High-School Instruction by Mail: A Potential Economy. Bulletin, 1933, No. 13
Author: Gaumnitz, Walter H.
Date: 1933-00-00
Type: Historical Materials
Subjects: School Administration,Public Education,Distance Education,Costs,Budgeting,Secondary Education,Rural Areas,Access to Education,Educational Finance,Letters (Correspondence),Educational Quality,Program Effectiveness,Supervision,Accreditation (Institutions),Vocational Education,Technical Education,Student Needs,Postsecondary Education

The purpose of this bulletin is to show how correspondence courses and the correspondence technique may be used to effect economies both in terms of rendering for less money school services which are already being provided, and at the same time to extend such services to persons and areas which are not now being reached. During this time of economic stress more than ever before educational authorities are under obligation to effect every possible economy in the administration of public education. One such economy which has been widely suggested and which is being tried out in an increasing number of localities and with a growing variety of objectives is the use of high-school instruction by correspondence. It should be recognized at the outset that it is not the purpose here to suggest that high-school education by mail can or should be substituted in lieu of the regular instruction in residence. The movement of using correspondence lessons to provide instruction on the high-school level has made its greatest progress and has received its greatest endorsement because it has been recognized that it is a means of improving the present practices of secondary school administration, of enriching its offerings, and in numerous ways of extending its services. the use of correspondence lessons in high school originally attracted interest because of its possibilities of supplementing the present high-school program. Correspondence lessons are rapidly gaining recognition because they have been found to serve the following general purposes: (1) To eliminate many inordinately small classes, especially in the junior and senior years of large high schools and in all grades of the smaller high schools, resulting in an increase in the pupil-teacher ratio and a reduction in the cost; (2) To enrich the offerings of the smaller high schools and to furnish unusual courses in the larger ones, thus more closely fitting the school program to the various needs of those seeing to continue education to this level; (3) To make it possible for the high school to meet the demand for vocational, technical, and other fields of instruction more closely related to practical everyday living; (4) To provide a means for recognizing individual differences in instruction and in student progress; (5) To serve as a means of providing post high-school education to persons who have graduated from high school, who are unemployed, and who cannot afford to go to college; (6) To provide high-school education to persons who for a great many reasons stopped short of high-school graduation and who because of unemployment, additional leisure, the desire to remove college-entrance deficiencies, etc., wish to resume their interrupted education; (7) To extend some rudiments of secondary education to persons living in sparsely settled areas or at isolated points where it would be uneconomical to undertake the assembling of classes for high-school work; (8) To provide evening school, continuation school, and extension services in localities where regular classes are too small and the need too diversified to warrant such regular classes; (9) To facilitate the instruction of persons who are crippled, invalided, or who for other reasons are permanently or temporarily prevented from attending school regularly; and (10) To provide a means of adult education, a function that has long been served by the various agencies furnishing correspondence courses. Information in this bulletin addresses the following general problems: (1) Is high-school instruction by correspondence feasible?; (2) Are economies effected through such courses? (3) Where may reliable courses on the high-school level be obtained?; (4) What of the quality of high-school correspondence courses; (5) Are high schools using correspondence courses, and, if so, where and with what success?; (6) What administrative problems are involved in the use of correspondence lessons in high school, and how are they being solved?; and (7) Where can additional information on the use of high-school course by correspondence be obtained? A list of annotated references relating to high-school education by correspondence is included, and an appendix presents samples that illustrate the type of publicity materials sent out by the Massachusetts Division of University Extension. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 52 footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.]