- ; mm. FINANCING EDUCATION IN r FICfENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS L I B RARY OF THE UN IVE.R.SITY OF ILLINOIS C IZe2lf Financing Education in efficient school districts A Study of School Finance in Illinois FRANCIS G. CORNELL WILLIAM P. McLURE VAN MILLER RAYMOND E. WOCHNER BUREAU OF RESEARCH AND SERVICE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 1949 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/financingeducatiOOuniv c TLtzlj^ PREFACE This volume is a product of several members of the staff of the Bureau of Research and Service assigned to administrative research. The direc- tor served as chairman of the group and general editor and coordinated activities of the staff on the various projects contributing to this manu- script. Doctor McLure brought to the staff, in the second year of its work, a background of technical experience in school finance research. His contributions were of major scope not only in Chapters V, VI, and VIII, which he prepared, but in assistance he rendered in reviewing the entire manuscript. Doctor Miller was responsible for the studies and the preparation of the chapter on school housing. Doctor Wochner prepared the basic memoranda from which were written Chapters II, III, and IV. Norman Hoeft collaborated with Professor Miller in the preparation of Chapter IX. Helen Laverty assisted with general editing, making major contributions in the general rewriting of the manuscript for final publica- tion. A. R. Munse assisted Doctor McLure in the preparation of Chapter VIII. T. A. Phillips directed the laying out of hypothetical attendance centers on county maps which is reported in Chapter VII. Acknowledgments also are due Dr. M. R. Sumption of the Bureau staff and Dr. C. W. Odell of the College of Education, who assisted in planning the studies. Karl Massanari assisted with the drawing of the sample used in estimating school housing needs. Others who helped with the field work and statistical analyses were C. M. Hunt, D. M. Sharpe, D. J. Inabnit, Rosanna Shanks, and J. R. Hudgens. Dr. R. L. Hamon, chief of the School Housing Section, U. S. Office of Education, gave helpful suggestions on standards, cost units, and other aspects of the housing study. Dr. E. Glenn Featherston, pupil transporta- tion specialist in the School Administration Division of the U. S. Office of Education, was similarly helpful with the transportation study. Much of the work of the research staff would have been impossible without the fine cooperation of county superintendents, local school administrators, school custodians and other individuals in the local fields where the studies were made. Special appreciation is due Thomas J. Higgins and his staff in the Division of Building Surveys and to L. T. Johnson of the Division of Drafting of the Chicago public schools. The cooperation of several persons in the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is most gratefully acknowledged, particularly that of Superintendent Vernon L. Nickell, L. W. Hinton, E. J. Simon, J. E. Hill, L. J. Black, C. C. Byerly, and J. C. Mutch. The Bureau is indebted to the many specialists who received prelimi- nary drafts of basic memoranda for helpful comments and criticisms. Francis G. Cornell BUREAU OF RESEARCH AND SERVICE Staff Members who Participated in these Studies Senior Members Francis G. Cornell, Professor of Education, and Director, Bureau of Research and Service William P. McLure, Associate Professor of Education Van Miller, Associate Professor of Education R. E. Wochner, Assistant Professor of Education Other Staff Members Norman R. Hoeft, Research Assistant Helen Laverty, Research Associate Albert R. Munse, Research Assistant Thomas A. Phillips, Research Assistant CONTENTS I. Introduction 7 II. Pupil Distribution, School Districts, and Dollars 10 III. Background of Illinois' School Finance Problem 35 IV. Reorganizing School Districts 43 V. Comparable Units for Cost Analysis 49 VI. The Combined State-Local Pattern of Financial Support. ... 68 VII. A Hypothetical Plan of Optimum District Organization 85 VIII. The Scope of the Transportation of Pupils 90 IX. School Housing for Larger Attendance Units 108 Appendix I — Development of the Sparsity Formula 139 Appendix II — Technical Notes on Developing Methods of Estimat- ing School Transportation Cost in the State of Illinois 154 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The General Assembly shall provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools, whereby all children of this state may receive a good common school education. — Illinois Constitution In the United States, public education is the responsibility of the governments of the forty-eight states. Legislatures usually divide this responsibility between the state governments and local school authorities on a partnership basis. A considerable body of research and the accumulated experience of the states has resulted in a clarification of the principles and policies for the best success of such partnerships. 1 These principles and policies are, in general: 1. The state creates the pattern for local school organization, gives leadership and service, and prescribes certain minimum standards. 2. The local district school board controls the school program and the school budget, and is, in the main, independent of state, municipal, or other non-educational external authority. 3. The local district and the state share the financial support of the schools — the local district on the basis of its ability, and the state by supplementing local resources to guarantee a minimum level of expendi- ture. The local contribution usually is established by a uniform tax rate. This last is the now generally accepted principle of "equalization," which has evolved since the turn of the century — the principle that the states must give all children, on the farm or in the city, rich and poor alike, an equal foundation, or minimum education "for the fullest de- velopment of individuals and the total good of a democratic society." 2 The importance of local initiative, local responsibility, and local con- crol, however, is emphasized. The state guarantees the money for the foundation program, but the local school board, within the broad sphere of responsibility delegated 1 For a recent statement by national leaders and experts in school finance, see Guides — To the Development of State School Finance Programs. Washington, D. C: Committee on Tax Education and School Finance, NEA, June, 1949, 23 pp. Also, for the most recent summary of practices, see The Forty-Eight Stale School Systems, Chicago, Illinois: Council of State Governments, 1949. 245 pp. 2 National Education Association, op. cit., p. 9. [7] 8 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS to it by the legislature, decides how to spend it. For this reason, as well as for convenience and objectivity in making allotments, the foundation program generally is determined in dollars rather than in specific pro- gram requirements, and the money preferably is not earmarked. Each district also is responsible — according to its ability and its ambition — ■ for expanding and improving its own school program beyond the minimum. State aid should be sufficient to give leeway in each district for such improvement and to encourage it. Illinois, in general, follows these accepted principles, but, like most other states, it hasn't yet quite caught up with them. Putting the principles into practice is a highly complicated business, full of intricate and difficult problems, many of which are not yet even well understood. The authors planned this book to consider and analyze some of these problems. They do not profess directly to offer solutions. They hope to help you understand the problems. One of the first problems that comes up under any attempt at "equali- zation" is the one of redisricting, with which Illinois is now struggling. Already we have discovered that simple "consolidation" does not nec- essarily, and of itself, either save money or remove the inequities among school districts or among larger areas such as counties. A consideration of some of the factors involved — specifically, the problem of geographic distribution of pupils — provides the orientation for the studies which form this book. The first of these is the element of cost attached to variations in the density (or, to look at it another way, the sparsity) of school population. This study shows that even after reorganization, a state finance plan must reckon with school costs related to geographic distribution. Costs are greatest in areas of low population density. Much of the territory now least adequately organized consists of low density areas. The problems of redistricting and sparsity suggest two other prob- lems — transportation and housing. Suppose the whole state were suddenly redistricted, according to the very best of modern knowledge, into districts of efficient size, efficiently located. Would this lessen the need for state financial support of local schools? How much would it cost to build the necessary new buildings? How much would it cost to furnish bus rides for the children who must ride? Chapter II presents the gist of the analyses which appear in later chapters and in appendices. In it will be found the major conclusions in answer to the question, "What would the state finance situation be like INTRODUCTION 9 if all districts in the state were organized on such a basis that none would be inefficiently small?" When you're trying to solve a problem, you must have the facts. The authors hope to provide some of these facts and to suggest some of their implications for improving education in Illinois. Subsequent studies to be published by the staff of the Bureau of Research and Service will be concerned with specific plans for revision of the state school "finance system. CHAPTER II PUPIL DISTRIBUTION, SCHOOL DISTRICTS, AND DOLLARS This chapter is intended to present in simplified form a few of the major ideas basic to the provision of a minimum foundation program of education in public elementary and secondary schools in Illinois. Spe- cifically, it attempts to describe some of the problems which we would have even if we had made markedly greater progress than we have in the reorganization of local school districts. It is, for the most part, a sum- mary of studies discussed in detail in later chapters. State Guarantees Funds for Minimum Educational Program In the development of our public school systems, most states have followed the practice of establishing local school districts to operate and control the administration of schools. Many local districts, however, cannot provide the quality of education which the people of the state consider acceptable as a minimum. For this reason, states are providing a portion of the cost of school programs through central sources. These aids to school districts should be sufficient to guarantee a satisfactory foundation program of education in every district. The minimum founda- tion program is usually defined in terms of a required minimum level of expenditure below which no local school unit is permitted to go. In the State of Illinois, during the school year of 1946-1947, $183,- 939,582 came from local district taxes and $25,421,789 came from various grants-in-aid to districts from the state and federal government. (See Chart 1.) While the financing of schools in Illinois is split 88 per cent local and 12 per cent state, most of the states have found it necessary to pro- vide a much larger proportion of school funds from state governments. In 1946-1947, state governments furnished an average of approximately 38 per cent of the financial support of schools in the nation. In most studies which have compared several states on various meas- ures of school finance, the State of Illinois has not shown up too well. In the most recent of these, prepared for the Council of State Govern- ments, Illinois ranks not too favorably in the extent to which the state government has contributed to the support of local schools, as well as in some other aspects of financing education not to be discussed in detail in this report. 1 1 Council of State Governments. Op. cit. [10] CHART 1 Where the Money Comes From STATE GOVERNMENT $25,421,789 12 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS Schools Operated Through State and Local Partnership The commonly accepted relationship between the state government and the local school authority for providing "a thorough and efficient system of free schools" is one of partnership. State governments contribute to the partnership as follows: 1. Provide educational leadership to assist local districts to improve their programs of education. 2. Provide funds necessary to supplement local funds to guarantee the minimum foundation program to all children and youth throughout the state. 3. Administer certain activities, such as the certification of teachers, best handled on a state-wide basis to safeguard the quality of education. 4. Prescribe minimum standards, such as minimum length of school term, below which no district is permitted to fall. Local school districts contribute as follows: 1. Determine the nature of the local program which must be provided as a minimum within the framework of uniform state legislation. 2. Provide, at a fair rate of local taxation on property, enough money, along with state funds, for the minimum foundation program. 3. Determine the aspects of education beyond the minimum, which the people in the local districts desire to provide for their children. 4. Provide, through local taxation, such funds, beyond the minimum, as are necessary. Small Districts Interfere This type of partnership between the state government and the local school authorities cannot be brought about if local districts are too small to provide good programs of education. The elimination of small districts is important because: 1. They cannot provide learning experiences which can cope ade- quately with present-day needs. 2. The cost of such programs, even though inadequate, is very high, placing an undue financial burden both upon the citizens of such districts and upon other taxpayers in the state. In Illinois, the County School Survey Committee Act, passed in 1945, required each county superintendent to hold a public meeting of all mem- bers of school boards within the county to determine whether a school survey committee should be organized to review district organization. More has been achieved in this respect in some counties than in others, but whereas in 1945-1946 there were 11,784 local school districts in PUPIL DISTRIBUTION 13 Illinois, in March 1949, there were 5859. (See Chart 2.) Although there has been progress in reorganizing school districts, many are still too small. As recently as 1947, there were 4103 elementary schools with fewer than 16 pupils. If school districts are not large enough to provide a complete program of education with responsible local administration and control, the partnership plan, which depends heavily upon local control and local initiative in school affairs, cannot work. What Would the Finance Picture Be Like With Larger Districts? We may accept as an established fact, then, that one important method of improving education in Illinois is the elimination of small dis- tricts by the creation of larger ones; there are still too many small dis- tricts in the state. This volume has been prepared to take a look at the kind of financial situation we would have in Illinois if all districts were large enough to be satisfactory as responsible authorities for operating the -partnership program. An ideal district organization probably would require no more than a few hundred districts as a maximum in this state. Although some states have used the county as the smallest unit for local administration of schools, we are not recommending it as the best local unit for Illinois. However, we are presenting some facts for counties in the state just to see what the finance picture would be like if we were to deal with rela- tively large areas instead of the many small districts we now have. The Problem of Variations in School Operating Costs Which Are Not Classroom Costs To guarantee a modern program of education to all children in a state, regardless of where they reside, it is necessary to consider some geo- graphical factors which have been found to exert considerable influence on school costs. These are factors which contribute to the costs unre- lated to the quality of the educational program that goes on once the boy or the girl is in school. These factors are often disregarded in state school finance plans, and they operate to offset measures taken to equalize educational opportunity. Let us examine, for instance, the problem of operating a school pro- gram in a typical school district. Suppose that in this district there are 500 elementary school children and 250 high school students to be edu- cated. Some of the pupils in the district live in the urban center. For them, the greater part of school costs go directly to the activities affecting the ■+- u • MM Q "o o u CO E V) u D o c o +- ro N c ro c o ro N • MB c ro C* O cs h- C* k. < *5 X CO c o • BM -+- ro N • BBi c ro v. o - O < U PUPIL DISTRIBUTION 15 quality of the educational program. In this same district, however, there are a number of pupils scattered in the rural area. Providing the education for the rural pupils presents a problem. Two alternatives appear evident. In the first, the district may provide several smaller schools located near the children in rural areas. When this plan is followed, the trans- portation costs are negligible, but other costs are high, since (1) smaller attendance units usually result in fewer pupils per teacher, meaning that a greater number of teachers must be provided for a given number of pupils, (2) several school buildings must be maintained, and (3) a great deal of duplication of equipment occurs. This is the alternative illus- trated in Chart 3. The second alternative is for the district to transport pupils in out- lying areas to the larger central schools. In this event, fewer teachers may be needed, fewer buildings need to be maintained, and less duplica- tion of equipment occurs, but the cost for transporting pupils to the larger schools must be added. This is the alternative illustrated in Chart 4. In either case, there are added costs because of factors which do not improve the educational program materially. This situation is present in all counties of the State of Illinois, and we must consider it as realisti- cally in educational costs as we do when we buy the merchandise of the businessman and absorb his "overhead" costs or when we buy the farmer's produce which involves a "farm-to-market" cost. In the State of Illinois, financial assistance is provided from state funds for pupil transportation in local school districts. However, some districts receive a greater percentage of their total transportation costs from the state than others, by virtue of the fact that per-pupil costs vary greatly from district to district, and the formula restricts such aid to a maximum figure (currently $20 per pupil transported). In no event does the state allow more than three-fourths of actual costs. This plan of providing aid to local districts for transportation costs by separate appropriations, if adequate, affords one way of taking care of such aid. However, because transportation is only one of several fac- tors involved in extra costs arising from variations in the distribution of pupils, this study presents transportation as part of all the extra cost elements to be taken into account. There are certain advantages in a state aid plan which follows this unified approach. How Do These Added Factors Affect the Cost of the Educational Program? Through the application of formulas which have been developed for this purpose, it is possible to determine, with considerable accuracy, the effect which these added costs have upon the total school expenditures in — ■ CHART 3. Many small rural schools mean high maintenance costs, low transportation costs "% High School Students Rural Schools Elementary Students Nearby Town or City CHART 4. One large central school means low maintenance costs, high transportation costs > High School Students Elementary Students Nearby Town or City 18 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS Illinois counties. 2 These formulas take into account the distribution of the student population in the county. When applied, the formulas show the additional number of pupils that could be educated with the money needed to take care of this pupil distribution. This is sometimes called the factor of population sparsity. Chart 5 shows this factor in terms of the equivalent additional num- ber of pupils which it represents in nine counties. These nine counties were selected for illustrative purposes in such a way that they represent a wide range of geographic location, degree of urbanization, and wealth per school child from among the 102 counties of the state. In order to have enough money to educate the actual number of school children in each county, it is necessary to figure in the equivalent additional cost. For instance, in Will County there are 13,721 pupils. If the intention were to provide $100 worth of education for each pupil, on an average, it would take more than $100 times 13,721 — more than $1,372,100. The sparsity factor for operating small schools or trans- portation, or both, represents an additional load which, in effect, is the same as 2521 additional pupils, or $252,100. To provide a $100 school program per pupil would therefore require not $100 for 13,721 pupils, but $100 for 16,242 pupils. Similarly, the complete cost load (not consider- ing cost for building construction) in pupil-units for the other selected counties is shown in Chart 6 and in Table I. TABLE I Actual, Number of Pupils in Average Daily Attendance and Number Necessary to Allow for Sparsity Factor in Number of Pupils, Nine Illinois Counties, 1947 Actual Number of Sparsity Factor in County Pupils in A.D.A. Number of Pupils Total Number Per Cent Per Cent of Pupils to Number of of Count as Column 6 Number Column 6 Cost Units (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) Will 13,721 84.5 2,521 15.5 16,242 Peoria 19,970 90.9 2.007 9.1 21,977 Iroquois 4,973 67.6 2,381 32.4 7,354 Putnam 787 66.7 393 33.3 1,180 Clinton 2,521 72.3 964 27.7 3,485 Fulton 7,098 78.4 1,952 21.6 9,050 Edwards 1.296 69.0 583 310 1.879 Hamilton 2,206 70.1 942 29.9 3,148 Jackson 5,999 80.0 1,497 20.0 7,496 ! See Chapter V, "Comparable Units for Cost Analysis." CHART 5. Pupil Cost Units in Nine Counties No. of Pupils 20,000 18,000 16,000 14,000 12,000 ■■ — 10,000 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 Showing Actual Number of Pupils plus number added for Sparsity Factor Sparsity Factor in Terms of Additional Pupils to Educate Actual Number of Pupils to Educate lO (/> z _J _l < s o O a o < Z h- z o 1- z z o Q < o h- _i s < X z o in £ LLI Q. CtL 13 a. _J 3 LL. Q LLI < 20 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS In Table I we see that in all counties this sparsity factor represents a sizable relationship to the basic measure of teaching load, the number attending. In Peoria County, it represents a 10 per cent cost increase. On the other extreme, it represents a cost increase of 50 per cent in Putnam County. In the former, school children are mostly in urban centers and, therefore, grouped closely together. In the latter, school children are more widely distributed. This shows how important it is to take the sparsity units into account and how the factor affects costs when counties vary so much. While Peoria County must add only $10 for each $100 it finds it needs for the essential costs of the school program (teachers' salaries, supplies, main- tenance and operating costs, and supervisory and other salaries), Putnam County must allow $50 for each $100 of effective school spending. Chart 6 shows this in another way. It tells us for each of the same nine counties how much must be discounted from every $100 to account for the non-classroom costs of population sparsity and how much is left exclusively for the task of educating boys and girls. For instance, in Will County, $100 per pupil in average daily attendance will produce only $85 worth of education. Of each $100, in Iroquois County $32 must be charged as "home-to-school" costs, just as the farmer accounts for "farm- to-market" costs. This leaves only $68 for educational purposes. It should be noted that the correction in costs discussed above would be needed in areas reorganized into more adequate districts. As a matter of fact, similar comparisons for areas smaller than the county would show even larger differences. The point we are making here is that even if we were to reorganize districts into units as large as the county, there still would be great in- equities among districts which the plan of state finance must take into account. It is evident from this discussion that reorganization of districts alone does not eliminate differences among districts in conditions affecting school costs. The data appearing in Table I and Charts 5 and 6 are brought up to date for the most recent available year for all counties in Chapter V. To sum up: 1. In no county can we get for strictly instructional purposes 100 cents on the dollar spent for school current operating costs. 2. The factor of geographic distribution of children takes up sizable proportions of the school dollar. 3. In some counties this leaves barely more than 60 cents on the dollar for the school program. CHART 6. How Each $100 for Schools Is Spent in Nine Counties Remainder for Educational Program Cost of Sparsity Factor 22 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS 4. What counties get in dollar value varies considerably according to the geographic distribution of school children. 5. In order to get a true picture of finance per pupil, it is better to adjust the pupil count to include allowances for the sparsity factor than it is to use a straight pupil count. The following discussion ex- plains this in detail. 6. What is said of counties would be true of districts in a plan of re- organization somewhere between the present organization and the county unit extreme. t. The Adjusted Number of Pupils in Relation to Property Valuation In studies of school finance it is important to know how local units differ in financial ability to provide education. This is usually done by dividing property valuation by the number of pupils, thus getting the valuation per pupil. Property valuation is useful as an index of local ability, since most local funds for schools come from taxes on property. Although the Illinois Department of Revenue strives to equalize prop- erty valuations at 100 per cent of cash value, it is recognized that some deviations from this objective may exist among counties. Greater varia- tions occur, however, within counties, because of local original assess- ment figures and the use of a correction multiplier which is applied to all property in the county. When the multiplier is applied to property assessed at the extremes, low and high, in relation to other property, in- accuracies; and inequities inevitably occur. Comparisons on a county - wic e. basis; however, minimize these variations. : [There are other methods which might be used for determining ability of counties to pay for education. For our purposes we will use the better- known assessed valuation with corrections. :Chart 7 shows the average amount of assessed valuation of property per pupil in average daily attendance for Illinois counties in 1947-1948. The bars are divided into two parts. The part at the extreme right is the proportionate part of the valuation in each county which must be counted in order to take care of these "non-classroom" or sparsity costs which we have been analyzing. The left part of each bar represents what is left in valuation per pupil after this "overhead" burden is deducted. The truest picture of the relative financial ability is obtained by counting only the left hand part of each bar, thus excluding the valua- tion chargeable to extraneous costs. The length of the left hand portion of 3ach bar is determined by dividing assessed valuation in each county by the adjusted number of pupils, that is, the actual number plus the equivalent number in cost terms to be added for the sparsity factor. The CHART 7. Financial Ability of Counties WEALTH PEK PUPIL COUNTY $o 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 $50,000 PIATT LAKE WILL LA SALLE CHAMPAIGN LIVINGSTON MC LEAN COOK PEORIA KANE KENDALL LEE DEKALB DU PAGE LOGAN GRUNDY IROQUOIS FORD MC HENRY EDGAR WARREN DOUGLAS WOODFORD WINNEBAGO KANKAKEE ADAMS MARSHALL MOULTRIE SANGAMON DE WITT MACON OGLE MENARD BUREAU STEPHENSON MC DONOUGH KNOX HENDERSON HENRY MADISON ST. CLAIR BOONE STARK TAZEWELL COLES PUTNAM WHITESIDE MONROE MORGAN CHRISTIAN VERMILION CARROLL WASHINGTON ROCK ISLAND HANCOCK MASON MERCER CLINTON WABASH RICHLAND WHITE SHELBY MONTGOMERY FULTON JO DAVIESS FAYETTE BROWN SCHUYLER PIKE MACOUPIN EDWARDS SCOTT BOND CUMBERLAND HAMILTON CLARK JEFFERSON RANDOLPH WAYNE CRAWFORD EFFINGHAM JERSEY MARION JASPER CASS GREENE CLAY PERRY JACKSON FRANKLIN LAWRENCE GALLATIN ALEXANDER SALINE CALHOUN UNION WILLIAMSON HARDIN MASSAC JOHNSON POPE PULASKI '*SSSS r SSSfS/7SSSSSSSSSSSSSS*Srjr**SSSSSSSS*. 'ssssssssssssssssssssjr&ss*. 'sss/sssssssssssssssssJ'rsjm 'sssssss/ssssssssssssssssa 'ssssssssssssjrssssssssssjrft 'SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSAX 'SSSSSS*SSSSSSSSSSSSSS/YSA\ 'SSSS/SS/SS//S/SSSSSSSSS*M •SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSJ* ■ssss///ss*xf*ss/sss/sssjm sss/sssssssssssssssxsss'jm sssssssssssssssssssssssm sss/sss/s/sss///ss/////— ysssssssssysyssssssssss. YSS/SS////S/S/SS/S//SSSi yssyysyssssyyyssssyysy/\ ysssssysssssssssssssssy\ yss/s/sss/ssss/ssssss/jl fsss/ssssssss/sssssyxsm fs/sssssssysssssssssssm f/s//ss//s//s/ssss/sysjm rss/ssssssssssssssssssm f////////SS//SSS/SS/SSM rsssssssss*ss/ssssss/s~ fSSSS/SSSSSSSSSSSS/SSS: fSS*/S/S//S/SSSSS//*/S\ rSSSSSSSSSSSSSS/S/SSSjl 'S/S///SS/SSSSSSSSSSSM 'SSSSSSSSSSS/SSSSSSS/M 'SS/SSS//SSSSSSSSSSSS r*//ss//s//sss///s/sj\ 'yyyyyysssssssssssssa 'syssysysysyssyssyssa 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyA 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyym 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyym 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyym 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy/m yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy/r yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyj YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYA //////////////////- yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyj YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYJ YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYA YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYW /////////////////- yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.\ yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyx /yyyyyyyyyyyyyyya syyyyyyyyyyyyyyya J /yyyyyyyyyyyyyyya yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy /'Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy /yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyyyyya 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyya 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyya 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyyx 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyya 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyyv 'YYYYYYYYYYYYYJ\ 'YYYYYYYYYYY/J YYYYYYYYYYYY* YYYYYYYYYYYY* YYYYYYYYYYYYj\ YYYYYYYYYYYYj ////////////il ////////////J yyyyyyyyyyyy\ yyyyyyyyyyyy ~ YYYYYYYYYYYS /YYYYYYYYYYA /YYYYYYYYYYA /YYYYYYYYYYA /YYYY/YYYYY. /YYYYYYYYYY /YYYYYYYYYYX /YYYYYYYYY/X 'YYYYY/YYY/\ 'YYYYYYYYY/W /YYYYYYYYYA\ 'ssss/ssssn fYYYYYYYYY/l 'YYYYYYYYYj- 'YYYYYYYYY.\ 'YYYYYYYYYt 'YYYYYYYYA 'YYYYYYYYA 'YYYYYYSYA 'YYYYYYYY- YYYYYYYY YYYYYYY.% YYYYYY/ YYYYYJ YYYYYJ 'YYYYS- WM L_ Amount of Local Wealth (as- sessed valuations) per Pupil in Average Daily Attendance Amount of Local Wealth per Pupil Available for Educational Program Amount of Local Wealth per Pupil Necessary to Pay Extra Costs Arising from Sparsity of Rural School Population 24 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS right hand portion represents the burden which property valuation in each county must bear to take care of the sparsity costs. The length of both parts of the bar beside each county shows the valuation per pupil without this adjustment. It Makes a Difference A glance at Chart 7 will show that it makes quite a difference whether one uses the adjusted or the unadjusted number of pupil units in analyz- ing costs. For example, at the top of the chart, Piatt County has an average of $53,225 of assessed wealth per pupil in actual average daily attendance, yet only $38,038 per pupil unit. Of the total of 2718 children in Piatt County, 2325 are rural children. The conditions under which the rural pupils are scattered over considerable territory (sparsely settled) increases the per capita cost of these children in an amount equivalent to the cost of 1086 additional pupils. Therefore, Piatt County's apparent wealth per pupil is $53,225. Its true wealth, the amount avail- able for effective educational purposes, is $38,038. On the other hand, Lake County, second in local ability, has an average of $26,645 per pupil in actual attendance but $24,552 per pupil unit of educational need. The apparent ability of a county to finance education is found from reading the total length of the bar, including both sections. But the sparsity of rural school children in increasing the cost of education has the effect of increasing the number of pupils and thus decreasing the amount of effective wealth per pupil. Therefore, in terms of the educa- tional program that may be provided, counties are actually less wealthy than they appear to be from the definition of assessed value per pupil in actual attendance. It will be noted that the average amount of wealth required to pay the extra costs arising from sparsity of rural pupils is not related to true ability of the county. The amount of per capita wealth required to pay these extra costs is determined by the area and the number of children living in sparsely settled areas. The dark portion of each bar represents the average amount of assessed wealth per pupil unit in each county. In other words, this dark portion of the bars shows the relative wealth of each county avail- able to share in the support of any given educational program. It will be noted that counties are listed in descending order of wealth per unit of need. It is interesting to note that the variation in ability from the wealthiest county, Piatt, to the poorest, Pulaski, is from $38,038 to $2728 per pupil unit. This is a ratio of 14 to 1. At a given effort (i.e. at a uniform rate of taxation) the poorest county can raise only one- fourteenth as much revenue per unit of educational need as the most able county can raise. PUPIL DISTRIBUTION 25 Dollar Amount of State Aid Under Present System Let us now take a look at some of the facts which come out in a study of Illinois counties using the adjusted pupil unit as a measure of educa- tional load in counties. It has already been noted (Chart 7) that the counties have been arranged from wealthiest to poorest in terms of assessed valuation per adjusted pupil. Therefore, if state aid per pupil (adjusted) has an equal- izing effect, there will tend to be more state money per pupil unit in counties lowest in the chart. The figures are as follows for the nine sample counties: State Aid per County Adjusted Unit Will S27.62 Peoria 29.84 Iroquois 23.85 Putnam 25.50 Clinton 22.29 Fulton 27.98 Edwards 18.87 Hamilton 39.43 Jackson 44.62 Jackson and Hamilton Counties, the two poorest counties in terms of valuation per adjusted pupil unit, received more than wealthier counties above that mark. For the other seven counties, however, the pattern of what share the state has in the cost of operating schools is very irregular. The existing system of grants of state aid to schools in Illinois pro- vides funds directly to local school districts. Some of these are ''flat grants," that is, flat amounts per pupil in average daily attendance. Addi- tional sums are made available to about one-half of the districts in the state according to their financial ability. There are also grants for the transportation of pupils and vocational education. This plan is justi- fiable in terms of the best experience which states have had in state financing of schools. When the unit used is unadjusted average daily attendance, however, the pattern of state contribution is not a smooth progression from wealthy to poor counties. From the standpoint of the desirable goal of large units of administra- tion locally, and taking into account the kinds of statistical cost units which reflect the true picture of financial needs in districts, it is evident that the existing system of distribution of state funds achieves ends other than guaranteeing a minimum program of education. In addition to the comparatively larger sums going to wealthier counties because of the flat grant feature of the state finance system, the state is now allocating to these wealthy areas large sums of money on an equalization basis because 26 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS of the existing system of district organization. That is to say, under the system which permits relatively wealthy sections of the state to be split up in a myriad of tiny administrative units, within a relatively wealthy area may be found school districts which must draw upon the assistance of the state under the present system. Under reorganization which would result in districts more nearly approximating the county in size, the state could concentrate its share in contributing to the equalization of educa- tional opportunity in the poorer areas, it being not necessary to send, as it now does, large sums of equalization monies into the relatively finan- cially able counties of the state. Dollar Amount of Local Contribution In a program of public education which is thought of as a "partner- ship" program involving the joint financial support of state and local government, it is important to examine the local as well as the state share of cost. An appropriate method of comparing local expenditures is in relation to variations in local taxpaying ability. The upper bar for each county in Chart 8 shows what each county spent per adjusted pupil unit from local sources in 1947-1948. Since the counties are arranged from highest down to lowest in assessed valuation per pupil unit, it is not surprising that the local ex- penditure bars tend to be longest for counties at the top of the chart. A given rate of taxation yields more revenue in counties with more prop- erty valuation. The trend is not a regular one, however, because some counties exert a greater tax effort than others. This may be seen in Chart 8 by com- paring the actual expenditure bars with those representing a constant tax rate in all counties. The lower bars at the right of each county in the chart represent the amounts per pupil unit each county would have spent from local funds if each had spent at the same rate of effort. This "average rate" of effort is equivalent to a tax rate of 95 cents per $100 on assessed valuation. The latter bars, therefore, represent what might be expected in the way of local expenditure for schools if: 1. All counties would levy at about the same rate as the present average, and 2. Proper allowance were made for the sparsity factor. The tables presenting the statistics on which the foregoing analysis was based appear in Chapter V, along with an additional analysis of the inequalities which are found to exist, using a unit of educational need which has been discussed in treating areas of the state as large as counties. CHART 8. Local Expenditures per Pupil COUNTY Unit, 1947-1948 EXPENDITURE PER PUPIL UNIT *0 80 I60 PIATT LAKE WILL LA SALLE CHAMPAIGN LIVINGSTON MC LEAN COOK PEORIA KANE KENDALL LEE DE KALB DU PAGE LOGAN GRUNDY IROQUOIS FORD MC HENRY EDGAR WARREN DOUGLAS WOODFORD WINNEBAGO KANKAKEE ADAMS MARSHALL MOULTRIE SANGAMON DE WITT MACON OGLE MENARD BUREAU STEPHENSON MC DONOUGH KNOX HENDERSON HENRY MADISON ST. CLAIR BOONE STARK TAZEWELL COLES PUTNAM WHITESIDE MONROE MORGAN CHRISTIAN VERMILION CARROLL WASHINGTON ROCK ISLAND HANCOCK MASON MERCER CLINTON WABASH RICHLAND WHITE SHELBY MONTGOMERY FULTON JO DAVIESS FAYETTE BROWN SCHUYLER PIKE MACOUPIN EDWARDS SCOTT BOND CUMBERLAND HAMILTON CLARK JEFFERSON RANDOLPH WAYNE CRAWFORD EFFINGHAM JERSEY MARION JASPER CASS GREENE CLAY PERRY JACKSON FRANKLIN LAWRENCE GALLATIN ALEXANDER UNION WILLIAMSON HARDIN MASSAC JOHNSON POPE PULASKI 240 320 ?400 in' ■n«i«i»«ii» Sff - \Wn((<{((< K-. ■m »;wmi— lill mmmmmm jmmmmmmittmm mmma m mmmmmm mm I mmmmmm mmmmmm* mmmmmmmmmmmmm ■w mmm n ■ ■ uhMuh mmmm -- mmmmmm mm ■ ■■ ■n urn I in -, ■inn i —i— Ht WMm J Actual Expenditure per Unit from Local Taxes Pupil Amount from Local Taxes at State Average Rate of 95 Cents per $100 of Assessed Valuation 28 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS The analyses show that, though it might tend to shift the direction of state aid to certain parts of the state, the reorganization of school districts into units even as large as counties would not overcome inequalities and inequities in financial status of districts. The implication for state finance is twofold: 1. Even with reorganization which will tend to overcome many in- equalities, state aid is necessary to supplement contributions possible to local units, and 2. With large units of administration, funds available from state sources can be used to greater efficiency in reaching those areas in which assistance is most greatly needed. The Combined State-Local Pattern The way the state's contribution and the local contribution combine to support schools is shown in Chart 9. The bars at the left of the chart are the same as the "average rate" bars in Chart 8. They show the present local expenditure — smoothed to show how it would be if the local rate of effort in each county were the average. The bars at the right represent state aid. These, combined with the bars at the left, show the expected total expenditure per pupil unit with: 1. State aid as it was in 1947-1948, and 2. Local expenditure which might be expected at 1947-1948 average local tax rates. This, of course, does not take into account any additional effort which local units might choose to exert by additional levies on local real estate. Chart 9 is useful in observing certain things about the existing pattern of state-local support of schools in Illinois. In the first place, we see that the amount of funds from local sources (left hand bars) is considerably greater than that from state sources (right hand bars.) In the second place, when local areas as large as the county are con- sidered, the distribution of state funds does not produce a great amount of equalization. Though there is justification for such an allocation so that all counties — rich and poor alike — receive some of the state funds, larger proportions of state funds would be needed to bring up expendi- tures in poorest counties. In the third place, the effective minimum program now supported in the state is under $100 per unit. The combined bars in Chart 9 for Pul- aski County total only $87. However, this system of reckoning figures the local contribution at the present average rate of taxation (95 cents CHART 9. Local Taxing Ability of Counties Compared with Amount of State Aid Received, 1947-1948 COUNTY, I '100. >200. '300. PIATT LAKE WILL LA SALLE CHAMPAIGN LIVINGSTON MC LEAN COOK PEORIA KANE KENDALL LEE DE KALB DU PAGE LOGAN GRUNDY IROQUOIS FORD MC HENRY EDGAR WARREN DOUGLAS WOODFORD WINNEBAGO KANKAKEE ADAMS MARSHALL SANGAMON MOULTRIE DE win MACON OGLE MENARD BUREAU STEPHENSON MC DONOUGH KNOX HENDERSON HENRY MADISON ST. CLAIR BOONE STARK TAZEWELL COLES PUTNAM WHITESIDE MORGAN MONROE CHRISTIAN VERMILION CARROLL WASHINGTON ROCK ISLAND HANCOCK MASON MERCER CLINTON r w M WHITE SHELBY MONTGOMERY FULTON JO DAVIESS FAYETTE BROWN SCHUYLER PIKE MACOUPIN EDWARDS SCOTT BOND CUMBERLAND HAMILTON CLARK JEFFERSON RANDOLPH WAYNE CRAWFORD EFFINGHAM JERSEY MARION JASPER CASS GREENE CLAY PERRY JACKSON FRANKLIN LAWRENCE GALLATIN ALEXANDER SALINE CALHOUN UNION WILLIAMSON HARDIN MASSAC JOHNSON POPE PULASKI m y:::-:- I Amount of Local Funds per Pupil Unit at Average Tax Rate of 95 Cents per $100 of Assessed Val- uation Amount of State Aid per Pupil Unit Received, 1947-1948 30 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS per $100 full valuation), which is about all that is reasonable to expect from any county. In other words, if the people in Pulaski County were to have funds from local sources to use in excess of a minimum program, not all of the local expenditure bar in Chart 9 should be required of Pulaski County as a qualifying rate for the minimum program. The real mini- mum program, one which leaves leeway for local support beyond the minimum, is therefore considerably less than $100. It probably is little more the $47 per unit in state aid which is received on the average in this county. It is doubtful that the people of the state are willing to accept a minimum as low as this. A satisfactory minimum expenditure for modern educational programs is probably near $200 per pupil unit. Finally, if it is desired in Illinois to: 1. Increase financial support for education to provide a partnership plan of state and local financing of a higher minimum program than that now assured, 2. Anticipate an organization involving large districts, more like counties than our smallest districts today, 3. Leave some taxing power in the hands of local units above that required for this minimum, 4. Avoid additions to the already overburdened tax on property, 5. Take into consideration the sparsity or "farm-to-market" cost of schools, It will be necessary to: 1. Increase state funds for schools, 2. Hasten reorganization of school districts, 3. Channel relatively larger amounts of funds into poorer areas, even though additional funds might be needed in wealthy areas, too, 4. Seek sources of revenue other than property tax revenue, 5. Use measures of cost and expenditure in the finance plan which take into account marked variations in the effects of sparsity, or establish separate means of improved financing of transportation and/or high costs of small schools. A further analysis of the state-local finance pattern based on large units, such as the county, appears in some detail in Chapter VI. In that chapter it is shown that to finance a genuine foundation level of $160 per unit based upon a local contribution of 50 cents per $100 of assessed valuation would require $76 million of state aid annually for equalizing current expenditures alone. Costs of Transportation Obviously, one major and perennial cost of the sort of redistricting we have discussed would be for getting the children to and from the new, larger schools. This cost has been taken into account in the sparsity analysis — but what would it be in actual dollars (1) for each district? (2) for the entire state? Purely to give us a working basis to study this and other problems, we PUPIL DISTRIBUTION 31 imagined the Illinois school system reorganized so that each county was a school district. Then on a map of each county we established hypothet- ical "attendance districts" :! located thus: At least one high school and one elementary school centrally located in each county, and others where a high school enrollment of 700 or an elementary enrollment of 300 would justify it, all located so that every pupil would live within 45 minutes distance by school bus. It is clear that among these hypothetical districts, costs would vary according to how widely the children were scattered. For example, nor- mally it would cost more to transport 100 children scattered over 50 square miles of territory than it would cost if they were scattered over 10 square miles. Then, too, costs would vary again, although generally to less extent, according to the way children were scattered over the rural territory of the district. For example, it might cost more to transport 100 children scattered over 100 square miles of territory under circum- stances where they live close together on few roads, than under other conditions where they lived about an even distance apart and scattered on many roads. In other words, the way children are scattered as well as the density of the district's school population must be taken into account. One way we have devised to do this is to lay out a district in one- mile bands, 4 outside a center block of walking-distance radius around the school. No mileage is counted within this block. Homes within the first mile-wide band around the center block are counted, and the number multiplied by two (for two miles from the school) . Homes within the next outer band likewise are counted, and their number multiplied by three, and so on to the limits of the district. By this procedure we were able to get the total number of "home-to- school" miles in each district. Questionnaires were sent to 100 unit-district schools asking: capacity of buses used; purchase price of each bus; annual charges for deprecia- tion, insurance, and storage; cost of drivers' salaries, gas and oil, and maintenance and repair; total annual mileage; and total cost per mile. Answers were received from 69 districts. As would be expected, there was a very wide range in these costs. We concluded, however, that the median costs 5 per bus mile for buses of different capacities could be used as a reasonable basis for estimating the potential cost in 31 sample districts. Theoretical bus routes were laid out on maps of each of the 31 dis- tricts to carry all rural school children to the largest city or village in 3 See Chapter VII and Chart 16. " See Chart 19, Chapter VIII. 6 See Table XI, Chapter VIII. 32 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS the district, to provide door-to-door pickup, and to take no child more than 45 minutes to get to school. The total annual bus mileage for 180 days was figured, and the total cost for each hypothetical district was computed by using the actual median costs per bus mile in 1948. These estimates varied with each district, all the way from a low of $5691 (Auburn) to a high of $37,075 (Paris). Using the data accumulated in these 31 district studies, we worked out a formula which can be applied to any district to estimate what school transportation would cost under the hypothetical district organiza- tion described. This is the formula: X ± = 3.0160X 2 -4- $5436, where X 1 is the estimated cost in dollars, and X 2 is the sum of home-to-school miles, as described earlier. Applying this formula to every hypothetical district in all of Illinois, 6 we reached the estimate that to transport every child who lives beyond walking distance to a properly located school of efficient size would cost the people of the state about $17.5 million a year. It should be understood clearly that this is only an estimate, and that it might vary as much as a couple of million dollars either way ; but it is sufficiently accurate to give us a fair idea of what we may count on in the future in terms of 1948 prices. Costs of Building It becomes apparent immediately that to close thousands of tiny schools all over Illinois and to send every child to a properly sized school centrally located would require a lot of new school building — at a cost roughly and conservatively estimated at about $425 million, or nearly half a billion. However, even to provide adequate modern buildings under the pre- sent district setup would be a great expense, and this, of course, would be absorbed and included in the hypothetical county-district reorganiza- tion on which these studies are based. To estimate what the state would need in new buildings under such a reorganization and what it would cost, we made specific field studies of 21 sample counties, selected to be as representative as possible in ratio of rural and urban population. We assumed that if we knew the number of school-age children in each county and the number for which school facilities are now avail- able in the hypothetical centers that the difference would be the number for whom new building would be required. 6 See Table XIV, Chapter VIII. PUPIL DISTRIBUTION 33 The following standards were assumed as acceptable for a modern school program: 1. Each elementary school should have a five-acre site, with one additional acre for each 100 pupils — that is, a school for 300 children should have eight acres. 2. Each high school should have 10 acres, with one additional for each 100 pupils — that is, a school of 700 should have 17 acres. 3. Buildings should include 30 square feet of classroom space for each pupil, and the same amount of non-classroom space, such as librar- ies, auditoriums, cafeterias, health services, and offices — with gym- nasiums in addition. In the 21-county sample survey, we studied 325 buildings in the hypo- thetical centers designated — all the buildings now available except one- room buildings and those of frame construction. We interviewed county superintendents as to other available facilities which might make alter- native centers. The number of acres in each site, the possibilities of expansion, the number and size of classrooms, and the floor areas of the buildings and of gymnasiums were computed in terms of the number of pupils for which they were adequate. Using these data, we established a ratio to estimate the total state needs for the 101 counties outside Cook County, for which a separate estimate was made. The results showed that less than one-third of the children of school age in Illinois would have adequate school sites to meet modern stand- ards. Additional acreage would have to be acquired for more than two- thirds of them. They showed that only about three-fifths of the children would have adequate gymnasium space, but that nearly three-fourths of them would have other-than-classroom facilities (such as libraries, cafeterias, audi- toriums, and offices). Or to put it another way: Of the 739,432 school-age children in the 101 counties, 533,313 would need new sites, 305,867 would need new classrooms, 345,505 would need new gymnasiums, and 196,901 would need new other-than-classroom accommodations. This was all outside of Cook County, but about 40 per cent of all the school-age children in the state live in Cook County. The estimate of the Chicago schools' Division of Building Surveys on site needs was accepted. It called for 773 acres for $3,045,000, plus four athletic fields at $500,000 each, or a total of $5,045,000. A separate study made by our survey group estimated that Cook County needs extra classrooms for 90,261 children. 34 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS Added to the estimate for the 101 other counties, this means that under our hypothetical attendance district pattern, Illinois would have to build new classrooms for 396,128 pupils, or well over a third of a million. What would it cost to buy all that needed new land and build all those needed new buildings? Translating the needs of 533,313 pupils into acres, it was estimated that the 101 counties outside Cook County would need to buy 8479 acres, which at $3000 an acre would be $25,437,000. And adding the $5,045,000 for Chicago gives a total of $30,482,000 that it would cost to buy the additional sites that would be necessary. Because building costs differ so greatly with place and time, it was difficult to reach a satisfactory estimate for the state. But using the conservative figure of $1000 per pupil, the needed buildings would cost $396,128,000. Adding the estimated costs of sites, $30,482,000, and of buildings, $396,128,000, we get a total of $426,610,000, the amount it would cost to provide adequate school housing for the state under our hypothetical county-district program. In addition to this original capital cost, annual maintenance costs of repair, alteration, and replacement also would have to be provided. At present, school housing in Illinois (as in most states) is financed by local districts, usually by special levies and the sale of bonds. But it is clear that no program of such magnitude as just outlined ever is likely to be put into effect by local district initiative. It would require state leadership, state organization, and probably substantial state financing — perhaps on somewhat the same partnership basis be- tween state and district as already has been adopted for operating the schools, once they are built. These are problems requiring a great deal more study and understand- ing before any decisions or final solutions can be reached. This book offers the beginnings of such study and, we hope, a start toward better understanding. CHAPTER III BACKGROUND OF ILLINOIS' SCHOOL FINANCE PROBLEM Illinois' school finance system is deeply rooted, and many of today's problems result from the need to gather a twentieth-century harvest from nineteenth-century roots — a process which requires some very expert pruning and grafting. Yet the original planting was sound and democratic, and as we face the one big problem which embraces most of the others today, the problem of a true statewide equalization on a minimum base, it is interesting to examine those original roots. It is curiously interesting to realize, for example, that the Illinois pub- lic school system originated with federal land grants 1 made 40 years be- fore the General Assembly passed the first free school law in 1825 — made when Congress in 1785 reserved the sixteenth section in each original township in all the Northwest Territory for the support of schools. In Illinois these grants amounted to 996,320 acres. The lands were granted directly to the inhabitants of the township for the support of education within it and were controlled and managed by local land control officers. There in the very beginning, you have the dual function of central support and local control which is a part of today's philosophy. Also there you can identify the root, no doubt once sound and vital, of the surviving township treasurer-and-trustees system which for more than 35 years has been recognized as deadwood sorely in need of pruning. The federal government made other large grants of both land and money to support education in Illinois: 121,629 acres of salt lands in 1818, more large land grants, not earmarked for education but profitable to it, in 1841 and 1850, $613,362.96 paid by the federal treasury into the Illinois Common School Fund between 1820 and 1860, and $335,592.32 allocated to Illinois schools under the Federal Surplus Revenue Act of 1837. The waste of these early federal resources which might have proved so rich an investment for the public schools of today is sadly described by Weber. 2 Both the federal monies and the funds from the sale of the land "were deposited in the state treasury, only to be borrowed by the state to construct roads and canals. . . . The fund is a mere myth." All 'Weber, O. F. The Problem of School Organization and Finance in Illinois. University of Illinois Bulletin. Urbana, Illinois: October 18, 1938. pp. 32-33. 2 Ibid. [35] 36 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS there is left of it is $57,000 a year in interest, still regularly appropriated to the schools and paid out of tax income. Most school support in Illinois (as in nearly all other states) now is from local taxation. In 1946-1947 it was 88 per cent 3 from local sources, and only 12 per cent from state and federal combined. We think of this local support as traditional and historical, which makes it peculiarly interesting to consider that the first free school law in Illinois provided that $2 out of each $100 of state treasury receipts be appropriated for free schools. Even though there is no evidence 4 that any such money ever was appropriated, and the act was repealed four years later, in 1829 it was an interesting precedent. It also is interesting to note that in 1856, nearly 100 years ago, the state contributed about two-thirds of the total expenditures for public schools 5 (as compared with one-eighth 90 years later), a proportion never equalled since. From 1855 to 1873 a state-wide two-mill property tax was levied for state aid to schools, and collections were from $600,000 to $900,000 an- nually, amounts which provided about 67 per cent of the total costs of schools in the state in 1856, but only 13 per cent by 1873. The proportion of state to local funds never has varied greatly during the 75 years since that. In 1873 the law was changed, and from 1873 to 1910, inclusive, the General Assemblies regularly appropriated $1 million annually for school aid, plus the $57,000 interest which was (and still is) an odd little sou- venir of early federal encouragement of public schools in Illinois. Since 1910, state school aid appropriations have increased rapidly. 6 The state-wide property tax continued as the main source of school funds until 1934. Since then, the State Retailers' Occupation Tax (two per cent sales tax) provides the common school fund. Special aids do not come from the school fund but from the general revenues, as was the case with the recent $6 per pupil emergency grant. For 1945-1947 the 64th General Assembly appropriated $54,929,818 to aid the state's public schools — $44,087,300 to the common school fund; $10,842,516 to special aids. For 1947-1949 these figures were increased to $82,178,909, with $65,- 653,000 for the common school fund, $16,525,909 for special aids. For 1949-1951 state aid was increased to $126,509,147, with $100,- 319,000 for the common school fund and. $26,190,147 for special aids. The State of Illinois offers three types of aid to local school districts: 3 See Chapter II. 4 Weber, op. cit., p. 49. 5 School Finance and Tax Commission. State Support of Public Education in Illinois. Springfield, Illinois: March, 1947. p. 36. " Ibid., p. 99. BACKGROUND OF FINANCE PROBLEM 37 general aid, equalization aid, and special aids. For 50 years, from 1873 to 1923, general aid was distributed to all schools in the state simply "in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in each county, under the age of 21 years." In 1923 the following so-called "budget-plan" 7 was devised: a. 70 cents for each teacher-school-day. b. For each week, not exceeding 36 weeks, $2.50 per teacher, normal graduate or equivalent. $1.00 per teacher, 36 weeks normal training or equivalent. $0.50 per teacher, 18 weeks normal training or equivalent. c. One and one-half cents per pupil-day attendance. d. Special aid to weak districts, per teacher-school-day allowance graduated according to assessed valuation: $25,000 or less, $2.00. $25,000 to $30,000, $1.50. $30,000 to $35,000, $1.00. $35,000 to $40,000, $0.50. e. An additional $100 to each one-room elementary school district employing a normal graduate and operating school nine months. This was conscious effort on the part of the state to encourage the raising of standards (by offering "reward for effort") and to equalize school opportunity (by "special aid to weak districts"). Equalization This 1923 law was the first official recognition in the state of the equalization principle. But according to Perrin, 8 it didn't work. He re- ports, "The effects of the law of 1923 for 12 representative counties . . . indicate that the poorer counties having the greater need of special equal- ization aid, suffered the greater reductions . . . made the greater effort to support schools, and maintained fewer small schools than the wealthier counties." Illinois legislators have been wrestling ever since with the problem of finding some equalization formula that would truly equalize — and it still eludes them. Their second try was in 1927, when a simple flat grant of $9 per pupil was established for all schools, supplemented by an equal- ization minimum of $34 per pupil in elementary schools. This meant that in a district where a one per cent levy (plus the $9 flat grant) did not bring in enough revenue to pay $34 a year per pupil, the state would pay the difference. Many changes, mostly increases in both flat grants and equalization grants, have been made since. Flat grants were raised to $11 in 1939, to $13 in 1943, to $19 in 1945, and to $22 in 1948. In 1947-1948 an emer- ' Weber, op. cit., p. 51. 8 Perrin, H. Ambrose. The Administration of the State Distributive Fund in Illinois. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago, 1932. pp. 137-8. 38 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS gency grant of $6 (based on 1945-1946 figures) was added, bringing the 1948 total to $25. In 1943, high schools also received flat-grant aid for the first time, at the rate of $2 per pupil in average daily attendance. This was raised to $4 in 1945, and $7 in 1947 — with the same emergency grants as the elementary schools, which brought the total to $10 each. The elementary school equalization level was raised to $41 in 1935, to $51 in 1939, to $56 in 1941, to $62 in 1943, to $80 in 1945, and to $90 in 1947. 9 High schools came in for equalization in 1939 at an $80 level which was raised to $85 in 1943, to $90 in 1945, and to $100 in 1947. The 66th General Assembly (1949) set the equalization level at $120 per pupil in both elementary and high-school grades for 1949-1950 and at $160 for 1950-1951. These levels will be reduced, since the amount appropriated was insufficient to meet them, even though claims will be computed on these figures, subject to necessary reductions. (In all cases, the equaliza- tion figures include the flat grants.) In order to qualify for equalization grants, a local school district must: 1. Levy a qualifying tax. (The first qualifying rate, in 1927, was $1 for each $100 of assessed valuation. In 1939, the qualifying rate for high school districts was set at 75 cents, and for unit districts at $1.50. From July 1, 1946 to July 1, 1949, the qualifying rates were 25 cents each for separate elementary and high school districts, and Zl x /z cents for unit districts. The 66th General Assembly (1949) fixed the qualifying rates as follows: (a) for the year, 1949-1950, 25-cents for the separate ele- mentary and high-school districts and 36-cents for the unit districts; (b) for the year, 1950-1951, 40-cents for the former districts and 50-cents for the unit districts.) 2. Have less than the foundation level of income from local qualify- ing tax levies and flat grants from the state. 3. Meet standards stated by the Superintendent of Public Instruction. 4. Have an average daily attendance above the legal minimum — with a few certified exceptions. (The ADA minimum for July 1, 1949 to June 30, 1951 is 10.) 5. Actually spend (not save) the full foundation income. Besides the flat-grant and equalization aids and certain minor aids 8 Grimm, Lester R. "Equalization Progress for Our Schools Must Continue." Springfield, Illinois: Research Department, Illinois Education Association, March 1948. p. 1. BACKGROUND OF FINANCE PROBLEM 39 paid from the common school fund, the state of Illinois provides for the following special school aids from its general revenues: (1) Transportation, three-fourths of the per-pupil costs but not more than $20 per pupil transported annually; (2) Handicapped children — -physically handicapped, excess cost maximum, $300 per pupil; truant, incorrigible, or delinquent, $190 per pupil ; mentally deficient, $250 per pupil ; (3) School lunches, supplements to federal grants. Local School Taxing and Borrowing The 88 per cent of all Illinois school revenues raised in local districts is virtually all from property taxes. In 1947 10 these were 75.8 per cent from real estate, 19.3 per cent from personal properties, and 4.9 per cent from railroads. The proportion of local government taxes devoted to schools has risen steadily during the past 20 years ■ — from 35.5 per cent in 1927, to 47.2 per cent in 1947. In 1927, the total of taxes for all types of local government was $385,916,800, of which $137,403,100 (35.5 per cent) was for schools. In 1947, the total of taxes for all types of local government was $457,184,797, of which $215,801,236 (47.2 per cent) was for schools. The heroic problem of attempting to equalize assessment practices throughout the state was manfully attacked by the 64th General Assem- bly in 1945. It did enact legislation designed to bring about fair assess- ment practices on a full-value basis in each county and in the whole state. Here again it had to chop at deeprooted precedent and history, for as the recent School Finance and Tax commission reported, 11 "The prac- tice of valuing property for assessment purposes at a figure below its full cash value dates back to the early history of Illinois. During certain periods the law permitted the debasement of assessments at specified per- centages . . . but since 1927, full value assessments have been a statutory requirement. Notwithstanding, . . . assessments continued to be sub- stantially debased. . . . The state-wide average in 1945 was 46 per cent, whereas the average for downstate was 27 per cent." Since the formula for correction of the inequities in each county is based on a ratio between assessed and real values, it does not always apply to every case with equal justice. On the contrary, property which "Property Taxation: Assessed Valuation, Tax Rates, and Tax Extensions, 1927-38. Illinois Tax Commission; Property Tax Assessments, Levies, Rates, and Extensions, 1939, 1940, and 1941. No. 1, 2, 3; Illinois State Tax Commission; Illinois Property Tax Statistics, 1942, Illinois Department of Revenue ; Illinois Prop- erty Tax Newsletter, No. 5, February, 1949. p. 11. 11 School Finance and Tax Commission, op. cit., p. 87. 40 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS originally was assessed too high is increased unduly, and that assessed too low is not increased sufficiently, which results in the usual penalties paid by men of literal honesty and abeyed for men of easier ethics. Like the equalization law, it doesn't accurately equalize everything. Yet it has resulted in considerable improvement and may be amended to operate even more fairly in the future. Obviously, the importance of full and equable assessments bears vitally upon the whole problem of school finance and is of concern to all interested in the support of our schools. This is another field requir- ing further attention and study. Except for the qualifying rate for equalization aid, there is no mini- mum school tax rate required in Illinois, and many districts have operated for a year or more in the past without any tax levies at all. This was possible by combining balances already built up with flat grants from the state and transporting pupils to an adjoining district. But all districts have legal maximum limits on both educational and building fund levies. These vary with the type of district and may be increased by referenda (See Table II). They were adjusted to compen- sate for changes in assessed valuations under the 1945 legislation. TABLE II * Educational and Building Tax Rate Limits for Illinois School Districts Per $100 Assessed Valuation Type of District and Purpose Without Referendum First Referendum Second Referendum Third Referendum Community Unit Educational Building $1.00 .25 $1.40 .4375 $1,775 Other Downstate 12-Grade Districts Educational Building 1.00 .1875 1.40 .375 1.775 Chicago Educational Building 1.20 .19 1.25 Elementary Educational Building .50 .1875 .75 .25 .90 $1,125 High School Educational Building .50 .1875 .75 .25 1.00 .... Non-High School .50 .625 * Illinois Legislative Council Publication 86, School Administration in Illinois, Springfield, January 1948, Table 17, p. 38. BACKGROUND OF FINANCE PROBLEM 41 Legal limits also are placed on district borrowing. The bonding limit for school buildings is five per cent of the full assessed valuation, which is not always enough to meet the need. This is another problem calling for clear thinking and long-term planning by the people of the state. The limit on anticipation warrants for operating expenses is 75 per cent of the levy, which must be paid first as the taxes are collected. Due to the lag between time of necessary expenditure and tax collec- tion dates, most districts are forced into borrowing to operate. Problems from the Past The biggest obstacle to genuine equalization in Illinois is the archaic and inefficient local district structure discussed in several later chapters — a troublesome anachronism constantly in the way of efficient modern financing for the schools. Without effective redistricting, it will remain impossible to correct the great disparities which now exist in local tax resources and assessment valuations and in distribution of pupil populations. These disparities account for the difference in tax rates that various counties must levy. Also, the excessive cost for even a poor educational program in small, inefficient districts has made successive General Assemblies reluctant to appropriate funds for such ineffectual use. This has tended to reduce the whole level of state aid. Against all these variations and disparities, the practice of distribut- ing most state aid on a straight per-pupil basis, instead of reckoning with such a vital factor as the geographic distribution of school children, for example, also has tended to perpetuate, rather than to correct, educational inequalities. An even more obsolete and superfluous "primitive survival" in the Illinois school system is the township treasurer's office — 1600 of them in the state, each with a treasurer and three trustees. Not once in the past 20 years have these offices paid for themselves. 12 In 1947-1948, they cost $829,861.80, more than half a million dollars more than their income, which was $300,299. 13. 13 According to the Illinois Legislative Council Report No. 86 on School Administration in Illinois, as long ago as 1915 the Illinois Efficiency and Economy Committee recommended that the management of local school funds be transferred from the township treasurer to the county treasurer, under the supervision of the county superintendent of schools, "as a means of securing greater efficiency and economy in school finances." The Grif- 12 Illinois Legislative Council, op', cit., p. 11. 13 Figures compiled from the 1948 Annual Reports of the County Superintendents of Schools on file in the office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 42 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS fenhagen Report in 1932 recommended that these township offices be abolished and township funds and lands be managed by a proposed State Board of Education and the State Treasurer. Again in 1944, the school committee of the Illinois Agricultural Association reported that the township treasurer-trustee plan had become "obsolete, inefficient, and needlessly expensive." Indeed, none of the problems mentioned in this chapter is new. Most of them have been recognized and pointed out repeatedly for years, often by the various state commissions 14 and other state agencies which dur- ing recent decades have made many studies of school problems, 15 with finance as a vital and inevitable part of all of them. The problems are recognized. The answers are not always clear. The purpose of this book is to report on studies of various specific phases of these problems which may be useful in helping to solve them. One difficulty is to reconcile the evident need for equalization with the equally evident waste of trying to equalize in a one-room school. But even if today's problems were solved, there would be new ones tomorrow, for there never can be a final answer to all the problems of supporting education in an ever-developing, ever-changing, modern so- ciety which discovers new needs by the day. For more £han a century Illinois has been struggling to bring her schools up to the continually rising standard of her needs and ambitions — never quite reaching it, but always making some headway. She is still trying. 14 Education Commission of 1907 Illinois Educational Commissions of 1921, 1923, February, 1935, and July, 1935 Illinois Commission on Taxation and Expenditures of 1931 Commission to Survey Higher Education Facilities in Illinois, 1943 School Finance and Tax Commission, 1947. 15 The Department of Finance, in 1939 The Illinois Legislative Council of 1938 Governor Green's Advisory Committee on Taxation in 1941 Illinois Education Association Illinois Agricultural Association Illinois State Chamber of Commerce Illinois Association of School Boards University of Illinois CHAPTER IV REORGANIZING SCHOOL DISTRICTS Perhaps no factor has a greater bearing on the reorganization of local school units than the financing of schools. It may either accelerate or retard the organization of adequate local units. On the other hand, the type and size of local units affect both the total cost of the educational program and the plan of apportionment of state funds to the local units. ■ — Your School District, National Commission on School District Reorganization In other words, it's like the egg and the hen: reorganization depends on state financing, and state school financing depends on reorganiza- tion. It's hard to tell which comes first. More than 12,000 local school districts have been organized in Illinois. Most of them, although perhaps adequate during a frontier age when transportation was meager and educational demands simple, are inade- quate in today's complex society, as obsolete as the costumes or the cov- ered wagons of the 1870's would be; yet many of them survive and are expected to meet the needs of a state that in every other way has changed a great deal in the past three-quarters of a century. It is true that under the current reorganization drive the number of districts has been reduced almost by half — from the maximum of 12,027 in 1941-1942 to 6092 in 1948-1949 — mostly in the past five years, and especially during the past year. But many of these reductions have been by simple local consolidations which still do not create districts suffi- ciently large to operate most effectively. First and most numerous of Illinois school districts are the common elementary ones, most of which began long ago as one-room schools with a few pupils each. As conditions changed and demands for secondary schooling in- creased, new types of districts were formed to meet new needs. Second- ary districts were superimposed on elementary districts, complicating boundaries by overlapping. By 1945, when the major reorganization program began, there were nine different types of districts and a com- plexity that made redistricting very difficult. Of the 11,882 legal school districts in the state in 1945-1946, 9165 were common school districts operating elementary schools; another 1877 were elementary districts, legally organized, but closed and transporting their pupils to neighboring districts; 631 were high school districts in operation, and 25 were high school districts closed and transporting their pupils; and there were 86 old-type unit districts and 98 non-high districts. [43] 44 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS To the nine existing types of districts, the 65th General Assembly in 1947 added a new one — the 12-grade community unit district, in which a given geographical area is under a single board of education. The community unit law provides a relatively simple transition from the complex, overlapping district structure generally found in any county and thereby clarifies the situation instead of further complicating it. From information compiled by the State Advisory Commission on School Reorganization, we get the following detailed breakdown of the types of districts existing in the State as reported by county superintend- ents on September 1, 1949: Elementary Districts Common school districts 3767 Consolidated 153 Community Consolidated 266 Charter 8 Total 4194 High School Districts Community High School 220 Township High School 124 Consolidated High School 8 Protectorate (no building) 24 Total 376 Unit Districts Unit Districts (old type) 42 Charter 11 Community Unit 222 Community Consolidated (by resolution) 39 Total 314 Non-High Districts 66 Grand Total 4950 At the beginning of the 1949-1950 school year, 222 new community unit districts already covered more than a third of the area of the state. Four counties had made themselves into single, county-wide school dis- tricts; 13 others also had less than 10 districts in each; and 15 more, making 32, or almost one-third of them all, had less than 25 each. (See Table III, next page). All this is progress. Disparities — and Why But 13 counties still have more than 100 districts in each. Not only do wide variations still exist in the number of districts among counties; but also within counties. For instance, by September, 1949 Champaign County had four community unit districts covering REORGANIZING SCHOOL DISTRICTS 45 TABLE III Distribution of Illinois Counties According to Number of Districts * (Excluding Cook County) Number of Districts Number of (Step-Interval ) Counties 1- 9 17 10- 19 6 20- 29 10 30- 39 9 40- 49 4 50- 59 8 60- 69 5 70- 79 5 80- 89 10 90- 99 7 100-109 8 110-119 1 120-129 2 130-139 4 140-149 3 150-159 160-169 1 170-179 180-189 1 * Data from State Advisory Commission, "School District Information — State of Illinois," Sept. 1, 1949. about two-fifths of its area — but in the other three-fifths there were still 65 unorganized districts. A survey of assessed valuations and enrollments in the new commun- ity unit districts made by the State Advisory Commission shows that five per cent of them have less than 100 high school pupils in each ; 42 per cent have only 150 or less; and 80 percent have less than 300. Yet the generally accepted standard size at which a high school begins to operate at maximum efficiency and economy is considerably larger even than 300. Some of the difficulties in putting it into effect have been: 1. Inadequate preliminary study, planning, and interpretation — which add up to a lack of understanding, sometimes even among local school authorities, as well as among voters. 2. Complex legal procedures still necessary in adjusting from one type of district to another, especially where there is overlapping of ele- mentary and secondary district boundary lines. 46 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS 3. Within the law itself — a. Need of authority in the State Advisory Commission to reject inadequate local plans. b. Need of controls to eliminate "land-grabbing" by petitioners. c. Need of definite clarifying controls on ways and means of treat- ing assets and liabilities of former districts. d. The requirement that in voting on a petition separate majorities in the urban and rural areas are necessary, instead of one simple majority of all the voters. 4. The state school finance pattern, which sometimes still tends to "freeze" small, inefficient districts, because to reorganize into larger dis- tricts in some cases results in a decrease of state aid. Contrary to intent, this actually may penalize certain districts for merging with others. Redistricting Procedures It is fundamental to a genuine and effective redistricting such as planned in Illinois that (1) new and larger administrative districts be established, each with enough pupil population and local financial re- sources to justify its formation and each with one school board and one superintendent; and (2) that within each of these administrative areas, new and larger attendance districts be established, each with enough pupil population to justify several teachers and adequate modern build- ing, equipment, and program. It has long been a well-established fact, as observed by the National Commission on School District Reorganization, 1 that size of school and cost of education are directly related. In general, the smaller the school, the higher the cost per pupil, and the smaller the administrative unit, the smaller the schools maintained. Thus, the organization of administrative units is closely related to the per pupil cost of education. The same Commission cites the case of Iowa, where the "average salary for urban teachers exceeds the average salary for rural teachers by 86.5 per cent. . . . The cost of urban schools exceeds the cost of rural schools by only about 10 per cent per pupil, but the difference in ed- ucational opportunities ... is probably almost two to one." It also cites studies in Idaho, which indicated that schools with less than 50 pupils cost on an average about 53 per cent more per pupil than those with 300 or more, and in Washington, where high schools with less than 50 pupils were reported to cost 67 per cent more per pupil than even those of 150 up, with a constant decrease in per pupil cost up to 1500. 1 The National Commission on School District Reorganization, Dawson, Howard A., and Reeves, Floyd W., co-chairmen. Your School District. Washington, D. C. : Department of Rural Education, NEA, 1S48. p. 89. REORGANIZING SCHOOL DISTRICTS 47 Schultz, 2 writing of the proposed intermediate districts in the State of New York, states: Analyses made in connection with the Intermediate District Study have indi- cated a minimum of 4000 to 5000 pupils as essential for the implementation of a broad program of educational services on an economical basis. Although the figure is associated with the intermediate district structure, nevertheless it emphasizes the need for this number for "the implementa- tion of a broad program of educational services on an economical basis." Lambert, 3 in summarizing experiences in Utah, which has 40 local administrative units covering the 29 counties of the state, makes this observation: If any lesson on this point comes out of Utah's history under consolidation of schools, it is that other states which move into the establishment of enlarged local school administrative units should, wherever possible, avoid small units to begin with, units that have less, let us say roughly, than 2000 to 5000 pupils in grades 1-12. Technical studies of the problems involved in establishing economi- cally satisfactory larger unit districts — discovering comparable units for cost anlaysis, exploring the possibilities and costs of adequate transpor- tation and housing — are reported in the later chapters of this book. For the purpose of these studies, we have assumed that a minimum size of attendance districts (not administrative districts) should be 300 for ele- mentary schools and 700 for high schools for both effective operation and economy. Redistricting can be encouraged by legislative incentives. Already Illinois is trying this in two ways: 1. By reducing the local qualifying rate in areas having elementary and superimposed secondary school districts from a total of 50 cents per $100 of assessed valuation to 36 cents, if these districts are reorganized and combined into a community unit district. 4 The theory is that unorganized districts are less efficient, and hence they should pay a higher local qualifying rate for the privilege of remaining separated. 2. By establishing a minimum average daily attendance requirement in elementary and secondary schools below which state aid claims are declared invalid (except by special intervention by the County Superin- 2 Butterworth, J. E., and Morrison, J. C. The Intermediate District in New York State. Special Studies. Schultz, Clarence, "Boundaries of Proposed New-Type Inter- mediate Districts," University of the State of New York, November 15, 1948. Albany, New York. 3 Lambert, A. C. "Some Experiences Gained Under School Consolidation in Utah," American School Board Journal, 117:25-8, August, 1948. 4 In 1950-51, the rates will be 80 cents and 50 cents, respectively, per $100 of assessed valuation. 48 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS tendent and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction). In order to make a valid claim for state aid, an elementary school must have at least 10 pupils in ADA after June 30, 1949; 12 after June 30, 1951; and 15 after June 30, 1953. After June 30, 1951, high schools must have at least nine pupils in ADA per grade to receive any state aid. Illinois school reorganization legislation is entirely permissive, leav- ing initiative exclusively within each county. Today's Picture All in all, the situation adds up about like this: An efficient state financial plan is impossible under the present archaic district structure, but it is almost impossible to change that structure without a great deal more state money with which to offer the smaller and poorer districts inducements clearly to their advantage under redis- ricting. Good large districts are expensive, just as all good education is ex- pensive. The point of redistricting is not simply to get fewer and larger schools, but to get larger and better schools. For example, little would be served by consolidating two poor districts if the only result were to have one poor two-room school instead of two poor one-room schools. When the state can route enough money into such districts to help pro- vide really modern schools, then redistricting will have far greater local appeal. The General Assembly has passed laws designed to permit and en- courage district reorganization, and under these laws many new districts have been formed. People in these districts now assume that their schools have made a major step toward improvement, and in many cases this is true, though the majority of such districts are still inadequate, both educationally and financially, to provide a broad educational program economically. So far only a beginning has been made toward really effectual re- districting, which is, ultimately, to get attendance districts of efficient size; and many complex problems still remain to be solved, problems dis- cussed in later chapters of this book. But in the face of everything, it .is vital to keep in mind that first major steps toward improving the Illinois school system to meet modern conditions and needs already have been taken. Now it is a matter of going on in the direction we already have started. CHAPTER V COMPARABLE UNITS FOR COST ANALYSIS It is the purpose of this chapter to examine the school financial situ- ation of Illinois counties with the idea in mind that counties represent a type of organization approaching the ultimate. By this means it should be possible to view the financial situation which the State of Illinois might expect to face in equalizing educational opportunity even after what may be considered maximum reorganization of school dis- tricts had been achieved. But first it is necessary to develop cost units which will clearly re- flect comparable educational finance requirements. Considerable prog- ress has been made in the development of such units in connection with studies of the apportionment of state aid to local schools. While that is not the central purpose here, the techniques are useful in the present analysis. 1 In the literature on school finance these techniques are usually called "measurement of educational need." Nature of the Measure of Educational Need The measure of educational need developed in this chapter is simply a determination of the total number of equalized cost units in each county in the state. The units may be expressed in terms of either pupils or classrooms. In this study they are expressed as the pupil unit. The equivalent number of classroom units can be determined by dividing the number of pupil units in any situation by the number 22. The measure of need takes into account all elements of cost essential to the provision of a foundation program in all localities within counties under optimum conditions of district organization. These elements, vari- able from place to place, are as follows: (1) number of pupils in school in grades kindergarten through 12, and (2) sparsity of school population requiring transportation of some pupils, or operation of some small schools with average sizes of teaching groups less than respective groups in normal situations, or both. The first element of cost is the basic part of the measure. This ele- ment would be the complete measure if all localities were normal situa- tions; i.e., if the sparsity of school population were such as to make it possible to operate high schools with a minimum of approximately 700 pupils and elementary schools with a minimum of 300 pupils, all within 1 The writers emphasize at this point the fact that measures of educational need are too frequently overlooked as important means of statistical analysis. The com- posite measures used in this study provide about the only means of examining the total finance pattern such as appears in Chapter VI, even though such measures might not be adopted in the state plan of grants to local units. [49] 50 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS walking distance (a mile and a half) of school. The second element of cost consists of two parts: (1) transportation, and (2) extra cost of some small schools that can be justified. These two types of extra costs are different manifestations of the same fundamental cause, namely, sparsity of school population. The total effect of these two facets of extra cost, found in some areas and not in others, is known as a correction for sparsity of population. Part of a measure of need is a spar- sity formula for obtaining an objective estimate of these extra costs in areas where the population sparsity warrants them. The unit of need selected in this report is the pupil unit. This unit, as indicated above, is a factor of the classroom unit, and it may be ex- pressed in either form with the same results. The Total Number of Educational Need Units for Illinois in 1947-1948 This section presents by counties the total number of educational need units computed for purposes of this study. The total need (number of pupil units) for each county may be obtained by adding the two parts already discussed. The first part, called the basic part of the need, con- sists merely of the number of actual pupils in average daily attendance in grades kindergarten through 12 in the public schools, as found in official reports of the county superintendents of education on file in the office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The second part of the measure of need consists of a correction for sparsity of population, ex- pressed in pupil units. The sum of these two parts is the total number of pupil units which would be paid for in an equalized program of support. Table IV presents the summary of this need. It will be noted that TABLE IV Total Educational Need, 1947-1948 (Pupil Cost Units) County (i) Average Daily Attendance K-8 (2) Average Daily Attendance 9-12 (3) Total Average Daily Attendance K-12 (4) Pupil Units for Sparsity Correction (5) Total Need (Pupil Units) (6) Per Cent That Sparsity Correction Is of Total Need Adams 5,143 1,889 7,032 1,677 8,709 19.25 Alexander 2,846 807 3,653 691 4,344 15.90 Bond 1,662 670 2,332 886 3,218 27.55 Boone 1,895 580 2,475 644 3,119 20.65 Brown 753 237 990 582 1,572 36.99 Bureau 4,105 1,585 5,690 2,084 7,774 26.81 Calhoun 807 268 1,075 575 1,650 34.84 Carroll 2,233 812 3,045 1,149 4,194 27.41 Cass 1,870 1,236 3,106 930 4,036 23.04 COMPARABLE UNITS FOR COST ANALYSIS TABLE IV (Continued) 51 (i) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) Average Average Total Daily Daily Average Per Cent County Attendance Attendance Daily Pupil Units Total Need That Sparsity K-8 9-12 Attendance for Sparsity (Pupil Correction Is K-12 Correction Units) of Total Need Champaign 7,097 2,645 9,742 2,381 12,123 19.64 Christian 4,308 1,699 6,007 1.690 7.697 21.96 Clark 2,092 851 2.943 1.083 4,026 26.90 Clay 2,481 840 3,321 1,100 4,421 24.89 Clinton 1,966 502 2,468 1,131 3.599 31.43 Coles 4,266 1,354 5,620 1,115 6.735 16.55 Cookt 62,287 29,117 91,404 3,437 94,841 3.62 Crawford 3,416 1,024 4.440 1,306 5.746 22.72 Cumberland 1,365 398 1,763 849 2,612 32.52 De Kalb 3,802 1,637 5,439 1,411 6.850 20.60 De Witt 2,120 766 2,886 954 3,840 24.84 Douglas 2,006 824 2,830 1,067 3,897 27.38 Du Page 12,963 5,762 18,725 1,133 19.858 5.71 Edgar 2,706 970 3,676 1,297 4,973 26.09 Edwards 1,007 373 1,380 589 1,969 29.90 Effingham 2,345 916 3,261 1,176 4,437 26.51 Fayette 3,304 978 4,282 1,674 5,956 28.10 Ford 1,836 736 2,572 1,125 3,697 30.44 Franklin 6,702 2,578 9,280 1,390 10,670 13.02 Fulton 5,159 2,137 7,296 2,271 9.567 23.74 Gallatin 1,448 388 1,836 831 2,667 31.16 Greene 2,367 843 3,210 1,212 4,422 27.41 Grundy 1,980 829 2.809 1,001 3.810 26.27 Hamilton 1,729 468 2,197 915 3,112 29.39 Hancock 3,033 1,315 4,348 1,935 6.283 30.79 Hardin 1,328 284 1,612 576 2.188 26.30 Henderson 1,112 359 1,471 810 2,281 35.53 Henry 4,720 1,907 6,627 1,895 8,522 22.24 Iroquois 3,606 1,424 5,030 2,412 7,442 32.42 Jackson 4,506 1,600 6,106 1,490 7,596 19.61 Jasper 1,350 481 1,831 1,025 2,856 35.89 Jefferson 4,627 1,337 5,964 1,434 7,398 19.39 Jersey 1,800 519 2,319 777 3,096 25.10 Jo Daviess 2,211 816 3,027 1,346 4,373 30.78 Johnson 1,377 379 1,756 845 2,601 32.50 Kane 11,785 5,046 16,831 1,412 18,243 7.74 Kankakee 4,825 1,935 6,760 1,694 8,454 20.04 Kendall 1,260 489 1,749 805 2,554 31.51 Knox 5,623 2,134 7,757 1,683 9,440 17.83 Lake 13,253 5,641 18.894 1,611 20,505 7.85 La Salle 8,769 3,773 12,542 2,531 15,073 16.79 Lawrence 2,759 1,058 3,817 1,058 4,875 21.71 Lee 3,577 1,237 4,814 1,552 6,366 24.37 Livingston 3,549 1,527 5,076 2,215 7,291 30.38 Logan 2,637 1564 3.901 1,329 5.230 25.41 Macon 9,859 3,523 13,382 1,646 15,028 10.95 Macoupin 4,602 2,087 6,689 2,072 8,761 23.65 Madison 18,378 6,748 25,126 2,202 27,328 8.06 t Exclusive of Chicago. a OF HJL LIB. 52 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE IV (Continued) County (1) Average Daily Attendance K-8 (2) Average Daily Attendance 9-12 (3) Total Average Daily Attendance K-12 (4) Pupil Units for Sparsity Correction (5) Total Need (Pupil Units) (6) Per Cent That Sparsity Correction Is of Total Need Marion 5,428 2,030 7,458 1,656 9,114 18.17 Marshall 1,348 565 1,913 948 2.861 33.12 Mason 2,019 774 2,793 1,132 3,925 28.83 Massac 1,919 576 2,495 615 3,110 19.76 McDonough 2,859 1,061 3,920 1,389 5,309 26.17 McHenry 4,325 1,787 6,112 1,768 7,880 22.43 McLean 7,342 2,697 10,039 2,797 12,836 21.79 Menard 1,184 404 1,588 679 2.267 29.94 Mercer 2,152 793 2,945 1,290 4,235 30.46 Monroe 1,115 406 1,521 825 2,346 35.17 Montgomery 3,332 1,442 4,774 1,436 6,210 23.13 Morgan 3,198 1,199 4,397 1,314 5,711 23.02 Moultrie 1,705 532 2,237 822 3,059 26.87 Ogle 3,756 1,450 5,206 1,876 7,082 26.49 Peoria 15,429 5,018 20,447 1.957 22.404 8.74 Perry 2,529 960 3,489 1,002 4,491 22.32 Piatt 1,907 811 2,718 1,086 3,804 28.54 Pike 2,676 1,077 3,753 1,789 5,542 32.28 Pope 890 265 1,155 691 1,846 37.43 Pulaski 2,384 752 3,136 801 3,937 20.35 Putnam 581 212 793 396 1,189 33.29 Randolph 2,886 1,182 4,068 1,370 5,438 25.19 Richland 2,133 716 2,849 563 3,412 16.49 Rock Island 12,139 4,366 16,505 3,522 20,027 17.58 St. Clair 17,220 5,468 22,688 5,089 27,777 18.32 Saline 4,771 1,668 6,439 1,220 7,659 15.93 Sangamon 11,091 4,156 15,247 2,354* 17,601* 13.81 Schuyler 1,158 329 1,487 856 2,343 36.52 Scott 862 344 1.206 600 1,806 33.22 Shelby 2,864 1,247 4,111 1,767 5,878 30.06 Stark 1,055 447 1,502 717 2,219 32.31 Stephenson 4.035 1,425 5,460 1,333 6,793 19.62 Tazewell 8,784 2,823 11,607 2,071 13,678 15.14 Union 2,664 754 3,418 1,042 4,460 23.37 Vermilion 9,517 3,380 12,897 2,275 15,172 15.00 Wabash 1,710 574 2,284 530 2,814 18.83 Warren 2,384 877 3,261 1,078 4.339 24.84 Washington 1,174 566 1,740 1,036 2,776 37.32 Wayne 2,947 813 3,760 1,542 5,302 29.09 White 3,034 1,063 4,097 1,221 5,318 22.96 Whiteside 5,525 1,813 7,338 1,588 8,926 17.79 Will 10,041 3,799 13,840 2,483 16,323 15.21 Williamson 6,628 2,270 8,898 1,371 10,269 13.35 Winnebago 13,513 4,314 17,827 2,013 19,840 10.15 Woodford 2,128 987 3,115 1,374 4,489 30.61 Chicago 231,098 93,749 324,847 3,340 328,187 1.02 Total 712,051 277,543 989,594 146,339 1,135,959 * 1946-1947 Data. COMPARABLE UNITS FOR COST ANALYSIS 53 the first three columns of this table show the basic part of the total need of each county. Column 4 shows the number of pupil units that should be added to the county as a whole to take care of the extra cost attributable to sparsity of population. The total number of cost units (pupil units) for each county is shown in Column 5. Column 6 shows the percentage that the sparsity correction is of the total educational need. For example, it is noted that Adams County has a total of 7032 pupils in average daily attendance in all grades including kindergarten through 12. An addition of 1677 units to take care of non-classroom or surplus costs gives a grand total of 8709 units. The sparsity correction consists of 19.25 per cent of the total need. It will be noted that in the next county, Alexander, the sparsity correction is 15.9 per cent of its total need. An examination of Column 6 reveals a considerable variation among counties with respect to the percentage that sparsity correction is of the total educational need. This fact demonstrates the inequities involved in using straight average daily attendance alone for computing educational need. For example, it is noted that the sparsity correction varies from 37.43 per cent of the total educational need in Pope County to 3.62 per cent for Cook County, excluding Chicago. The two parts of the educa- tional need are shown in graphic form in Chart 10. In this chart, counties are listed in the order of number of pupil units as they are shown in Column 5 of Table IV. The following section of this chapter discusses how the sparsity cor- rection was computed. 2 How the Sparsity Correction Was Computed The sparsity correction shown in this study was computed from a formula developed especially for the State of Illinois by methods pre- viously developed in several states. 3 The formula is a simple regression equation based upon the fact that the more widely children are scattered, the more expensive is the transportation required to bring them into 2 Appendix I describes how this method was developed. 3 McLure, W. P. The Effect of Population Sparsity on School Cost. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1947. Let Us Pay jor the Kind oj Education We Need, Number I, Volume I. Financing Public Edu- cation in Mississippi, Number I, Volume II. University, Mississippi: Bureau of Educational Research, University of Mississippi, 1948. Morrison, J. C, and Butterworth, J. E., Directors. The Intermediate District in New York State — Special Studies. Albany: The University of the State of New York. The State Education Department. 1948. Strayer, G. D., Director. A Report of a Survey of Public Education in the State of West Virginia. Charleston: Legislature Interior Committee State of West Virginia. 1945. CHART 10. Pupil Cost Units in Illinois Counties COUNTY NUMBER OF PUPILS lin thousands) T T 12 21 COOK ST. CLAIR MADISON PEORIA LAKE ROCK ISLAND DU PAGE WINNEBAGO KANE SANGAMON WILL VERMILION LA SALLE MACON TAZEWELL MC LEAN CHAMPAIGN FRANKLIN WILLIAMSON FULTON KNOX MARION WHITESIDE MACOUPIN ADAMS HENRY KANKAKEE MC HENRY BUREAU CHRISTIAN SALINE JACKSON IROQUOIS JEFFERSON LIVINGSTON OGLE DE KALB STEPHENSON COLES LEE HANCOCK MONTGOMERY FAYETTE SHELBY CRAWFORD MORGAN PIKE RANDOLPH WHITE MC DONOUGH WAYNE LOGAN EDGAR LAWRENCE PERRY WOODFORD UNION EFFINGHAM GREENE CLAY JO DAVIESS ALEXANDER WARREN MERCER CARROLL CASS CLARK PULASKI MASON DOUGLAS DE WITT GRUNDY PIATT FORD CLINTON RICHLAND BOND BOONE HAMILTON MASSAC JERSEY MOULTRIE MARSHALL JASPER WABASH WASHINGTON GALLATIN CUMBERLAND JOHNSON KENDALL MONROE SCHUYLER „,,.. HENDERSON K MENARD Wit STARK »■'■'■ HARDIN „. EDWARDS M POPE If SCOTT |L™, CALHOUN ||$K BROWN iffi* PUTNAM WW IB Is Actual Number of Pupils in Average Daily Attendance Equivalent Number of Pupils for Non- Classroom Costs Arising from Sparsity of Rural School Population COMPARABLE UNITS FOR COST ANALYSIS 55 teaching groups of economical size. If the distances involved in trans- porting some children to such centers are impractical, a few schools smaller than normal must be operated. In the latter case, enough units of need over and above the number required for transportation would be left to take care of the extra cost of the small schools. In other words, both manifestations of extra costs due to population sparsity are com- bined into one formula. Since these extra costs occur mainly in the rural areas, the computations are based upon the number of children classified as rural children — - that is, children residing in the open country and in the villages with less than 2500 population. An illustration of how the formula works in a given county follows: First, compute the number of rural children, that is children living out- side of cities of more than 2500 population. Second, divide the number of rural pupils by the number of square miles of land area in the county. The result is the average density of rural school population in the county. Then refer the average number of pupils per square mile obtained in this manner to a table of sparsity (or density) factors. Third, multiply the sparsity faetor obtained in step two by the number of rural pupils, and the result will be the total sparsity correction in pupil units to be cred- ited to various localities within the county. The sparsity factors were computed from the following formula: The sparsity factor for any county with an average of six or fewer rural pupils per square mile would be .7700 less the product of .0567 times the number of rural pupils per square mile. For counties with more than six rural pupils per square mile, but not more that 11, the sparsity factor would be .586 less .026 times the number of rural pupils per square mile. For counties with more than 11 rural pupils per square mile, but not more than 22, the sparsity factor of a given county would be .410 less .010 times the number of rural pupils per square mile. For counties with more than 22 rural pupils per square mile, a sparsity factor of a given county would be .300 less .005 times the number of rural pupils per square mile. For purposes of this computation, the area of each county was defined as the land area in square miles reported in the last federal census less the area in cities with more than 2500 population. The computations for the sparsity correction of each county for the year 1947-1948 are shown in Table V. Reading across the top of the table for Adams County, it is noted that there are 860 square miles of rural territory and 2895 rural pupils in average daily attendance, which give an average of 3.3667 rural pupils per square mile. Now, substituting this number in the proper category of the preceding formula for obtaining the proper sparsity factor, the result obtained is .5792. This factor mul- TABLE V Correction for Sparsity of Rural School Population, 1947-1948 County (i) Area (Sq. Miles) (2) Number of Rural Pupils * (3) Number of Rural Pupils Per Sq. Mile (4) Sparsity Factor (5) Sparsity Correction (Pupil Units) Adams 860 2,895 3.3667 .5792 1,677 Alexander 220 1,931 8.7774 .3578 691 Bond 382 1,724 4.5135 .5141 886 Boone 280 1,243 4.4383 .5183 644 Brown 307 991 3.2273 .5870 582 Bureau 863 4,244 4.9181 .4911 2,084 Calhoun 259 1,075 4.1502 .5347 575 Carroll 465 2,420 5.2051 .4749 1,149 Cass 369 2,031 5.5053 .4578 930 Champaign 993 4,803 4.8372 .4957 2,381 Christian 706 3,404 4.8210 .4966 1,690 Clark 502 1,984 3.9525 .5459 1,083 Clay 462 2,202 4.7670 .4997 1,100 Clinton 497 2,161 4.3481 .5235 1,131 Coles 500 2,092 4.1843 .5328 1,115 Cookt 790 19,386 24.5394 .1773 3,437 Crawford 441 3,372 7.6456 .3872 1,306 Cumberland 347 1,763 5.0803 .4819 849 De Kalb 625 2,676 4.2814 .5272 1,411 De Witt 397 1,928 4.8571 .4946 954 Douglas 419 2,386 5.6955 .4471 1,067 Du Page 297 4,241 14.2787 .2672 1,133 Edgar 625 2,317 3.7075 .5598 1,297 Edwards 225 1,381 6.1362 .4265 589 Effingham 481 2,436 5.0648 .4828 1,176 Fayette 716 3,280 4.5812 .5102 1,674 Ford 485 2,190 4.5159 .5139 1,125 Franklin 425 4,316 10.1543 .3220 1,390 Fulton 870 5,317 6.1116 .4271 2,271 Gallatin 328 1,836 5.5985 .4526 831 Greene 539 2,291 4.2507 .5290 1,212 Grundy 430 1,953 4.5427 .5124 1,001 Hamilton 434 1,650 3.8019 .5544 915 Hancock 796 3,973 4.9909 .4870 1,935 Hardin 183 1,613 8.8130 .3569 576 Henderson 381 1,471 3.8598 .5511 810 Henry 823 3,659 4.4465 .5179 1,895 Iroquois 1,120 4,414 3.9414 .5465 2,412 Jackson 597 3,189 5.3410 .4672 1,490 Jasper 494 1,831 3.7060 .5599 1,025 Jefferson 571 3,108 5.4433 .4614 1,434 Jersey 370 1,398 3.7785 .5558 777 Jo Daviess 611 2,503 4.0967 .5377 1,346 Johnson 345 1,756 5.0898 .4814 845 Kane 492 3,538 7.1908 .3990 1,412 Kankakee 674 3,676 5.4546 .4607 1,694 Kendall 320 1,749 5.4652 .4601 805 Knox 718 3,310 4.6100 .5086 1,683 Lake 389 7,002 18.0007 2300 1,611 La Salle 1,135 4,753 4.1873 .5326 2,531 Lawrence 373 2,627 7.0446 .4028 1,058 t Exclusive of Chicago. TABLE V (Continued) County (1) Area (Sq. Miles) (2) Number of Rural Pupils * (3) Number of Rural Pupils Per Sq. Mile (4) Sparsity Factor (5) Sparsity Correction (Pupil Units) Lee 726 2,824 3.8899 .5494 1,552 Livingston 1,039 4,023 3.8719 .5505 2,215 Logan 618 2,430 3.9318 .5471 1,329 Macon 567 4,169 7.3523 .3948 1,646 Macoupin 863 4,187 4.8515 .4949 2.072 Madison 706 6,083 8.6165 .3620 2,202 Marion 575 4,166 7.2450 .3976 1.656 Marshall 395 1,913 4.8440 .4953 948 Mason 539 2,035 3.7763 .5559 1,132 Massac 245 1,329 5.4260 .4623 615 McDonough 579 2,805 4.8453 .4953 1,389 McHenry 605 4,506 7.4482 .3923 1,768 McLean 1,164 5,654 4.8574 .4946 2,797 Menard 311 1,254 4.0308 .5415 679 Mercer 555 2,514 4.5300 .5131 1,290 Monroe 379 1,521 4.0133 .5424 825 Montgomery 702 2,544 3.6243 .5645 1,436 Morgan 561 2,583 4.6044 .5089 1,314 Moultrie 344 1,651 4.8002 .4978 822 Ogle 754 3,993 5.2953 .4698 1,876 Peoria 609 5,740 9.4245 .3410 1,957 Perry 438 1,925 4.3947 .5208 1.002 Piatt 435 2,325 5.3437 .4670 1.086 Pike 828 3,281 3.9623 .5453 1,789 Pope 381 1,155 3.0324 .5981 691 Pulaski 203 3,136 15.4463 .2555 801 Putnam 166 793 4.7775 .4991 396 Randolph 591 2,663 4.5053 .5145 1,370 Richland 360 894 2.4836 .6292 563 Rock Island 403 5,037 1.2497 .6992 3.522 St. Clair 650 7,196 1.1070 .7072 5,089 Saline 381 3,550 9.3179 .3437 1,220 Sangamon 870 5,637 6.4793 .4176 2,354 Schuyler 433 1,487 3.4345 .5753 856 Scott 251 1,206 4.8056 .4975 600 Shelby 771 3,397 4.4053 .5202 1,767 Stark 291 1,502 5.1605 .4774 717 Stephenson 563 2,647 4.7016 .5034 1,333 Tazewell 639 6,230 9.7491 .3325 2,071 Union 412 2,296 5.5716 .4541 1,042 Vermilion 883 5,282 5.9816 .4308 2,275 Wabash 219 1,081 4.9346 .4902 530 Warren 540 1,883 3.4876 .5723 1,078 Washington 565 1,740 3.0796 .5954 1,036 Wayne 714 2,828 3.9603 .5455 1,542 White 500 2,522 5.0447 .4840 1,221 Whiteside 686 3,082 4.4930 .5152 1,588 Will 837 6,425 7.6768 .3864 2,483 Williamson 434 3,876 8.9308 .3538 1,371 Winnebago 507 7,955 15.6908 .2531 2,013 Woodford 537 3,115 5.8003 .4411 1,374 Chicago 3,340 Total 319,559 146,335 * Number of pupils in average daily attendance in the county exclusive of pupils in cities of 2,500 population or more. 58 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS tiplied by the number of rural pupils gives 1677 pupil units as a total sparsity correction for Adams County. Meaning of the Sparsity Factor The sparsity factor simply means the excess per capita cost of a foundation program for rural children over that of urban children. In the case of Adams County, just cited, the number .5792 indicates that, on the average, the per capita cost for rural children within that county is 57.92 per cent greater than is the per capita cost for children living under normal circumstances within this county, or in other counties. Normal circumstances are taken to be those in localities where the population density is great enough so that there are at least 300 elementary children and 700 high school pupils within walking distance of school. The sparsity factor in Table V may be thought of, therefore, as a fractional amount of a pupil unit, on the average, to be added to each rural pupil in the county. We now turn to analysis of data in Illinois counties by means of their pupil cost units. Present Levels of Ability and Expenditure of Counties In Chart 7 of Chapter II, variations in wealth per unit were shown for Illinois counties. The data for this chart are shown in tabular form in Table VI. In the first two columns of this table are the assessed valua- tion and the pupil cost units, respectively, for each county. In Column 3, figures on assessed valuation per pupil cost unit show the relative financial ability of counties. This varies from $38,038 per pupil unit in Piatt County to only $2728 per pupil in Pulaski County. It is evident from these figures that reorganization of districts even to the ultimate point of districts as large as counties will not eliminate state-wide concern for marked difference among units in ability to raise local taxes for education. Re- organization of districts helps, but it does not solve problems of financial inequalities in school support. A comparison of Column 3 in Table VI with Columns 4 and 5 shows how different it is to compare counties on the basis of cost units as used in this study than on the basis of average daily attendance. It is differ- ences as great as those between Columns 3 and 4 which produce great ir- regularities among local units in a plan of state aid to local units on an equalizing basis using a "qualifying rate" on local assessed valuation. The present state aid law in Illinois does not use the refined pupil units, instead it computes aid on the basis of average daily attendance. If the Illinois finance plan is to be in keeping with the technical de- velopments reported in this volume, it must adopt a refined measure of need to use in apportioning state funds. This step should be taken before COMPARABLE UNITS FOR COST ANALYSIS 59 TABLE VI Variations in Average Local Ability Among Counties to Finance Education 1947-1948 (i) (2) (3) (4) (5) Amount of Total Valuation per Valuation Assessed Total Number Valuation Actual Pupil Per Actual County Valuation of Pupil Per Pupil in Pupil for 1947* Cost Units Unit Attendance Sparsity Piatt $ 144,699,156 3,804 $38,038 153,225 $15,187 Lake 503,442,806 20,505 24,552 26,645 2,093 Will 377,326,088 16,323 23,116 27,263 4,147 Champaign 279,210,830 12,123 23,031 28,659 5,628 La Salle 347,149,761 15,073 23,031 27,679 4,648 Livingston 165,194,057 7,291 22,660 32,545 9,885 McLean 290,073,979 12,836 22,598 28,894 6,296 Cook t 9,490,378,397 423,028 22,434 22,799 465 Peoria 490,222,240 22,404 21,881 23,975 2,094 Kane 396,991,430 18,243 21,762 23,587 1,825 Kendall 55,570,632 2,554 21,758 31,775 10,017 Lee 136,969,280 6,366 21,515 28,449 6,934 De Kalb 146,247,076 6,850 21,349 26,888 5,539 Du Page 423,288,418 19,858 21,315 22,605 1,290 Logan 111,106,306 5,230 21,239 28,479 7,240 Grundy 80,907,488 3,810 21,235 28,805 7,570 Iroquois 154,296,120 7,442 20,733 30,678 9,945 Ford 76,197,634 3,697 20,610 29,626 9,016 McHenry 161,472,128 7,880 20,488 26,415 5,927 Edgar 101,212,453 4,973 20,352 27,533 7,181 Warren 87,979,204 4,339 20,276 26,977 6,701 Douglas 78,748,465 3,897 20,207 27,823 7,616 Woodford 90,340,939 4,489 20,124 29,003 8,879 Winnebago 392,367,054 19,840 19,776 22,010 2,234 Kankakee 167,041,647 8,454 19,758 24,709 4,951 Adams 168,404,955 8,709 19,336 23,946 4,610 Marshall 54,970,563 2,861 19,213 28,729 9,516 Moultrie 58,033,258 3,059 18,971 25,938 6,967 Sangamon 332,370,535 17,601 18,883 21,798 2,915 De Witt 72,291,074 3,840 18,825 25,045 6,220 Macon 274,003,281 15,028 18,232 20,475 2,243 Ogle 128,878,741 7,082 18,198 24,753 6,555 Menard 40,519,518 2,267 17,873 25,512 7,639 Bureau 138,857,860 7,774 17,861 24,405 6,544 Stephenson 120,888,527 6,793 17,796 22,137 4,341 McDonough 93,276,135 5,309 17,569 23,797 6,228 Knox 165,648,698 9,440 17,547 21,355 3,808 Henderson 39,924,651 2,281 17,503 27,149 9,646 Henry 145,687,638 8,552 17,095 21,983 4,888 Madison - 465,969,584 27,328 17,050 18,545 1,495 St. Clair 465,985,526 27,777 16,775 20,539 3,764 Boone 50,394,640 3,119 16,157 20,362 4,205 Stark 35,752,347 2,219 16,111 23,807 7,696 Tazewell 219,265,184 13,678 16,030 18,892 2,862 * As adjusted presumably to 100 per cent of true value. t Including Chicago. 60 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE VI (Continued) County (i) Total Assessed Valuation 1947* (2) Total Number of Pupil Cost Units (3) Valuation Per Pupil Unit (4) Valuation per Actual Pupil in Attendance (5) Amount of Valuation Per Actual Pupil for Sparsity Coles 104,243,528 6,735 15,477 18,549 3,072 Putnam 18,144,855 1,189 15,260 22,879 7,619 Whiteside 132,678,950 8,926 14,864 18,082 3,218 Monroe 34,559,754 2,346 14,731 22,721 7,990 Morgan 84,124,950 5,711 14,730 19,133 4,403 Christian 112,786,161 7,697 14,653 18,775 4,122 Vermilion 220,208,746 15,172 14,513 17,074 2,561 Carroll 59,500,314 4,194 14,187 19,544 5,357 Washington 38,604,843 2,776 13,906 22,187 8,281 Rock Island 275,994,005 20,027 13,871 16,721 2,850 Hancock 84,758,710 6,283 13,490 19,494 6,004 Mason 52,860,929 3,925 13,467 18,925 5,458 Mercer 56,404,314 4,235 13,318 19,150 5,832 Clinton 47,856,720 3,599 13,297 19,394 6,097 Wabash 36,601,467 2,814 13,006 16,026 3,020 Richland 43,836,407 3,412 12,847 15,383 2,536 White 66,311,847 5,318 12,469 16,184 3,715 Shelby 70,768,826 5,878 12,039 17,214 5,175 Montgomery 74,173,872 6.210 11,944 15,538 3,594 Fulton 113,570,079 9,567 11,871 15,565 3,694 Jo Daviess 51,311,450 4,373 11,733 16,953 5,220 Fayette 68,344,319 5,956 11,474 15,960 4,486 Brown 17,504,435 1,572 11,135 17,667 6,532 Schuyler 25,981,661 2,343 11,093 17,471 6,378 Pike 60,350,485 5,542 10,887 16,079 5,192 Macoupin 94,240,534 8,761 10,756 14,089 3,333 Edwards 20,742,714 1,969 10,534 15,024 4,490 Scott 18,793,851 1,806 10,406 15,581 5,175 Bond 33,286,989 3,218 10,343 14,277 3,934 Cumberland 26,804,774 2,612 10,262 15,205 4,943 Hamilton 31,408,120 3,112 10,092 14,293 4,201 Clark 39,519,015 4,026 9,815 13,429 3,614 Jefferson 72,512,391 7,398 9,801 12,159 2,358 Randolph 52,874,991 5,438 9,723 12,998 3,275 Wayne 51,262,849 5,302 9,668 13,635 3,967 Crawford 55,378,246 5,746 9,637 12,471 2,834 Effingham 42,618,016 4,437 9,605 13,070 3,465 Jersey 29,656,454 3,096 9,578 12,789 3,211 Marion 87,184,590 9,114 9,564 11,690 2,126 Jasper 26,811,468 2,856 9,387 14,645 5,258 Cass 37,310,882 4,036 9,244 12,013 2,769 Greene 40,143,101 4,422 9,078 12,507 3,429 Clay 37,655,463 4,421 8,519 11,339 2,820 Perry 37,261,852 4,491 8,297 10,680 2,383 Jackson 62,601,418 7,596 8,241 10,251 2,010 Franklin 85,755,106 10,670 8,037 9,241 1,204 Lawrence 38,476,870 4,875 7,892 10,080 2,188 As adjusted presumably to 100 per cent of true value. COMPARABLE UNITS FOR COST ANALYSIS 61 TABLE VI (Continued) County (i) Total Assessed Valuation 1947* (2) Total Number of Pupil Cost Units (3) Valuation Per Pupil Unit (4) Valuation per Actual Pupil in Attendance (5) Amount of Valuation Per Actual Pupil for Sparsity Gallatin 20,085,477 2,667 7,531 10,938 3.407 Alexander 29,363,328 4,344 6,759 8.038 1.279 Saline 51,033,686 7,659 6,663 7,926 1.263 Calhoun 10,770,500 1,650 6,527 10,020 3.493 Union 25,463,426 4,460 5,709 7,451 1.742 Williamson 55,079,547 10,269 5,363 6,190 827 Hardin 11,078,489 2,188 5,063 6,869 1,806 Massac 15,740.964 3,110 5,061 6.309 1.248 Johnson 11,916,783 2,601 4.581 6,786 2.205 Pope 6,568,749 1.846 3.558 5.685 2.127 Pulaski 10,741,282 3,937 2,728 3,426 69S Total $20,041,179,855 1,135,959 * As adjusted presumably to 100 per cent of true value. large measures have been adopted in state aid, so that large sums will not become committed to favorable areas not needing them. An intro- duction of some form of "sparsity" correction in the state apportionment plan will make allowances for areas in which the reorganization problem is most serious and will thus provide funds needed in areas where reor- ganization is progressing slowly for lack of funds. These areas have additional needs for fair allowances for a few schools smaller than normal size that can be justified even after complete reorganization and for transportation necessary to carry children to and from school. Such modifications of the state finance plan go hand in hand with district reorganization, for if properly written into law they may enhance rather than impede reorganization. The foregoing should become increasingly apparent to the reader as he follows the analyses in the remainder of this chapter and in subsequent chapters. 4 Local effort is the extent to which local ability has been utilized in supporting education. The relative effort of counties may be compared by computing the amounts of money per unit of need being raised above 4 It is to be noted that some of the sparsity factor is in part taken into account by the special transportation aid in this state under present law. However, the allocation is not based upon a measure of need, but rather (up to a limit of $20 per pupil transported) upon what the district spends. Nor is the allocation made on an equalization basis. The writers are not objecting to a separate fund for transporta- tion if genuine grounds can be found for earmarking that part of state grants, though most arguments for it are grounded in a philosophy of distrust of local competence contrary to the philosophy of this study. The chief objection is the purely statistical one revealed here, that if there is transportation aid it should be granted on the same basis as other funds, since getting children to school is an essential part of the task of providing them a guaranteed minimum of education. CHART 11. Local Effort Beyond 37.5 Cents per $100 of Assessed Valuation county r PIATT LAKE WILL CHAMPAIGN LA SALLE LIVINGSTON MC LEAN COOK PEORIA KANE KENDALL LEE DE K ALB DU PAGE LOGAN GRUNDY IROQUOIS FORD MC HENRY EDGAR WARREN DOUGLAS WOODFORD WINNEBAGO KANKAKEE ADAMS MARSHALL MOULTRIE SANGAMON DEWITT MACON OGLE MENARD BUREAU STEPHENSON MC DONOUGH KNOX HENDERSON HENRY MADISON ST. CLAIR BOONE STARK TAZEWELL COLES PUTNAM WHITESIDE MONROE MORGAN CHRISTIAN VERMILION CARROLL WASHINGTON ROCK ISLAND HANCOCK MASON MERCER CLINTON WABASH RICHLAND WHITE SHELBY MONTGOMERY FULTON JO DAVIESS FAYETTE BROWN SCHUYLER PIKE MACOUPIN EDWARDS scon BOND CUMBERLAND HAMILTON CLARK JEFFERSON RANDOLPH WAYNE CRAWFORD EFFINGHAM JERSEY MARION JASPER CASS GREENE CLAY PERRY JACKSON FRANKLIN LAWRENCE GALLATIN ALEXANDER SALINE CALHOUN UNION WILLIAMSON HARDIN POPE PULASKI PERCENTAGE (see Key) ■>% 50 100 150 200 250 300% ■■:.;,. . ,:.t 1 ■ ■.,.•:,:.,•.■...,:, .. #§WMiiiiKWMI I"""" ,; U ;■:''■■■,-■; . ■;.,■;. j ",' ',;",-„ &//)//,'{ W//Mr . ' - m < /!■//}// ''■//,', ///// """ L n ¥MMm////////////////////M ..., MM . tt:. - ^ W///MWM ■■y w W///////////MW///////M ;i wMMMMMMM WM Wlffll Wit ' \ Local Effort is ex- L Pf'* WflMMBWW/M that the amount of local taxes above 37.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation bears to the amount raised at this rate. m WflC W///M 1 7 r^ ! .-*?"■ r^nsz i ,; WM mi wMA iM ■■" i "'■'""":", r fMfW/W// /,//■'/:/. zz. r i WWMM ~ZZ- ~ ~~*' "~ 1 ■ M. 1 mam wM//M//ff//M/////, fflf W////////ffff///////m wMM//////mS, !' " W/////////M WMZWmMm W//iffl ■/.■■<>>:--:-^/>::--^.Y--::y Z//.V-/Z ^^Z^"" nw ' " '■z',:'^. '" ^ ~* ., - "'' T ^ i SUM W§mm | WWM r ■ . '//////////////, '. '",/, W////W///W///////W//WM Y/ffmffi wMmmfA | ZZC£iZZZZZZZmM §§§§1 ft f^^^i^^ W///MM r """■"-" ""j W///MA wmmMMwjm fEzz. ffim WMMM/j W///////////M ' w/M/M i''/mMmmamm > M W/////WA """" j JZ . m Wm/M//Mw/w// w///////ff/MffM//M PHWPIPWH Wfflffl/Mmffffl/. >': , t W///MW//M i WM, ! IIP" ' ' i % Wm_ W///////////j mm I :■> ■: Wfi > >>, ' ' ' ... '■: .^< .' W//////M " "'" :"] ' '" '////////////////MM ■ mm IT — ' — -- — j •■■- ■ .. wMMm/m/M/mmw/m/Mmmmmmj/mm/ww/w/Mwimm 1 ■ ■■■ ■ " i _„„.,„„ WiWwiF 4 :.\ ■■-■■--■■■■■■< COMPARABLE UNITS FOR COST ANALYSIS 63 the amount per unit at a uniform rate, say 3.75 mills. 5 The ratio of these two amounts indicates relative effort. For example, it is noted in Table VII that Piatt County raised $180.03 per pupil unit in 1947-1948 for current expenses. The amount raised per pupil unit at the rate of 3.75 mills was $142.65. The effort of this county above this rate was $37.38. This amount was 26 per cent of the amount raised at the rate of 3.75 mills. Taking this rate for illustrative purposes as a standard by which to compare relative efforts of counties, it is noted in Column 4 that Piatt County's effort above this amount was 26 per cent of the standard, while Lake County's effort was 137 per cent. It will be noted that the relative efforts vary from 295 per cent in Massac County to 26 per cent in Piatt County. These variations are presented graphically in Chart 11. It will be noted that, with several exceptions, the trend of the bars is to increase in length for counties lower on the list. The counties are listed in order of wealth per pupil unit from the wealthiest to the poorest. Therefore, the tendency is that the poorer the counties the greater is the effort to support education. 5 We use this rate because it was the qualifying rate in the law before July 1, 1949, for reorganized districts. TABLE VII Variations in Average Local Effort Amoung Counties to Support Education 1947-1948 County (i) Total Local Funds per Pupil Unit for Current Expense (2) Local Funds per Pupil Unit Raised at 3.75 Mill Levy (3) Local Funds per Pupil Unit Above Rate of 3.75 Mill Levy (4) Local Effort in Percentage of Amount Raised at 3.75 Mill Levy Piatt $180.03 $142.65 $ 37.38 26 Lake 218.11 92.07 126.04 137 Will 197.02 86.69 110.33 127 Champaign 166.22 86.37 79.85 92 La Salle 169.28 86.37 82.91 96 Livingston 145.09 84.98 60.11 71 McLean 169.33 84.74 84.59 100 Cook 226.86 84.13 142.73 170 Peoria 153.16 82.05 71.11 87 Kane 182.79 81.61 101.18 124 Kendall 133.56 81.59 51.97 64 Lee 149.59 80.68 68.91 86 De Kalb 180.33 80.06 100.27 125 Du Page 230.08 79.93 150.15 188 Logan 159.56 79.65 79.91 100 Grundy 136.90 79.63 57.27 72 Iroquois 163.95 77.75 86.20 111 64 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE VII (Continued) (i) (2) (3) (4) Total Local Local Funds Local Funds Local Effort Funds per per Pupil per Pupil in Percentage County Pupil Unit Unit Raised Unit Above of Amount for Current at 3.75 Mill Rate of Raised at Expense Levy 3.75 Mill Levy 3.75 Mill Levy Ford 167.29 77.29 90.00 116 McHenry 164.23 76.83 87.40 114 Edgar 140.78 76.32 64.46 84 Warren 133.78 76.04 57.74 76 Douglas 162.99 75.78 87.21 115 Woodford 158.01 75.47 82.54 109 Winnebago 158.84 74.16 84.68 114 Kankakee 140.46 74.10 66.36 90 Adams 154.25 72.51 81.74 113 Marshall 132.14 72.05 60.09 83 Moultrie 132.79 71.14 61.65 87 Sangamon 177.75 70.81 106.94 151 De Witt 163.76 70.60 93.16 132 Macon 146.80 68.37 78.43 115 Ogle 136.15 68.24 67.91 100 Menard 160.82 67.03 93.79 140 Bureau 141.70 66.98 74.72 112 Stephenson 158.45 66.74 91.71 137 McDonough 162.56 65.89 96.67 147 Knox 147.31 65.80 81.51 124 Henderson 147.16 65.64 81.52 124 Henry 147.31 64.11 83.20 130 Madison 117.70 63.94 53.76 84 St. Clair 147.59 62.91 84.68 135 Boone 136.58 60.59 75.99 125 Stark 149.03 60.42 88.61 147 Tazewell 124.45 60.11 64.34 107 Coles 102.91 58.04 44.87 77 Putnam 145.66 57.23 88.43 155 Whiteside 147.64 55.74 91.90 165 Monroe 101.84 55.24 46.60 84 Morgan 143.42 55.24 88.18 160 Christian 126.72 54.95 71.77 131 Vermilion 144.67 54.42 90.25 166 Carroll 173.62 53.20 120.42 226 Washington 81.30 52.15 29.15 56 Rock Island 132.56 51.68 80.88 157 Hancock 131.30 50.59 80.71 160 Mason 118.63 50.50 68.13 135 Mercer 125.69 49.94 75.75 152 Clinton 77.40 49.86 27.54 55 Wabash 107.09 48.78 58.31 120 Richland 155.13 48.18 106.95 222 White 105.63 46.76 58.87 126 Shelby 117.82 45.15 72.67 161 Montgomery 118.56 44.79 73.77 165 Fulton 129.17 44.52 84.65 190 Jo Daviess 100.50 44.00 56.50 128 COMPARABLE UNITS FOR COST ANALYSIS 65 TABLE VII (Continued) County (i) Total Local Funds per Pupil Unit for Current Expense (2) Local Funds per Pupil Unit Raised at 3.75 Mill Levy (3) Local Funds per Pupil Unit Above Rate of 3.75 Mill Levy (4) Local Effort in Percentage of Amount Raised at 3.75 Mill Levy Fayette 91.98 43.03 48.95 114 Brown 116.96 41.76 75.20 180 Schuyler 99.15 41.60 57.55 138 Pike 116.47 40.83 75.64 185 Macoupin 131.44 40.34 91.10 226 Edwards 113.22 39.50 73.72 187 Scott 119\31 39.02 80.29 206 Bond 95.86 38.79 57.07 147 Cumberland 89.75 38.48 51.27 133 Hamilton 64.15 37.85 26.30 69 Clark 102.02 36.81 65.21 177 Jefferson 75.96 36.76 39.20 107 Randolph 96.71 36.46 60.25 165 Wayne 77.00 36.26 40.74 112 Crawford 79.16 36.14 43.02 119 Effingham 116.69 36.02 80.67 224 Jersey 68.79 35.92 32.87 92 Marion 98.85 35 .87 62.98 176 Jasper 56.70 35.20 21.50 61 Cass 92.99 34.67 58.32 168 Greene 97.83 34.04 63.79 187 Clay 68.03 31.94 36.09 113 Perry 90.49 31.11 59.38 191 Jackson 80.86 30.91 49.95 162 Franklin 74.80 30.14 44.66 148 Lawrence 82.23 29.60 52.63 178 Gallatin 76.30 28.24 48.06 170 Alexander 86.92 25.35 61.57 243 Saline 50.64 24.99 25.65 103 Calhoun 79.95 24.48 55.47 227 Union 74.83 21.41 53.42 250 Williamson 67.74 20.11 47.63 237 Hardin 61.39 18.99 42.40 223 Massac 74.98 18.98 56.00 295 Johnson 60.97 17.18 43.79 255 Pope 47.78 13.34 34.44 258 Pulaski 34.76 10.23 24.53 240 Other interesting facts by which to compare counties are the rela- tionships of effort to expenditure level and to the amount of state aid that a county received. These facts are shown in Chart 12. In this chart counties are listed in descending order of average expenditure per pupil unit of need for expenses of current operation. These expenditures in- cluded everything except capital outlay, debt service, G.I. training classes, CHART 12. Average School Expenditure Levels in Illinois Counties, 1947-1948 EXPENDITURE PER PUPIL UNIT COUNTY DU PAGE COOK LAKE WILL KANE DE KALB CHAMPAIGN CARROLL MC LEAN FORD LA SALLE WINNEBAGO DOUGLAS RICHLAND IROQUOIS MCDONOUGH DE win MC HENRY WOODFORD LOGAN PEORIA MENARD STEPHENSON ADAMS VERMILION MACON WHITESIDE STARK LEE HENRY PUTNAM EDGAR KNOX ST. CLAIR HENDERSON BUREAU LIVINGSTON MORGAN KANKAKEE GRUNDY MACOUPIN MOULTRIE WARREN ROCK ISLAND OGLE FULTON HANCOCK KENDALL CHRISTIAN BOONE MARSHALL MADISON TAZEWELL MERCER PIKE MONTGOMERY COLES WABASH BROWN MASON EFFINGHAM SCOTT CLARK EDWARDS MARION FRANKLIN SCHUYLER GREENE CUMBERLAND JACKSON FAYETTE RANDOLPH PERRY MONROE WILLIAMSON BOND JO DAVIESS JEFFERSON LAWRENCE ALEXANDER MASSAC WAYNE CASS GALLATIN UNION WASHINGTON CRAWFORD CALHOUN SALINE HAMILTON CLAY CLINTON HARDIN JERSEY JASPER JOHNSON POPE PULASKI 264 COMPARABLE UNITS FOR COST ANALYSIS 67 federal and state aid for school lunches, expenses of offices of county su- perintendents, and expenses of township treasurers. The left hand section of each bar represents the part of the expenditure derived from local taxes. The right section of each bar represents the amount of state aid, includ- ing federal aid for vocational work. The round barb which appears in the left-hand section represents the amounts that actually were raised at the rate of 95 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, referred to earlier as the average rate for the state. If a county was not levying as much as 95 cents, the barb for that county appears beyond the left hand sec- tion at a distance representing the amount per pupil by which the county falls short of raising at this rate. It is interesting to note that of the 62 counties not levying an aver- age of 95 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, 37 of them are in the upper half of the counties according to expenditure level (total amount per pupil unit). A further examination shows that 29 counties could raise more funds locally at this rate than the combined actual local funds and state aid. Twenty-two counties of this group are in the upper half of all counties according to expenditure level. These facts raise unanswered questions as to the causes of a definite lessening of average effort at some- where around the $175 per pupil unit level. The effect of state aid upon effort is apparently negligible. This ap- pears to be a reasonable conclusion, since it is noted that the general pat- tern of distributing aid gives each county approximately the same amount per unit of need. This is further substantiated by a correlation of .1936 between effort and amount of state aid received. It should be emphasized that if the pattern of aid distribution were one of greater equalization, the amount of aid per pupil unit would in- crease markedly in the poorer counties. Then, if the relative effort were the same as in 1947-1948, there would be a higher correlation between effort and amount of aid received. CHAPTER VI THE COMBINED STATE-LOCAL PATTERN OF FINANCIAL SUPPORT This chapter examines data for the year 1947-1948 for current operat- ing expenses under conditions of improved district organization. The first part of the chapter shows what the pattern of support looked like in that year with large local units. Statistics for counties are used to portray the "large unit" picture. The next part shows what the support pattern of that year would have looked like with an equalized founda- tion level of $160 per pupil unit in large units. The third part discusses the relationship of district reorganization to the problem of support. The fourth part shows additional expenditures in that year for capital outlay, debt service, offices of county superintendents, and township treasurers. Pattern of Support in 1947-1948 for Expenses of Current Operation The pattern of support in the year 1947-1948 is shown in Chart 13. The expenditures, expressed as amount per pupil unit, represent most, but not all, school expenditures for that year. Expenses for capital outlay and debt service for building purposes are not shown for the reason that they are not customarily considered with expenses of current operation. The expenses of county superintendents and township treasurers, though classified as current in nature, were treated separately. It was believed that many readers would like to have these items handled separately so that these offices, intermediate as they are between the local district and state central office, could be viewed in terms of the services they render. State and federal aids for school lunches were omitted from this chart for the reason that they represent special stimulation grants not ordi- narily considered within the framework of a foundation level. However, it is emphasized that the separation of these special expenses from the picture does not preclude the possibility of later treating them as a part of a foundation program. Actually, the amounts are small and would not affect the major elements of the picture which will now be pointed out. It will be noted that the chart consists of bars for each county and that these bars are divided into three sections. The light section on the left represents the amount of funds per pupil unit raised from local taxes at a uniform rate of 37.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. 1 The 1 The qualifying rate for state equalization aid in community unit districts at the time when this study was completed. [681 COMBINED STATE-LOCAL PATTERN 69 TABLE VIII Pattern of Public School Expenditures * in Illinois, 1947-1948 (Expressed as Amount per Pupil Unit) County (i) Local Funds at Rate of 3.75 Mill Levy (2) State and Federal Aid t (3) Local Funds Above Rate of 3.75 Mill Levy (4) State and Federal Lunch Aid (5) Office of County Super- intendent (6) Office of : Township Treasurer (7) Total Expenditure per Pupil Unit Piatt $142.65 $ 23.86 S 37.38 $3.82 $1.45 $ .69 $209.85 Lake 92.07 30.38 126.04 2.93 1.32 .91 253.65 Will 86.69 27.62 110.33 1.08 1.27 .94 227.93 Champaign 86.37 28.26 79.85 1.19 1.23 1.12 198.02 La Salle 86.37 22.29 82.91 1.57 1.29 .82 195.25 Livingston 84.98 20.93 60.11 1.20 1.96 2.08 171.26 McLean 84.74 23.79 84.59 1.65 1.20 .98 196.95 Cook J 84.59 29.27 143.52 3.84 .21 .38 261.81 Peoria 82.05 29.84 71.11 3.77 1.02 .50 188.29 Kane 81.61 22.85 101.18 .97 .92 .66 208.19 Kendall 81.59 21.36 51.97 .00 3.98 1.86 160.76 Lee 80.68 22.19 68.91 .34 1.76 1.37 175.25 De Kalb 80.06 21.72 100.27 1.93 1.57 .93 206.48 Du Page 79.93 27.84 150.15 2.14 .63 .78 261.47 Logan 79.65 24.06 79.91 2.04 1.91 .83 188.40 Grundy 79.63 26.41 57.27 .04 2.68 1.26 167.29 Iroquois 77.75 23.85 86.20 2.91 .66 1.66 192.37 Ford 77.29 24.42 90.00 5.69 2.40 1.42 201.22 McHenry 76.83 22.34 87.40 1.78 1.89 1.06 191.30 Edgar 76.32 29.84 64.46 2.11 1.17 1.24 175.14 Warren 76.04 26.36 57.74 .44 2.28 .91 163.77 Douglas 75.78 26.43 87.21 2.17 2.04 1.49 195.12 Woodford 75.47 25.89 82.54 1.31 2.08 1.24 188.53 Winnebago 74.16 30.79 84.68 2.71 .99 .34 193.67 Kankakee 74.10 24.33 66.36 1.38 2.08 1.61 169.86 Adams 72.51 23.51 81.74 1.61 1.45 .52 181.34 Marshall 72.05 21.14 60.09 .08 3.09 1.20 157.65 Moultrie 71.14 28.86 61.65 1.68 2.63 .80 166.76 Sangamon 70.81 24.87 106.94 3.68 1.15 .60 208.05 De Witt 70.60 23.27 93.16 1.38 2.79 1.31 192.51 Macon 68.37 26.84 78.43 2.81 1.26 .79 178.50 Ogle 68.24 21.87 67.91 .68 1.58 1.04 161.32 Menard 67.03 21.10 93.79 1.65 4.23 1.63 189.43 Bureau 66.98 26.36 74.72 .85 1.86 1.29 172.06 Stephenson 66.74 21.28 91.71 2.08 1.46 .76 184.03 McDonough 65.89 24.66 96.67 .00 2.07 .90 190.19 Knox 65.80 22.27 81.51 .60 1.03 .62 171.83 Henderson 65.64 22.04 81.52 .98 2.31 2.58 175.07 Henry 64.11 24.00 83.20 .19 1.98 .84 174.32 Madison 63.94 34.56 53.76 3.10 .64 1.22 157.22 * Expenses of current operation. These figures do not include expenditures for capital outlay and debt service. t Excluding aid for school lunches and G.T. training classes, t Exclusive of Chicago. 70 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE VIII (Continued) County (l) Local Funds at Rate of 3.75 Mill Levy (2) State and Federal Aid t (3) Local Funds Above Rate of 3.75 Mill Levy (4) State and Federal Lunch Aid (5) Office of County Super- intendent (6) Office of Township Treasurer (7) Total Expenditure per Pupil Unit St. Clair 62.91 21.86 84.68 1.76 .79 1.17 173.17 Boone 60.59 17.96 75.99 .95 2.60 .96 159.05 Stark 60.42 22.82 86.61 .17 3.10 1.08 174.20 Tazewell 60.11 26.74 64.34 1.49 .95 1.01 154.64 Coles 58.04 3923 44.87 .96 1.54 .75 145.39 Putnam 5723 25.50 88.43 4.04 6.22 1.83 183.25 Whiteside 55.74 25.43 91.90 .27 1.54 .86 175.74 Monroe 55.24 17.72 46.60 .63 3.50 .90 124.59 Morgan 5524 22.17 88.18 4.32 2.10 .90 172.91 Christian 54.95 27.84 71.77 .42 1.66 .76 157.40 Vermilion 54.42 30.32 90.25 2.15 1.03 .92 179.09 Carroll 53.20 19.80 120.42 .48 1.84 1.34 197.08 Washington 52.15 28.87 29.15 .35 2.87 .89 114.28 Rock Island 51.68 26.50 80.88 4.08 .85 .40 164.39 Hancock 50.59 23.65 80.71 1.29 1.71 1.03 157.27 Mason 50.50 21.80 68.13 2.21 2.47 1.75 146.86 Mercer 49.94 24.82 75.75 .52 2.29 .90 154.22 Clinton 49.86 22.29 27.54 2.14 1.67 .79 104.29 Wabash 48.78 33.91 58.31 2.38 2.91 .57 146.86 Richland 48.18 33.08 106.95 1.70 2.40 .04 189.95 White 46.76 42.93 58.87 .64 1.69 1.01 151.90 Shelby 45.15 29.12 72.67 .36 1.66 .98 149.94 Montgomery 44.79 26.85 73.77 1.98 1.88 1.14 150.41 Fulton 44.52 27.98 84.65 1.37 1.00 .65 160.17 Jo Daviess 44.00 17.90 56.50 .28 2.23 .84 121.75 Fayette 43.03 32.58 48.95 1.87 1.68 .87 128.98 Brown 41.76 23.72 75.20 .73 4.78 .25 146.44 Schuyler 41.60 27.65 57.55 1.27 3.40 .98 132.45 Pike 40.83 32.40 75.64 .85 2.01 1.35 153.08 Macoupin 40.34 31.51 91.10 1.45 1.34 .82 166.56 Edwards 39.50 18.87 73.72 1.54 3.76 1.27 138.66 Scott 39.02 18.82 80.29 .29 4.10 1.98 144.50 Bond 38.79 22.99 59.07 2.01 2.08 .61 125.55 Cumberland 38.48 36.06 51.27 1.47 3.14 .84 131.26 Hamilton 37.85 39.43 26.30 .67 2.81 1.79 108.85 Clark 36.81 33.61 65.21 .41 2.17 .94 139.15 Jefferson 36.76 41.36 39.20 1.71 1.42 .63 121.08 Randolph 36.46 26.76 60.25 3.19 1.99 .91 129.56 Wayne 36.26 36.83 40.74 .19 1.93 1.04 116.99 Crawford 36.14 30.80 43.02 4.50 1.57 .77 116.80 Effingham 36.02 22.84 80.67 4.08 2.32 .63 146.56 Jersey 35.92 26.80 32.87 .06 2.62 .85 99.12 Marion 35.87 32.89 62.98 .87 1.08 .69 134.38 Jasper 35.20 37.79 21.50 3.74 2.78 1.17 102.18 Cass 34.67 20.51 58.32 .29 1.97 .73 116.49 * Expenses of current operation. These figures do not include expenditures for capital outlay and debt service. t Excluding aid for school lunches and G.I. training classes. COMBINED STATE-LOCAL PATTERN 71 TABLE VIII (Cor itinued ) County (i) Local Funds at Rate of 3.75 Mill Levy (2) State and Federal Aid t (3) Local lunds Above Rate of 3.75 Mill Levy (4) Sate and Federal Lunch Aid (5) Office of County Super- intendent (6) Office of Township Treasurer (7) Total Expenditure per Pupil Unit Greene 34.04 28.74 63.79 .07 2.04 .94 129.62 Clay 31.94 35.35 36.09 .00 2.05 .88 106.31 Perry- 31.11 29.96 59.38 .77 1.98 .93 124.13 Jackson 30.91 44.62 49.95 3.04 1.55 1.01 131.08 Franklin 30.14 54.18 44.66 3.82 1.98 .69 135.47 Lawrence 29.60 34.30 52.63 1.45 1.85 .65 120.48 Gallatin 28.24 34.63 48.06 1.54 3.07 3.65 119.19 Alexander 25.35 28.96 61.57 2.78 2.01 1.56 122.23 Saline 24.99 54.26 25.65 2.40 1.17 1.03 109.50 Calhoun 24.48 24.97 55.47 3.19 4.42 2.20 114.73 Union 21.41 35.47 53.42 6.49 2A .88 117.91 Williamson 20.11 51.21 47.63 5.40 1.00 .74 126.09 Hardin 18.99 35.51 42.40 2.34 3.38 .55 103.17 Massac 18.98 40.89 56.00 .35 2.64 .87 119.73 Johnson 17.18 32.25 43.79 1.82 3.15 1.17 99.36 Pope 13.34 36.63 34.44 .12 3.94 1.44 89.91 Pulaski 13.34 46.87 21.42 2.75 1.98 .72 87.08 * Expenses of current operation. These figures do not include expenditures for capital outlay and debt service. t Excluding aid for school lunches and G.I. training classes. dark center section shows the total amount of state aid per pupil unit received that year, exclusive of $877,987.91 for school lunches. The sec- tion on the extreme right shows the amount of local funds per pupil unit above the amounts already mentioned at the rate of 37.5 cents. The supporting data for these sections of the chart, and the separate items already mentioned, are shown in Table VIII. The most interesting thing to observe about Chart 13 is the rela- tionship of state aid to local taxpaying ability. It is noted that, with few exceptions, all counties received about the same amount of aid per unit of educational need. This means that the total effect of the state aid distribution plan in terms of potential reorganization within counties was essentially a flat grant proposition. In general, the poor counties re- ceived little more aid than the abler ones. If a greater degree of equaliza- tion had obtained, the width of the section representing state aid would have increased downward on the chart. One fact that is not shown on Chart 13 is the number of units of need on various expenditure levels. It is noted that the width of all bars is the same. If space were adequate, the widths could be varied in propor- tion to the percentage of the state total of need units found in each CHART 13. Expenditure Pattern for Public Education in Illinois, 1947-1948 COUNTY PIATT LAKE WILL CHAMPAIGN LA SALLE LIVINGSTON MC LEAN COOK PEORIA KANE KENDALL LEE DE KALB DU PAGE LOGAN GRUNDY IROQUOIS FORD MC HENRY EDGAR WARREN DOUGLAS WOODFORD WINNEBAGO KANKAKEE ADAMS MARSHALL MOULTRIE SANGAMON DEWITT MACON OGLE MENARD BUREAU STEPHENSON MC DONOUGH KNOX HENDERSON HENRY MADISON ST. CLAIR BOONE STARK TAZEWELL COLES PUTNAM WHITESIDE MONROE MORGAN CHRISTIAN VERMILION ROCK ISLAND HANCOCK MASON MERCER CLINTON WABASH RICHLAND WHITE SHELBY MONTGOMERY FULTON J0 ?aY v ette BROWN SCHUYLER PIKE MACOUPIN EDWARDS SCOTT BOND CUMBERLAND HAMILTON CLARK JEFFERSON RANDOLPH WAYNE CRAWFORD EFFINGHAM JERSEY MARION JASPER CASS GREENE CLAY PERRY JACKSON FRANKLIN LAWRENCE GALLATIN ALEXANDER SALINE CALHOUN UNION WILLIAMSON HARDIN MASSAC JOHNSON POPE PULASKI EXPENDITURE PER PUPIL UNIT 300 Local funds per pupil unit at 37.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation State aid per pu- Local funds per pupil unit above 37.5 cents per $100 of assessed valu- ation COMBINED STATE-LOCAL PATTERN 73 county. If that were done, the bar representing Cook County would be 37 per cent of the height of the entire chart, since this county has that percentage of the total need units in the state. It is for this reason that a distinction should be made between average expenditure per pupil unit for the state as a whole and the average expenditure level on a per pupil unit basis among counties. The current expenses represented on this chart amount to $226,- 372,246. There are 1,135, 959 pupil cost units, or a state average of $200 per pupil unit. Now, the average county expenditure level is $153 per unit. The reason for the difference is apparent when it is noted that the four counties spending more than an average of $200 per unit — Cook, Du Page, Will, and Lake — have 42 per cent of the state's total need units. About half of the counties have an average expenditure level ranging from about $80 to $150 per unit, while the other half range from $150 to $255. Nearly half the children, however, are in a few counties where the average expenditure level is above $200 per pupil. Pattern of Support with a Foundation Level Equalized at $160 per Pupil Unit A further consideration of the expenditure pattern in 1947-1948 is to illustrate what it would look like with an equalized foundation level of support. This is shown in Chart 14. Reading from left to right, the first section represents a local contribution of 50 cents per $100 of assessed valuation per pupil unit. This rate was selected for purposes of illustra- tion instead of the former 37.5 cent rate for the reason that 50 cents was considered and later adopted in new legislation as a qualifying rate for well-organized unit districts. The second section is the same as it is in Chart 13, namely, the amount of state aid per pupil unit received in 1947-1948. The third section represents the amount of additional state aid per pupil unit required to bring all counties, exclusive of Piatt, up to the level of $160 per unit. It will be noted that this section, together with the one representing aid received in that year, forms an area that increases in width from the top of the chart to the bottom. That is to say, the essential characteristic of an equalized foundation program is that the state's share, when added to the share of the county at a uniform qualifying effort, will produce an equal amount per unit of need in all counties. The level of $160 per pupil unit was selected as an arbitrary figure for purposes of illustration. This amount on a straight per pupil basis has received consideration in current proposals for legislation. The ques- tion of what constitutes an adequate level is one that merits a major study involving educational returns that generally may be expected at various CHART 14. Expenditure Pattern Assuming $160 Foundation Level per Pupil Unit, 1947-1948 COUNTY EXPENDITURE PER PUPIL UNIT $0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 PIATT LAKE WILL CHAMPAIGN LA SALLE LIVINGSTON MC LEAN COOK PEORIA KANE KENDALL LEE DE KALB DU PAGE LOGAN GRUNDY IROQUOIS FORD MC HENRY EDGAR WARREN DOUGLAS WOODFORD WINNEBAGO KANKAKEE ADAMS MARSHALL MOULTRIE SANGAMON DE WITT MACON OGLE MENARD BUREAU STEPHENSON MC DONOUGH KNOX HENDERSON HENRY MADISON ST. CLAIR BOONE STARK TAZEWELL COLES PUTNAM WHITESIDE MONROE MORGAN CHRISTIAN VERMILION CARROLL HANCOCK MASON MERCER CLINTON WABASH RICHLAND WHITE SHELBY MONTGOMERY FULTON JO DAVIESS FAYETTE BROWN SCHUYLER PIKE MACOUPIN EDWARDS SCOTT BOND CUMBERLAND HAMILTON CLARK JEFFERSON RANDOLPH WAYNE CRAWFORD EFFINGHAM JERSEY MARTON JASPER CASS GREENE CLAY PERRY JACKSON FRANKLIN LAWRENCE GALLATIN ALEXANDER SALINE CALHOUN UNION WILLIAMSON HARDIN MASSAC JOHNSON POPE PULASKI jiiiiiiil ^""' 200 225 250 275 $300 V//////A ^jmm&i'///////////////////////////////////, AAAAAAAAAAyAAAAAAyAAAAAyyyyyY/ Y//////////////////A mm?//////////////////. yi'///////////, :v////////////////////, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. '//////////////////////////A mv//////////////////////////////, v//////////////////, '/////////////////////. yaaaaaaaaaaa mmmm*. '///////////A/,// y/////////////. y////////////////////, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/, /////////////////.■■ '/////////////////. y//////////////////. y//////////////////. '/////////////////////// A y/////////////////////,// y///////////////////// Y///////////////////// yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/aaa yaaaaaaaaaa. ■aaaaaaaaaaaaaa// y////////A y////////////////////////, y/////////////////////////- y/////y///, /aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa //aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, AyyAyyyyyyAAyAAyAAAAYAAAAA y////////////////////////////// /aaa /aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAX y////y/y//////////////// 7/////////////////, y//y///////yy//yyyy//. 'AAA/. y//////////////. WffZWMZVZA y/y/y/y/y/y/yy/. yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, y/yyy/y/yyyyyyyyy/yy/. yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, yyyyyyy/yyyyyyy. yaaaaaaaaaaa/ yaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, vyyyyyyyyyyyyyyA yaaaaaaaaaayaaaaaaaa yyyyyyyAyyyAyAyAAAAAA/. YAAAAAyAAAAAyAAAyAAyAA yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyAA. 'yyyyyyyyyyyyyy~ kwwwxm Local contribu- tions of 50 cents per $100 of assessed valuation ■aaaaaaaaa yyAAAAYAYA '/yyyyyyyyy, 'A/AAAA/AA/ yyyy/yyyy, yy/y/y/r 'AAAAAAA '/AAA — State aid, 1947-1948 State aid needed to guarantee $160 Founda- tion Level yyyyyyyyyyyy/. yyyyyyyyyyyyy,. yyyAAAAAAAAAA yyyy/yyyyyyyy/.\ yyAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA/. yyyyyA. 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAA ■AAAAAAAAAAAAAA 'yAAAAAAAAAAAA. yyyyyyyyyyyyy, yyyyyyy/yyy//. xyaaaaay Local funds above 50 cents per $100 of assessed valuation IH Deficit below av- erage of 50 cents per $100 of assessed valuation COMBINED STATE-LOCAL PATTERN 75 levels of expenditure. If an exhaustive study of this type 2 were made, it should contribute to the selection of a level which could be defended with more supporting facts. A summary of total expenditures represented by Chart 14 follows: 1. Total local funds at the rate of five mills, $105,205,899.27. 2. State aid 3 paid in 1947-1948, $32,773,359.92. 3. Amount of additional aid to guarantee a $160 foundation level, $43,770,341. 4. Local funds above the local contribution computed at five mills, $88,392,987.01. Assuming complete reorganization so that the potential local taxing power could be tapped at the rate of five mills, a total amount of state aid necessary to equalize a $160 foundation level in 1947-1948 would have been $76,543,700.92. This figure includes an amount of $2,163,943.42 of federal aid for vocational work and excludes an amount of $5,058,365.51 in state aid spent that year for teachers' retirement and school lunches. The amount spent for teachers' retirement cannot be shown by counties. The foundation level does not constitute all of the support pattern as implied in the foundation program concept in this country. Another vital part is shown in Chart 14 at the right of the $160 level. This section represents the amount of local funds per unit above the re- quired amount of local contribution, at a rate of 50 cents, toward the foundation level. This last section represents funds which would be raised locally at the discretion of the local district. These funds would be raised within a framework of local tax leeway for the exercise of local initiative. This does not imply that local initiative would not be present in the handling of funds for the foundation part of the whole program. But local tax leeway serves its useful function in allowing the citizens of the district to go as far beyond the foundation level as their resources and their desires for better education permit. The supporting data for Chart 14 are shown in Table IX. It will be noted that counties are listed in the same order as they appear in the chart. Relationship of School-District Organization to the Pattern of Financial Support At this point in our discussion let us review the central idea of this 2 A study of the type completed in the State of New York, entitled What Edu- cation Our Money Buys, New York Educational Conference Board, Albany, 1943. 'Exclusive of $4,180,377.60 for teachers' retirement and $877,987.91 for school lunches, but including $2,163,943.42 of federal aid for vocational work. 76 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE IX Pattern of Financial Support With a $160 Foundation Program (i) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) $160 Foundation Level Local Total Contribution Local Funds Current Number per Pupil State Aid Additional per Pupil Expenditures of Pupil Unit at per Pupil Aid Needed Unit Above County in Cost 5 Mill Unit per Pupil 5 Mill 1947-1948 Units Levy Rate 1947-1948 Unit Levy Rate Piatt $ 775,613 3,804 $190.19 $23.86 $ 0.00 $ 10.16 Lake 5,095,404 20,505 122.76 30.38 6.86 95.35 Will 3,666,828 16,323 115.58 27.62 16.80 81.44 Champaign 2,357,798 12,123 115.16 28.26 16.58 51.06 La Salle 2,887,592 15,073 115.16 22.29 22.55 54.12 Livingston 1,210,239 7,290 113.30 20.93 25.77 31.79 McLean 2,478,859 12,836 112.99 23.79 23.22 56.34 Cookt 108,282,382 423,028 112.17 29.11 18.72 114.69 Peoria 4,100,108 22,404 109.41 29.84 20.75 43.75 Kane 3,751,371 18,242 108.81 22.85 28.34 73.98 Kendall 395,648 2,554 108.79 21.36 29.85 24.77 Lee 1,093,531 6,366 107.58 22.19 30.23 42.01 De Kalb 1,384,009 6,850 106.75 21.72 31.53 73.58 Du Page 5,122,114 19,858 106.58 27.84 25.58 123.50 Logan 960,525 5,231 106.20 24.06 29.74 53.36 Grundy 622,202 3,810 106.18 26.41 27.41 30.72 Iroquois 1,397,675 7,442 103.67 23.85 32.48 60.28 Ford 708,772 3,697 103.05 24.42 32.53 64.24 McHenry 1,470,340 7,881 102.44 22.34 35.22 61.79 Edgar 848,511 4,973 101.76 29.84 28.40 39.02 Warren 694,874 4,339 101.38 26.36 32.26 32.40 Douglas 738,205 3,897 101.04 26.43 32.53 61.95 Woodford 825,562 4,489 100.62 25.89 33.49 57.39 Winnebago 3,762,307 19,840 98.88 30.79 30.33 59.96 Kankakee 1,393,153 8,454 98.79 24.33 36.88 41.67 Adams 1,548,231 8,709 96.68 23.51 39.81 57.57 Marshall 438,553 2,861 96.07 21.14 42.79 36.07 Moultrie 494,486 3,059 94.86 28.86 36.28 37.93 Sangamon 3,566,503 17,602 94.42 24.87 40.71 83.32 De Witt 718,185 3,840 94.13 23.27 42.60 69.63 Macon 2,609,593 15,028 91.16 26.84 42.00 55.64 Ogle 1,119,118 7,082 90.99 21.87 47.14 45.16 Menard 412,408 2,267 89.37 21.10 49.53 71.45 Bureau 1,306,600 7,774 89.31 26.36 44.33 52.39 Stephenson 1,220,920 6,793 88.98 21.28 49.74 69.47 McDonough 993,929 5,309 87.85 24.66 47.49 74.71 Knox 1,600,792 9,440 87.74 22.27 49.99 59.57 Henderson 385,943 2,281 87.52 22.04 50.44 59.64 Henry 1,460,047 8,522 85.48 24.00 50.52 61.83 Madison 4,160,858 27,328 85.25 34.56 40.19 32.45 St. Clair 4,706,639 27,777 83.88 21.86 54.26 63.71 t Including Chicago. COMBINED STATE-LOCAL PATTERN 77 TABLE IX (Continued) (i) Current Expenditures in 1947-1948 (2) Total Number of Pupil Cost Units (3) (4) $160 Foundation (5) Level (6) County Local Contribution per Pupil Unit at 5 Mill Levy Rate State Aid per Pupil Unit 1947-1948 Additional Aid Needed per Pupil Unit Local Funds per Pupil Unit Above 5 Mill Levy Rate Boone 482,059 3.119 80.79 17.96 61.25 55.79 Stark 381,322 2,219 80.56 22.82 56.62 68.47 Tazewell 2,068,025 13,678 80.15 26.74 53.11 44.30 Coles 957,360 6.735 77.39 39.23 43.38 25.52 Putnam 203,508 1,189 76.30 25.50 58.20 69.36 Whiteside 1,544,825 8,926 74.32 25.43 60.25 73.32 Monroe 280,489 2.346 73.66 17.72 68.62 28.18 Morgan 945.679 5,711 73.65 22.17 64.18 69.77 Christian 1,189,725 7.697 73.27 27.84 58.89 53.45 Vermilion 2,655,108 15.173 72.57 30.32 57.11 72.10 Carroll 811,240 4,194 70.94 19.80 69.26 102.68 Washington 305,826 2.776 69.53 28.87 61.60 11.77 Rock Island 3.185,488 20,027 69.36 26.50 64.14 63.20 Hancock 973,571 6.283 67.45 23.65 68.90 63.85 Mason 551.213 3.925 67.34 21.80 70.86 51.29 Mercer 637,372 4,235 66.59 24.82 68.59 59.10 Clinton 358.828 3.599 66.49 2229 71.22 10.91 AVabash 396,781 2,814 65.03 33.91 61.06 42.06 Richland 642,165 3,412 64.25 33.08 62.67 90.88 White 790,058 5,318 62.35 42.93 54.72 43.28 Shelby 863.734 5,878 60.20 29.12 70.68 57.62 Montgomery 902.947 6.210 59.72 26.85 73.43 58.84 Fulton 1,503,513 9,567 59.36 27.98 72.66 69.81 Jo Daviess 517.798 4,373 58.67 17.90 83.43 41.83 Fayette 741.944 5,956 57.37 32.58 70.05 34.61 Brown 221.155 1,572 55.68 23.72 80.60 61.28 Schuyler 296,956 2,343 55.47 27.65 76.88 43.68 Pike 825,230 5.543 54.44 32.40 73.16 62.03 Macoupin 1,427,591 8.761 53.78 31.51 74.71 77.66 Edwards 260,112 1.969 52.67 18.87 88.46 60.55 Scott 249,464 1,806 52.03 18.82 89.15 67.28 Bond 382,482 3,218 51.72 22.99 85.29 44.14 Cumberland 328,631 2.612 51.31 36.06 72.63 38.44 Hamilton 322,356 3,112 50.46 39.43 70.11 13.69 Clark 546,085 4,026 49.08 33.61 77.31 52.94 Jefferson 867,906 7,398 49.01 41.36 69.63 26.95 Randolph 671.404 5,438 48.62 26.76 84.62 48.09 Wayne 603,528 5,302 48.34 36.83 74.83 28.66 Crawford 631,848 5,746 48.19 30.80 81.01 30.97 Effingham 619,140 4,437 48.03 22.84 89.13 68.66 Jersey 295,948 3,096 47.89 26.80 85.31 20.90 Marion 1.200,815 9.115 47.82 32.89 79.29 51.03 Jasper 269,867 2.S56 46.94 37.79 75.27 9.76 Cass 458,111 4.036 46.22 20.51 93.27 46.77 Greene 559,715 4,422 45.39 28.74 85.87 52.44 Clay 457.073 4.421 42.60 35.35 82.05 25.43 78 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE IX (Continued) (i) (2) (3) (4) (5) $160 Foundation Level (6) County Current Expenditures in. 1947-1948 Total Number of Pupil Cost Units Local Contribution per Pupil Unit at 5 Mill Levy Rate State Aid per Pupil Unit 1947-1948 Local Funds Additional per Pupil Aid Needed Unit Above per Pupil 5 Mill Unit Levy Rate Perry 540,931 4,491 41.49 29.96 88.55 49.00 Jackson 953,171 7,596 41.21 44.62 74.17 39.65 Franklin 1,376,256 10,670 40.19 54.18 65.63 34.61 Lawrence 568,090 4,875 39.46 34.30 86.24 42.77 Gallatin 295,901 2,667 37.66 34.63 87.71 38.64 Alexander 503,444 4,344 33.80 28.96 97.24 53.12 Saline 803,425 7,659 33.32 54.26 72.42 17.32 Calhoun 173,129 1,650 32.64 24.97 102.39 47.31 Union 491,955 4,460 28.55 35.47 95.98 46.28 Williamson 1,221,496 10,269 26.82 51.21 81.97 40.92 Hardin 212,011 2,188 25.32 35.51 99.17 36.07 Massac 360,340 3,110 25.31 40.89 93.80 49.67 Johnson 242,452 2,601 22.91 32.25 104.84 38.06 Pope 155,833 1,846 17.79 36.63 105.58 29.99 Pulaski 321,390 3,937 13.64 46.87 99.49 21.12 Total $226,372,146 1,135,959 chapter. Our purpose is to see what the state's financial responsibility for public schools would be like under the following conditions: 1. The utilization of equitable measures of cost or educational need. 2. The application of the principles of equalization. 3. A plan of district organization such that all districts are sufficiently large and none overlap in responsibility. From the vantage point of the last condition, district organization, we have used the county only as the statistical unit for analysis. The authors do not imply that the county unit should be the plan of organization. The county serves as the only governmental subdivision which can be used efficiently for purposes of the analyses made in this chapter. An ideal plan of organization would no doubt look somewhat more like the hypothetical plan developed in Chapter VII. Since such districts do not now exist in fact, no governmental agencies would have usable financial statistics re- garding them for use in this chapter. One alternative would be to make the analysis in terms of existing districts. This would not serve the pur- pose of this volume, since the analysis throughout is predicated upon the assumption that the existing district system is unsound. Moreover, be- cause of the large number of existing local districts, it is virtually im- possible to show the finance pattern on the basis of this local unit. COMBINED STATE-LOCAL PATTERN 79 Furthermore, it would be difficult to show comparable situations among districts with so many complications of types with overlapping bound- aries. It is, therefore, evident that an illogical patchwork of districts stands as a barrier to clean-cut designing of state aid plans such as we consider hypothetically in this chapter. Just as it is statistically im- possible to show under existing district organization an equitable plan of state-local finance for analyses such as those made here, so is it tech- nically impossible to draft state aid formulas which would suit the re- quirements of the most acceptable principles of school finance. That is to say, one step in moving toward an ultimately sound and defensible pattern of finance in Illinois is to achieve reform in district organization. Though steps toward improvement of adequacy of support may be needed to augment steps in organization reform, an equitable pattern of financial support is simply not possible under the existing sys- tem. It will be possible only when the picture can be portrayed as simply as it is in Chart 14, whatever foundation level and whatever rate of local contribution is agreed upon and whatever array of local units be chosen — be they counties or be they some other geographical subdivisions — just so they meet the conditions of unity and size which will permit the achievement of the foundation level in all areas of the state. As has been pointed out earlier, the small-district structure has en- abled much property to escape some of its fair share of the burden of school support through its fortuitous location, district wise, with respect to the number of children to be educated. Although this monograph does not settle the question of organization, it should be recognized that the experiences of many states with the county, or some comparable area, as a single administrative district, or as a district intermediate in function, merit careful study. That is, the use- fulness of the county as a "financial" unit should not be overlooked, even if ultimate units are smaller than the county. It is clear from the foregoing that the reorganization problem and the finance problem go hand-in-hand. In the opinion of the writers, an effective solution to either problem is to be found only in establishing a "model" or a "target" plan which would provide the media for realizing whatever state-wide standard the people of Illinois would wish to support for all the children in the state. It is hoped that the explanatory analyses such as those presented in this volume will be suggestive of the types of "thinking ahead" which will help the people of Illinois move in the right direction. Because of the intimate relationship between district reor- ganization and finance, the state plan of attack on these problems should be unified. A basic doctrine to guide such planning is "local initiative" in ad- 80 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS ministering the educational program. This doctrine should not interfere with the basic objective of state-wide interest of all citizens for a mini- mum level of support for all children in the state. Neither wholesome local control nor equalization of a foundation program may be achieved through a structure of district organization which prevents them. It is not a threat to local autonomy to enact legislation which will mandate or otherwise "control" the reforms in district organization without which effective local action and effective provision of a state-wide foundation program of education are not possible. For that matter, a form of localism which impedes progress in advancing the state's educational ob- jectives through inefficient local units tends to bring about undesirable centralization of authority as the remaining alternative. Thus the defec- tions of inefficient local units come to justify the introduction of a type of central control over all local units which violates the principle of local initiative. It would seem better that the state, through its legislature, control — by mandating, if necessary — the nature of district organiza- tion. This would be consistent with the constitutional responsibility of the legislature and would be the first step in making local control of edu- cation effective. In short, if the objective is a state-wide foundation program through a system of local district organization, it is essential: 1. That districts be such that local responsibility can be depended upon, 2. That districts be such that a comprehensive educational program may be provided efficiently, and 3. That sufficient funds be made available to pay for the services re- quired. The writers took the view, therefore, that it is better to consider legislation which looks to basic reform than it is to attempt the futile struggle of patching gaps in administrative or financial structure. What is needed is not the treating of symptoms, but a cure. This volume does not attempt to draft a blueprint for this action. We do feel, however, that our analyses justify a philosophy or a point of view which should lead to constructive action. It is clear to the writers that the organization problem and the financial support problem are but two sides of the same coin. Practical Limits to Efficiency Gained by Reorganization It is often pointed out, in discussions on reorganization, that large units are more efficient. Attention is often called to the fact that small COMBINED STATE-LOCAL PATTERN 81 classes in small districts raise the pupil-teacher ratio and thus the cost per pupil, and that many special educational services, such as health service, guidance, and extramural programs, are not possible in small dis- tricts with small schools. In general, this is all true. For a given level of educational service, economies of large attendance units, possible in large administrative units, offset, in great part, added costs of transpor- tation and school plant construction. There are two considerations, how- ever, which should be understood: 1. Effecting the economies of reorganization will not alone make possible a level of financial support needed in all districts. This is dem- onstrated in part in the analysis of Chart 14. In later chapters a de- tailed analysis is made of the scope of the pupil transportation and the school housing and costs thereof, under assumed conditions of optimum district organization. 2. Reorganization does not potentially eliminate all of the costs asso- ciated with geographical distribution of pupils. This is evident from the analysis of Chapter V. The first point is, in effect, that the efficiency achieved through reor- ganization means no saving to the taxpayer where the existing level of expenditure is insufficient to support an adequate program of education, even after reorganization. The second point leads to the conclusion that the state finance plan should take into account those costs which district reorganization cannot eliminate. This section of the report examines the scope of such costs. Looking forward to the elimination of inefficient local districts, we should like to know where the tax money spent on operating the program will go in relation to two types of costs. Chart 15 shows the relation- ship of classroom to non-classroom costs as developed in Chapter V. For example, it will be noted that in Pope County, even after reor- ganization, approximately $63 of every $100 spent on education will go for classroom costs. These costs are associated with actual instruction, and are constituted of such items as salaries, maintenance and operation of buildings, and supplies. About $37 of every $100 of expenditure may be expected to go for non-classroom costs arising from sparsity of school population. Expressed another way, this means that $100 per pupil would yield a $63 education. If this situation is compared with Cook County, excluding Chicago, an extreme variation is noted. Few children arc sparsely settled in the latter county, and it is estimated that in that county an expenditure of $100 per pupil would yield, on the average, a $93 education. Taking the state as a whole, it is estimated in Chapter V that 12.9 CHART 15. Where the Money Goes COUNTY EACH $100 OF SCHOOL EXPENDITURES POPE WASHINGTON BROWN SCHUYLER JASPER HENDERSON MONROE CALHOUN PUTNAM SCOTT MARSHALL CUMBERLAND JOHNSON IROQUOIS STARK PIKE KENDALL CLINTON GALLATIN HANCOCK JO DAVIESS WOODFORD MERCER FORD LIVINGSTON SHELBY MENARD EDWARDS HAMILTON WAYNE MASON PIATT FAYETTE BOND CARROLL GREENE DOUGLAS CLARK MOULTRIE BUREAU EFFINGHAM OGLE HARDIN GRUNDY MC DONOUGH EDGAR LOGAN RANDOLPH JERSEY CLAY WARREN DE WITT LEE FULTON MACOUPIN UNION MONTGOMERY CASS MORGAN WHITE CRAWFORD MCHENRY PERRY HENRY CHRISTIAN MC LEAN LAWRENCE BOONE DE KALB PULASKI KANKAKEE MASSAC CHAMPAIGN STEPHENSON JACKSON JEFFERSON ADAMS WABASH ST. CLAIR MARION KNOX WHITESIDE ROCK ISLAND LA SALLE COLES RICHLAND SALINE ALEXANDER WILL TAZEWELL VERMILION SANGAMON WILLIAMSON FRANKLIN MACON WINNEBAGO PEORIA MADISON LAKE KANE DU PAGE COOK COMBINED STATE-LOCAL PATTERN 83 per cent of the total educational need is required to take care of non- classroom costs attributable to sparsity of population. This means that, on the average, an expenditure of $100 may be expected to yield $87 worth of effective education. This estimate is based on two conditions: (1) complete reorganization, and (2) a foundation level of approximately $160 per pupil unit. There is evidence to indicate that at levels above this figure the non- classroom costs would constitute a somewhat lesser percentage of the total need. In the study on transportation we found that under optimum conditions of reorganization in this state, school transportation would cost about $17% million, at 1948 prices. However, it should be em- phasized that optimum conditions of reorganization in Illinois will not get all pupils into attendance districts large enough so that the non- classroom costs attributable to sparsity will consist solely of transporta- tion. Some schools smaller than normal can still be justified because of distances required for transporting pupils, and for other reasons. It will be noted in Table IV (Chapter V) , for instance, that there are 25 counties each with fewer than 673 pupils in high school. Assuming that in each one of these counties only one high school were operated, these schools would be smaller than normal and, therefore, would require some additional allowance for small size, as well as for transportation, in an equalized foundation program. There are some areas within most, if not all, counties where a few elementary and high schools smaller than normal must be operated, and where an allowance for transportation alone will not constitute the total adjustment in measuring the educa- tional need. Therefore, the total sparsity correction at a foundation level of $160 per pupil will be nearer $22 million than the estimate of $17% million for transportation. The reason is this. In developing the sparsity correction, the part attributable to transportation was geared to the $160 pupil unit value. The criterion was the average transportation cost at 1948 prices, the same one used in the study on transportation. Now, if little or no transportation were operated, there would be a maximum number of small schools, and hence an attempt to equalize a foundation support level would involve a sparsity correction solely of the small-school type. Then, on expenditure levels about $160, the extra costs would be expected to bear about the same relationship to classroom costs as they would bear on lower levels. The. reason is that they would be more intimately related to classroom costs, since most of such extra costs are involved in teachers' salaries. But, upon completion of reorganized districts, most of the sparsity cor- rection would be translated into transportation cost, and only a rela- 84 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS tively minor part would be left as small-school correction. The latter part would be expected to increase proportionately to classroom costs at foundation levels above $160. We do not know how transportation costs, indexed to 1948 prices, would be related to foundation levels above $160 per pupil unit. How- ever, it should not be difficult to follow up this study to assess this rela- tionship in future years as reorganization proceeds and as trends in transportation cost can be noted. Educational Expenditures Not Already Included Some reference should be made to the remainder of school expen- ditures in 1947-1948, so that the reader will have a better perspective of the problems involved in considering all needs of the educational enter- prise. Expenses for Offices of County Superintendents and Township Trea- surers. The pattern of expenditures for current operation has been illus- trated with omissions of minor expenses for school lunches, offices of county superintendents, and township treasurers. However, data on these expenses are shown in Table VIII. The expenses of offices of county su- perintendents and township treasurers have been singled out for com- parison because of a widespread interest in appraising the needs of these offices. The counties are listed in this table according to ability, from the most able to the poorest. Expenditures are shown as amount per pupil unit of need. Total amounts by counties (not shown) are available in public records. However, they may be computed from data shown in this report. In 1947-1948 a total amount of $1,189,174.28 was expended for the offices of county superintendents. Many people visualize the role of this office as serving a larger responsibility in providing specialized services, involving financial responsibility. A total amount of $829,861.80 was expended on the offices of township treasurers. Capital Outlay and Debt Service. Expenditures for debt service and capital outlay have not been included in the analyses of this chapter. Such expenditures do not lend themselves to the same treatment as do current operating expenditures. A discussion of the financing of buildings is therefore reserved for a later chapter (Chapter IX) in which school housing needs will be studied in relation to enlarging attendance units. CHAPTER VII A HYPOTHETICAL PLAN OF OPTIMUM DISTRICT ORGANIZATION Conceding that drastic redistricting is desirable, even essential, if the state's constitutional obligation to "provide a thorough and efficient sys- tem of free schools whereby all children of this state may receive a good common school education" is to be met economically and equably — How much would it cost? Redistricting implies two additional major expenditures: Initially, a huge building program to give all the consolidated school children from a thousand small schools the same advantages of safe, modern, well-equipped classrooms, gymnasiums, laboratories, and other plant facilities that their city cousins have; and Permanently, transportation. How much would it cost to build and convert enough Illinois schools to give every child in the state approximately equal opportunity for a "good common school education"? And how much would it cost each year to carry to and from school all those who live too far to walk? First, of course, you would have to know how many schools it would take and then how many children you would have to carry and how far. There are many approaches; a number of them already have been dis- cussed in previous chapters, and this book does not attempt to say which ones should be adopted. But to get any definite and useful estimates at all, you have to start somewhere. So as a basis for making some exploratory studies of these matters, we devised a tentative and hypothetical attendance district pattern for the state. For this purpose, each county in Illinois was used as a geographical unit. It was imagined that in each county, schools were so carefully or- ganized that each had precisely the right number of schools that it needed, in precisely the right places to be most effective. Where would they be? Our staff undertook to find out — starting with the assumption, based on the results of several studies, 1 that the minimum sizes for schools for 1 Several reviewers of the preliminary drafts of this report wondered whether or not these minimum sizes were not too high. It is no doubt true that in the fore- seeable future, there are many areas in Illinois in which, for lack of the very re- sources to which we refer in this study, such minima are impracticable. It is like- wise apparent that estimates of schoolhouse construction and pupil transportation costs based on this level of consolidation of attendance units will tend to exceed [85] 86 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS greatest efficiency were approximately 700 pupils for high schools and 300 for elementary schools. In locating these hypothetical attendance centers, the procedure was to: 1. Assign each county at least one high school. 2. Place one elementary attendance center at each high school center. 3. Allow additional schools only as centers could support a minimum of 700 high school pupils or 300 elementary pupils without taking pupils from other centers. 4. Allow the maximum number of centers within these limitations, but place no maximum limit on the size of enrollment. 5. Cross no county lines. 6. Locate schools in the largest, most centrally situated cities and villages, to serve contiguous rural territory also. 7. Place the center where the least amount of transportation is re- quired, when a choice is to be made between population centers. 8. Assign each pupil to the school (within the county) nearest his home and transport him by the most direct route. 9. Avoid distances requiring any pupil to ride more than 45 minutes to school. In outlining hypothetical attendance districts 2 and designating at- tendance centers, State Highway Department maps showing congested amounts which reorganization in the foreseeable future will require. In this connec- tion, therefore, the minima of 700 pupils per high school and 300 per elementary school must be considered useful only as bases for determining the nature of maxi- mum cost factors related to reorganization. We emphasize that we have chosen these minima for purposes of a focal point from which to make estimates. We do not propose such minima as standards. See : McLure, William P. Let Us Pay for the Kind of Education We Need. Univer- sity, Mississippi: Bureau of Educational Research, University of Mississippi, 1948. pp. 57-61. Morrison, J. C, and Butterworth, J. E., directors. The Intermediate District in New York State— Special Studies. Albany: University of the State of New York. Bulletin No. 1356, 1948. pp. 83-84. Mort, Paul R. The Measurement of Educational Need. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1923. American Council of Education, State Sup-port for Public Education. Washing- ton, D. C: 1933. Strayer, G. D., director. A Report of a Survey of Public Education in the State of West Virginia. Charleston: Legislative Interim Committee, 1945. Sumption, M. R., and Beem, H. D. A Guide to School Reorganization in Illinois. Educational Research Circular No. 59. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois, Col- lege of Education, Bureau of Research and Service, 1947. pp. 36-47. 2 The term "attendance districts" is used synonymously with attendance units or attendance areas, as distinguished from administrative districts or administrative units. OPTIMUM DISTRICT ORGANIZATION 87 areas 3 and dwellings in rural areas were used. The population of con- gested areas was taken from the 1940 census figures. A template was used to count the dwellings with respect to their proximity to the pro- posed centers. Ratios were established to estimate possible enrollment from the populations of the shaded areas and from the number of dots representing dwellings. The following steps show the procedure for estimating the ratio of school children to dwellings in rural areas: 1. All family dwellings 4 in a sample of 49 counties were counted except those in incorporated areas and congested non-incorporated areas having more than 25 dwellings. 2. The total elementary school enrollment of children for each county was determined from the 1946 Annual Statistical Report of the Superin- tendent of Public Instruction. The number of children estimated for all incorporated and congested non-incorporated areas of a given county was subtracted from the total school enrollment. The remainder was the number of children in areas where dwellings could be counted. 3. The ratios for these counties ranged from .35 to .94, the average being .55 elementary pupils per dwelling. This ratio was rounded off to .60 in recognition of the anticipated effect over the next 12 to 15 years of the increased birth rate. 5 Since the four high school grades may be taken to represent one-half of the eight elementary grades, .30 was taken as the ratio of high school pupils per dwelling. A different procedure was required in urban centers. Eighty-five per cent of the census count of 5-to-19-year-olds was assumed as the ex- pected school attendance rate for the 12 grades under consideration. This allowed for increases in this population classification since 1940 and for some percentage of pupils repeating grades. This was found to bear a one to five ratio to total population in 1940 in urban centers in Illinois. Twenty per cent of population reported in the 1940 census, therefore, was taken as the estimate of expected potential school enrollment in urban centers in laying out hypothetical attendance centers. Two-thirds of this was allocated to elementary and one-third to secondary centers in locat- ing respectively the elementary and secondary attendance centers. This 3 Mostly incorporated villages or cities. 4 As shown on General County Highway maps for the State of Illinois prepared by the Bureau of Highway Research of the Department of Public Works and Build- ings, in cooperation with the Public Roads Administration of the Federal Works Agency, 1947. 8 It is predicted that the 5-to-19-year-old age group in the population will reach its peak in 1960. Whelpton, P. K., and others. Forecasts of the Population of the United States, 1945-1975. Washington, D. C: Government Printing Office, 1947. pp. 49, 109. CHART 16. Hypothetical School Districts Franklin County ELEMENTARY ATTENDANCE DISTRICTS School Center ^^ m ^^ m District Boundary HIGH SCHOOL ATTENDANCE DISTRICTS J School Center ■"^^^^" District Boundary OPTIMUM DISTRICT ORGANIZATION 89 approximate method of computing numbers of pupils was considered ac- curate enough for purposes of applying the procedures for determining attendance district boundaries. Actual location of potential centers and boundaries of contiguous rural territory was accomplished by inspecting the maps and applying the accepted criteria, after noting villages and cities of various sizes, den- sity of family dwellings in rural areas, road patterns, and natural geo- graphical barriers. The districts were usually centered around villages and cities of more than 2500 population. The bounds were determined in such manner that all dwellings in a given district would be nearer the logical center than they would be to the center of an adjoining area. Some consideration was given to geographical barriers. Information was not available to consider socio-economic factors that would modify boun- daries in actual practice. However, these factors usually have operated in the past to create districts of such shape as to increase transportation and housing costs rather than to decrease them. An illustration of typical attendance districts is shown in Chart 16. It will be noted that attendance areas for high schools include consider- ably more territory than do elementary areas. This is in line with actual practice. It will be noted further that the bounds of the two types of districts overlap. This condition does not affect the estimate of transpor- tation costs, as will be seen in a later chapter on transportation. Fur- thermore, this condition is not necessarily contrary to good actual prac- tice, especially when the administrative unit contains more than one high school attendance area. Hypothetical districts of these types were outlined for every county in the state in preparation for the next tasks of estimating housing and transportation costs. CHAPTER VIII THE SCOPE OF THE TRANSPORTATION OF PUPILS The transportation of school children is one of the most important problems connected with the organization of efficient attendance units in rural areas. This chapter is an examination of the potential cost of trans- portation after these units are formed. The central question is this: In terms of 1948 prices, what would be the cost of transporting children living beyond reasonable walking distance to school centers where sufficient numbers of children could be brought together for an adequate and efficient educational program? The purpose of this chapter is merely to determine the ultimate cost of this service under assumed conditions of complete reorganization of school attendance centers. It is not to propose revisions in the present methods of financing or operating transportation. The work of this chapter includes development of measures for esti- mating transportation cost and the use of them to compute the estimated cost in the hypothetical districts. Determining Measures for Estimating Transportation Cost Various studies have reported measures for estimating a reasonable allowance for transportation cost from easily accessible data without recourse to the laborious process of planning individual bus routes. Some 20 years ago Burns x and Johns 2 developed useful formulas for estimating such cost in school attendance districts from data on density of trans- ported school population and the number of pupils transported. Hut- chins 3 developed a more complicated formula based on eight factors: number of pupils transported, daily miles of bus travel, density of popu- lation, condition of roads, number of pupils transported per bus, per- centage of bus capacity utilized, number of bus miles per square mile, and the percentage of forward-facing seats per bus. Measures of these types available in the literature do not afford a convenient basis for preparing an estimate of transportation cost in Illinois. They are inapplicable for several reasons but chiefly because of 1 Burns, R. L. The Measurement of the Need for Transporting Pupils. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1927. 2 Johns, R. L. State and Local Administration of School Transportation. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1928. , 3 Ray, K. C, and Woodford, D. The Administration of Pupil Transportation in Ohio. Columbus: State of Ohio Department of Education, 1944. See also Hutchins, C. D. The Distribution of State Funds for Pupil Transportation, in Abstracts of Doctoral Dissertations, No. 26. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1938. [90] TRANSPORTATION OF PUPILS 91 changes in price values, data unavailable in some areas, and the large amount of statistical computations involved. Certainly, an even more impossible task would be to trace individual bus routes for the entire state. The most promising means for making this estimate was to use certain data appearing on official highway maps, along with data from official school reports. The maps showed the various types of roads, location and size of cities and villages, and location of family dwellings outside cities and villages. Therefore, assuming that a high correlation existed be- tween the number of dwellings and the number of children to be trans- ported, it was believed that facts about dwellings could be used to infer potential transportation cost in attendance districts of the type assumed in this study. Dwellings — Their Pattern of Dispersion With a given number of rural children, the single factor having most effect upon cost of transportation is density of population. Where few pupils live along roads, buses travel long distances to obtain efficient loads. Many buses cannot travel such distances in some areas because of limited time for getting pupils to school. The result is that they carry small pay loads. In other areas where many pupils live along the roads, pay loads are larger and per capita costs are lower. An illustration of contrasting population density is shown in Charts 17 and 18. The reader will note that Chart 17 shows a typical area where the rural population is sparsely settled. Dwellings, shown by solid black dots, are far apart, and little clustering of houses into villages is notice- able. This condition means large per capita cost for transportation. Chart 18 shows the reverse situation with more houses per square mile and considerably more clustering of population in small villages. This chart illustrates a situation where pupils may be transported at less ex- pense per person than in the former example. The problem at this stage was to find a good measure combining two characteristics of rural population: (1) Density of rural school popula- tion to be transported, and (2) character of its dispersion. Density of population was indicated by the average number of rural dwellings per square mile for the attendance district. The second characteristic was the amount of concentration or clustering of population in small villages. Several alternatives were tried in this study, but only the method finally decided upon is described here. 4 The measure decided upon was one indicating both degree of density 4 A complete description of the development of all measures is reported in Appendix II. CHART 17. An Example of Widely Dispersed Population and Little Clustering CHART 18. An Example of Widely Dispersed Population and Much Clustering 94 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS of rural school population and the nature of its dispersion. These two facts were taken into account by estimating the sum of the nearest dis- tances from individual dwellings to the logical school district center by the most direct available roads. Distances of dwellings within one and one-half miles of school were not computed, assuming that pupils living in them were within reasonable walking distance. An illustration of how the summation of dwelling-to-school distances was computed is shown in Chart 19. Note that a grid of broken lines is superimposed upon a map in such manner that the center portion placed over the school center (Stewardson) is drawn to scale to surround terri- tory within one and one-half miles of walking distance. On a map with a scale of one-half inch per mile this central block is one inch square. Surrounding this central block are contour bands one mile in width diagonally with the roads. The distances were computed in this manner: Dwellings in the central block or first contour were not counted for the reason already stated. Dwellings located within the second contour (the first mile-wide band around the central block) were counted, and the total number obtained was multiplied by 2. Dwellings located within the third contour were counted, and the total number obtained was mul- tiplied by 8, and so on for the other contours. The total number of miles of dwelling-to-school distances for the district was the summation of the products of the frequencies of dwellings in each contour, except the first, multiplied by the respective number of miles by road that each contour was from the center. Table X shows the computations of dwelling-to-school distances of this district. It was a simple and practical matter to prepare a grid to an appro- priate scale on transparent material so that dwellings in all hypothetical districts could be counted in the proper contours approximating the ac- tual distances from their location to the designated school centers. In this manner all dwellings were counted in rural areas of Illinois located more than one and one-half miles from the school center designated in each hypothetical high school district. The summation of dwelling-to- school distances was obtained for each hypothetical high school district. It was noted earlier that hypothetical elementary attendance districts were outlined for possible use in the later job of estimation. However, as it will be explained, in developing the method of estimation from em- pirical data in a sample of 31 community unit districts it was found that the best estimate was obtained by using the areas designated by the hy- pothetical high school districts as a basis for estimating transportation for both elementary and high school pupils. The method of using the computations of dwelling-to-school distances for estimating transporta- tion cost will be explained later. CHART 19. How to Estimate Dwelling-to-School Distances -Stewardson District School District Boundary Mile Contours 96 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE X Computations of Dwelling-to-School Distances of the Stewardson District Contour Band Average Distance of Contour Band from School (in miles) Number of Family Dwellings Dwelling-to-School Distances (in miles) 1st 1% mile not maximum counted 2nd 2 29 58 3rd 3 76 228 4th 4 77 308 5th 5 97 485 6th 6 177 1,062 7th 7 142 994 8th 8 56 448 9th 9 43 387 10th 10 12 120 11th 11 3 33 Totals 712 4,123 The next job was to repeat this procedure of counting dwelling-to- school distances in a sample of actual school districts most nearly com- parable to the hypothetical ones. The purpose of applying this procedure to a sample of actual districts was to develop a criterion of cost for association with data on dwellings. This was accomplished through the cooperation of 31 community unit school districts supplying maps indicating location of all pupils in rural areas. Cost of Transportation in Actual School Districts Similar to Hypothetical Districts Investigation at this stage of the study turned to an analysis of present practice to discover a basis of securing a defensible cost that might be used as a criterion in this sample of districts. Questionnaires for cost data were mailed to about 100 school districts operating transpor- tation in Illinois, including the 31 districts mentioned above. Complete data were received in 69 replies. The results of analyzing these replies are shown in tables that fol- low. Table XI shows expenditures for major items of expense for buses of different seating capacities. It is noted that highest, median, and low- est expenditures are shown for buses of each size according to purchase prices, shown in Column 3, and total cost per mile, shown in Column 11. It will be noted that the buses represented by these figures included TRANSPORTATION OF PUPILS 97 CO < a SI * an a CO H izi £ H 3 fa fa fa w a ^ fa o 5 CO fa l*i O a H CO i— < co « p O a 1-5 << — 1 S3 O S fa o H a 8 O P 'A H a Q M I?; O a o fa o o ■^ oo CN 1 - CO I> , — i *c CM ■~H en CO in CM "O x>- CN co 00 m l> 00 TH n CO N CO ■«* CO •"# CN CO CO CO CO o -f ■*t< CO -1 -^ iH « Pi J} CN i-H i— i CO (M 1— 1 »o Ol i-H CO a v < CO CM t— 4 O mS o o O o o © o © O o CO O o 3 O «/# ^ co O £ CH 00 **. o CO o <& m" en -* CO en T^" co en •* •* 2 in" t--' oo 00 % ~ Pi Sfa fa ooo i-ocno cooo lO m -* N !» CO lO O O ^Hrti-i h on hco o o i-- CM CM CO iO CO »n N CN r-l CN ■* -# o o >n moo O O i-H C-lOO co oo co Hccca n io io >o co en CON O 00 O) C-l co CN ^ -* m io ©mo moo O CM O ^h 00 o en r-i en moo o en o ■* co co rr cm co 00 i-0> CO io co f O i-i o o oo o en >-i en o O iO OOO — 1 o o 'OOO — ■ CM N t< ho •=> a> <0: CN) o o oo o m •O IO o CM CM CM HfO ON iO ■* o i-i t}< CM O 00, m IO co" co' CN K ^ !-) co. cq m ■* CO' CN ooo >Q O O oo --H ci W <-. h-i 00 CO CM_ Tfi •*' CO' ffiSfa! 98 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS many combinations of standard bodies and chassis on the market. All buses met minimum specifications established by the Office of the Super- intendent of Public Instruction. To check actual prices of buses purchased since 1940 against average prices at which they might have been purchased in the year 1948, list quotations of retail list prices were obtained from practically all nation- ally recognized manufacturers of bodies and chassis. Median list prices, as of October, 1948, are shown in Table XII for various combinations of TABLE XII Prices of Buses for Various Combinations of Chassis and Body * Pupil Seating Capacity High Median Low 22-24 $4,220.57 $3,522.01 $3,124.45 28-30 3,875.15 3,772.37 3,717.00 34-36 4,430.82 3,986.91 3,419.60 40-42 5,246.48 4,475.18 3,973.86 46-48 5,823.75 4,754.01 4,146.00 52-54 5,706.50 5,128.45 4,470.10 60- 6,984.00 6,249.00 5,559.50 66- 6,692.75 5,974.00 5,914.00 * Qu. stations received from nationally-known manufacturers in October, 1948, for retail list chassis and bodies. Purchase prices of buses in operation were slightly lower that the median prices of various possible combinations available on the market during 1948. Figures shown in Table XI for depreciation were estimated. Salaries of drivers, on the average, did not appear to be excessive, especially since adults were required for this purpose by law. The cost of insurance ap- peared reasonable and adequate. There was no storage cost for 30 per cent of the buses included in this study. In all probability, where buses had inadequate protection from the weather, increased expenses showed up in maintenance and depreciation. It was difficult to evaluate the reasonableness of expenditures for fuel and maintenance. For ex- ample, near the bottom of the table in Columns 8 and 10, it is noted that the bus of median mileage cost of the 46 capacity buses had an expense of $305 for fuel and a total annual mileage of 8640. On the other hand, the highest expenditure bus of this capacity per mile had an expense of $508 for fuel, yet a total annual mileage of only 7030. Lack of uniformity in itemizing these types of expense accounted for the variations. Then too, lack of uniformity in expense for maintenance and repairs is under- TRANSPORTATION OF PUPILS 99 standable because of varying ages of buses, coupled with the fact that these figures are taken for only one year. Average practice showed more uniformity when total annual expenditures, including the estimate for depreciation, were related to total annual bus mileage. The conclusion reached from these analyses of average practice was that median costs per bus mile for buses of various seating capacities appeared to be reasonable as a basis for developing a criterion of potential cost in the 31 community unit districts included in this study. The Criterion of Transportation Cost The criterion of potential transportation cost was developed for each of the 31 districts in the following manner: 1. Theoretical bus routes were laid out on each map to transport all children in the rural areas to the largest city or village in the district. 2. Routes were laid out in such manner as to limit the time of travel of students one way to approximately 45 minutes and to permit door-to- door pick ups. 3. One extra bus was allowed for each eight regular buses for emer- gency purposes and for transporting some pupils remaining at school after regular hours to participate in special activities such as athletics, band, etc. 4. Routes were planned to use bus sizes ranging from 28 to 46 seat- ing capacity, depending upon the length of route and number of children. In a few instances auxiliary routes were planned with the use of station wagons. 5. Total annual bus mileage, equivalent in cost to mileage of 40 capacity buses, was obtained for the district, based on 180 days. 6. An allowance of $1000 was added for each emergency bus, the assumption being that under an expanded program of this type, estimated average mileage cost could be reduced sufficiently to compensate fully for this emergency service. 7. The total estimated cost (criterion) for each district was computed by allowing the following median costs per bus mile in practice in 1948 for district-owned buses: 46-pupil capacity, $.25; 40-pupil capacity, $.24; 34-pupil capacity, $.23; 28-pupil capacity, $.22; and large station wagon, $.17. These figures included allowance for capital replacements. Method for Estimating Transportation Cost Throughout the State A considerable amount of experimentation was done with empirical data on the 31 community unit districts already mentioned to develop a 100 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE XIII Basic Data Used in Developing the Formula for Estimating Transportation Cost (i) (2) (3) Total Estimated Sum of Transportation Dwelling-to- Number of Cost School Miles Family- District (The Criterion) (One Way) Dwellings * Mount Auburn $ 9,968 1,392 270 Pana 24,561 4,742 704 Stonington 8,992 1.121 255 Taylorville 21,779 4,509 695 Marshall 28,669 8.123 1,151 Oakland 13.027 1,749 407 Farmer City 17,386 1,865 410 Wapella 12,369 1,349 288 Weldon 7.319 837 195 Kansas 17,404 4,920 687 Paris 37,075 10,592 1,327 Albion 15,994 4,685 811 West Salem 11,561 3.101 575 Argenta 12,500 2,224 387 Blue Mound 10,390 1,926 327 Cerro Gordo 19,093 3.735 671 Blandinsville 8,581 1,539 313 Good Hope 7,570 1,575 353 Bushnell 23,040 5,541 856 Colchester 9,799 2,898 553 Industry 19,230 4,543 631 Sullivan 21,411 4,443 731 Atwood 8,863 2,188 336 Monticello 18.142 3,338 539 Barry 14,756 2,614 455 Athens 11,508 2,773 531 Auburn 5,691 676 185 Findlay 11,021 1.703 341 Stewardson 17,676 4.123 712 Windsor 14,695 3,033 572 Bethany 11,375 2,536 438 * Meaning number located more than 1% miles from the school district center. satisfactory formula for estimating transportation cost under assumed conditions of reorganized attendance districts. Several methods were developed and are described in Appendix II. The method selected for use was a regression formula obtained by- correlating the criterion costs developed for the 31 consolidated districts with the respective dwelling-to-school distances computed by the pro- cedure as described earlier for the hypothetical districts. The formula may be stated as follows: The total transportation cost of a given consolidated TRANSPORTATION OF PUPILS 101 school district comprising rural territory may be estimated by adding items 1 and 2, expressed in dollars: 1. The number 3.0160 multiplied by the sum of dwelling-to-school miles of family dwellings located more than a mile and a half from the school district center. 5 2. The amount of $5436 for each district. This formula may be expressed mathematically as follows: Xj = 3.0160X 2 4- $5436, where X x is the estimated cost in dollars and X 2 is the sum of dwelling-to-school miles. It should be pointed out that this formula was developed with a cri- terion that included transportation of both elementary and high school pupils within areas comparable to the hypothetical high school attend- ance districts. Therefore, in estimating the potential cost of transporta- tion in Illinois, it was necessary to apply the formula only to hypothetical high school districts. The supporting data used in developing and testing this formula in the sample of 31 districts are shown in Table XIII. The total estimated cost for the entire state, shown in Table XIV, was approximately $17.5 million. TABLE XIV Estimated Cost of Transporting Pupils in Illinois to Potential School Centers of Efficient Size (l) (2) (3) (4) County Land Area Number of Sum of Potential of Potential Family Dwellings Dwelling-to- Estimated District District Outside District Scliool Distances Cost of Center (Sq. Mi.) Center (One Way) Transportation Adams Quincy 411 2.918 34,384 $109,139 Camp Point 449 2,900 32,953 104,823 Alexander Cairo 220 2,498 52,569 163,985 Bond Greenville 382 2,891 30,110 96.248 Boone Belvidere 280 1,842 19,406 63,965 Brown Mt. Sterling 307 1,838 16,955 56,573 Bureau Spring Valley 144 2,124 19,147 63,184 Princeton 364 2,281 23,772 77,133 Sheffield 355 2,657 30,127 96,300 6 It was found that the best estimate was obtained when not more than 300 dwellings were counted in any single congested area outside the school district center. 102 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE XIV (Continued) (i) (2) (3) (4) County Land Area Number of Sum of Potential of Potential Family Dwellings Dwelling-to- Estimated District District Outside District School Distances Cost of Center (Sq. Mi.) Center (One Way) Transportation Calhoun Hardin 259 1,819 24,993 80,816 Carroll Savanna 465 3,015 41,301 130,000 Cass Beardstown 369 2,330 37,765 119,336 Champaign Tolono 308 2,154 24,475 79,253 Champaign-Urbana 340 3,044 30,683 97,977 Rantoul 345 2,045 21,561 70,465 Christian Taylorville 582 4,373 51,949 162,115 Pana 124 1,190 9,928 35,380 Clark Marshall 502 3,992 58,726 182,554 Clay Flora 462 3,707 45,222 141,826 Clinton Breese 340 4,009 39,529 124,656 Centralia 157 931 8,903 32,288 Cook* 1,057,212 Coles Charleston 291 2,048 16,812 56,142 Mattoon 209 1,390 10,932 38,407 Crawford Robinson 441 3,949 42,227 132,794 Cumberland Toledo 347 2,661 27,044 87,001 De Kalb De Kalb 423 2,985 44,375 139,272 Sandwich 202 1,655 19,447 64,089 De Witt Clinton 497 2,708 28,260 90,669 Douglas Tuscola 419 3,405 41,219 129,753 Du Page Glen Ellyn-Wheaton 82 1,200 8,305 30.485 Naperville 75 561 2.989 14,451 Downers Grove 50 1,177 6,403 24,748 Elmhurst 25 889 3,667 16,496 Villa Park-Lombard 40 783 4,714 19,653 Edgar Paris 336 2,569 28,027 89.967 Chrisman 289 1,506 15,157 51,150 Edwards Albion 225 1,811 16,453 55,059 Effingham Effingham 481 3,579 44,436 139,456 * Due to the large number of suburban areas in this county, transportation cost was esti- mated by a method developed in another study by W. P. McLure, op. cit. TRANSPORTATION OF PUPILS TABLE XIV (Continued) 103 (i) (2) (3) (4) County Land Area Number of Sum of Potential of Potential Family Dwellings Dwelling-to- Estimated District District Outside District School Distances Cost of Center (Sq. Mi.) Center (One Way) Transportation Fayette Vandalia 716 5,047 75,096 231,927 Ford Gibson City 485 2,401 42,615 133,964 Franklin Benton 190 1,854 15,829 53,177 Christopher 103 1,872 11.233 39.316 Zeigler 37 788 3,164 14.979 West Frankfort 95 1,586 9,821 35.057 Fulton Canton 421 2,623 49.125 153 598 Lewistown 449 2,553 30.200 96.520 Gallatin Shawneetown 328 1,439 32.218 120.606 Greene Carrollton 539 2,102 45,240 141.881 Grundy Morris 430 1,532 31,601 100.745 Hamilton McLeansboro 434 1,466 33,946 107.818 Hancock Carthage 796 5,478 82,518 254,311 Hardin Rosiclare 183 1,478 16.319 54.655 Henderson Stronghurst 381 1,986 24,847 80.375 Henry Quincy 341 1,805 37,030 117,120 Geneseo 482 3,132 39,171 123,577 Iroquois Watseka 630 3.433 43.220 135,788 Gilman 490 1.724 38.135 120,452 Jackson Carbondale 169 2.220 19.877 65,386 Murphysboro 428 2.665 42.468 133,520 Jasper Newton 494 2.895 35.718 113,162 Jefferson Mt. Vernon 571 4.403 51.639 161,179 Jersey Jerseyville 370 1,982 21.461 70.101 Jo Daviess Galena 611 1.604 56,838 176,860 Johnson Vienna 345 2,562 28,456 91.260 Kane Elgin 195 1.920 25,203 81,449 Geneva 171 1,764 19.112 63.079 Aurora 126 2.498 13,828 47.142 104 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE XIV (Continued) (l) (2) (3) (4) County Land Area Number of Sum of Potential of Potential Family Dwellings Dwelling-to- Estimated District District Outside District School Distances Cost of Center (Sq. Mi.) Center (One Way) Transportation Kankakee Kankakee 674 4,176 53,113 165,625 Kendall Yorkville 320 1,452 22,628 73,683 Knox Abingdon 240 1,375 19,018 62.795 Galesburg 478 2,376 49,639 155,147 Lake Zion 54 940 4.419 18,764 Waukegan 27 551 1.678 10.498 North Chicago 18 360 1,211 9,090 Lake Forest 25 585 952 8,308 Highland Park 40 1.265 4,359 18,584 Libertyville 110 1,785 10,394 36,785 Fox Lake 53 3,959 26,665 85,859 Barrington 62 1,455 9,559 34,267 La Salle Ottawa 513 3,891 66,212 205,132 La Salle 232 1,673 21,550 70,431 Peru 103 605 25,160 81.319 Streator 287 2,470 24,978 80,770 Lawrence Lawrenceville 373 2,078 31,196 99,524 Lee Dixon 437 2,085 19,989 65,723 Amboy 289 2,424 33,593 106,753 Livingston Pontiac 759 3,684 89,152 274.320 Fairbury 280 1,885 18,875 62,364 Logan Lincoln 618 2,463 53,823 167,766 Macon Decatur 567 5,041 49,899 155,932 Macoupin Gillespie 315 2,006 35.325 111.977 Virden 185 1,552 13.913 47,398 Carlinville 363 1,761 18,730 61,927 Madison Highland 237 1,660 14,939 50,492 Edwardsville 221 2,746 29,989 95,883 Collinsville 68 1,213 7.416 27,803 Alton 62 1,326 6,522 25,107 Wood River 73 2,183 13.449 45,999 Granite City 45 700 14,851 50,227 Marion Salem 500 4,332 49,181 153,767 Centralia 78 2,230 8,447 30,913 Marshall Lacon 395 2,009 33,676 107,003 TRANSPORTATION OF PUPILS TABLE XIV (Continued) 105 (1) (2) (3) (4) County Land Area Number of Sum of Potential of Potential Family Dwellings Dwelling-to- Estimated District District Outside District School Distances Cost of Center (Sq. Mi.) Center (One Way) Transportation Mason Havana 539 2,013 53,738 167.510 Massac Metropolis 245 2,061 21,287 69,638 McDonough Macomb 579 2,315 50,883 158.900 McIIenry Woodstock 308 2,698 48,049 150.353 Harvard 153 1,209 ■ 9,157 33,054 Crystal Lake 144 2,333 17,712 58,856 McLean Bloomington 588 3.055 87,439 269,152 Normal 576 2,639 74,092. 228,898 Menard Petersburg' 311 1,975 19,744 64,984 Mercer Aledo 555 2,639 44,556 139,818 Monroe Waterloo 379 2,246 24,171 78,337 Montgomery Litchfield 237 1,403 16,557 55.372 Hillsboro 465 2,302 47,360 148,274 Morgan Jacksonville 561 3,232 39,546 124,708 Moultrie Sullivan 344 1,509 28,173 90,406 Ogle Kochelle 362 2,089 27,041 86,992 Mount Morris 392 2,436 48,461 151,596 Peoria Peoria City 50 2,345 8,498 31.066 Peoria 126 2,981 16,944 56,540 Elmwood 232 1,421 14,790 50,044 Peoria Heights 201 3,656 32,952 104,820 Perry Du Quoin 438 2,972 52,708 164,405 Piatt Monticello 435 2,780 37,958 119,919 Pike Pittsfield 828 4,830 78,702 242,802 Pope Golconda 381 1,856 22,731 73,993 Pulaski Mounds 203 2,087 38,860 122,638 Putnam Mark-Gran ville 166 1,094 9,133 32,982 Randolph Sparta 270 2,009 37,724 119,213 Chester 321 2,180 32,378 103,089 106 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE XIV (Continued) (l) (2) (3) (4) County Land Area Number of Sum of Potential of Potential Family Dwellings Dwelling-to- Estimated District District Outside District School Distances Cost of Center (Sq. Mi.) Center (One Way) Transportation Richland Olney 360 2,611 26,139 84,271 Rock Island South Island 243 1,867 24,569 79,537 East Moline 120 2,802 21,184 69.328 Moline 40 791 3,474 15,915 St. Clair Belleville 271 5,311 52,352 163,331 East St. Louis 105 5,002 25,386 82.001 Mascoutah 274 3,099 35,963 113.901 Saline Eldorado 156 1,931 15,722 52,854 Harrisburg 225 2,876 24,762 80,119 Sangamon Springfield 664 9,187 82,305 253,669 Auburn 206 2,531 21,121 69,138 Schuyler Rushville 433 2,266 28,330 90,880 Scott Winchester 251 1,729 15,154 51,141 Shelby Shelbyville 771 5,362 80,060 246,897 Stark Wyoming 291 1,576 16,249 54,444 Stephenson Freeport 563 4,241 52,864 164,874 Tazewell East Peoria 121 3,720 29,889 95,581 Pekin 126 1,194 15,280 51,522 South Pekin 392 2,598 39,020 • 123,120 Union Anna-Jonesboro 412 3,133 31,561 100,625 Vermilion Georgetown 258 3,315 27,342 87,900 Danville 290 3,358 27,204 87,484 Hoopeston 336 1,971 21,879 71,423 Wabash Mt. Carmel 219 1,520 14,032 47,757 Warren Monmouth 540 3,244 42,645 134,081 Washington Nashville 565 3,558 52,674 164,302 Wayne Fairfield 714 4,815 68,861 213,122 White Carmi 500 3,047 48,468 151,616 Whiteside Morrison 428 3,879 50,051 156,390 Sterling 258 1,905 16,375 54,824 TRANSPORTATION OF PUPILS 107 TABLE XIV (Continued) County Po*ential District t Center - (i) Land Area of Potential District (Sq. Mi.) (2) Number of Family Dwellings Outside District Center (3) Sum of Dwelling-to- School Distances (One Way) (4) Estimated Cost of Transportation Will Joliet 576 6,219 59,220 184,044 Crete 261 1,955 24,698 79,925 Williamson Johnston City 94 1,005 7,708 28.685 Herrin 44 1,301 7,050 26.699 Carterville 97 913 4,802 19.920 Marion 200 2,129 21,501 70,283 Winnebago Rockford 331 4,576 36,856 116,594 South Beloit 176 1,683 16,751 55,957 Woodford Roanoke H.S. 537 2,819 46,846 146,725 Total 54,545 415,946 $17,541,060 The reader should note that this was the estimated cost, at 1948 prices, of transporting pupils in Illinois to potential school centers of efficient size. The school centers shown in Table XIV were designated as potential centers, 6 selected purely by an objective procedure for purposes of esti- mation only. See Chapter V. CHAPTER IX SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER ATTENDANCE UNITS Real responsibility for school housing has been left to local commu- nities in our country. Prior to recent years some financial assistance from state and federal funds has been available under various circum- stances. Generally non-local funds were made available for such pur- poses as the provision of public works to stimulate economic activity (as in the 1930's) or the promotion of school district reorganization (as in the case of special building aid to central rural schools in the state of New York). Until the current period, states have rarely, if ever, been concerned with sharing in the provision of completely modern and adequate school housing facilities for all the children of the state. More generally state funds have been made available in token amounts for the purpose of stimulating, in some communities, local building activity which might be copied by other local communities. Some states have adopted legislation recently granting large sums of money to aid localities in the costs of school housing. This is important since the provision of adequate and modern schoolhouse facilities for all children of the state has assumed proportions beyond the limits of local communities, due to the combined effects of a 10-year backlog of school- house construction, unprecedented high enrollment from an increase in birth rate, and the high current cost of construction. States must begin a systematic consideration of school housing prob- lems. The total need must be examined if the state is to determine how much is to be done at the state level to supplement present local resources in the provision of modern school housing in attendance centers of ade- quate size. Citizens of local communities have no right to ask all citizens of the state to share in the cost of providing school housing for small, ineffi- cient attendance units, thus freezing such inefficiency for the life of the building. But all children of the state do have the right to adequate and modern school housing, and the state has the primary obligation to make this possible — through legislation concerning district organization, taxing powers, and revising bonding and tax limitations, and through appropria- tions sufficient to fulfill the partnership obligation of the state. The question raised for consideration in this chapter is: What is the present need for school housing in Illinois if all children of school age [108] SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 109 were to attend 'public schools in attendance centers of 700 or more high school pupils and 300 or more elementary school pupils? Such a question contains three factors for consideration: the estima- tion of enrollment if all children of school age attend public schools; the organization of hypothetical attendance centers in line with the limits proposed; and maximum utilization of present facilities. Current Studies of School Housing Needs Three current studies of school housing needs are to be noted in connection with this study: the estimate of school building needs for the state of Florida, which is a result of a two-year study by the Florida State Department of Education; the estimate of school plant needs of North Carolina, developed as part of the report of the State Education Commission; and the survey of school building needs made currently by the Illinois Association of School Boards. The Florida Study. The Florida study was an outcome of the compre- hensive education survey in the state by the Florida Citizens Committee. The Committee made a thorough analysis of the financing of school capi- tal outlays and developed the conception of incorporating capital outlay as part of the foundation programs of the various counties. This idea was approved by the legislature when it adopted as part of the minimum foundation program for each county the sum of $400 per year per class- room or instruction unit for capital outlay. With this aid for school buildings available, some criteria or measure of school building needs for all counties in the state was necessary. In general, the study was based on the following: 1 1. Every school building in the state was visited by members of the survey teams. 2. Pupil population spot maps were provided for each county. 3. School plants including sites were evaluated in terms of nationally accepted standards for their adequacy. 4. New school centers were proposed in order to provide for school centers of reasonable size. 5. Systems of bus transportation were carefully studied, and proposed new school centers were checked it) terms of feasibility and practicability of transportation. G. Recommendations were made for each center in terms of the num- ber of classrooms needed, the number of special rooms, additional sites, etc. These units were converted into square footage for each center. 'Information obtained from a letter by R. L. Johns, Director, Division of Ad- ministration and Field Service, University of Florida, and Research and Field Studies Specialist, Florida State Department of Education, dated May 27, 1949. 110 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS 7. Cost estimates were made in terms of actual contract costs of school buildings in terms of square footage. The study represents an attempt to detail the school plant needs of local administrative units in the entire state. By thus making available to each local unit a comprehensive study of its school plant needs, the general and school population trends, and an analysis of the financial situation, the local units can develop a long-range program for school plant development with assurance that their building programs will ful- fill standards concerned with adequacy of program, size of unit, and transportation facilities, and that the program as part of a foundation program will receive state aid. The study reveals that existing school building needs for all of Florida's 67 counties approximate $140 million. While this type of a study is desirable for a state such as Florida, where local organization of school districts presents no serious problem and where the people have already accepted the principle of state aid for buildings, the picture in Illinois is completely different. Undoubtedly in the future a survey of a type similar to that in Florida, with specific recommendations for the development of a long-range school plant pro- gram, will be advisable and desirable in Illinois ; but at the present time the findings that are incorporated within this chapter serve the more general purpose of highlighting the school building and' site needs of the state on the basis of optimum organization of school attendance units. The North Carolina Education Commission Estimate. The Committee on School Plants of the State Education Commission estimated that ap- proximately $150 million would be required to provide additional school facilities urgently needed and to modernize school plants. 2 In arriving at this estimate, members of the committee visited schools in nine "representative" counties at which time they talked to school officials and laymen to get suggestions as to plant needs. The manner in which the nine counties were selected is not reported. A questionnaire was sent to all 172 superintendents of schools in the state. One assumes that a 100 per cent response was attained. The judgments of local school officials were accepted in terms of whether the present rooms were "satisfactory; if major alterations were needed; or if present facilities should be abandoned." One has no assur- ance tha* such judgments were made on any uniform basis. Descriptive illustrations are included in the building report indicating need for addi- tional special facilities, for more adequate maintenance, and for improv- ment of sanitary facilities. No objective counting of such need is in evidence. 2 Plemmons, W. H., Secretary of the Commission, Report of the State Educa- tion Commission, Raleigh, North Carolina: The Commission, 1948, pp. 448-481. SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 111 On the basis of information available in the report it would seem that the estimate of the committee is the pooling of personal judgment based on observation, rather than the summarization of facts obtained through careful investigation. The Illinois Association of School Boards Survey. The Association has submitted a one-page questionnaire to member schools and about 30 additional schools. The questionnaire went out to 900 schools, and it had been previously estimated that these schools cover 80 to 85 per cent of the pupil population of the state outside of Chicago. Any final report will have to be based upon a percentage return of questionnaires sub- mitted to schools representing a substantial part of the state, but in no sense constituting a true sample of the state. Such a report could not be considered quantitatively proportional to the total school housing needs of the state. It may be predicted that the findings will indicate a tremendous backlog of school housing needs in the schools from which responses come. The reports also will indicate considerable unexpended funds on hand and will indicate that a number of communities have not begun to exhaust local financial resources if these are indicated by the legal limits. The questionnaire used in the Association survey calls for a report of present enrollment and the estimated enrollment for 1952-1953. Re- spondents are asked to indicate the number of additional rooms needed beyond present capacity, but such estimates and judgment as to present capacity will vary with individual respondents, since no objective stand- ards are established. Other items included are the age of the building, individual judgment about buildings to be abandoned or modernized, the number of buildings or additions under construction and the estimated cost of such construction, an estimate of cost to provide adequate modern facilities in the local school district, the amount of bond funds, and the availability of tax funds for building purposes. The study will gather individual judgments and figures representing need which can be used in stimulating local activity and in seeking relief from the state. It will not provide any sound basis for indicating total need for the state, nor for showing the effect of reorganization upon this need. It seems apparent in reviewing the above studies that several principal factors are present which tend to operate against securing a reliable meas- ure of total school housing need. First of all, little or no control is exercised in the selection of "repre- sentative" areas which are surveyed or studied as a true sample of the whole state or country. This, of necessity, means that the final findings for these areas can be strictly construed only as a measure of need for these same areas, and any attempt to estimate from them the need 112 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS for the state or country cannot be defended as statistically reliable. A second major objection to the manner in which the findings have been determined and reported is the fact that criteria on which the meas- ures of need are reported are for the most part subjective. The usual practice in compiling data for an estimate of building need seems to be to secure estimates based on the judgments of a large number of indi- viduals who have in some manner participated in the study, rather than to develop estimates based on pre-determined standards. However, the inclusion of a large number of people in a survey works to stimulate local building activity and possible favorable legislative action. A third problem present in interpreting the findings of the previous studies is the fact that the findings are summations of variables rather than the summations of common elements such as pupil-units in the de- velopment of a measure of need for the various facilities present in a school plant. In addition, many of the findings are reported in categories which are not mutually exclusive. Organization of This Study As already indicated, this is an exploratory study in an effort to es- tablish a procedure for estimating the total school housing need of the state on a dependable quantitative basis. It is taken for granted that the need for school housing is tremendous and that the state and local communities should take action to meet this need. The study is not undertaken to give further evidence of those facts but rather to indicate the size of the problem so that action may be de- signed to meet it completely. Inasmuch as approximately 40 per cent of the pupil population of the state resides in Cook County (and most of that in Chicago) , Cook County was set apart from the other counties of the state. The basic study was designed for and carried on with respect to the other 101 counties of the state. Nevertheless, it is not to be assumed that Chicago and Cook County are not an integral part of Illinois and that the school children in Cook County are not to be considered on an equitable basis along with those in the other 101 counties. For that reason, available figures were secured from the Chicago City Schools and are reported separately with appropriate conversion to the same dimension of need utilized for the 101 counties. With cost figures fluctuating by the month, it was determined to indicate need in terms of the numbers of pupils needing accommodations. In terms of meager available current cost figures, the procedure by which a statement of need in pupil units may be converted to cost figures is demonstrated toward the end of the chapter. SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 113 School Housing Need in 101 Illinois Counties This systematic estimation of school housing needs in Illinois is based on the assumption that a modern educational program be provided by school districts of adequate size to make such a program possible. Stand- ards for minimum size of hypothetical attendance centers and standards for determining adequacy of site and building facilities were established on the basis of this assumption. The reader must bear in mind that this study is made for the purpose of estimating school housing needs, and is not a study proposing either reorganization of school districts or plans and specifications for school construction. The determination of school housing need for all Illinois counties other than Cook was based upon the application of the established standards to a selected sample of 21 counties and the application of the findings from these counties to an estimate for the 101 counties. Hypothetical attendance centers were used 3 for this chapter since it was desired to see what the school housing needs in the state would be — not as districts are now organized, but under conditions which would avoid small, inefficient attendance units. The basic assumption of this study is the establishment of large school units which will provide en- riched programs of education. Setting Standards and Procedures for Field Work The plan of the survey contemplated measuring school plant needs in terms of pupils served and pupils without adequate accommodation. Total current need in any category was defined as the difference between the number of pupils for whom adequate provision was currently avail- able at the hypothetical attendance centers at the time of the field survey in 1948, and the total estimated enrollment for such centers. A basis for stating present adequacy in terms of the number of pupils for whom acceptable facilities are available had to be developed. In some of the other studies of school housing, need was stated in terms of the number or percentage of pupils estimated to be housed in old build- ings, in overcrowded buildings, in temporary, rented or obsolete buildings, or on half-day schedules. Determination of what was overcrowded, tem- porary, or obsolete was largely a matter of personal judgments, without a uniform basis. The age of a building has some correlation with its adequacy, but the amount of alteration and improvement and the qual- ity of maintenance vary so much that the age of the building, in itself, cannot be considered a reliable standard. 1 See Chapter VII. 114 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS In order that the total acceptable facilities counted in this study would be a total of similar items, rather than of a variety of kinds of judgments in categories which might not be mutually exclusive, it was necessary to accept some arbitrary standards and to establish uniform procedure for field work. The standards accepted for this study were stated largely on the basis of recommendations of the National Council on School House Construction, the experience of one college staff member in developing up-to-date building score cards, and conferences with spe- cialists in the field of school buildings. The decisions were made in favor of standards acceptable for a mod- ern educational program as opposed to those recommended for a tradi- tional school program. The standards developed and the procedures to be used were tried out in Boone County. Appropriate revisions were made following this experience. All individuals to help later in the field work were taken to Coles County, where field work was accomplished in training to establish uniform procedure for the remaining work. Standards used were stated in as few categories of space as possible to avoid error and to expedite field work. The following standards were established: Site: For elementary schools: Five acres plus one acre for each 100 pupils. No credit was given for less than two acres. Credit for 75 pupils was given for two acres and credit was increased alternatively by 35 and 40 pupils to eight acres for 300 pupils, the minimum desirable size. For secondary schools: Ten acres plus one acre for each 100 pupils. No credit was given for less than three acres. Credit for 120 pupils was given for three acres and increased by 40 pupils for each additional acre to 15 acres and by 50 pupils for each additional acre to 17 acres for 700 pupils. Since most Illinois school sites were totally inadequate by these standards, the field worker had to determine whether present sites could be expanded by contiguous undeveloped property or by property with small housing on it. If such expansion were not possible, a new site for the entire computed enrollment was reported on the assumption that first units of a completely new building should be started on such a site rather than as additions to a building on a site already completely inadequate and incapable of expansion. Classrooms: From 30 to 40 square feet per elementary school pupil, 25 square feet per high school pupil in regular classrooms, and a variety of different areas for high school pupils in special classrooms are recommended for modern educational programs. Recommendations for special classrooms run as high as 75 square feet per pupil in school shops. To avoid setting up separate categories for each kind of classrooms, a uniform standard of 30 square feet per pupil (or 900 square feet, or over, per class- room) was accepted. However, a review of earlier reports on Illinois classrooms showed a modal distribution of classrooms at slightly more than 700 square feet. It was recognized that it would not be feasible to abandon all of the existing classrooms in Illinois for the sake of a new standard nor to employ additional teachers required SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 115 to reduce the present classroom assignment of pupils to 20 rather than 30 or more. Upon these considerations, the following standards were set up : i More than 700 square feet 30 pupils 500 to 700 square feet 20 pupils Less than 500 square feet no credit If two rooms of less than 500 square feet could be combined to give 900 or more square feet, credit for 30 pupils was computed for each such pair of rooms. Space Other than Classrooms, and Gymnasiums: Since the standards for space other than classrooms include a wide Variety of standards for libraries, auditoriums, cafeterias, health service rooms, administrative offices, storage, and the like, and since standards for such space are stated under a variety of alternatives for each kind of space, it was determined to use only an overall figure for space other than classrooms. It was assumed that 50 per cent of building space should be for other than classroom use. If 30 square feet per pupil is desirable for classroom use, then an additional 30 square feet per pupil is necessary for other than classroom use. The number of pupils for whom such space was avail- able was to be determined by computing the total floor area of the building, sub- tracting from the total floor area of classrooms, and dividing the difference by 30. Attention is called to the fact that this is a very rough measure and does not take into account the manner in which such space is organized for use. As one type of check on such organization, and also because of the 200-minute per week physical education law in Illinois, gymnasiums were given special attention according to the following standards: For elementary schools: Credit for 500 pupils was given for 3500 square feet of gymnasium space. No credit was given for less than 2000 square feet. Above 2000 square feet proportional credit was computed by .14 X number of square feet up to 750 pupils. Above 750 pupils, a second gymnasium was required with credit for each gymnasium computed separately. For secondary schools: Credit for 500 pupils was given for 6300 square feet of gymnasium space. No credit was given for less than 3000 square feet. Above 3000 square feet, proportional credit was computed by .08 X square feet up to 800 pupils. For over 800 pupils, a second gymnasium was required with credit for each gym- nasium computed separately. Selection of Sample Counties In other studies of school housing needs, investigators have con- sidered as a reflection of total need a response from a restricted group of districts or whatever return was received from mailing questionnaires to a general mailing list. In this study it was decided to secure infor- mation by field study of a systematic sample of counties. After considering several possible factors to be used in stratifying counties, it was decided that reorganization would likely affect school housing needs more in rural than in urban counties because of the many small schools in the rural counties. It was also decided that housing needs would be most directly related to some statistic representing the number of pupils in school. The following procedure, therefore, was fol- lowed in setting up a sample of 21 of the 101 counties of the state, ex- cluding Cook County. 116 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS 1. The counties were stratified on the basis of the percentage of population in urban centers and a multiplier of 21/101 was used to de- termine the number of counties to be drawn for the sample from each stratum : No. of Sample Stratum Per cent Urban No. of Counties Multiplier 21/101 Counties I 0-10 21 4 II 11-20 13 21/101 3 III 21-40 25 21/101 5 IV 41-60 28 21/101 6 V 60 and over 14 21/101 3 101 21 2. Counties in each stratum were arranged in order of decreasing average daily attendance as reported in the 1945-1946 Annual Statistical Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The card for each county contained its ADA and the cumulative total ADA for the stratum. The total ADA for each stratum was divided by the number of counties to be drawn for the sample. By using the cumulative total, the counties were drawn in which this quotient or its multiple were found. 3. Preliminary school building need studies had been conducted in 15 counties in the state in the spring and summer of 1948. Two such counties were drawn in the original sample above. For these counties, there was useful information on scores of school buildings and other data. It was decided, therefore, to substitute where feasible from the counties in this group not included in the sample as chosen above. Substitution of counties already surveyed for those originally selected was accom- plished by setting up cells within each stratum — each cell being bounded by points half way between the location points on the cumulative total ADA as described above. Substitutions of eight counties previously sur- veyed were made. In each case the substitute county nearest the original sample county according to cumulative total ADA for the stratum was used and in no case was a county substituted unless it was in the same cell as the original sample county. The resulting sample utilized for the study consisted of the following counties : Stratum I — Pulaski, Kendall,* Schuyler* Brown* Stratum II — Crawford. Piatt* Hamilton Stratum III — Bureau, Ogle* Clay* Grundy* Menard Stratum IV — Vermilion* Franklin, Whiteside, Jefferson, Morgan, Boone Stratum V — Peoria,* Lake* Coles Counties from which data were secured in preliminary survey. SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 117 Computation of Estimated Enrollments It is to be recalled that school building needs in the state were to be viewed in terms of a hypothetical or modal plan of organization. Enrollment estimates assume that all children of public school age will be attending public school, and make allowance for the effect of the increased birth rate. No deductions were made for pupils of school age not attending nor for those attending parochial and other private schools. Estimated enrollment for elementary attendance centers was com- puted by taking the total 1940 census for urban areas served by the at- tendance center times .133 plus the highway map dwelling count for the remainder of the attendance area times .6. Estimated enrollment for high school attendance centers was computed by taking the total 1940 census count for urban areas served by the center times .067 plus the highway map dwelling count for the remainder of the attendance area times .3. From the estimated enrollments thus obtained, the number of pupils for whom facilities were currently available was subtracted to obtain the number of pupils for whom site and building accommodations were still to be provided. Conducting the Field Work In this study, 325 school buildings in the 21 sample counties were considered. Field workers visited all school buildings at hypothetical attendance centers in these counties except frame buildings or one-room buildings. By checking with county superintendents, it was determined whether or not some unusually good building facilities were overlooked by the original assignment of hypothetical attendance centers. If they had been, the additional buildings reported also were visited and were considered as possible alternatives to those at the assigned hypothetical attendance centers. The field worker considered each school building and site in terms of its adequacy for the estimated enrollment. He determined the number of acres in the present site, the possibility of expansion sufficient to take care of the estimated enrollment, and the availability of nearby sites adequate in size for all of the estimated enrollment. He tallied the num- ber of classrooms according to size and determined the number of pairs of classrooms having less than 500 square feet of floor area which might be combined. He computed the total floor area of the building and sub- tracted the total floor area of classroom space to report the other-than- classroom floor area. He computed the floor area of the gymnasium or gymnasiums. All of these items were reported in terms of numbers of pupils provided for, according to tables or formulas furnished on the work 118 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS sheets. By subtraction from the estimated enrollment, the field worker computed the number of pupils needing accommodations according to each classification. In centers where a high school building was currently in use but not assigned as a hypothetical high school attendance center, the building was considered as a potential elementary school building. All available buildings and sites in any given center listed as a hypo- thetical attendance center were considered collectively. No additional credit for excess facilities beyond those needed for the computed enroll- ment at such centers was reported. Such facilities would not be useful in reducing the need elsewhere. Some modification in procedure was necessary in order to use data from the 10 counties in which there had been preliminary field study on buildings. Supplementary information on buildings at the hypothet- ical attendance centers in these counties was obtained by correspondence, to make possible the translation of data from the preliminary survey reports to terms corresponding to the information collected by field •workers visiting the other counties of the sample. Translating the Findings Into a Statement of Need Data from report forms on individual schools visited were consoli- dated by hypothetical attendance centers, by counties, and by strata. This data concerning the number of pupils needing accommodations with respect to site, classrooms, other space, and gymnasiums, is a quantita- tive measure of need in the 21 sample counties surveyed. A ratio was established for purposes of estimating the need for the 101 counties of the state other than Cook from the surveyed need of the sample counties. In estimating needs for all counties on the basis of data from sample counties, a simple ratio estimate was used, stratum by stratum. TABLE XV Average Daily Attendance, All Counties and .- • . • • Sample Counties, by Strata ADA of AH Sample Counties in Each Stratum ADA of All Counties in Each Stratum Stratum Elementary Secondary Total Elementary Secondary Total Ratio Used for Estimate I 5,558 2,013 7,571 27,341 10,722 38,063 5.0274 : :II ' . • ■ 6,629 2,541 9,170 33,639 12,410 46,049 5.0217 Ill 13,148 5,511 18,659 65,017 29,145 94,162 5.0464 IV 30,369 11,340 41,709 126,488 52,516 179.004 4.1912 •v 31,329 13,008 44,337 152,764 67,117 219,881 4.9615 Total 87,033 34,413 121,446 405,249 171,910 577,159 SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 119 This blow-up ratio for each stratum was established on the basis of the average daily attendance of all counties in the stratum divided by the average daily attendance in the sample counties of the stratum. The average daily attendance of counties by stratum and the blow-up ratio established for each stratum are reported in Table XV. Several ratios were possible, such as total ADA of stratum to total ADA of sample counties in the stratum, total elementary ADA of stra- tum to elementary ADA of sample counties, or total secondary ADA of stratum to total secondary ADA of sample counties in the stratum. To determine which of these ratios should be used, coefficients of cor- relation were computed to determine the extent to which elementary, secondary, or total need correlated with the elementary, secondary, or total ADA of the sample counties surveyed. No significant difference was found, but for both elementary and secondary data the coefficients of correlation were higher as related to the total ADA of the sample counties. Therefore, the ratio of total ADA of all the counties in the stratum to the total ADA of sample counties of the stratum was accepted as the basis for computing estimated need in any stratum from the surveyed need in each of the categories considered. The formula thus established for the blow-up ratio was: L A „ s =L k=i rii Ni L Y U Where: A s Xij Yij Ui N t L Total estimated need over all strata. Need of the jth county in the ith stratum. Total average daily attendance in jth county in the ith stratum. Number of sample counties in ith stratum. Total number of counties in ith stratum. Total number of strata. Tables XVI to XIX inclusive report the surveyed need and the es- timated need expressed in pupil units with respect to site, classrooms, other-than-classroom space and gymnasiums. In each instance, the sur- veyed need was multiplied by the ratio for the stratum to compute the estimated need for each stratum. 120 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE XVI Estimated Number of Pupils Needing Site Accommodations Stratum Need as Expressed in Pupil Units in Sample Counties Ratio Used for Estimate Estimated Total Need in Pupil Units * Elementary Secondary Total Elemental •y Secondary Total I II III IV V 5,641 4,184 12,615 22,400 28,644 3,567 1,660 5,686 11,254 16,558 9,208 5,884 18,301 33,654 45,202 5.0274 5.0217 5.0464 4.1912 4.9615 28,360 21,011 63,660 93,883 142,117 17,933 8,336 28,694 47,167 82,152 46,293 29,347 92,354 141,050 224,269 Total 73,484 38,725 112,249 349,031 184,282 533,313 * The total need in the state (excluding Cook County) in pupil units is determined by sum- ming up the individual needs of the strata shown. The total need of each stratum is determined by multiplying by a ratio the elementary and secondary site needs of the sample counties within each stratum. The ratio of each stratum is the ratio of the total ADA of the stratum to the sum of the ADA of the sample counties within the stratum. In terms of the total number of 739,432 pupils estimated for the 101 counties, the Table XVI figure of 533,313, or over 70 per cent of the total, needing site accommodations is staggering. One must recall that when- ever present sites could not be expanded without taking developed prop- erty, a complete new site generally was counted as needed. Such proce- dure tends to expand site need as reported, but is justifiable as explained in the statement of procedures used. The standards for sites accepted for the study exceed current prac- tice in Illinois tremendously. Many sites surveyed were too small to be given any credit and very few were adequate in terms of the standard accepted even for present enrollment. Reduction of the standard for sites is not justifiable. In acquisition of new sites on undeveloped property, it is better to over-expand and to release the excess later than to have to expand later through condemnation procedures to take over property that has been improved by erection of dwellings or commercial or industrial buildings. Over-expansion of site can be reduced by sale much more readily than can over-expansion of the school building, for example. On the other hand, the school building cannot be properly expanded if adequate site is not available. If one uses the ADA figures reported in Table XV as an indication of the number of actual pupils, it would seem that provision for elemen- tary school sites is more adequate than that for high school sites. This arises from a combination of several factors, including: (1) the con- sideration of many small high school plants as potential elementary schools, (2) the fact that a smaller proportion of the youth of high school SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 121 TABLE XVII Estimated Number of Pupils Needing Classroom Accommodations Stratum Need as E in : xpressed in Pupil Units Sample Counties Ratio Used for Estimate Estimated Total Need in Pupil Units * Elementary Secondary Total Elementary Secondary Total I II III IV V 3,011 2,489 6,669 7,893 13,298 2,648 2,628 4,728 8,392 12,088 5,659 5,117 11,397 16,375 25,386 5.0274 5.0217 5.0464 4.1912 4.9615 15,138 12,499 33,654 33,081 65,978 13,313 13,197 23,859 35,173 59,975 28,451 25,696 57,513 68.254 125,953 Total 33,360 30,484 63,934 160,350 145,517 305,867 * The total need in the state (excluding Cook County) in pupil units is determined by sum- ming up the individual needs of the strata shown. The total need of each stratum is determined by multiplying by a ratio the elementary and secondary classroom needs of the sample counties within each stratum. The ratio of each stratum is the ratio of the total ADA of the stratum to the sum of the ADA of the sample counties within the stratum. age than of elementary school age are currently in school and, hence accommodated, (3) the actual size of high school sites as contrasted with the standard which includes provision for a modern conception of intra- mural athletics and other outside activities. One may note also the fact that the "most" rural and "most" urban counties have proportionately greater need than the other counties. In the rural counties with much open country, it has not seemed so important to reserve land for use of school pupils through school owner- ship, and current schools in such counties include large numbers of small TABLE XVIII Estimated Number of Pupils Needing Other-Than-Classroom Space Accommodations Stratum Need as Expressed in Pup in Sample Counties il Units Ratio Used for Estimate Estimated Total Nee< Pupil Units * l in Elementary Secondary Total Elementary Secondary Total I II III IV V 3,510 1,803 5,446 3,512 11,251 2,708 552 2,710 1,313 7,379 6,218 2,355 8,156 4,825 18,630 5.0274 5.0217 5.0464 4.1912 4.9615 17,646 9,054 27,483 14,720 55,822 13,614 2,772 13,676 5,503 36.611 31,260 11,826 41,159 20223 92,433 Total 25,522 14,662 40,184 124,725 72,176 196,901 * The total need in the state (excluding Cook County) in pupil units is determined by sum- ming up the individual needs of the strata shown. The total need of each stratum is determined by multiplying by a ratio the elementary and secondary other-than-classroom needs of the sample counties within each stratum. The ratio of each stratum is the ratio of the total ADA of the stratum to the sum of the ADA of the sample counties within the stratum. 122 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS schools which attempt no modern program of activities requiring the utilization of so much site. At the other extreme, the cost of urban property, the availability of public parks, and employment opportunities and greater frequency of private and parochial schools reducing public high school enrollment help to explain the proportionately greater land shortage in the urban counties when present facilities are considered in terms of providing for all pupils of high school age. The estimate of 305,867 pupils needing classroom facilities reported in Table XVII represents over 40 per cent of the total estimated enroll- ment of 739,432 for the 101 counties. This estimate is one of the most dependable of the study. The standards for classrooms were clearly de- fined and classroom space was surveyed as such. Consideration was also given to the feasibility of combining classrooms through alteration so that altered rooms might meet the standards set. The estimate of 196,901 pupils needing other-than-classroom accom- modations as reported in Table XVIII is the most doubtful estimate of the study. The facilities credited as available were not specifically sur- veyed, but the estimate was obtained by subtracting classroom floor area from total floor area. Such procedure did not take into account the use- fulness nor organization of such space. The estimate of 345,505 pupils needing gymnasium accommodations as reported in Table XIX would indicate that for 148,604 pupils the 30 square feet of space credited as adequate provision for other-than-classroom space did not include, as it should have, the provision of gymnasium facilities. Without agreement on the kinds of facilities other than classrooms to be provided and on TABLE XIX Estimated Number of Pupils Needing Gymnasium Accommodations Stratum Need as Expressed in Pupil Units in Sample Counties Ratio Used for Estimate Estimated Total Need Pupil Units * in Elementary Secondary Total Elementary Secondary Total I II III IV V 2,386 3,221 7,083 14,655 15,724 2,287 1,913 3,704 10,283 11,944 4,673 5,134 10,787 24,938 27,668 5.0274 5.0217 5.0464 4.1912 4.9615 11,995 16,174 35,744 61,422 78,015 11,498 9,607 18,692 43,098 59,260 23.493 25,781 54,436 104,520 137,275 Total 43,069 30,131 73,200 203,350 142,155 345,505 * The total need in the state (excluding Cook County) in pupil units is determined by sum- ming up the individual needs of the strata shown. The total need of each stratum is determined by multiplying by a ratio the elementary and secondary gymnasium needs of the sample counties within each stratum. The ratio of each stratum is the ratio of the total ADA of the stratum to the sum of the ADA of the sample counties within the stratum. SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 123 the standards for the various kinds of facilities which might be provided, existing other-than-classroom space was considered only in terms of floor area, without regard to its present or potential usefulness. The estimate of 345,505 pupils needing gymnasium accommodations is based on objective standards and actual inspection of existing facili- ties. The figure shows the unreliability of the estimate on total other- than-classroom space needed. However, it cannot be taken as quantita- tively representing the inadequate organization of all such space, since the standards for gymnasium take into consideration the need of facili- ties for the increased emphasis on health and physical education. By use of the ratio, then, it is estimated that of a total estimated enrollment of 739,432 for the 101 counties, 305,867, or 41 per cent, need classroom accommodations; 345,505, or 47 per cent, need gymnasium ac- commodations; 196,901, or 26 per cent, need other-than-classroom accom- modations; and 533,313, or 72 per cent, need site facilities. Need stated in pupil units can be converted to cost figures on a per pupil cost basis or can be converted into space or area figures for trans- lation into cost figures on a per acre or per square foot or per cubic foot basis. School Housing Needs in Cook County Approximately 40 per cent of the school pupils of the state reside in Cook County. Thus, the school housing needs reported in the preceding section are based on consideration of only 60 per cent of all of the pupils of the state. One cannot compute total enrollment for Chicago and then subtract a count of the existing facilities in the city to reach an acceptable estimate of school housing needs any more than this could have been reasonably done for the state as a whole. In Chicago, consideration must also be given to where pupils are located. Chicago has a total of 8341 elementary classrooms, of which 2358 are surplus rooms because they are in buildings serving attendance areas which have become commercial or industrial in character or have otherwise lost enrollment. In other sections of the city public housing projects or shifts in racial groups in- habiting given areas have produced excessive enrollments, so thai Chi- cago also has a great shortage of elementary classrooms. The housing projects and the population shifts currently under way in Cook County outside of Chicago present problems more like those within Chicago than in those of the other 101 counties of the state. To acquire estimates for Cook County or for Chicago which correspond to those for the 101 counties studied would require a complete study which considered reorganization and relocation of attendance centers or which 124 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS depended upon a sample drawn on the basis of stratification according to land use or some other sociological classification. Lacking appropriate staff and time for such a study, one is con- fronted with the alternatives of stopping short of Cook County and clearly indicating that the study completed represents only 60 per cent of the pupils of the state or of accepting the most usable data available from school officials and attempting to translate them into terms corres- ponding to the balance of the study. The latter alternative was chosen. Cook County school officials re- ported that no pertinent data were available for schools outside of Chi- cago. Such omission leaves out of consideration about one per cent of the pupils of the state. This is considered negligible in that the probable error for the total study is likely in excess of one per cent. Estimates for the city of Chicago were developed on the basis of data obtained from the Division of Building Surveys and the Department of Architecture and Building Repair of the Chicago Public Schools. The most reliable estimate obtained in the study of the 101 counties was that of the number of pupils needing classroom facilities. Effort was centered on obtaining a corresponding estimate of the number of pupils needing classroom facilities in Chicago. The estimate of site needs for Chicago is reported for inclusion as a cost item with the site needs for the state as a whole. Sites for elementary schools in Chicago are three and one-half acres and less. If possible, such sites are located adjacent to a city park. Sites for high schools are from 10 to 20 acres. In its proposals for current development, the Division of Building Sur- veys has listed 30 building site proposals and four athletic field pro- posals. The site proposals for buildings include 22 new sites, of which three are adjacent to new site purchases proposed by the park commis- sion, six exchanges of site with the park commission, and two expansions of present sites. These 30 building site proposals include a total of 773 acres at an estimated cost of $3,045,000. The estimated cost of sites for the four athletic fields, at $500,000 each, is $2 million. This represents an estimated total cost of $5,045,000 for school site proposals listed by the Division of Building Surveys. A list of Chicago elementary and secondary schools with data on enrollment and total floor area of each was supplied by the Division of Building Surveys. The number of classrooms in each building was re- ported for the elementary schools. Blueprints of many of the buildings were available from the Department of Architecture and Building Re- pair. It was assumed that elementary school classrooms had floor areas of 700 or more square feet. Inspection of blueprints for 13 elementary SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 125 buildings on which 309 classrooms were included disclosed that only five fell below this size. Since almost 99 per cent of the rooms thus examined had floor areas of 700 or more square feet, the classroom capacity of each elementary school was computed by taking the number of classrooms times 30 pupils. The capacity thus computed was compared with the enrollment of each building. Where excess capacity was available no need was listed for the building. For all other buildings, the difference between enrollment and capacity was listed as pupils needing classroom accommodations. The total for the city was found to be 40,362 elementary pupils need- ing classroom facilities according to the standards used in the study of 101 counties. It should be pointed out that Chicago currently assigns an average of nearly 40 pupils per elementary classroom. By using the procedure described, 152 of the 336 elementary school buildings were found to have adequate or more-than-adequate classroom space for their present en- rollment at 30 pupils per classroom. By using the blueprints for 13 elementary schools, the forms used in field survey of the sample counties were completed as an indication of the adequacy of the treatment used. Of the 13 schools whose blueprints were surveyed, six were found to have adequate or more-than-adequate classroom space for present enroll- ment. With the proportion of such schools surveyed from blueprints aligning so closely to the proportion of such schools for the entire city, it would seem that the procedure used in computing classroom need for the city has some validity. Because of the variety of sizes of rooms considered as secondary school classrooms according to the standards established for field study in the sample counties and because of a difference in classification of rooms as classrooms or other-than-classrooms between that used for the sample counties and the practice of Chicago school officials, it was not possible to follow the same procedure in determining the number of secondaiy school pupils needing classroom accommodations. The square feet of total area per pupil was calculated from the data supplied by the Division of Building Surveys, and the 39 high schools were arranged in order of largest to smallest ratios. It was assumed that at some determinable point on this list a division could be made between schools with excess classroom space and those with inadequate class- room space. To find such point the schools as listed were arbitrarily di- vided into six strata, and blueprints were inspected for schools from each stratum. By inspection of blueprints the survey forms used in the sam- ple counties were filled out for the high schools represented. This gave an indication of the point in the listing of high school buildings above 126 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS which excess classroom capacity could be expected. Blueprints of several buildings close to this point were examined and the point was fixed above which excess classroom capacity would be found. The buildings listed above this point were considered to have adequate or more than adequate classroom capacity for current enrollment. Seventeen blueprints of high school buildings supplied usable data, and this was considered adequate consideration for the 39 high school buildings in Chicago. Of the 17 blueprints inspected, 13 were for schools below the division point between schools with adequate and inadequate classroom capacity for current enrollment. By use of the field survey forms it was determined that 4091 of the 24,801 pupils enrolled in these 13 high schools need classroom accommodations in accordance with the standards used for the sample counties. By direct proportion to the 75,239 pupils enrolled in all of the high schools below the division point, it was determined that 12,410 secondary school pupils in Chicago need classroom accommodations. Using data from the blueprints analyzed on the basis of the field sur- vey form, and following a similar procedure to that used for classrooms, a number of 16,124 pupils needing gymnasium facilities in the 17 high schools for which blueprints were inspected was blown up to a total of 42,400 pupils in Chicago high schools needing gymnasium facilities ac- cording to the standards used for the 101 counties. Since it was impos- sible to compute the pupil need for gymnasium facilities for elementary schools, this estimate of the number of secondary school pupils needing gymnasium facilities cannot be combined with an estimate for elemen- tary pupils to represent the total need for such space. On the basis of current enrollment in the Chicago schools for which information was available, using the standards established for this study of school housing, there is need for additional classroom space to accommodate 52,772 pupils. This number does not correspond to the estimates for the 101 counties, since they were not based on current enrollments but on the assumption that all children of school age attend public schools at attendance cen- ters of appropriate size. To determine the potential enrollment available in Chicago, the fol- lowing procedure was used. From the 1940 Census Report 4 it was de- termined that of the 34,765,000 children in the 5-to-19 years age group in the United States, 728,620, or 2.096 per cent, lived in Chicago. An examination of previous reports indicated that this percentage was fairly 4 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Volume II, Population, Part 2, Washington, D. C, Government Printing Office, 1943. SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 127 stable. By reference to the Census forecast 5 the percentage for Chicago was applied to the projected estimate for 1948 for the 5-to-19 years age group to find that of 34,755,000 children in this group in the United States, 728,465 live in Chicago. Since this represents an age span of 15 years, and the study is concerned with an age span of 12 years corres- ponding to the 12 school grades, the figure was reduced by one-fifth to a potential enrollment of 582,772 in Chicago if all pupils of school age attended the public schools. By use of direct proportion, the estimated need of classroom space for 52,772 based on the total enrollment in the Chicago schools on which information was available was increased to an estimate of 90,261 repre- senting the need if all pupils of school age were in attendance in public schools. When this need is added to the estimate of 305,867 pupils need- ing classroom accommodations in the 101 counties, the total for the state is 396,128 pupils. The Cost of a School Housing Program Previous sections of this chapter have indicated, in pupil units, the school housing need to be met if pupils in Illinois are to be adequately housed in appropriately organized attendance units. Such estimates must be converted to cost figures if they are to be used in any program of implementation. This conversion should be made at the time such fig- ures are to be used, because of the rapid current fluctuation of construc- tion costs. The difficulty of obtaining dependable cost figures is indicated by the fact that contractors seek to build on a cost-plus basis and to avoid fixed contracts. The cost indices prepared by Harold Clark for the School Executive are based on labor and material cost indices but do not reflect the cost to consumer which includes the contractors' need of considering the relationship of such costs to availability of various ma- terials and to timing. In an N.E.A. study, useful cost figures were supplied on only 126 building projects. 6 These were of such a variety of types, materials, and locations that they were useful only as "straws in the wind." A project described as typical was an elementary school build- ing in a southern city for 385 pupils at an expenditure of $628 per pupil, 87 cents per cubic foot, $12.97 per square foot of floor space. The median cost per cubic foot for the 126 projects was 86 cents. In the 1949 Year- 5 Bureau of the Census. Cwrent Population Reports: Population Estimates, "Forecasts of Population and School Enrollment in the United States: 1948-1960," Series P-25, No. 18, Washington, D. C, Government Printing Office, Feb. 14, 1949. "National Education Association. Research Bulletin, School Housing Needs in City-School Systems, 1947-48, December, 1948, p. 164. 128 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS book of the American Association of School Administrators, American School Buildings, the cost figures are reports on seven elementary school buildings and two secondary school buildings. One cannot depend upon such limited information for reliable predictive purposes. Whenever estimates of need expressed in pupil units are to be used in the development of a building program for the state, there are at least three alternative procedures for converting such estimates to cost figures. One might apply cost indices to a cost unit from some acceptable base year; a usable current cost figure might be obtained through collect- ing judgments from architects, contractors and realtors; or, cost figures might be obtained from current school house construction experience. For purposes of demonstration, the latter method is used in this study. Individuals doing the field work for the study reported site purchases and construction activity completed within the preceding 12 months or currently under way. For the 325 schools surveyed, 10 acquisitions of site were reported and 30 additions and new buildings were reported. Usable cost figures were available on seven school site projects and on nine new construction projects. These figures are reported in Tables XX and XXI. TABLE XX Site Cost Data Type of Site Number of Acres Total Cost Cost per Acre Partially Developed and Undeveloped 30 $60,000 $ 2,000 Undeveloped 7 7,000 1,000 Undeveloped 15 7,800 520 Developed 1% 33,000 18,860 Partially Developed and Undeveloped % 3,000 4,000 Undeveloped Property 5 16,000 3,200 Undeveloped in Residential Area 1 2,500 2,500 To convert site estimates into cost figures it is necessary first to compute the number of acres from the estimate in pupil units. The aver- age estimated enrollment of the hypothetical attendance centers was computed to be 1300 for each high school and 900 for each elementary school. On the basis of site standards used, such enrollments would re- quire one and a half acres per 100 elementary pupils and one and three- fourths acres per 100 high school pupils. By multiplying the estimated number of elementary pupils in the 101 counties needing site by one and one-half acres per 100 pupils (349,031 x .015), one finds that 5235 acres of site are needed for elementary school pupils. By multiplying the estimated number of .secondary pupils in the 101 counties needing SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 129 TABLE XXI Building Cost Data Elementary Cost per Cost per Cost per or Total Pupil Pupil Cubic Square Type of Construction Secondary Cost Stations Station Foot Foot Classrooms and Gym (Addition) Elementary $230,000 275 $ 836 $ .82 $11.53 Two Classrooms and Basement (Addition) Elementary 23,000 40 575 1.21 10.89 Four Classrooms (Addition) Elementary 37,462 100 375 .96 10.41 New Academic Structure 17 Classrooms, 4 Special Educ. Classrooms, Gym, Auditorium & Cafeteria Elementary 400,000 500 800 .80 ....t Agriculture Shop (Addition) Secondary 54,800 25 2,192 1.00 16.46 New Shops and Classrooms Secondary 528,000 300 1,760 .64 11.28 New Academic Structure and Field House Secondary 1,823,000 1,450 1,259 .65 14.44 New Academic Structure * Secondary 683,785 425 1,609 1.08 13.45 New Gymnasium * 277,736 653 .62 16.30 Gym, Stage, and Shop Addition Secondary 65,000 78 833 . . . .T 16.25 * Same School Reported Construction Data for Gym Construction. t No Data Available. and Academic Structure Now Under site by one and three-fourths acres per 100 pupils (184,282 x .0175), one finds that 3227 acres of site are needed for secondary school pupils. (This total of 8462 acres was checked against a figure obtained by apply- ing a rough ratio of 101/21 to the 1763 acres of site needed in the sample counties as reported by field workers which indicated a need of 8479 acres for the 101 counties.) The scant indication of costs reported by seven schools as shown in Table XX gives no valid basis for establishing an average price per acre. The cost of property in cities is indicated by the estimated cost of site proposals reported by Chicago school officials and by the $33,000 price on a half block of developed property in a southern Illinois city. If one were to take a price of $3,000 an acre for purposes of estimation^ the total cost for purchase of school sites in the 101 counties would amount to $25,437,000. If we accept and add to this total the amount of $5,045,000 representing the estimated cost of the site proposals currently listed by the Chicago Division of Building Surveys the total estimated cost of site purchases would be $30,482,000. 130 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS As indicated above, the current building cost data are inadequate as the basis of any cost estimate. The usable building cost data reported from schools included in the field study are recorded in Table XXI. Of the nine projects reported, four are for elementary pupils and five are for high school pupils. As in the case of the cost data reported in the N.E.A. research study, 7 there is wide variety in the size, the purpose, and the kind of construction reported. When there are but nine cases and the range is as great as from $375 to $2262 one cannot rely on any measure of central tendency. The costs reported from these schools in- cluded in the field study and the costs reported elsewhere on a per pupil basis are in terms of a variety of space standards and not in agreement with those established for this study. Of the elementary school construction costs reported in Table XXI only one represents construction including all facilities. This per pupil cost of construction is reported as $800 for 500 pupils. The indication of current building costs in American School Buildings* included $828 per pupil in Arizona, $679 per pupil in California, $642 and $903 per pupil in Kentucky, $834 and $1003 per pupil in New York, and $1073 per pupil in Oregon. If the typical project cited in the N.E.A. research study is translated into space standards equivalent to those used in this study, the per pupil cost would be nearer $800 than $628. On the basis of these "straws in the wind," it would seem that a cost estimate of $800 or more per elementary pupil is not unreasonable. Any lower estimate would be inadequate. Building costs for secondary schools were reported for only two pro- jects in the American School Buildings. 9 These were both in California, and the per pupil costs were $1743 and $2136 per pupil. In Table XXI three of the secondary building projects reported furnish complete facili- ties with per pupil costs of $1259, $1760, and $2262. The latter figure is not an altogether fair per pupil cost since the building projects (academic structure and gymnasium) include provision of other-than-classroom accommodations for more than the 425 pupils reported, but the total cost was divided on the basis of 425 pupils. If one is very conservative and takes the lowest of these figures, $1259, a per pupil figure of $1000 might be taken in striking an average with the $800 elementary figure. It should be stressed that the $1000 per pupil cost figure cannot be de- fended as adequate on the basis of any available data. It is taken only as a basis of estimating costs and with the knowledge that it represents ' Op. (At., p. 163-4. "American School Buildings, 27th Yearbook, American Association of Admin- istrators; Washington, D.C., p. 290. 9 Op. tit., p. 290. SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 131 a figure which can be easily changed when more accurate cost estimates are available. All of the cost figures discussed above make no distinction in the cost of classroom, other-than-classroom, or gymnasium space. Estimated needs reported in Tables XVII, XVIII, XIX were not derived in such a manner as to permit acceptable consolidation into the number of pupils needing complete facilities. One might compute by area or by cubic volume the separate space needs indicated by the three tables, convert these into cost figures and add them together for an estimate of total cost. This procedure would be desirable if accurate cost estimates were available. In view of the inadequate cost data available, it was determined to use $1000 per pupil for estimating purposes. Although the estimate of the number of pupils needing classroom facilities is not an estimate of the number of pupils needing complete facilities, it is the most usable of any of the estimates developed. It was pointed out that the low estimate of pupils needing other-than-classroom facilities in the 101 counties is erroneous in that it did not take into consideration the organization of such space, as evidenced by the much greater need of pupils for gym- nasium space. On the basis of all of the assumptions made in this study, using as representative of pupils needing complete building facilities the number of pupils estimated as needing classroom facilities, and using the very conservative per pupil cost figure of $1000, it would cost $396,128,000 to provide building facilities for the 396,128 pupils. If the estimate of the cost of acquiring sites, $30,482,000, is added to this estimate, it would require $426,610,000 to provide adequate school housing for Illinois. Such an estimate includes only a conservative cost estimate for the additional facilities required and does not give consideration to any estimate for repair, alteration, or replacement of existing facilities now used in hypothetical attendance centers unless they are frame ones. Alternative Plans for Financing School Building Needs It is obvious that the need for school housing facilities for effectively located attendance centers is so great that it is not likely to be met readily if left entirely to local communities as it has been in the past. How may the state discharge its obligation? Much research and consideration are yet to be directed to the prob- lem of the relationship of state aid to capital outlay financing. The effects of and the theories underlying current practices of the various states need careful investigation. What are the relative merits of con- fining state aid to current expenses, to total expenses, to current expenses 132 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS with addition of an amount for capital outlay as in Florida, or of distrib- uting special aid for school house construction projects? 10 This chapter has not dealt with such problems. Growing out of the hypothesis of this study, however, are implications for the kinds of research yet to be ac- complished in Illinois in order to answer such questions. On the basis of school attendance, unit size, and the physical plant standards accepted for this study, the present school plant facilities of the state fall short of providing adequate school housing by nearly 400,000 pupil units. The people of the state have to consider not only the provision of the additional facilities required, but the continuing maintenance of school plant facilities for all pupils of the state. It is assumed that provision of additional facilities should be accomplished as quickly as possible and that the problem of maintenance would be continuing. How may the total cost of each aspect of this problem be computed? By a procedure similar to that illustrated in this study, the total needs unmet by existing facilities must be determined. Such a procedure involves agreement upon standards of school housing to be provided to all pupils. In addition to those established in this study, there should be some more adequate listing of the kinds of space organization desirable for other-than-classroom use and some means of checking it. The method of counting need should make possible the determination of the number of pupils needing complete plant facilities as differentiated from those need- ing specific facilities as classified. Such procedure also involves agree- ment on standards of organization for attendance centers which should be derived from a definition of an appropriately organized school district acceptable to the people of Illinois. A study could then be conducted, fol- lowing the pattern established by this pilot study, to determine the total amount of money required to provide adequate school housing for all Illinois children of school age. Such study would establish the overall cost of the short-term program for making facilities adequate. An alter- native to this approach would be estimating needs by extensive school building surveys in all local units in the state. Each year additional classrooms become obsolete. In addition to costs required to put school plants in the state on an adequate basis now, consideration must be given to maintaining that level in the future. The cost of maintenance through repair, alteration, and replacement is a con- tinuing cost. One might assume that the entire state were on a scheduled program of replacing schoolhouse facilities each thirty years. The annual "National Education Association, Research Division, "Statutory Bases of State Foundation Programs for Schools." Research Bulletin 26:68-78, April, 1948. SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 133 cost of such a replacement program to the entire state would be approxi- mately one-thirtieth of the current value of all new schoolhouse facilities now needed and all schoolhouse facilities currently usable in properly organized attendance centers as determined by the study. The short- term cost for new buildings and the long-term cost of the replacement program represent the total program of school housing to be financed. To estimate the share to be borne by the state or to determine the manner in which the state may share in financing buildings requires an examination of the possible costs to be borne by local communities. At the present time schoolhouse construction and maintenance are financed by local districts through income from building fund levies and through bonding. Most Illinois school districts finance schoolhouse con- struction through issuance of bonds. Under the state constitution, local districts may bond up to five per cent of full valuation. This cannot all be required for the foundation program of school housing. Some leeway must be left to make it possi- ble for local communities to go beyond the uniform standards of school housing facilities to be made available to all pupils of the state. Of the five per cent, one and one-half per cent might be left to provide such local leeway and the other three and one-half per cent might be con- sidered as a basis for computing the share of local communities in the total cost of providing adequate and modern school housing for Illinois children. Viewing these needs as state-wide needs, let us see if the obligation may be delegated to local administrative units. Since our orientation is toward financing buildings for "improved attendance centers and reor- ganization," we will consider what new reorganized districts can do in meeting these needs. The 197 community unit districts of the state which had been formed as of March, 1949, had an average valuation per pupil of $21,329. 14. n In these 197 districts the total average bonding capacity is, therefore, only $1066 per pupil at the five per cent maximum possible. Assuming that local districts should be allowed a leeway of one and one- half per cent of bonding capacity, the average local capacity of these districts at three and one-half per cent is only $746 per pupil. It is to be emphasized that this is the average for them and in many cases the valuation available at three and one-half per cent would be considerably less than $746. Further study is needed to ascertain the location of the estimated one-half a billion dollars worth of immediate building needs as the loca- tion of needs is related to local property valuations. Nevertheless, it is "Progress Report No. 12 on School Reorganization in Illinois. Issued by the State Advisory Commission. Springfield: March 19, 1949. 134 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS generally known that building needs parallel needs for current operating costs. That is to say, that areas in greatest need for state assistance for operation or current expense are generally the areas in the greatest need for aid in reducing the immediate backlog of housing deficiencies. Therefore, the total valuation in 1947 of $21,041,179,855 in the state could produce $736 millions at three and one-half per cent if (1) the local valuations were so located with respect to building needs as to be usable, and if (2) there was not already an outstanding bonded indebtedness to be taken into account. The outstanding bonded indebtedness on June 30, 1948, for building purposes was $131,234,188. 12 It is to be noted that much of this outstanding indebtedness is in areas of the state in which there are now building needs of a type examined in this study for which there is no bonding capacity or for which local bond issues cannot be issued within the five per cent limit. It is evident that placing all respon- sibility for the financing of school building needs upon local units is as indefensible as is leaving current expenditures to the fortuitous resources of local taxes. If the state is to recognize a goal of guaranteeing, through a pattern of local administration, a minimum of educational opportunity, it must inevitably participate in the financial support of schoolhouse construction. As has been demonstrated in this volume, providing attendance units, that is to say, properly located and adequate school buildings, is a major objective of school reorganization. It may be seen, therefore, that the school building needs of the state are an integral aspect of the reorganiza- tion problem. Leaving to local resources responsibility for providing the adequate school plant will not only fail to achieve the school building needs of the state but will stand as a barrier to the solution of the com- panion problem, that of reorganization of school districts. In turning to other alternatives of financing the needed school build- ings, alternatives which will involve financial support from the state government, it should be pointed out that the methods chosen might not be the same for the short-term and the long-term needs. We shall, therefore, make the distinction between the kinds of continuing needs which school districts would have if they were all properly organized and now had buildings in order to maintain an adequate level of physical plant in the state for all children, and the types of needs which have been pointed out in this chapter which would be necessary to effectuate a gen- uine program of reorganization of districts and to get local units set up in business, so to speak. 12 Compiled from 1948 Annual Reports of County Superintendents on file in the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. -SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 135 For either type of outlay, assistance from the state is 'essential. For the first type, the continuing expenditure for debt service and capital outlay which districts would be expected in the future to make, even if they were all properly equipped with buildings today, is generally ac- cepted by writers on finance as a suitable object of state aid to local units following a plan of equalization quite similar to that used in financ- ing of current expenditures. An example of this type of financing is the system now used in the state of Florida to which reference already has been made. Immediate short-term needs, such as those described in this study, could be financed by state grants on an equalization basis such that each individual housing plan can be considered on its own merits. This is essentially the type of financing which was engaged upon in large scale during the 1930's through the federal works program. One difficulty with the federal works system, however, was that matching was on a 50-50 basis so that the rate of effort of local units' contribution to build- ings constructed did not vary with local ability. Techniques are available for what is known as "variable matching" which is suitable for this type of short-term stimulative financing. 13 One method of meeting the cost of the short-term, immediate needs is described in the following: Assume that the state is to meet its obliga- tion of providing the school housing estimated in this study; that such provision is to be made only in appropriately organized attendance cen- ters; that the total number of children of school age in the state is 1,325,000; and that the full valuation of the state is $30 billion. If the state decides to spread the short-term program of meeting addi- tional needs over a five-year period, a total of $85 million per year would be required for these five years. Then there is the permanent, "long-term" cost. If the valuation of current usable school housing in appropriately organized attendance cen- ters and those to be provided were assumed to be $1000 per pupil, or $1325 million for the state, and one-thirtieth of this amount were to be provided each year of the long-term continuing expenditure for replace- ment or alteration, the annual cost for such purposes would be $44,- 167,000. During the first five years, therefore, the entire state would be con- fronted with an annual cost of $129,167,000. In subsequent years the annual cost would be $44,167,000. If the total bonding capacity up to the limit to be utilized could be available for meeting the local communities' share of the cost, an annual "This system is now in use in the state of Washington. For an analysis of equalized matching formulas see Cornell, Francis G. "Grant-in- Aid Apportionment Formulas." Journal of the American Statistical Association 42:92-104; March, 1947. 136 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS bond issue of one-twentieth of three and one-half per cent of the $30 bil- lion total valuation of the state would produce $52,500,000. Thus the state government would need to make available an amount of $76,667,000 annually for the five years of the short-term program of catching up. Although the cost of the program and the state's share in that program might be computed as illustrated above, there is little likelihood that schoolhouse construction would proceed rapidly enough to complete the provision of adequate facilities within a five-year period. Only if a state were arbitrarily to reorganize attendance centers and districts, impose bonded indebtedness on local districts, and build school buildings could this be assured. Such intensive construction activity would likely raise the cost of construction to an almost prohibitive level. The above procedure, then, is simply illustrative of one method in which the state's share in the total cost could be computed. To make such a program financially possible, and to be in a position to allow the program to move as rapidly as local communities would re- organize and would undertake building programs, the state would have to appropriate the amount required during the five-year period or over whatever period were chosen. State aid for the provision of new facilities as determined by some plan of local survey would be distributed to properly organized schools as they proceed to build the additional facilities needed in their districts. State aid for the long-term program of maintaining adequate school facilities might be distributed as properly organized schools under- took replacement or alteration projects. Such procedure as to main- tenance would involve considerable leadership and planning service on the part of a department of school buildings and grounds in the Office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Considering the rate at which additional districts are likely to reor- ganize and at which school house construction activity is likely to be undertaken throughout the state, it would seem that the state should assume a first obligation in meeting its share of the cost of the short-term program of helping all districts provide sufficient school housing for all children of the state. As such adequacy is achieved in each local district, the district might then begin to receive school-plant aid as part of its general state-aid income. State aid for school house construction in accomplishing the short- term program would be available only to districts meeting standards of acceptable size and organization and for building projects meeting standards of adequacy. The amount available to a district would depend upon its need as de- SCHOOL HOUSING FOR LARGER UNITS 137 termined by the lack of present facilities for the pupil population and the additional funds needed considering the appropriate proportion of its legal bonding power. A district of appropriate size and organization al- ready indebted for more than the proportion of its bonding power agreed upon for provision of facilities meeting the accepted standards of ade- quacy should receive proportionate state aid in the amortization of its indebtedness. School districts of appropriate size and organization al- ready providing adequate facilities without indebtedness exceeding the proportion agreed upon would begin to receive school-plant aid annually as part of their general state aid income. In view of the extensive need indicated by this study, most state aid provided for the short-term program would be utilized to stimulate new construction. Such stimulation of new construction would promote district reorganization and would tend to provide adequate school housing for all Illinois children of school age as quickly as possible. Such aid should be paid to meet construction costs as they are in- curred, rather than as assistance on amortization of indebtedness for the new construction project. In this way a considerable amount of the interest cost of funding the project can be avoided. In newly reorganized districts and with the reorganization of attend- ance centers, some present school property will not be used for school purposes because of location or other reasons. In districts receiving aid on new building projects, all income from the sale of such present school property should be credited to the local district. It might be provided further that income to the local district from such sale of property should be used for capital outlay purposes. The state could further aid in the provision of school housing by providing specialists in the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion who would be available for consultation and for assistance with local building surveys. Such specialists might be made responsible for approv- ing plans and buildings according to the standards of adequacy devel- oped. They should be constantly revising and improving such standards. State supervision might be restricted to applying a reliable cost esti- mate to acceptable standards in terms of pupil or classroom units and using such cost limitation as the control of the state's share in the ex- penditure. It is recognized that such a proposal calls for considerable effort on the part of the state for the short-term program. By making such effort, a state could put the physical plant for its educational system in condi- tion to realize the efficient and effective educational program desired. Such effort would require either additional state taxes or a considerable restriction on other state spending. 138 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS The importance of this chapter is its approach rather than the actual statistics it develops. Nevertheless, the findings of the study do give evi- dence of the tremendous need of schoolhouse construction in Illinois. Nearly 400,000 pupil units of school housing are needed to provide ade- quate space according to acceptable standards. With so great a need, the state must take a position of active leader- ship. If the problem is left to local districts they likely will continue to avoid reorganization because of their distaste for the bonded indebted- ness to be incurred by the construction required under reorganization. They would then continue to operate inefficient small schools and to spend even more money over the long span of time in repairing and re- placing the many small and continuously inadequate buildings which such districts now operate. A realistic approach on the elimination of the backlog of school- house construction on the part of the state might stimulate school reor- ganization and the attainment of adequacy, so that the state would achieve a situation in which most, if not all, of the cost of repair and replacement of the school plant could be accomplished out of local re- sources at reasonable cost. The implementation of any such program would involve: 1. Definition of appropriately organized elementary and secondary attendance centers acceptable to people of the state. 2. Development of standards of school-housing adequacy which should be provided for all children of the state. 3. Survey, following a pattern similar to that of this study, of school housing need if all children of school age in the state are to be able to attend schools in such attendance centers. 4. Study of the present bonded indebtedness of the school districts of the state and of the bonding leeway of local districts. Such study would be concerned with the amount of indebtedness and of leeway avail- able and also with an appropriate division of local bonding power as qualifying for state aid on foundation needs or for local leeway for developmental provision of plant facilities beyond foundation need. 5. Computation of the cost of such a program to the state on the basis of reliable current cost estimates. 6. Planning the funding of the program on the part of the state. 7. Planning for the administration of such state funds. APPENDIX I DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPARSITY FORMULA The formula already stated for computing the sparsity factor, and hence the total sparsity correction, for a given county was based on a measure of sparsity of rural pupils expressed as average number of such pupils per square mile, commonly termed density of population. The research involved in developing this formula was done in two steps. In the first step, a formula was developed with the measure of pupil sparsity expressed in terms of average scatter or distance between pupils in rural areas. This measure has been the basis for developing similar formulas in the states of West Virginia, New York, and Mississippi. 1 However, the mathematical terms necessary to express sparsity as average distance between rural pupils were somewhat too complicated to be readily under- stood by the average layman. Therefore, this measure of sparsity was translated into the form more widely understood; namely the average number of rural pupils per square mile of land area. Then, the formula utilizing sparsity in terms of average distance between rural pupils be- came an intermediate step in the development of the more simplified form. Formula Utilizing Measure of Sparsity in Terms of Average Distance Between Rural Pupils The first step in developing the formula was to obtain a criterion for each county in the state. The criterion was the sum of corrections of both manifestations of sparsity for their effect on the cost of a founda- tion program, namely extra costs of small schools and transportation. The small-school corrections were obtained by a technique first de- veloped by Mort 2 in the state of New York. This technique was adopted into law in that state in 1925 as a basis for equalizing the finan- cial support of small schools, and it is still in use. Several states use this technique in modified form. The procedure was to determine the average practice among elemen- tary and high schools in Illinois with respect to the number of teaching personnel 3 in schools of various sizes. Tabulations were made first of ele- mentary schools in both unit and independent districts. All elementary 1 McLure, op. cit., Number I, Volume I, p. 62. 2 Mort, P. R. The Measurement of Educational Need. New York : Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1923. 8 Meaning regular classroom teachers, special teachers, supervisors, principals, and superintendents. [139] oo a •*■ O O to o c ^- u _Q c TJ u E O 'O O t 10 < to z > ro c 4- Q C ro _ CI o 2 E o o O a) < LU u n «/) to a. U o 3 r o "■ u F ~ 3 r. 4- Q Z O) j; c o 4- c o o to 3 ^ 5 c n — 4- o u u 'E 3 c -o c o Q < • o 0J O cs o < o X SJeqseaj^ jo Jaqain^ APPENDIX I 141 schools in the state were tabulated according to number of pupils in aver- age daily attendance and the corresponding number of teaching personnel. Then the schools were grouped, tabulated according to size in intervals of ten pupils, and the average number of teachers was obtained for the schools of each interval. Results were plotted as shown in Chart 20 with the horizontal scale representing school size in intervals of 10 pupils and the vertical scale representing the corresponding average number of all teaching personnel. It was necessary to obtain the average number of teachers per school by intervals of size because of the difficulty of plotting individual schools. Each dot, therefore, usually represents several schools. Lines of best fit, representing average practice, consist of three broken-line segments. The line through dots of schools of more than 288 pupils re- presents an average of 24 pupils per teacher. If schools below this size had employed an average of one teacher for each 24 pupils, the line of best fit would be represented by the broken-line segment extending down to the origin of the chart. But this was not the case. It is noted that most of the dots are above this line, meaning that these schools had, on the average, fewer than 24 pupils per teacher. The smaller the school, the smaller was the number of pupils per teacher. Average practice of staffing schools of varying sizes was used as the basis for weighting small elementary schools below 288 pupils in average daily attendance. The procedure was this: (1) for each approved school with 80 pupils or fewer, the number of weighted pupil units would be the sum of 3 and 1.4 times the number of pupils in actual average daily attend- ance; (2) in schools with more than 80 pupils in average daily attendance but not more than 288, count 115 pupils units for the first 80 pupils in average daily attendance and .83 of a pupil unit for each additional pupil in excess of 80; (3) in schools with more than 288 actual pupils in average daily attendance, the number of pupil units is equal to the actual number of pupils in average daily attendance. These formulas for obtaining the number of pupil units in elementary schools of various sizes were applied to every district in the state operat- ing an elementary school in 1946-1947. The result was a total number of elementary pupil units, weighted for school size. The difference between the number of weighted pupil units and the number of actual pupils in at- tendance was the small-school correction for elementary grades. This same procedure was followed in obtaining a small-school correc- tion for the high school grades, ('hart 21 shows a distribution of all high schools in Illinois according to number of pupils in average daily attendance on the horizontal scale and the corresponding number of teaching personnel on the vertical scale. Tn most cases each dot represents several schools. Schools were tabulated according to size in intervals of 1 1 u IfiO 1 cz o — CHART 21. Distribution of Illi- nois High Schools in 1947-1948 According to Size of School and Number of Teachers i4.n i^n . ■ ■ 1 -J u 120 — 110 — ion ■ . /a o c on . JU 0) m nn re hu ►- 01 7f~l ( 1 / J5 fU E 3 Z ir n o . / 0/ c o o / / ou — / > o/ 4U o / m / \ / 9 20 — 10 — /o J* 'f6 • • UniT uisrncrs O Independent Districts oj / r y I o 1 o 1 o 1 o o o o o o o o o o o o o q. O o o o o o o CO <*■_ (0 00 - C\J * <£> 00 CvJ o O o o o o o O o o o o <3- U> 00 o CsJ • / <£• • • • • • • •< •••f^» • • • — Pi • :/ • •* • •J • • / X -.04 2 1 .10 .20 30 40 .50 .60 *>=Vi Area of County (sq. mi.) No. Rural Pupils in ADA. CHART 22. Distribution of Illinois Counties According to Sparsity of Rural Pupils and Percentage Increase in Normal per Capita Costs APPENDIX I 149 rural pupils. The vertical scale represents the correction (criterion) per rural pupil. In this chart rather than expressing the correction as a frac- tion of a pupil, it is expressed another way as percentage increase in nor- mal per capita costs for rural pupils. The Simplified Formula Utilizing Sparsity in Terms of Average Number of Rural Pupils per Square Mile From experience with sparsity formulas in other states, it has been observed that many people found it difficult to understand mathematical formulas involving square roots. Therefore, this measure of sparsity has been shifted to the more commonly understood form, namely the average number of rural pupils per square mile of land area. The computations involved in this shift are shown in Table XXIII. TABLE XXIII Sparsity Correction Translated into Simplified Form Based on Density of Population, 1946-1947 County (i) Number of Rural Pupils Per Sq. Mile (2) Sparsity Factor* (3) Density Factor** (4) Predicted Correction from Density Factor (5) Criterion Correction Adams 3.3407 .6026 .5806 1,668 1,727 Alexander 8.5636 .3646 .3633 684 737 Bond 4.5707 .5074 .5108 892 917 Boone 4.4107 .5193 .5199 642 621 Brown 3.3941 .6026 .5776 602 572 Bureau 5.0603 .4836 .4831 2,110 2,185 Calhoun 4.1660 .5431 .5338 576 621 Carroll 5.1247 .4836 .4794 1,142 1,158 Cass 3.9593 .5550 .5455 797 767 Champaign 4.8419 .4955 .4955 2,382 2,420 Christian 4.7734 .4955 .4993 1,683 1,599 Clark 3.9024 .5550 .5487 1,075 1,093 Clay 4.5866 .5074 .5099 1,080 1,069 Clinton 4.4708 .5193 .5165 1,148 1,180 Coles 4.1140 .5431 .5367 1,104 1,174 Cookt 23.9468 .1980 .1803 3,411 3,682 Crawford 8.8798 .3527 .3551 1,391 1,240 Cumberland 4.9856 .4836 .4873 843 871 De Kalb 4.1504 .5431 .5347 1,387 1,582 De Witt 4.6977 .5074 .5036 939 1,031 Douglas 6.5227 .4241 .4164 1,138 1,118 Du Page 17.1818 .2456 .2382 1,216 1,326 Edgar 3.7184 .5669 .5592 1,300 1,427 Edwards 5.8933 .4479 .4358 578 523 * From original Sparsity Formula. ** Completed from simplified formula. t Exclusive of Chicago. 150 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS TABLE XXIII (Continued) County (l) Number of Rural Pupils Per Sq. Mile (2) Sparsity Factor* (3) Density Factor** (4) Predicted Correction from Density Factor (5) Criterion Correction Effingham 4.9210 .4955 .4910 1,162 1,161 Fayette 4.4944 .5193 .5152 1,658 1,669 Ford 4.0969 .5431 .5377 1,068 1,206 Franklin 9.7247 .3408 .3332 1,377 1,565 Fulton 6.2207 .4360 .4243 2,296 2,447 Gallatin 5.5732 .4598 .4540 830 829 Greene 4.2597 .5312 .5285 1,213 1,126 Grundy 4.5814 .5074 .5102 1,005 1,107 Hamilton 3.5783 .5788 .5671 881 913 Hancock 4.8103 .4955 .4973 1,904 2,066 Hardin 8.6667 .3646 .3607 572 599 Henderson 3.7533 .5669 .5572 797 889 Henry 4.0680 .5550 .5393 1,806 1,735 Iroquois 3.8714 .5550 .5505 2,387 2,771 Jackson 5.3233 .4717 .4682 1,488 1,575 Jasper 4.0061 .5550 .5429 1,074 967 Jefferson 5.2855 .4717 .4703 1,419 1,361 Jersey 3.8378 .5669 .5524 784 724 Jo Daviess 3.9394 .5550 .5466 1,316 1,197 Johnson 4.9217 .4955 .4909 834 883 Kane 6.4370 .4241 .4186 1,326 1,526 Kankakee 5.3383 .4717 .4673 1,681 1,803 Kendall 5.5000 .4598 .4581 806 749 Knox 4.5056 .5193 .5145 1,664 1,860 Lake 9.7866 .3408 .3315 1,262 1,522 La Salle 3.8388 .5669 .5523 2,406 2,413 Lawrence 6.8928 .4122 .4068 1,046 869 Lee 3.9105 .5550 .5483 1,557 1,569 Livingston 4.1203 .5431 .5364 2,296 2,022 Logan 3.7071 .5788 .5598 1,283 1,464 Macon 6.4393 .4241 .4186 1,530 1,742 Macoupin 4.7242 .5074 .5021 2,047 2,235 Madison 8.4802 .3646 .3655 2,188 1,857 Marion 7.2035 .4003 .3987 1,651 1,597 Marshall 4.6709 .5074 .5052 932 939 Mason 3.6475 .5788 .5632 1,107 1,115 Massac 5.5388 .4598 .4560 619 621 McDonough 4.1606 .5431 .5341 1,287 1,447 McHenry 6.5488 .4241 .4157 1,647 1,698 McLean 4.8978 .4955 .4923 2,807 3,076 Menard 3.7621 .5669 .5567 651 734 Mercer 4.4667 .5193 .5167 1,281 1,524 Monroe 3.8206 .5669 .5534 801 730 Montgomery 3.5726 .5788 .5674 1,423 1,466 Morgan 4.5954 .5074 .5094 1,313 1,264 Moultrie 4.5843 .5074 .5101 804 886 Ogle 5.3448 .4717 .4669 1,882 1,989 Peoria 9.2726 .3527 .3449 1,948 2,041 From original Sparsity Formula. Completed from simplified formula. APPENDIX 1 151 TABLE XXIII (Coi itinued ) County (i) Number of Rural Pupils Per Sq. Mile (2) Sparsity Factor* (3) Density Factor** (4) Predicted Correction from Density Factor (5) Criterion Correction Perry 4.3174 .5312 .5252 993 886 Piatt 5.3149 .4717 .4686 1,083 1,207 Pike 3.9831 .5550 .5442 1,795 1,950 Pope 2.8583 .6621 .6000 653 653 Pulaski 15.3596 .2694 2564 799 694 Putnam 4.7590 .4955 .5002 395 439 Randolph 4.2978 .5312 .5263 1,337 1,372 Richland 3.9472 .5550 .5462 776 870 Rock Island 11.5236 .3051 .2948 1,369 1,402 St. Clair 9.7246 .3408 .3332 2,106 2,075 Saline 8.1024 .3765 .3753 1,159 1,229 Sangamon 6.4793 .4241 .4175 2,353 2,276 Schuyler 3.6651 .5788 .5622 892 822 Scott 4.7131 .5074 .5028 595 570 Shelby 4.3152 .5312 .5253 1,748 1,888 Stark 5.2474 .4717 .4725 722 914 Stephenson 4.6856 .5074 .5043 1,330 1,500 Tazewell 9.3459 .3527 .3430 2,048 1,887 Union 6.0971 .4360 .4275 1,074 1,141 Vermilion 5.8482 .4479 .4384 2,264 2,740 Wabash 5.1370 .4836 .4787 539 504 Warren 3.6019 .5788 .5658 1,100 1,083 Washington 3.0743 .6383 .5957 1,035 1,017 Wayne 3.8053 .5669 .5542 1,506 1,535 White 5.1720 .4836 .4767 1,233 1,394 Whiteside 4.2755 .5312 .5276 1,547 1,602 Will 7.1171 .4003 .4010 2,389 2,024 Williamson 8.9908 .3527 .3522 1,374 1,549 Winnebago 14.3787 .2694 .2662 1,941 1,587 Woodford 5.7765 .4479 .4425 1,373 1,476 * From original Sparsity Formula. ** Completed from simplified formula. The average number of rural pupils per square mile in each county, shown in Column 1, was obtained from the data already reported in Columns 1 and 2 of Table XXII. The sparsity factor shown in Column 2 was used as the criterion correction per rural pupil. This figure, it will be noted, was the predicted value obtained from the preceding formula and reported in Column 5 of Table XXII. A distribution of the counties according to the figures in Columns 1 and 2 of Table XXIII is shown in Chart 23. The horizontal scale repre- sents the sparsity of rural pupils expressed as density Or number of pupils per square mile. The vertical scale is the sparsity factor computed from the original formula. It is expressed here as the percentage increase in per capita cost of a foundation program for the rural pupils. Dots represent a , 3 w n o u "5 <0 3 Q. a: o w 0) n E m r TO O TO a. id c CO. < K K O U fa o < P to 3 "S .2 CO °3 — * flS C **-» ,—5 iE°» II 0) --• ° ,2 J-. o o -§_2* -2 - CD OS I J cj » 25 "S3 a; t3 tt'C Oi cti P> ccj u CO co US I© + to o CO CO + •*# lO O CO lO o lO o 00 o «@ + OS CX) + i-i in o ^ T-H O CD i-j * * X M NOWOO CM CO CD "5 f» CO rH t~- eoiONCO 00 CO O CD CM OJ 00 CO OHNiO ^ lO ■* »o l' I oj to ^ CD p5 " O !•§ 3 o CO CO .a cd — j fc-. P co rt CD O CD .3 +» O -f 3 rt OJ -£ Oh t. *J CO O cc) 3 • - PhJOQ H * o, to 3.2 °o Si 3 o CO CO ii „ g S'S.1 £& CD -^ CD •- T! J- ^T CO ►40Q H * to ® rs u P s-S uOq an CD "^ o O Hi"ffi t5 HP U.9coO CD O O, P. to „, O t. 3 HP OHPh ?40 r HU /• 35 — "5T -n c / • ro 1/1 3 o _c 1- r* o c is. 1 • c o "^ •/ fl) -»- o a / V) m n n 2 c\j r- • O • 10 O • 4 1 U TJ • 2. 15 f0 • 1 E *,^ LU • • •• • 10 / 1 1 * • • /• • C / • 23456789 Dwelling-to-School Distances (in Thousands of Miles) 10 CHART 25. Distribution of 31 Community Unit Districts According to Estimated Cost of Transportation and Dwelling-to-School Distances 1 7=1 .. OD ji OVJ <0 U) 3 O -C H • c n OF .2 <-3 ra +- k. o a i/> c (0 u H .. on • *- in O U / • O 4- 18 E 1^ • • / VI Ul 10— • /• # • • • •^ • ^ • q / • O n 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 Pupil-to-School Distances 5,000 6,000 CHART 26. Distribution of 31 Community Unit Districts According to Estimated Cost of Transportation and Pupil-to-School Distances 160 FINANCING EDUCATION IN EFFICIENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS houses from a given school site. The nature of dispersion of population also was taken into some account by these distances. In the second formula, density of population was expressed as number of dwellings per square mile of land area in the school district. Costs could be predicted accurately enough from this measure alone if all districts had an even distribution of population as illustrated in Chart 17, in Chapter VIII. But this was not the case. Districts varied all the way from an even distribution of population to much clustering of population as shown in Chart 18. It has been generally known that concentration of popula- tion has the effect of reducing the per capita cost of transportation. This effect has been noted in other studies in relation to total per capita cost of education. 1 Therefore, an attempt was made to find a way of measuring the effect of this clustering on transportation cost. The sta- tistic used for this test was the population in the largest village, exclud- ing the school district center. Population count was used for this variable because it was easily obtained, whereas an accurate count of houses in such areas was impossible to secure. This substitution was possible be- caue of a high correlation between dwellings and population. Theory of Formula II. The general theory behind this formula ex- tends from a visual analysis of charts similar to Charts 17 and 18. By reference to these charts it may be seen that the maps used in this study are gridded off into one-mile squares. On the assumption that the number of dwellings is inclined to distribute in the same pattern as school chil- dren, it stands to reason that there are basically two elements which should account for the bulk of the distribution factor as it bears upon school transportation costs. These are: (1) the average density of dwellings, in effect pupils, in the total area, and (2) the amount of clus- tering of the population. Quite aside from the distribution pattern, the more children in a district of a given number of square miles the closer the children are together, the shorter the hauls to pick up a given number of children; and as it may be expected, therefore, the less the cost. The average number of dwellings per square miles, however, does not reflect the distribution pattern. For instance, on one extreme would be a district in which all of the dwellings would be concentrated in one of the square-mile areas in the district. In such a case, there would be no cost of transportation. On the other extreme, the situation which would represent the maximum diffusion, or distribution, such as to require a maximum of transportation expense, would be a district in which was 1 McLure, William P. The Effect of Population Sparsity on School Costs. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1947, p. 23. Morrison, J. C, and Butterworth, J. E., Directors. The Intermediate District in New York State — Special Studies. Albany: The University of the State of New York, Bulletin Number 1356, 194S, p. 109. APPENDIX II 161 exactly in each square mile section the same number of dwellings. Under the latter situation, the distribution of school children would be just as widely diffused as possible. This obviously would require the most mileage, or the maximum transportation coverage of the district in order to pick up the children. At the same time it would represent a situation in which the greatest number of school children who live in the dwellings would be at the most disadvantageous locations with reference to any school center. The concept leading to the formulation of this estimate was that there is a well known means of measuring the extent to which the dwell- ing count in each of the cells of a map in a district would vary from the most expensive (diffuse) situation to the opposite extreme where no transportation would be required. The basic statistical measure involved is the chi-square. If we let X = the number of dwellings in any cell (one square-mile) of the district map and N = the number of cells (square miles) in the district, then X = 2X/N = average number of dwellings per square mile density. (x-xy Using chi-square as a measure of dispersion, X 2 = % x ma ^ be seen that under these conditions, X 2 = NXC.V. 2 where C.V. =