SPECIAL FEATURES IN CITY SCHOOL SYSTEMS.

INTRODUCTION.

All superintendents of schools in cities of 5,000 population and over were recently invited by the United States Commissioner of Education to describe plans or methods they had worked out in their respective schools during the past few years.

In response to this invitation, several hundred letters were received. Some gave complete accounts of one or two new things successfully accomplished or of experiments now making; others made but brief mention of numerous things adopted during the past year or two, such as new courses of study, departmental teaching in the grammar grades, medical inspection, manual training, etc. This bulletin brings together extracts from many of the letters and from school reports referred to in other letters. Plans, methods, and devices that have been actually worked out or that are now being tested are of more interest to the practical school man than what some one thinks should be done. If this document meets with approval, other bulletins of like nature, containing more detailed accounts, will be published. The main purpose is to call attention to the new and promising things attempted in city schools and especially in the schools of the smaller cities.

Some of the newer plans of school organization are not described, as bulletins regarding them are in course of preparation. No interpretation or recommendation regarding the various plans described herein is attempted. The reader must decide how many and which of the plans are practicable and which ones are suitable for adaptation or for trial.

Especial attention is called, however, to the cooperative industrial courses at Fitchburg, Mass., Hammond, Ind., York, Pa., and other places. These courses seem to be solving the problem of trade education in a practical and economical way. The compiler of this bulletin visited the cooperative schools at Fitchburg, Mass., and York, Pa., and found that the school authorities, the manufacturers, the parents, and the boys are enthusiastic over the course, many of the boys saying that they would not now be in school if this course were not offered.

One of the most difficult problems a school board or a superintendent has to meet is that of arranging a just and equitable salary schedule for the promotion of teachers. It is a well-known fact

that promotion on experience alone does not always reward the best teachers, and that this method of promotion does not tend to call forth special effort at improvement on the part of the teacher. It may, however, help retain teachers in service for a greater number of years. Advanced education and professional training, according to some of the more thoughtful school men, should be rewarded in every salary schedule. Dr. Strayer and Dr. Thorndike find that in formal salary schedules the premiums usually given are too low for education and too high relatively for experience in teaching.'

The methods for the classification and promotion of teachers at Asheville, N. C., Owensboro, Ky., and Beaver Falls, Pa., cities of from 12,000 to 25,000 population, are worth considering. They may be suggestive to the superintendent who attempts to prepare a salary schedule based upon education and merit rather than upon length of service.

Many plans have been devised to break up the "lock-step system" of yearly and half-yearly promotions of pupils. The plan of promoting pupils in the schools of Malden, Mass., may appeal to the reader and suggest a better way of advancing children from grade to grade than the rigid systems now in vogue in many city schools of this country.

To many cities vacation schools, planned to educate through play, are not new, but summer schools planned for instruction in arithmetic, grammar, history, etc., at public expense, are comparatively new. In Newark, N. J., is a notable example. It would seem from the report of the superintendent of that city that school work in July and August causes no ill effects upon either the child's or the teacher's health. Statistics giving enrollment and attendance show that the two summer schools conducted last year in Newark were popular and profitable. The experiment is one that will be watched with interest.

How to secure educational and professional growth in a corps of teachers is a problem that confronts many superintendents. Several plans are suggested in this bulletin that are at least practicable for those cities that are making use of them. The Quincy method would be feasible, no doubt, in a number of cities located near normal schools or colleges. Placing premiums on educational growth and professional training, as at Owensboro, Ky., should be a great stimulus to the improvement of teachers in service. The "Sabbatical year" at Schenectady, N. Y., offers a means of improvement of teachers who have rendered good service and would be benefited by a year spent in travel and study. The plan adopted at Bozeman, Mont., of requiring teachers to attend a summer training school every few years will doubtless meet with approval.

1 Educational Administration.

Attention is called also to the method of teaching sex hygiene in several cities, to the unique plan at Winston-Salem, N. C., of training for citizenship by having the pupils participate in some of the activities of that city, to the devices employed in several cities for improving the health of school children, and to the miscellaneous notes which mention a few of the newer things some superintendents are testing.

ALL-YEAR SCHOOL.

Newark, N. J. A. B. Poland, superintendent of city schools, Report, 1911-12.-On June 1, 1912, two all-year schools were opened in Newark, N. J., partly for the purpose of proving (1) that, under proper conditions of discipline and instruction, pupils will suffer no physical or mental injury by reason of an additional eight weeks of school attendance during the months of July and August; (2) that the continuous session through July and a greater part of August saves an enormous loss of time and energy.

In order that the failure of this experiment could not be chargeable to unfavorable conditions or to bad management, but, rather, to some radical defect in the all-year plan itself, two schools were selected in preference to others, as

(1) Each was located in a thickly congested district where social and economic conditions are favorable to an all-year school.

(2) A large percentage of the children had been accustomed to attend summer schools, which for many years had been maintained in these buildings for six weeks during July and August.

(3) The pupils of these schools are mostly of foreign descentJewish and Italian-whose parents are desirous of having them make as rapid progress as possible.

(4) Both are large schools, regularly enrolling about 2,000 pupils each, a number large enough to secure a safe as well as economical trial of the plan.

(5) A preliminary canvass of pupils likely to attend the all-year schools showed a probable enrollment of about 70 per cent of the entire number regularly enrolled.

(6) The principals of both schools are good organizers and well equipped professionally for an experiment of this kind.

As a result of the year's experiment the following recommendations are made for the year 1913:

(1) That the experiment be continued in the Belmont Avenue and Seventh Avenue Schools.

(2) That one, or perhaps two, more of the best-attended summer schools (six weeks half-day schools-28 of them) be made all-year schools, beginning June 1, 1913.

(3) That one of the three high schools, preferably the Central Commercial and Manual Training, be organized on the all-year plan.

(4) That the number of all-year schools be increased only gradually thereafter as the public, with full knowledge of their value, may insistently demand.

Organization.—The organization of the all-year summer schools was easily accomplished by dividing each year, or grade, into three divisions, called C, B advanced, and A advanced. The course of study also was divided into three equal parts of 12 weeks each. The following diagram is designed to show the coordination of the allyear plan with the regular plan, the correspondence of the various grades under both plans, the length of time taken by both plans to cover the elementary school course, and also the comparative progress of pupils by the two plans.

It will be seen that each year's work under the regular plan is divided into two terms of 20 weeks each, while each year's (or grade's) work under the all-year plan is divided into 3 terms of 12 weeks each. Thus the C class in each grade will do the first two-thirds of the work of the corresponding B class of the same grade under the regular plan. The B Advanced class in each grade will do the last one-third of the work of the corresponding B class and the first one-third of the work of the corresponding A class. The A Advanced class will do the last two-thirds of the work of the corresponding A class. This division makes it comparatively easy to assign a pupil transferred from another school to the proper grade with little or no loss of time or grade, to the pupil so transferred.

The pupil attending four 12-week terms in any calendar year gains one-third of a grade's work over pupils under the regular plan. This means a gain of two full grades in six years, enabling the pupil to complete the eight grades' work in six years, instead of eight years according to the regular plan. Thus a pupil entering the first grade September 1, 1912, under the regular plan and making regular progress will be able to enter the high school September 1, 1920; whereas a pupil entering the first grade at the same time, and progressing regularly through the grades of the all-year plan, will be ready to enter the high school September 1, 1918, that is, two years carlier.

It is essential in order that the regular plan and the all-year plan may be carried on side by side and without friction that the dates for the beginning and ending of vacations should be, as nearly as practicable, the same. This is easily effected because of the fact that the eight added weeks of the year are all in July and August when the regular pupils are having their vacation. Instead of the usual ten weeks vacation in the summer, the all-year pupils get but two weeks. At all other times of the year pupils under both plans have vacations of the same length and at the same time.