The Coconino sun., 1917-02-02
J. s. REPORT SAYS OUR SCHOOLS HAVE TOO MUCH
 POLITICS IN THEM


 following extracts should be of inter- est to parents and teachers alike, and the criticisms should lead to local in- vestigation to determine whether or not any of the schools of Maricopa county are deficient along the lines indicated in the report:
 "The quality of the supervision which country secures for its schools is governed by the qualifications of the superintendent, the amount and kind of work required, and the condi- tions under which it is accomplished. It is evident that the method of selec- tion of the superintendent, if he is to administer and supervise schools successfully, is an important consid- eration in their proper conduct; and that tenure of office and salary must be of nature to appeal to capable, experienced and well-trained educat- i DTS.
 Seven counties in Arizona have now more schools than one superin- tendent can properly supervise, and in but two of these are there allowed salaries large enough to enable the superintendents to have an assistant supervisor. The county superinten- dents in Arizona have larger amount of office work than those in many oth- CT states, since the mater of drawing warrants and keeping financial ac- counts for the districts must be taken care of by them. As a result of this office work, with the long distances necessarily travelled to reach isolated schools, teachers are given entirely inadequate supervision.
 "A general comparison of the effi- ciency of county and city supervision in Arizona shows that city superin- tendants have better education, train ing and experience, including super visory experience, than the county superintendents. Eleven of the twelve reporting have the equivalent of full college education. Three have assist ant supervisors (principals and super visors of music, drawing, manual training and household economies not included) and all but one have clerical assistants. The city superintendents visit teachers much oftener, as they have fewer teachers and fewer build ing to supervise. Also they select or help select teachers and fewer inex- perienced ones are employed in the city than in the country.
 Members of the bureau staff made a study of the methods of supervision in nine counties of the state. This study and the visits made disclose the fact that while a number of superin- tendants in Arizona are unusually ca pable, conscientious, and enthusiastic, this is by no means true of them all and that on the whole rural school supervision in the state is ineffective and unsatisfactory.
 Too Much Politics
 The committee recommends that Arizona schools be entirely removed from politics. Rural schools in Ari- zona are supervised by political off cers elected bienIally at the general elction in the same manner as other county officers are elected. The law requires no qualifications of an edu- cational nature. A recommendation has been made in previous pages to remedy both of these difficulties. The law does not require the superinten- dents to devote their entire time to their work. Three of those in office in 1916 did not do so. One receiving salary of 5000 year gave only 75 per cent of his time, one receiving $1400 gave 90 per cent, and the third, receiving $500, gave but 50 per cent. The salary in this latter case seems sufficiently high to justify one who accepts the position to spend his full time in performing its duties. Data given in accompanying tables show that the Arizona superintendents de- vote the greater part of their time to administrative duties and divide the remainder about equally between travelling and class room supervision. They visit each teacher usually twice year (three visit but once) and spend from one to three hours in each class room. They have from 10 to 90 school buildings to visit, the majority of which (50 to 90 per cent) are one teacher schools. The number of teachers to be visited varies in the different counties from 2S to 145. Four superintendents have full-time assist ants, four have clerical assistants part of the time only, the other six have none.
 Difficult Problem
 The problem of obtaining satisfac- tory school grounds in Arizona, espe-