St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1915-02-03
The Educational scheme.

To give every boy and girl of Yer
mont as nearly an equal opportunity
as possible to get an education for
the life they are to live is the first
great purpose of the educational bill
formulated by the special commits
sion and introduced in the legisla-
ture last Thursday. To centralize
the control of Vermont schools in a
state board, to make the elementary
and secondary schools the first bene-
ficiary of state funds and to give
more state aid to these schools are
other purposes of the bill. A meas
ure with such vital purposes neces-
sarily is one of the most important to
come before this session of the legis-
lature. An abstract of the measure
is published in this issue and should
be carefully studied by the reader.
A proper question is how far does
the bill propose to reduce the local
directors control of the schools and
increase the control of the state.
Under the new plan the. local school
directors would simply have care of
the school buildings and, subject to
the approval of the union superinten
dent, engage the teachers for the
schools. They also could designate
what schools the pupils of any town
could attend and the school directors
in any school union can elect the
state board would designate the
towns to be included in a union, may
locate or consolidate the elementary
schools and establish centralized
pay for the supervision of schools
and for the transportation of all pu-
pills. So the towns would be reliev-
ed of the expense of supervision and
transportation and could reduce the
local school expenses by that amount.
Another section however compels a
town to raise at least two-tifths of
it's grand list for the support of
schools where the present law re-
quires only one-fifth. So while the
new measure proposes to increase
the state expense of public schools at
least SITS, 900 per year it will not
allow the towns to reduce their local
taxes for the support of schools
This feature very materially reduces
the chances for the bill to become
law. If the increased state tax for
schools would bring some relief in
the amount of local taxation for
schools the tax payers might stand
for it but they will be very careful in
voting an increase in both state and
local expenses.
But compensations are offered for
the proposed increase in expenses.
First the school year is heightened
to thirty-six weeks year, a marked
advance@from twenty-eight weeks.
The state also trains the teachers for
the public schools. A junior high
school for each town would furnish
ten years of instruction for the great
bulk of scholars in place of nine now.
Vocational instruction is to be a
feature in each junior high school, a
branch of education that is much de-
sired OF the SITS, 900 extra appro-
priation asked 100000 would be di-
vided among the poorer towns for
the compensation of teachers, thus
furnishing them with a higher grade |
of teachers than they have been able
to employ themselves. So it may
properly be claimed that the state |
proposes to give more for the money |
expended than the public is getting |
under the present system. We are
inclined to believe that if the amount
a town is obliged to spend for schools |
is left as it is at present, one-fifth of
the grand list, it would be quite pos
sible to convince the legislators that
the bill is one that should be enacted |
into law.
Another element of strength in
the bill is the character of the men
who have been engaged in the inves-
tigation and formulation of the |
measure Present conditions were |
turned over to experts living outside |
the state and so entirely removed |
from any local prejudice, tradition |
or educators. They collected and |
presented the facts, a thing that has
been done in no other state in the |
Union. Then the membership of |
the commission was of a character |
and ability that has never been
equaIled in Vermont The state |