Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-12-10
A LAME SCHOOL LAW.

A LAME SCHUUL LAW
State Superintendent Stryker is out IN cir
cular showing the injustice OF our present school
law in the matter of taxation. The question
raised by the superintendent is not new, but is
simply presented in more striking manner.
In the circular we find that some school districts
are loaded with taxes to maintain school at
all, while the levey in other districts is scarcely
appreciate. We give the figures: S33 districts
levy less. than mills 361o districts, levy
from to 10 mills; 2,777 districts levy from
II to IS mills; $40, levy from 10 to 10 mills;
while $40 districts levy 20 mils--the full amount
allowed by law. In the wealthy districts,
school is maintained from to 9 months during
the wear. while in the poorest districts, or
months is the limit
In the wealthy districts, the best of teachers
are employed. Ia the poorer districts, any one
WHO has certificate and will teach tor song
is installed as pedagogue. In some localities
it has been necessary for two districts to unite
in forming one school, and some one Is hired TO
haul the children back and forth from school.
So much for our boosted school laws.
NOW herein lies INC lnJuollSS' "A No"ii'J Va
township have voted railroad bonds, and all the
taxpayers are taxed alike to pay tor the rail-
roads but no district outside the railroad limit
receives one cent of railroad tax for school pur-
poses. The districts through which the rail-
road passes "hog" the whole levy, build fine
school houses, hire the best of teachers, and
escape with as low levy as less than mills.
The runty pig on the outside squeals and goes
hungry.
This is not new question. Teachers asso-
Citations, for years, have been resolving IN favor
of change. Prof. Mcdonald, editor of State
School Journal, drew bill in remedy and at
tempted to have it pass the last Legislature.
Still earlier, similar bills have been before the
legislature, and received little or no attention
Children cannot vote, and it is assumed that
teachers were working for higher wages The
districts that have railroads contain for more
voters than the districts that have no railroads.
A legislator is, first of all, politician, and,
last of all, for exact justice provided the secur-
ing of justice is not popular. That is the
whole thing in nutshell.
We are for the children who are growing up
under conditions that will barely remove them
from illiteracy, and we are, also, for the
worthy teachers who teach in the rural dis
tricts.
Superintendent Stryker favors state
and county levy for school purposes, and should
be sufficient to pay one-third the expenses OF
an eight-months term in districts OF twenty
scholars or over, the remainder to be raised by
local tax If any part of our school system is
right Stryker's proposition is right and we
hope the agitation will be such that our next
legislature will be forced to hear the cry of
children who are educationally starved. We
stand ready to declare that we will support no
man for the legislature who is not willing to
support some kind of remedy for the crying
evil of all unjust school law.
ANOTHER prosperity pointer" comes from
New England, where the workingmen in the
Haverhill shoe factories have had their wages
cut So week. This at the beginning of win
ter, with -four and coal going up, isn't just ex-
actly what those deluded shoemakers were led
to expect, when they voted for Mckinley and
the gold standard last fall.-Star aud Kansan.