The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-08-19
THE ALABAMA CONSTITUTION
By EMMETT o,NEAL former governor of Alabama


 their work and the procurement of necessary equipments without delay
 Another provision of the constitu- tion in reference to education which should be revised is section 261, which provides that mot more than 4 per cent of all moneys raised or which hereafter is appropriated for the use Cf public schools shall be used, ex- pended otherwise than for the paJ ment of teachers employed in such schools, provided that the legislature
 by vote of two-thirds of each house
 may suspend the operation of this section" The result of this provision of the constitution is that notwith- standing the munlficent appropriations made Tor the support ot the pubic
 schools the state IS denied the privi
 lege of constructing school buildings with proper equipment, and the result
 has been that our rural school build
 ings are poorly constructed, inadequate
 in size and lacking in those important
 conditions, equipment and grounds which
 are so essential to the progress of elemen~
 tary education. If just and liberal pro-
 portion of the vase sums or money
 which the state has eXpelded for the
 common schools had been devoted to
 the erection of proper buildings, the
 purchase of suitable grounds, libraries
 and other equipment the standard of
 our elementary education would have
 been materially advanced. better teach CTS attracted and the future of our
 common school system more power
 ful and encouraging. The new con
 s;tution should provide that our high
 schools should be mainly supported by
 local taxation. In no other state eN
 cept Alabama is the entire burden
 of their support imposed upon the
 state treasury.
 One of the most vicious provisions
 of the present constitution is the re- quirement of the apportionment of
 school moneys on the census plan,
 This apportionment is not based oil sound principle and is both unsatis-
 factory and unjust. Il does not accom- plish the equalization of burdens and advantages and it's abandonment i'll 1 the interest of justice is the first and
 most important step in educational re- 1 form. Instead of stimulating commit mites to make every effort to increase school attendance and to improve school conditions and awaken local price it tends to place all local eff fort at a discount and makes it to the interest of the school teacher to dis courage school attendance. Under the constitution and laws of Alabama census in Jury of every even numbered year and enumeration of all the cnli- dlen of school age residing in each school district is made. This method offers a constant tempta ton to com munities to pad their census list so that the census money to be drawn may be larger in the total amount and in per capita value on work actually dcne by the schools. This padding or
 the census, though often resorted to, Is not easy to discover, for those lists are generally accepted without ques ! { l.. "A the more children of school age that are shown upon the census lists in each county the greater will be the amount of school money distributed in | that county and therefore. a greater temptation to the teachers of that county to pad the lists. For what pur- pose is it this money is apportioned to each county? Is it to educate those | children who are already being edu- cated in the private schools and who 1 do not attend the public schools? No. l It's purpose is to educate those who would otherwise be denied an elemen- l tary education. It iS, evident, there i fore, that the presen- method of ap- | portionment gives th- money of the l state to communities for the educa- | ton of children who do not attend or l expect to attes:d the public schools.
 This basis of apportionment wholly ig-
 nores the number of children that at 1 tend private schools It necessarily
 follows that as private schools chiefly exist in the cities this basis of ap. 1 5ortionment gives the cities more
 money in proportion to the number of : children who require elem mentary edu- I cation than is given to the rural dis l tricts. The purpose of the law is actu- ally defeated by' this method It has 1 been truly said that where the census l exists communities are stimulated to
 get every possible name on the census ', list but there the stimulation ends. Il What we should seek to encourage | is increased attendance and extension 1 of the amount of instruction offered I better quality of teachers and more l teachers, longer terms. thereby mak- I ing the public schools even better than | the private schools Yet all these i'm i portant education incentives are iS' nored and disregarded by the census \ system. The larger the census list the tlarger the amount of money that will I be apportioned to the county and \ therefore the smaller the actual at l tendance or school enrolment, the larger the salary of the teacher and the other school officials. Under the I present constitutional system we put