The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-02-02
WOULD ABOLISH
 DISTRICT SCHOOL
 SYSTEM ENTIRELY
Special Commission Reports to the Leg. islature Against Present School
 System.
Would Make Towns Supreme in Control = State Should Exert its Right to Provide Proper School Facilities for All Children - What Commission Recommends.

All Children - What Commission Recommends.
 Hartford, Conn, Feb 2.-More radi- l cal in it's recommendations, and more denunciatory of certain phases of l school conditions in Connecticut than anything of the kind that has come out on this question in many years, | the report of the special Joint Com-
 mittee on Education appointed by the | last General Assembly to investigate the public school system in Connecti- | cut to-day handed its report to the state legislature. Striking, as it does, | heavy blow at the town control of schools, as an outcropping of Connec- ticut's town system whereby small places are as we'll represented in the House as larger ones. the report was eagerly sought and read by members from the rural districts which were particularly assailed.
 The report is signed by the five mem-
 bers appointed by the Joint Commit tee to make the investigation, Flavel s. Luther president of Trinity Col
 lege; Charles H. T1bbits, Moses E.. K. Zabriskie, all prominent educators. The primary recommendation of the
 report reads:
 That after a. certain date the present district system be abolished, that town school committees be elect ed, and that the towns be grouped so as to constitute territories for conven- tent supervision"
 The other important recommenda- tions are contingent on this one, the whole tenor of it being that the State should exert it's right to give proper school training to children, as such is not being done under the present sys- tenn. f% After telling of it's work of investiga- tion and outlining the present status of the state school laws the report says: sThe State has established a State Board of Education to have gen. eral supervision and control over the educational interests of the State This Board has and exercises a general ad- visory supervision over the schools but the control of the educational interests | is by no means in the hands of the State Board. Except in few instan- ces the control is in the hands of town | or district or town authorities. "Very grave injustice is being done | to-day to a large proportion of the l children of the State through the inc qualities of school opportunity resulting from this system of local management. Partly this injustice is due to the diff | ferent ability of different communities l to maintain suitable schools; partly 1t 1 is due to indifferer e and incompetence | on the part of local authorities partly | it is due to petty and unworthy jeal- | ousies. As a result-a large proportion of the fund devoted by the State to the l support of the schools fails to achieve | the purpose for which 1t is appropriat- l ed.
 Many of the school buildings in the smaller towns of the State are old. un- clean, offering no proper shelter, poor ly heated, unventflated, associated with outbuildings offensive to the senses, buildings which would not be tolerated | for an instant in the case of state | prison or county jail. Yet in these | novels are gathered together five or six
 hours a day the helpless little children for whose education the State has as- | stunned to care."
 1 The report goes on to state that
 many Of the schools are poorly equlp- ped, are without reference books. maps and in many cases the children are | without text books, that most of the l tools of education are lacking. eve f1nd'' it continues, "that a con- siderable proportion of the teachers in l the Connecticut schools are thoroughly unfit for their positions, that these teachers to whom we take exception are uneducated, without experience or | knowledge of the teaching profession, without ambition or ability to inn l prove. We find that, through inn proper methods of appointment, and 1 through the lack of State control, ap- pointments to teaching positions are made carelessly and sometimes in way suggesting motives which ought to be deprecated" The report then
 states that of the teachers in 50 towns 15 per cent. are related by "consanguin- ity or affinity to the person respon- sible for their appointment. Moreover it states that of that IS per cent. only 3 can be ranked as efficient.
 "We find that the wages paid to a large proportion of our teachers are
 distressingly small.
 Naturally we find also that in very
 many schools the children are learn
 ing very little."
 The report then states that 300 or 400 schools could be closed, the children being sent to central schools, to great advantage. It mentions the fact that a child often goes great distance to the school in his own township, while by stepping across the town boundary he easily could attend in another town. eve might" the scathing document
 goes on, "present photographs of ex- teriors and interiors of school build ings which 1t would be humiliating for
 a citizen of Connecticut to look upon.
 We have in our possession photo
 graph of a school building so defaced that the photograph could not lawfully
 be sent through the postoff1ce. But
 is it not sufficient for us to say that in
 o11r opinion 8 large number Of our
 schools call for immediate and drastic
 action looking to their reform and 1m- provement?" ?"
 The one optimistic paragraph in the