DISTRICT CONTROL DISCARDED SYSTEM OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION
The origin of the present situation is not far to seek. American schools were first controlled by the citizens of the district. They met in intimate neighborhood groups and settled the problems relating to their children. Communities were fairly homogeneous, the course of study was simple, school buildings were all about equally unsanitary, and teachers were equally untrained. A majority vote was a democratic and accepted method of carrying the community through these undesirables.
AN EFFECTIVE SUBSTITUTE TO BE DISCOVERED
Within a half century all this has changed. We know to-day that every center in a state is involved in the behavior of each of its communities. Indeed, our generation is witnessing the assumption by the federal government of an influence and authority in education which is without precedent in American history. This is not the place to comment at length on these changes, but one result is absolutely certain—the simple district control of schools is gone. It remains for us to decide what we shall have in its place. What we have to-day is a series of experiments of every variety that can be set up through the exercise of human imagination. Most of these experiments are going on behind closed doors. Most of them involve sooner or later a conflict of authority. Very few of them are understood by the people of the communities in which they exist.
DANGERS OF THIS PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT
The result is, first, much clumsy administration, even where everybody acts in the spirit of most cordial coöperation. Matters of vital importance to the school are delayed. Secondly, baneful agencies, seeking to profit unjustly, can set up in the school system influences which would have no weight if there were clear and definite responsibility and authority. Thirdly, the people of the community, being uncertain about what is going on, often become restless and critical and unwilling to give adequate support to the schools. Fourthly, the teaching staff sometimes becomes demoralized and relatively inefficient, at times the disorganization goes so far that teachers are actually and openly antagonistic to the board or superintendent, or both.[26]
Organization under Scientific Principles
It is by no means simple to prescribe a remedy for the difficulties which these quotations have described. When a democratic community delegates its unlimited powers to a number of different classes of people, there is sure to be a succession of problems of adjustment. Ultimately all parties will come to recognize the fact that educational problems can be solved only when a full study of the situation is substituted for personal opinion. Every party will have to be ready to acknowledge the supremacy of a thorough scientific statement of the conditions and results of school work.
Fortunately, examples are not far to seek of school administration which is based on scientific study. Two conspicuous examples will serve the purposes of this exposition.