“A Year of Co-operative Service for the Schools of Philadelphia”
NEWS AND COMMENT.
The Public Education Association has just issued under this title its thirtieth annual report which shows convincingly that large gains have been made in the public school system of the city and that on the part of the community there is a growing sense of responsibility and active interest in the schools.
The past year has been an eventful one for the public schools of the State of Pennsylvania. The School Code, which has been called “the most progressive single piece of educational legislation ever enacted,” has made the reorganization of the schools both possible and necessary. To this law we owe the organization of the State Board of Education, the appointment of an executive secretary whose duty it is to investigate conditions in every city and hamlet, the creation of standard high schools and the development of a uniform course of study. Even the largest cities, which have become districts of the first class, have made progressive strides toward modern equipment and administration. Greater Pittsburgh has placed her schools under one executive head, and has secured a Superintendent trained outside of the state to supervise the system on a new pedagogical and physical basis. In one year a careful survey of conditions in the old school districts of that city has been made, the local school boards have been abandoned, $3,000,000 secured by temporary loan has been used in purchase of sites and erection of buildings. The School Board has spent half a million dollars during the last summer for immediate repairs, and has recommended four new high schools and ten elementary schools for 1913. For the first time a city of but slightly more than half a million inhabitants is willing to face a budget of over $8,000,000 to raise its school buildings, equipment, and teaching staff to the highest possible standard. In Philadelphia progress has not been so radical, since the law of 1905, framed for this city alone, made possible the reorganization of the central Board of Education and the establishment of a wiser business management. During the last six years the City of Brotherly Love has made long strides in the rehabilitation of her schools. Under a progressive Superintendent of Schools, the Board of Education has constructed modern fire-proof buildings, organized an efficient system of evening schools, and abandoned local Boards of Education with their disintegrating power for the more modern method of organization under one central Board.
But public-spirited citizens, who under1 the leadership of the Public Education Association had bent every effort to bring about the passage of the Code, had done so in the hope that Philadelphia might gain a still more modern form of school organization. They sought three ends through the Code: first, the separation of the schools from the municipality as a financial unit; second, the centralizing of executive control under a staff of expert superintendents; and third, the organizing of legislative power under not more than four committees of the Board of Education.
Two of these steps have been gained, but the third remains to be accomplished. As a result of the former complex system of local school management the Board of Education has been divided into numerous committees with complicated powers, including both legislative and executive function. The Code still requires fifteen members on the Board, and these men divided themselves into eleven committees. These committees represent seventy-eight positions which the fifteen members of the Board must attempt to fill, with a resulting complexity of detail which cannot help hampering educational progress.
In spite of this handicap, however, in the year and a half which has intervened since the passing of the Code much distinctive progress has been made. The schools of the city have become an independent financial body with power to levy a separate tax and to borrow over $30,000,000 without recourse to the ballot. This has swept away the old system of control by Councils, under which this political body dictated the items of the school budget, and made it impossible to secure proper housing for the schools.
For the first time the Superintendent of Schools has become the real supervising head of all the schools of the city. Philadelphia was the latest of the large cities to appoint a school superintendent. Not until 1883 did she have such an executive officer, and until this present year the high schools have been directly responsible to a lay committee of the Board, and have lacked the power which comes from unified method and standardized courses. Under the new regime district high schools have been placed in outlying suburbs, all have been raised to the first rank, with four years of study, and all have been given manual training and commercial courses as well as the usual academic preparation for college. For the first time it has become possible for the children of this community to secure a high school education without paying large annual sums for carfare, and wasting hours of time in stuffy .street cars.
The recent action of the Board of Education in passing a $5,000,000 loan for the building of high and elementary schools is evidence of an immediate intention to perfect the physical plant and to place it upon a modern American basis, and it is hoped that the 15,000 children who are now either on part time or excluded entirely from school on account of inadequate facilities, may gain a decent seat in a decent school. During this entire process of change the Public Education Association has lent persistent aid to the Board. Through co-operation with other social agencies, through public meetings, individual effort, and the work of organized committees, the needs of the schools have been brought before the public, and specific projects have been undertaken for raising the standard of education.
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