Arizona republican., 1915-10-31

equal educational opportunity. Equal opportunity means equal length of school term. It means equal material equipment; it now varies from it's most ancient and poorly con structed, most uncomfortable single room scholhouses in the remotest dis trict, to the handsomest, best equipped most completely furnished most com fortable modern building in an easily accessible location. It means equal supervision: supervision now varies from q single visitation of the superin- tendent to the closest daily sympathetic supervision of the expert supervisor. It means equal teaching ability; this row ranges from absolute incompetent cy to the highest and most skillful professional proficiency. It means equal facilities for the work in the common branches; in the district school there is one teacher in one room with from five to eight grades. teach ing twenty to forty classes, while in the town and city schools and in the consolidated schools in the country, each grade is provided with teacher.
 The financial burden is too great fo:' the small district alone to try to add to it's curriculum. In Maricopa county We are solving this problem by creat- ing circuits, in other words, by associ- ating a number of schools for manual training and domestic science We now have four circuits affecting four teen school districts and 1000 children This Idea could be carried to music, art and agriculture.
 The administration of many rural schools is often unbusinesslike, waste full of money. time. effort and the op- portunities of children. It is the com mon practice of rural schools to buy supplies at retail as needed or worse buy of travelling supply agents. Prob ably the worst feature of this is the buying of worthless junk, such as vari- ous kinds of charts and supposedly indispensable apparatus to assist the teacher in dispensing knowledge to the children. l will venture to say that 1 can ferret out a number of drayloads of this junk from the different schools of my county that has not been used for years These trustees, as a rule, are among the best men and women of the district, but they can not get away from the travelling agent. I can't do 1t every time myself There should be law prohibiting school trustees from buying only such school appara- tus as has been approved by the state board of education. Maricopa county has overcome the supply proposition to some extent by cooperative buying the last two years. The first year there were twelve districts that co-operated; this year there were twenty four. The following shows the sale price paid now and the retail price formerly paid:
 Scratch newspaper, 4%c per lb.; agents price. 10c.
 Foolscap, 55c per ream, F pounds; agents price, s1.4o
 Crayon, 35c per gross; agents price l 90c
 Erasers. s1.O4 per dozen; agents l price, S2.50.
 Globes. 12-inch, ss.75 each; agents price, s15 00
 Desks, No. l. each. ss.sS; agents price. S4.5O
 By way of summing up. the advo- cates of the county unit system give the following as the most common de- fects Of the district system:
 l. Improper selection of teachers.
 z Too frequent change of teachers
 J. Unequal educational opportunity. |
 4. Inefficiency Colorado school sur vey).
 ,. Not economical.
 b. Lack of interest on part Of par ants and trustees
 l. Lack of sympathy on the part of he teacher with common life prob ems
 \. Small classes and consequently ack Of competition and interest.
 ,. Not enough practical subjects to hold children in school.
 10. Little or no supervision