4. The authorization of the junior high school with a view to centralizing the work of the upper elementary grades when full

consolidation is not feasible.

5. Restrictions on the number of senior high schools established, adequate to insure strong schools, with tuition and transportation, or board and room, provided for those students who do not have easy access to such a school.

6. Permissive transportation of pupils at public expense to and from all schools.

STANDARDIZATION OF RURAL SCHOOLS

State departments of education in 31 States are, at the present time, promoting standardization of rural schools, either by authority of the statutes or by rules and regulations of their chief executive school heads, according to information received by the Bureau of Education. In a few other States county superintendents promote a plan of standardization within their respective counties.

In some of the 31 States standardization applies particularly to small rural schools, especially those of the one-teacher type. In others it includes all rural schools-graded and consolidated as well as ungraded. It is, however, with the improvement of the small rural schools, particularly those where consolidation is not yet feasible, that standardization is most concerned.

Requirements for standardization.-Among the important requirements relating to standardization of rural schools that have been written into the statutes or adopted by regulations of State school executive heads are:

(1) The school site should be well drained, level, fertile, contain at least 2 acres of ground.

(2) The school building should comply with accepted standards relating to number of rooms and their dimensions, color scheme for walls and ceilings, replacement and glass area of windows, heating and ventilation, and amount and kind of equipment.

(3) The minimum scholastic preparation of the teacher should be completion of four years of high school, plus a two-year normal course, and two years of successful experience.

(4) The school term should be nine months; the average daily attendance at least 90 per cent of the enrollment, and the enrollment 90 per cent of the educables of the district; there should be a wellplanned daily program; and the State course of study should be followed.

21279°-27-5

1 For more detailed information see U. S. Bu. of Educ. Rural School Leaflet No. 32, 1925.

Wisconsin..

Wyoming.

2 Consolidated.

Chapter III

SCHOOL COSTS AND SCHOOL SUPPORT

The constantly increasing cost of public education, paralleling that of living and of government in general, is of concern to legislators and citizens generally. Recently the Federal Government has been reducing the cost of maintaining its various establishments and activities and correspondingly reducing income taxes and other forms of Federal taxation. As yet, however, the relief in the total taxation exacted from the average citizen is slight, as costs of State, county, local, and municipal government have remained the same or even increased, thus offsetting Federal reductions. The cost of maintaining public education, the sources from which funds are received for school support, methods of distributing State moneys among local schools and districts so as more nearly to equalize educational opportunities of children and tax burdens of citizens, are matters of paramount importance to legislators and others responsible for enacting or recommending laws governing the support of public education. It is recognized that the costs of education have increased greatly since 1914, that public-spirited citizens desire to continue to support schools liberally, and that they must be conducted economically. Judgment can not be passed on the necessity of school expenditures and their increase year by year except in the light of comparison with other factors conditioning the cost, including, of course, the different purchasing power of the dollar in the respective years considered. Information collected in the United States Bureau of Education comparing annual expenditures in the years 1913, 1918, 1920, 1922, and 1924 with the purchasing power of the dollar in these years indicates that school costs have not increased to the degree many persons thought; nor to the extent that figures showing actual expenditures alone, unmodified by consideration of the decreased purchasing power of the dollar and by the increase in school attendance, would indicate. (See Tables 6 and 7.) The relationship between expenditures for maintenance and purchasing power in 1913 dollars for the three annual periods 1913, 1919, and 1925 for one State are shown in Figure 3. This is reasonably typical of the relation between actual expenditures and purchasing power measured by the 1913 dollar in other States.