handling of talented youth are urgent and commanding requirements.

5. School leaders should help foster all desirable characteristics in children, but they should not be tempted to consider themselves the only agency in the field. The major influence upon children is their home and the whole community in which they are raised. It is right for people to expect the schools to help forward all worthy causes, but entirely wrong to abnegate responsibility in hope that the schools will take up the slack. Schools can never take the place of a warm family life, a vigorous church, and a wholesome community, although they must be strong allies. Where other good influences are lacking, schools should and do try to repair the damage, but they cannot do the job alone.

In conclusion, this Committee believes that the new goals for the schools demanded by the American people reflect a determination to leave nothing that can be done for each generation of children undone. Far from seeking the abandonment of the ideals of the past, the people have called for a quickened pursuit of those ideals. At the same time, they have decided to use the schools in a variety of new ways, sometimes as an ally of other agencies, sometimes as a replacement for other agencies which have failed. Controversy has often surrounded questions of procedure and relative importance, but the nobility of intent implicit in this new concept is beyond doubt. There is far more to be proud of in today's schools than there is to criticize. Their weaknesses usually stem from a lack of means, rather than any defect in their goal. Efforts to work out ways in which school, family, church, and many other agencies can best work together for the fullest development of every child must be a continuous process in every community. To avoid a general dilution of education, the multiplication of school duties must be accompanied by a proportionate increase of school resources. We must never lose sight of the insistent need to increase the excellence of our schools while increasing their scope; the two goals are not incompatible except under conditions of bad management or inadequate resources. The problems of the schools are great, but they never should be allowed to obscure the worthiness of their goals. In the judgment of this Committee, the people will probable continue to insist that all needs of all children be met, one way or another. The attempt to provide schools capable of playing their full part in making that ideal a reality may well prove to be one of the wisest decisions ever made by the American people.

In What Ways Can We Organize Our School Systems

More Efficiently and Economically?

If the new goals for the schools are to be achieved, major reforms in the organization of education in the United States will be necessary. One dramatic example of this is the fact that there are 8,674 school districts which operate no schools whatsoever. They exist on paper and have boards of education, but they can boast of neither pupils nor teachers.

What is worse, from the point of view of wasted money and wasted opportunities for children, is the fact that most school districts are too small. Of the 59,270 school districts in the United States, only 6,679 are large enough to employ as many as 40 teachers. In 37,781 school districts, fewer than 10 teachers are employed. A school district should have at least 1,200 pupils and 40 teachers to make it an efficient administrative unit. Gains in efficiency and economy supposedly can be expected until approximately 10,000 pupils are included in one district.

At a different extreme are many big city school systems which are too large for either educational or financial efficiency. In recent years, the need to consolidate rural school districts has received considerable attention, but the parallel problem of how to decentralize large urban school districts in order to make them more responsive to the needs of the pupils and the will of the people has had much less notice, in spite of the fact that more children now live in big cities than in rural areas.

The fundamental reason for reorganization is that both communities and schools constantly change, and organizational frameworks must change with them. Schools and communities change by themselves, it seems they are molded by conditions surrounding them and altered by many small decisions, rather than by a few large ones. An organizational framework, on the other hand, must be deliberately changed by man, according to carefully prearranged plans. It is not surprising that there is almost always a lag between the changes in the school and the changes made in the organizational framework designed to administer it. At the present time this organizational lag is particularly large because, for the past quarter-century, both schools and communities have been changing with unprecedented speed. Some of the school districts with no schools, or with too few chil

dren, for example, have simply been left stranded by shifts in population. It is obvious that the boundaries of school districts must be redrawn from time to time to take into account the simple fact that families move. The great migration from country to city which has taken place during the past half-century has never been adequately reflected in the organizational patterns of schools.

The changes which have taken place in the schools themselves demand even greater organizational reforms than do changes in communities. As has been pointed out in the section on "What Should Our Schools Accomplish?" the list of duties the schools are expected to perform has increased enormously during the past quarter-century. A school which was trying to teach only reading, writing, and arithmetic could operate efficiently with the few pupils in a small hamlet, but a school endeavoring to offer a wide range of courses, including preparation for college, vocational training, and much more, has to hire many teachers with specialized training, and needs a large physical plant with complex equipment. A large faculty and elaborate facilities necessitate a large student body. In general, the student body-and often, the school district supplying it-must expand as the services performed by the schools expand, until the point is reached where bigness in itself becomes an obstacle to both educational and economic efficiency.

During the past 25 years, considerable progress has been made in consolidating school districts in the United States. The total number has been reduced from 127,530 in the 1931-32 school year to 59,270 in 1954-55. Much less is known about needed reforms in the organization of big city school systems. It is clear that the problems of all big cities are not alike. There is little research available on the problem of urban schools.

The need to reorganize schools quickly is emphasized by the fact that about $10 billion is spent in this Nation every year on elementary and secondary education. This figure may be doubled in the foreseeable future. The amount of money currently wasted by school districts of inefficient size is incalculable, but it is undoubtedly great. The number of children who are being handicapped by a lack of school services in districts of inefficient size is also incalculable and also great. Both these facts are helping to overcome the two great enemies of school reorganization: simple inertia and affection for the way. things are.

Disadvantages of School Districts Which Are Too Small

Small school districts are usually deficient in the following ways: They offer too narrow a curriculum, especially in high school. They have unusual difficulty in getting good teachers.

They waste manpower by employing teachers for too few pupils. They cost too much per pupil.

They make it practically impossible to tax local resources fairly and adequately for the support of schools.

They make it difficult to locate school buildings properly in relation to centers of wealth and areas where the most children live.

They cause State systems of school finance to be unnecessarily cumbersome and complicated, thus making it difficult to distribute State school funds equitably.

They impede the operation of economical and efficient transportation for pupils.

Disadvantages of School Districts Which Are Too Large

Big city school districts are usually deficient in the following ways: Citizens of a large city generally have less pride in their schools than citizens of a smaller school district, and they seldom are willing to work as hard for better schools. As a result, it is easier for big city schools to lose all contact with the people, and to be administered almost exclusively by a small group of professionals.

Children or parents who have complaints against big city school systems generally find it harder to be heard than would be the case in smaller school districts. In many small school districts, for instance, there is one school board member for each thousand or so residents. In many large cities, on the other hand, there is only one school board member for about 100,000 residents. This difference in representation on the school board is often reflected accurately in the amount of attention an individual citizen can get from his board of education.

Citizens of large school districts sometimes lose sight of the fact that they are all in the same district, and work against each other rather than cooperate for overall school improvement.

Standards for Local School Districts

At the present time there are school districts which have more school board members than pupils and teachers, and at the other end of the scale, there are nearly a million pupils and more than 30,000 teachers under the jurisdiction of one school board. There seems to be little justification for such wide variation, and the variation itself emphasizes the complex nature of school organization. Experience, research, and study have led to considerable agreement on the nature of acceptable standards for a school district. It is important for such standards to be understood before reorganization is begun. Many of the present programs of reorganization serve only

to combine existing districts without any clearly conceived idea of the educational program to be achieved. Reorganization must begin with a clear concept of the school services to be offered, and full knowledge of the geographical area. Centers of wealth, centers of population, probable shifts of wealth and population, natural barriers such as rivers and large highways-all these and many more must be taken into account.

In spite of local variations, however, there is something approximating a science of numbers in school reorganization. Relatively few adequate programs are found in districts with less than 1,200 pupils unless special arrangements have been made for supervision and services. A distinction must be made here between a school building and a school district. It has often been mistakenly assumed that in order to consolidate school districts in rural areas, all the pupils must be herded into one central school building. That of course is not true. School districts can and usually do include many school buildings. The minimum size of a school district, however, is set by the minimum size of one efficient school. Because of this, the following information on standards for the size of individual schools is relevant :

1. Each high school should have a minimum of 300 pupils, or 75 pupils in each age group, and 12 full-time teachers. There are gains in economy and efficiency until the enrollment reaches 700 pupils. Such a standard is applicable whether the school is senior, junior-senior, or junior high school. There is little or no evidence that anything is gained by having an enrollment of more than 1,000 pupils in any school.

2. The minimum size of an elementary school should be 175 pupils and 7 teachers for a 6-grade school. There should be at least one teacher per grade in any school. There are improvements in efficiency and economy up to 300 pupils and 12 teachers.

3. The minimum size of a junior or community college should be 200 pupils and 10 teachers.

As has been pointed out, school districts as a whole should have at least 1,200 pupils and 40 teachers. Gains in efficiency and economy can be expected until approximately 10,000 pupils are included in one district.

There are certain valid reasons for limiting the size of a school. Every community wants its own high school, and it is occasionally better to let a school which is too small exist rather than to sacrifice community pride, interest, and support. Every neighborhood wants its own elementary school, and the same considerations apply. In general, however, it is better to have a good school serving a large area than a poor one serving a small area.

With rare exceptions, it is better to have a school which is too