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BUREAU OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH
261 BROADWAY
July, 1909
Re-clasend 6-21-2
023 apr 08,5...
•
FOREWORD
BY THE TRUSTEES
of the
BUREAU OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH
In the May number of the Educational Review appeared an
article by Dr. John L. Tildsley, Principal of the DeWitt Clinton
High School, New York City, which contained several misstate-
ments of fact and several ungrounded inferences relative to the
Bureau of Municipal Research. The article is entitled "School
Reports As They Are; A Rejoinder," and was prompted by an
earlier article in the February number of the Educational Review
by Mr. William H. Allen, entitled "School Reports As They Are."
As writer of numerous articles on educational topics, and as
author of books dealing with educational efficiency, Mr. Allen is
competent to make for himself explanations or defences of publi-
cations in his name. Therefore, with those portions of Dr.
Tildsley's article which refer to Mr. Allen, as writer, the Bureau
of Municipal Research does not concern itself farther than to
publish for distribution (a) Mr. Allen's original article, (b) an
index to facts answered in 72 reports, (c) Dr. Tildsley's article,
and (d) Mr. Allen's reply. So far, however, as the purpose
and method of the Bureau of Municipal Research have been
misrepresented or inadequately represented, the trustees of
that Bureau feel it incumbent upon them to modify, correct or
deny five propositions in Dr. Tildsley's article:
I. "The chief aims of the Bureau of Municipal Research are
the discovery of facts and the installation of systems
of recording facts." (p. 435).
The purposes of the Bureau of Municipal Research are de-
fined in its charter and have been repeatedly published and demon-
strated through works as follows:-"To promote efficient and
economical municipal government; to promote the adoption of
scientific methods of accounting and of reporting the details of
municipal business with a view to facilitating publicity in matters
pertaining to municipal problems; to collect, to classify, to analyze,
to correlate, to interpret and to publish facts as to the administra-
tion of municipal government.'
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197237
2. "A recent report of the Bureau supports the contention
of Dr. Maxwell's report that medical inspection
should be transferred to the board of education and
that laws should be passed compelling parents to
secure medical service for their children." (p. 439).
The report from which this sentence is quoted, "A Bureau
of Child Hygiene," was first given out by Health Commissioner
Darlington at a joint session of public education associations and
the International Congress on Tuberculosis, at Washington, Octo-
ber, 1908. It showed that more law was not necessary for parents
of 96% of 1400 children and that the break-down of physical ex-
amination was due, not to the fact that it was under the health
department, but to administrative weaknesses which were easily
corrected in the case of the 1400 children studied, by instruction
of mothers and by facilitating treatment of children found to
have easily removable defects. Instead of supporting the con-
tentions mentioned in the rejoinder, it proved that substituting
efficiency for inefficiency in the department of health had ac-
complished in three schools the results contemplated by the
passage of additional laws and by the transfer of examination to
the department of education.
3. "The Bureau probably made special reports leading to a
reduction of $5,500,000 in the board of education
budget for 1909." (pp. 440, 442, 445).
The Bureau of Municipal Research made no special reports
whatever to the committee that made up the tentative budget al-
lowances for 1909, nor to the board of estimate or the board of
aldermen which finally passed those allowances. By invitation of
Mayor McClellan and Comptroller Metz, the Bureau's representa-
tives cooperated with the so-called "budget committee" which
went over in detail the various departmental estimates and the
recommendations of the bureau of municipal investigation and
statistics. It made no statements about the school estimates to
that committee which it had not printed during the three months
preceding in the form of budget notes for the newspapers. Its
participation was confined to asking questions which brought out
for discussion reasons for or against recommendations made by
the bureau of municipal investigation and statistics. The minutes
of the sessions will show that when the evidence was before the
committee the Bureau's representatives (1) had no responsibility
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for effecting any of the reductions mentioned specifically by Dr.
Tildsley; (2) suggested that either more facts be obtained to
justify the discrepancy in the repair allowances for Queens and
The Bronx, or that such discrepancies be eliminated; (3) ex-
pressed the belief that the community wanted a progressive policy
in vocational training.
When its representatives declared that the community was in
favor of more money for kitchens and vocational training, city
officials replied that although money had been repeatedly voted for
these purposes, the board of education had failed to use the funds
for such purposes.
When it declared that the enforcement of the Newsboys' Law
and the Compulsory Attendance Law would require a larger in-
crease in the funds for attendance officers, the city officials replied
that funds voted the preceding year for increasing the number of
attendance officers had been used for other purposes and that the
city superintendent of schools had expressed satisfaction with
$113,000 rather than $126,000 for attendance officers in 1909.
4. "Since the Bureau of Municipal Research claims the
credit, it must be held responsible for the great in-
jury to the educational system wrought as a result
of its activities." (p. 441).
As was shown above, the Bureau of Municipal Research
never claimed, never had, credit for reductions. Never in its
history has the department of education been given all of the
money that it requested. A cut of several million dollars was
taken for granted by all officials and taxpayers, months before
the budget for 1909 was discussed. With regard to the school
budget, as with regard to every other budget, the Bureau of Mu-
nicipal Research has consistently held that the city has money
enough to prevent all injuries which can be proved, and that
money should be refused or voted only because of evidence that
it is needed or not needed. At the time the reductions referred to
by Dr. Tildsley were made, the educational authorities did not
prove or attempt to prove the injuries now alleged by the re-
joinder.
5. The Bureau of Municipal Research “has acquired, on the
one hand an over-developed critical faculty of a
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rather destructive kind; on the other, it is the
prophet of salvation through fact-seeking, fact-col-
lecting and fact-arranging. It is inclined to lay em-
phasis on system, and not men, on bookkeeping
rather than personality; and therefore, Mr. Allen, in
the spirit of his institution, has noted slight dis-
crepancies and has enlarged upon them." (p. 448).
Mayor McClellan, Comptroller Metz, Health Commissioner
Darlington, the Charter Revision Commission, the Joint Legisla-
tive Committee to Investigate New York City's Finances, Gover-
nor Hughes, the Chamber of Commerce, the Merchants' Asso-
ciation, not to mention hosts of editorial writers and private citi-
zens, have disagreed with the rejoinder and called attention to the
fact that the critical faculty of the Bureau of Municipal Research
is never simply destructive, but is notably constructive.
Characterizing the Bureau's method Mayor McClellan's mes-
sage of Jan. 4, 1909, said: “The service of the Bureau in purely
municipal work marks a new departure in city government,-the
active cooperation of the public with the city administration."
Commissioner of Accounts Mitchel wrote in the New York World
of Sept. 6, 1908: "The Bureau of Municipal Research may very
properly be considered the most important non-official expression
of popular concern for the efficient conduct of New York's mu-
nicipal business."
The Chamber of Commerce has urged all taxpayers of New
York to give the Bureau "their strong financial and moral sup-
port," because "its work is constructive and is along the line of
helpful criticism rather than hostile attack.”
Governor Hughes, at the Budget Exhibit, Nov. 2, 1908, said:
"The character of the Bureau's investigation to aid administration
in this city marks one of the most important improvements of re-
cent years. It is striving to get at the facts in an honorable,
straightforward way and is striving to present them so that
they will be intelligently comprehended."
Prof. L. S. Rowe, in his book on "Problems of City Govern-
ment," says:
"The establishment of the Bureau of Municipal Research in
New York City marks an epoch in the process of enlightening
public opinion. The education of public opinion in municipal af-
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fairs, which has been pushed with such vigor during the last few
years, must now be systematized and made general throughout the
United States. Every community in the country stands in need of
agencies such as the Bureau of Municipal Research of New York
City, to place the public in full possession of the facts concerning
municipal services."
The Bureau is the prophet, not of salvation but of intelligent
citizenship, not through fact-seeking, fact-collecting and fact-
arranging merely but through fact-understanding of the truth by
the general public. If it lays emphasis on system and bookkeep-
ing, it is only because experience has proved that proper system
and bookkeeping reveal the truth about the efficiency of men and
personality. Without system the ablest men are certain to become
victims of unfounded charges.
The New York Times, commenting upon the need for ade-
quate school records, recently described the position which the
Bureau has been trying to have universally adopted: "The
board of education ought to have all the information a factory
manager would require to know whether his plant was work-
ing efficiently and where improvement was possible."
Far from noting slight discrepancies and enlarging upon
them, the Bureau of Municipal Research has founded its public
statements upon most exhaustive examination not only of the or-
ganization of departments discussed, but also of records running
over years, showing results of departmental activity.
In presenting these considerations, the trustees of the Bureau
of Municipal Research have had in mind not only the body of
students and administrators who may have been misled by Dr.
Tildsley's article, but also business men and educators in New
York and elsewhere who have received reprints of that article
directly from school officials or from New York City's Public
Education Association.
(Signed)
EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, Chairman
FRANK TUCKER, Vice-Chairman
R. FULTON CUTTING, Treasurer
RICHARD WATSON GILDER
JOHN B. PINE
ALBERT SHAW
FRANK A. VANDERLIP
:.
་
7
SCHOOL REPORTS AS THEY ARE: A REJOINDER
Socrates considered the Sophists undesirable citizens in that
they always sought to make the worse cause appear the better.
Is there not grave danger in these days that the fact-hunting
reformer, as he runs amuck among the departments of the
government of a great city, may make the better cause appear
the worse? Is there not ground to fear, as he attempts to show
Repeatedly the National Education Association has de-
clared that in reporting school work and school needs any
confusion which makes it impossible to discover the inef-
ficient, wasteful and dishonest also covers up honesty, econ-
omy and efficiency.
all departments to be badly managed, all officers inefficient,
and many of them dishonest, that the confidence of the people
may be so shaken in the possibility of efficient government
that two disastrous results will ensue, the first one, that our
best men may be unwilling to take office, the second that citi-
zens may seek to contract rather than to expand the activities
of our city governments?
Deplorable as it would be for citizens to lose faith in the
honesty and efficiency of the management of other city depart-
ments, it would be most disastrous should they lose their faith
in those who administer our schools, and thus be led to curtail
the work of the schools.
Nothing could be more deplorable than for educators to
mislead the public's faith in the principle of universal educa-
tion, and either to misrepresent the purposes for which money
is being spent, to spend more than is needed on the quantity
and quality of education maintained, or to spend millions
without attempting to apply efficiency tests to policies and
methods.
The attacks that are being made upon the administration of
our schools today can only further the cause of those taxpayers
who under the guise of economy seek to cut down to the lowest
limits expenditures for education and especially those for teach-
ers' salaries.
So far as New York is concerned, taxpayers' bodies have
repeatedly gone on record as demanding adequate pay. In
School Reports as They Are: A Rejoinder, appeared in the Educational Review for
May, 1909, signed by John L. Tildsley, Principal DeWitt Clinton High School, New York
City. To distinguish the rejoinder from my comment upon it, the former is printed in
full width, 10 poiut Roman type; the latter, indented in 8 point black face.
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1908, when school officials were requested to explain to tax-
payers their estimate, including salary changes, not only did
the president and the city superintendent decline to come,
but the latter forbade Miss Grace Strachan to come to ex-
plain the salary increase bill. Numerous statements on con-
troverted points made by the educational authorities to tax-
payers were, as will be shown later, misstatements.
Those of us who have been trying for years to obtain for
the teachers of New York City a living wage, and who have
finally convinced the Board of Education of the wisdom of
securing this for its teachers, are most apprehensive of the un-
fortunate effects which may arise from the publication of an
article in the February issue of this REVIEW which, under the
guise of a study of school reports, is largely a malevolent criti-
cism of the management of the public school system of New
York City.
No criticism of the management of the public school
system in New York City which was ever written by a per-
son outside the school system could do so much to shake
public confidence in school management as does this re-
joinder, with its inaccuracies, misstatements, evasions, mis-
quotations, and unconvincing apologies. The fact that the
writer and his collaborators among school officers and em-
ployees wish to help the schools only aggravates the injury
done by them in exhibiting publicly, through this rejoinder,
so many weaknesses which heretofore were suspected but, for
want of records, difficult to prove.
This article, by reason of the position the writer occupies
as Secretary of the Bureau of Municipal Research, is sure, if
unanswered, to exert a very unfortunate influence not only in
New York City but elsewhere.
This article was requested by Dr. Nicholas Murray
Butler, who wished the subject treated "from the standpoint
of the Bureau of Municipal Research and its general program
for effective publicity."
The same number that included it also had an ad-
vertisement of School Reports and School Efficiency, with
these words: "Its primary purpose is to show how the actual
facts of school administration are to be got at, so that the
school principal on the one hand, and the taxpayer on the
other, can tell exactly how school funds have been expended
and how the greatest efficiency in school management is to
be secured."
This article, written by Mr. Allen in collaboration with Dr.
Elizabeth K. Adams of Smith College, seems to be based largely
9
Jorm
My article was based on work done during the summer
of 1908, and so stated. Chapter VII was not "an earlier arti-
cle," but prepared specially for the report of the committee
on physical welfare of school children, which appeared under
the title School Reports and School Efficiency.
on an earlier article which constitutes Chapter VII of Snedden
and Allen's School reports and school efficiency entitled “A prac-
tical study of one school report" (New York City).
Tho the article deals with the reports of some 62 different
cities, the chief emphasis is laid on the reports of the City
72, not 62 different cities. The chief emphasis is not laid
on the reports of the city superintendent of New York City,
which were used only to illustrate points within my own
experience and provable from records at hand.
Superintendent of New York City. Of Dr. Maxwell's Eighth
Annual Report for the year ending July 31, 1906, Mr. Allen
in his earlier article thus wrote: "A word-to-word reading of
this document of 479 pages shows that it deals with questions
of tremendous moment not only to New York City but to the
educational world. In fact, it is probable that no other single
school report touches upon so many problems and so many aims
of a public school system. Effective use is repeatedly made of
tabular statements to disclose tendencies, to show increases and
decreases, to advertise the needs of different districts and dif-
ferent schools for special facilities, to interpret the progress of
certain lines of educational effort."
The commended chapter showed by actual citations that
"so far as the New York report falls short, it is probably true
of it, as of no other, that it is a serious handicap to educa-
tional advance throughout the world." It was shown to be
defective in technical methods, to waste space in setting up,
to lack adequate summary tables. It was shown that totals
were not classified; that districts having thousands of part-time
pupils also actually had many seats to spare; that district sup-
erintendents' reports were not uniform; that by the method used
of reporting averages of standing, a class where eight out of
ten have a passing mark of 70 might show 100 per cent. of
failure; that numerous important questions regarding truancy
were not answered; that needs were not shown with regard
to roof gardens, gymnasiums, shower baths, proper ventila-
tion, play space, adjustable desks, truant officers; that the
cost of vacation schools was not shown; that the published
per capita cost was not right; that the reasoning was often
illogical and inconsequential, as in the cost of supplies; that
the superintendent guessed where he might know the cause
of children dropping out of school; that the school census
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was relatively futile for want of proper use by school au-
thorities, and that because the census records were buried in
the storeroom, another great opportunity was lost to help the
cause of education by locating more clearly its problems; that
the report regarding physical defects of school children was
very deficient; that at a critical time, when the fiscal authori-
ties of the city had become thoroughly interested in the possi-
bility of saving millions in the future by extending health
protection over all districts, the official report of the schools
came out and did not even suggest that more money was
needed for discovering the pupils' need of attention and for
insuring such attention; that the report was not written to
the general public; and that recommendations were made
without giving the public facts to warrant them.
No one can read Mr. Allen's article in the February Educa-
TIONAL REVIEW and accept his statements as facts and his
conclusions as valid without believing that for some reason Mr.
Allen has changed his opinion of the value of the reports of
the City Superintendent. Indeed, one can hardly accept Mr.
Allen's judgment of these reports as exprest in the last article
and believe they are to any extent trustworthy as records of
facts and interpreters of experience, for in an opening paragraph
he writes, "After living in New York thru five years when
schools and public alike have suffered because school problems
were discust on theoretical and personal grounds just as if New
York were without experience, I have come to believe that there
is probably no need today in the educational world so pressing
as that for adequate recording and reporting of school expe-
rience."
To confirm the conclusion quoted, much has happened
recently: misstatements to the board of aldermen regarding
playgrounds and vacation schools; confusion about school
sites owned by the board of education; conflicting recom-
mendations with regard to school accommodations needed;
particularly the failure of a high school principal, the city
superintendent of schools and the auditor to quote accurately
and to interpret properly official records, which were easily
accessible and presumably consulted while the rejoinder was
in preparation.
The discovery of facts and the installation of systems of
recording facts are the chief aims of the Bureau of Municipal
Research.
The want of facts and a bad system of recording
facts are the chief charges brought against school reports in
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general and those of New York City in particular. A judg-
ment that is the result of years of observation, of conversation
with hundreds of teachers, principals, and superintendents, is
not, in Mr. Allen's opinion, a fact to be considered in deter-
mining educational policy, if we judge him by his condemnation
of the City Superintendent of New York for giving as the
reason of the failure of certain pupils to complete the high
school course, the result of his own experience and that of teach-
ers, rather than tabulated figures.
Observing and talking do not reflect the needs of
600,000 children. "Conversations with hundreds of teachers,
principals and superintendents" do not convey the result of
school experience. Educators differ on so many points that
the only recourse for laymen is definite information, reducible
to some common language which means the same everywhere
and at all times. Only a small number of principals and
teachers participate in "conversations," while all are given an
equal hearing by adequate reports.
Mr. Allen's conception of the value of facts is best shown by
his table of facts reported by the superintendents of ten cities.
Altogether they report 3,048 different facts. The total possibility
From a paragraph written to show nothing else but lack
of uniformity. No attempt was made to decide which facts
were valuable or not valuable. All facts from each report
were recorded.
of fact reporting by the ten cities was thus 30,480; the actual
number reported was but 4,149; the ten superintendents failed
in their duty of reporting facts to the extent of 27,423 facts. I
quote exact figures. Of the total possible different facts, 3,048,
the City Superintendent of New York reported 955, an efficiency
of 31 per cent. The average of the whole group was but 13.5
per cent., so that the City Superintendent of New York was
twice as efficient as the average of the group, but even he fell
into the C class, if the completion of facts be the true test of
the efficiency of a superintendent. May we not well question Mr.
Allen's dictum that the greatest need in education is the report-
ing of such educational facts? Is not a greater need the presence
in our educational system of men of large vision, of keen insight
and sound judgment, whose every utterance is a fact to be reck-
oned with and worthy to form the basis for a new movement and
a resulting expenditure of funds?
For over fifty years leading educators have declared em-
phatically that the "every utterance of men of large vision”
is not a safe reliance “to form the basis for a new movement
་
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and resulting expenditure of funds." I can conceive of no
doctrine that will do so much to shake the faith of citizens
in both the honesty and efficiency of schools as to try to en-
force the theory that the unsupported utterance of a superin-
tendent of schools is enough to justify expenditure of funds.
Suppose the next superintendent utters the reverse? Who
knows what the "utterance" means? What if "every utter-
ance" changes over night, as is often the case where school
officials try to get results from an uninformed public?
Through the rejoinder, the superintendent's "every utter-
ance" declares that to carry out his recommendations will
cost a mere bagatelle, and infinitely less than $25,000,000,
whereas the list on page 14 shows that they represent an
immediate outlay of $20,500,000 and a capitalized outlay of
almost $200,000,000.
Inasmuch as Mr. Allen lays so much emphasis on facts, and
since he criticises school reports, and especially those of New
York for the conspicuous absence of facts, it is but fair to Mr.
Allen and to the various superintendents criticised, to take up
the "facts" of his article and to test them to see if they really
give us the truth, which is the aim of his Bureau.
The first facts cited are that the New York report has not
an adequate index, that the title does not appear on the back, that
the typography could be improved, that the statistical tables could
be better arranged, and that some of the sentences are long.
Here Mr. Allen scores. Had he gone no farther, he might have
achieved a reputation for candor and truthfulness.
Such "facts" as the following, however, cited by the Secretary
of the Bureau of Municipal Research, if allowed to stand un-
challenged, would seriously lessen the possibilities for useful-
ness of the City Superintendent of New York and shake the con-
fidence of the public in our whole system of education. "It
Nothing can shake the confidence of the public in our
whole system of education so much as knowledge that it is
not being given the whole truth with regard to its schools.
If to execute twenty-six recommendations will cost $20,500,-
ooo, the fact should be boldly stated and candidly defended.
If, on the other hand, carrying out these recommendations
would cost nearly $200,000,000, either all items should be
defended by facts, or some of the recommendations with-
drawn. To make recommendations without knowing what
they will cost, and then to endeavor to minimize their cost,
will everywhere and at all times lessen the possibilities for
usefulness of any public official.
Until the rejoinder, there was no reason to know that
the superintendent's recommendations had been made with-
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out some conception of their cost; I had merely emphasized
the absence of supporting facts in his official statement to
the public. It now appears that he had not only failed to
compute the cost, but that he is so dismayed by my under-
estimate that he practically says to the public, through this
rejoinder, that the recommendations are not of a character
to justify so great an expenditure. Sober deliberation will
prove that many of them are worth what they need cost.
would cost approximately $25,000,000 to carry out the recom-
mendations made by Superintendent Maxwell of New York
MINIMUM COST OF CARRYING OUT THE RE-
COMMENDATIONS MADE BY NEW YORK
CITY'S SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS
IN THE ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE
YEAR ENDING JULY 31st, 1907
IMMEDIATE
MMEI
DR. TILDSLEY'S
LIST NUMBER
235
ITEM
Salaries..
Salaries..
Building.
Salaries..
CAPITALIZED
OUTLAY
OUTLAY
22,800
6,000
$
427,500
1,600,000
150,000
II,600,000
6,000,000
6
Buildings.
Salaries.
•
7
8 (1 to 3)
Salaries (Old law).
Salaries (New law).
Building.
•
Salaries..
8(4 to 5)
Building
Salaries..
240,000
8,000,000
8,000,000
I, 200,000
30,000,000
18,000
450,000
18,000
450,000
500,000
500,000
150,000
3,750,000
I,400,000
I,400,000
8,000,000
II
Salaries.
13
Supplies
1,000,000
14
Salaries.
3,300,000
320,000
50,000
I, 250,000
25,000,000
82,500,000
15
Salaries.
280,000
7,000,000
16
Salaries.
40,000
1,000,000
17
Buildings.
600,000
•
600,000
Salaries
60,000
1,500,000
18
Trade school inquiry
20,000
20,000
Omitted by
Dr. Tildsley
19
20
399 Kindergartners.
279,300
7,000,000
79 Workshops.
57,275
57,275
21
Salaries
74 Kitchens.
55,000
1,375,000
70,000
70,000
Salaries.
52,000
1,300,000
22
Assembly Hall.
50,000
50,000
23
Manual Training (?)
25,000
25,000
24
Principal's Home...
25,000
25,000
25
Classes for Mental
Defectives..
12,000
300,000
26
Provision for School
Meals at cost.....
$20,450,375
1,000,000
1,000,000
$190,799,775
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City, beside a radical change in the responsibilities of the health
and educational departments. How worth while, therefore, a
support from facts that will enlist lay understanding, sympathy,
and coöperation; how dangerous, also, recommendations not
justified by experience.”
It is stated as a "fact" that the carrying out of the recom-
mendations would cost $25,000,000. There is in addition a
$190,000,000 should have been written. I excluded the
teachers' salary increase because on page 132 of the super-
intendent's report he says that while salaries should be in-
creased, "I understand fully that, owing to financial condi-
tions in this city, there is no immediate possibility of increas-
ing teachers' salaries as I have recommended."
To provide permanently for this $3,300,000 increase $82,
500,000 would be required. If the educational authorities
had examined their records and analyzed their experience
they would have discovered that excluding teachers' salary
increases, it would cost, without capitalizing annual cost, a
minimum of $20,450,375 to carry out the recommendations
listed by the rejoinder, including several that he has omitted.
When a testator makes a bequest of $500 a year to a
charitable society, he sets aside $12,500. His interest in that
charity costs him not the annual donation, but that donation
capitalized. A business man is not willing to add $100 to
an employee's salary in December unless able to add $1,200 to
the salary during the next twelve months, and unless his
business warrants setting aside $30,000 for this purpose, or a
capital that will produce $1,200. One reason why school
finance has required a Carnegie Foundation and a General
Education Board for higher education, and why the United
States Commissioner must give a great deal of thought to
financial data of public schools, is that school men have not
fully realized, or at least have not fully confessed to their
constituents, that when they ask for $50,000 a year they ask
their communities to make a permanent investment of
$1,250,000.
broad insinuation that these recommendations are not based on
On the contrary, there was a direct appeal for facts to
justify and expedite the adoption of such recommendations
as facts would support.
facts, not justified by experience. Presumably the recommenda-
tions referred to were those of the City Superintendent's Ninth
Annual Report for the year ending July 31, 1907, the latest
report published at the time of the writing of the article.
15
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The complete recommendations of the City Superintendent for
Omitted by rejoinder: (1) 399 additional kindergartners
(pp. 32, 99, 106) requiring for salaries alone $279,300 or a
cost of $7,000,000; (2) 79 workshops and 74 kitchens, cost
not estimated; (3) assembly hall and manual training
plant for Curtis High; (4) home for the principal of parental
school; (5) more classes for mental defectives, which require
larger salaries for teachers; (6) provision for school meals
at cost.
Will the superintendent itemize the cost of these six
benefits at less than $10,000,000? That is an underestimate,
as results are sure to show.
the year ending July 31, 1907, were as follows:
I. The consolidation of schools whenever possible.
2. An increase in the number of special physical training
teachers from 31 to 46.
Superintendent asked for 50 (page 35). 19 additional of-
ficers, at $900 the first year, would cost $17,100. The third
year these same 19 would be getting $1,200 each, and would
cost $22,800. The fifth year they would cost $28,500. Accept-
ing the lowest figure, it would cost $427,500 to make the
increase; accepting the highest figure, it would cost $712,500.
3. Increase in the number of special teachers of music and
drawing.
For Brooklyn only. Number desired not stated. If same
proportion as Manhattan and Bronx, six needed. This would
require at least $6,000 the first five years, or $150,000.
4. No new building to be built in Manhattan until congestion
in Brooklyn and Queens is removed.
Want of definite information probably accounts for the
failure of the board and the superintendent himself to act
upon this recommendation. The report for 1908 asks for
new buildings in five Manhattan districts. It also says Man-
hattan's attendance is practically stationary (p. 27) although
2,608 greater than for 1907. Within a few weeks a building
has been recommended for district No. 9 to cost, with equip-
ment and site, about $700,000.
5. Four large schools in Long Island City to be built to meet
the growth of population due to the opening of the Williamsburg
bridge and Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels.
Will the educational authorities state what they proposed
to spend for these schools, for sites and buildings, particularly
whether they expected to spend less than $1,600,000? If
"large" means 1,000 sittings, my estimate is too great; if
16
"large" means over 2,000, my estimate is conservative. Teach-
ers' salaries for 8,000 pupils would be over $240,000 a year,
representing a capital of $6,000,000.
6. New schoolhouses for the forty thousand children between
the ages of six and eight not now in school according to the
Police Census.
Did the board of education expect to spend less than
$10,000,000 on buildings, sites and equipment? At $200 per
sitting, the cost would be but $8,000,000; at $30 per child for
instruction, the cost would be $1,200,000, a capital outlay of
$30,000,000. Of course, many of the children can be provided
for without building new schoolhouses; how many, the school
report should show. If housing must be provided for 40,000
children distributed throughout the city, it would cost more
than $200 per child to provide the proper distribution of
grade sittings. Instruction would cost $1,200,000 the first
year.
7. To make the Compulsory Education Law to apply to chil-
dren between six and eight.
Twenty additional truant officers, at the minimum of $900,
would cost $18,000, representing $450,000. In three years,
these 20 men would be costing $1,200 each, or $24,000, repre-
senting $600,000. This does not provide for additional offi-
cers to attend to children of three ages added.
8. Recommends
(1) An addition to the Boys' High School.
(2) Completion of Erasmus Hall High School.
(3) Addition to the Girls' High School.
Was it planned to spend less than $500,000 for these three
additions? Or less than $150,000, on teachers' salaries?
These two represent an immediate outlay of $650,000 and a
capital of $4,250,000.
(4) New high school in crowded Ridgewood section.
(5) New high school in Bay Ridge section.
Was it planned to spend less than $1,400,000 for sites
and buildings for these two high schools? The last three in
Brooklyn cost $2,246,000; one of them $924,290.
9. The high school departments of the Normal College and
the City College to be placed under control of the Board of
Education.
10. That high school buildings be kept open until five o'clock
every afternoon and on Saturday mornings until noon for the
assistance of pupils.
17
}
How long can pupils be assisted afternoons and Saturday
mornings without expense as promised on next page?
II. Summer sessions of high schools for deficient pupils.
Estimated on next page at $50,000 per year, or $1,250,000.
When compared with description of what is to be accom-
plished (page 83 of the superintendent's report) this sum is
obviously too small.
12. Permanent tenure for Board of Examiners.
13. A stable income for the Special Fund.
The superintendent surely did not have in mind a special
fund tax that would provide for what the board has been
given annually, instead of what it has asked for. The differ-
ence in these two sums for 1909 is $1,070,529.06. Did the
superintendent have in mind a gain of less than $1,000,000 a
year? To provide this would require a capital of $25,000,000.
14. Readjustment of teachers' salariés.
Would require a capital investment of over $82,500,000.
15. The foundation of a department of school hygiene.
To make good on the superintendent's outline, pp. 133-143,
will cost over $560,000 annually, a capital outlay of $15,000,-
000. The salary of a nurse is $900 of a physician, $1,200. If
cost of supervision, of clerical work, of supplies and inci-
dentals be included, the foregoing estimate is low. In the
table this item is given at $280,000.
16. Certain amendments to the compulsory education law.
Three years to the compulsory school age and sixty days
to the compulsory school year, and to compel parents to pro-
vide for proper mental and physical needs of their children.
These include, (a) adding three years to the compulsory
school age, and (b) 60 days to the compulsory school year,
and (c) laws to compel parents to provide for proper mental
and physical needs of their children. On the next page, the
rejoinder says this “would simply add the cost of enforcing
the law"-'simply' meaning capital outlay of from $1,000,000
to $2,000,000, a minimum annual expenditure of $40,000.
17. Erection of one-story buildings for blind and crippled
children, as in Chicago and London.
:
Five, page 154. Had the superintendent in mind to spend
less than $1,500,000 on the erection and equipment of these
buildings, the purchase of sites, the conduct of classes? If
he will put in black and white what he purposes to spend, this
will, I believe, be found a conservative estimate.
18. The formation of a committee to study trade schools.
The rejoinder estimates $1,000 which is only another way
of saying that the inquiry is not worth while. Evidently, when
it comes to travelling and inquiries, our educators can make
a dollar go farther than in the management of local schools.
.
•
18
The superintendent asks (page 146) “that as many members
of your supervising force as may be necessary be sent to
Europe and to different parts of this country to make a thor-
ough study of trade schools."
19. Deficient teachers to be excused with pay for fifteen after-
noons to take special work in training schools, as in Chicago.
How many deficients are there? Is it proposed to have
this work done without cost by existing teachers? Will teach-
ers be paid for their extra service? How long will there be
no cost? Will no substitutes be required while different
teachers are away?
These are the recommendations which Mr. Allen says will cost
$25,000,000 to carry into execution. He offers no figures in
proof of this astounding statement. He evidently expects the
The burden of proof is never on the citizen who asks a
question, but on the official proponent of the recommenda-
tions. Writing for a magazine is slightly different from
writing an annual report to give an account of one's method
of spending other people's money and supporting one's recom-
mendations for further expenditure. The foregoing figures
show that my statement was too low. It has brought into
the open our educational authorities, with the misfortune,
however, that a principal of a high school, instead of the
superintendent of schools or an officer of the board, signs
his name to the attempt to minimize the cost of carrying
out the superintendent's recommendations. By circulating
the rejoinder, however, the school authorities endorse that
attempt.
My moderation is astounding and reprehensible, not my
estimate of $25,000,000. Astounding too is the fact that the
rejoinder could have been published and circulated without
our educational authorities, discovering that the minimum
immediate outlay, counting only the first year's additional
salaries, is $21,000,000; the more probable figure is $25,000,000;
while the continued execution of the recommendations would
require a capital outlay of almost $200,000,000.
20,500,000
reader to accept these figures on the authority of the Secretary
of the Bureau of Municipal Research, an unofficial and irrespon-
sible body, but criticises the responsible head of the great public
school system for expecting people to adopt any one of his plans
if he does not present statistical proofs for every statement he
makes. "How worth while a support from facts!" Of these
twenty recommendations Numbers 1, 4, 9, would actually save
money. Numbers 10, 12, 13, 19 would entail no extra expense.
See preceding remarks after each item.
19
Numbers 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 call for expenditures which arise from
the ordinary growth of the system and are practically of a routine
This is begging the question. I said recommendations, not
increase for new and unheard of experiments. Whether build-
ing of schools should be discontinued in Manhattan, whether
four large schools or four small schools should be erected
in Long Island City, whether new school houses are needed
to take care of children not in school, are questions of fact
that taxpayers have a right to ask proof of before spending
$10,000,000 and setting aside $36,000,000.
character. Number 7, the modification of the compulsory school
law, entails no new kind of expenditure, but merely the resulting
increase of the old. Number II would cost approximately $50,-
Even this underestimate means not $50,000 only but $50,-
000 annually or $1,250,000. Numbers 7 and 16, as shown on
page 12, mean simply $76,000 annually, or $1,900,000.
000. Number 16 would simply add the cost of enforcing the law.
Number 18 would cost less than $1,000. There are left, there-
See statement, preceding page.
fore, of new projects costing money:
These three mean a capital outlay of $90,000,000 and a
continuing annual cost of about $4,000,000. If all other rec-
ommendations refer to routine which must happen anyway,
why does the report treat them as recommendations instead
of forecasts?
Nowhere did my article mention "new projects costing
money." On the contrary, in tabulating 375 recommenda-
tions, I said, "Some gravely indict present methods and equip-
ment; all presume experience as their basis; all involve the
expenditure of energy, and, with one or two exceptions, ex-
penditure of money."
(1) The increase of certain teachers' salaries at a cost of
$3,300,000, a project which had been discust by the Board of
Education for two years and in support of which Superintendent
Maxwell gives facts and figures covering ten printed pages, of
which more later.
(2) The plan for one-story buildings for blind and cripples
based on the experience of Chicago and London.
(3) The formation of a department of hygiene and the trans-
fer of medical inspection from the Department of Health to the
Board of Education, a project discust in two annual reports and
supported by facts and figures occupying ten pages of the report.
As shown later, the project was not properly supported by
either facts or figures.
20
Where are Mr. Allen's facts to substantiate his $25,000,000
estimate, and where the justification for his inference that the
City Superintendent's recommendations were not based on facts
of experience?
Where was the fact instinct of our school authorities,
that they did not look before they asked this question?
Mr. Allen further makes the charge in his article that the
report of Superintendent Maxwell gives no facts to prove the
necessity of transferring medical inspection to the Board of
This demand was based on no authoritative record.
My article reads, “Although New York had furnished inspira-
tion to other cities through magazines and press articles, the
school report shows not a statement of fact, not a table of
work done." The next report for 1908 contains tables of
work done, (pp. 138-139). Similar information might have been
presented in the report under discussion.
Education, or for passing a law compelling parents to secure
medical service for their children, yet on page 109 of the 1906
My article referred only to the 1907 report. The re-
joinder misquotes and misrepresents the irrelevant 1906 re-
port.
report, the statement is made that in one school out of 150 cases
of adenoid growth in the throat the parents of over seventy of
these afflicted children would do nothing to procure their relief,
Superintendent's qualification of the foregoing, p. 110:
"True, they gave their consent to have the necessary opera-
tions performed in school by a prominent surgeon attached to
a large hospital, who kindly volunteered for the work."
There was no mobbing of these physicians. On the con-
trary, the operations were followed by an ice cream party.
and later on physicians of the Board of Health who proposed to
relieve the children were mobbed by these parents. On page 442
The mobbing was of other schools, at another time, by
other parents. At least one riot was stopped by a wise prin-
cipal who thought of singing instead of throwing mud at
the health department.
of the same report it is shown that during the year 1906 but
78,401 pupils out of a total register of 559,000 were examined
by the physicians of the health departments; that not a single
pupil in the high schools was examined, while in the report for
High schools are not mentioned. It should be remem-
bered that although the schools had physical directors and
the physical contact with needy children, the department of
health, to its credit, took the initiative in calling the atten-
21
tion of educators to physical needs that a proper system of
reporting would have disclosed many years before.
The school authorities could at any time in four years
have made a serviceable eye test for all pupils. There, as in
the teaching and practice of hygiene, the gap between their
knowing and their doing is greater than the efficiency gap of
the health department referred to by the rejoinder.
1907, page 141, it is stated that in only 248 schools were any
inspections made and that but one-third of the pupils in these
Instead of one-third, less than one-fifth of the children
were examined that year.
schools were examined. In addition to the ten pages contributed
by Dr. Maxwell on this subject, Dr. Gulick in the report of the
Director of Physical Training, Appendix J of the Report of the
City Superintendent, offers some five pages of reasons, based on
his own experience and that of his teachers, why a special depart-
ment of hygiene should be established.
A line to line reading of the trifle over three pages (421-
424) of Dr. Gulick's discussion of this subject shows that
he does not have in mind the department of school hygiene
desired by the superintendent. Far from making an argu-
ment for transferring the work of the department of health
to the department of education, Dr. Gulick asks for one medi-
cal officer and says on page 424, "I do not contemplate the
assigning of this officer to duties that are now being perform-
ed by the department of health.”
During an eleven years' experience in the high schools of this
city, in three different high schools, the writer has known of but
one occasion where a physician of the health department was in
the building, and that was for the purpose of vaccination.
A recent report of the Bureau of Municipal Research supports
the contention of Dr. Maxwell's report: "Examining the same
children one inspector (of the Board of Health) found that
thirteen children were suffering from pulmonary disease, another
inspector found only two; one inspector found twenty-eight chil-
dren suffering from malnutrition, another only ten."
The report referred to is "A Bureau of Child Hygiene:
Co-operative Studies and Experiments by the Department of
Health of the City of New York and the Bureau of Munici-
pal Research." 41 pp. plus illustrations and inserts. On p. 26
it says, "The obstacles to removing physical defects are not
primarily those of unwillingness of parents." As my article
stated, "the parents of 96 per cent. of 1400 children in 3 dif-
ferent districts of New York City promised to act promptly
when told the reason for acting." The department of health
at once reorganized its school work and established a bureau
[
22
of child hygiene, with a program bound to succeed if school
officials co-operate and publish results. At the time the
rejoinder was written about 60 per cent. of the children ex-
amined this school year and found to have defects had re-
ceived treatment. Instead of mentioning this fact, the re-
joinder harks back to 1906, when the work was still experi-
mental, and when the school authorities were talking of free
school meals rather than of removing physical defects and
educating parents.
The criticism is further made in the article that New York
gives but part of her per capita cost of education. This is not
a criticism but a quibble. The reason why the per capita cost
is not mathematically accurate is that it does not pay to esti-
mate and charge to the different activities the exact share of
running expenses that should fall to each activity, as the super-
intendent's salary, the janitor's salary, the cost of lighting and
heating where the building is used jointly by day and evening
schools, for recreation centers and for examinations, public lec-
tures, etc. Such criticism is hardly worthy of a scientific ob-
server who claims to be desirous of improving school reports.
•
Many other cities find it worth while and easy to publish
the right per capita. The U. S. Commissioner of Education
and the U. S. Census Bureau consider that it pays to charge
to different activities their share of running expenses, and
this year are ascertaining for all cities of 30,000 and over
what different school activities cost. The per capita pub-
lished in the superintendent's report and used by him at pub-
lic hearings injures the cause of education by under-stating
the cost of high schools and many other features, by over-
stating the cost of elementary schools, and by misrepresent-
ing the relative cost of City College, Normal College, and
high schools.
On page 119 of this article we learn that "New York's Charter
Revision Commission has not thought it strange or inefficient
to have recommended changes in the school charter without read-
ing school reports." The inference is that this is due to the
This sentence followed the statement "questions of local
policy and taxation are seldom settled (in any part of the
United States) with reference to facts presented in school re-
ports."
futility of the report. The facts are that the Charter Revision
Committee proposes to recommend sweeping changes in the edu-
cational features of the charter, not only without reading the
report of the City Superintendent but also without attempting
to get the point of view of the seventeen thousand teachers and
23
supervisors concerned. Because of their belief in the general
The commission may not have attempted wisely because
it could not get uncolored, impersonal evidence; but it did at
least attempt to get the point of view of teachers and super-
visors and all facts which they possessed.
The rejoinder's assertions and implications regarding the
Charter Revision Commission (not 'Committee') show the
extreme difficulty of discussing any school question in New
York City impersonally and with reference only to facts.
principle of local self-government, without regard to the merits
of this particular case, in the face of the almost unanimous oppo-
sition of the teaching force of the city, they have recommended
the abolition of the State protection of salaries, a system which,
in the judgment of all competent observers, has given to New
York City a class of teachers far superior to that which she had
under the local control of salary system. And this vital change
is being pushed thru by the Charter Revision Committee without
a hearing, with little knowledge of the facts and with the evident
approval of the writer of the article. A reading of the last report
of the City Superintendent, in which this matter was fully dis-
cust, might have saved them from this unwise step.
The question of State protection is not "fully discussed."
The report, p. 114, does say, "It put an end to an almost
intolerable position with regard to teachers' salaries. * * *
I sincerely trust that it will be maintained on the statute
book as a defence against capricious changes in teachers'
salaries until something better is provided."
In the same paragraph we are told "How reports, when used,
may influence local policy is illustrated in New York whose fiscal
officers have recently, without discredit to themselves, cut the
educational budget from $33,000,000 to $27,500,000, because
special reports to the budget committee showed" certain irregu-
larities which will be discust later in this article.'
The special reports referred to were probably those made by
the Bureau of Municipal Research which thus, thru its secretary,
claims the credit for the $5,500,000 reduction made "without
discredit to the officials." Since the Bureau of Municipal Re-
Please see statement by the Bureau's trustees.
search claims the credit it must be held responsible for the
great injury to the educational system wrought as a result of
its activity. The article further states that "when given a
chance at the taxpayers' hearing to defend their estimates, school
24
officers were without data to justify their protests." It is hard
Instead I should have written "school officers were
silent." I did not want to imply that officials of the
board of education, possessing evidence that injury was
about to be done the schools, would sit silent.
to realize that the Secretary of the Bureau of Municipal Re-
search does not know that this statement is not true. At the
taxpayers' hearing no attack on the educational budget was made,
hence there was no occasion to make any public defense. What
At the hearing on the tentative budget, the above reduc-
tion was announced in cold type. For several hours the board
of estimate listened to different city officials protest against
reductions in their budget estimates. The only occasion for
a public defence was that the mayor asked if they had any-
thing to say. No attack from outside would have been per-
mitted, because the citizens' hearing was closed. So flagrant
was their failure that the Globe publicly criticised them for
not having taken advantage of this opportunity. Effort was
made to bring secret influence to bear upon fiscal officers,
even though the occasion did not justify public expianation.
are the facts? Of the $5,500,000 asked for and not granted,
$3,300,000 was for a special increase of the salaries of certain
This figure was $3,273,000, and includes salary increases
for numerous extensions of service not granted.
large classes of teachers. For two years, this matter of the in-
adequate salaries paid to certain classes of teachers had en-
gaged public attention, columns had been written about it in the
newspapers, it had even occupied weeks of the time of the State
Weeks of agitation publicly condemned by the superinten-
dent of schools and by the board of education, and by the
writer of the rejoinder. The facts used in this agitation are
still in controversy.
Legislature, and the veto of the Governor alone had prevented
a large increase for certain of these teachers. The City Superin-
tendent had devoted twenty pages of his 1907 report to this sub-
These twenty pages were devoted, not to the proposi-
tion before the board of estimate last fall, but against the
proposition of equal pay for equal work. In the pages
that are relevant to a proper salary schedule (130-132) he
nowhere mentions the figure $3,300,000. On page 132 he says
the city's finances do not permit an immediate increase.
ject. A special committee of the Board of Education had after
long deliberations twice recommended these increases amounting
to $3,300,000 to the Board of Education and the Board of Edu-
cation had in turn twice asked the Board of Estimate for the
money. Every member of the Board of Estimate had received
25
from the various associations of teachers interested complete
statements of the reasons making necessary the increase asked
for, and in addition to this in September of both years represen-
For 1908 this was $3,129,000, again including salary in-
creases for a number of extensions of service not granted.
tatives of these associations had made representations in person
to the members of the Board of Estimate, and the special com-
mittee of the Board of Education on the readjustment of teachers'
salaries had consulted the members of the Board of Estimate.
The superintendent criticised the Davis Law (p. 114) be-
cause "drawn up by a legislative committee after conference
only with representatives of different teachers' organizations,
and without reference to an harmonious underlying scheme
or plan." Far from approving this salary schedule, more than
half the teachers actively opposed it, which fact was well
known to all schoolmen. The facts necessary to a proper de-
termination of teachers' salaries are still in controversy, and
only recently Mayor McClellan appointed a committee con-
sisting of Joseph H. Choate, Prof. J. B. Clark and William
C. Brown, president of the New York Central, to get facts!
It is generally conceded that had the panic of 1907 not come
just when it did, the Board of Estimate would have granted
the $3,300,000 asked for and the teachers would now be en-
joying the increased salary. In October, 1908, the Board of
No, not "generally conceded." This is some inside infor-
mation which, of course, taxpayers ought to have possessed
in 1907, and authority for which statement it is fair now to
ask of the educational authorities. The figure should be
$3,128,567, again including salary increases for extensions of
service.
Education a second time asked for $3,300,000 for the increase
of teachers' salaries, but the continuance of the bad times and
the fear of too greatly increasing the tax rate caused the second
And because its principle was strongly opposed by more
than half the teachers, and the public left in the dark as to
the facts.
refusal of the amount asked for. Tho the total budget was in-
creased from $143,000,000 to $154,000,000, the teachers, as usual,
What possible excuse is there for saying $143,000,000 in-
stead of $143,572,000, and $154,000,000 instead of $156,545,000?
. If "nearest millions” almost explains the first, how about the
$2,545,000 shortage in the second? Not until we have ade-
quate accounting and reporting will the public know whether
all school business is conducted with such inaccuracy as char-
acterizes this rejoinder, on which several of the school sys-
tem's highest priced employees and officers collaborated.
26
were the ones to suffer the cut. Whether the refusal of these
increases was a credit or discredit to the Board of Estimate is a
matter of opinion, but the cutting out of this item was not due,
as Mr. Allen states, to the failure of the Board of Education to
present properly the reasons for the increase in its budget. The
Auditor of the Board of Education had prepared a printed bud-
get of 458 pages, showing how every dollar was to be spent.
This statement shows where, not how, every dollar is to
be spent. It asks for so many things that the board of edu-
cation does not expect to get and does not want, that a mere
appearance of an item in this budget can hardly be said "to
present properly the reasons for the increase in its budget.”
The $3,300,000 was applied for on the ground that with the
present salaries enough capable teachers could, not be obtained
•
Throughout this paragraph the rejoinder confuses
"enough" with "capable" and "enough capable." Refusing
the grant of $3,300,000 had no effect whatever upon the num-
ber of teachers who could be engaged. That large sum was
requested to increase the salaries of existing teachers, plus
amounts necessary to increase salaries for certain teachers
not allowed. The results here enumerated relate chiefly to
the number, rather than to the quality of teachers. Increas-
ing the salaries of the present teaching force of the DeWitt
Clinton High School will not release any funds for engaging
regular teachers instead of substitutes. Increasing the sal-
aries of 10,000 present teachers will not release funds to
correct "a scarcity of teachers." The board of education
has had repeated opportunities through reports and public
hearings to state clearly and convincingly to taxpayers what
injuries, if any, are being suffered by pupils because of in-
sufficient salaries for teachers, or because of insufficient num-
ber of teachers. The most recent statement from educational
authorities is that of the rejoinder.
to carry on the work of the schools properly. As a consequence
of the refusal of the Board of Estimate to grant this amount,
there is today a scarcity of teachers and the pupils suffer thereby.
The present appropriation is not large enough to enable the
Board of Education to fill vacancies as they arise. The schools
are forced, therefore, to rely on substitutes; for example, one-
fifth of the teaching force of the De Witt Clinton High School
is made up of substitutes; in an annex to another high school
with ten teachers the only regular teacher is the teacher in charge,
and this same scarcity prevails in nearly every other high school.
Will Mr. Allen still claim for the Bureau of Municipal Research
the credit for this condition?
27
We have given the real facts as to $3,300,000 of the $5,500,000
cut out of the budget of the Board of Education. What are the
facts as to the remaining $2,200,000 denied the Board of Educa-
tion "without discredit to the Board of Estimate" as a result of
the activities of this same Bureau? Of the $5,500,000 applied
for but not granted, $4,490,218.79 was to be a portion of the
general fund for the paying of teachers' salaries, and the remain-
der was a part of the special fund for other purposes than teach-
ers' salaries. Inasmuch as Mr. Allen confines his attack to the
general fund with which the City Superintendent is more imme-
diately concerned, hence possibly the reason for the attack, we
shall take up the deficiency in the general fund.
Of the eight times specified on page 120, where the board
of education budget had misstated the facts, four re-
ferred to the special fund, and not to the general fund. All
placed responsibility squarely upon the board of education.
The city superintendent is not mentioned.
Deducting $3,273,163.52, the amount needed for salary in-
creases, from the $4,490,218.79 of the general fund, there re-
mains $1,217,055.27 cut off by the Board of Estimate "without
discredit to itself," therefore by reasonable inference unnecessar-
ily applied for by the Board of Education.
However necessarily applied for, these items should have
been supported by such facts that they could not have been
cut out, if such facts existed.
The chief deductions were:
(1) $168,340 to fill vacancies in the elementary schools.
On May 31, 1908, when estimates were made for the budget
of 1908-9 there were vacancies in elementary schools calling
for a salary fund of $168,340 for the year. This item was
asked for and not granted.
(2) $385,210.49 needed for additional elementary teachers.
The normal yearly increase in the necessary activities of the
Board of Education, owing to the continuous increase in popu-
lation, is about 5 per cent. This therefore naturally entails an
For the last four years ending June, 1908, the average in-
crease in register-all schools-has been less than 4 per cent.,
having been 4 3-10 per cent. in 1907-8 and 4 1-10 per cent. in
1906-7; in average attendance much less than 4 per cent.; in
net enrollment 3.63 per cent. Impossible to learn for elemen-
tary schools only. But it would be smaller than for all
schools, because much smaller than for high schools (7.45)
and kindergartens (11.06).
approach to 5 per cent. increase in the amount required for the
28
•
teachers' salaries, somewhat less than 5 per cent., since the
new teachers will receive less than the average salary of those
already in the system.
The rejoinder fails to compute what this difference is.
The result would go far to explain the two reductions last
mentioned.
Allowing the 5 per cent. increase in the
fund for 1907-8 of $15,629,168, we have $781,458. The Board
applied for $762,460 and received but $377,249.51, an amount
less than was needed by $385,210.49. Adding this to the amount
needed to fill vacancies, we have $553,550.49, which Mr. Allen
probably regards as saved to the City of New York since the
schools are running without the necessary increase in the num-
ber of teachers. This is the usual mistake of the man who is
not familiar with the actual operation of schools. We save, he
thinks, only when we obtain results with less expenditure. The
Equal results with less expenditure—yes.
cutting off of this $553,550.49 from the salary fund of the ele-
mentary schools means (1) larger classes, 60 or more, and over-
42, not 60, on average register, a trifle over 30 per teacher
on average attendance, according to the report for the year
ending July 31st, 1908. To report just where classes of 60
exist is an easy way of securing more funds.
crowded and worn-out teachers; (2) the use of inexperienced
substitutes instead of regular teachers. The pupils get poorer
teaching in either case. Is this saving the city money?
(3) $105,694 saved in the salaries of high school teachers.
The amount asked for the general fund for high schools was
$2,398,951. The Board of Estimate granted $2,293,256.99, a
deficiency of $105,694. The amount asked for was based on the
normal increase in registration which from 1906-7 to 1907-8 was
from 22,931 to 25,264, or 10.2 per cent., whereas the increase in
the registration of February, 1909, over February, 1908, is from
28,209 to 34,363, an increase of 22 per cent. The high schools
are suffering from a double difficulty as the result of these re-
ports to the Board of Estimate: First, the failure to raise sal-
aries has cut off the supply of candidates for positions in the high
Cut down from what to what?
schools; secondly, the scaling down of the estimate to the amount
of $105,000 has made it impossible to secure the additional
teachers needed for the increased registration of pupils. The
result is again, as in the elementary schools, too large classes,
29
י
7
If these assertions can be proved and traced to budget
cuts, it will be desirable but new information to New York
City. The average number of pupils to teachers in high
schools, based on average register, is 23; based on average
attendance, 20. If, indeed, elementary schools have classes
of 60, is there not perhaps a trifle margin of increase in high
school pupils per teacher without serious injury to education?
too many teaching periods, the use of untrained substitutes,
sometimes no teacher for days at a time, with the resulting loss
to the pupil. If the force of teachers in the De Witt Clinton
High School be cut down one-half, we could still keep the school
open, but we should not be teaching the boys.
Fourthly, $149,000 decrease in the fund for special teachers.
The Board of Education asked $679,913 for teachers of special
branches; they received $530,915, a deficiency of $149,000; an-
other saving, but at whose expense?
At present there are but thirty-one teachers of physical train-
ing for the forty-six school districts, that is one to 452 teachers.
The Board asked for one to each district, 46 in all. Even then
The estimate for 1909 (pp. 62-63) asks not for 46 but
for 20 women teachers of physical training and 9 men, a total
of 29. If failure to grant the additional appropriations means
that "work is languishing and gymnasiums are not used as
they should be,” that fact is not brought out in the report
of the city superintendent of schools for last year, dated De-
cember 31st, 1908, more than two full months after the al-
lowance for physical training teachers was announced. The
summary of recommendations does not mention this need
(pp. 162-163); nor is this condition divulged on pages 431 to.
439, signed September 30th, 1908, by Dr. Gulick.
each special teacher of physical training would still be responsible
for the physical training of 305 classes. The result of the failure
to grant the additional appropriation is that the work is languish-
ing and gymnasiums are not used as they should be. In like
manner additional teachers of shop work and cooking who were
asked for were cut off, and several shops and kitchens which
were erected during the year are lying idle for want of teachers.
Additional special teachers in drawing are needed in Brook-
lyn and Queens, where the area of the districts is large and
where there are many small schools lying far apart, and where
as a consequence a large part of the time of the teachers is spent
30
in going from school to school. The cutting out of $149,000 has
made it impossible to remedy these conditions.
If we put together the conditions that the rejoinder says
resulted from a reduction of this $149,000, we are astounded
at the service which this amount would have bought. No
one could gather from the superintendent's report for 1908,
dated December 31st, 1908, two full months after these bud-
get reductions, that conditions were as serious as they are
here reported by a high school principal. Among the sum-
mary of recommendations (p. 162) no mention is made of
these conditions. Under the heading "Need of More Kinder-
gartens, Workshops and Kitchens,” (p. 103 ff.) these condi-
tions are not mentioned. On June 15th, 1909, the board had
a balance of $180,233.25 in its trust funds available to correct
such conditions.
(5) An appropriation of $4,920 was asked for a school for the
blind; it was refused. The blind are as yet untaught. Is this a
credit to the Board of Estimate?
The rejoinder is careful to say "as yet untaught” rather
than "as yet unprovided for." At the time of writing the
board of education had appropriated $5,000 for the blind.
Where did it get this money? The Globe said next day "from
other appropriations."
(6) $16,950 was asked for three day schools for truants, to
be organized on the model of the disciplinary school in P. S.
120, which has proved so successful. The money was refused,
and the chronic cases of truancy and incorrigible conduct are
still wasting the time of the teachers, the principals, and the boys
themselves in the elementary schools.
Writing December 31st, 1908, no mention of this condi-
tion is made by the city superintendent. Nothing is said
about it in recommendations. The rejoinder's statement
would have been very opportune at the taxpayers' hearings.
(7) The allowance for evening schools was decreased $43,-
This means of course fewer schools this year.
000.
$40,590, not $43,000. (Estimate p. 83; Budget, p. 60.) Fewer
schools this year than might have been, not fewer schools
than last year. The evening high appropriation increased
$13,400. The evening elementary, $7,300.
(8) Lastly we come to the question of vacation schools, recrea-
tion centers, playgrounds, and baths. The Board of Education
asked for $441,752. It received $175,000, which was $40,000 less
So far as anybody could tell from the board of education
budget, there was no serious plan to spend this total. There
31
!
was no expectation of getting it. The budget professed to
have actually organized for 1909 activities costing over $240,-
000. At that time they had actually organized on a supposed
basis of $215,000.
than the amount actually spent last year. The Committee of the
Board of Education having charge of these activities thought
it wise to treble its work and had planned with these additional
funds, if granted, to open every playground in the afternoon
and the shops and kitchens every afternoon and every Saturday
morning. The additional amount asked was large, but the benefit
to be gained was very great in keeping tens of thousands of.
children off the streets and engaged in healthful and profitable
pursuits. If the city is too poor to do this, then the failure of
the Board of Estimate to grant the funds asked was without dis-
credit to them, but on no other supposition.
:
1 វ
These activities are potentially too valuable to be based
upon misinformation or lack of information.
School officials raised a hue and cry about an alleged
reduction of $40,000, whereupon numerous newspaper editor-
ials were written under the impression that there was a cur-
tailment of $40,000. The superintendent's report for 1908
repeats the error, as did the board of education, in asking for
special revenue bonds in March and June, 1909. Trust funds
have been available this year as last for these purposes
throughout the agitation based on misstatements of fact.
With the intention of using these trust funds, vacation
schools, etc., were organized beyond the budget allowance.
It received $184,504 or $496 less than it had last year,
and $28,162 less than it actually spent last year. (Budget, p.
60, $175,000; p. 58, $9,504.) Far from trebling its work, it
wanted to add 10 to its 27 vacation schools, 6 to its 95 vaca-
tion playgrounds, 6 to its 28 evening recreation centers. Far
from wanting to open every playground in the afternoon, it
asked for money to open 49. The budget does not explain,
says nothing about shops and kitchens every afternoon and
every Saturday morning, and says nothing about the number
of children who would be benefited.
For five years attempts have been made to stampede the
public of New York to secure funds for recreation centers
on the plea that vacation schools keep children off the
streets, and give them profitable pursuits. Assuming that
official statements from the department of education were
made in good faith, a group of social workers appeared bé-
fore the board of estimate and apportionment to request
funds for vacation schools. Dr. E. T. Devine had charge of
the hearing. When asked by Comptroller Grout what as-
surance could be given that if additional money was voted
A
32
for vacation schools it would be used for vacation schools,
Dr. Devine quoted a letter written by the then president of
the board of education, Henry N. Tifft, pledging use for the
purpose named. The money was procured, but was not used
for the purpose named, although from that same general
fund money was found that year for salary increases not
mentioned at budget time.
It has been shown how it was possible for the Board of Esti-
mate to reduce the budget of the Board of Education by the
sum of $4,411,365, and what the consequences have been and are
to be in work not done. Does the discredit lie with the body of
trustees of the public good who saw the need and asked for the
funds? Or with the body which refused the funds? Or with the
body-the Bureau of Municipal Research—which, Mr. Allen in-
sinuates, made the representations that led to the refusal?
Mr. Allen further attempts to discredit the Board of Education
by charging:
(1) "That year after year the Board of Education in its esti-
mates had been overstating by hundreds of thousands of dollars
the amount needed for additional teachers."
On May 22d, I asked the superintendent of schools if,
in stating the cost of engaging the additional teachers neces-
sary for the additional registration, the board of education
estimated the "saving that would result from the retirement
of higher priced teachers who, according to experience, might
be expected to leave the system during 1909," and if the
board of education in its estimate for the year 1908 gave
this expected reduction. No answer to date.
An impartial investigation of the budgets laid before the
Board of Estimate and Apportionment would show that this
statement is untrue. The fact that all the money asked was not
granted is no proof to the contrary. On the other hand, the fact
that at no time since 1902 has the Board of Education been able,
because of lack of funds, to fill vacancies in high schools, elemen-
tary schools, and kindergartens, as they arise that the vacancies
made and the new classes organized between December and
September of each year are filled for the most part by substitutes
until the first of October or November-and the further fact that
the Board has in some thousands of cases been unable to divide
classes of abnormally large register, while each year the appro-
priation is exhausted—are proof positive that the appropriations
have been insufficient and that the demands of the Board of
Education have not been exorbitant.
33
The appropriations might be insufficient and the aggre-
gate demands of the board not exorbitant, and it still be true
that the board of education overstated the amount required
for teachers to take care of additional registration.
(2) "That funds had been diverted contrary to written and
verbal pledges." In making this charge Mr. Allen does not state
that the Board of Education of New York City is a corporate
body of trustees; that it has no legal or moral right to bind itself
as to the disposition of its general fund, nor has any other body
the right to make such a demand upon it; that its one duty is
to use the general fund intrusted to it for the best interests of
the schools of New York City, meeting each need as it arises as
best it may with the funds at its command. If therefore in its
judgment it seems wise to transfer $30,000 to the fund for vaca-
tion schools, it is not only its right but its duty so to do. It and
it alone is responsible to the people for the conduct of the
schools.
If the necessity be conceded, it does not follow that the
board of education should have broken its pledges rather
than go to the board of estimate, as do other departments,
requesting authorization to depart from those pledges.
It is very difficult to meet on common ground educators
who thus flagrantly proclaim that a pledge made by a board
of education is not binding upon it. President Winthrop said,
in the autumn of 1907, that he did consider a pledge made by
him and his finance committee as binding. The board of
estimate voted for teachers' salaries last year $570,000
more than the three mill tax, and the year before voted
$652,000 more. No one would seriously question its right
to impose the conditions upon which it shall vote an excess
over the compulsory tax. (In May, 1909, the board of edu-
cation denied that it transferred $30,000 from other parts
of the general fund to the vacation school fund).
(3) "That of $18,000 given for additional attendance officers,
only $600 was used for that purpose." This was simply an exer-
cise of the Board's rightful discretion,-it lacked sufficient funds.
to pay the teachers' salaries. It was forced to take $50,000
from the High School Bonus Fund and the Training School
Trust Fund. To further make up the deficiency still remaining,
it availed itself of the $17,400, inasmuch as the City Superintend-
ent had nominated only five new truant officers late in the year,
in view of the lack of funds for salaries of teachers already em-
ployed.
The board of education did not avail itself of $17,400,
nor is it true that at the time he refused to nominate addi-
tional truant officers, the superintendent did so because of a
1
34
!
"
"lack of funds for salaries of teachers already employed."
We have already seen that $28,000 was transferred for recrea-
tion centers, etc. What reasons were actually given cannot
be proved until the original minutes are made public.
So determined was the apologist to make out a case that
he did not even ascertain how much was spent for truant
officers. So he innocently subtracts $600 mentioned by me
(the case August, 1908, while the budget was being dis-
cussed). Evidently his informants forgot that it costs some-
thing to pay for "only five new truant officers late in the
year."
(4) "That $7,000 given to increase particular clerical salaries
had been distributed among a larger number late in the year so
as to effect an annual salary increase of $20,000." Mr. Allen in
his investigations of the city departments must have discovered
that every one of these salary increases, after being adopted by
resolution of the Board of Education, had then to be approved
later by the Civil Service Commission, the Controller, the Board
of Aldermen, and the Board of Estimate before the increase could
be added to the pay-roll, and that any evasion or subterfuge was
impossible.
Not one of the increases referred to followed that course.
It is difficult to understand how responsible educators could
have made such a statement.
(5) "That money was asked for the rent of a building not
used since 1907."
The amount involved was $600 in a budget of $33,000,000,
and was due to a mistake of a clerk in adding to the list of leases
in Richmond one that had expired. Is that a good reason for
diminishing a budget by five and one-half millions?
Is it not reason enough for wondering whether the board
of education takes steps to know whether information sub-
mitted to it by its subordinates is correct or incorrect, and
whether the budget contains a number of other plausible
items for spending which the board of education has no plan?
The budget receives less official attention than did this
rejoinder which abounds in errors that certainly discredit the
educational authorities more than could any statement by an
"outsider."
(6) "That it was costing from three to five times as much
per pupil or per room for repairs of furniture and pianos, as
well as of buildings, in the Bronx and Queens as in Brooklyn
and Manhattan." This difference in cost is simply an illustration
of the importance of taking the right basis of comparison between
schools and boroughs. The number of pupils or number of
35
rooms is not the proper basis for repairs but the relative condi-
tion of the buildings in the various boroughs. In the Bronx, but
more notably in Queens, there are a large number of small old
Every time they have been asked to explain this discrep-
ancy, the educational authorities point out small old build-
ings, or small wooden buildings. President Winthrop gave
this explanation last year to the Greater New York Tax-
payers' Conference, which assured him that it wished to sup-
port all justifiable requests. That is the only reason that has
ever been assigned publicly. To test this plausible reason,
the Bureau of Municipal Research has analyzed the repair
cost for buildings erected since 1900 and classified as brick-
stone in the board of education's report for the years 1906
and 1907:
Average
Sittings
Per Sitting
Repair Cost
Manhattan
Brooklyn
The Bronx
Queens
Total
Two
Years
No.
Schools
Ordi-
nary
Furni-
ture
Pianos Items
(Items
Six
..36,260
15
$.77
$.256
$.008
$1.65
.48,388
29
.73
.095
.06
1.16
•
17,399
II
.88
.144
.005
1.65
•
5,576
6
3.33
⚫359
.006
5.4I
buildings used for a scattered population. The pianos and furni-
ture in these buildings are also old.
This condition comes down
Again, so determined to defend his superiors was the
apologist that no analysis was made for pianos and furni-
ture. Therefore a plausible defence, although the facts show
that I was wrong in stating that pianos cost from 3 to 5 times
as much per pupil and per room. My article was written
before other facts were available than the President's admis-
sion of a discrepancy due to "small old wooden buildings.” Dr.
Tildsley had access to records for 3 full years.
from the days prior to the consolidation into Greater New York
when the small towns and villages of Queens County did not
provide so substantially for the schools as did the more densely
populated cities of New York and Brooklyn. Naturally a high
school in New York of fire-proof construction but three years
old and registering 2,200 pupils, needs a far less expenditure for
repairs per capita than four high schools in Queens housed in
old buildings originally used for grammar schools and which
combined have the same registry as the one Manhattan school.
Comparing the small, old Stuyvesant High School in
Manhattan, brick-stone, built in 1865, with the Bryant High,
brick-stone, built in Queens 1902-05, the per sitting repair
costs are reported by the board of education as follows:
Pianos
Total
Ordi-
nary
Furni-
ture
Six
Items
Stuyvesant (small—old)
$4.70
$0.47
$0.70
$7.95
Bryant (new-larger)
8.34
1.17
.03
II.95
36
If the Secretary of the Board of Municipal Research had been
longer in New York and familiar with the condition of its
schools, he would not make the mistake of indicting the Board of
Education because of a different per capita cost of repairs in dif-
ferent boroughs.
The indictment against the board of education is not be-
cause of a different per capita cost of repairs in different
boroughs, but because of an unexplained difference, a mis-
represented difference, and a policy that permits subordin-
ates to misstate the truth or to make sweeping statements
without first undertaking to learn what the truth is.
So much may be said in answering the criticisms of the New
York reports. We do not believe that Mr. Allen realized the
impression that would be made by his article upon the readers
of the EDUCATIONAL REVIEW. It is not thinkable that Mr. Allen
deliberately misstated facts. The explanation probably lies in
Is the same true of educators who prepared the re-
joinder, and whose own records refute them as citations
show?
the temperament of Mr. Allen and the exigencies of his present
position. The Bureau of Municipal Research has acquired on
the one hand an over-developed critical faculty of a rather de-
structive kind, on the other it is the prophet of salvation thru
fact seeking, fact collecting, and fact arranging. It is inclined
Please see introduction by the Bureau's trustees.
to lay the emphasis on system rather than men, on bookkeeping
rather than personality, and therefore Mr. Allen in the spirit of
his institution has noted slight discrepancies, has enlarged upon
them, has expected his own system of making reports to be fol-
lowed, and hence has given us this most pessimistic article on
school reports.
It is not thinkable that Mr. Allen's methods will ever be
substituted for straightforward reports in New York or any
other city. Were there any educational system whose policy
should be determined by substituting mere figures for the wisdom
of experience, by forming destructive inductions from isolated
facts, and by accepting half truths, more mischievous than lies,
for whole truths, in such a system Mr. William H. Allen's system
of reporting would be highly appropriate.
DE WITT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL
NEW YORK
JOHN L. TILDSLEY
37
Will the writer of the rejoinder inform the public if the
city superintendent of schools, or the president of the board of
education, or the auditor, or any committee chairman saw his
article before submission to the Educational Review? Is he
willing to publish their names? Is he willing to publish the
names of school officials who either gave to him or helped
him obtain his data? Will school officials send this reply
to those who received reprints of his article from school
officials?
CONCLUSION
The New York schools can not, if they will, prevent
progress in school reporting. Other cities now have infor-
mation which we are not able to obtain. Our own taxpayers
know that there is a way of obtaining information. The
facts given above prove that the writer of the article and
any superior officers who may have collaborated in its prep-
aration, have not given us the benefit of "the wisdom of ex-
perience" or have not been averse to "half truths, more mis-
chievous than lies."
The time is not far distant when New York's system
of reporting school results will be modern and efficient. Then
the methods of statesmanship, instead of those of the poli-
tician and of agitation will be employed, by subordinates
wishing advancement, by the city superintendent of schools
or by the board of education itself wishing funds for justifi-
able purposes.
Nothing could more clearly establish the truth of every
proposition in my article than the first recommendation in
the superintendent's report for 1908, issued just about the
time that this rejoinder was written, namely, that "an assist-
ant trained in making statistical investigations should be ap-
pointed on the staff of the city superintendent's office.”
From this recommendation it is but a step to a demand for
records that currently tell the truth clearly and with a saving
of teachers' and principals' time. Facts that should be cur-
rently reported by school authorities are now being sought
by the Russell Sage Foundation at great expense. There is
no better way of befriending the school system of New York
City than to demand efficient methods for recording school
experience, and for separating competent from incompetent,
practicable from impracticable, wasteful from economical.
•
•
38
Reprinted from the EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, New York, February, 1909.
Copyright, 1909, by EDUCATIonal Review Publishing Co.
I
SCHOOL REPORTS AS THEY ARE¹
The personality tablets and the educational experience that
may be discovered in school reports, even as they are, offer a
splendid field for some progressive magazine wishing to give
the whole country the benefit of pioneer work and pioneer
thought by makers of school reports. Whether complete or
incomplete, perfunctory or earnest, with or without illumi-
nating matter, the formal statements of school superintend-
ents to their communities constitute our richest mine of edu-
cational data-the fragmentary materials of research with
which scientific study of school problems must begin. They
tell much more of the elasticity, open-mindedness, and instinct
of workmanship among educational leaders than could Who's
who, or a gallery of portraits,—far more, too, of the obstacles
and opportunities that confront those leaders than do treatises
on adolescence, or histories of education.
To discover what school reports really are is a task far
more interesting than the subject implies. In June the EDU-
CATIONAL REVIEW asked me to prepare two articles on
School reports as they are, and School reports as they ought
to be," from the standpoint of the Bureau of Municipal
Research, and its general program for effective publicity."
Dr. Elizabeth Kemper Adams, whose courses in education at
Smith College include field study of educational administra-
tion, became so interested in the contemplated examination
that she gave to it her summer vacation, thus making possible
'Written in collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth K. Adams, Smith College.
IIO
2
Educational Review
[February
a more detailed analysis than would otherwise have been
possible. Two graduate students, Miss Beavers of Adelphi
and Miss Allen of Columbia, have since assisted. School
reports are full of two essential ingredients of sensation
and inspiration,—opportunities seized and opportunities lost.
After living in New York thru five years when schools and
public alike have suffered because school problems were discust
on theoretical and personal grounds, just as if New York were
without experience, I have come to believe that there is prob-
ably no need today in the educational world so pressing as
that for adequate recording and reporting of school experi-
ence.
Desire to better school reports is general, for eighty-six
replies were received from cities and forty from states, in
response to an invitation for suggestion and criticism sent to
the superintendents of the hundred cities having the largest
population, and to all state superintendents. The present
article, and a second,-School reports as leading educators
would have them,—are based upon these answers, and upon
an analysis of seventy-two city reports.³
For exhibits of best things and of weaknesses in school
reports, for a story of repeated efforts by the National
Education Association to improve reports, for a list of ques-
tions never answered and occasionally answered, and a study
Each report was read from cover to cover, all statements of fact, all recom-
mendations, and the essential elements of make-up being listed. Financial
items were not scheduled because the Teachers College studies have already
made clear the deficiencies in this particular, and the United States Com-
missioner of Education is now gathering information that will lay the
basis for future complete and uniform financial data. The number of
items tabulated (3,500) was so great that it has not seemed desirable to
detail them, especially as their lesson can be fairly shown by tables for
ten large cities: New York, Cleveland, St. Louis, Buffalo, Boston, Baltimore,
Pittsburg, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia. The last-named city
is not fairly represented, because the superintendent sent us his own report
without the tabular matter on which it is based.
8
• Much that is here said of city reports is not true of state reports, which
have made greater progress in securing both uniformity and completeness.
Because the accuracy of uniform and elaborate tables may still be ques-
tioned, and because the attainment of ideals for state reports depends upon
improvement in reports for cities where educational problems are most
acute, the question of state reporting, except for purposes of illustration,
is left for future treatment.
1
·
1909]
School reports as they are
III
in detail of the New York report, the reader is referred to
School reports and school efficiency. I want here to con-
sider certain aspects of reporting that especially concern the
parent, taxpayer, press, and outside student of school questions.
The cost of printing school reports gives an idea of the
educational results we are entitled to expect and to require.
The following table shows that the present cost bears no
fixt relation to population or school enrollment:
City
New York
St. Louis
Baltimore
Population Copies Published Cost
!
.3,437,000
3,000
$1,750
575,000
2,000
1,600
509,000
500
260
Buffalo
352,000
3,000
1,000
St. Paul
163,000
1,500
2,000
Rochester
163,000
2,000
500
Kansas City, Mo
164,000
2,000
1,095
Providence
176,000
1,500
325
Lowell
95,000
10,000
420
Albany
94,000
1,000
205
Jersey City
206,000
2,000
800
Louisville
205,000
1,200
300
Lynn, Mass.
69,000
3,000
1,000
Seattle
81,000
1,000
88
Columbus
126,000
1,000
600
Worcester
118,000
1,500
132
Duluth
53,000
1,000
600
Elizabeth, N. J.
53,000
000
000
Pittsburgh
322,000
1,500
299
Los Angeles
102,000
2,000
350
Houston
45,000
1,500
500
Covington, Ky.
43,000
200
160
Manchester, N. H.
57,050
500
65
Birmingham
38,000
3,000
1,000
To produce the sixty-two city reports for which facts were
received cost $25,000, the annual income on $600,000. To
print twenty-six state reports cost $47,500. Including the
value of labor given to compilation, preparation, proof-reading,
editing, our annual school reports, state and city, represent the
income on an investment of probably $5,000,000, or more.
The number of reports published has a bearing upon the
effectiveness, make-up, and audience. Indianapolis has had no
report since 1902. Elizabeth and Des Moines hope to print
reports next year. St. Louis prints 2,000, but has a mailing
112
Educational Review
[February
list of only 400. Lowell, with a population of 95,000, prints
as many copies as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, with
a combined population of over 5,000,000. Birmingham, with
38,000 population, prints and distributes 3,000, more than
Baltimore, New Orleans, New Haven, Paterson, Richmond,
and Trenton combined, with an aggregate population of 1,200-
000. Cambridge, the home of fair Harvard, and Minneapolis,
likewise a center of learning, together mail 1,600 copies, for a
combined population of 300,000. New Haven, beneficiary of
Yale's atmosphere for two centuries, prints only 500. What
does it mean that in New York the Board of Education, spend-
ing from $30,000,000 to $40,000,000 a year, has declined on
grounds of economy to print enough reports, or even abstracts
for all teachers, and, including its out-of-town mailing list,
prints but 3,000 copies?
The make-up of reports proves the need for better technique
in editing, typesetting, binding, etc. Of seventy-two super-
intendents, only eighteen give an index; only eighteen employ
black face type for emphasis or clearness, while only nine
have even those unsatisfactory tables of contents by pages
which discourage reference. Seven print the name and date
on the back of the report, a very important little thing when
a library shelf contains more than one report. Indentation,
summaries, percentages, diagrams, are so seldom and so spar-
ingly used that one wonders whether authors had in mind
their use by either students or a public wishing light on school
problems. New York City's report of 663 pages has a table
of contents with no cross-references and with no subdivisions
whatever of 500-odd pages written by associate superintend-
ents. Contrast with this one letter of Cleveland's alphabetical
index:
Improving school conditions
44
Increased effectiveness of the Teachers' Institute
47
Increased salaries for teachers in elementary schools
44
Increased defective schools
59
Indigent books, 14; new policy determined, 22; restriction of
privilege, 22; results
23
Industrial education, extending, 50; credit course in applied arts
established, 53; evening trade schools, 52; high school manual
1909]
School reports as they are
training course revised, 54; revision and extension of elementary
manual training work, 52; The Technical High school
Industrial education, see also Technical High school.
Inspiration of education conventions
Instruction, cost of
Interest, coupons for
113
51
50
50
165
Altho nearly thirty years ago the National Education
Association requested that all reports begin with summaries,
few, as yet, have such summaries, and those given are not
uniform, are incomplete, and often confusing. What might
be put into a summary will be discust in the next article. Suf-
fice it to say that, generally speaking, it would be possible to
tell five times as much in one-half the space now used in city
reports. For example, New York City uses a page of over
six inches to set forth the following facts:
License Sought
Ungraded class licenses
No. Applica- No. Granted
No. Re-
tions
fused
37
9
28
Substitute licenses
•
.I,741
1,585
156
Licenses to teach in vacation
schools, etc.
....3,108
2,538
570
Licenses to teach in evening
schools
...4,881
3,513.
1,368
Totals
.9,767
7,645
2,122
After setting up a special total for each of these items, the
New York report reads thus: "The total number of persons
examined for the various grades and kinds of licenses desig-
nated by the Board of Education on the recommendation of the
Board of Superintendents was 13,494. The total number of
licenses was 10,086. The total number of applicants who
failed was 3,408." Two such tables, not condensed, are among
four tables properly condensed. Much space is taken for long
sentences to the effect that "the following table will show,'
etc., etc., or " the above table shows," etc., etc.
Few reports show any definite plan: many being a jumble of
fact, school history, educational discussions, etc. A pleasing
contrast is the report of Cincinnati's superintendent, who ex-
plains the scope and plan of his reports, and logically develops it.
114
Educational Review
[February
How far are defects of make-up and the small number of
copies issued due to indefiniteness of the audience which super-
intendents are conscious of addressing? Fifty-two cities re-
port that budgets are not publicly discust. Of 1,000 recom-
mendations made in seventy-two reports, few seem to have
been addrest to the people who pay the bills for carrying
them out. Dissimilarity in language and method of reporting
implies that other superintendents are not the audience. Lack
of technique and of apparent interest in presentation suggests
that trustees are not invariably aimed at. Altho sixty
cities send reports to teachers, few impart information to, or
invite suggestions from, the teaching staff. Superintendents
seldom try to justify themselves to themselves, for few reports
are accounts of stewardship: efficiency of system, officers,
teachers, supervising staff, or of teaching and business methods
is not shown; in fact, the not-done, the not-yet-done, the
partial failure are rarely mentioned. Here and there are evi-
dences that information is intended for general consumption.
Erie, Pa., keeps available for ready reference all newspaper
accounts bearing upon the conduct of the public schools.
Milwaukee's superintendent urges more publicity of school
matters, "to work up interest in schools and to get the best
professional personnel on the board." Utica advises the great-
est publicity of board expenditures.
Failure to picture the superintendents' audience is indicated
by the small number of illustrations. This can not be due to
lack of funds, for "before and after" pictures of adenoid
children, such as Cleveland gives, may save several pages of
discussion, exhortation, and description, and many thousands
of dollars for visits by nurses and truant officers and for
teaching needlessly backward children. An obdurate trustee
will not argue against a photograph of an unadjustable desk
that causes spinal curvature because it does not fit its occu-
pant, or of gas jets burning in the daytime. Either the forty
cities printing illustrations are extravagant, or other super-
intendents are profligate in failing to use the wealth of live
material furnished by school incidents, children's activities,
products of laboratory, workshop, and playground. If illus-
1909]
School reports as they are
115
trations did not convince, enlighten, and entertain, makers of
newspapers, magazines, and textbooks would save enough
yearly to endow a national institute for the promotion of
efficiency in public schools.
Of 375 recommendations made in the reports of the first
ten cities, the subject distribution was as follows:
School property and equip-
ment
Vacation schools
8
84
Promotion and school mortal-
Modifications of curriculum 43
Schools or classes for defec-
ity
7
School gardens
6
tives
24
Text-book problems
5
Professional progress of teach-
Kindergartens
5
ers
23
Methods of receiving and spend-
Industrial education
19
ing funds
5
Medical supervision, examina-
School aid to needy children
2
•
tion, etc.
19
More accurate census
I
Teachers' salaries
18
•
Moral training
I
Truants or delinquents
14
Free lectures
I
School laws and board rules
...
14
Physical education
I
•
Closer correlation between parts
Economy in supplies
I
of system
•
13
Classes for the "out of
grade
More visiting of schools by
board
I
IO
Schools as social centers
9
Size and make-up of board
Miscellaneous..
I
•
40
If the foregoing recommendations were to be adopted at one
time, or if they were to be debated at one time, what commo-
tion would result! Some gravely indict present methods and
equipment; all presume experience as their basis; all involve
the expenditure of energy, and, with one or two exceptions,
expenditure of money. It would cost approximately $25,000,-
ooo to carry out the recommendations made by Superintendent
Maxwell of New York City, besides a radical change in the
responsibilities of the health and educational departments.
How worth while, therefore, a support from facts that will
enlist lay understanding, sympathy, and coöperation; how
dangerous, also, recommendations not justified by experience.
If recommendations were based upon definite information
and discust with reference to such information, it would not
be necessary to wait twenty-five or fifty years to grasp or
reject the blessings tendered by these superintendents: school
boards of five with an executive business agent and proper
116
Educational Review
[February
accounting methods; no more waste of supplies; annual school
census; use of dwelling houses for overflow registration; pur-
chase of sites, and construction of buildings according to a
comprehensive plan, in anticipation of city growth; sanitary
buildings only; heliostats and trained janitors; dressing-rooms,
dispensaries, physical examination rooms and instruments,
lunchrooms, kitchens, baths, exhibition rooms, photographic
darkrooms, domestic science rooms, attendance offices for issu-
ing work certificates, sanitary drinking fountains, telephones
to save the attendance officers' time, ample schoolyards, athletic
fields, playgrounds, and apparatus. All districts would have
school gardens, vacation schools, night schools, and buildings
opened for neighborhood clubs and entertainments. Every
school would have its parents' association and coöperative rela-
tions with labor unions, public libraries, relief agencies, cham-
bers of commerce and manufactures. Teachers would re-
ceive equal pay for equal work; would not draw pay when
absent; would be compelled to take courses for their advance-
ment; would be periodically tested, and, if found inefficient,
would be either dropt or pensioned. All children would be
protected from contagious and removable defects; nurses
would explain defects to parents; laws would compel operation
or better nourishment when necessary. Special schools or
special classes would be started for the deaf, crippled, blind,
paralytic; while the backward would be studied and advanced.
Foreigners would be taught civics; girls, domestic science;
boys and girls would be given industrial and commercial train-
ing; and the curriculum for elementary schools and high
schools would be absolutely made over. Police courts would
attend to truant cases with interest in the child's education.
Greater attention would be given to school hygiene and moral
instruction. Principals and teachers would be alert to recog-
nize physical defects, and would hold frequent conferences so
that upper and lower grades, elementary and higher schools,
would work for a single plan; the curriculum would fit for life
as well as college; physiological, not chronological, age would
determine the promotion to secondary schools. School mortal-
ity and promotion would be studied, the elementary course
shortened, and the shorter day recognized as the normal day
1909]
School reports as they are
117
for younger pupils. Promotion would be by subject and
whenever the child is ready, and not when his fellows are
ready, or when a majority of subjects are past.
From the seventy-two reports analyzed 3,500 facts were
scheduled, not including the financial items. Had each report
contained all items, there would have been a total of 252,000;
in fact, there were only 13,234. Not a single item appeared
under the same name in all reports, nor did one appear in all
of the reports for the first ten cities. The following table
gives for these cities a consolidated statement showing for
nine different subjects the total facts reported by all cities,
the number by each city and its proportion of total possibilities
-assuming similar treatment.
LACK OF UNIFORMITY AND COMPLETENESS IN CITY
REPORTS
Consolidated Statement of Number of Facts Reported by Ten Cities


TEN LARGE
CITIES
Population and
Attendance
Promotion and School
Mortality
Truancy
Medical Inspection
Special School for
Defectives
Miscellaneous Matters
in School Reports
Volunteer Aid of
Public Education
School Plant and
Equipment
Organization and Staff
Total sepa-
rate facts... 1,664
324
505
100 124 67 46
158
60
3,048
New York
383
157
260 23
II 16 18 63
Cleveland
133
2
82
31
St. Louis
476
21
45
2 2
25
8 6
26 22
2
3593
24
955
61
19
367
49 15
656
Philadelphia..
9
I
O
I
O
O
20
о
31
Buffalo
374
58
82
0
9
2
34 20
579
Boston...
176
32
Baltimore.
211
២៦
I
39
12
25
18
• •
Pittsburgh.
•
69
Chicago
192
169
32
55
∞ 42 LO
II
2 4
50
39 33
1 3
I
53 6
27
16 II
0 275H
O
26 23
334
44 21
322
13
2 3
28
32 23
112
13
114
19
93
386
405
Total Possibi-
lities Omit-
Cincinnati
Totals Checked 2,192 380 570 129 159 119 53 370 177 4,149
Total Possi-
bilities....
16,640 3,240 5,050 1,000 1,240 670 460 1,580 600 30,480
Totals Checked
Omitting
Philadelphia 2,183 379 570 129 158 119 53
350❘ 177
4,118
ting Phila-
delphia.... 14,976 2,907 4.545
|
900 1,116 603 | 414 T.422 | 540 | 27.423
TOTAL
2
118
Educational Review
[February
Reports as they are disappoint educators. In 1908, as in
1868, when the National Education Association began to de-
plore their poverty of helpfulness, school reports cover differ-
ent periods, are not complete, use dissimilar language, and
are not uniform, city with city, district with district, nor
school with school within a city. Two attendance officers
working side by side in Minneapolis or Utica answer
different questions. Per capita in Chicago includes all
costs. Many cities give
give no per capita. New York's
per capita includes only part of the cost, and furnishes
occasion every year for a squabble between the Normal Col-
lege president, the City College president, and the city superin-
tendent of schools about three per capitas made up of dif-
ferent elements. Superintendent Snyder, of Jersey City,
writes: "All who have anything to do with comparison and
school statistics appreciate the danger of mistake in making
these comparisons, because items that have the same names
in different cities have so many different meanings." In spite
of progress made in state reports, Superintendent Morrison
of New Hampshire writes: "I am convinced that not a
few otherwise scholarly studies have been made and results
published which are almost wholly vitiated by lack of uni-
formity.
Average attendance means one thing in
Massachusetts and another thing in other parts of the
country." Professor David S. Snedden declares in School
reports and school efficiency, that "the majority of reports
illustrate a striking phase of inefficiency in American munici-
pal government," because they "fail conspicuously to provide
statistical information either to the layman or to the ad-
ministrator." Commissioner Brown
Commissioner Brown of the United States.
Bureau of Education, said of that appeal for adequate reports:
"I am very glad that this book has been written and pub-
lished, and am convinced that we are to find ways by which
the public school statistics in this country may be made more
directly serviceable in the improvement of the schools."
School reports as they are serve neither critics nor de-
fenders of present tendencies in popular education. A well-
known writer, who "went honestly to condemn " the public
1909]
School reports as they are
119
"Nor
schools, and "came back to explain and praise," says:
is there a more misrepresented and misunderstood subject in
America than this question of public schools." Yet he tries
to shatter misrepresentation without reference to any school
report, trusting to the small number of school facts which
he is able to see with his own eyes. President Eliot con-
demns large school boards, but does not seek proof in school
reports. Superintendent Morris of Covington, Ky., laments
"the dense ignorance of the average boy of the pres-
ent day when he leaves school and applies for work;" neither
he nor others furnish proof nor disproof. Theories come and
go, experiments are made, curriculums are changed, but sel-
dom is a school report quoted to justify an opinion or
an innovation.
Public officials do not use school reports. Mayors, gov-
ernors, and presidents love to address meetings of educators;
yet, judging from their executive treatment of school budgets,
and their tardy recognition of school problems, they have
drawn little knowledge or inspiration from school reports.
Can you imagine a national conference at the White House to
consider the conservation of our educational resources?
Teachers do not look to school reports for help. Where,
outside of Teachers College, Columbia University, is there, in
the United States, a school for teachers that undertakes to
train the educators of the future to prepare adequate and clear
statements of school experience, or even to read school re-
ports? In some instances, judging from workmanship and
content, it is doubtful if the authors themselves have critically
examined their products.
Questions of local policy and taxation are seldom settled
with reference to facts presented in school reports. New
York's Charter Revision Commission has not thought it
strange or inefficient to have recommended changes in the
school charter without reading school reports. Not only is it
not expected of New York school trustees that they themselves
read the reports addrest to them, but a leading paper
recently said that a new trustee was eminently fitted to tell
what the schools need, "because he went thru the public
120
Educational Review
[February
school himself." How reports, when used, may influence local
policy is illustrated in New York, whose fiscal officers have
recently, without discredit to themselves, cut the educational
budget from $33,000,000 to $27,500,000 because special re-
ports to the budget committee showed: that year after year
the Board of Education, in its estimates, had been overstating
by hundreds of thousands of dollars the amount needed for
additional teachers; that funds had been diverted contrary to
written and verbal pledges; that money given for elementary
schools had been used for other purposes; that of $18,000
given for additional attendance officers, only $600 was used
for that purpose; that $7,000 given to increase particular
clerical salaries had been distributed among a larger number
late in the year so as to effect an annual salary increase of
$20,000; that money was asked for rent of a building in 1909
which had not been used since 1907; that money given for
school kitchens, etc., had been used for other purposes; that
it was costing from three to five times as much per pupil or
per room for repairs of furniture and pianos, as well as of
buildings, in the Bronx and Queens as in Brooklyn and Man-
hattan. When given a chance at the taxpayers' hearing tọ
defend their estimates, school officers were without data to
justify a protest. The only demurrer entered was by a
volunteer body, ineffective because both uninformed and
misinformed.
Medical supervision, examination, inspection are discust by
forty reports. By 1907 the physical welfare of school chil-
dren was of national interest. Grave questions of state policy
are here involved: State socialism, public health, school cur-
riculum, physical education, school hygiene, school morals,
school budget. Yet little can be learned from the regular re-
ports of ten cities with an enrollment of 1,500,000, and a
probable 900,000 needing attention to eyes, teeth, breathing,
nourishment, etc. In 1905 Superintendent Maxwell had pro-
posed at St. Louis the giving of free meals, and had pro-
tested against forcing free instruction upon children whose
undernourished bodies made them unable to profit from such
instruction. Robert Hunter's Poverty, John Spargo's Bitter
1909]
School reports as they are
121
cry of the children, Chicago's Bureau of Child Study, and
the Massachusetts state medical inspection law had stimulated
press comment. The New York Committee on Physical Wel-
fare of School Children had completed its first year of re-
search and educational work. Altho New York had
furnished inspiration to other cities thru magazines and
press articles, the school report shows not a statement of fact,
not a table of work done. Boston reports 39 of 100 facts
given in ten reports, but omits the number of schools where
examinations were made, the number of children examined,
excluded, needing treatment, treated, cured. Chicago and
Baltimore mention medical inspection, but do not report
their experience. The New York report charges the health
department with inefficiency in the examination of school
children for physical defects, and declares that medical super-
vision will never work successfully until taken from the
department of health and lodged in the department of edu-
cation. Legislation is recommended to punish parents who
fail to attend to defective children. Altho the department of
health had a complete record of children examined and
found defective, the school superintendent gives no facts;
altho tests had proved that parents would act if shown
why children's school work was hindered by physical defects,
these tests were not quoted. Obviously, it makes all the dif-
ference in the world to the success of medical supervision
whether the state must send a nurse or a police summons to
homes. The Bureau of Municipal Research found that par-
ents of 96 per cent. of 1,400 children in three different districts
of New York City promised to act promptly when told the
reason for acting, while 81 per cent. did act at once; and
the health department, alleged to be incorrigible, when con-
fronted with evidence of its inefficiency, established a bureau
of child hygiene with a program bound to succeed if school
officials coöperate and publish results.
Failure to win promotion and school mortality are worry-
ing educators. To remedy these evils, the National Educa-
tion Association advocates a simplified curriculum. Com-
missioner Draper, of New York State, declares that school
Ucr
.
122
Educational Review
[February
records prove the necessity for industrial and vocational
training; others advocate promotion by subject and flexible
grading. The children have been in school; they have been
counted; yet school reports throw very little light upon the
subject. The ten largest cities give 324 different facts; only
one attempts to give reasons for dropping out. A few re-
ports try to explain why children drop out of one or more
grades of high school; but why children drop out of elemen-
tary grades, why they never go into the fifth, sixth, or seventh
grade, or into high school, we can not learn. While many
superintendents are ready to condemn the present curriculum
and to adopt changes, their reports give no fact basis to justify
remedies because present deficiencies are neither diagnosed
nor proved. The superintendent of Birmingham records
with surprize that the introduction of manual training does
not seem to have stopt school mortality. The records of
New York, not applied to this particular problem, show that
high schools where commercial and industrial training are
given, do not keep their pupils better than other schools hav-
ing classical training. When the Detroit superintendent talks
of first-year pupils dropping out, he says: "Twenty-five be-
cause of illness; four because of illness in the family; two
because of failing sight; forty-one because of work; six
transferred; ten left the city; nine were indifferent to school;
one took up music; for twenty-three, causes unknown."
Yonkers has a table that shows the number who entered, the
number left, the number completing eight terms of work or
more, and the number completing from none to seven terms'
work. The latest statement of the New York superintendent
on this subject is in the report for 1906, and contains no facts
but depends upon undoubtedly, probably, generally, approx-
imately, in my judgment, a few.
Speaking of school mortality, several cities present facts
relative to the mortality of school children. Allegheny gives
by districts the number of pupils who died during the year;
Cincinnati, the name, age, and cause of death; Columbus, the
number of causes and deaths by months; Trenton, the number
of deaths, causes, and ages by schools. There is reason to
1909]
School reports as they are
123
question the accuracy and completeness of these reports. No
one knows how much of the gap between average membership
and total net membership is due to sickness or to death.
Ought the relation between school and pupil be such that a
child can die and be marked as an absentee or be sick and
marked as a truant, or that preventable diseases can tax
school funds by hundreds of thousands of dollars annually
without the schools themselves notifying their communities
of such cost?
Truancy and absence furnish illustration of all the strong
and weak points of school reporting. New York leads with 260
facts, more than three times the number given by any other
school, altho the first ten cities give 505 facts. Even these
fail to answer many important questions. A few of thirty
new facts reported for New York by Associate Superintend-
ent E. B. Shallow throw light upon the possibility of strength-
ening reports: Number of cases of truancy reinvestigated,
5,867; number returned to school, 12,755; number due to
neglect of parents, 2,771; number of cases of non-attendance
due to indifference of parents, to poverty, to sickness, to tem-
porary necessity; number of children placed on probation by
district superintendents after hearing of charges of truancy
or incorrigibility; number of both classes who improve under
probation; number of parents fined, 161; parents imprisoned,
33; number placed on probation by children's court; sus-
pended incorrigibles. Springfield gives by schools the indi-
vidual truants, the number of truants, the days of truancy, the
prosecutions of habitual truants, the number committed to tru-
ancy schools and cases pending. Springfield and New Haven
give half-days of truancy. Providence gives ages of truants
and results of prosecutions. One can not learn for the differ-
ent cities when the truant officer is notified that the child
needs attention, or in how many cases the name is dropped
from the list because "an undesirable citizen." Kansas City
distinguishes temporary absentees and cases having from one
to nine investigations, giving, also, by schools, the number
of cases and investigations. The New York report states
that part-time pupils are inclined to play truant, a fact fre-
124
Educational Review
[February
quently urged against the Denver system of the shorter day;
yet in 1906-1907 part-time pupils, constituting more than 14
per cent. of the average enrollment for elementary schools,
furnish but 12.7 per cent. of the truants.
Why is it that school reports are still so unsatisfactory?
Because we have not expected enough from them; secondly,
because it has been made no one's business to keep alive be-
tween conventions and between articles the interest there ex-
prest,—to applaud the efficient and segregate the backward.
When committees were appointed, they worked at odd times.
without funds for collecting evidence or circulating conclu-
sions. National commissioners and state commissioners have
been content to publish reports that they knew were lacking in
uniformity, completeness, and accuracy. More important,
however, are reasons inherent in the mental attitude of edu-
cators which account for the delay in securing action where
there has been nominal agreement: (1) They have urged
each other to prepare statements for the sake of fellow edu-
cators; (2) they have talked too much of uniformity and too
little of accuracy, completeness, and significance-uniformity
of defects can never help; (3) they have not seen that they
can not get proper reports unless they employ records to tell
currently their story; (4) they have not wanted to test their
own efficiency or the soundness of their methods.
Chief of these reasons for inadequate reporting is the last.
What one can learn from one's colleagues is relatively little
compared with what one can learn from oneself by applying
efficiency tests and asking one's community to apply such
tests. The gap between what one tries and what one does
is more important than the gap between one's own attempt
and another's attempt. Success in modern business depends
upon self-analysis, as well as upon study of others. The first
reason for school reports is to learn whether the reporter
himself is measuring up to the requirements and opportunities
of his office. The measurer should be the public, for whose
intelligence regarding school policy and school facts too little
concern has been shown. What hope is there for democracy
if its emblem, the public school, is not managed on democratic
1909]
School reports as they are
125
lines? If the public is to administer its own schools, it must
be given current knowledge of results, including failures.
Citizen judgment can never be based upon intelligence so long
as every question is treated with contempt and regarded as
reactionary criticism of free education, or so long as tax-
payers are expected to "stand and deliver," and blindly to
accept as sound any and every plan for spending school money
and school energy.
If citizen interest and intelligence are necessary; if the
sacredness of the teaching profession is due to its product, not
its field; if there is a limit to money required by schools;
if the public may be led to cöoperate by information, as well
as by cajolery or intrigue; if the title "trustee" does not at
once enable citizen directors to sense school needs and school
results that as taxpayers they are unable to see; if admission
of error will promote education, the potential value of school
reports is inestimable. If, fifty years ago, it had been sug-
gested that, in absence of proof to the contrary, teachers and
superintendents might be sailing under false colors, besides
adding to local taxes and their own labors, it is hardly likely
that progress in school administration would have been so
tardy. If, for ten years, taxpayers had been told by educators
that they should look for proof, they would have forced, long
ago, the reforms that educators are unanimous in desiring.
WILLIAM H. ALLEN
SECRETARY OF THE BUREAU OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH
NEW YORK
.
QUESTIONS ANSWERED
BY
SCHOOL REPORTS AS THEY ARE
!
SUBMITTED TO THE
CONFERENCE OF STATE SUPERINTENDENTS
CHICAGO, FEB. 22, 1909
“What are the next steps to be taken in the direction
of desirable uniformity in the reports of city school
statistics called for by state and national offices of
education?"
BASED UPON ANALYSIS OF 72 CITY REPORTS
BY THE
BUREAU OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH
261 BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY
+
IMPORTANT TERMS
WHOSE USE AND MEANING ARE NOT UNIFORM
School age: Pending uniform state requirements, is it practicable for
all reports to distinguish the following age groups-4, 5-6, 7-13, 14,
15, 16-17, 18-21? Is it desirable to give census for each age?
Population of city: Since only a few cities have actual counts oftener
than once in ten years, should reports indicate whether total popu-
lation and school population are counts or estimates?
Net: If supposed to include no pupil more than once, is it practicable
and desirable for reports to indicate whether and what steps are
taken to secure accurate net figures?
Attendance:
Should those who attend not more than one-or five, or
ten-sessions figure in attendance and in net enrollment? Should
legal or special holidays be counted as school days? Are any
counted as present on holidays, who were not present the day-
or the week-before?
Enrollment, Registration, Membership:
Should register mean to re-
Should one who registers but
cord a child's intention to attend?
fails to attend be enrolled or counted as a member? Is there a
minimum of attendances that should be required before one may
be said to be a member or to belong? Is it practicable to dis-
tinguish between those admitted or entered and those belonging?
Should reports indicate when pupils once enrolled are dropped
from the list of members on which attendance is computed? Are
those present but one half-day counted the same as those present
two half-days? Is average attendance based on average or total—
number enrolled-or registered? Is it worth while for a few years
to report proportion of actual attendances to both total and net
registration and to total, net and average enrollment?
Truants, Absentees, Non-attendants: Should these terms be defined in
all reports? Should those who are dropped from the roll because
of irregular attendance or chronic absence be reported as truant
and absent and thus affect average attendance? Should a distinc-
tion be made between those dying and others withdrawn from
school?
Cases of vs Individuals: Are truants, absentees, the tardy, counted
more than once?
Arrested, Apprehended, Brought before Court: Is it desirable to re-
port the different steps of truancy and non-attendance work?
Normal age, Backward:
Should reports indicate by years those in
each grade and explain what years "normal" covers for each grade?
*
1
58
Medical Inspection, Examination, Follow up work, Treatment: Unless
these terms are defined communities having but a perfunctory
"looking over" for obvious contagion may be led to believe that
their childrens' physical defects are discovered and treated and
their school environment supervised by physicians.
Manual, Industrial, Vocational, Trade, Domestic, Commercial: Grow-
ing popular and professional interest will increase the evil results
of misusing these terms
Cost: Does it, wherever mentioned, include all labor, and all material
used for the purpose and period described, whether bills therefor
were paid last year, are already paid this year, or still owing? Or
does it include only cash payments charged during the period re-
ported to the purpose described? Where one branch or division or
purpose is charged with expenses incurred for another, should
this fact be clearly stated? Where outlays for permanent improve-
ments are included in current expenses, should the fact be stated?
Percapita: Is it based upon totals or net figures-for enrollment or
registration or attendance?
59
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS
a
by
bp
cl
co
da
de
"
age
birth place
also
class
66
|| ||
color
dt
gr
hs
kd
mo
na
qr
rm
SC
॥ ॥ ॥ ॥ ॥ ॥ ॥
66
(6
days
department
district
grade
high school
kind of school
month
nationality
quarter
room
school
sex
term
week
year
increase or decrease
percentage
"subdivision of preceding item
(6
SX
tr
wk
yr
%
()
+ do =
|| || ||
(8
"
"
(geographical division)
ILLUSTRATION
Registration-sx (sc (a, gr), gr (a)) means that the following facts
are given: (1) the total registration for all schools; (2) the total of
each sex registered; (3) the sex registration in each school; (4) the
ages of each sex in each school; (5) the number of each sex in each
grade of each school; (6) the sex registration in each grade; (7) the
sex registration of each age in each grade
QUESTION
For which main divisions of significant school facts is it desirable or
practicable to report any-or all-of the above subdivisions? ·
J
60
Questions Answered by One or More of 72 Reports Regarding
PROMOTION AND SCHOOL MORTALITY
All Schools
Promoted-sx, %; ahead of normal grade; withdrawn, sx
Progress and survival-% (charts for 1896-1906, 1897-1907); complet-
ing elementary school course or its equivalent; beginning grammar
school course who later entered hs; beginning grammar school
course who completed a three years course in hs; beginning
grammar school course who completed a four years course in hs;
elementary school graduates or equivalent who entered hs; be-
ginning a hs course who completed a three years hs course; be-
ginning a hs course who completed a four years hs course
All Elementary Schools
Promoted or advanced-dt, tr (dt), gr (dt, tr (dt) ), sc (gr); per cent,
dt, tr, gr (dt, tr (dt) ); midyear promotions, dt, tr (dt); time oc-
cupied in accomplishing grade work; by periods of time; by groups
(by periods of time)
Not promoted or advanced—sc, gr (sx)
Normal age-gr; above normal age, gr; % above normal age, yr, gr
(yr); behind grade; %
Pupils withdrawn-sx, to other public schools of city; of state; to pri-
vate schools; to other schools, tr, % (tr); leaving to go to work;
because of illness, tr, % (tr); for other reasons; pupils registered
last year who are not on register this year; removed from city;
removed to other districts of city; gone to other than public
schools; sick or visiting; gone to work; unaccounted for above
Suspensions or expulsions—sc, tr, yr, % (sx, tr, yr)
Graduates-yr (dt), sc (sx), sx (dt, yr (dt) ), a (dt); normal age;
above normal age; average age, dt, sx (dt); admitted to high
school, sc
Kindergartens
Promoted to elementary school-sx, sc (sx); % based on average
daily membership, yr
Withdrawn-sx, sc (sx), tr, % (tr)
Primary and Grammar Departments
Promoted-sx, gr (sx); % of promotion on average daily attendance;
ahead of normal grade; behind normal grade
61
Promoted to grades-gr
Foreign Classes
Special Classes
Promoted-rm, %; disposition of those promoted; withdrawn, sx
Evening Schools
Certification-sx, sc (sx, yr, subject (yr) ); withdrawn, sc (sx)
High School
Entitled to enter from public school-sx, sc (sx), yr, +
Admitted from all schools-tr, hs (tr), sx (sc); average age, sc;
from public schools; from other schools or other sources, tr, hs
(tr), sx (tr, sc (tr) ); elementary graduates entering, dt, %; from
public schools; from other schools; ahead of normal grade; be-
hind
:
Discharged-before graduation, yr, sc (yr, sx), gr (yr, sc (yr) ), %
(yr, sc (yr) ); withdrawn, sx; during year and not re-entering
Promoted or advanced-sx, sc, gr (sc, sx), % (sc (dt) ); % based on
average daily membership, yr; not promoted or advanced, gr, sc
(gr); certified, sx (dt, sc (dt) ), + (yr); average age, dt, sx
(dt)
Graduated-yr, + (yr, sx), de (yr), sx (dt, yr), sc (sx (dt) ), tr (sc,
sx (sc) ); courses, sc, tr, sx (sc, tr); ratio, sx, yr; % (sc);
average age, dt, sx (dt)
Entering higher institutions—yr, kind of institution (yr); from last
graduating class, sx, sc (sx), kind of institution (sx, sc (sx) )
Colored High Schools
Admitted from grammar schools-tr (yr); from other schools, tr˚ (yr);
by promotion during year, tr (sx); discharged, yr (%); graduated,
sx, de
Normal Schools
Applicants from city high schools-sc, tr; from outside schools, dt, tr
(dt); admitted from city high schools, sx, sc (tr), % (sc); from
outside schools, dt, tr (dt), % (dt); average age, sc; promoted;
% based on average daily membership, yr, sc; withdrawn; gradu-
ated, sc, tr (sc (yr) ); since organization, sc
62
Questions Answered by One or More of 72 Reports Regarding
MEDICAL SUPERVISION
Purposes-inspection to discover communicable diseases; exclusion of
notifiable diseases; treatment of minor diseases; examination of
children at request of teachers; examination of all children for
physical or mental defects; supervision of play, physical training,
buildings
Authorities responsible-board of health; board of education; volun-
teer agency co-operating with schools
Staff-inspectors, term of service; physicians, co, paid, unpaid; time
given to work; nurses, paid, unpaid; under health board; under
school board; under both
Schools-inspected; not inspected
Children examined-dt, sc, kd, gr, cl, mo; after four days consecutive
absence; 'defects found; cases of disease found; by school nurses;
for special or ungraded classes or schools, sx (dt), sc (dt, sx),
dt; sent to classes, dt, sc (dt); reported dt, sc (dt); not reported;
backward examined by teachers
Treatment-excluded, yr, mo, sc; for each disease; needing treatment,
yr; receiving treatment, mo, sc (mo); for each disease, %, yr, and
defect, %, yr; not receiving treatment; cured; for each disease;
treated at home, mo, for each disease; treated by nurse, for each
defect, for each disease, mo; treated by family physician; by ocu-
list; treated at hospital or dispensary; cured and returned; still
under treatment
Notifications to schools; to parents by mail; by messenger
Aid-sc; by volunteer agencies; eye glasses; other relief
Visits to schools, mo, sc; to homes, mo; by nurses
Scholarship-no. backward
Questions Answered by One or More of 72 Reports Regarding
PHYSICAL DEFECTIVES
Crippled enrolled, sx, mo; average, mo; average membership, yr;
average attendance, yr, % (yr); epileptics; blind; enrolled, sx; aver-
age membership, sx; average attendance, sx; withdrawn, sx;
remaining, sx; average absence, sx; deaf; enrolled, yr; net, yr;
average, yr, na, bp; registration, gr (sx, average age), a, sx; aver-
age, sx, yr; entered, sx; number at date; average attendance,
yr, sx; % yr; not absent, %; for certain period, %; av. absence,
sx; not tardy, sx; persistent attendance, %; received from other
buildings; remaining; average per teacher
1
63
..
Questions Answered by One or More of 72 Reports Regarding
MENTAL DEFECTIVES
Registration-dt, yr, tr (dt), cl (dt); average, rm; by groups; needing
enrollment, co, sx; enrolled, yr, dt, rm, sx, cl, sc (sx, rm); re-
ceived from other schools, sx; average daily attendance, %; dis-
position; returned to regular schools, rm; found in regular schools
unable to complete grade; sent to institutions; discharged from
school; going to work; withdrawn because unprogressive; leaving;
remaining; progress, no. at different rates; residence, income
classes; physical size, degree of backwardness
Questions Answered By One Or More of 72 Reports Regarding
TRUANCY AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION
Definition of absence, of truancy
Truant officers by each appointing body
Cases reported—(all, sx, truancy, absence, non-attendance, mo,); in-
correctly; verified; by principals, dt; census, dt; citizens, dt; po-
lice, dt; from other public schools; incorrigible
Cases investigated-a, dt, mo; reinvestigated, dt; absence, dt; from
public,dt; parochial, dt; other schools, dt; on officer's initiative,
dt; reinvestigated, dt; supposed truancy, dt; non-attendance, dt;
complaints, dt; reinvestigated; cases excused, % (sc); + (%)
Family relations (truants, non-attendants, both)-; father living
mother living; step father; step mother; father intemperate;
orphans
Disorderly children-violating rules, mo; warned for incorrigibility,
mo; damaging school property, dt; mutilating or losing school
books, dt; juvenile offenders investigated
Truancy-individuals reported, sx; persons warned, mo; cases, dt, sc,
tr, yr, mo, +; individuals, sx, dt; days, dt, sc; half-days, dt, sc, tr,
yr; pupils behind grade, due to, gr, co; pupils returned, dt, sx, mo;
to private, parochial and public schools, no. times, dt; by attend-
ance officers; from grades without manual training; not located;
left city; unenrolled found; % truancy on attendance
Absences-children reported, sc, mo; absentees, mo; without permis-
sion, sc, mo; cases acted upon; cases of irregular attendance looked
after by attendance officer; non-enrolled; non-attendants placed in
school, %, dt, sx, mo; children found on streets; returned to school,
sc, mo; children 14 at work; different children registered in office
of district superintendent, yr; full time classes, yr; part time
64
classes, yr; special classes, yr; ungraded classes, yr; working
legally, sx, dt; neither at work nor in school, a, dt, yr, +; working
in stores or shops, yr, dt, +; cannot locate, dt, sx; left city
Illegally employed-found by police, sx; investigated by attendance
officers; legally employed, sx; placed in school, yr, sx, dt; regu-
larly attending school, sx; over age, sx; under age, sx; will
obtain employment certificates; physically unable to attend, sx;
not found or moved, sx; incorrectly reported, sx; cases not yet
closed, sx; over 14 working for parents, sx
Kept at home illegally-reported by police, sx; investigated by at-
tendance officers; placed in school, sx; legally employed at home,
sx; elsewhere, sx; physically unable to attend, sx; temporarily
ill, sx; regularly attending school, sx; not found or moved, sx;
under age, sx; cases not yet closed, sx; committed to institu-
tions, sx; placed in private school, sx; mentally defective, sx;
will obtain employment certificate, sx; on road with theatrical
company, sx; other causes, sx; minding house, dt, yr, +
Causes of truancy and non-attendance (each class and total), cases
due to indifference of parents, sx; sickness, sx, dt; poverty,
sx, dt; temporary necessity, sx, dt; lack of clothing; contagious
disease; parental neglect, sx, dt, yr; mother obliged to work;
mentally or physically disqualified, sx, dt; out late at night; ques-
tionable home; total over 16 years
Visits by attendance officers to homes of non-attendants, yr; to
homes of truants, yr; homes visited twice, mo; homes visited three
times, mo; to schools, dt, yr, mo; to stores and factories, yr; to
courts, yr; miscellaneous, yr
Notices, warnings, etc., sent, mo-to parents for truancy; for non-
attendance; served on children; on employers; compulsory no-
tices; interview with parents at office; pupils involved; parents
or guardians warned, notified or written to, sx, mo
Treatment of truancy cases by superintendent-summoned for hear
ing, yr; attending; failing to attend; heard on charges, yr; placed
on probation; transferred to other schools, yr; improving under
probation and transfer; disregarding probation and recommended
for commitment, yr; committed to truant schools; parents refus-
ing to sign commitment papers, yr
Treatment of incorrigibles by superintendent-on charges, yr; placed
on probation; transferred to other schools, yr; improving under
probation and transfer; disregarding probation and recommended
for suspension and commitment, yr; parents refusing to sign com-
mitment papers, yr
Action by courts, juvenile-police-magistrate
children taken to,
dt, sx, yr; on charge of truancy, sx; of incorrigibility, sx; of
65
delinquency; of neglect; cases committed, yr; persons in parental
relation arrested, yr; fined, yr, mo; imprisoned, yr; prosecuted,
mo; other persons, yr, firms, yr, or corporations, yr, violating com-
pulsory education law; persons prosecuted for selling cigarettes
to school children, dt; for allowing school children in pool rooms,
dt; persons arrested on warrants, sx; cases disposed of; prosecu-
tions, sx, dt; of persons over 16; of boys; convictions, sx, dt;
cases pending, sx; cases dismissed of truancy; of non-attendance;
commitments; truants committed, yr (when first arraigned, sx);
with parents' consent, dt, sx; after probation, sx; to other insti-
tutions, sx; truants transferred to other school; non-attendants
committed to truant schools, dt, sx; with parents' consent, dt, sx;
transferred to another school; to other institutions; suspended
incorrigibles placed on probation, mo; committed to truant school,
yr, sx, mo; twice; three times; to other institutions, yr, sx, mo;
to private homes; to parents or relatives; total children placed on
probation, yr, sx; total transferred; total children arrested and
parents notified, dt, mo, sx; more than once; special cases; parent
cases
Treatment of truancy cases by truant schools, parental, or special
schools for truants-enrollment, sx; registration, tr, yr, +, gr (sx
(a) ), na, bp; church affiliation; use of tobacco; average, yr, gr;
including temporary withdrawals; since admitted; admitted by
transfer, gr; attendance, average, tr, yr, gr, +, %, largest number
at any one time; no. of sessions; average age; committed; placed
on probation, yr, mo (sx); satisfactory, sx; parolled, yr; respected
parole, yr; violated parole and returned, yr; days detained; maxi-
mum; minimum; discharged, with work certificate; without work
certificate; to public school; left city; as vagrant; committed to
other institutions; by court, through police; through parent;
through school; to other truant school; to hospital or other in-
stitution for treatment; death; ready to return to regular school;
to go to work with certificate; without certificate; cured of
truancy; of incorrigibility; improving steadily; spasmodically; not
improving
Questions Answered by One or More of 72 Reports Regarding
WORKING PAPERS, WORK CERTIFICATES, ETC
Certificates issued-age and school, yr (na), gr; work, mo, sx, gr (sx);
from public school, gr (sx, mo); other schools, gr (sx, mo);
schools outside city, gr (sx, mo); public school below 6th grade,
gr (sx, mo); approved, mo; refused, mo, sx; revoked
Exemptions-a, yr, gr; on grounds of poverty, mo; graduates; full or-
phans; father dead; mother dead; parents separated; divorced;
C
66
3
average term (weeks) of exemption; weeks for which exemptions
were granted; affidavits to establish age of children
Aid applications for scholarship aid; recommended as worthy; rec-
ommended to remain at work; required to remain at school; not
located; aided; from public school; from private or parochial
school; applications for free text books investigated
Newsboys-registered
Questions Answered by One or More of 72 Reports Regarding
POPULATION AND ATTENDANCE
All Schools
Population-yr, dt; school census; % in public schools, dt; % school
age to population
School age-sx, co (sx); in census, co (dt), sx, dt (sx); compulsory;
in census, a; in school, a; not in public school; in other schools;
physically unable to attend, %; between 10 and 18 who cannot
read or write English, sx; who cannot read or write any language,
sx; between 4 and 18, a, sc, sx (sc); between 9 and 15, yr; aver-
age age of those not in school, sx (dt)
Sittings-dt, yr; deficiency or excess, dt
Enrollment-mo (yr), yr, dt (mo (yr) ), sx, a (%, +, sx, yr), + (yr, %
(yr), between 9 and 15 (%) ), na; excluding transfers; re-enroll-
ment, yr; net, yr (dt, + (dt, yr, % (dt, yr) ) ); average, yr, dt
(yr); %; a (yr, between 9 and 15 (yr) ); new pupils, tr; from
other districts; outside city; other than public schocls; same
school district; entered, sx, a (sx); remaining, sx
Registration-na, bp, co, sx (yr, dt (yr), gr (sc) ), yr (gr), a, + (%),
gr (tr), sc (sx), gr (yr); including temporary withdrawals, yr, +;
at end of year, a, yr; %, sx, tr, on enumeration, yr; net, tr; aver-
age, yr (+ (dt, % (dt) ), dt, sx (%, dt), + (%); for given no. of
yrs; % on enrollment, yr; average monthly, sc; admitted by trans-
fer, sx; from city schools; state; private; other states or coun-
tries; transfered, sx; nationalities with greatest representation;
part-time, % (dt); average per teacher
Attendance-sx (dt), age-groups (sx), a (gr, sx (dt), %), average age
(sx, gr), gr; other than public schools, sx, age-groups (sx); church
schools, sx (dt); private, sx (dt); not in school, sx (dt); % on
registration, sx, yr, tr; % on average registration, yr; % on aver-
age monthly presence; average, yr (dt (sx), mo; mo, + (yr, dt
(sx), % (yr, dt (sx) ) ); average rate for no. of yrs; % on actual no.
67
days school was in session, tr (gr), dt, sx; occupation; regu-
larity of, yr (dt), %; varying degrees of, %; average monthly,
sc, sx, mo; persistent, by 20 da. groups, by ½ da. per week; days
present, sc; average per teacher; % on no. of days sc. was in ses-
sion, yr
Part-time attendance-sc, yr (dt), + (dt, % (dt))
Absence-average, sx; not absent, yr, sx; ½ da, sx, %; varying de-
grees of, %; legally under 8; legally under 14; deaf, sx; crippled,
sx; dumb, sx; blind, sx; mentally defective, sx; teachers, sc, 2
da, yr
Tardiness-pupils, yr, +; not tardy, ½ da (sx), yr; teachers, sc, time
lost
Kindergartens
Enrollment-mo (yr), sc, sx (sc), yr; average monthly, yr, % (yr);
registration, yr (sx), sx, tr (gr, sx (gr), sc), sc, dt (sx), a (yr,
dt, sx (gr, yr) ), qr (sc, yr); at close of yr (sc, yr); %, tr (gr, sx
(gr) ); average, dt, % (dt), yr, + (%), sx (%), sc, groups; average
monthly, sx, dt (sx); average per teacher, yr, +, %, gr, dt
Attendance-average, sx, dt (sx), tr (gr, sc), yr, mo (yr), dt (sx), sc;
% (tr (gr), dt, sc); average per teacher, gr
Absence-average, dt
Colored Kindergarten
Enrollment—sc, sx (sc), yr; membership, qr (sc, yr); close of yr, sc,
yr; average, yr, sc; attendance, average, yr, sc, % (sc)
All Elementary Schools
Enrollment-sx, sc (groups, sx, gr), gr, groups, yr, +, subject (sc), de
(gr, sc), na, bp (sc); excluding transfers, sc; counted only once,
sc; entered, sx (a, sc); above normal age, gr, % (gr, yr); transfers,
sc, sx (sc)
Registration-sc (dt), sx (sc (a, gr), gr), dt, gr (sx, dt), cl (sx (a) ),
yr, +, tr (sc (gr), gr), a (sx, gr (dt, sx), sc); including temporary
withdrawals, groups (sc), sc (yr); groups (sc, sx, gr (sx (a) ) );
at end of yr (sc, sx (sc, gr (sc) ) ); net, tr (sc); average, dt, yr,
+ (yr, dt, %), sx (%, sc), sc (groups), groups, % (dt)
Attendance-average, sc, dt (sc), tr (sc (gr), gr), sx (sc), yr, +, gr
(sc), groups (sc), % (sc, groups (sc)); persistency, ½ da. absences,
Sc, % (sc)
Absence average, sc; various degrees (sc, % (sc) ); average per
teacher, yr (+, %), sc (a, sx); remaining, sc, sx (sc), gr (sc)
68
Tardiness-yr; not tardy, sc; not absent, sc
Colored Elementary Schools
Enrollment-sx, yr, +, na, sc; including transfers, sc; entered, sx
(sc); transfered, sc, sx (sc); registration, sc, sx (sc (a, gr) ); in-
cluding temporary withdrawals, sc; at end of yr, sc, sx (sc, gr
(sc)); average (sc); attendance, average, sc, % (sc); average per
teacher, sc; persistency by ½ da. absences, sc; not absent, sc;
tardiness, yr; not tardy, sc
Primary Department
Enrollment-sx, % (yr); average monthly, yr, dt (yr); registration, tr,
sx (gr), sc (gr), gr (cl (yr) ), yr, + (yr (gr) ), % (tr (sx (gr) ) );
average, gr (yr); average a (sc (gr) ); a (sx (gr) ); average per
teacher, gr; attendance, average, tr (gr), yr, dt (yr), gr, % (tr
(gr) ); average per teacher, gr
Grammar Department
Enrollment-sx, % (yr); average monthly, yr, dt (yr); registration,
tr, sx (gr), sc (gr), qr (cl (yr) ), yr, + (yr (qr) ), % (tr (sx
(gr) ) ); average, gr (yr); average age, sc (gr); average per
teacher, gr; new pupils, tr, % (tr); transferred, tr; to public, tr,
(tr); never before attended, tr, %
% (tr); net registration, tr, %
(tr); registered this term and last also, tr, % (tr)
Attendance-average, tr (gr), yr, dt (yr), gr, % (tr (gr) ); average per
teacher, gr, a, sx (gr); transfers, from public schools, tr, % (tr)
All High, Normal and Latin Schools
Enrollment-yr (dt, sc, a (sx) ), sx (yr (gr), cl), sc (sx (gr, cl,), gr
(sx, sc, yr), a (sx, sc (sx) ), tr, na (sc), de (gr, sc), + (cl (sx
(yr) ) ), % (yr), % of boys (yr), % of + (dt); % on average mem-
bership, yr; subject, cl, sc (cl); net, sc, yr; average, yr
Registration-yr (sx, +, dt), tr (gr, sx (gr) ), + (sx, yr), sc (sx, dt),
a (sx, gr (sx), yr), qr (yr, cl (yr) ), sx, na, bp; % on number ad-
mitted, yr; % of boys; including temporary withdrawals, sx, yr, sc
(yr); excluding transfers, sc, sx (sc); net, tr, sx, sc (sx); %, tr (gr,
sx (gr) ); average, dt, yr (+ (%) ), sx (%), sc (yr, +, sx, gr), gr
(yr), mo, % (dt); average per teacher, gr, yr, sc, tr
Attendance-average, sc (sx), sx, tr (gr), yr (+), gr (sc), mo; oc-
cupation; % boys; % (sc, tr (gr), gr (sc), mo, yr); attending during
year; persistency, by ½ da. absences (sc, % (sc), yr); remaining
at end of year, sx (yr, gr), sc (sx), gr (sc), qr, yr, cl (yr), + (qr,
yr); entered, sc, sx (sc), tr (sx, sc); finishing first year, sx, sc;
69
received by transfer, sc, sx (sc); transferred to other schools, sx,
sc (sx); new pupils, sx; re-admitted, yr; average age, sc, gr, sx
(gr), over 18 (sx, sc); average per teacher, gr, tr, sc; absence,
average, sx, sc (sx); varying degrees of, %; not absent, sc, yr;
· varying degrees of non-absence
Tardiness-pupils, yr, % (yr); cases of tardiness, yr; not tardy, sc
Colored High Schools
Enrollment-yr, sx (a), subject (cl), sx (cl), sc (sx (cl) ), na (sc),
+ (yr), % (yr); registration, + (yr), sc (sx), a (yr), qr (yr, cl
(yr) ), sx, % (yr); average, yr, sc, mo; including temporary with-
drawals, sx, yr; excluding transfers, sc, sx (sc); net, sx, sc (sx);
attendance, average, sx, + (yr), mo, % (sc, mo, yr); persistency,
by ½ da. absences (sc); remaining at end of year, sx (yr, gr), qr,
yr, cl (yr), + (qr, yr); entered, sc, sx (sc); received by transfer,
sc, sx (sc); transfered to other schools, sx, sc (sx); new pupils,
sx; readmitted, yr; average per teacher, sc; not absent, sc, yr;
tardy, yr, % (yr); cases of tardiness, yr; not tardy, sc
Training and Normal Schools
Enrollment-tr (yr), sc, sx, gr, +, bp, na, de (tr); end of year, sx (gr);
net, sc, average
Registration-dt, sc, yr, +, tr (gr, sx (gr) ), cl, a (sx (gr) ), gr, qr
(yr), sx (à); excluding transfers, sx; including temporary with-
drawals,yr, sc (yr); net, yr, tr, sc; average, yr, + (%), sx (%); %,
tr (gr, sx (gr) ); received by transfer, sx; transfered to other
schools, sx; new pupils; entered, sx; average per teacher, gr
Attendance-average, dt, sc, tr (gr), sx, yr (+); %, yr, tr (gr); aver-
age per teacher, gr; absence, average; not absent; cases of tardi-
ness, yr
All Evening Schools
Enrollment-sx, na (sx, bp (sx); English-speaking adults; foreigners
learning English, yr (sx), +, sc, a (sc); occupation, sx; net, sx,
sc (sx); registration, yr, +; average, yr, +, sc; attendance, aver-
age, a (sx, sc (sx) ), sx, yr, +, English-speaking adults; foreign-
ers learning English; occupation; % on enrollment of English-
speaking adults, yr; of foreigners learning English, sc; average
no. evenings attended per pupil, sx; persistency, sx, sc (sx); aver-
age per teacher, sc; average age, yr; sessions, sx
Colored Evening Schools
Enrollment-sc; registration, sc; average, sc; attendance, average,
sc, % (sc, dt); persistency, sc; average per teacher, sc
1
70
Evening Elementary Schools
Enrollment-dt (sx), na (sc, sx), +, co (sc), sc, sx (sc), yr, bp (sc,
sx (sc) ); registration, yr (dt), + (% (dt), sc), sc; average, dt, yr,
sc; attendance, average, dt, sx, sc (sx), de, yr (dt); %, + (dt);
English-speaking adults, sc; %, sc; on registration (dt (sc) ); on
enrollment (sc, dt (sc) ); on average register (dt (sc)); average
no. evenings attended per pupil, sx, sc (sx); sessions, sc; aver-
age per teacher, sc; absence, average, sx
Evening High Schools
Enrollment-dt (sx), +, na (sc (sx) ), bp, sc (sx), sx; subject (sc);
registration, dt, yr, + (%); subject; residence district; average,
dt, yr, sc (sx)
Attendance-average, yr, dt, sx, sc (sx), %; residence district, subject
(sc); % on enrollment, dt (sx), sc; % on registration, dt, subject;
% on average registration, dt; average no. evenings attended per
pupil, sc, sx (sc); remaining at close of year, sc´(sx); average
per teacher, dt, sc; absence, average, sc (sx); sessions, sc
Evening, Technical, Drawing and Cooking Schools
Enrollment, sc; registration, sc, average, sc, yr; attendance, average,
sc, yr, % (sc), + (yr); absence, average; sessions, sc
Trade and Industrial Schools
Enrollment-sc (gr), % (yr), a (de, sx (da) ), co, sx (co), de (sx),
subject (sc); membership, average, sx, de (sc), co (sx), yr, sc;
attendance, average, sx, co (sx), sc, % (sc); average age
Free Lectures, Evening Recreation, Domestic
Science and Manual Training Centres
Enrollment-sx, gr, yr (sx), centres (sc), average; membership, gr, sc
(gr), average, gr, sc (gr); attendance, aggregate, dt; average
daily, sc, dt; average weekly, yr, sx (yr); centres (sc); tardiness,
centres (sc); absence, centres (sc)
Special Classes: Non English-speaking,
Work-certificate, German, Preparatory,
Special Pupils
Enrollment-a, dt (a), sc; language, na, sx; age-groups; registration,
tr (gr); net, tr, gr, bp; average, groups, sx; attendance, tr (gr),
71
+; perfect, sc; average duration; varying degrees of absence, sc;
new pupils, tr; rapid progress, a, dt (a)
Vacation Industrial, Manual Training,
Kindergarten, Primary, Grammar, Private and
Parochial Schools and Playgrounds
Enrollment-dt (sc), sc, sx; on waiting list, sc; registration, average,
sc (sx); attendance, aggregate days, dt (sc, kind of playground);
average, dt (sc, kind of playground), sx (sc), % (sc, dt); average
per teacher, sc
School Baths
Enrollment―da (sc); week (sc); yr (sc); attendance, sx (dt, time of
da. (dt) ); average weekly
Registration, sc
Corporate Schools
72

BUREAU OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH
January 1st, 1906
May 3rd, 1907
Organized as “Bureau of City Betterment”
Incorporated as “Bureau of Municipal Research”
PURPOSES
To promote efficient and economical municipal government; to promote
the adoption of scientific methods of accounting and of reporting the
details of municipal business, with a view to facilitating the work of
public officials; to secure constructive publicity in matters pertaining to
municipal problems; to collect, to classify, to analyze, to correlate,
to interpret and to publish facts as to the administration of municipal
government. (Articles of Incorporation)
PRINCIPAL REPORTS, JANUARY, 1906 to JULY, 1909
1 Some Phases of the Work of the Department of Street
Cleaning 30c.
8 *Salary Increases Not Provided for in Budget
5 *The City of New York, the Street Railroad Companies and
a Million and a Half Dollars
6 *How Manhattan is Governed
7 Analysis of the Salary Expenditure of the Department of
Health of the City of New York for the Year 1906
8 A Department of Municipal Audit and Examination 80c.
9 Making a Municipal Budget; Functional Accounts and Records
for the Department of Health 60c.
10 *New York City's Department of Finance
11 The Park Question, Part I, Critical Study and Constructive
Suggestions Pertaining to Administrative and Accounting
Methods of the Department of Parks: Manhattan and
Richmond 81.10

*
12 The Park Question, Part II, Critical Study and Constructive
Suggestions Pertaining to Revenue and Deposits of the
Department of Parks: Manhattan and Richmond 60c.
18 Memorandum of Matters Relating to New York City's Debt
that Suggest the Necessity either for Judicial Ruling or
for Legislation 300.
14 *Bureau of Child Hygiene 400.
15 Questions Answered by School Reports as They Are
16 New York City's Debt:
Facts and Law Relating to the
Constitutional Limitation of New York's Indebtedness 350.
17 Collecting Water Revenues: Methods Employed by the
Bureau of Water Register, Manhattan, with Suggestions
for Reorganization 50c. Digest of same, free on application
18 What Should New York's Next Mayor Do? 100.
19 School Progress and School Facts 25c.
REPORTS IN PROGRESS, JULY, 1909
Administration of Department of Water Supply, Gas and
Electricity
Real Estate Transactions, Department of Finance
Tenement House Administration
Bureau of Supplies and Repairs, Department of Police
Series of Reports: New York as Revenue Producer, as Budget
Maker, as Operator of Shops, etc.
* Out of print