Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1913-05-15
TO FIND THE WEAK
SPOTS IN SCHOOLS
A Survey of State Planned by Super
intendent Ross.
TO PUT THEM ON HIGHER BASIS
To Help Districts Too Poor to Pay
for Efficient Teachers and Proper
Equipment, State Aid Will
Be Asked.

SS HoNCds
Top0ka.-A survey OF the Kansas
schools to determine their weaknesses
and provide remedies to put the Kan
sas schools on higher and more eff
fective basis has been started by w.
d. Ross, state superintendent of pub
lie instruction. One of the first propo-
sitions will be the question of taxa
ton. One school district has a tax
valuation of $2,500,00O while another
adjoining district has property worth
only $4,000. The one district can OBJ
tain a big amount for its school, but
the other has to have state aid to
maintain seven months school with
the lowest priced teacher in the coun-
ty. Kansas is supposed to give all
children equal educational advan-
tages, but under the present tax sys-
TEN this cannot be done.
Another proposition on which infor-
nation is being gathered is the per-
centage of school enrolment to the
school population. There are $4,000
school children in the state, but only
$4,000 were enrolled in school last
year. The superintendent wants to
find out why SO many Kansas chill
dren are not in school. Maybe many
are in parochial or private schools of
which the state has no record. Those
not in paroehial or private schools or
not in the public schools are to be
hunted out to learn why they are not
in school.
A third proposition is that of the
average daily attendance to see how
that compares with the enrolment
and see how we'll the attendance is
maintained in different schools
throughout the year. Another propo-
sition is the school equipment, globes,
books, maps, dictionaries and similar
equipment, to see that all the chill
dren have about the same advantages
in school equipment.
When the data on all these propo-
sitions is gathered then the PROPOSE
superintendent and he will be told to
make a special investigation into each
case which does not come up to a
certain standard and find out the rea-
sons. Then the legislature will be
asked to give relief where the schools
are in poor condition.
90
The members of the state educa-
tional committee arrived here from
Lawrence where the board discussed
the proposition of establishing and
maintaining a department of agricul-
ture at the Hays Branch Normal
school on an extensive line. The
board felt that this experiment would
conflict with the work done at Man
haitian and upon the experiment sta
ton tract of land, which is part of
the Hays school, and it decided to
put the burden of teaching agricul-
ture in the Hays branch in charge of
the state agriculture college, to be
conducted and carried on on the tract
of land which is part Of that school.
John T. White, a member of the
state utilities commission under Gov
ernor Stubs, state grain inspector
and member of the legislature, died
at his home at Ada the other day of
apoplexy. Mr.. White was one of the
we'll known figures of Kansas public
life and a veteran Of the Union army.
1t is possible that the law providing
for second class cities paying one
third the paving cost, which has