incur. If a board of education is
elected by the people, and the methods of nomination and election are such that
the people are really represented, I see no objection whatever to that board of edu-
cation having the power of levying the tax. If the board of education is an
appointive board, and therefore is further away from the people, I am inclined to
believe that it is wise for some other body to have the veto power — some elective
body, for the preservation of the rights of the people, and that body should have a
veto upon the financial acts of the board of education.

The school system is in all respects the most important branch of government.
It involves the largest expenditure of money; it is nearest to the hearts of the
people. Educators can appeal to the people for financial support with a greater
assurance of a hearty response than can any other group of public servants, and
therefore they should be willing to trust the wisdom of the people, and in a large
community the people have to be represented by some group of elected officials.
Does that answer your question?

Alderman Buck: Yes, I would like to follow it with another question. In the
event of a board that is appointed and that should, in your view, be subject to veto
power in fiscal matters by an elected body, to what degree should that co-operation
extend, to what degree of detail should the elected body go in understanding the
fiscal situation with which it has to deal in connection with schools?

DETAILED BUDGET TO PRECEDE TAX LEVY.

Mr. Chadsey: Let us assume as a concrete example that we have a board of
education which prepares an annual estimate of expenditures, and that we have a
city council which has the power to check the estimates of expenditures of the
board of education. In such a case I think that the board of education should,
through its officers, prepare each year a reasonably detailed budget showing the
proposed expenditures along the various lines of school expenditure, before the
tax levy. When is the tax levy made here?

Alderman Buck: Before the first of January, 1916, the board of education
submits its estimate for the 1917 tax levy. The city council makes that tax
levy during the first three months of the year.

Mr. Chadsey: Before the first of January, 1917, the board of education should
submit an estimate for the money to be expended in 1918. Then the board of edu-
cation would be making an estimate in the fall of 1916, which would amount to a
given sum of money, which would be handed over to the council and would be cer-
tified out some time in the spring of 1917 and would be collected during the year
and would become available for expenditure by the schools in 1918, is that correct 1
It makes the problem of the budget somewhat more difficult. I think that it should
be the effort of the board of education to submit, before January, 1917, its estimate
of the various expenditures that will be incurred during the year 1918.

Alderman Buck: An estimate based upon a program?

Mr. Chadsey: An estimate based upon the present necessary expenditures, let
us say, for teachers' salaries, with as careful estimate as could be made of the
probable salaries to be paid in 1918; the number of new teachers that under normal
conditions, with the present rate of growth, could be assumed to be necessary, and
should include all probable increases in salaries, that might be put into effect. In
a similar way, based upon experience, in the case of buildings, the amount which
had been secured for 1917 could be considered, and the am.ount of money necessary
for buildings could be estimated for 1918, also the amount necessary for main-

28 ;'-;-

tenance, extension, educational supplies, and other special expenditures, whatever
they may happen to be. Having done that as well as possible, let it be made a
matter of record and published in the proceedings of the board and the city
council.

COUNCIL VETO ON BUDGET OF APPOINTIVE BOARD.

The city council, in my judgment, should have the power of survey of the
budget and should determine in a general way what in its judgment are under-
estimates and what are over-estimates and modify in its best judgment the total
appropriation. I am inclined to think that there should be an appropriation of a
sum total of all the various items, and if the total was greater or less than the
estimate which had been submitted it should be made a matter of record as to why
these changes were made. If the city council felt that there was an excessive
appropriation or felt that there was an insufficient appropriation, or if they had
misjudged in reference to the number of teachers, the reason should be given for
requesting its change. There I think the authority of the city council should end,
because the actions of the board of education are or should be public property.

It should be possible, at the expiration of the business year, 1918, for any
interested individual, whether public official or private individual, to see just to
what extent the actual expenditures have varied from the estimated expenditures,
and the board of education should be able and should be willing if occasion should
arise to explain why the .expenditures have been different from what was antici-
pated. It is bound to differ, especially in a growing city, for it is impossible for a
board to figure any one of these amounts with anything approaching accuracy.

When it comes to the expenditure of the money I believe that the board should
be supreme. Controversies will be apt to arise, or changes of condition may arise
which will make it a perfectly feasible matter to expend less on certain lines than
have been anticipated, or other emergencies might arise which would make it
necessary to expend more for other demands than had been anticipated, and the
judgment of the board of education should be final on these questions and it
should be perfectly proper to change its estimate — transfer from one fund to
another without any criticism of juggling, but at the same time the matter must be
a matter of public record.

Alderman Buck: And the board could explain if there was anyone interested
or felt an explanation was due?

Mr. Chadsey: I believe personally in absolute publicity in all questions that
have to do with the public, and the officials should not consider the demand for an
explanation in any way an impertinent demand.

BUDGET REPLACES VOTING ON EACH EXPENDITURE.

Alderman Buck : Having made a budget of that kind based upon a calculated
program before the tax levy, and appropriations based upon the budget, should
the board of education then, in your judgment, consider in detail each expenditure
throughout the year.

Mr. Chadsey: Decidedly not. If we do that we drop right back to the original
condition which I described as in my judgment very undesirable. We then have
committees of individuals who are not familiar with the needs of schools consid-
ering in detail bills and expenditures, expending an immense amount of time and
doing very inefficiently a piece of work which can be done efficiently or should be
done efficiently by the officials of the board of education. These officials should
submit to the superintendent detailed statements as to their expenditure and be
able and willing to defend any individual act. The main duty, however, I think, of
the committee on finance or any special committee of the board of education,
should consist in scrutinizing these reports and in securing information where
something seems questionable, and in a general way to limit the total expenditures
for a given purpose, and perhaps in a way checking the officer, if there seem to
be need of such check. In other words, the attitude of the committees of the
board of education towards the superintendent or his officials, working through the
superintendent, should be almost exactly those of a board of directors with refer-
ence to the actions of the officials of the bank.

Alderman Buck: You suggest that the business management should not be

29.

separated from the educational management. What would you think of the ques-
tion of levying two separate taxes, one for educational purposes and one for
building purposes?

Mr. Chadsey: If it is possible for a city to include in its general tax levy
the moneys that are necessary for the erection of new buildings — I understand
that has been true in Chicago in the past — I should still feel that the levy should
be a single levy, and that the board should have discrimination in amending its
estimate, as I said before, subject to the original scrutiny of the city council
whose duties, however, are finally practically limited merely by the power to raise
or lower the total levy, the reasons for their recommendations as to the details
in the budget which should be changed being shown.

From the Audience: What about Detroit?

Mr. Chadsey: I feel that if I should say anything about Detroit I would be
holding up a horrible example. The Detroit situation is worse than the Chicago
situation. The people are going to vote in November on the question of abolishing
the present board of education.

Alderman Buck: That is the present scheme of organization?

Mr. Chadsey: Yes, sir. Nearly everything that I have suggested as desirable
are things gained from personal experience, and having experienced the opposite
condition so long I am convinced that they are necessary. There is a very healthy
sentiment in Detroit as to its schools, and I think that the school people of Detroit
can nearly always trust to the judgment of the people. When I said that the
present board of education should be abolished, I was casting no reflection upon
the individual members of the board, but we have a board of twenty-one elected
by wards.

Alderman Buck: One from each ward?

Mr. Chadsey: One from each ward. They are elected on a partisan ballot.
The democrats have no show at all in most of the wards of Detroit. Most of our
wards are strongly republican. The children in one ward may attend schools in
another ward. It brings about a condition also where many members of the board
may have more vital interest in the appointment of janitors than anything else.
Therefore it has done much harm because, in many cases, the board interests have
been so far removed from the interest of the school. They have, in most cases,
permitted the superintendent to go ahead and do almost anything he thought was
best.

Alderman Buck: In the matter of finances, if I understood you correctly you
thought that the superintendent should be the executive not only on the educa-
tional side but on the administrative side, for example, he would have supervision
over janitors' supplies and of things in the building department?

Mr. Chadsey: I felt that the officer who purchased the supplies should be
recognized as a subordinate official and recognize the superintendent as the
superior official. If the purchasing agent is not a subordinate official he may delay
unduly the purchase of certain supplies where promptness is absolutely necessary,
because in his judgment it is not worth while, or he is a little too busy. If he was
a subordinate official to the superintendent he could not do this.

Mr. Max Loeb : Would that expect to go so far as to allow the superintendent
to veto the acts of the business manager?

Mr. Chadsey: I think the superintendent should have the power of veto, yes,
always, subject to appeal to the board of education.

CIVIL SERVICE FOR SCHOOL EMPLOYES.

Mr. Max Loeb: As to civil service now, does civil service, in your opinion,
often result in stagnation, or do you think it works out better than a system in
which civil service is combined with power —

Mr. Chadsey: Do you mean by civil service that there would be an examina-
tion and that the officials should be compelled to appoint those individuals who
have passed an examination?

Mr. Max Loeb: Yes, sir.

Mr. Chadsey: My judgment has been that so far as civil service in Detroit in
concerned it has not been effective in the employment of officers, and it seems to
me that it is necessary on the business side in Detroit to have some, method of se-

30

curing competent officials and some method of their promptly getting rid of incom-
petent officials. We have no civil service in the public schools in Detroit. Any
employe other than teachers may be dropped at any time for cause.

Mr. Max Loeb: Has that led to abuses in practice?

Mr. Chadsey: No, I" think the abuses we have had have been of the other
kind, that it has been rather hard to get rid of incompetent employes under a
system which is tremendously political, as it is when you have a ward system of
election.

Mr. Max Loeb: Who appoints them now?

Mr. Chadsey: In theory the board of education appoints them, but it appoints
them upon the recommendation of the committee on janitors, which in practice
generally defers to the inspector of the ward. I have no doubt myself that I
could, if I had the authority, hire all the janitors in Detroit and get better service
and save $50,000 to $75,000 a year.

Alderman Buck: Do you find that the appointment of employes other than
teachers without civil service is more conducive to efficiency than it would be with
civil service and is it less difficult to get rid of inefficient employes without civil
service than it would be with civil service?

Mr. Chadsey: I said that with reference to conditions in Detroit.

Alderman Buck: That is what I mean. You based your whole answer on
civil service on conditions in Detroit.

Mr. Chadsey: Yes, I think that with the business manager an assistant or as-
sociate superintendent with a supervisor of engineers and janitors, that had the
power of appointment and had the power of removal subject to the approval of the
superintendent, we would have something approximating civil service without its
weakness. The great difficulty with the ordinary civil service is that the examiner
has not devised an examination which in any way indicates the effectiveness of
the candidate.

Alderman Buck: But as to the difficulty of getting rid of inefficients where
politics prevail in the absence of civil service, the difficulty is as great?

Mr. Chadsey: Yes, where politics prevail I think civil service probably would
improve conditions. I will say with reference to this problem that I think it is
important that a school system should be independent of the local political situa-
tion so far as appointments are concerned.

Alderman Buck: In the case of a vacancy on the board of education is it im-
portant whether 'or not it should be filled by election?

Mr. Chadsey: I think that is a question that should be answered with refer-
ence to the individual case. Personally I cannot see any reason why the school
board members should ever be elected on a partisan ticket. It would be perfectly
ridiculous to think of a man's national brand of politics having anything whatever
to do with his qualifications, and equally ridiculous to believe that a man who
happens to be identified with a political party which is not in control in his ward,
or in his city, being thereby debarred from a position, which is or should be a
position of great honor and trust in the community. The intelligent voter, in
voting for a board member, should always vote for the woman or man who can be
trusted as having the genuine interests of the people at heart.

The Chairman: Does any one desire to ask any further questions?

Miss Margaret Haley: I would like to ask Mr. Chadsey who appoints the
inspectors who pass on this — •

Mr. Chadsey: The inspector in Detroit is the board member. We have that
title of inspector. We have a board of education of twenty-one school inspectors.
They are representing each a single ward; there are twenty-one wards in Detroit.
These men are nominated at a partisan primary, and are voted for at the ordinary
spring election, which I say is as. absolutely bad a system as you can find anywhere
in the United States.

Alderman Buck: Are those board members salaried?
Mr. Chadsey: They are not.

Alderman Kennedy: Did I understand you to say, Mr. Chadsey, that that
system is about to be put to a vote at the next election?

31

DETROIT FOR SMALL BOARD ELECTED AT LARGE.

Mr. Chadsey: Four years ago the state legislature passed a bill abolishing the
present board of education, and substituting for it a board of education of seven
members, elected at large, with a referendum provision, that this should be voted
upon by the electors of Detroit at the next general election. At the time oJLthe
next general election the question was before the Supreme Court, and was not
voted upon. Shortly after the election a decision was handed down that it was
a perfectly legal thing to vote upon, but it postponed the effort for two years;
so now, after four years, is the first opportunity for Detroit to determine whether
it wishes to have the present board of education abolished or not. There is every
prospect that a large vote will be polled in favor of abolishing it, although, of
course, I could not predict the result as yet.*

Alderman Kennedy: There will then be an elected board of seven members?

Mr. Chadsey: There will then be an elected board of seven members, yes,
elected at large, for a term of six years; two of them being elected for two years,
two for four, and three for six years. They still, however, hold a partisan pri-
mary. These people will be nominated at partisan primaries, but will be voted for
by the people at large without any indication on the ballot as to the politics of
the individual. If there are two parties there will be, therefore, 14 candidates for
the people to vote for, they voting for 7, and the 7 having the largest vote being
elected.

Alderman Buck: Now, if you will proceed to discuss the relation of the
teachers to the system, Mr. Chadsey, please.

Mr. Chadsey: I suppose the particular matter of interest with reference to
that has to do with appointments and tenure of office. In my judgment there
should be very definite qualifications established for the position of teacher in -a
school system.

Mr. Max Loeb: Pardon me just a moment, Mr. Chadsey. That brings to my
mind a question I wanted to ask you.

Mr. Chadsey: Certainly. That is what I want you to do.

Mr. Max Loeb: In your judgment, in cases where cities have elective sys-
tems, should a candidate for the school board have certain definite statutory
qualifications?

BOARD MEMBERS SHOULD BE LAYMEN.

Mr. Chadsey: I do not think personally that qualifications for board mem-
bers should differ from those of any other public official, because we are anxious, or
should be anxious, to have the people represented; and certainly if our qualifica-
tions for other officials are too low, we should go ahead and change those, and
have them all the same. I do not know why a board member should be a man of
a different character than a member of the common council. Certainly they are
dealing in both cases with matters of tremendous significance to the community.

T was saying that I thought that there should be definite standards of eligibility
for the position of teacher and I am inclined to think that those standards should
be just as high as can possibly be secured. Most of our larger cities now have
settled that problem fairly satisfactorily. They have normal training schools, or
local universities, the graduates of which have had certain specific professional
training, who are eligible. Some cities have certain definite examinations; others
simply have the definite local standard; but in some way or other the poorly equip-
ped individual should be disqualified from consideration. In the second place, I
think that the superintendent should be definitely responsible for the nominations
of all of the teachers. No person should be imposed upon a school system save
through the superintendent. I do not think that that implies despotism at all on
the part of the superintendent; nor do I think that that implies the foisting of any
incompetents upon a school system; because I would add to that, that the board of
education should have a veto power upon the nominations of any individual, so
that there would be a check upon the superintendent in that respect.

Mr. Max Loeb: Let me ask you one question right there. Would you place
no restriction on the power to veto such nominations? Would you make it abso-
lute, or would you require some stated cause?

*At the election of November 1916, the new pjan for Detroit was adopted bv an overwhelming
majority of the voters,

32

ELECTED BOARD RESPONSIBLE TO PUBLIC.

Mr. Chadsey: I go right back to my fundamental proposition, that the board
of education, an elected board of education that represents the city, is definitely
responsible to the city, and it should have certainly a definite check upon the
superintendent. I think that that particular question, as to whether it might be
necessary to state a cause, rather answers itself. I think they would be forced to
state a cause. I do not believe the people would permit the arbitrary rejection of
nominations by a superintendent for positions on a teaching force, without some
statement as to why.

My own experience is that officials, who are elected directly by the people,
are very anxious to know what the people think; and that about all that is neces-
sary for an individual who wishes to have a good thing done for a city that can
be done by an elected group, is to persuade that group that the people, the voters
of the city really want it. I believe that, with the public schools as near to the
heart of the people as they are, if the board of education attempted to prevent a
superintendent from putting in people who were qualified there would soon be such
a reaction that it would find those votes reconsidered. As a matter of detail, it
might well be in the rules of the board of education that in such cases there shall
be a definite statement as to the cause; but that, I think, is really minor to the
general scheme. Now, the teacher having been put to work, I am inclined to be-
lieve that there should be —

Alderman Buck: Just a moment, Mr. Chadsey. Pardon me for the interrup-
tion. A board appointed by the mayor, with the concurrence of the city council,
and not elected by the people — should that board have the veto power over nomina-
tions for teachers by the superintendent?

Mr. Chadsey: I do not believe that I would have any right to discriminate be-
tween the powers of appointed or elected boards of education. If the appointed
board cannot be trusted to do the. right thing, then it is certainly up to the
community to change the method of appointment.

There are varying schools of political thought, as you all know, some of which
are inclined to believe that the powers of a city should be very, very sharply lim-
ited by the power of the state; and that a city should have little power to deter-
mine its conduct of public affairs, and that everything that is done should be done
as a result of statutory requirement. There is another school of political thought
which feels that practically everything that a city does should be done finally by
that city. The practical working out of that problem is altogether too complex
for discussion at this time; and the question as to whether there should be statu-
tory limitations, or whether those limitations should be imposed by the city council,
or by the board of education itself, depends very largely upon those local condi-
tions. In speaking generally, though, I will repeat what I said in the first part of
this talk, that there is great need for a very definite limitation of the powers of
both the superintendent and the board of education; and if, in the working out of
those definite statements, it would seem well to incorporate this particular one, it
should be there. But I cannot speak with any great authority, because we are
now dealing with a condition which obtains in very few places in the United
States. The city superintendent in most cases is merely working along, without
any legal authority for anything, or by mere sufferance of the board of education,
and possibly in some cases by rules passed by the board of education; but they
could be suspended or repealed at any meeting of the board of education.

Alderman Kennedy: Mr. Chadsey, speaking in regard to this and other mat-
ters, where the powers of a board of education would be exercised, depending
somewhat on what sort of a board of education we are going to get, do you think
the system which is proposed for Detroit, where they are to elect seven at largb,
providing the elections were conducted in a non-partisan way, would be a very
satisfactory system for a city the size of Detroit?

ENDORSES ELECTED SCHOOL BOARD.

Mr. Chadsey: I think that at the present time it is the safest plan that can
be suggested. I think that, given certain officials, a far better board of education
may be secured when appointed than when elected; but experience teaches us that

33

in manv, many cases the appointments of mayors, if the mayor is t
power, are not as desirable as the individuals who may be elec tod«
more/that these appointed members, being further removed ^
IPSS likelv to be influenced by the genuine convictions of the people than a , boarc
elected by th people. And7! confe back every time to the propositior L thai ; we
have got to have an intelligent electorate, and that the only way to f£^M^-
gent electorate is to have that electorate have its responsibilities, and be educate
up to seeing and appreciating those responsibilities.

Mr. Max Loeb: In practice, have elective boards worked

POintMre Sey: I think they have worked exactly as well I have in mind
several appointive boards, and several elective boards, ^_"£»**J"J ^£
very good boards in mind, and very poor bo,ards in mind Where we have small
board! elected at large, we generally have very «^* *J^**2 of People
as the interest of the people diminishes, and somewhat differ ent classes of pe iple
get in who do not always do apparently as good work as they should, a different
situation arises. But even then, I insist that the people are getting as goo
school board as the people are entitled to, if they did the electing

Mr Max Loeb: On the question of efficiency of teachers, in Detroit have you
a system of promotion by seniority— a teacher going up as her years

m°UMrUIChadsey: We have in Detroit-ana I realize the significance of that ques-
tion—a mechanical system of promotion. I am not prepared to defend it as
absolutely correct system. In fact, I doubt whether it is theoretically the i
correct system; but at the present time I do feel strongly that if a teacher is worth
keeping in the schools at all, she is worthy of the maximum salary that is paid to a
teacher of her class. If the maximum salaries were very much higher 1 tn:
could theoretically wish for some place where I might step in and say
not go on unless you have proven that you have secured a higher emciency t
most of the other teachers"; but we only pay $1,000 there to our elem
teachers, and if a teacher is worth anything at all, she is certainly wortl
thousand dollars a year. So I would not in Chicago— with the maximum salaries
as I understand it, no higher than they are in the elementary schools here—
that the maximum salary was too high for a teacher who was worth retaining.

I would add to that, that there should be some definite effective way of re-
moving a teacher who is not worth retaining; and there, of course, you touch
upon the difficult problem in connection with the public schools. Most of the
large cities are in the same situation. The hardest thing on earth for a superin-
tendent to accomplish is the removal of the inefficient teacher. I was saying to
Mr. Buck this morning that it always seems to me that the more inefficient a
teacher is, the more friends that teacher possesses; probably because the inefficient
teacher needs the friends. Certainly it is true in all cities that it is very difficult
indeed to remove the inefficient teacher. That is due, as I see it, to the as yet
unsettled way of determining effectively inefficiency; and I am frank to say that I
do not come before you this morning with a solution that satisfies me, save this,
that so long as we believe in the office of school superintendent and of supervisory
officials, so long as we believe that it is possible to secure officials whose judgment
concerning teachers is better than that of the average individual, so long it be-
comes necessary to accept the judgment of these, providing there is some satisfac-
tory check against prejudiced reports. __^.

RECORDING EFFICIENCY OF TEACHERS.

In my own system we are approaching something which I think is reasonably
satisfactory. We have what is known as a teacher's efficiency card — which I
understand is more or less debatable, at least by some individuals. But in my
judgment, where there exists a large number of teachers, so large that it is abso-
lutely impossible for the responsible head of the schools to have intelligent indi-
vidual judgment, it becomes necessary, as a matter of course, that there be on
record somewhere some estimates as to the worth of the teacher. So we have a
card, which is rather carefully worked out. I am sorry that I did not bring a

34

sample card. There is nothing original at all in the card. It is simply an imitation
of other cards, modified to suit our own conditions. On that card we have a large
number of characteristics of a teacher, and it is so arranged that it is possible for
the reporting official to mark as to each characteristic.

Alderman Buck: Will you name some of the characteristics?

Mr. Chadsey: I do not know that I can remember the exact words, but almost
every conceivable characteristic is included. Personal appearance is one; there is
a report as to whether the personal appearance of a teacher is poor, medium, good
or excellent, with possible subdivisions there. Then there is the ability of the
teacher in the art of questioning; the ability of the teacher in the securing of
the interest of the pupils; the apparent power of the teacher in securing efficiency
of results; the power of the teacher to maintain that which is ordinarily consid-
ered as discipline, etc., with some twenty-five different characteristics; including
the health of the person, the temperament, the optimism of the teacher, etc. As I
say, I cannot remember all the different characteristics, but there is an effort made
to have there a picture of the various things which, combined, or individually,
even, are of value to a teacher.

Alderman Buck: Would this be a fair statement, that it is approximately a
sort of bill of particulars of the general efficiency mark?

Mr. Chadsey: I think so, yes, sir.

Mr. Max Loeb: This, of course, is made by the constituted school authorities?

Mr. Chadsey: This report, in the case of new teachers or substitutes, is made
by the supervisor — or, with new teachers or substitutes, is made by the prin-
cipal of the building, or is made by the assistant superintendent of schools who
happens to be inspecting that particular school or group of schools; and it is
made as often as they are called for by the superintendent. In cases of doubt, or
where there is any reason for more information, other supervisors or assistants
may be sent for supplementary reports. These reports are made for all teachers
every year; and, in the case of substitutes an appointment is»never made until
there are favorable reports from all parties concerned; the feeling there being that
it is very much easier to get a teacher into the system than to get a teacher out,
and therefore we should be very slow to appoint, if there is doubt on the part of
any efficient official.

HELP " INEFFICIENT" TEACHERS IMPROVE.

If the superintendent were to become convinced in any case that any official
concerned with those reports was prejudiced, he would take that into account. If
the principal fails to make a satisfactory report, where there is a belief on the part
of the supervisor or the assistant superintendent that the person is reasonably
efficient, the teacher is transferred to another principal, and given another chance.
The same thing is true in the case of an appointed teacher who is not doing satis-
factory work. If we have any reason to believe that a teacher is doing inefficient
work because she is not working under proper surroundings, or that the principal
is not capable of bringing out the best in her, she is sent to another section of
the community, with a different type of children, where she may succeed, while
she cannot succeed where she is. Or if she might be placed in another grade, and
it is impracticable to place her in tiiat grade in that building, we wish to make
that transfer, so that every opportunity may be given to the teacher to show that
she really is worthy of retention.

Mr. Max Loeb: Considering the fact that such a report is liable, or at least
likely, to be more or less mechanical, do you believe in the efficacy of outside
surveys, occasional efficiency surveys, either by committees of the board, or out-
side committees, of organizations' especially for that purpose?

Mr. Chadsey: Of course, it is a rather difficult thing to know what you imply
by " survey. " The word "survey" ordinarily has to do with a more or less
extended study of a school system, or certain portions of a school system. Do
you mean merely a survey as to whether certain teachers are doing efficient work,
or not?

Mr. Max Loeb: My idea was more comprehensive than that. My idea was to
have an occasional survey or examination into the efficiency conditions of each
school.

35

Mr. Chadsey: By some one who was not an employe of the public school sys-
tem at 'all, but an outsider? I see no objection to that. I think in almost every
case a committee of experts can do a school system much good, and I think in
most cases get good results. I do not believe, under ordinary conditions, in having
those surveys put in as frankly hostile efforts. Sometimes that has been the case.
No, I do not object to outside surveys. We are going through one now in Detroit,
and we asked for it. We asked this outside organization to come in and show us
where we were weak; because we know that they can find many places where they
can show the public much more effectively than we can the weakness of present
conditions.

Mr. Max Loeb: There seem to be two dangers. If you have a purely mechani-
cal system, with promotion on the ground of seniority alone, you practically rob
the teacher of a good deal of ambition. On the other hand, if you allow the super-
intendent sole power of promotion and demotion, elements other than actual
efficiency are going to come in. In your judgment, which is worse of the two?
Which is most to be avoided?

Mr. Chadsey: We have not been discussing promotion at all, as I have under-
stood it. We were discussing the question of the increase of the teacher from a
low salary to a maximum salary. But I do not think of a teacher drawing $1,000 a
year as a teacher holding a higher position than one drawing $700 a year. That is
merely due to the length of service, the assumption that a teacher does become
somewhat more effective as she becomes more familiar with her work — an assump-
tion that is not always, of course, in accord with the facts in the case, but in
general it is. In general a teacher of six or eight or ten years' experience is really
a more effective teacher, and is theoretically earning a somewhat larger amount,
than a younger, newer teacher. But that is not the reason for the increase.

PROMOTION OF SCHOOL TEACHERS.

When you are speaking of promotion, I feel very decidedly that that should
not be a mechanical act at all. I think that the teacher, to be promoted, should
in every case be promoted as the result of a deliberate act of judgment on the
part of the best authorities we can get, that she is the one who deserves promotion
out of all of those who are eligible. The question as to how you are going to get
that list, and what mechanical limitations there might be, is a detail which would
require a great deal of discussion, because there would be a great many differ-
ences of opinion. Again, in an efficient system, the superintendent should have
the nominating power. In a large system of schools it may be advisable, in order
to protect the superintendent against charges of favoritism, he should be required
to in some way have created an eligible list, and submit a certain number, from
which possibly the board of education, or a committee, might select certain ones;
so that it could not be said that the superintendent was simply promoting those
that were personally agreeable to him, or was in some way trying to create a
hierarchy of some sort.

Mr. Max Loeb: Would you think that the teachers should have any voice in
the election of the principals in their own schools?

Mr. Chadsey: Why, personally, I do not go that far. I think your question,
however, involves a very broad question which might be put in this way: to what
extent should the regularly appointed teachers have a voice in determining the
policies of the schools? There I think that we have not as yet come to a satis-
factory agreement as to what should be done; but personally, I am very strongly
of the opinion that the teaching body, those who are actually doing the work,
should have far more to do with the creation and determination of educational
policies than they have at the present time in most cities. Just how that can be
worked out most efficiently depends again very decidedly upon local conditions.

CONSULT TEACHERS ON SCHOOL POLICY.

Take the question of the course of study, for instance, which is a fairly good
illustration, I think, because a course of study is a very vital matter to the
schools. It is, from my point of view, ridiculous to assume that a superintendent,

36

or a group of superintendents, are in any position whatever to prepare a course of
study for the teachers to work out. Certainly the teachers are in a position to
contribute very much more to this course of study than any supervisory officer, no
matter how much of an expert he may be in theory, because they are every day
working with the course of study, and working with, the pupils, and can see the
limitations in a way that the officer cannot.

On the other hand, it is, I think, equally true that your expert official has a
certain breadth of view with reference to the course of study, and certain con-
ceptions concerning the fundamental ideas and ideals of the course of study, and
the final effect, of certain lines of work upon the individual, which the grade
teacher, the individual teacher, may not have; and there should be a recognition of
that in the formation of the course. But there certainly should be a free oppor-
tunity for the whole experience of the teacher to come into it.

I purposely do not say how, in my judgment, these individual teachers should
be selected. That question, I think, is a local matter. I can conceive of organi-
zations so effective that the officials, or the public generally, which is the last
and only element to be considered, could have perfect confidence in the wisdom and
ability of the work. I can conceive of other conditions where there might be very
ineffective appointments, and where a personal selection might be very much
better.

I feel — more specifically answering the exact question — that, after all, we
cannot make a genuine democracy in theory out of a school system. We have got
to have a very definite power located somewhere, and if we had ideal teachers in
every single case, I could conceive of appointments being very effective along that
line. But there is no hope for that kind of a condition, and I feel strongly that we
can secure better appointments through the nomination of the superintendent, and
his corp of assistants, than we could get if we trusted to the judgment of the
individual teacher. That does not, however, take away the fact that the teacher
is a very important factor in this matter, and there should be some way through
which the superintendent, the board of education, and the officials in charge of
teachers and principals, should have just as good an opportunity to judge of the
efficiency of the principal, say, from the standpoint of the teacher, as he thinks
he can get of the efficiency of a teacher, judged from the standpoint of the prin-
cipal.

Miss Haley: Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question?

The Chairman: Certainly.

Miss Haley: Do you think, Mr. Chadsey, that the admitted failure of our
systems provide any means by which teachers might bring their experience to
bear on school policies — do you think that that has anything to do with the ques-
tion of the cause of inefficiency in teachers?

CONSULTATION BUILDS TEACHING EFFICIENCY.

Mr. Chadsey: It might in individual cases, because one of the great causes
of inefficiency, Miss Haley, to put it bluntly, I think, is laziness. Perhaps laziness
is too harsh a word; but, say a willingness not to give the best of one's effort to
the work. In cases of experienced teachers, it is very apt to be that; and the
proof of that is that where there does exist some method of forcing a teacher to
realize that unless she does better work she is sure to lose her position, in the
great majority of cases it results on the part of your experienced teacher, in very
much better work. That is, she has not, for some reason or other, given her best
effort.

I can conceive that if there was a feeling on the part of all teachers — which I
suppose does not exist always — that their point of view, their beliefs, can reach
those who are actively concerned in the formation of a policy, there might result
on the part of teachers who sometimes do not give their best, a tendency to do
better. They would be more encouraged, and work harder. So I can conceive,
really, of efficiency being increased, and I think it would be increased. I do not
personally see any reason whatever for any superintendent in any way feeling
that groups of teachers should not actively consider all problems, and should not
formulate some way for having their ideas reach in a definite way those in
authority. I think also that they have a right, under such conditions, to be con-

37

vinced that their recommendations do receive the most careful and judicious con-
sideration. If they are simply tabled and ignored, they have a right to feel that
conditions are not as they should be, and a right, perhaps, as individuals some-
times, to feel discouraged as to the necessity of giving the best^ that is in them.
Does that answer your question, or did you have something else in mind?

Miss Haley: It answers it in part. I would like to ask you which you think
leads most to inefficiency: a condition where teachers know and feel that ^they
have something to give to the system, and the system does not either demand it, or
give them an opportunity to give of their knowledge and experience; or a con-
dition where there is a system that has not got enough life in the teachers, even,
to know that they have something to give, and does not make any demand for it?
Which is the worst, and in which is the most danger of inefficiency?

Mr. Chadsey: I do not know how I could answer that question, I am sure.^ It
would depend entirely upon the individual system, and the degree of disappoint-
ment or the degree of lethargy that might exist. I cannot answer it either way.

Miss Haley: I speak of that, Mr. Chairman, because I have not heard Mr.
Chadsey say anything about defining the responsibilities and opportunities of
teachers. He spoke about defining the powers of the board of education, and the
power of the superintendent, and it is only occasionally we hear anybody who
says that there ought to be a definition of the rights, responsibilities and duties of
teachers. It seems to me they are in a group by themselves, just as the superin-
tendents are in a group by themselves, and just as boards of education are in a
group by themselves; and there are three groups, and not two. The superintendent
is not the spokesman of the teachers because he is not elected by the teachers. If
he were elected by the teachers, he would be their spokesman. He is elected by the
board and is the board's spokesman. Now, if you are not going to give the teach-
ers any voice at all through somebody whom they elect, then you must have some
other provision for giving them a voice; and if you do not give them a voice, then
you have not any reason to complain of their being inefficient — if you do not give
them an opportunity to express themselves.

VOICE OF TEACHERS SHOULD BE HEARD.

Mr. Chadsey: I do not take exception at all to the way Miss Haley has put
that. I think it should be perfectly obvious, in the first place, that the efficiency
of a school system, in the last analysis, ought to depend upon the efficiency of the
teachers. They constitute " the largest group. Certainly, the amount of money
spent for teachers tremendously outweighs that spent for any other group; and
certainly they are the individuals that come in direct contact with the pupils. I
feel perfectly convinced that the time must come when in some way there will be
this definite opportunity for the teachers to have a genuine way of determining
their beliefs, or seeing that their beliefs secure proper consideration. I do not
think that that implies that the superintendent should be elected by the teachers.
I do not think that a good superintendent ought to hesitate, as far as his own
personal future is concerned. I think he ought to be in such a tremendously advan-
tageous place, from his prominence in the group, that it would be hard for me to
conceive of any good superintendent being ousted by the teaching force, the teach-
ing body, under such conditions. I do not mean that at all. And yet, I come back
to my fundamental proposition, that the board of education should be elected by
the people, and represent the people, and the people have all control of the
schools; and that therefore the board of education should elect the superintendent,
and the superintendent, so far as the fiscal conditions of the schools, and so far
as the general conduct of the schools is concerned, must of necessity be responsible
to the people rather than to the teachers. I do not see any real inconsistency in
those two statements. I think, though, that the teachers where they are orginazed
in such a way that the real feeling of the teachers can be secured, can furnish the
most valuable piece of information that can be gotten, and certainly their opinions
should be considered with all of the respect that such information deserves.

M^iss Haley: I would like to ask you another question, with the Chairman's
permission. May I, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman: Certainly. What is your question?

38

Miss Haley: Mr. Chadsey, do you think that the provision, whatever it may
be, for giving an expression to the views of teachers, should be dependent upon
any individual in the system, to withhold or grant it to the teachers?

Mr. Chadsey: I do not believe I get what you mean by that.

Miss Haley: Well, I will make it concrete. We have in Chicago today a pro-
vision for the meeting of what we call educational councils. The teachers are
assembled once or twice a year to express themselves. They are assembled by
groups. There is no voice of authority or position, as has been stated, in any of
those groups. They are all on a par. Classroom teachers meet with classroom
teachers, supervisors meet with supervisors, and principals meet with principals.

Mr. Chadsey: Are they organized, or are they called by the school authorities?

Miss Haley: The board of education by their action provided that the teach-
ers should meet in this way, and then that they should express their views to the
superintendent, through elected delegates for that purpose. Each group is free to
select as many delegates as is necessary to convey the varying opinions. Now, the
superintendent is left with the responsibility of calling those meetings, and the
teachers never know whether they are going to have them or not. The time has
passed, for instance, now, in this month — the time provided by the board of edu-
cation; and the meetings have not yet been called. The teachers do not know why,
and they do not know whether they are going to be called or not.

Mr. Chadsey: Now, your question was —

Miss Haley: My question is: do you think, on whatever authority the duties
and responsibilities of the board of education are fixed, with the same responsi-
bility, or the same power, whatever it may be, whether it is statutory, or by the
rules of the board, that fixes the power of the superintendent — should that also
define the responsibilities of the teachers?

DEFINITION OF TEACHERS' RESPONSIBILITIES.

Mr. Chadsey: I am inclined to think so, yes. I am inclined to think that the
situation has reached a stage where it is a perfectly legitimate request or demand
on the part of the teachers that there be some way in which their feelings shall
have an absolute certainty of consideration, and that that should be just as public
as the actions of the board of education. I think it should be absolutely public. I
do not think anything should be secret about school affairs, save those discussions
which have to do with the individual merit of the teachers. I think those should
be secret, and should be made public only when the teacher herself wishes to have
them made public.

Alderman Buck: Summing up somewhat your remarks concerning the efficiency
markings of teachers, Mr. Chadsey, should you say that you would consider that a
principal who has marked a teacher, or any other official who has marked a
teacher, should be ready to discuss in detail the manner in which he arrived at
his conclusions as to her efficiency, with the teacher herself and with the superin-
tendent, or the board of education?

Mr. Chadsey: Oh, yes, either one. I do not think that the ratings of a
teacher should be made public. I think, though, that she should have absolute
access to those marks, and that she should have an absolute right of discussion with
whoever gave her those marks, as to the reasons for reaching those conclusions. It
seems to me that is fundamental. Otherwise you have a hidden hierarchy which
can make or unmake a teacher, without any chance for the teacher to protect her-
self.

Mr. Max Loeb: Coming back to the need of teachers for expression of their
views, referring to them as the silent voice in the educational system, have you any
practical plan in mind, any definite suggestion as to how a voice can be given to
the teachers? The councils that Miss Haley speaks of seem rather inadequate,
for the reason that —

Alderman Buck: They are not held.

Mr. Max Loeb: Well, even if they are held, there is no necessity for acting
upon any opinion which is given by the teachers, either pro or con. And it is very
likely to be kept in obscurity.

Mr. Chadsey: It is very easy to control that. If you were to organize a
definite system, through which' the individual teacher, either as a teacher of an

39

individual grade, or an individual speaking, or both, had representation in the
group which discussed any problems which were of value, either educationally or
otherwise, to the teacher, and through which those conclusions and findings and
recommendations should be submitted to the other authorities, and should be dis-
cussed and acted upon in a public manner, you would have the whole thing! taken
care of then.

Mr. Max Loeb: Have you councils of that sort in Detroit?

Mr. Chadsey: I have not, no, sir. I would not at all object to it, if they wish
it, or anything of that sort. But I have never had any request for anything of the
sort. I would welcome it personally, because I feel that I would doubtless get
certain inside information that I have no way of getting at the present time. To
me, the opinion of teachers is just as valuable, and more valuable, than that of
any individual; and is bound to be.

TEACHERS' ACTIVITY FOR SALARIES PROPER.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you think, Mr. Chadsey, that the teachers in any
way should be able to express their opinion as to what would be a reasonable
salary for the service they render?

Mr. Chadsey: Why, certainly. They are the most interested of all, and they
should certainly have some opportunity to express their opinion concerning what
they thought was adequate. In fact, I have asked our Detroit Teachers' Club,
which is the only organization that includes all of the teachers, definitely to make
a study of the salary situation in the elementary schools in the United States, and
particularly of all systems that paid a better salary than Detroit, and to get that
in such shape that they can present their information both to the board of edu-
cation and the city council, with reference to a more adequate compensation.

Alderman Kennedy: You did not resent the efforts of the teachers to get
better compensation?

Mr. Chadsey: I asked them to do that. The suggestion came from me.

Alderman Buck: Do you believe that teachers should be elected each year?

Mr. Chadsey: I do not, Mr. Buck. I think that is a totally unnecessary for-
mality, although we are doing it; and I have never worked anywhere, where it was
not done. But I know that there always are a great many teachers who, without
the slightest reason, feel worried until the actual formal action of the board is
taken; and where we are dealing with thousands of teachers, the thing is so
absurd that I think we should have some other way. On the other hand, I do not
think that a tenure of office should be so iron-clad that it becomes a practical im-
possibility for the incompetent teachers to be dropped; and I think that the better
teachers are just exactly as anxious to have the standards maintained as we are.

In cases where I have recommended the dropping of teachers, I have unfor-
tunately, in one or two cases, not had my action confirmed by the board; and 1
know that the teachers almost unanimously felt that my recommendations should
have been followed in the matter. That is, they do not want the incompetents to
remain; they have their own pride, their own desire to have a high standard of
efficiency; and the number of inefficient teachers is very small. But just so soon as
you make them feel that they are not getting justice, and that there is a possibility
that prejudice on the part of either the superintendent, or his assistants, or the
principals, or anyone else is causing the discharge of teachers, then you have a
very different attitude on the part of the teaching force. Certainly a teacher has
a right to permanent employment just so long as she is efficient.

ANNUAL ELECTION OF TEACHERS UNSOUND.

Alderman Buck: Should you suggest that she should have a stated term at all,
or that she be — •

Mr. Chadsey: Xo, I think that a teacher should have permanent tenure after
a certain preliminary term. I think that there should be a certain time; and I
am -rather inclined to approve of the New York system, where for three years the
tenure of office is absolutely determinable by the superintendent. I think that i:?
a pretty good arrangement, because it gives ample opportunity for the officials to

40

determine whether a teacher is competent, or not. After that period, whatever it
may be, when the teacher is regularly appointed, I think that there should be no
more re-elections, but tnat the teacher's name should appear before the board of
education only for two causes: when for some reason she is to be promoted, and
therefore there has to be some formal action; or when for some reason she is in-
efficient, and should be dropped.

Alderman Buck: Should an inefficient teacher be dropped without a chance
to improve her work?

Mr. Chadsey: I do not think so. I think an inefficient teacher should be noti-
fied a sufficiently long period in advance to give her an opportunity to show that
she can do better work. I wish to add to that, however, that after 20 years
experience I have almost never known of a teacher to admit that she was so noti-
fied, who was dropped for inefficiency. They do not seem to realize their situation,
or our officials are desperately delicate in telling them of their danger, because
there seems to be an almost unanimous feeling that the final decision was a
thunderbolt out of a clear sky.

Mr. Max Loeb: Have you people any age limit for teachers?

Mr. Chadsey: We have one. I am inclined to think that if your age limit is
sufficiently high, it is a pretty good thing to have; and yet I can conceive of no
satisfactory age limit for we know that there are immensely effective teachers
who are past that age limit. Nor can I think of an age limit so low that there are
not some teachers who have outlived their usefulness, and ought to be dropped.
But I do think this, that if you are going to have anything of that sort, you must
have adequate salaries, and an adequate retirement fund, so that there is no injus-
tice done to the teacher who has given her service to the community, and who
through failing powers is not able to maintain the standard of efficiency that we
think is desirable.

Alderman Buck: Do you believe in the dismissal of teachers, or the failure to
elect teachers — the interruption of their tenure — without specific charges being
stated in each case?

Mr. Chadsey: Would you say that the charge of inefficiency was specific?

Alderman Buck: Yes. By "charges" I include inefficiency.

DROPPING TEACHERS WITHOUT CHARGES UNJUST.

Mr. Chadsey: I think that it is only just that there be made reasonably
definite charges. But I want to add to that the statement that inefficiency on the
part of an experienced teacher is practically impossible to prove legally. That is,
I cannot conceive of a teacher who is efficient enough to have taught a few years,
not being efficient enough to bring a host of witnesses who would testify as to
her wonderful efficiency as a teacher. Therefore I think that it is necessary for
the reviewing authority — in this case, of course, the board of education — to ac-
cept the testimony of a group, at any rate, of officials as practically final in such
cases.

Alderman Buck: After, however, the teacher has had an opportunity to im-
prove her work?

Mr. Chadsey: Well, I think the teacher, in addition, should have an oppor-
tunity to appear before the board of education and plead her case. It is a very
serious thing, it is a terrible thing, for a teacher to be dismissed for inefficiency. It
should not be resorted to by the superintendent unless he is absolutely convinced
that the welfare of the system does demand it; and then she ought to have every
opportunity to prove that there has been in some way an error of judgment. But
if that means that the board of education is going always to be influenced by
sentiment, and restore the teacher because her discharge is such a terrible thing,
the condition becomes laughable; and that is the case in many a school system
today. So true is that, that in some systems there is no effort made whatever to
drop a teacher for inefficiency.

The Chairman: Do you consider it the function of the board of education to
take the initiative for the removal of any teacher, Mr. Chadsey?

Mr. Chadsey: I think the board of education should not do that, no. I tninK,
if the superintendent cannot take the initiative, you had better get a new super-
intendent.

41

Miss Haley: Mr. Chairman, may I ask Mr. Chadsey another question?

The Chairman: Certainly.

Miss Haley: Mr. Chadsey said that in the case where the board did not sus-
tain him in dropping inefficient teachers when he recommended it — he spoke of the
sentiment of the teachers. Has it ever occurred to you that it is a mistake not to
utilize that sentiment of the teaching body, when it comes to that question of re-
moving those who have been declared to be inefficient?

Mr. Chadsey: It has certainly occurred to me a great many times, and I
think, when I opened this part of the discussion, I said that I did not as yet feel
that I had worked out any plan that I commend as final, but that I am in the
heartiest sympathy with the idea that there must be some plan through which
the knowledge and the experience of teachers should reach the superintendent in
an effective way; and, of course, if that were true he would assume that it
was reciprocal, and that in a similar way he could rely upon the teachers to
assist him in working out the policies which were beneficial to the schools. And I
am perfectly convinced of the natural loyalty of the very great majority of all
teachers toward their official superiors. I think it is the natural condition of mind;
and that where that loyalty does not exist, there must be some abnormal condition
which has produced that situation. I think that is true, in a large majority of
cases. I know there are individual teachers, individuals who would be disloyal,
whether they are teachers, or not; and there are individuals who are trouble-
makers, etc.; but that is not true of the very great majority of teachers. The
superintendent can rest assured that in any general policy he can count on the
support of the great majority of his teachers.

BOARD NOT TO DICTATE TEACHERS' AFFILIATIONS.

Alderman Buck: Do you consider it a proper function of the board of edu-
cation to restrict the activities of teachers in matters outside of the school?

Mr. Chadsey: I think that the board of education has just two things to de-
termine, through the superintendent and his officials. First, is the teacher all that
she ought to be as to character? And second, is she efficient?

Alderman Buck: You would consider it a proper function of the board of
education to require that she should or should not belong to certain organizations,
would you?

Mr. Chadsey: I do not see how it is any of our business as to what she belongs
to, as long as she is a good teacher, and is doing efficient work, and is a good man
or woman. I can see how an individual might easly belong to organizations, and
devote so much of her time, energy and thought to them that she reduced her
efficiency as a teacher; and then, in that way, have to be dropped as inefficient.
But I feel on that subject just as I feel personally on the question of the married
woman teacher. In Detroit marriage constitutes a resignation, but I have never
seen any reason why we should assume that there was something wrong about get-
ting married. If a married woman teacher is a good teacher, and a moral woman,
why should I care whether she is married or single? And so with any other out-
side activity, why should I care whether she belongs to half a dozen different
societies, or not, so long as she is able to do good work, and is a good woman her-
self, or a good man.

Miss Haley: I would like to ask one more question, about the board of edu-
cation, if I may.

The Chairman: Very well.

Miss Haley: It is going back a little, about the Detroit plan. When we go to
get a bill through the legislature, we have got to show the members that other
people have something like that some place else. They will not strike out for
themselves to do anything. Suppose the board of education should adopt a policy,
or some of those members, rather, who are just elected — a policy that the people
disapproved of. The people then have no way at all of expressing that disapproval
until the next four years, have they?

Mr. Chadsey: No way at all, except in the matter of re-election. Of course,
I cannot speak from experience in Detroit as to that. I know there would be no
danger with the present board of anything of that sort happening, because, as I
said earlier in the day, if there is a very emphatic evidence that the voting public

42

believes in a certain policy, those things are secured. I have seen that tried time
and time again with our board of education, and with our city council, and with
our board of estimates and I have had personally, time and time again, on account
of the very bunglesome system that we have of securing our funds, practically to
appeal to the public through the papers to get a certain appropriation; but wo
have always gotten it within twenty-four or forty-eight hours, because the council,
or the board of estimates cannot stand against the hundreds and thousands of re-
quests from the people, people of influence; and a change of front very soon taken
place. And it is right that it should. I do not criticise a city council for feeling
that way. Why shouldn't they? If they are there for the purpose of carrying
out the best thought of the community, and they become convinced that they have
not interpreted the thought of the community correctly, why shouldn 't they change
their minds? My experience is that they always do, if they become convinced that
the people want a certain thing. I think to a less extent that would be true of a
small board. I do not think that it would be as true. The larger the community,
the more independent the individual becomes; and an appointed board is lean
responsive to public demand than an elected board, for the same reason, because
the appointed board member ordinarily owes his appointment to one individual,
and so long as that one individual believes in him, he has no other one to con-
sider; but your elected board member is always feeling anxious to be re-elected. In
nine cases out of ten a board member, for some reason or other, enjoys his work
so much that he wants to be re-elected, and so he is thinking all the time about
fulfilling the real desires of the people.

MR. FRANK E. SPAULDING,

Superintendent of Schools, Minneapolis, Minn.

Mr. Spaulding appeared Oct. 28, 1916.

Alderman Buck: Mr. Chairman, the sub-committee has secured the attendanco
today of Mr. Frank E. Spaulding, superintendent of public schools at Minneapolis
and formerly superintendent of the public schools at Newton, Massachusetts. Mr,
Spaulding comes with singular appropriateness before the committee at thin
time when we have won our appeal before the Supreme Court in the matter of the
investigation of the finances of the board of education, for Mr. Spaulding han
specialized somewhat in his experience as school superintendent on the adminis-
tration of school finances. He also has specialized on industrial training and han
had experience in both of those lines.

Mr. Spaulding: Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, the subject
of school finances is so very large that it would be entirely out of place, I think,
for me to attempt to give any comprehensive discussion of the matter at thin
time. I will make a few statements that occur to me as being most important and
then I will be very glad to have you, as your interest dictates, ask any question or,
the subject.

I think the finances of school administration should be handled according to
principles that would be considered sound in any productive business. I use tho
word ll productive " advisedly because I consider education a productive enter-
prise. To illustrate what I mean by handling the finances in a sound business
way, I should say that with a given revenue possible and available for the con-
duct of a school system a very careful budget should be prepared of the pro-
posed plans for a certain period, at least a period of a year ahead — a budget going
into sufficient detail to indicate pretty clearly what the cost will be of carrying ou->;
proposed plans, for instance of employing the necessary number of teachers in
various departments, the overhead expense of buildings, of their operation, oi
school supplies and so on. Then I think that if that budget is sound, and it meet?
wfth the approval of the board of education, that the tax levy should be adjusted
to raise the necessary funds. If it should be found that the necessary funds can-
not be secured within some limit of tax rates, statutory or otherwise, why then
the budget ought to be adjusted to the funds that will be available.

43

ACCOUNTING SYSTEM TO YIELD UNIT COSTS.

Then, of course, a careful record should be. kept of all expenditures, classified
and published from time to time, in fact open at any time to the public, so that
the public may know exactly how their money is being expended and for what it
is being expended. Every year at least a complete report of expenditures should
be made.

Almost every phase of education has its financial side. I think it is highly
desirable to have some system of cost accounting by which it is possible to tell in
a good deal of detail just what a given unit of effort costs — what a given unit
connected with the school buildings or operation of schools costs; how much it
costs to provide school room facilities per pupil, in the kindergarten, in the ele-
mentary school and the high school; how much buildings cost per square foot of
floor area, per cubic foot of contents; how much it costs to give a definite unit of
instruction in any subject that you please; how much it costs, for example, to
provide a recitation in Latin or history.

Such unit costs not only give information that is pertinent, but they may
be often the basis of great economies, financial and educational. Suppose, for
instance, that a certain unit cost in one school is three times that in another; such
a marked discrepancy suggests an investigation to determine why the same unit
costs so much more in one school than in the others. I do not mean to say that the
lowest cost necessarily indicates the most efficient administration. It may be
that the highest cost represents the most efficient administration; to determine
this, we should have the pertinent facts before us. Then by comparisons we may
determine whether it is wise so to organize our schools and classes that we shall
produce given results at a high cost, at a low cost, or at a medium cost. I think I
need not illustrate further to show that it is just as important for the school
administration to know definitely at all times the unit cost of any kind of edu-
cational product, as it is for the manager of any well conducted business to know
the unit costs of production in that business.

Alderman Buck: Should that budget be made before or after the amount of
the tax levy is fixed?

Mr. Spaulding: Before, of course, the budget is the only basis on which to
fix your tax levy.

Alderman Buck: It should be made on the basis of as complete, as possible,
a program of work for the year for which it applies.

Mr. Spaulding: Certainly.

METHOD OF BUDGETARY CONTROL.

Alderman Kennedy: Will you explain how the budget is prepared at present
in Minneapolis, who has the control?

Mr. Spaulding: It is prepared in the spring, early in the spring.

Alderman Buck: Let me interrupt just a moment, Mr. Spaulding; is your
fiscal year the -same as the calendar year?

Mr. Spaulding: Our city fiscal year does not correspond with the school
year; this is an unfortunate condition in Minneapolis, and generally throughout
the country. As you probably know, the city fiscal year in this country corre-
sponds generally with the calendar year, while just as generally the school year
ends June 30th. This lack of correspondence of the fiscal and school years is
especially unfortunate where the board of education does not control the amount
of the levy under the statute. The board of education has to make its plans in the
spring, including the making of contracts with teachers, for the school year ending
June 30 of the following calendar year; these plans and contracts go into effect
the first of September. The annual school budget should be made at the time plans
and contracts are made; this budget should include the expenditures necessary to
carry out the plans and contracts. If the board of education has power to levy a
tax up to a certain maximum rate, it can estimate approximately the maximum
revenue available, and fixes its budget to this estimate, making the levy necessary
at the proper time. But if some other board, like the city council, or a board of
tax levy, such as we have in Minneapolis, fixes the rate, and fixes it about the
first of October, as in Minneapolis, we have this unfortunate situation, Plans and

44

contracts of the board of education depending upon a budget made months before
are actually in operation; this condition virtually compels the tax levy board
either to rubber stamp the board of education's budget or to refuse a levy suffi-
cient to meet the obligations to which the city has already been committed. If the
board of tax levy decides upon the latter course, then the board of education is
compelled either to run a deficit in carrying out its plans and contracts or to dis-
organize and seriously hamper the work of the schools by revising plans so as to
bring the budget within the revenues available.

A board of education should have financial power corresponding to its edu-
cational responsibility. Only with such power is it possible to plan with confidence
and to carry on an educational system efficiently and with true economy. It ifl
probably wise to put a maximum limit, by statute or otherwise, to the rate that
a board of education may levy for educational purposes; otherwise the board
might get so enthusiastic about education that it would tax the city into bank-
ruptcy. But whatever financial checks are placed upon the board of educa-
tion, this is perfectly clear: the board should know, at the time that it makes
its plans and contracts for a year, the amount of money that will be available for
carrying out these plans and contracts. Unfortunately this is not the condition
under which the Minneapolis board is now working.

Alderman Kennedy: May I ask what supervision the board of education has,
or what power, to raise a certain amountf

Mr. Spaulding: The state legislature authorizes a maximum rate for school
purposes^ the local tax levy board determines the rate that may actually be levied
within the maximum authorized by the legislature; the school board may not ex-
ceed the rate fixed by the tax levy board.

Alderman Kennedy: So you are not sure until after your budget is adopted,
how much money you will have?

Mr. Spaulding: No, not until the plans and contracts, on which the budget is
based, are actually in operation. The school year has begun the first of Septem-
ber; we have been running a month before we know how much money we shall
have. I think the board of education will go to the legislature next winter for
an amendment making the board independent of the tax levy board.

Alderman Buck: How are the members of the tax levy board chosen f

Mr. Spaulding: The tax levy board is composed entirely of ex-officio mem-
bers; they are the president of the board of education, the mayor, the comptroller,
the chairman of the ways and means committee of the city council, the president
of the board of park commissioners, the auditor and the chairman of the board of
county commissioners.

SMALL BOARD ELECTED AT LARGE.

The board of education consists of seven members, elected at large, for six
year terms. Two or three are elected at general biennial elections.

On account of the fact that the tax levy board has to determine the rate that
may be actually levied the board of education makes in the spring what is known
as a "tentative" budget; then in the fall, immediately after the tax levy board
has determined the tax rate, the board of education estimates the revenues from
that rate and makes its "final" budget. It may be found necessary at this time
to cut down the "tentative" budget.

Alderman Gnadt: Do the school board get any salary?

Mr. Spaulding: No, no salary.

Alderman Kennedy: What part does the school superintendent play in the
preparation of this budget? Do you have a sort of dual system of a superintendent
and business manager, one looking after the matters of the school -and the other
after business matters?

Mr. Spaulding: We have a business manager, who has the title of "assist-
ant superintendent in charge of business affairs." The superintendent has the
same general control over the business manager that he has over other assistant
superintendents. He is the executive head of the whole system. The rules of the
board provide for the preparation of the budget by the superintendent with the
assistance of his associates, especially the business manager and the auditor. The

45

superintendent is responsible for laying the budget before the board of education.
We have no standing committees; there is no committee on finance.

Alderman Kennedy: How often do the members of the board meet?

Mr. Spaulding: They have two regular meetings each month. There are
some special meetings; they probably average at least three meetings a month.

MINNEAPOLIS HAS NO STANDING COMMITTEES.

Alderman Buck: How many committees have they?

Mr. Spaulding: No standing committees at all. The board acts as a whole on
matters of policy. Quite frequently special committees are appointed to investi-
gate certain things for the information of the board, things that they can investi-
gate perhaps better than the executive officers of the board.

Alderman Buck: After the budget is passed does the board then pass
specifically on expenditures?

Mr. Spaulding: The board does not pass specifically on expenditures,
especially the expenditures for the maintenance of schools, that is, the educational
expenditures. The budget is made up by departments; it provides certain amounts
for different types of expenditures. In accordance with the rules of the board
the superintendent is authorized to direct expenditures within the budget ap-
proved by the board, and for the purposes approved by the board, making a report
to the board every month of the expenditures for the preceding month, and such
further reports on expenditures as the board may at any time call for. This is
the procedure respecting educational expenditures; the same general rules apply
to expenditures on the school plant, carried out under the immediate direction of
the business manager. In these expenditures, however, the board has found it
advisable, on account of shortage of funds, and for other reasons, to make appro-
priations from month to month rather than for a full year.

Alderman Buck: You spoke of the relations between your board of education
and the board of tax levy in Minneapolis; what would you say in general as to the
policy of divided financial control, or concentrated financial control; that is, should
the finances of the schools be entirely in the hands of the board of education or
should there be some other reviewing body?

PUBLICITY FOR FINANCIAL FACTS.

Mr. Spaulding: I think there should be no objection to having expenditures
reviewed by any competent body, an official body, or a committee of citizens,
even by individual citizens. Expenditures should be entirely public, the raising
of revenues, however, within legal limits, should be entirely within the control of
the board of education. In raising legally authorized revenues, there should most
emphatically be no control of the board of education after the time that the board
must make its budget and enter upon its plans under the budget. It is really an
intolerable situation where the board of education is required to enter upon a
policy of expenditures before knowing what funds are to be available. It would
be a considerable relief, for instance, in Minneapolis, if our tax levy board could
tell us in the spring, when we have to make our plans, how much of the maximum
rate this board will authorize. But this cannot be done, for the tax levy board
is legally in existence only for a couple of weeks in the fall. In the interest of
efficient management of the schools, the board of education should be independent
in the making of budgets and tax levies within the limits set by law or charter
and in expenditures; but any competent review or examination of budgets and
expenditures that will show what the plans of the board are, and what expen-
ditures have been made in carrying out those plans, should be welcomed by
the board of education itself, for this attitude on the part of the board of edu-
cation will help to command the confidence of the people and so gain support
for a sound educational policy.

Alderman Miller: I was going to ask, do you have the concurrence of the
city council there upon the expenditures by the board?

Mr. Spaulding: The city council has nothing to do with the expenditures
of the board. When the tax levy board determines what rate may be levied,

46

within the limits set by the legislature, the board of education then makes the
levy and has full control of the funds arising from that levy. The board of
education always levies all that the board of tax levy permits, though it might
levy less.

Alderman Miller: Does the same rule apply in regard to supplies; that
the council has nothing to do with the expenditures?

Mr. Spaulding: The council has no direct control over any expenditures
of the board of education. The council does control the issue of bonds and
may seek to control the uses of the proceeds of bond sales as a condition of
issuing the bonds; legally, however, the board of education has full power to
spend bond money as it sees fit so long as it confines such expenditures to the
purposes, usually more or less general, for which the legislature authorized the
bond issue.

Alderman Kennedy: You have issued bonds for the purpose of erecting
buildings?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you issue bonds for all the buildings you are in?

SEEKS "PAY AS YOU GO" BUILDING POLICY.

Mr. Spaulding: For many years we have had to depend entirely upon bond
issues for the building of new buildings; and I am sorry to say that in the last
few years a good deal of money, the proceeds of bond sales, has been ex-
pended for ordinary repairs. In carrying out a recently formulated building
program covering the next five years, we are recommending that we make a
beginning toward getting on to a basis of "pay as you go.M The issuance of
bonds is deceptive; it appears to keep the tax rate down, while in the long run
it really raises it. For instance, with us the usual terms of bonds is 30 years
at 4 per cent; upon that basis we have to pay in taxes $2,200 before a bond of
$1,000 is retired, or we should have to pay that much did not the interest on a
gradually accumulating sinking fund reduce this amount somewhat. Hence, it
seems to me unwise and uneconomical to depend exclusively or largely upon
bond issues for the building of buildings, and there is no question about the in-
advisability of borrowing money to set a pane of glass or to mend locks on doors.
The Minneapolis board of education has never approved the policy of resorting
to bond issues to pay for repairs; it has been forced to this policy; or rather
chosen it in preference to curtailing necessary expenditures for school mainte-
nance. The funds arising from tax levies have been insufficient both for main-
tenance and repairs.

In the building program of which I speak, the board is proposing an annual
tax levy that will provide about 40 per cent of the total amount to be expended;
the rest is to come from bond issues. It is hoped that eventually, perhaps in
twenty years, when most of our present outstanding bonds are retired and interest
charges cease, we may get on a permanent basis of paying for buildings as
erected. In growing cities, as some studies that have recently been made show,
the cost of new buildings and other permanent improvements constitutes a charge,
almost as constant as that for school maintenance. While this charge varies
somewhat from year to year, the average of a five year period shows hardly
more variation than the annual expenditures for maintenance. Of course if the
erection of buildings were a rare event, occurring, say, only at intervals of ten
or fifteen years, then it might be sound policy to spread the cost of each building
over a period of ten or fifteen years; but when the annual expenditures for new
buildings are approximately constant, then it will tend to a lower tax levy to pay
as you go.

Alderman Buck: You said you favor the board of education having control
and not dividing the control of finances with any other organization; would your
opinion be the same whether the board was elected or appointed in respect to that ?

FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE DESIRABLE.

Mr. Spaulding: I do not see that the method of securing the board should
affect this matter, I advocate undivided financial control for the board of educa-

47

tion to enable that board to make and to put into operation comprehensive and
far-reaching plans with confidence that the funds necessary to secure the unin-
terrupted execution of those plans will be available as needed. There seems to
be a conflict between the function of a tax levy board, — or any board of financial
control, whatever its name, and the function of a board of education. The func-
tion of the board of financial control is that of keeping the tax levy as~low as
possible, while the function of the board of education is that of developing a
system of education adequate to the needs of the community. Now these two func-
tions, keeping the tax levy as low as possible, and developing an adequate system
of schools, are very likely to be in conflict at times.

Of course the more money there is available, assuming that it is expended
wisely, the better the school system that can be developed; but whether the money
available be much or little, sufficient or insufficient, in the interest of simple
business efficiency, the board of education must know how much it can count on
and must know this in advance of planning expenditures.

Also from the educational standpoint, it is important that financial control
commensurate with educational responsibility be centralized in the board of edu-
cation. The public, without thinking much about the connection between finances
and education, looks to the board of education to make adequate provision for the
educational needs of the community. This is right; no other board is charged
with this responsibility. But this responsibility cannot be fully assumed and
discharged without the exercise of corresponding financial power. School boards
are certainly not more likely to abuse this power than are other boards, nor,
with fixed limits to the tax that they may levy, can they greatly abuse such power.
If the people are not satisfied with the board's expenditures and their exercise
of financial power, they have redress.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you think it is desirable to have the election directly
by the people?

BOAED ELECTED AT LARGE IS BEST.

Mr. Spaulding: I think, on the whole, election at large is the best means
of securing a board of education. I have worked under boards elected by wards,
boards elected at large, and boards whose members represented wards but were
elected by the whole city electorate; I have never worked under an appointive
board. I think a study of the history of boards of education indicates that
election at large, on the whole, secures boards likely to render the best service.

Alderman Buck: Do you think that the financial and business management of
the school affairs should be independent of the superintendent of schools?

Mr. Spaulding: No, decidedly not. It is just as illogical and inefficient to
separate the financial and the educational affairs of school administration, as it
would be to separate finances from the productive activities of any enterprise.
For instance, a shoe factory would scarcely be entrusted to two independent man-
agers, one of whom was expert in the production of shoes but had no respon-
sibility for costs, while the other knew nothing about shoe production but was
an expert in finances, which he controlled. The superintendent of schools need
not necessarily be an expert on. business details, but he ought to be able, by con-
ference with the business expert, to determine sound business policies in connec-
tion with his educational policies, thus conducting the system efficiently both
from an educational and a financial standpoint.

Alderman Buck: You would have all the heads of departments under the
superintendent of schools.

Mr. Spaulding: I think that is the efficient way. I do not know of an
efficiently managed business where there is divided control respecting fundamental
matters that are really inseparable.

Alderman Buck: What do you think of the wisdom of having two separate
funds, one for maintenance of the schools, an educational fund, to carry on
the education in the schools, and one for building?

Mr. Spaulding: Two funds are quite common. The important thing is to
have adequate funds; if they are adequate, and well handled, it makes little differ-
ence whether they are in one or two funds.

Alderman Buck: What would you say as to the wisdom of having a separate
tax levy for each purpose?

48

Mr. Spaulding: I cannot see that it would necessarily make any difference
whether a single levy is made to cover both educational and building needs, or
whether there is a separate levy for each. Local conditions, however, might
make either plan preferable to the other. For instance, in case of a single fund
there might be a tendency to develop an educational program at the expense
of proper extension and maintenance of the plant, or perhaps more likely, espe-
cially if laymen controlled the fund, a tendency to invest in new buildings out of
proportion to the investment in educational service. New buildings, architectural
monuments, are evidences of progress that every one can see, while few appre-
ciate higher types of service with the school. I realize that I have answered
your question rather indefinitely.

Alderman Buck: In Illinois we have two levies. Our tax rate for the edu-
cational fund is lower than our tax rate for the building fund; what would you
think of that proportion?

Mr. Spaulding: I think it is all out of proportion. I should say that, on
the average, the building fund need not be more than one-half, or at most two-
thirds, as large as the educational fund.

Alderman Buck: Mr. Chairman, if there is nothing further on the question
of finances, I would like, in view of the fact that we have had nothing on the
matter of vocational education, to defer questions on general school policy until
Mr. Spaulding has told us something of what he has accomplished in Minneapolis
in the matter of industrial education.

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN MINNEAPOLIS.

Mr. Spaulding: Two years ago last fall, when I went to Minneapolis as
superintendent, there was no real industrial education in the city. There was
manual training in the higher grades and in the high schools; also cooking and
sewing. Comparatively little time was devoted to these studies in the grade
schools, two or three hours a week. A little more than two years ago, Mr. William
H. Dunwoody, a citizen of Minneapolis, died, leaving a fund for industrial educa-
tion. This fund, increased at the death of Mrs. Dunwoody a year ago, now
amounts to somewhat more than $5,000,000.

The board of education and the trustees of the Dunwoody fund cooperated
a year and a half ago in securing a careful and comprehensive survey of the
city to determine the opportunities and needs for industrial education, also to
determine a policy by which the board of education and the Dunwoody trustees
might work out the industrial education problem harmoniously. This survey was
made under the direction of Dr. C. A. Prosser, who was then secretary of the
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. Before the survey
was completed, Dr. Prosser was engaged, as director of the industrial education
to be carried on through the income of the Dunwoody fund. The result of the
survey was to show the needs for industrial and prevocational education both from
the standpoint of the children and youth of the city, and from the standpoint
of the industries and the commerce of the city, for the survey was commercial
as well as industrial.

As a further result of the survey, the board of education and the trustees
of the Dunwoody Institute adopted certain general plans of procedure which
leave each body free to furnish and responsible for furnishing education of an
industrial or commercial type within certain fields and limits. For the present
the Dunwoody Institute is providing all of the strictly trade training for boys
and trade extension work for youth and men in day and evening schools. Ac-
cording to the terms of the bequest, the income of the Dunwoody fund may be
used to provide industrial education for girls and women as well as men, but
as the income will not be sufficient to provide such education adequately for both
sexes, the Dunwoody trustees are confining their efforts to boys and men, leaving
to the board of education the provision of all prevocational education for both
sexes, and all industrial education for girls and women. About two years ago
the Dunwoody trustees established a day trade school for boys. At the same
time the board of education established a day trade school for girls. The
board of education is also beginning to organize junior high schools in which the
opportunity is offered both to boys and girls to take up so-called prevocational

49

studies. These prevocational studies occupy twenty-five to thirty per cent of the
time of those who elect them, the remainder of their time being devoted to the
usual academic studies. The prevocational subjects offered are wood work, sheet
metal work, elementary electrical work, elementary commercial work, elementary
agricultural work, printing, cooking, sewing and household management.

Alderman Kennedy: This Dun woody Institute is something similar tern Jiigh
school, that is, do the students there first complete a grammar school course?

Mr. Spaulding: Some boys over fourteen years old who have not completed
the grammar school course have been admitted to the Dunwoody day school, but
most of them have completed the eighth grade.

Alderman Kennedy: Does the board of education have any jurisdiction over
these schools?

Mr. Spaulding: No, not over the Dunwoody Institute; through co-operation
of the board of education and the Dunwoody trustees, however, the Dunwoody
Institute fits in with the plans of the board just as completely as if it were
under the board's jurisdiction.

Alderman Kennedy: What are some of the trades that are taught there?

Mr. Spaulding: Electrical work, automobile repairing, printing, machine shop
and cabinet work, carpentry and sheet metal work.

Alderman Miller: Painting too?

Mr. Spaulding: Not in the day school. I think they give instruction in
painting in the evening school. Their evening school work is more extensive
than the day school work. Instruction in each trade in the evening school is
limited to those who are engaged in that trade in some capacity.

Alderman Kennedy: Have they gotten into touch with labor organizations
in those industries?

ADVISORY COMMITTEES ESTABLISHED.

Mr. Spaulding: Yes, they have a series of advisory committees, I think one
for each trade in which instruction is given. Each advisory committee is made
up of employers and employes among the latter are representatives of labor
unions. This plan is working out very satisfactorily. We have similar advisory
committees in connection with the trade courses for girls in the girls' vocational
school.

Alderman Buck: In what proportion have you members of the advisory com-
mittees from employers and from unions?

Mr. Spaulding: Employers and employes are represented in equal propor-
tion, but only a portion of the employes represent labor unions. There is no
further issue there over the matter of representation.

Alderman Kennedy: Both sides are satisfied.

Mr. Spaulding: All work together harmoniously when they can sit around a
table and talk matters over.

Alderman Buck: There have been no important controversies in connection
with that.

Mr. Spaulding: No. There were one or two trades in which the employers,
I believe, at first objected to entering into any arrangement for advisory com-
mittees composed of employers and employes. These trades were left without
advisory committees, while the committees for the other trades were organized.
Soon the employers who at first objected were ready to form committees.* I
think these are completed now; there is a committee on every trade taught, in the
day school.

The advisory committees have no definite control. They understand that
the board of trustees and the executive officers of the school are the official authori-
ties on all subjects; but I think the general policy of the school is unanimously
approved by all these advisory committees. They have been asked to make
suggestions and to pass in a general way upon the proposals of the school man-
agement respecting courses of study, the length of time that pupils shall serve in

*In revising the"report of these proceedings I find that one trade is still without its advisory
committee — Mr. Spaulding.

50

the school, the opportunities for employment and the initial wage of graduates
of the school. Through these committees, conditions of employment have been
formulated for those who have completed courses in the school; conditions em-
bodying the initial wage and the credit on the usual term of apprenticeship on
account of the school course. These conditions have received the approval of
labor unions and have been formally accepted and signed by large numbers of
the leading employes of the city. In short, most of those things, which are fre-
quently issues, have been settled harmoniously through these committees.

TIME IN SCHOOL APPLIES ON APPRENTICESHIP.

Alderman Kennedy: While the students are in those schools, are any of them
working in the various industries at the same time?

Mr. Spaulding: Comparatively few of those in the day school; but prac-
tically all of those who are in the night school. There are also day classes of adult
workmen who are engaged in the trade. These are working in 8-hour shifts and
have time available during the day in which they get instruction at the school.

Alderman Miller: How long does it require they should take that training
in any one particular trade?

Mr. Spaulding: They have what they call "unit courses;" a pupil must
complete a certain number of units before he is considered fit to go out. On
the average, a pupil will spend about two years in the day school.

Alderman Miller: Is there any understanding then between the pupil that
may take that course and the labor unions as to what his standing will be, or
would he still have to be an apprentice and go through the years that the
unions may require before he is employed as a mechanic?

Mr. Spaulding: The course in the school is credited for so much time towards
the time of his apprenticeship in the trade. I cannot tell positively what the
ratio of credit is. I am inclined to think it is year for year. This credit is
definitely agreed upon, and is universally accepted, I believe, by the unions and
the employers. Of course not many have yet gone into the trade, with the full
approval of the school, because the school is not yet two years old. This year a
considerable number will complete their courses.

Alderman Kennedy: This is strictly a vocational school?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes, sir.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you think it is desirable to develop a system of voca-
tional schools independent of the rest of the public school system and under a
different jurisdiction, so that they would practically have one set of schools under
one superintendent and another set under another?

Mr. Spaulding: Not at all desirable. All local schools maintained at public
expense should be under one jurisdiction.

Alderman Kennedy: You believe in a united system?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes; because I believed in it so strongly, I took steps
early to get the board of education and the Dunwoody trustees to formulate plans
of harmonious action and co-operation. By the terms of the Dunwoody bequest,
there can be no actual single control of this fund and the public funds.

Alderman Kennedy: It is sometimes said that an industrial vocation cannot
be developed in a real scientific way under the jurisdiction of the regular public
school, what has been your experience up there? Do you think that is borne
out in Minneapolis?

DUAL SYSTEM OF SCHOOLS UNDESIRABLE.

Mr. Spaulding: No, I do not think it is true at all. I think there may be
conditions — I think there were conditions — in some places and some years ago
when the surest and quickest way to make a beginning of industrial education
was to begin on an independent basis, but I do not believe that is a good way,
an efficient way, in the long run. For instance, I was in Massachusetts when a
state system of industrial education was established. A separate board in charge
of industrial education was appointed by the governor, while there was already
a board of education. Well, this Industrial Education Board did succeed in

51

arousing a good deal of interest in industrial education; also a good deal of
controversy and much antagonism sprang up throughout the state, after two or
three years of this, until both boards were abolished, and a single board was
created to have oversight over both industrial and general education in the state.
Great improvement has resulted from unified control.

Alderman Miller: Is this course theoretical or practical that they take in
industrial training?

Mr. Spaulding: Absolutely practical.. Their instructors are all expert work-
men in their respective trades; most of them were taken directly from the trades.

Alderman Miller: Is it a co-operative plan? Do the members of the union,
the Federation of Labor, take those pupils in as apprentices in their respective
trades?

Mr. Spaulding: Oh, yes, that is part of the agreement entered into through
the mediation of the advisory committees. If you want detailed information on
the subject, write to C. A. Prosser, director of the Dunwoody Institute. I know
only the general policy.

The Chairman: Is there anything further under that head?

Miss Haley: Do I understand that the educational work of the board is
done in connection with the Dunwoody Institute?

Mr. Spaulding: The girls' vocational school maintained by this board of
education occupies the same building with the Dunwoody Institute.

Miss Haley: Is it co-educational work?

Mr. Spaulding: No. The work of the Dunwoody Institute was organized
and started before they had any building. At that time, two years ago, a large
high school building had just been vacated; a part of it was rented by the board
of education to the Dunwoody Institute at a nominal rental; and they con-
ducted their school in this old high school building. The girls' vocational school
is also carried on in the same building, but there is no connection between the
two schools in their organization. The Dunwoody people are building a new
building and they will occupy it within a year.

CO-EDUCATION IN VOCATIONAL TRAINING.

Miss Haley: If the girls want to learn trades, would you have different classes
of work for the girls?

Mr. Spaulding: The question has never arisen. No girls have signified any
desire to do any work that the boys are offered.

Miss Haley: You have it entirely separate?

Mr. Spaulding: The organizations are separate; they simply happen to occupy
the same building. At the end of the year they will be in separate buildings.

Miss Haley: You approve of separate educational work?

Mr. Spaulding: I believe in co-education in general, but in a trade school
the work that appeals to boys and girls is so different that the sexes naturally
separate themselves. A girl might want to take printing, for instance; but in the
pre-vocational work of our junior high schools where printing is offered, not a girl
has yet chosen it, though free to do so.

Miss Haley: Nearly all of the binding in Chicago is done by girls. Is there
no training for girls in that trade?

Mr. Spaulding: We give no training in binding at present. Ordinary book
binding is not very remunerative, and does not require very much education that
a trade school could give. I doubt that it is wise to put this in the school cur-
riculum; the little technique connected with machine bookbinding can be better
and more quickly learned in the trade itself.

Miss Haley: I understand last week one of the members of the board served
notice on the committee of which he is a member that he would recommend the
separation of the boys and girls in the educational work in Chicago. It would
practically put it on the same basis as in Minneapolis. He said his committee
would shortly make that recommendation to the survey committee. It is a very
practical question with us now.

Alderman Buck: On what basis do you determine the studies you shall include
in the vocational courses?

52

Mr. Spaulding: In the strictly trade courses offered by the Dunwoody In-
stitute, the studies or trades to be taught were determined largely as a result of
the survey of which I spoke. That survey showed the conditions of various indus-
tries, and trades, — the number of employes, the number needed each year, the con-
ditions of work, the remuneration, the demand, and so on. On the basis of this
data seven or eight different trades were established, among which pupils have free
choice. The trades offering the best opportunities and requiring the largest number
of employes have been established first. When the school gets into their own
larger quarters, probably present courses will be extended and others added.

I will say that for some reason the printing course is not sought by many
pupils, although the survey showed a quite large demand and good pay for printers.
But the boys are attracted by something more spectacular, such as automobile
work, or electrical work. In the pre-vocational work of the junior high schools,
however, good numbers are taking printing.

Alderman Kennedy: Are the jurisdiction of the board and the superintendent
and the teachers, their powers and responsibilities and duties set forth specifically
in the statute of Minnesota?

BOAED REGULATES STATUS OF SUPERINTENDENT.

Mr. Spaulding: No, they are not. The statutes are very general. The board
of education has authority to lay down its own policies; it makes such rules as it
sees fit. It determines, for instance, the relation of a principal to the executive
employes of the board, to the teachers, and so on. The board rules are subject
to change at any time that the board sees fit to make a change.

Alderman Buck: Will you outline for us, Mr. Spaulding, the nature of the
relations between the superintendent and the board and the teachers and superin-
tendent in Minneapolis?

Mr. Spaulding: The board of education acts as a whole. It has no standing
committees. It appoints from time to time special committees on definite matters
on which the board may wish information or investigation that can be better se-
cured by small numbers than by the board as a whole. The board acts in a legis-
lative capacity, passing upon policies that are recommended by the superintendent,
or determining policies of its own initiative, which are to be followed in the con-
duct of the schools. The superintendent is the executive officer of the board; to
assist him there are six assistant superintendents, one of whom is in charge of busi-
ness affairs. Each assistant superintendent in charge of general educational work
is assigned to a district over which he has supervision. There is also a considerable
corps of special supervisors.

The superintendent, as the executive officer of the board, carries out the
board's policies, or directs the carrying out of those policies, including the expen-
diture of funds, as I think I have already indicated. The assistant superintendents
give a large part of their time, that is the educational assistant superintendents,
give a large part of their time to the supervision of the schools, but confer, consult
and co-operate with the superintendent at all times in the development of plans
to carry out the policies laid down by the board of education.

Alderman Kennedy: How many schools have you there?

Mr. Spaulding: There are about eighty different schools.

Alderman Kennedy: And what is the average attendance of those schools?

Mr. Spaulding: About 50,000; there are over 1,700 teachers. According to the
rules of the board there is an annual election of teachers; but after a two years'
probationary period, in accordance with the rules, a teacher may expect annual
re-election except for cause. The superintendent is charged with the recommenda-
tion of new teachers and of old teachers for re-election.

Alderman Kennedy: Does the board of education ever take matters into
their own hands, the appointment or rejection of teachers?

TEACHERS RECOMMENDED BY SUPERINTENDENT.

Mr. Spaulding: The board has appointed every one that has been recom-
mended and has appointed no one that has not been recommended by the super-

53

intendent. The rules provide that the superintendent shall recommend teachers
for appointment and courses of study and text books for adoption. Of course the
superintendent does not do all of these things alone; he has to assume the respon-
sibility, but he has the assistance, as he should, of his associates, the assistant
superintendents, supervisors, and others throughout the school system.

Alderman Kennedy: You said after two years none of the teachers are
dropped except for cause? In case the teacher is dropped, is there any warning
given beforehand, or consultation with her?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes, abundant warning is given. This is the plan that we
have been following for the last two years, that is, since I have been in Minneap-
olis. According to the rules of the board, teachers are recommended for reappoint-
ment in April. It is the function of assistant superintendents in their respective
districts and the principals in their schools to assist teachers all they can to make
their work as successful as possible. It is also the duty of assistant superintend-
ents and principals to inform teachers early in the year if they cannot recommend
the teachers' reappointment. About the first of March certain blanks are sent out
on which the principal must make his recommendation concerning each teacher
under his direction. If that recommendation is in any way adverse, for example,
if it means termination of service, or no salary increase when one might be ex-
pected, then this written recommendation is placed before the teacher and ex-
plained by the principal. Below, on the same sheet, the teacher writes any
objection or comment on the recommendation that she pleases. The principal's
recommendation with the teacher 's objection or comment then goes to the assistant
superintendent in charge of that district. The assistant superintendent looks into
the matter, usually conferring with both teacher and principal, and then writes
his recommendation, which may be in agreement or in disagreement with that of
the principal. Again the teacher, having read the assistant superintendent 's recom-
mendation, writes anything that she pleases in reply; and she is particularly asked
to say whether she wants an interview with the superintendent before he makes
a final recommendation to the board based on the recommendations of principal
and assistant superintendent. The teacher is always given this interview if she
wishes it.

Alderman Kennedy: Is that a rule of the board?

Mr. Spaulding: No, a matter of policy that the superintendent has adopted
in carrying out the board rules.

Alderman Buck: It is a rule, however, that the teachers shall be re-elected
only except for cause.

Mr. Spaulding: Except for cause; but I think the rule goes on to say that
the board is the judge of its own causes for failure to re-elect.

Alderman Kennedy: Is it one of the rules that recommendations for appoint-
ment must come from the superintendent?

Mr. Spaulding: It is.

Alderman Kennedy: Does that apply to text books and courses of study also?

Mr. Spaulding: It applies to everything.

Alderman Kennedy: Under its own rules the board cannot initiate those mat-
ters.

Mr. Spaulding: Why, of course, the board is more powerful than any rules
it makes; but it would not be consistent with the spirit or the letter of the rules
if the board did attempt to take the initiative in these matters.

Alderman Miller: Kef erring back to the teachers, don't you think it would be
a better proposition for the teachers to have a hearing when they are charged with
anything before the board and have a right to bring in their witnesses and every-
thing?

Mr. Spaulding: They have that right.

Alderman Miller: And not be under duress to sign anything they do not want
to sign?

OPPORTUNITY FOR TEACHERS' DEFENSE.

Mr. Spaulding: I fear you do not fully understand the plan. The teacher
is not required to sign anything at all. For the teacher 's protection and informa-
tion every adverse recommendation concerning her is made in writing; she is given

54

the opportunity of reading each one as made, and making her written comment
on it. The principal, for example, may recommend that a teacher be not reap-
pointed because of weakness in teaching, lack of ability to control, or incapacity
through any cause. The teacher may write underneath this recommendation that
the statements are not true, that she would like further trial, would like a transfer
to another building, would like leave of absence to study or to recover her health;
or, she may say that under the circumstances she does not wish reappointment;
indeed, she may write anything that she chooses or simply sign her name to the
printed statement on the blank — "I have read the above recommendation "-
to show to assistant superintendent and superintendent that she has seen the
recommendation and has had opportunity to reply to it. This recommendation
with the teacher's reply, if any, then goes to the assistant superintendent con-
cerned, who makes his recommendation in writing, still on the same sheet. Again
the teacher has opportunity to make her reply to this recommendation. The
directions over the blank in which she is to make reply especially request her to
say whether or not she wishes an interview with the superintendent before he puts
his recommendation before the board. If she does desire such an interview, she
always gets it. Thus far, in every case where the teacher has requested it, it has
been possible for the superintendent to make a personal investigation; he always
tries to do anything within reason that the teacher may request to get a judg-
ment on her work and ability that she will consider fair. Finally, the teacher,
if she wants to appeal to the board, can do so. There has been but one such
appeal to the board since I have been in Minneapolis.

Alderman Miller: I will tell you what I had in mind. I had in mind this,
that any time thac a teacher was not to be recommended that the best judge
would be another teacher sent there by the board of education, putting those
children under a test and seeing if they were efficient and if they were being
taught as they should be and had progressed properly. I do not want to conflict
with your suggestions, but I believe there should be a "show down."

Mr. Spaulding: Last spring one of the teachers' organizations, the Grade
Teachers' Association, appointed a committee that offered to hear complaints
of any teacher who thought she had not been fairly dealt with in the recom-
mendations concerning reappointment. I said to this committee that I was very
glad that it had been appointed, because the administration certainly wanted to
do the right thing; that if there was anything in the adverse recommendations
that was not right, that was not based on facts, I wanted to know it. There
were just two teachers who applied to this committee of teachers, the so-called
"complaint committee," that had been initiated entirely by teachers themselves.
This committee made its own investigation of these two cases, but found no
ground on which to support these teachers' claims of unfairness. Subsequently
one of these teachers appealed to the board of education. At her request, she
was given a public hearing. She was represented by an attorney. She brought
more than a score of witnesses before the board, all of whom were heard at length.
The board voted to sustain the superintendent in his refusal to recommend the
teacher 's reappointment.

Alderman Buck: Have you any definite plan of recording efficiency of
teachers?

Mr. Spaulding: Not by special marks. That plan used to be in operation,
but we have abandoned it. The marking seemed to be quite perfunctory.

Alderman Buck: Have you any record of teachers?

Mr. Spaulding: We have a record of recommendations which are in writing,
but these are not according to any specific form; they make use of no system
of marks. Marks mean very little; without some specific statement it is impos-
sible to know what value to attach to them.

Alderman Buck: Do you consider it the proper function of a board of edu-
cation to dictate by its rules whether or not teachers shall belong to certain
organizations or which organizations they may or may not belong to?

ORGANIZATION OF TEACHERS' COUNCILS.

Mr. Spaulding: I have never had experience with the board of education
attempting to determine at all the organization to which teachers should or should

55

not belong. Assuming that such organizations are professional in their purpose
and spirit, I think the board of education ought to encourage them. We have
several teachers' organizations in Minneapolis, all of which are being encouraged.
We have also a teachers' educational council, which is a very definite help to the
administration. This council consists of twenty-six members, representing all
parts of the city and all grades of work. According to its own rules, this council
meets with the superintedent; by invitation the assistant superintendents also
are usually present. At my suggestion, one meeting was held at which only the
members of the council were present. According to the constitution, the council
holds two regular meetings each year. In addition to these two meetings, several
special meetings have been held each year. Through the council we get the ideas
of the teachers. The council considers courses of study or anything that is
pertinent to the administration of schools. According to the council's rules the
superintendent may request the president of the council at any time to call a
meeting for the consideration of any subject that he wishes to bring before it;
also, on request of any three members of the council, a meeting will be called
to consider any matter that these members wish to introduce.

But interchange of views between teachers and the administration is by no
means limited to the teachers' council. Any teacher in the city, any one connected
with the schools, is invited to ask any pertinent question of the administration
over signature, or anonymously; any question that seems to be of sufficient gen-
eral interest will be discussed publicly by the superintendent or his associates.
Anyone may attend such discussion.

Alderman Pegram: What officers has that body?

Mr. Spaulding: The council has a president and a secretary. The council
elects its own officers.

Alderman Pegram: Is there any reference to the duties of the president
and secretary?

Mr. Spaulding: The president presides over the meetings of the council,
and the secretary keeps the minutes.

Alderman Pegram: Does that person have to be a superintendent or assistant
superintendent, or somebody connected with the board of education?

COUNCILS ARE SELF GOVERNING.

Mr. Spaulding: No, no one connected with the board of education is even a
member of the council. The members of this council are elected by the teachers,
and in this way: the city is divided into five districts corresponding to the five
high school districts; the grade teacher of each one of those districts elects three
representatives, one to represent the kindergarten, and first two grades, one to rep-
resent the third, fourth and fifth grades, and one the sixth, seventh and eighth
grades. That makes 15 grade teachers.

Alderman Gnadt: Are they all teachers?

Mr. Spaulding: They must be teachers, elected by the teachers.

Alderman Buck: I think, Mr. Chairman, the members of the committee are
laboring under a misapprehension. This teachers' council, as I understand, is an
official body for the purpose of obtaining the advice and opinions of the teachers
on educational subjects, similar to the teachers' council that is provided for in
the rules of the board of education here, is it not? It is not an outside organization
of teachers?

Mr. Spaulding: It is an advisory body. I will say that the teachers them-
selves originated the idea and had tried to get the recognition and approval of
the board of education for the organization of such a body some years previous
to my going to Minneapolis two years ago. In this they had not been successful.
Two years ago, before I knew of the teachers' efforts, I was trying to devise some
plan by which the administration could get into closer communication with the
teachers. When I heard of the teachers' desires, I called together some of their
representatives and said, "That is what we want; we want an educational council
as an advisory body." This council which I have described was the result. It
has been in existence two years. There are fifteen grade teachers in the council,
elected as I have already indicated; each of the six high schools elects one teacher
as a representative; there is one high school principal representing the high

56

school principals; two grade principals representing the grade principals; and
two representatives of teachers of special subjects, cooking, manual training, and
so on, making twenty-six altogether.

COUNCIL MAY RECOMMEND POLICIES.

The council has no power; it is simply acting in an advisory capacity. The
rules of the council provide for the presentation to the board of education of any
recommendation that the council may wish to make. If the council can not de-
pend upon the superintendent to make the recommendations that they wish, they
may make their own recommendations directly to the board at any time; and
they may be represented by three members at any time before the board. The
council never has made a recommendation independently of the board, nor has
it been represented by its members before the board, because the council and
the superintendent have always agreed upon policies.

Alderman Pegram: Is there any other organization outside of the one you
speak of that acts in an advisory capacity?

Mr. Spaulding: That is the only organization of teachers that acts in this
capacity. There are teachers' clubs, half a dozen organizations, but their func-
tions are not advisory. In fact, this educational council was planned by a com-
mittee consisting of three representatives of each teachers' organization. This
committee, in conference with the superintendent, formulated the plan and drew
up the constitution for the council. A copy of this was .sent to every teacher.
After the teachers had had time to consider the matter they were all called
together. After discussion and some changes in the original plan, the teachers
voted unanimously to institute the council.

Alderman Pegram: You have about 1,700 teachers in Minneapolis'?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes, sir.

Alderman Pegram: What proportion are members of the advisory council?

Mr. Spaulding: There are twenty-six in the advisory council, elected by the
whole 1,700.

Alderman Buck: This council is somewhat similar to the teachers' council
we have here under the rules of the board. Its operation for the present has
been suspended, but it was organized under Mrs. Young, I understand, and is an
organization for the purpose of obtaining the views and opinions of the teachers
in advising with the members of the board on school questions. It is not an
organization of teachers independent of the school system at all. It is a part of
the school system.

The Chairman: How many teachers' organizations have they in your city?

Mr. Spaulding: Six.

The Chairman: What are they called?

Mr. Spaulding: The Teachers' Club, the Grade Teachers' Association, the
Schoolmasters ' Club, the Grade Principals ' Forum, the Manual Art Club, the High
School Teachers' Association. These are the principal organizations. There are
several other small groups, like the chemistry teachers, and the modern language
teachers, that meet together.

The Chairman: What are the functions of the grade teachers' association?

Mr. Spaulding: Its functions are professional; it holds regular meetings
at which matters of professional interest are discussed; it provides professional
lectures for its members. It also furnished hospital aid and home benefits for the
sick. The membership is limited to grade teachers.

Alderman Buck: In your opinion, should there be a clear and definite un-
derstanding concerning the status and the functions of the superintendent of
schools and his relation to the board?

Mr. Spaulding: Most decidedly there should be.

Alderman Buck: Should that be by statute?

VOLUNTARY DEFINITION OF FUNCTION BEST.

Mr. Spaulding: I think that would depend very much upon local conditions.
If such understanding can be secured only in that way, it would be wise to

57

have it determined by statute; but I am inclined to think that the more satis-
factory way in the long run would be the voluntary definition of function by the
board of education that represents the people.

Alderman Buck: In the case of an elected board?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes, in the case of an elected board. But in whatever way
the board is secured, there should be a definite determination of the functions
and relations of the board and the superintendent.

Alderman Buck: You think there should be a definite determination of the
relation of the teachers to the board and superintendent?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes, I think relationships, fundamental relationships, should
be determined all the way through. I think teachers should feel ffee to go to
the board at any time that they see fit. Teachers, however, ought not to go to
the board ignoring the established relationships between teachers, principals,
assistant superintendents and superintendent.

Alderman Buck: But in the case of an appeal from a decision of a super-
intendent, what then?

Mr. Spaulding: Then they ought to go to the board if they are not satisfied;
the superintendent ought to encourage them to go to the board under these
circumstances.

Alderman Miller: I was going to ask then, the first necessary step would be
if a teacher wants an interview they would have to bring it to the attention of
the superintendent and they in turn would have to call a meeting and go over it.

FREE DISCUSSION WITH TEACHERS.

Mr. Spaulding: A teacher desiring an interview with the board of education
could ask it through the superintendent, through the president or secretary of the
board, or through formal communication addressed to the board itself. Of course,
a board of education that determines its own policy would have power to refuse
a hearing; that, however, would be very poor policy. A board of education should
hear any teacher or body of teachers, or any employe who wishes to be heard,
especially if an appeal is to be made from any ruling of the board's executive
officers or of the board itself. In over twenty years' experience as superintendent,
I have never known a board that I served to refuse a hearing to anyone, teacher
or citizen, who wished to be heard on any pertinent matter.

Efficiency in organization requires that all employes of the board of educa-
tion, from the teachers to the superintendent, be open-minded enough to discuss
with each other anything that affects the interests of the schools. If there is
a matter of policy for which the superintendent is responsible, that the teachers
think unwise, the superintendent ought to discuss that matter with the teachers.
He ought to be willing to do that; he ought to invite such discussion. He may
find that he can modify his policy advantageously. After full discussion, how-
ever, should there still be radical difference of opinion, then the matter may well
be referred to the board, should be so referred if the teachers wish it.

Alderman Miller: I will tell you what I had in mind: in the position that
you are now in, as we have had it explained to us, you would act as the buffer
between the teachers' organization and the board of education, and they could
keep that thing up indefinitely, whereas on the other hand if they had an open
hearing you would get to some definite conclusion.

Mr. Spaulding: I think the best way to get along is for those immediately
concerned in any matter, or their representatives, simply to get together in a
friendly spirit, sit down, and talk things over. It is a great deal easier to come
to mutual understanding an agreement in that way than it is through a large
public hearing on matters at issue. It is hard for anyone, after he has expressed
himself in public, to change his attitude even though matters may be presented
that he had not before considered. It is easier, sitting together in a small com-
pany, to talk things over, look at them on all sides, and reach a fair conclusion.
E think that when all parties are sincere and have primarily the interest of
the schools at heart, they will usually be able to get along harmoniously and
without threshing issues out spectacularly before the public.

58

SALARY SCHEDULES IN MINNEAPOLIS.

Alderman Kennedy: What is the arrangement for salaries in Minneapolis?

Mr. Spaulding: The salary schedule for grade teachers provides a regular
maximum of $1,200. Teachers must serve a probationary period of two years,
during which period their salaries are fixed on recommendation of principals and
superintendents. Having passed the probationary period successfully, the teacher's
salary is advanced at least $75.00 per year at each annual re-election until the
regular maximum of $1,200 is reached. The schedule makes provision for a pos-
sible salary of $1,500 for individual merit or special service.

Aldermaa Kennedy: What do they start out with?

Mr. Spaulding: The minimum salary is $700.00.

Alderman Kennedy: At the end of two years?

Mr. Spaulding: There is no fixed rule regarding the initial salary, excepting
that it cannot be less than $700.00. As a rule it is more than that. Teachers
may be appointed at any salary not excluding the maximum. There is nothing
in the rules to prevent the paying of an initial salary of $1,200.

Alderman Kennedy: After the first year there is an increase of $75.00 until
the maximum is reached. Do you think that compares favorably with other
cities ?

Mr. Spaulding: It compares favorably with other cities.

Alderman Kennedy: How does it compare with other or similar occupations
in Minneapolis, between $700 and $1,200? Is the arrangement about the same?

Mr. Spaulding: No, I think almost universally, in Minneapolis and elsewhere,
teachers' salaries do not compare favorably with wages paid in other occupations
demanding equal ability, skill and personal qualifications. We are continually
demanding high standards of service. I think the large majority of teachers
are worth more than they are getting. I think it would be good business
policy to pay more than we are paying. Teachers' salaries do not begin to keep
pace with the increasing cost of living. According to Bradstreet's there has been
an increase of over thirty-five per cent in the average price of standard commodi-
ties in the last five years.

Alderman Buck: Is it your opinion that the general efficiency of teachers
is high?

SALARIES AND TEACHING ABILITY.

Mr. Spaulding: That is a broad question. A teacher that would be counted
inefficient in one place might be counted fairly efficient in another. The practical
rating of a teacher's efficiency should have some reference to her salary. Other
things being equal, a city that does not pay a maximum salary of over $800
should not expect to get the same degree of teaching efficiency that a city paying
$1,200 ought to expect. Of course there is a vast difference in the services rendered
by different teachers for the salary received. Many teachers working for $700
are more efficient than some who are getting $1,200.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you think if the salaries were raised somewhat
that the communities would be compensated for it in better service and higher
standard of education?

Mr. Spaulding: In general I think so. Yet, I think that some more efficient
means than is usually employed should be used to bring about either an improve-
ment in the service or elimination of the inefficient. This is a very difficult
matter. While the teachers' body itself ought not to be the final judge of the
efficiency of teachers, I think the teaching body should co-operate with those
charged with this responsibility, to see that their body is purged of those who are
no credit to the profession. Just the best way to accomplish this has probably
not yet been worked out in a satisfactory manner. In Minneapolis the whole
policy concerning the recommending of teachers has been passed upon by the
educational council. Following this policy which has already been outlined, a
considerable number of teachers in the last two years have left Minneapolis for the
good of the service. In only one case, as I have mentioned, was appeal made
to the board. On the whole, I think the policy there has worked out very sat-
isfactorily. By this I do not mean that the teachers eliminated have always
been satisfied; but rather that the grounds for elimination have been sufficient
and the action taken just.

59

Alderman Kennedy: Have you any pensions for teachers?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes, sir. All teachers are required to belong to the Teachers'
Ketiremeiit Fund Association. Teachers must pay into the funds of this asso-
ciation $10 a year for the first five years of service, $20 per year for the_second
five years, and $25 per year thereafter as long as in service, but not exceeding
thirty years in all. These payments are deducted from the teachers' salaries. At
the end of twenty years' service a teacher may retire on a pension of $333.33
per year for life; after thirty years' service a teacher may retire on the maxi-
mum pension of $500 per year for life.

Alderman Buck: What do you think of the tenure of the superintendent,
should he be elected annually1?

Mr. Spaulding: No, I should say not annually. I think the superintendent
should have a reasonable tenure. He should not be protected in his position
more than teachers should be. Protection, however, should not be the dominant
motive in fixing tenure or a definite term of service, either for teachers or for
superintendents. The dominant purpose should be to secure the best service pos-
sible for the schools. Such service cannot be secured for the schools if there
is continual changing of teachers or superintendents. Neither superintendents
nor teachers should be changed except for good and adequate reasons. The
probationary period of a superintendent, at least in a large city, should be longer
than that of a teacher for this reason. The superintendent's plans and influence
are far reaching, considerable time is required to produce results that can be
observed and judged; while the teacher's work is mainly within the walls of a
single class room, where her influence is felt, where the results of her work
can be seen and judged almost immediately.

For the superintendent a probationary period of three years is as necessary
as one year for the teacher. Three years ought usually to be sufficient. After
three years, the school board and the public ought to be able to judge wisely for the
school system whether the superintendent is competent to render the service that
the city needs. If within that time he has not demonstrated his competency, I
think he should be dropped, even if he has been elected for an indefinite tenure.
No superintendent should desire to continue in a position if he fails to win,
or after he has lost the confidence of his board of education.

Alderman Kennedy: What should be the tenure of teachers, would you say
one year?

INDEFINITE TENURE FOR TEACHERS.

Mr. Spaulding: At least one year; often longer for it is not always possible
to decide in one year with justice either to the school or to the teacher; whether
it is wise for the teacher to continue. After the probationary period has passed
successfully, I think that teachers should be elected on some form of permanent
tenure; but this tenure should not be so permanent that only proofs of gravest
immorality are sufficient to separate the teacher from the position. Permanency
of tenure should depend upon permanently good service.

Alderman Buck: In your opinion is it sound policy to dismiss teachers with-
out notice as to the charges?

Mr. Spaulding: I should say not. No one teacher or other employe should
be dismissed without being told why he is dismissed. Also, reasons should always
be given for a failure to reappoint a teacher or other employes.

Alderman Buck: And without a hearing.

Mr. Spaulding: I believe in giving every one a hearing. If they want to
express themselves on any action taken they should have full opportunity to
say what they have to say.

Miss Haley: Do I understand you to say that they should have a hearing
before dismissal?

Mr. Spaulding: I think they should have a hearing before they are dismissed;
because if any mistake is being made, it can best be corrected before they are dis-
missed. If no hearing has been given before dismissal they should have a hearing
after dismissal, if they desire it. But it is far better to have a hearing before
final action is taken. Our procedure in Minneapolis provides for a hearing at
each step, first with the principal, next with the assistant superintendent, then

60

with the superintendent, and finally, if the teacher wishes it, with the board of
education.

Miss Haley: Is it in the power of the superintendent to suspend the opera-
tion of the regulation in regard to teachers' hearings?

Mr. Spaulding: The rules of the board make no specific provision for hear-
ings. They simply require the superintendent to make recommendations of
teachers. The procedure that T have described has been instituted by the superin-
tendent with the approval of the educational council.

Miss Haley: Then if another superintendent came along he could suspend
that plan?

Mr. Spaulding: He could; he could fail to carry out that particular plan,
unless the board ordered otherwise.

Miss Haley: You say those twenty-six teachers composing the educational
council are elected?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes.

Miss Haley: Do the grade teachers vote for the representation of the high
school teachers?

Mr. Spaulding: No, they vote for their own representatives.

Miss Haley: They have an annual election?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes. The superintendent calls a general meeting of all
teachers in September of each year. All teachers attend this meeting. After
an address by the superintendent, they retire in groups to designated rooms, where
each group elects its representative or representatives to the educational council.

Miss Haley: . Then these twenty-six people call a meeting of their own, or are
they only subject to call by the superintendent?

Mr. Spaulding: The constitution of the council provides for the calling of
two meetings in the year; the dates of these meetings are fixed by the constitu-
tion. The superintendent may ask the president to call a council meeting at any
time and the president is required to call a meeting on request of any three
members.

Miss Haley: Is this a rule of the board?

Mr. Spaulding: The board has nothing to do with that educational council.
It is carried on entirely by the teachers and the superintendent.

Miss Haley: Suppose the superintendent should refuse to call a meeting?

Mr. Spaulding: He might be unwise enough to do that.

Miss Haley: Now I want to ask another question about this council; does
this council when they make recommendations have their recommendations printed
in any official document?

Mr. Spaulding: A mimeograph copy of the proceedings of every meeting is
sent to every school in the city.

Miss Haley: They are not made a matter of record in any official copy
of the records of the board.

Mr. Spaulding: Not of the board. The board members, however, receive
copies of the proceedings of every council meeting.

Alderman Buck: Do you favor an age limit for teachers, I mean a fixed
limit?

Mr. Spaulding: Yes and no. Individuals differ so much, one being in her
prime at sixty while another is incapacitated by old age at fifty, that any fixed
age limit is an extremely unsatisfactory method of determining when services
should terminate. On the other hand, it is so difficult to remove teachers who
have been long in the service, who often feel that they are growing stronger
as they grow weaker, perhaps this impersonal, though unsatisfactory age-measure
of limiting service may have sufficient merit to justify it.

Miss Haley: Do you hold those meetings where the superintendent addresses
the teachers during school time?

Mr. Spaulding: Partially; they are called at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The
schools are allowed to close in time for teachers to get to the meeting place at 3.

Miss Haley: How about the twenty-six teachers when they meet, do they
meet in school time?

Mr. Spaulding: No, they meet in the evening. They have a simple supper at 6
o'clock and take up their business after that. Their meetings usually last until
9, sometimes until 10.

61

PROFESSOR CHARLES H. JTJDD,

School of Education, University of Chicago.

Mr. Judd appeared October 30, 1916.

Alderman Buck: Mr. Chairman, Professor Charles H. Judd of the University
of Chicago is one of the leading educators of the country and has done a great
deal of work in various cities in connection with the survey of school systems,
and has made a study of the question of larger educational efficiency.

Mr. Judd: Mr. Chairman, I will briefly give you the results of one or two
of these investigations. I have not had an opportunity since the committee met on
Saturday to make up enlarged diagrams. I have some small ones which I hope
will be visible to the members of the committee at the other end of the room.
I call your attention first to material collected in the course of a school survey
conducted in the city of Cleveland. The results secured in Cleveland show how
far that school system is doing its work successfully. The methods employed in
that city can be used in Chicago. There is no reason why this committee should
not find out with perfect clearness by the use of similar methods whether Chicago
is getting good work in the schools or whether the work is deficient.

I should like to give you two or three illustrations of how the success of a
school system can be determined. In the first place, when a child does not
complete the work of a given division of a school, let us say, a grade, at the
time when it is expected in the normal course of events that a child should be
promoted, — I say whenever a child cannot be promoted, something has gone wrong.
Now "the something that has gone wrong" is in different cases very different.
Sometimes the child is mentally deficient. If so, since the child must be taken
care of, it is the business of the teacher to provide something other than the usual
course of study for that child. To make that child go through the same thing
again and again where it has failed is often a waste of public money. If the
child is only slightly deficient it should be given another opportunity. If the
child is not deficient at all the trouble may be in the school. The course of study
may be poorly organized or the teaching may be defective. If the trouble is in
the school that should be found out.

MEASURING WORK OF CLEVELAND SCHOOLS.

My point is this, the school system needs to study itself as well as the pupils.
This means a more elaborate treatment of the school's own records. Thus if one
takes the record of non-promotions in the schools of Cleveland it is found that
about seventeen per cent of the children in the first grade do not get promoted.
That means that some children enter school when they are too young; they are
not mature enough for the work, and they fail in promotion. The first grade is a
period of uncertain health, it is the period when defectives are detected and so on.
These reasons explain the seventeen per cent of non-promotions. The number is
much less in the second grade, that is, it is between twelve and thirteen per cent.

(Diagrams were exhibited showing the facts for the grades mentioned and for
subsequent grades.

The striking fact in regard to Cleveland is that the number of non-promo-
tions in the third, fourth and fifth grades steadily increases. That means that
under the hands of the teachers children who have gone through the third grade
are more likely to fail in the fourth grade, that failure in the fifth grade is more
common than failure in the fourth.

In the city of St. Louis you have a high grade of failure in the first grade but
a distinct reduction in the second grade, and in subsequent grades. You have
seven to eight per cent in the middle grades in St. Louis, whereas in the middle
grades in the city of Cleveland you have a maximum failure of more than eighteen
per cent. You see accordingly two school systems where the failure varies from
over eighteen per cent to seven per cent. The school records themselves thus show
you what is going on in those schools.

Now let us find out what is the reason for excessive failures in the city of

62

Cleveland. The course of study is one of the most important matters for our con-
sideration. The course of study consists of reading, geography, spelling, and so
on. We can examine one subject after another. The diagram showing failures in
reading exhibits 'a steady falling off in the number of failures in this subject.
This proves that reading is not the cause of non-promotion in the middle grades.
The failures in reading continually decrease and the non-promotions increase as
you saw a moment ago.

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF NON-PROMOTIONS.

The failures in arithmetic in the middle grades of the city of Cleveland parallel
exactly the non-promotions in those grades. Failures in arithmetic are very heavy,
indeed increasingly heavy in the intermediate grades. The non-promotion of chil-
dren in the schools of the city of Cleveland can be traced to the fact that arith-
metic is not properly cared for in the city. Exactly the same sort of record in
reading and arithmetic can be shown for the city of Grand Rapids, but the non-
promotion curve is better for the reason that in that city they have a system of
trial promotions, which counteracts the bad effects of their arithmetic record. A
diagram can be shown which records a falling off in failures in reading, beginning
at twelve per cent in the first grade and dropping off rapidly to six. On the
other hand, in the city of Grand Kapids the arithmetic failures begin down at a
low point in the early grades but run up to twelve, eighteen and twenty per cent.
Arithmetic and reading are taught in entirely different ways in that city, and the
consequences of the heavy demand in arithmetic would be disastrous if it were
not for the system of trial promotions.

In St. Louis they have mastered the problem of non-promotions much better
by a more workable" subdivision of their course of study. These records show
that one can find out how a school system is doing its work. We ought to have
similar studies of Chicago records. Such a study would clear up many issues
in our school system; instead of talking about efficiency in a vague way we should
be speaking in a definite way and in terms of the record made by the schools
themselves.

Turning from the system as a whole to the records of particular buildings
we find equally clear indications in the records themselves of the kind of organiza-
tion that exists in the building. Thus in one school a fifth grade shows in one
year a non-promotion record of forty per cent. The next year the corresponding
grade has only eight per cent non-promotions. We all know that human nature
does not work that way. There is no indication that these fluctuations are
justifiable. Something has gone wrong in the school where such violent fluctua-
tions appear. This becomes the more evident when you examine the record
of other schools which proceed with perfect regularity. The difficulty with
fluctuating schools is most commonly that they are not properly managed.
There are, to be sure, schools where the population fluctuates, but not back and
forth as shown in the particular record here submitted for your observation.

COMPARISON OF PROGRESS IN SINGLE STUDIES.

I should like to show some diagrams regarding particular studies. Let us
take the case of handwriting. For this study it is not necessary to go outside
of a single building. The pupils are expected to progress from grade to grade in
both the speed and quality of their work.

Suppose, for example, we have a fifth grade and we are teaching them pen-
manship; when the pupils of this grade go into the sixth grade they should show
some kind of improvement and in the seventh grade they should show further
improvement.' All you Jiave to do is to take specimens of the handwriting from
each grade and determine how each set of specimens compares with those from the
grade below. Various schools show different records in this matter. Here is one
that shows steady progress in both speed and quality. Here is one which shows
progress in speed but very little in quality. Here is one that gives attention
almost exclusively to quality. Here are several that do not show any consecutive
improvement. Like comparisons can be made in other subjects. In short, you

63

can go into schools and find out what they are doing. You have in the work
of the pupils a perfectly clear indication of what the school is doing.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I brought a lot of material of this type but I shall not
try to show it further. What I have given you will serve to let you know the
grounds of my statement that it is possible to find out exactly how schools are
doing their work.

I should like to add another type of comment. Our school organizations in
all great cities in the United States have grown very rapidly. Our compulsory edu-
cation laws are fully in force in most of the states. The first compulsory education
law in the United States was passed in 1852. These laws did not begin to be
enforced until 1880, but with their effective enforcement we have sent all of the
children into schools, and the school population has grown with enormous rapidity^
So far as high schools are concerned, there has been a like enormous growth. There
were 300,000 high school students in 1890. There are today 1,300,000. Since 1890-
the high school enrollment has doubled twice and heavy burdens have been
thrown on our school boards, by virtue of the increase in the amount of schooling
the public demands. Furthermore, we are demanding better school buildings; we
demand more and better training for the teachers. Because of the increase in
our school population and the wider demand for variety of instruction the course
of study has been growing more complex.

All these expansions have absolutely swamped the administration machinery
of our schools. We have not developed any adequate administration machinery
for our schools to cope with this new situation. The school administration has
always been a matter apart from our other public functions. After the City of
Chicago was incorporated, and after all of its other functions of city government
had been centralized, the schools were taken care of by districts. The people were
organized, so far as school functions are concerned, as small communities. They
voted directly on every issue regarding schools. They even voted the salaries of
teachers. It was not until after this city began to realize the fact that it could
not properly transfer pupils from one district to another because the various
districts were so different, that a board of education was provided.

OFFICERS' STATUS TOO INDEFINITE.

Even then the board was given very large and very loosely defined powers.
The board in turn appointed its executive officers in the same general, loose,
indefinite way, with the result that today you have not only in Chicago, but you
have in most of the great cities of the country, a situation of this sort: a board
of education with relatively unlimited functions, without any definition of it»
relation to its own officers; especially without any definition of its relation to its
own teachers, and to the superintendent. We all recognize that we have arrived
at the point where it is necessary to define rights and obligations.

No one can work to advantage while he is in the dark about his rights;,
he wants clearness of obligation. For example, whose business is it to find out
whether teachers are efficient in the school system in Chicago? This question ia
not answered in any statutes which we have. The school officers have gone on
trying to cope with their problems as best they can while all the time the problems-
are rapidly increasing in complexity. We have no adequate plan of administration
or support clearly worked out. I think the educational world would be enorm-
ously benefited if this city can unite in organizing a new and adequate scheme of
school administration.

The control of schools ought to be put on a basis of clearness regarding results;
clearness of definition of the functions of the various officers. As long as there
is no record of what is being accomplished and as long as there is no clearness
regarding duties and responsibilities of the officers you are going to have all
sorts of trouble and confusion. If you can start the organization in the direction
of clearness and definition of functions and responsibilities you can at the same
time secure adequate evidence whether your schools are working efficiently or
not.

Alderman Buck: Mr. Judd, this method that you have outlined of measuring
the work of schools can be checked, can it, and be recorded from year to year,

64

without any special outside investigations, I mean that might disrupt the system?
It can be done in the regular course of school administration?

Mr. Judd: The facts are that a number of our leading school systems have
employed outside expert agencies for doing this work. A survey can almost be
defined as an inquiry made by a group of people outside of the system.

CHICAGO SURVEY UNWISE NOW.

My belief is it is possible to make adequate studies of school work from
inside the school system. I think it requires an addition to the administrative
machinery now in existence in most cities to do this. I think it requires people
especially trained. -There are advantages in an inside study as contrasted with
a survey. The disastrous consequences which flow from a general survey very fre-
quently interfere with the object of the survey; that is, if you throw at the
school system a mass of recommendations for improvement, and all the criticisms
that attach to the recommendations, it very frequently disrupts the organization
of the school system. My belief is that the school system could take up its
problems better one by one through its own internal machinery. I do not believe,
therefore, that a survey conducted by outside parties would serve Chicago best
at the present time. However, surveys usually are made by outsiders.-

Alderman Buck: You have told us that the work of the school and the
work of the organization can be checked upon and its efficiency recorded and
compared; would you say it is possible definitely to establish this system of re-
cording the efficiency of teachers, individual teachers?

Mr. Judd: I think it is possible to show with definiteness the efficiency of
individual teachers. I should like to add this remark: I think that a general
survey ordinarily brings out first the efficiency of the higher officials. I think the
detail of what the individual teachers are doing is a matter which can be worked
out by similar methods. The responsibility for a situation such as I have given
you, for example, in Cleveland, the responsibility for the situation shown by that
survey lies, I believe, at the door of the chief executive officer of the system. I do
not think you can, in. a general situation, begin at the bottom and control responsi-
bility in detail, because the operation of individual teachers is controlled in
great measure by the operations of the general system. I think one must begin
with the operation of the system as a whole first, but the methods of exact
measurement are adequate when properly employed to get all of the details.

Alderman Buck: Should there be recorded in the system the efficiency marks
of the teachers?

Mr. Judd: Yes, sir. I think such a rating ought to be backed up by
impersonal records showing the character of the work of a teacher and also
showing the situation in which she is doing her work.

Alderman Buck: The teachers should have access to them?

Mr. Judd: Undoubtedly.

Alderman Buck: And opportunity to discuss when criticised?

Mr. Judd: Yes, sir.

Alderman Buck: What would you say should be the tenure in office of the
superintendent of schools?

INDEFINITE TENURE FOR TEACHERS.

Mr. Judd: I think a superintendent has to have a longer period of time
than does the individual teacher to get his work under way. My own belief is
that a superintendent has a right to know that he is going to have three to five
years for his initial organization. After that I think I should be in favor of an
indefinite term of appointment.

Aledman Buck: What would you say as to the tenure of teachers and edu-
cators in the schools other than superintendents?

Mr. Judd: In my judgment an indefinite term is the best. You solve the
problem of terminating such a term if you have a constant check on what is being
done. When I say the superintendent should have an indefinite appointment I
mean exactly that. I do not think he should have a strangle hold upon his office.

65

I think he should be answerable for the operations of the system, and as long as
it can be definitely shown by the records and examinations of the school system
that the work is going on well I think his tenure should be continued. In
exactly the same way I think the teacher should have a preliminary period,
a preliminary tenure, and after a teacher has made good her appointment
should be indefinite in the same manner in which the superintendent's appoint-
ment is indefinite. I think it is necessary in practical operation to review
periodically these matters of efficiency. In this connection it should be made
clear that unless efficiency is made the center of the system almost any system is
bad. It has become increasingly difficult in all great American cities to remove
teachers. In New York city it is practically impossible at the present time as
history shows. Until very recently it was extraordinarily difficult in this city to
remove anybody who had been charged with inefficiency. It grows more and
more difficult in our municipalities to carry out any scheme. Therefore my argu-
ment would be in favor of an indefinite appointment for the purpose of purging
the teaching force from time to time of those who are not efficient rather than
merely for the purpose of retaining in their positions those who are efficient.
Exactly the same formula should apply to all officers.

Alderman Buck: Is it likely, in your judgment, that any considerable per-
centage of teachers who 'slump in their efficiency might improve their work if
given an opportunity?

Mr. Judd: Yes, I think it is one of the chief functions of the supervising
force in the school system to make good teachers out of bad ones. That is a
responsibility that belongs at headquarters as much as with the teachers them-
selves. There is some material in the teaching staff which cannot be built up to
a high degree of efficiency under any circumstances. I think the energy of the
supervising staff should be devoted to a large extent to the training of teachers
in service. Training in service means steady improvement of these officers.

Alderman Buck: Do you think that teachers should feel secure in their posi-
tions so long as they do their work satisfactorily and are of good moral character?

Mr. Judd: Yes, sir.

Alderman Buck: And that they should not be dismissed without notice and
opportunity to improve and to have a hearing and all that?

Mr. Judd: I do.

Alderman Buck: From your study of schools would you say it is the proper
function of a board of education to dictate by rule of ordinance what organization
a teacher should belong to?

Mr. Judd: I do n<jt think that is a function of the board. I think the
function of ^the board is to provide a high grade of instruction. It should base
all its activities on the fundamental principle that a teacher must be efficient in
class room work. If membership in any organization, or any other cause, tends
to diminish the efficiency of the teacher in my judgment it is fully provided in
present rules of the board that the teacher may be removed. If inefficiency does
not operate to remove the teacher I do not see that anything else should.

ELECTED BOARD FOE CHICAGO.

The Chairman: Do you recommend the election of boards of education or
appointment?

Mr. Judd: I have had until very recently no very definite and final opinion
in the matter. The experience of the country shows that either method does in
some cases produce good boards and in other cases inefficient boards. My own
judgment in the matter is that there ought to be a sufficient public interest in
either the appointment or the election of the board to insure full discussion by
the community at large of educational problems. It is my present judgment that
we are more likely to secure full public discussion of school matters in Chicago
if we have an elective board, but I should not be prepared to defend on theoretical
ground an elective board. I believe that our local situation would be better
served by an elected board.

Alderman Blaha: Don't you think if there was an elected board that the
matter of politics would enter into it and be detrimental?

66

Mr. Judd: There is danger in that, of course, if you do not get back to the
great fundamental requirments that I suggested. If you could have a general
campaign that would have for its main item of discussion the efficiency of the
school work and the methods of promoting efficiency in schools, then I think we can
get to a point of demonstrating the undesirability of politics in the local school
situation, and I think politics would disappear. I think we should have a special
campaign regarding school matters, and if that were vigorously carried out I
suppose the dangers to which you refer would be reduced. I do not suppose they
can be wholly eliminated as long as human nature is what it is.

Alderman Buck: Does the general history as you have studied it of school
systems justify the statement that there is no politics in school systems where
the boards are appointed?

Mr. Judd: No, as I say, you can find both kinds of boards. There are very
strong boards that are appointed boards and first class boards that are elected
boards. If members of the board could be brought to see that it is their duty
to organize the schools rather than try to conduct them, they would be good
members wherever they came from. If they do not see this they will be poor
members. I think the fundamental requirement is to have before the people the
problem of organizing an efficient school, whether you have an appointed board
or an elected board. I think a well appointed board very frequently has its ad-
vantages over an elected board. Of course there is less machinery involved in
making selections in that case. Frequently we have very good illustrations of
strong appointed boards, so I do not think you can make any positive statement
for or against the appointive board.

Alderman Buck: Mr. Chairman, I desire to state at this time that the services
of Professor Judd do not end with this meeting. He has sat in with the sub-
committee chairman continuously since this investigation began. He has given
generously of his time and wonderful information, and this investigation could
not have reached the success it has if it was not for the work of Professor Judd
in conjunction with the sub-committee.

PROFESSOR F. W. ROMAN,

Economics and History, Syracuse University.

Mr. Eoman appeared October 30, 1916.

Alderman Kennedy: Professor Eoman has made a special study of the voca-
tional educational system in Germany and in other countries, and he has also,
of course, kept in close touch with the development of that sort of educational
work in this country, and just at this time we are trying to discover, if possible,
in what ways the school situation here can be improved and, recognizing that one
of the big problems with which we are confronted is that of the development of
vocational education, I thought it would be a good time to have a word and as
much discussion as Professor Eoman sees fit to give us on vocational education,
and especially how it will fit in with a democratic school system for all people.

Mr. Eoman: Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of the committee, my study of
vocational education dates specifically from the time I commenced to study the
German school system. Some years ago I was a teacher in the state normal school
at Bowling Green, Kentucky, and while in that position the governor of Kentucky
appointed me as a member of a commission to go to Germany to study the German
school system, and I got interested in the work and have continued my interest
in it ever since.

Now the whole history of education has shown us that the purpose of any
school system is to enable the children to become fitted to carry on the struggle for
existence, and to enable them to make their livelihood with the minimum effort
and get the maximum of results. Now in view of the fact that we are able to
show that the cost of taxes in this country is increasing, that the number of
people that we have in our jails, penitentiaries and alms-houses is going up every
year, and that the amount of money which society is called upon to raise to
defray the expenses of the defectives and delinquents and dependents is constantly
going up in proportion to the number of people, we are really confronted with the

67

fact that our school system, take it the country over, is not quite meeting the
needs of society. That is the proposition. What we do in our schools does not
•seem to be quite enough to insure the stability of the Eepublic. In brief, that
seems to be the situation with which we are confronted. We constantly hear a
battle going on between labor and capital, between various organizations, and
•class troubles of various types. Now what can we do? Well, I have been im-
pressed very much by what I have seen done. Now I shall not for a moment at
this time discuss the merits of the European war, not at all.

VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS IN GERMANY.

It will, perhaps, not be out of place for me to cite Germany as an example
of efficiency. I am not going to discuss anything at all as to the merits of the war,
but I do feel that I have seen what a school system can do for a state. Germany
does seem to be an example of a country that has been able to give almost a
maximum of efficiency for a minimum of cost, and that is what I understand
boards such as you represent are interested in. How can you get the maximum of
results for the minimum of cost? Well, it would seem that the way that that has
been accomplished in Germany, is to have all the boys and girls in school up to
the age of seventeen or eighteen and have no way of getting out of it. I should
say this, then, in answer to Alderman. Kennedy's proposition, "What place has a
vocational school in a democracy?" Have all the boys and girls in school until
they are seventeen or eighteen years of age; have it understood that nobody can
get out of this thing, everybody has got to go to school, boys and girls, until the
age of seventeen or eighteen.

Now there are certain problems that would have to be handled with reference
to this question. It is simply impossible that society should expect parents to send
their children to school until they are seventeen and eighteen years of age and
also to pay their entire expenses. It would seem from our experience in education
that some plan must be worked out whereby a certain percentage of the boys
and girls will be given an opportunity in this school system to earn a part or all
•of their expense after they are fourteen or fifteen years old. Throwing that burden
wholly upon parents, who may have a family of four or five children to keep them
in school, might be debated as to its desirability. It must be true in theory and
work out in fact, so that it will function.

Now if you can get a vocational system which says that all must go to
school until they are seventeen or eighteen, and the school system is so organized
that the boys and girls — at least a certain percentage according to the needs of
society, which can be worked out — will be given an opportunity in this school
system to earn a part or, if need be, all of their expenses until they are seventeen
or eighteen, you have solved the question of expense, and also have seen to it
that the children grow up and are efficient at the age of seventeen. That seems to
be the first point to be secured. The criticism of the proposition is something like
this — the labor organizations always fear a proposition like this because they say:
"We have a system whereby everybody has got to go to school and then the
school will simply become a 'scab' factory, and every time there is a strike or
things to be done the schools are called upon and they will turn children loose
upon the factory. Now that course should be guarded against, and we must
work out some plan, similar to what I found in Germany.

SCHOOLS TO SUPPLY TRADE DEMAND.

Under the department of labor the city or state has a survey made of the
number of people who are engaged in the various occupations. The state says
that it should be a matter of record as to how many people are engaged in the
various ocupations in the state. They want to know how many journeymen
workers are engaged in the state. Now then it should be, it seems to me, the
duty of the school system to distribute these boys and girls among the various
occupations according to the number of journeymen that are now in those occupa-
tions. That is the way Germany works that out, so that none of the unions
need fear the school because it is a matter of record as to how many plumbers

68

there are; it is a matter of record as to how many carpenters there are in any
particular locality in the city, and province. Now then the state says, the law
says, that for every so many journeymen in a certain particular occupation the
man who is running that establishment may have so many apprentices. Now
these apprentices are in school half of the time, and they are working for half
of the time. The employer can have so many, and no more, because the law seek?
to distribute all the children among all the occupations.

Now when trade unions see the proposition they do not object, because no
committee would say that they are going to keep the children out entirely. The
only just scheme is to let each trade take its share of the children and in that
way no trade will be overcrowded. When the carpenters know they are going
to get their share and no more, they are satisfied. The proportion will have to
be determined by survey, and either that would have to be done by a state board
or perhaps in larger cites by a subdivision of a state board that would make
a careful survey of the number of workers in the city and the number of workers
in each occupation, so that it would be determined within certain pretty well-
defined limits as to how many boys could go into the plumbing work, the car-
penter work and so on, so there would be no overcrowding at any one point.

Now then, instead of labor suffering from any such scheme as that, labor
would have the constant assurance that it was not only getting trained workers,
but that they were not getting too many, also that all workers added would be
thoroughly trained, and because of that fact they would be able to earn the
miximum of money, and that in itself would enable that particular trade to
become strong because the strength of labor depends first upon its skill.

TEACH CITIZENSHIP AND PLAY.

One of the great difficulties of the country at the present time, it seems to me,
lies not in the fact that we are not producing enough goods, but we are poorly
distributing the goods we are producing. The great difficulty is not the producing
of the goods so much as the question of distribution. Now one of the faults of
distribution lies in the fact that our laborers have not been taught how to use
their spare time. It will not be sufficient for laborers to get simply 10 hours or
9 hours or 7 hours' work, it is also important to teach the families of workers
how to use their leisure time, in order that that leisure may be so spent that it will
result in the efficiency of the workers. Much valuable time is being wasted among
our workers now because they have never been taught how to spend their leisure.
It should be the purpose of a vocational education in a democracy, it seems to me,
to teach the pupils how to spend their leisure. It will not be sufficient for the
industrial course to be planned so that all of the time of the children will be given
to manual efficiency, but they must have courses in citizenship, courses that will
show the relationship of the individual to the state, and courses that will show the
duty of the individual to the state; courses which will teach the boys and girls how
to spend their time and have a good time at a picnic; courses which will teach them
how to go out on walks and outings; courses that will show them how to become
good citizens after they become men and women. It seems our workmen lack so
much in that respect that there is no other way by which society can get at that
point except through the school system. You establish certain clubs that will go
out and look after the recreation of these children. This work might be taken
over by the school. My point is that the boys and girls should learn something
in the schools that they will take with them into their life work to show them
how to spend their leisure time. What a boy is able to do after he leaves school
depends upon his power to learn and the habits he has established. To teach this
would be a great function in a vocational education.

We get the impression generally that a large number of people look at voca-
tional education simply from the standpoint of making producers out of the boys
and girls; they think that is the main thing, but I hold to the idea that society
at present is not suffering from lack of production, but from the waste that is
going on. There are a large number of people who have the idea that a vocational
education should emphasize the side of citizenship, the side of democracy as well
as the side of skill, and above all to see that every boy and girl goes to school

69

who is below seventeen and eighteen years of age. That would tend to put the
school system on the road to fit into its proper place in a democracy. It would
give manual service and efficiency to those who need it and it would not work any
inconvenience to anyone so far as I can see.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you think it would be a practical proposition to have
every child going to a public school in Chicago to be taught some trade or
occupation, every one of them?

IGNORANCE WILL BANKRUPT NATION.

Mr. Eoman: Well, it would seem to me a very proper proposition to say
that every child should go to some school after the age of fourteen or fifteen,
after he gets his elementary schooling. Now he has his choice. If he wants
to go to a literary school he can do it; if he wants to go to a commercial
school he can do so. The children are given their choice. All the law says is " go
somewhere, because the state is too poor to allow its boys and girls to grow up
ignorant." It is not a question of having enough money to send children to
school. The state is too poor not to allow them to go to school. It is the
ignorance of children that will bankrupt the state; it is not the taxes that are
necessary to educate them, but their ignorance that will bankrupt the state.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you think this applies as strongly to the training of
girls as boys; that is, that an equal opportunity for vocational training should be
given to girls?

Mr. Eoman: Personally, I feel that the future strength of a democracy
depends upon a like training. I do not mean that they take the same courses,
but that they must be trained in their line of activity, and in fact in order to get
the best possible education it would seem that you should connect the education
with that line of thought. I think I should have added that in my general state-
ment. Experience seems to show that if you can give a boy some kind of work
at the age of fourteen or fifteen, and let him work part of the time and go to
school part of the time, it seems to work out most effectively and gives him a
real eductaion; it will not only make him efficient, but it will give him some idea
of citizenship, because you can teach him responsibilities while he is doing that
work. It seems too bad that so many children go through high school without
studying that side of life.

Alderman Kennedy: A large part of the labor in cities is called unskilled
labor, now if through these various educational schools their children are going to
be schooled, or schooled where they get a vocational training, where is the
supply of this labor coming from to take the place of the so-called unskilled
workers?

Mr. Eoman: I would answer that by saying that experience in the develop-
ment of labor and machinery seems to have proved conclusively that with trained
workers there is a large disappearance of unskilled labor. That is the first point
that I make, you train all workers or put them through school and give them a-
training, and make them efficient; it is the history of the matter that a high
percentage of unskilled labor will pass out of existence, and a large part of this
unskilled work so-called is unskilled work simply because they can get it cheaply
and it does not pay to put in machinery, and the workman is not intelligent, and
he could not do anything with skilled work even if he had it. My first point is
that this compulsory system of education, giving everybody a training, will strike
a powerful blow at unskilled employment; it will kill it, and that will be to the
interest of the worker, to society and to the whole process of production. Again,
if you have all of these boys and girls studying, even the unskilled trade, you will
thereby be giving them a confidence in themselves that will do a great deal in
enabling them to rise in the community. Now if I could illustrate that briefly
I would like to tell what I observed from my experience in Germany.

THREE-YEAR COURSE IN JANITOR WORK.

In Germany every kind of trade is taught in school, even the most unskilled
trade. I was interested to see in Germany a three-year course in messenger

70

service. Now you would say you co-uld learn that in a few days. Germany
makes a grade course out of it. They teach the boys to write. If he is to be a
messenger he will often have occasion to write and he will be given a course
along the line of responsibility — as to the responsibility of the messenger, and
while they are teaching him responsibility they are teaching him to be a citizen.
There is a whole lot that he learns while he is learning to be a messenger. Then
he will be taught various types of work in which he could function as a messenger.
In other words, they will make a three-years' course out of it. Now I want to
say that the number of boys who are studying that would not be great. Germany
has another set of men — older men — who are slightly deficient mentally; they
are given special jobs. Society will always have those who are not "there"
mentally. We have lots of people in charitable institutions and almshouses that
will help along the matter of production if they were properly handled. I do not
say they would be helped along at the top, but they would be helped along some-
where and we would be increasing the production. You take an unskilled occupa-
tion, say a janitor. We feel that that is an unskilled occirpation. I have visited
that type of school in Germany many a time, and I have been impressed with the
fact that they could make a three-year course out of janitor's work. After you
found out what they made out of him in Germany you would have respect for
him. He knows how brooms are made. He knows where the straw came from.
He knows whether it is good straw or poor. He knows when you ask him to
buy a broom where to buy a good one. He will know what it costs. He learned it
in school. He knows all about it. In other words, you feel that your janitor
does know some one thing about that manufacture and he knows that thing
better than you do. That is the best fellowship. Not only does the boy study this
janitor work and understand about the broom, but he understands all about the
oils and paints that go on the floor. He knows the effect of oil upon floors.

In other words, you get efficiency, and even the janitor will not put the wrong
thing on the floor because he learned what to do in his school course. The efficiency
of a democracy depends upon everybody knowing what he is doing.

Alderman Buck: He learns the whole operation of the janitor's work and
not one detail of it.

Mr. Koman: That is it.

Alderman Buck: He learns it in relation to the whole of his life, does he not?

Mr. Eoman: Yes, sir. I would like to add one more point if I may. This
whole scheme ought to be so graded that if a boy has done this work well
and starts in to be a janitor and then the teacher discovers that the boy can do
some better work, that which he has already done will be a stepping stone to some-
thing else, so it will enable a boy or a girl to rise to the maximum of what he
can do, if he has the mental ability. If he has not the mental ability to rise higher
it will enable him to do this work that he has learned well.

Alderman Kennedy: I understand there was some discussion in Chicago
whether this sort of work should be under another kind of board of education.
What has been the system in Germany, have they, dual boards of education, or is
it done in a unified way?

Mr. Eoman: In northern Germany the regular schools have been under the
minister of state on schools and churches, and industrial schools have been under
the minister of agriculture and industry, but in either case there has been no
local board in Prussia, which is more than half the size of all Germany. There
has been no local board in northern Germany. It is all managed centrally, no
local board, the theory being if they had local boards, the two boards would not
agree and, of course, that would tend to inefficiency.

Alderman Buck: In northern Germany who appoints the minister?

Mr. Eoman: The king appoints both of them.

Alderman Powers: What minister has charge of the industrial schools?

Mr. Eoman: The industrial schools are under the minister of agriculture and
commerce. In northern Germany they are under his authority.

Alderman Powers: How long do they attend those schools, how many years?

Mr. Eoman: Until the age of fourteen they are under the minister of schools
and churches. Now in southern Germany I want to say that the schools have
been the most noted. The schools of Munich have been known the world over
for their efficiency. In southern Germany they are all under the same board.

71

«

This point, however, being added for the sake of efficiency — for the industrial
schools there is appointed an advisory committee, men composed of the various
trades and their employers who act as advisory boards. They have no power,
however. There is no possibility of conflict between the two boards, because
one board that has charge of all 'the schools, has the final say, and has authority
over both schols, the second board simply being a group of men who are asked
to come in and give advice concerning the local conditions; they have no power
to act on the budget; no power to appoint teachers and no power to fix the
curriculum, but they are called in from time to time to give their advice. There
is a labor union of carpenters and plumbers and sometimes they call in some of
those men. They keep themselves in touch with the various industrial bodies,
and the advice of the various crafts is considered. The point is this, that there
is never a possibility of getting any factions in the local community over the
situation.

Alderman Kennedy: In your opinion is it better to have one authority, one
control of the situation and no divided responsibility in the community?

Mr. Roman: That seems to be the universal testimony that I have been
able to get, especially as brought out from the investigations I have made.

STUDY VOCATIONAL TRAINING NEEDS.

Alderman Kennedy: Take the conditions in this country, as observed here
in Chicago, and I presume they must be the same elsewhere — we have all done
something along the line of vocational education — what would you think would
be the proper course of action to promote the development of vocational educa-
tion? What do you think the needs are in this country?

Mr. Eoman: Well, I should think that the first step would be to make this
survey, finding out how many people we have employed in the various occupations.
We need to know that. We have not the information upon that yet. After we
have that, we need then to secure legislation that will make this attendance com-
pulsory. Then after we have had compulsory attendance we need to have some
department of labor, provisions whereby the number for the various occupations
will be regulated so there will be no overcrowding, so that each gets his due
share and no more. Now after we have carried out those few points we will
then need to see to it that the curriculum is worked out in line with the needs of
the local industries, and that would be a matter of consultation, it would seem to
me, between the members of the board of education, those making the curriculum,
and the local situation. This labor bureau will see to it that each board gets itsi
due proportion in each particular industry and no more. As to what should bo
taught that again would be a matter of investigation, and then, of course, as to
how it should be taught would be a matter for experts in methods. That would
be another proposition.

Alderman Miller: I was going to ask whether you thought schools would no£
be best controlled by the National Government?

Mr. Roman: I suppose it would be in a general way, but there are so many
local conditions and so many state conditions that I think on the whole a certain
amount of initiative would be required from the state, and I suppose a certain
amount of initiative in order to fit local conditions. The state is asked to take
care of paupers and delinquents and if the state has to pay the bills the stato
should have something to say with regard to- the conditions by which these delin
quents are produced.

Alderman Buck: We have had a very pleasing exhibition before this com
mittee in the last few weeks of the willingness, not only the willingness but the
eagerness of the men who are versed in special branches of education in the
schools of the country to come here to Chicago and to help us in our situation,
diagnosing our case and finding out what is the matter, and in our search that we
are making here for remedies.

72

WILLIAM H. MAXWELL,

Superintendent of Schools, New York City.

Mr. Maxwell's letters were read November 4, 1916:

Alderman Buck: Mr. Chairman, the committee invited, among others, Mr.
Maxwell, Superintendent of Schools of the City of New York, to come and advise
us upon our situation. Mr. Maxwell's health is somewhat broken and he was
unable to come upon that account.

He has sent to Professor Judd some letters containing some of his views on

feneral school administration policies. Mr. Judd has sent copies of them here and
should like to have them read and made part of the record.

"THE CITY OF NEW YOEK

OFFICE OF
THE CITY SUPEEINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS.

17th October, 1916.
Dear Professor Judd:

I am very sorry that I cannot go to Chicago to appear before the Education
Committee of the City Council and give them my views on the organization of
a school system for a large city like Chicago. I have already written to Alderman
Buck, telling him that, on account of a prolonged illness from which I have not
yet entirely recovered, it is out of the question for me even to think of going.
You will understand how glad I should be to go if I were able to do so, and how
much I regret that I cannot go. I assure you I Regard the invitation as a very
high honor.

Inasmuch as I cannot be present, however, I beg leave to lay before you a
few suggestions regarding the organization of public schools in a large city, which
you may lay before the council, or not, as you see fit. These suggestions are
as follows:

Finance:

Inasmuch as the State is responsible for educating, at public expense, the
children of the State, the State Legislature should lay down a minimum tax for
the support of the schools. This minimum tax may be either a fixed rate, such
as is the five-mill tax set aside by the Pennsylvania Legislature for the support
of the Philadelphia schools, or it may be a variable rate. If the rate is to be
variable, however, it should depend upon the average cost of the schools for
each preceding year for a period of ten years. The Board of Education should
prepare" annually an educational budget, to be laid before the financial authorities
of the city. This budget should be prepared in three divisions:

1. Salaries of teachers, school officers and supervisors.

2. The material expense of running the schools, such as the cost of fuel and
lighting, janitors' salaries, etc.

3. The expense involved in the erection of new buildings and the repair of
old buildings.

In case the aggregate of this budget exceeds the minimum tax prescribed
by the Legislature, the financial authorities of the city shall carefully consider
the requests of the Board of Education. In case the financial authorities believe
that more money is asked for than should be expended for the purpose, they
shall refer back the budget to the Board of Education. If the final authorities
and the Board of Education come to an agreement, all well and good. In case
the financial authorities and the Board of Education do not agree, the amount
asked for by the Board t>f Education shall be submitted by referendum to the
voters of the city, whose decision shall be final.

Employment of Teachers, etc.:

All teachers and supervising officers shall be appointed by the Board of
Education on the nomination of the Superintendent of Schools, who shall nominate
both for appointment and for promotion, from eligible lists prepared bv a Board
of Examiners.

73

Board of Examiners:

Members of the Board of Examiners shall be appointed by the Board of
Education on the nomination of- the Superintendent of Schools. Nominations, if
not confirmed or rejected by the Board of Education within forty days after they
are filed with the Secretary of the Board of Education by the Superintendent of
Schools, shall be equivalent to appointment.

All questions regarding the course of study in the schools, the adoption of
textbooks, the organization of new schools and changes in the organization of
existing schools shall be made by the Board of Education, after receiving recom-
mendations from the Superintendent of Schools.

Superintendent ' s Council :

A council shall be organized, consisting of assistant superintendent and
supervisors, who shall advise the Superintendent of Schools with regard to his
recommendations for changes in the course of study, the selection of text-books,
and other educational questions. It shall be the duty of the Superintendent of
Schools to submit all his plans to this council before submitting them to the
Board of Education, and to consider all recommendations coming from said council.
After hearing and considering the recommendations of the council, however, the
Superintendent of Schools shall be free to make such recommendations to the
Board of Education as he deems fit. All his nominations for supervising positions
shall likewise be submitted to such council. Before submitting nominations for
transfer of teachers or for appointment of teachers to a particular school, the
Superintendent of Schools shall sumbit his proposals to the principal of the
school concerned, the assistant superintendent assigned to the supervision of such
school, and three representatives selected by the faculty of the school. As in the
case of the general council, he shall be required to submit his proposals to this
advisory body and to listen to any recommendations or criticisms the members
desire to make. He shall be free, however, to adopt or to reject the suggestions,
as he sees fit.

Discipline of Teachers:

In case charges of gross misconduct, neglect of duty, inefficiency, or conduct
unbecoming a teacher are preferred against any member of the teaching or super-
vising force, the Superintendent of Schools shall appoint three teachers or supervis-
ing officers, who shall hear the charges and the evidence offered in their support,
and who shall hear the defense of the accused person. The committee so appointed
shall submit its conclusions and recommendations, together with a copy of the
evidence taken, to a committee of three assistant superintendents, appointed by the
Superintendent of Schools, who may confirm, modify, or reject the report of the
committee that conducts the trial. From the decisions of this body, an appeal
may be taken to the Board of Education, whose decision shall be final.

Superintendent ' s Assistants :

The Superintendent of Schools shall have the power to designate, subject to
confirmation by the Board of Education, one of his assistants as Deputy Superin-
tendent of Schools, who shall act as Superintendent during the absence or disability
of the Superintendent of Schools, and who shall perform such other duties as the
Superintendent of Schools shall assign. The Superintendent of Schools shall
further have the power to assign the assistant superintendents to such duties as
he believes to be for the best interests of the schools of the city.

This outline of my thought on this great subject is dicated hastily, when, as
you know, I am not very strong. If it is of any use to you and my other friends
in Chicago, you are very welcome to it. I shall be glad to learn what you do
with it.

Very truly yours,

(Signed) WM. H. MAXWELL,

City Superintendent of Schools.
Prof. Charles Hubbard Judd,
University of Chicago,
Chicago, 111.

P. S. In dictating I omitted to state one feature of the New York system
which I regard as of the first importance. All appointments are made for one year

74

and for three successive years are revocable at the will of the Superintendent.
After three years appointments should be more permanent. Teachers should then
be discharged only after the procedure I have suggested above."

"19th October, 1916.
Dear President Finley:

I am glad you did not ask me to talk to the Convocation by telephone. I find
there is nothing that makes greater demands on my shattered nerves than either
talking or listening over the telephone.

Concerning New Legislation in New York:

Perhaps you will recall that, when we met at Hanover, New Hampshire, I
suggested to you that Assistant Commissioner Finegan was engaged in what
would probably prove an impossible task, even for his great ability, namely, to
weave into one general statute the various plans for city schools found in
the cities of the State, and that a brief, comprehensive statute, embodying certain
fundamental prinicples of administration, without going too much into detail,
would be not only more useful, but would be more likely to be adopted. In my
judgment, if such a measure is to be introduced next year, it should be introduced
very early in the session and an attempt should be made to secure the general,
if not the unanimous, support of the superintendents of schools of the State, and
possibly the boards of education.

Finance and Administration Most Important:

As a small and probably very poor contribution to the compilation of such
a statute, I send you a copy of a letter I have just addressed to Professor Charles
Hubbard Judd, of Chicago. You will notice that I have not gone into the questions
of the size of the board of education or how the members shall be elected or
appointed, or the powers of committees, etc. In my judgment, these are com-
paratively unimportant matters, if the great questions of finance and school
administration are settled as I have suggested. Possibly it might be well to have
them settled by local authority. If it is thought so, I would suggest that a com-
mission with power to draw up a plan might be appointed in each city. Of such
a commission the Mayor might well be president ex officio, while the members
might consist of five delegates, from its own number, selected by the existing
board of education, five members selected by the common council, who should
not be members of that body, and five members selected by the city Chamber of
Commerce. The conclusions of this commission should be submitted to the Com-
mon Council, to be adopted as city ordinances. In case they are not adopted
within a given time, the Mayor should be authorized to appoint a temporary board
of education, to hold office until the Common Council or the Legislature acts.

Favors Elected Board:

Upon the whole, I am inclined to favor the elective plan, rather than the ap-
pointive plan, for members of the Board of Education, provided the members
are chosen for the city at large, and not by districts, and provided each voter
may vote for individual members, and not for nominations as a whole.

I think it may be claimed for the plan I have outlined (1) that it gives the
board of education, the superintendent of schools, etc., their due rights and powers;
(2) that it provides ample financial support for the schools, which will not be
controlled by political bodies; and (3) that, while it makes the State the supreme
authority (perhaps a section should be included providing that the local course
of study shall be at least equivalent to a minimum course laid down by the
State, and may go as far beyond that as the local authorities determine), it
leaves to local authorities the determination of questions which are better settled
by them than by the State Legislature.

Very truly yours,

(Signed) WM. H. MAXWELL,

City Superintendent of Schools.
HON. JOHN H. FINLEY,

State Commissioner of Education,
Albany, N. Y."

75

DR. LEONARD P. AYRES,

Director of the Division of Education, Eussell Sage Foundation.

Dr. Ayres appeared November 4, 1916.

Alderman Buck: We have secured the attendance today of Dr. Leonard P.
Ayres, director of the Division of Education of the Kussell Sage Foundation,
New York City, who is one of the big educators of the country, who was formerly
superintendent of schools of Porto Kico, and who has probably conducted a good
many more school surveys than any other educator in the country. Therefore
his - information and his knowledge of school subjects covers a wider research
than perhaps any man we could possibly have address us.

Dr. Ayres: Mr. Chairman, I understand that the object of your committee is
to assist in the drafting of a new law which shall provide for the organization
and administration of the public school system of Chicago. I have made a memo-
randum of the items that I think such a fundamental school law for a great city
should contain. There are ten items and if it be your pleasure I will read them,
comment on them very briefly, and then answer or discuss such questions as you
may wish to bring up.

First: The law should be brief. It should lay down the general powers and
duties of the board of education and leave it to the new board to work out the
details of organization of the system.

ELECTED BOARD PREFERRED.

Second: The law should provide for a small board. My own choice will be
a board of seven members elected by popular vote on alternate years and serving
for six year terms. The elections should be held in the spring so that they
would not coincide with regular city elections and they should be held in the
schoolhouses so as to reduce the expense of holding them. Personally I should
go still further and have the elections conducted by the school teachers, prinicpals,
and other employees so as to reduce still further the necessary cost. The im-
portant feature of the plan is to separate school elections from other elections
and this will not be done if the expense is too great.

Third: The law should provide for a single-headed system with power and
responsibility definitely located and headed up in the executive leader of the
system, who is the superintendent.

Fourth: The board should have the power to elect the superintendent and
fix his salary. I personally favor giving the board power to elect him for any
term up to five years. All the other employees should be appointed by the board
on the nomination of the superintendent.

Fifth: The board should be charged with the duty of providing standard
educational facilities such as elementary schools, high schools, night schools, and
the rest and it should be given large latitude of power to support special educa-
tional facilities such as playgrounds, libraries, recreational centers, etc.

Sixth: Employees should be elected each year for a probationary period of
three years and after that either by successive terms of three years each or by
indefinite tenure after the conclusion of the probationary period. I personally
favor the election for successive terms.

Seventh: The board should be charged with the duty of adopting salary
schedules. The amounts of salaries should not be fixed by law but the board
should not be left free to pay each new employee whatever it may please.

. Eighth: The board should be given power to build and repair buildings, buy
land, take property through right of eminent domain, etc.

Ninth: The board should prepare annually a budget for the succeeding
year. This budget should be submitted to the mayor of the city for approval.
If approved, it should become a part of the general budget of the city and enter
into the tax dudget. If the mayor should disapprove of any item, he should
return the budget with a message stating his reasons for disapproving of that
item. The school board should then reconsider that item and hold a public

76

hearing on it. If, after holding this hearing and after considering the message
of the mayor, five out of the seven members of the board should still vote to
adopt the budget in its original form, it should be passed despite the disapproval
of the mayor. This process should continue item by item until a complete budget
was adopted. Until such a budget was adopted, that of the preceding year
should remain in force.

Tenth and last: Bond issues should be submitted to the vote of the people
at the school elections and provision should be made for holding special elections
for this purpose if necessary.

SMALL SCHOOL BOARD DESIRABLE.

The principal characteristics of this proposed law are, first, that it is clear
and brief and leaves the details to be settled within the city; second, that it
provides for a single-headed system and a small board; third, that it aims to keep
the public interested and to build up an informed public opinion about educational
problems; and fourth, that it provides for the co-operation of the school and
municipal authorities in financing the city school system.

I shall be very brief, Mr. Chairman, in recapitulating and shall speak about
these prinicpal characteristics in a little more detail. I thoroughly believe in the
small Board of Education. It will be argued that this board should be big because
the city is big and the business is big. Not at all. The board should be small
because the business is big. The board of education is really a state body provided
for by state law to do one thing. Its duty is to get the schools run, not to run
them; to get things done, not to do them. That is why the small board that can
get together and work directly as a committee of the whole is the efficient board.

This is one of the rules that works only one way. The small board may be
inefficient. The big board cannot be efficient. In a large city like this the action
of the board must be informed, united, and energetic and the only way these
conditions can be secured in the conduct of a big business is to have a small
board that can discuss and decide the matters of policy that are essential to
getting things done. If you want to have a board that will run the schools itself
through its own committees, you must have a big board but you will also have
a poor school system.

The board should be unpaid. Some of the arguments for a paid board are
plausible but the verdict of experience is on the side of the unpaid board. There
are six paid boards in large cities. They are found in San Francisco, Rochester,
Memphis, Los Angeles, Oakland and Milwaukee. The pay varies from $3,000 per
year in San Francisco to $3 per meeting in Milwaukee.

If you organize your school system so that it is the business of the board to
decide large matters of general policy instead of dealing with small details of
specific application, you will so greatly reduce the amount of time required and
so elevate the character of the work done that you will find it entirely possible
to secure the services of the best types of men and women without pay. In
scores of cities all over the country it is found possible to get the best and ablest
people to serve on unpaid boards.

The system should be a single-headed one because the character and efficiency
of every organization is largely determined by the leadership that directs it. You
cannot have an efficient organization with dispersed authority and scattered
responsibility. The foundation of effective management of large affairs is to
organize, deputize, and supervise. In every large business and organization there
are to be found men and women who are able to organize and supervise but there
are few indeed who possess the ability to deputize others to care for details.
The school business of this city is so large, complex, and ramified that it can be
conducted efficiently only if it is presided over by a large caliber executive and
so planned as to enable him and the board to organize, deputize, and supervise.

ONE HEAD FOR THE WHOLE SYSTEM.

For these reasons I favor the single-headed system. I am opposed to a division
of the system either along the two lines of education and business on the six or
seven lines along which great school systems are often subdivided.

77

I need not comment in detail on the legal provisions requiring the board to
organize the ordinary types of education and empowering it to support the special
types. I shall not take your time commenting on provisions giving the board
power to build buildings and buy land or charging it with the duty of drawing up
salary schedules. All of these matters may be passed without comment -f OIL it
will be generally agreed that they should be included in the fundamental law.

There is opportunity for much discussion concerning financial provisions.
Three types of systems are found in different cities. Under the first sort of
arrangement the duty of raising and allotting school funds is left in the hands
of the city council. That plan is in force, for example, in Eichmond, Virginia.
In general it is not a good system. In the second place there is the arrangement
in which the school board is entirely independent of the municipality and levies
such taxes as it may need and spends the money as it thinks wise. The system
generally works well and does not result in higher tax rates for school support
than are found in cities where the schools are run under the first system. The
shortcoming of this system is that where the school board does not have to discuss
financial problems with the public or the city government, the public are apt to
lose confidence after a time and begin to suspect that the schools are being
extravagantly managed.

The third arrangement is a compromise between the first two. Under this
plan the board is given ultimate control over the raising of its funds but the other
municipal authorities are given the power to step in and require a full and public
discussion of any or all items of the proposed budget. This third type of arrange-
ment is the one that I have recommended for your new law.

Mr. Chairman, I have commented on the salient points of the law I have out-
lined. I shall be glad at this point to follow your wishes and either talk more
extensively about the problems I have laid before you or to answer such questions
as you may wish to ask.

Alderman Buck: I think, Mr. Chairman, that the committee should take ad-
vantage of Dr. Ayres' suggestion and ask at this time questions about these
problems of administration.

Alderman Kennedy: Would you give the board of education unlimited power
to raise money? Would you have no fixed limitation?

Dr. Ayres: I should prefer no fixed limitation. It is, of course, possible to
fix a limit which will probably be about five mills. In New York we need ap-
proximately 4.7 mills. When the present system was organized, a limit of three
mills was fixed. The schools get the taxes as represented by that limit each year
and then additional sums have to be secured, bringing the total up to about 4.7
mills. I am not opposed to a minimum limit but it is so hard to foresee the
developments of the future that I am inclined to think the plan as proposed is
rather more economical in its results.

Alderman Buck: Dr. Ayres, in recommending an unpaid board, do you main-
tain that a board of education should be composed only of persons who are able
to afford the luxury of devoting considerable portions of their time to public
service without recompense?

BOARD SHOULD NOT ADMINISTER.

Dr. Ayres: No, sir, I do not if you mean by that persons of independent
means. In general people of leisure do not make good board members. The
best board is one composed of busy people. The efficient board is apt to be com-
posed of merchants, manufacturers, bankers, contractors, and professional men
of large practice. Such men can generally think independently, explain the
reasons for their actions, take the advice of experts, and spend money intelligently.
The arguments in favor of paid boards are mostly based on the proposition that
the board members must spend a large part of their time in dealing with the vast
mass of details involved in running the school system. The fact of the matter
is that these matters should not be dealt with by board members but by the
employed executives of the system. The board should decide what it wants to
have done, select people to do these things, study results to see how well they are
being done, and keep telling the people about the problems faced and the progress
made.

78

This does not mean that the deliberative work of the board should be
limited to telling the superintendent what the public wants and the work of the
superintendent limited to putting these orders into execution. In addition to his
work as executive, the main business of the superintendent is to think, to plan, and
to propose, and the business of the board is to make decisions about these pro-
posals. The administrative details should be handled by the employed officers of
the board who are trained for their work and who, if well selected, are more
efficient in doing it than the members of the board can possibly be. Experience in
such cities as Boston, Cleveland, and St. Louis indicates that if the work of the
board is properly organized it will be found entirely possible to secure as board
members people who have no independent means but who will render the most
efficient sort of service to the city.

Alderman Kennedy: How much time do you think a board of education
ought to give to the consideration of a budget of $25,000,000?

Dr. Ayres: In New York City the budget was passed two days ago. It was
the 1917 budget, not that for 1916. It has been under close consideration for a
term practically covering September and October. Preliminary work on it began
last summer. This indicates something of the amount of work required for pre-
paring so enormous a budget as one amounting to $25,000,000. In New York
the total is more than $40,000,000. Let me explain what I have just said by
saying that I believe the budget should be a real working budget, that it should
be sufficiently discussed and finally adopted before it goes into force and that its
items should be subject to the closest scrutiny in prospect, not in retrospect. I am
opposed to adopting a budget after the money has largely been spent.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you consider it the function of a board of education
to scrutinize the budget closely and balance one item against another in order to
arrive at conclusions as to the way the money should be expended for the best
advantage of the pupils and the taxpayers?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir.

Alderman Kennedy: Would that not take a great deal of time if the work
be well done?

SALARY OF $3,000 FOR MEMBERS TOO HIGH.

Dr. Ayres: In a well organized system it does not take so long after it has
been done for two or three years, because it is perfectly possible to make each
bureau chief or division head throughout the system explain the items pertaining
to his work and especially those in which any change or increase is involved. This
work, like other features of board business, can be so organized that the board
will not have to consider the details but will pass on reasons presented for
changes.

Alderman Kennedy: If the question involved methods for raising money
to introduce vocational education, would not a good deal of investigation be
required by the board?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, the board must give much consideration to any such funda-
mental problem as you have suggested. The real question is whether or not it is
possible to secure such service better if the members of a board are paid a salary
of say $1,500 a year than it is for an unpaid board. Of course if you regard
this as an annual salary you will at once agree that you could not employ for
any such amount any one whom you would want to have on your board. Never-
theless the result of establishing a $1,500 salary is sure to be that the public will
immediately begin to regard the board memberships a set of seven $1,500 jobs
to which various people want to be elected. If you place the salary higher at
$3,000 or $5,000, then you have simply added to your educational force seven
untrained assistant superintendents who will be expected to devote practically
full time to their duties because they are in receipt of fair sized salaries for
doing it. Now if you decide to employ seven more assistant superintendents at a
salary of $5,000 each, you would better get trained ones and place them under
the superintendent instead of getting untrained ones and placing them over the
superintendent. The experience of other cities indicates that the lack of salary
does not exclude from the board men of breadth of vision and small income such
as an intelligent and public spirited artisan might be.

79

Alderman Kennedy: We have never had any such here in Chicago.
Alderman Buck: We never elected a school board in Chicago, Alderman
Kennedy.

NEW YORK BOARD DESCRIBED.

Alderman Powers: Is the Board of Education of New York elected by the
people?

Dr. Ayres: In New York the members are appointed by the mayor.

Alderman Powers: How many?

Dr. Ayres: Forty-six.

Alderman Powers: You are twice as badly off as we are.

Dr. Ayres: The organization and board control of our New York system
illustrates almost all the evils of faulty educational organization and administra-
tion except those of gross dishonesty. The board is too big, too cumbersome,,
and inefficient in action, and it does not enjoy the confidence of the people or the
support and respect of the press.

Alderman Powers: Do you not think that the school system should have a
business manager?

Dr. Ayres: I believe that there should be in the school organization an
official with the rank and title of assistant superintendent in charge of business
affairs. He should be an assistant to the superintendent. I am opposed to a
two-headed form of organization in which the superintendent is in charge of
educational matters and the business manager is in charge of the business and
financial matters. A school system exists for only one purpose and that is the
teaching of the children. Everything that it does should have as its object the
improvement of the education of the children. Every educational action is in
some measure financial and every financial transaction is in some measure
educational. They cannot be completely separated and that is why a system should
have a unit instead of a double organization.

Alderman Buck: How much further would you carry your plan of organiza-
tion? How many other departments would you create under officers having the
rank of assistant superintendents?

Dr. Ayres: I would not create any more by action of law. I should build
up the organization by action of the board through its by-laws. There will be in
the system a number of men of status similar to that of the assistant in charge
of business affairs but they should not have the rank of assistant superintendents.
Such officers are the architect, the engineer, the auditor, and- the superintendents
of supplies.

SECRETARY SHOULD BE SUBORDINATE.

Alderman Buck: What should be the status of the secretary of the board?

Dr. Ayres: The secretary of the board was originally a clerk and often the
treasurer in addition. As cities developed he began to take on the duties of the
business manager and in some states, Ohio for example, he is charged by law
with some of those duties. In my opinion the clerk of the board should do work
similar to that done by a chief clerk in an office of the federal government. He
should be an office director having duties relating to the efficiency of the office
management. He should not have independent power to influence general policies.

Alderman Buck: Whom would you have him serve, the superintendent of
schools?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir. In point of fact that will hardly become an issue
because in such a system as I have outlined, the status of positions of authority
and responsibility will be so definitely formulated that the impersonal rule of
duties and responsibilities will largely take the place of the personal rule of
superior over subordinates.

Alderman Buck: Would you have the clerk serve in the department of the
business manager or would you have him independent of that department?

Dr. Ayres: I would have him serve in that department.

Alderman Buck: As a subordinate to the business manager?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir. It would make him a less important official than he
often is in school systems at present. Many systems would benefit by such a
change.

80

Alderman Miller: Who would keep the record of the board proceedings?

Dr. Ayres: This secretary. He would be the secretary of the board meet-
ings. This is true in many localities at present because in many places the law
says that the superintendent shall be secretary of the board as well. Now what
happens in such cases is that the superintendent delegates to an assistant the
work of being secretary of the board.

Alderman Buck: Reverting to the question of the budget, would you say
that it should be made and finally passed if possible before the money is ap-
propriated?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir.

Alderman Buck: Before the tax is levied?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir.

Alderman Buck: So that bugetary control would be real control and the
appropriation would be dependent on a program worked out in advance?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir. With a certain small leeway for unforseen contingencies,
perhaps met through power to issue revenue bonds in small amounts during the
year.

FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE FOR BOARD.

Alderman Buck : Will you state in somewhat more detail your opinion as
to whether the board of education should have financial independence or be
dependent upon the municipal authorities.

Dr. Ayres: I believe in giving the board of education ultimate financial
independence but in arranging to hold it publicly responsible for its acts. The
scheme I have outlined provides that the board of education shall submit a budget,
that the financial authorities of the city shall take part in discussing it before it
is adopted, and that these authorities can challenge any item and require a public
hearing on it. In case of final disagreement, I would give the board power to
settle any disputed item by a vote of five out of seven. In case of failure to do
this, the item of the preceding year would stand. The object is to give the board
power combined with enforced publicity and responsibility.

Alderman Kennedy: If we had a city manager plan of government would you
be in favor of having the school system run in the same way that all of the other
•departments of the city government would be?

Dr. Ayres: Many students of municipal government believe that such
a plan would work well. That would do away with the board of education and
trust the direction of the schools to a superintendent who would have the same"
relationship to the work as exists between the chief of police and the chief
of the fire department and their assistants and subordinates. If the work of the
board of education had to do with adults and if it largely consisted of dealing
with a mass of routine business details, this view would probably be sound. In
my opinion Chicago will need a board of education for many years to come because
its proper work consists in large measure in dealing with new problems of policy
and in only small degree in disposing of routine business details. To an exceptional
degree the educational system of this city demands continuously intelligent policy-
making activity. The city is growing with unremitting rapidity. Its economic
life is exceptionally varied and mobile. New and large alien communities spring
up almost periodically and in unexpected places. All these conditions combine to
make it necessary that its educational government shall be flexible and adaptable.
It is more likely to have these qualities if it has the advantages of lay counsel
than if its policies are exclusively decided by its professional officials. A requisite
for unbroken progress in public government is to go forward rapidly enough to
enlist the confidence of the public but not so rapidly as to arouse their suspicion
and distrust.

DROP NO TEACHERS WITHOUT NOTICE.

Alderman Powers: What method do you think a superintendent should adopt
regarding the discharge of teachers and keeping a record of the efficiency and con-
duct of the teachers?

Dr. Ayres: Conditions under which teachers may be dismissed must be just
to both the teachers and the school system. No teacher should be discharged as

81

unsatisfactory who has not been notified of the deficiencies in her work and been
given careful assistance in attempting to remedy them. If the official records of
the teacher's services continue to be unsatisfactory after she has been given
opportunity to better them and assistance in helping her to do so, then the superin-
tendent should recommend that a written notice be served on the teacher telling
her that the board desires to dispense with her services at the end of the year.
This written notice should set forth in detail the reasons for the action and the
records on which it is based. The superintendent and the board should be the
judges of the sufficiency of the reasons for terminating the contract. There
should be no meddling by lawyers or interference by the courts. Teachers who
receive no such notifications should continue in service from year to year up to the
end of their contract period or indefinitely according to the system in use in the
city. If teachers desire to leave the system they should in their turn notify the
superintendent or their principal.

This system gives indefinite tenure to all worthy teachers and school officials
but reserves to the board the right to remove from the schools those who should
not be there after they have been given full opportunity to improve the quality
of their work. The whole process should rest on a system of carefully made and
frequently revised records. No teacher should receive satisfactory marks year
after year and then be suddenly dismissed for inefficiency.

Alderman Powers: Do you think a board of education should prohibit a
teacher from affiliating herself with labor organizations or should forbid the teach-
ers to have unions of their own?

Dr. Ayers: No, sir, I do not believe that the board of education should
prohibit teachers from affiliating themselves with labor organizations. I believe
the teachers have the right to organize for the promotion of their professional
welfare. They have that same right when one of the objects of their organization
is collective bargaining for increased salaries. It is very unfortunate for a body
of teachers to get into the habit of thinking most of the time about more pay or
less work or both, but sometimes organized campaigns for increased salaries are
necessary. I think as a matter of principle that the board has no right to pro-
hibit such organization. The solution of the problem does not lie in forbidding
the teachers to take concerted action with regard to their own pay and work
conditions. It lies rather in stimulating an active participation of the entire
teaching force in dealing with problems and conditions of the school system
and keeping them thoroughly informed and individually interested in matters of
organization, curricula, teaching methods, resources, and finances. Most or-
ganized movements of teachers that appear hostile to school systems grow out of
their conviction that they are being treated as outsiders.

ABOLISH ALL STANDING COMMITTEES.

Alderman Buck: What are your opinions in regard to the methods of
the board in working through committees?

Dr. Ayres: I am much opposed to the usual methods of organization by which
the school board divides itself into a number of standing committees and
transacts its business through them. There are boards of five in this country
which have 11 standing committees. I may say, in passing, that the board of five
members is the commonest sized board among the larger cities of the country.
There are more boards of five among the 50 largest cities than there are boards
of any other size. The next commonest number is nine and the next is seven.
Boards of these three sizes constitute two-thirds of all of the boards of educa-
tion in cities of more than 100,000 population. In most cases these small boards
still divide themselves up into a large number of standing committees. In
my opinion they thereby nullify in large measure the advantages which were
mainly influential in bringing about the reductions in the size of the boards.

Unified action is impossible if the board is split into several small commit-
tees handling detailed matters and tending to become independent of each other.
Because of accumulated experience with the unsatisfactory work of large boards
acting through committees American cities have almost unanimously replaced the
large board by a small one precisely for the purpose of making it possible for

82

the board to act as a committee of the whole. There is no good reason to
have most matters considered by three or four of the seven members of the
board and immediately .thereafter reconsidered by the seven members. Yet that
is what happens continually under the committee system.

If a small board has standing committees they should be only three in
number: one on business, one on education, and one on buildings. A still better
plan is for the board to have no permanent committees. In that case almost
all of the business can be transacted by the board as a whole and committees
can be created from time to time for temporary purposes. After they have re-
ported they go out of existence.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you believe that it is the function of the board
of education to educate the adults of a community through the wider use of the
schools?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, I do.

Alderman Kennedy: And the school system should be so used?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir, and in drawing up a law the school system should not
be required to undertake such activities but it should be empowered to do so.

Alderman Buck: What views have you concerning the wisdom of the super-
intendent or the board obtaining from time to time the views of the teachers?

Dr. Ayres: The superintendent and board should not only get in close touch
with the teachers from time to time, they should keep in close touch pretty much
all the time. The question you have asked rises most frequently in connection
with adopting a new course of study. There are several ways in which this may
be done. The first is to get the course of studies of other cities and with a
pair of scissors and a paste brush construct a new one for your city. This is
frequently done. It is a rapid, inefficient method. A second and better method
is to get the advice and assistance of competent people in different parts of the
country. With the cooperation of such educational experts a good course of study
can be constructed.

SUPERINTENDENT AND TEACHERS COOPERATE.

A third way is to start in with the teachers and by a long and rather diffi-
cult process of study, conference, and consultation evolve a course of study. It
will take from three to ten times as long and involve about ten times as much
work to make the new course with the cooperation of the teachers as it will to
make it at headquarters without them. When the work is all done the course of
study will be about the same as if it were created in the other way. The differ-
ence is that the process of making it has been enormously valuable to the
teachers. When the work is done they have the personal interest in the course
of study and feel that it is their own product. They respect it and believe in it.
This is the way that team work is developed in a school system. The schools may
be run efficiently by edict but that method does not build up a progressive and
virile organization.

Alderman Buck: In your judgment is it worth the expenditure of time and
energy?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir, and in the long run it is the only way in which a school
system can become a self-sustaining organization. A dictator, like Diaz of Mexico,
may run the organization very well for a long time but he does not develop
associates who can take his place when he drops out. When he drops out the
system goes to pieces. The "great man" theory of sociology is subject to the
weakness that it does not provide any method by which the great man will train
up succeeding great men to take his place.

Alderman Kennedy: You speak of a salary schedule. How would it be ar-
ranged? Would it be progressive by years?

Dr. Ayres: The board should be charged by law with the duty of drawing
up salary schedules and putting them into effect. It should not be allowed to pay
each new teacher whatever salary it wishes although many boards follow that
policy. The salary schedules should provide for increases based in part on
years of service and with additional rewards for growth and efficiency after a
common maximum has been reached. The stimulus needs to be kept up for a

83

rather long period of time until the habit of keeping professionally active has been
well established. In teaching, as in other lines of work, the intensity of the desire
for personal improvement is in direct proportion to the stimulus it receives. There
are cities, notably Detroit and Milwaukee, where the teachers get at ±he_ st_art
practically the maximum salary. This represents a poor policy and one which
offers little stimulus to professional growth. In New York the increments con-
tinue in many cases for as long a term as eighteen years.

Alderman Kennedy: After a teacher has passed the probationary period
should he or she be subject to a salary reduction as a matter of discipline? Should
that weapon be used by the board?

Dr. Ayres: Certainly not in the case of groups and almost never in the
case of individuals. In general it is better to suspend a teacher in case of need
than to reduce her salary.

PROVISION FOR RETIREMENT AND PENSION.

Alderman Powers: If teachers enter the service at the age of twenty-one how
many years elapse before they begin to deteriorate, on the average?

Dr. Ayres: That is a matter of opinion. In my own opinion many teachers
reach their highest degree of efficiency after six years of service. Teachers
are quite definitely divided into two groups. Among each group of 100 teachers
about fifty drop out in the first eleven years. They get married or go into some
other profession. The other fifty stay until they die or are retired on a pension.
There is almost no middle group.

Alderman Powers: You have a pension system in New York City?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir, we have a bankrupt pension system.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you believe in an age limit for teachers?

Dr. Ayres: Yes, sir, I do.

Alderman Kennedy: How should that be determined?

Dr. Ayres: There should be an age limit arbitrarily determined with pro-
visions for individual exceptions. In general it can be a little older for adminis-
trative officials than for classroom teachers. Sixty years is possibly the best
limit for classroom teachers and sixty-five years for administrative officials.

Alderman Kennedy: Of course that would not be feasible unless there were a
pension system.

Dr. Ayres: I can hardly agree to that. Although I fully recognize the
claims of the teacher I should say that the claims of the child are so much
greater than if we were so unfortunate as to pay our teachers no more than a
living wage and have no pension system it would still be necessary to retire teach-
ers at about the age I have mentioned. This would be a most unfortunate
combination and I do not believe it needs to exist in aay American city.

Alderman Kennedy: Do you believe that our public school system should
include a city college, something as they have in Cincinnati and in New York?

Dr. Ayres: I think it is entirely within the legitimate purview of the
school system to have city colleges. I think we are going to have many more
of them in the next few years. I do not think we should have them in every
city. A great deal depends on what other institutions the city already possesses.
I think that the city colleges in Cincinnati and in New York are valuable at the
present time and will be still more valuable in the future.

Alderman Kennedy: Are the funds for the support of the New York institu-
tion derived entirely from the tax levy?

Dr. Ayres: So nearly entirely that one might answer your question in the
affirmative.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cubberley, Ellwood P. Public School Administration. Houghton Mifflin Co.,
New York, 1916.

Goodnow, Frank J. The Organization, Status and Procedue c .he Depart-
ment of Education, City of New York. In Eeport of Survey, New York, 1913.

Moose, E. C. How New York City Administers Its Cchools. World Book Co.,
Yonkers, 1913.

Ayres, Leonard P. School Organization and Administration. Cleveland Foun-
dation, Cleveland, 1916.

Cubberley, E. P. School Organization and Administration. World Book Co.,
Yonkers, 1916.

Cubberley, E. P. Eeport of the Portland Survey. World Book Co., Yonkers,
1915.

Bobbitt, J. F. Denver Survey, part 1; General Organization and Manage-
ment. Denver, 1916.

Elliott, E. C. City School Supervision. World Book Co., Yonkers, 1914.
(Part of New York ^Survey Eeport.)

Ballou, F. W. The Appointment of Teachers in Cities. Harvard Press,
1915.

Draper, A. S. Necessary Basis of Teachers' Tenure. Bardeen, Syracuse, 1912.

Eliot, Charles W. "The Teacher's Tenure of Office;" in his Educational
Reform.

Draper, Andrew S. American Education. Houghton, Mifflin Co., New York,
1909.

Dutton, S. T., and Snedden, D. S. Administration of Public Education in
the United States. Macmillan Co., New York, 1912.

Chancellor, W. E. Our City Schools; Their Direction and Management. Heath
& Co., Boston, 1908.

Elliott, E. C. Legal Decisions Kelating to Education. Macmillan Co., New
York, 1916.

Eliot, Charles W. A Good Urban School Organization; in Eeport of United
States Commissioner of Education, 1903, vol. II, pp. 1356-62.

Educational Commission of Chicago, Eeport of, Chicago, 1899, University
of Chicago Press.

Public Education Association of Buffalo. Two Charts on Public School Admin-
istration in the Principal Commission and Non-commission Governed Cities of the
United States. Buffalo, 1915.

Elliott, E. C. School Administration: The St. Louis Method; in Educational
Eeview, vol. 26 (December, 1903).

Boyce, A. C. Methods of Measuring Teachers' Efficiency. Fourteenth Year-
book of National Society for the Study of Education. University of Chicago
Press, 1915.

Snedden, David S., and Allen, W. H. School Eeports and School Efficiency.
Macmillan Co., New York, 1908.

Spaulding, F. E. Application of the Principles of Scientific Management; in
Proceedings of the National Education Association, 1913.

Harms, Paul H. Improving School Systems by Scientific Management; in
Proceedings of the National Education Association, 1913.

Ayres, L. P., and Thorndike, E. L. Measuring Educational Products and Pro-
cesses; in School Eeview, vol. 20.

Judd, C. H. Measuring the Work of the Public Schools. Cleveland Founda-
tion, Cleveland, 1916.

Ballou, F. W. The Function of a Department of Educational Investigation
and Measurement in a City School System; in School and Society, vol. 1, February
6, 1915.

Indiana University. Conferences on Educational Measurements. Indiana Uni-
versity Bulletins, 1914.

Bobbitt, J. F. Supervision of City Schools. University of Chicago Press>
1913.

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