GROWTH OF THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL
The defects of the one-teacher school have led to the consolidation movement which is rapidly developing throughout the country. The Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Dakota reported in 1916 that the consolidated school was becoming more and more the school of the rural districts and he recommended liberal state aid to these schools. There were at that time 123 "open country" consolidated schools in the state and 210 town consolidated schools, the latter being in reality rural schools.
One county superintendent reported that in the last two years a number of districts had voted to consolidate their schools; another said that 40 per cent of the pupils were attending consolidated schools. The Rural School Commissioner of Minnesota stated that consolidation has a very promising growth in the state; that 210 districts have been organized, half of which were established during the two years ending in 1916. And so the story goes in each state that has a largely rural population.
There is some opposition to this movement by parents who live farthest from a proposed consolidated school, because of the distance and inability to provide children with hot lunches. But this opposition is easily overcome by the provision of public transportation facilities for the children and by serving hot lunches at the schoolhouses. Some opposition comes from the landowners in the neighborhood of a one-teacher school which has to be closed on account of consolidation. Their fear that there will be a lowering of land values is baseless, as the settlers in that section get much better school accommodations through consolidation than they had before.
Advantages of the consolidated school over the one-teacher school are obvious. It makes possible a better division of time in recitation and study. The teaching is more efficient on account of specialization and a better and more stable teaching staff.
In the office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, North Dakota, the writer found the following statements in the reports of various county superintendents for 1916. [34]
Barnes County:
The past two years have been marked by the number of districts that have voted to consolidate their schools. Five township consolidated schools have been built in the open country. Each of these buildings has four schoolrooms, a good-sized gymnasium, an auditorium with a stage, domestic-science room, and a manual-training room. They are modern buildings in every respect, steam heated, water system for drinking fountains and toilets. One six-room village consolidated school and one open country two-room school have also been completed. They are also modern buildings. In these schools the country child has equal opportunities with the city child. These schoolhouses are used as centers for the social life of the neighborhood and are proving most successful.
Several districts during the past two years have consolidated. We believe these schools are demonstrating their superiority over one-room schools at least in the way of graduating pupils from the eighth grade. Ten schools operating as consolidated schools graduated as many farm boys and girls as did nearly eighty one-room schools, during the past year.