CONTENTS. Page. Letter of transmittal.... I. Units of organization.... The district unit.. The township unit.. The county unit.. II. Essentials of existing county systems.... III. How the county organization is brought about.... IV. Success of the county-unit plan....... V. A comparison of Salt Lake County, consolidated, with Utah County, un 3 consolidated, State of Utah...... School population and attendance.. Management and supervision.......... Equality in taxation................... Compensation of school boards...... Economy in purchase of all school supplies and equipment... VI. The county v. the district unit in Tennessee.. LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, SIR: With the increase of interest in the rural public schools in all the States has come a desire for more effective rural school administration, to the ends that there may be a more economic use of school funds and that all the children may have opportunities, both better and more nearly equal, to gain the preparation for life required by modern rural conditions in so far as this preparation may be gained in the schools. The evils and the inadequacy of the single-school district as the unit of administration are more and more apparent, and it is now generally conceded that it should give way to some larger administrative unit, as it has already done in a large majority of the States. The opinion as to whether this larger administrative unit should be the county or some division of the county, as the township or the magisterial district, is not so nearly unanimous, but the trend of opinion is toward the county unit, and many requests come to this office for information as to the results obtained in those States which make the county the unit of school administration, and as to the merits of the county unit of administration, as compared with the smaller unit. To assist the bureau in answering these inquiries, Mr. A. C. Monahan, the bureau's specialist in rural school administration, has prepared the accompanying manuscript on County-Unit Organization for the Administration of Rural Schools. I recommend that it be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education for distribution among State and county school officers, legislators, and others. directly interested in this subject. Respectfully submitted. To the SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. P. P. CLAXTON, Commissioner. COUNTY-UNIT ORGANIZATION FOR THE ADMINISTRA TION OF RURAL SCHOOLS. INTRODUCTION. An outline of the essentials of the county-unit plan of organization for the administration of rural schools was recently prepared in the Division of Rural Education of the Bureau of Education and sent to the rural school superintendents of the entire country as the first of the rural-school letters of the 1914 series. This was done on account of the wide interest in the county unit, and the many inquiries concerning it received by the bureau. Eighteen States have a county or a semicounty school system. Two of these 18 adopted the county system very recently, Wisconsin changing from the district system in 1913, Ohio from the township system in 1914. The plan, however, is not new, for Maryland adopted the county system in 1865, Louisiana in 1870, Florida in 1885, and Georgia in 1887. Movements are now on foot for its adoption in several other States; in at least 10 States now on the district basis definite steps are being taken for legislative enactment for the county unit at the next sessions of the respective legislatures. It seems to be the consensus of opinion of leading authorities in school administration that in all States where the county is the unit of local civil government it should be also the unit in school government; and that in no State should a district smaller than a county or township be recognized as an administrative unit in school affairs. In most States the preference appears to be for the county. At a meeting of the State superintendents, held at St. Paul, Minn., in connection with the annual meeting of the National Education Association in 1914, a resolution was adopted favoring the establishment of the county-unit system. A similar resolution was adopted by the National Education Association in general session for its annual business meeting. In the judgment of most observers, the district system is not economical or efficient. The tendency in all our States, and in foreign countries as well, is to a larger unit; in most instances to the county unit.1 England, in 1902, adopted the county system; all schools in each county are now under the management of a board of education that is a subcommittee of the "county council"-the county board 1 Except in the New England States, where the county is of little significance in local government, and where a change to the county unit of management in school affairs appears neither necessary nor desirable. |