School funds and their apportionment Volume 2; a consideration of the subject with reference to a more general equalization of both the burdens and the advantages of education ...

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...by the total school enrollment for the same period gives $2.99 per-capita for an apportionment based on total enrollment. A requirement of forty days of enrollment before being allowed to count for the state apportionment would further increase the per-capita apportionment on enrollment. In Minnesota, where statistics for a forty-day enrollment exist, about fifteen per cent, of the total state enrollment has for some years failed to remain in school forty days.5 Assuming that Wisconsin required a forty day enrollment and that the same percentage failed to remain in school for forty days as in the case of Minnesota, the per-capita apportionment, on a forty day enrollment, would become $3.52 in consequence. There being only so much money to go around, the smaller the number on which it is apportioned, the larger the per-capita apportionment. The product of the two is always the same. This simple result is contrary to the opinion commonly held by school men. The counting for census money of all children too young or too old to attend the small country school has commonly been considered a great gain to the small districts and one of the marked advantages of the census basis of apportioning funds. This is not true, as has been just shown. The small country districts really lose, because their enrollment on census is usually higher than is the case in the cities. On a census basis of apportionment, the community which does not have its children in schools is the gainer; on an enrollment basis the reverse would be true. A change to an enrollment basis with a minimum enrollment period then would seem to be in the interests of justice and education, and would be a step in the direction of the equalization of burdens and advantages. Instead of paying communities in ...