Evening star., 1936-09-23
EDITOR DEFENDS
KANSAS SCHOOLS
Educational Facilities Held
improved Under Landon
Administration.
sreeial Dispatch to The Star.


Attacks On the Kansas school system
which have occurred since the nomlna-
ton Of Gov. ALI M. Landon Tor the
presidency have brought response
from William Allen White, editor OF
the Emporia Gazette.
Discussing the situation in his pa
Der, White declared:
kansas most properly has q right
10 be proud of her schools. And Gov.
Landon has helped our common
schools more than the average gov
ernor. The best piece of State school
legislation In recent years is the Lam
don cash basis law. 1t requires
boards of education to stop issuing
time warrants. Before that law was
passed, many, a considerable number,
sometimes a majority. of the Kansas
Boards of Education were issuing time
warrants to meet pay rolls. The School
Board in a prosperous Western Kansas
city which was booming 10 years ago
issued cash warrants only about four
months in the year. When taxes were
distributed after the June period,
these warrants would be taken up and
cash warrants issued during July, Au-
gust and September Then the schools
would 20 back to time warrant OASIS
When the taxes were distributed IN
JaJnuary. after the December tax
period. the warrants again would be
taken up and cash warrants issued
for a month or two, when the scnools
would again be on the time warrant
basis. These time warrants drew 9
per cent interest. The bankers liked
them. But the cash basis law has
DESTROYED that soft $ snap for the
bankers. And now. when a tax
payer pays a dollar in Kansas schooi
taxes, it all goes for schools. Whereas,
before Landons cash basis law came
at least 4 per cent Of every tax dollar
went to pay interest on time warrants
Report Made In 1927.
"Take another second-class city IN
Kansas. It has a school budget OF
5000 900, and it had at one time out
standing time warrants amounting 10
S25o.ooo, drawing 6 per cont interest,"
When the cash basis law came along,
the board had to stop issuing the time
warrants. They increased the levy.
but every dollar from the taxpayer
pocket went for schools and not TO the
bankers. Kansas school men had oeen
protesting for years about the evils
Of this time warrant system in school
finance. When the School Code Com
mission drew its report in 1927. the
cash basis law was major demand.
No one paid heed to that demand
until Landon came to the State House
Moreover. the Landon provisions,
which put teeth in the Kansas budget
law, required a definite educational
budget submitted to the people before
the taxes were levied by school boards.
Under the budget law, high-pressured
salesmen can't come along after the
budget Ia adopted and outtalk school
boards and principals to buy frills and
eadgets. The board must stay inside
OF its budget, again demonstrating
the fact that Kansas school taxes 60
for Kansas schools.
Certainly Kansas gives no State
aid for common schools. That has
been a Kansas policy since Kansas
came into statehood In 1861. Cover
nors have tried time and again to
get State aid. All Landon could get
to help the common schools was the
cash basis law and the budget law
with teeth. But even though we do
not give State aid to schools and
even though we are the forty eighth
State in State school aid. nevertheless
In Kansas, a rural State, the statistics
show that more farmer boys and
girls are attending high school than
in any other American State. More
over. Census Bureau figures show
that Kansas has more college gradu-
stes in proportion to her population
than any other American State. If
anything seriously was wrong with
the Kansas schools, these two dis
tinctions would not come to Kansas.
You can't have the highest percentage
OF boys and girls in high school and
the highest percentage Of college grad
yates In a population composed Of IS
per cent of Americans with American
born parents unless you have good
schools for everybody.
Reasons for CIosings.
Nov about the closed schools. 1t
may be safely asserted that no child
In Kansas is denied school privileges.
But the school statistics show that
eight Thousand children are not in
the schools in their districts and
that those district schools have closed.
Why did they close? They closed in
some cases to join consolidated
schools. They closed in other cases
because the population had moved
away. In Far Western Kansas. in
the dust bowl with less than five
pupils to a district, schools closed be-
cause the patrons preferred to move
their children to other districts
rather than tax themselves to main
tain schools for few students. This
would mean high tax rate. There
are records where Kansas teachers
have been employed and paid wages
for full term of school out in West
ern Kansas in the dust bowl, where
not q single pupil was enrolled dur
ing the entire year. During the Lam
don administration he backed the
passage of the Rees cooperative
school law, which equips weak dis
tricts to cooperate in the education
of children. In this cooperation,
where school houses are abandoned
and children are cared for outside
the district, will be found most of
the agony which Is squeezing tears
out Of the Democrats about Kansas
schools. The school houses are
closed, OF course. But the children
are cared for.
HBut the big thing that Landon did
for education was In the appointment
to the State Board of Education OF
men and women of high quality. Dur
Ing his administration and under his
leadership, qualifications for teachers
and administrators both in class A and
class B high schools, as well as Il
colleges, have been raised, and more
colleges and secondary schools have
met the requirements Of the North