¹ Arp, Julius Bernhard, Rural Education and the Consolidated School (New York: World Book Company, 1918), 2.Google Scholar

² See Tyack, David B., The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974); Mirel, Jeffrey, The Rise and Fall of an Urban School System: Detroit, 1907–1981 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1993); Ravitch, Diane, The Great School Wars: A History of the New York City Public Schools, 2nd ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Troen, Selwyn K., The Public and the Schools: Shaping the St. Louis System, 1838–1920 (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1975); Wrigley, Julia, Class Politics and Public Schools: Chicago 1900–1950 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1982); Bullough, William A., Cities and Schools in the Gilded Age: The Evolution of an Urban Institution (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1977); Cronin, Joseph M., The Control of Urban Schools: A Perspective on the Power of Educational Reformers (New York: Free Press, 1973).Google Scholar

³ The phrase is from David.Tyack, B., “The Tribe and the Common School: Community Control in Rural Education.” American Quarterly 24 (March 1972): 3–19 Similar interpretations are advanced in Rosenfeld, Stuart A. and Sher, Jonathan P., “The Urbanization of Rural Schools, 1840–1970,” in Education in Rural America: A Reassessment of Conventional Wisdom, ed. Sher, Jonathan P. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977); Sher, Jonathan P. and Tompkins, Rachel B., Economy, Efficiency, and Equality: The Myths of Rural School and District Consolidation (Washington, DC: National Institute of Education, 1976); Fuller, Wayne E., The Old Country School: The Story of Rural Education in the Middle West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Keppel, Ann M., “The Myth of Agrarianism in Rural Educational Reform, 1890–1914.” History of Education Quarterly 2 (June 1962): 100–112.Google Scholar

⁴ Link, William A., A Hard Country and a Lonely Place: Schooling, Society, and Reform in Rural Virginia, 1870–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986); Theobald, Paul, Call School: Rural Education in the Midwest to 1918 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

⁵ Tyack, David and James, Thomas, “State Government and American Public Education: Exploringthe ‘Primeval Forest”'. History of Education Quarterly 26 (Spring 1986): 39–69; Tyack, David, James, Thomas, and Benavot, Aaron, Law and the Shaping of Public Education, 1785–1954 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987).Google Scholar

⁶ Unless qualified, the term “state” throughout the article refers to the 48 individual states and state-level governments in the United States. While “the state” in social science literature often refers more broadly to governing institutions at all levels, American federalism makes it necessary to carefully distinguish layers of governance when discussing schooling and other social policies in this period.Google Scholar

⁷ An important exception is Teaford, Jon C., The Rise of the States: Evolution of American State Government (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2002).Google Scholar

⁸ This article does not claim that all states implemented the same reforms in the same ways at the same times. As historians of education have long been attuned to, there were tremendous differences in local conditions, politics, and needs across states and regions which created myriad variations in state efforts. While these differences are significant, they should not obscure what observers at the time noted as important developing trends and similarities across states as states responded to similar problems and emulated one another and the “best practices” defined by experts and by experimentation. This article focuses on those trends and similarities in state policies and emerging state administration across national space and must necessarily focus less on differences, variations, and exceptions.Google Scholar

⁹ “Administrarive centralization” is a dominant model used in state-building literature. For example, Skowronek, Stephen, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Skocpol, Theda, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ Engelhardt, Fred, Public School Organization and Administration (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1931), 585.Google Scholar

¹¹ For the sake of clarity, the term “state superintendent” is used throughout the article to designate the chief state school official and “state education department” to designate his department although terminology did vary by state. On nineteenth century schooling see Fuller, , The Old Country School; Kaestle, Carl F., Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society 1780–1860, ed. Foner, Eric, American Century Series (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983).Google Scholar

¹² See Rodgers, Daniel T., Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998); Haskell, Thomas L., The Emergence of Professional Social Science: The American Social Sciences Association and the Nineteenth Century Crisis of Authority (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).Google Scholar

¹³ Beginning around 1890, state courts rejected claims of local rights and vested rights by localities and consistently articulated education as a state function, recognizing a legislative plenary authority over education under the police power that was limited only by express constitutional prohibitions. See Edwards, Newton, The Courts and the Public Schools: The Legal Basis of School Organization and Administration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933); Garber, Lee, Education as a Function of the State (Minneapolis: Educational Test Bureau, 1934); Schroeder, H.H., Legal Opinion on the Public School as a State Institution (Bloomington, IN: Public School Publishing Company, 1928); Ford v. School District of Kendall Borough, 121 Pa. 543, 15 A. 812 (Pa. 1888); State v. Haworth, 23 N.E. 946 (Ind. 1890); State v. Hine, 21 A. 1024 (Conn. 1890); Bank v. Brainerd School Dist., 51 N.W. 814 (Minn. 1892); Leeper v. State, 53 P. 959 (Tenn. 1899); State v. Freeman, 58 P. 959 (Kan. 1899); Attorney General of State of Michigan v. Lowrey, 92 N.W. 289 (Mich. 1902).Google Scholar

¹⁴ “Report of the Committee of Twelve on Rural Schools.” NEA Addresses and Proceedings, (1897): 398–99.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Fowler, William K., “The Consolidation of School Districts, The Centralization of Rural Schools, and the Transportation of Pupils at Public Expense,” in Nebraska Department of Public Instruction (Lincoln, NE: Department of Public Instruction, 1903). Fowler included an extensive bibliography of state superintendent reports addressing the issue in recent years.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Kern, O. J., Amoung Country Schools (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1906), 18.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Slay, Ronald J., The Development of the Teaching of Agriculture in Mississippi, with Special Emphasis on Agriculture as a Part of School Curricula (New York: Teachers College, 1928); Atkeson, Thomas Clark, Semi-Centennial History of the Patrons of Husbandry (New York: Orange Judd Company, 1916), 108. For statements on behalf of agricultural education, see “Agriculture in Country Schools,” The Prairie Farmer, 18 December 1902, 1; “Teach Agriculture Now,” Prairie Farmer, 24 December 1903, 1; “Agriculture in Rural Schools,” Prairie Farmer, 7 April 1904, 1; Powerll, E.P., “The Tide Back to the Country,” Prairie Farmer Home Magazine, 28 April 1904, 19; “Agriculture in Schools,” Prairie Farmer, 15 February 1908, 1; “Country Improvements,” The Independent 54, 17 April 1902; “Agriculture in Common Schools,” The Independent 63, 19 December 1907, 1508–9; “The Country School,” The Independent 69, 20 October 1910, 882–84.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Calls for greater high school opportunities were not as strong in the South or far West where high schools in cities and towns were considerably less developed than in the North.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Snyder, Edwin R., The Legal Status of Rural High Schools in the United States (New York: Press of Brandown Printing Company, 1909); Hood, William R., “Legal Provisions for Rural High Schools.” United States Bureau of Education Bulletin No. 40 (1924) (thereafter cited as USBE Bulletin); Brooks, Eugene C., “Rural Public High Schools in the South.” School Review 12 (January 1904): 148–161; Corbett, Henry R., “Free High Schools for Rural Pupils.” School Review 8 (June 1900): 335–363.Google Scholar

²⁰ Beresford, Rex, “Give the Farm Boy a Chance in the Country School” Prairie Farmer, 1 April 1912, 11. On “keeping the boy on the form” and not “educating away” see “The Problems of Country Life.” The World's Work 17 (February 1909): 11195–96; Curtis, Salem, “Getting Young Folks to Stay on the Farm,” Prairie Farmer, 8 February 1902, 2; Anderson, Raleigh, “Keeping the Boys on the Farm,” Prairie Farmer, 17 May 1902, 2; T.W.W., “Keeping the Boys on the Farm,” Prairie Farmer, 5 July 1902, 1; “Why Boys Leave the Farm,” Prairie Farmer, 5 January 1905, 2.Google Scholar

²¹ On the political strength and insurgencies of farmers, see Clemens, Elisabeth, The People's Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890–1925 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Sanders, Elizabeth, Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877–1917 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999).Google Scholar

²² Roosevelt, Theodore to Bailey, L. H., 10 August 1908 printed in “Report of the Country Life Commission.” Senate Doc. No. 75, 60th Congress, 2nd session (1909), 22–24.Google Scholar

²³ Bowers, William L., The Country Life Movement in America 1900–1920 (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974); Ellsworth, Clayton S., “Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission.” Agricultural History 34 (October 1960): 155–172; Larson, Olaf F. and Thomas, B. Jones, “The Unpublished Data from Roosevelt's Commission on Country Life.” Agricultural History 50 (July 1976): 583–599; Plunkett, Sir Horace, The Rural Life Problem of the United States: Notes of an Irish Observer (New York: Macmillan Company, 1911); Gillette, John M., “The Drift to the City in Relation to the Rural Problem.” American Journal of Sociology 16 (March 1911): 645–667; Taylor, Carl, “The Rise of the Rural Problem.” Journal of Social Forces 2 (November 1923): 29–36; Carver, T.N., “Economic Significance of Changes in Country Population.” Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science 40 (March 1912): 21–25.Google Scholar

²⁴ Theodore Roosevelt to Bailey, L. H., 10 August 1908 in “Report of the Country Life Commission,” 22–24.Google Scholar

²⁵ Bailey, L. H., The Country Life Movement in the United States (New York: Macmillan Co., 1911), 20.Google Scholar

²⁶ “Report of the Country Life Commission.”Google Scholar

²⁷ Carney, Mabel, Country Life and the Country School (Chicago: Row, Petterson and Company, 1912); Cubberley, Ellwood P., Rural Life and Education: A Study of the Rural-School Problem as a Phase of the Rural-Life Problem (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914). Carney and Cubberley are good examples of two reformers with different motives and assumptions who nevertheless agreed that rural schools needed consolidation and greater supervision. Cubberley, a Stanford professor of school administration, was a classic “administrative progressive” while Carney was a Deweyian progressive rural educator who saw the country school and environment as an ideal means of teaching the whole child.Google Scholar

²⁸ Beresford, Rex, “Give the Farm Boy a Chance in the Country School.” Prairie Farmer 1 (April 1912): 11.Google Scholar

²⁹ On various country life efforts see Madison, James H., “Reformers and the Rural Church, 1900–1950.” Journal of American History 73 (December 1986): 645–668; Bowers, , The Country Life Movement in America; Carney, , Country Life and the Country School; Ellsworth, , “Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission.”Google Scholar

³⁰ Foght, Harold Waldstein, The American Rural School: Its Characteristics, Its Future, and Its Problems (New York: Macmillan Company, 1910), 302.Google Scholar

³¹ For additional arguments in support of consolidation, see Betts, George Herbert and Hall, Otis Earle, Better Rural Schools (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1914); Fairchild, E. T., Bulletin of Information Regarding Consolidation of Rural Schools (Topeka: Kansas State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1908); Brant, W.O., “Bettering the Country Schools.” Prairie Farmer 1 (December 1912): 8; Buroker, A.B., “Centralization of Rural Schools.” Journal of Education 81 (March 1915): 237; Probst, Albert Frederick, “Consolidation and Transportation: A Rural School Problem.” The Elementary School Teacher 9 (September 1908): 1–16; Rapeer, Louis W., “Rural Recreation and Consolidation,” in The Consolidated Rural School, ed. Rapeer, Louis W. (New York: Charles Scribriers’ Sons, 1920), 444–474.Google Scholar

³² Arp, , Rural Education and the Consolidated School, 49.Google Scholar

³³ Carney, , Country Life and the Country School; Kern, , Amoung Country Schools; Cook, Katherine M., “A Visit to a Consolidated School,” in Rapeer, 130–148.Google Scholar

³⁴ Muerman, John C., “Transportation of Pupils at Public Expense.” USBE Rural School Leaflet No. 2 (April 1922). By 1919 all 48 states had permissive consolidation and transportation laws.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁵ Fuller, , The Old Country School; Theobald, Call School; Reynolds, David R., There Goes the Neighborhood: Rural School Consolidation at the Grass Roots in Early Twentieth-Century Iowa (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999) all offer provocative and differing accounts of the motives for resistance which rather than being mutually exclusive could help to explain the diversity and complexity of opposition. For reformers assessment of the opposition see Probst, “Consolidation and Transportation”; Hanifan, L. J., “The Difficulties of Consolidation” in Rapeer; Jones, E.A., “The Centralization of Rural Schools in Ohio.” NBA Addresses and Proceedings, (1908): 1054–1060; Sargent, C. G., “Consolidated Schools of the Mountains, Valleys and Plains of Colorado,” Colorado Agricultural College Bulletin (1921); “Some Tilings We Have Learned about Rural School Consolidation.” Bulletin of the Iowa State Teachers College 20 (June 1920).Google Scholar

³⁶ In Indiana, schools smaller than 12 students could be closed by trustees without majority vote and in some southern states county officials could initiate consolidation. In both cases formal petition could block the issue and there is evidence that in the South especially, county officials tried to represent popular feeling by initiating consolidation by patron request and consulting with affected communities. See for example Tufts v. State ex. Rel Smith et. Al., 21 N.E. 892 (Ind. 1889); Davis v. Mendenball, 49 N.E. 1048 (Ind. 1898); State ex. Rel. Beree v. Seeley, 70 N.E. 805 (Ind. 1904); McCollum v. Adams, 110 S.W. 526 (Tex. 1908); Mitchell et al. V Directors of School District No. 15, 239 S.W. 371 (Ark. 1922).Google Scholar

³⁷ Arp, , Rural Education and the Consolidated School, 194; Abel, J. F., “Consolidation of Schools and Transportation of Pupils.” USBE Bulletin No. 41 (1923).Google Scholar

³⁸ See for example, State ex infl Thompson ex rel. Kenneppe et al, v. Scott, 304 Mo. 664, 264 S.W. 369 (Mo. 1924); Kneale v. Jennings, 111 Ohio St. 637, 146 N.E. 87 (Oh. 1912). States also modified laws from requiring three-fourths or two-third majorities to simple majorities in many states. See for example Felkner v. Winningham, 122 P. 534 (Ok. 1912).Google Scholar

³⁹ Fogarty et. al, “Methods and Facts of Consolidation” in Rapeer, 241. For statistics on school consolidation, see Covert, Timon, “Rural School Consolidation: Decade of School Consolidation with Detailed Information from 105 Consolidated Schools.” USBE Pamphlet No. 6 (June 1930); Abel, , “Consolidation of Schools and Transportation of Pupils”; Cook, Katherine M., “Rural Education.” USBE Bulletin No. 36 (1923).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Monahan, A.C., “Growth of Consolidation,” in Rapeer, 113–14.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Arp, , Rural Education and the Consolidated School, 43.Google Scholar

⁴² Burris, Benjamin J., “The County School System: How Organized and Administered.” State of Indiana Department of Public Instruction Educational Bulletin No. 24 (1924); Monahan, A. C., “County-Unit Organization for the Administration of Rural Schools.” USBE Bulletin No. 44 (1914); Cubberley, Ellwood P., State and County Educational Reorganization: The Revised Constitution and School Code of the State of Osceola (New York: Macmillan Company, 1921); Yabert, A.G., “The County Unit.” Journal of Rural Education 4 (1925): 269–272; Pore, O.E., “The Administration and Supervision of Rural Schools Under the County Unit System in Ohio.” Journal of Rural Education 5 (1925): 6–12; “Regenerating the Country School,” The Nation, 18 March 1909, 271–272; Richardson, E.S., “The County Unit and the Consolidated School.” Journal of Rural Educations (1925): 12–16; Grupe, Mary A., “How the Problems of the Rural Schools are Being Met.” Popular Science Monthly 83 (November 1913): 484–490; Cook, Katherine M. and Windes, E.E., “Suggestions for Consolidating the Rural Schools of Beaufort County, North Carolina.” USBE Bulletin No. 48 (1923); Williams, J. Harold, “Reorganizing a County System of Rural Schools: Report of the Study of the Schools of San Mateo County, California.” USBE Bulletin No. 16 (1916).Google Scholar

⁴³ Madison, James H., John, D. Rockefeller's, “General Education Board and the Rural School Problem in the Midwest, 1900–1930.” History of Education Quarterly 24 (Summer 1984): 181–199.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Kentucky for example, was often held up as having one of the nation's strongest county unit systems and yet a 1921 General Education Board survey of the state system found the “district spirit permeated the county system” and crippled it. Public Education in Kentucky: A Report by the Kentucky Educational Commission (New York: General Education Board, 1921).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ County educational leadership was particularly strong in the South and parts of the far West where county government was a significant site of local governance. In areas of the Midwest and in New England where the county was nonexistent, the town or township system served a similar function to county systems by serving as an intermediate unit above local schools districts. In his 1924 examination of the county unit system, Burris found nearly every state to utilize some form of intermediate school administration: he judged that 11 states (primarily Southern) had full county systems, 29 states had partial county control, and 7 states (primarily New England) utilized town and joint supervision districts. Only Delaware, which had one of the most centralized state administrations in the nation, lacked an intermediate unit. Burris, “The County School System.”Google Scholar

⁴⁶ For histories and statistics of the county superintendency and accretion of county responsibilities, see Newsom, N. William, “The Legal Status of the County Superintendent.” USBE Bulletin No. 7 (1932); Boraas, Julius and Selke, George A., Rural School Administration and Supervision (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1926); Cubberley, Ellwood P., Public School Administration: A Statement of the Fundamental Principles Underlying the Organization and Administration of Public Education (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916); Monahan, A. C., “Status of Rural Education in the United States.” USBE Bulletin No. 8 (1913).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ For a commentary about and examples of WWI-inspired efforts, see Moore, Ernest Carroll, What the War Teaches About Education and other Papers and Addresses (New York: Macmillan Co., 1919); Bary, Helen V., “The Trend of Child Welfare Work.” North American Review CCXIII (April 1921): 494–501; Wood, Will C., “New Occasions and New Duties.” School and Society 10 (November 1919): 621–632; Eliot, Charles W., “Defects in American Education Revealed by the War.” School and Society 9 (January 1919): 1–10; Keeler, Fred L., “The New Responsibilities and Opportunities which the War Situation has Brought to the State Department and the Schools.” NEA Addresses and Proceedings, (1918): 583–89; Small, Willard S., “Educational Hygiene.” USBE Bulletin No. 33 (1923); Lawing, John, Standards for State and Local Compulsory Attendance Service (Maryville, MO: Forum Print Shop, 1934).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Cubberley, Elwood, State School Administration: A Textbook of Principles (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1927), 175–76.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ There were some regional differences in approach. For example in order to provide rural high school opportunities, tuition and transfer laws were used extensively in the Midwest while in the South many states constructed special county or agricultural high schools. By 1919, however, all states had permissive transportation laws and permissive consolidation laws. By 1923, 27 states had county high schools and by 1924, 44 states had tuition laws. For statistics and timelines, see Abel, , “Consolidation of Schools and Transportation of Pupils”; Hood, “Legal Provisions for Rural High Schools.”Google Scholar

⁵⁰ In 1930, 27 states gave aid for local consolidations and by 1932, 32 states participated in the payment of transportation costs. Timon Covert, “Rural School Consolidation: Decade of School Consolidation with Detailed Information from 105 Consolidated Schools”; David S. Sutton, “Statutory Provisions and Judicial Interpretations Affecting Pupil Tuition and Transportation in Various States, 1932,” in Paul Mort, State Support for Public Education, National Survey of School Finance (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1933), 422.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Abel, , “School Consolidation and Transportation,” 27–28.Google Scholar

⁵² Monahan, , “Consolidation of Rural Schools and Transportation of Pupils at Public Expense,” 28–34.Google Scholar

⁵³ Abel, J. F., “State Aid to Weak Schools.” USBE Rural School Leaflet No. 7 (September 1922). Abel lists the 29 states with state aid for rural libraries. By 1930, 43 states also took leadership roles in directing rural school libraries through either the education department or state library extension agencies. Lathrop, Edith A., “State Direction of Rural School Library Service.” USBE Bulletin No. 6 (1930).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Swift, Fletcher H., Federal and State Policies in Public School Finance in the United States (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1931), 112–13.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Lathrop, Edith, “How Laws Providing for the Distribution of State School Funds Affect Consolidation.” USBE Rural School Leaflet No. 5 (August 1922). Lathrop lists Delaware, Massachusetts, and New York as examples but does not quantify how many states rewarded consolidation in the distribution of regular common school funds.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Hand, William H., “School Progress in South Carolina to the Year 1913,” folder 1174, box 128, series 1, sub-series 1, General Education Board records, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, New York (hereafter cited as GEB records); William H. Hand to Wallace Buttrick, 12 March 1907, folder 1173, box 128, series 1.1, GEB records; South Carolina, “An Act to Provide High Schools for the State,” box 128, folder 1173, series 1.1, GEB records. The number of high schools in the state doubled as a result of the act between 1906 and 1913.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Hood, , “Legal Provisions for Rural High Schools,” 44.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ For a detailed state-by-state breakdown of the distribution of state aid, see Swift, Fletcher H. and Zimmerman, Bruce L., “State School Taxes and School Funds and Their Apportionment,” USBE Bulletin No. 29 (1928).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Cubberley, , State School Administration, 715.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Englehardt, , Public School Organization and Administration, 585. See also Cook, William A., Federal and State School Administration (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1927), 140; Cubberley, , Public School Administration, 467; Samuel Train Dutton and David Snedden, The Administration of Public Education in the United States, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan Company, 1916), 106.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Foght, , The American Rural School, 113.Google Scholar

⁶² Cubberley, Ellwood, School Funds and Their Apportionment (New York: Teachers College, 1906), 250.Google Scholar

⁶³ Mort argues that Massachusetts was the first state to make an effort to equalize school burdens; in 1874 it provided for distribution of state funds exclusively to rural areas because urban areas had more wealth. In 1906, Cubberley noted 6 additional states, primarily northeastern, had made limited attempts at equalization. These were precursors to later, more expansive state efforts. Mort, State Support for Public Education, 32–33; Cubberley, , School Funds and Their Apportionment, 201–217.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Strayer, George Dayton Jr., Centralizing Tendencies in the Administration of Public Education: A Study of Legislation for Schools in North Carolina, Maryland, and New York Since 1900 (New York: Teachers College, 1934); General Education Board, Public Education in North Carolina: A Report to the Public School Commission of North Carolina (New York: General Education Board, 1921); Swift and Zimmerman, “State School Taxes,” 288–297.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Cook, Katherine, “State Laws and Regulations Governing Teachers’ Certificates,” USBE Bulletin No. 22 (1921); Cook, Katherine, “Rural Education.” USBE Bulletin No. 36 (1923).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Swift, , “State Policies in Public School Finance,” 17.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Bishop, Eugene Alfred, The Development of A State School System: New Hampshire (New York: Teachers College, 1930), 114–16. The equalization provisions were part of a major 1919 reorganization of the state role in schooling and marked a major centralization of state authority.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ The issue of federal aid for education was also very much under discussion at the time. See for example, Dumenil, Lynn, “The Insatiable Maw of Bureaucracy: Antistatism and Education Reform in the 1920s.” Journal of American History 77 (September 1990): 499–524; Keith, John A. H. and Bagley, William C., The Nation and the Schools: A Study in the Application of the Principle of Federal Aid to Education in the United States (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920); Fitzpatrick, Edward A., “Federalization and State Educational Bankruptcy.” Educational Review 63 (1922): 402–411; Bagley, William, “Federal Aid for Public Schools.” NEA Addresses and Proceedings, (1921): 618–623; Judd, Charles H., “Federal Participation in Education.” Elementary School Journal 22 (1922): 494–504; Douglas, Paul H., “Federal Aid for Education.” Educational Review 64 (1922): 41–51.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ The survey published 13 volumes. Arguably the two most influential were Strayer, George D. and Haig, Robert Murray, The Financing of Education in the State of New York, Educational Finance Inquiry, Vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan Co, 1923) and Alexander, Carter, Bibliography of Educational Finance, Educational Finance Inquiry, Vol. 4 (New York: Macmillan Co., 1924).Google Scholar

⁷⁰ There were some disagreements among finance scholars about the role of local effort with Updegraff, Mort, and Swift among other arguing that it was incompatible with equalization while others like Strayer and Haig sought to maintain some reward for local effort. In addition to finance works previously cited, see Updegraff, Harlan and King, L.A., Survey of the Fiscal Policies of the State of Pennsylvania in the Field of Education, Part II (Harrisburg, PA: Citizens Committee on Finance of Pennsylvania, 1922); Updegraff, Harlan, Rural School Survey of New York State—Financial Support (Ithaca, NY: Joint Committee on Rural Schools, 1922); Mort, Paul R., The Measurement of Educational Need: A Basis for Distributing State Aid (New York: Teachers College, 1924); Swift, Fletcher H., Studies in Public School Finance, 4 vols (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1922–25); Schmidt, A.W., Development of a State's Minimum Educational Program (New York: Teachers College, 1932).Google Scholar

⁷¹ Strayer, and Haig, , The Financing of Education in the State of New York; Updegraff, The Rural School Survey of New York State—Financial Support; Strayer Jr., Centralizing Tendencies; Soper, Wayne W., “Development of State Support of Education in New York State.” University of the State of New York Bulletin No. 1019 (1933).Google Scholar

⁷² , Strayer Jr., Centralizing Tendencies; Timon Covert, “State Provisions for Equalizing the Cost of Public Education.” USBE Bulletin No. 4 (1936).Google Scholar

⁷³ Swift, , Federal and State Policies in Public School Finance, 252–53. Swift listed the states with equalization funds in 1928 and used statistics from 1925 to 1926 from 18 states to demonstrate variations on how much state aid went toward equalization purposes. They ranged from 88.3% of total state aid devoted to equalization purposes (South Carolina) to less then 1 % (Rhode Island) and a majority of the states listed fell within the 15–35% range.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ On the trends of the 1930s, see Alexander, William M., State Leadership in Improving Instruction (New York: Teachers College, 1940); Campbell, Roald F., Sroufe, Gerald E., and Layton, Donald H., eds., Strengthening State Departments of Education (Danville, IL: Interstate Printers and Publishers Inc., 1967); Whitelaw, Betty K., “State Centralization: A Trend in the Administration of Public Elementary and Secondary Education 1930–1940” (MA thesis, University of Chicago, 1940).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ National Education Association Research Division, “Staffs and Salaries in State Departments of Education.” Studies in State School Administration Study No. 9 (March 1931): 5–6. See also Schrammel, Henry E., The Organization of State Departments of Education, Bureau of Educational Research Monograph No. 6 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1926), 49; Ferguson, Arthur Wesley, “Professional Staff of State Departments of Education.” USBE Bulletin No. 17 (1925): 6–7; A.C. Monahan, , “Organization of State Departments of Education.” USBE Bulletin No. 5 (1915): 41–46; Kalbach, L.A. and Neal, A.O., “Organization of State Departments of Education.” USBE Bulletin No. 46 (1920): 39–48; Carle, Herbert M., “Organization, Housing, and Staffing of State Departments of Education, 1923–4.” USBE Statistical Circular No. 5 (1925): 8–9; Sonnenberg, E.R., “Trends in the Organization of State Departments of Education in the United States,” (M.S. thesis, Kansas State Teachers College, 1936); State Teachers Association of Missouri, “Organization of State Departments of Education: A Study Made by a Committee of the Council.” Bulletin No. 1 (1927).Google Scholar

⁷⁶ According to the NEA, New York and Pennsylvania had the two largest staffs (594 and 174, respectively) while the smallest belonged to Oregon (8), Colorado (11), and Arizona (11). The average staff was 53.7 and the median staff 28. See NEA, “Staffs and Salaries in State Departments of Education,” 5–6. As Schrammel's study details, the officers and divisions were diverse—for example, four states in 1925 had “music supervisors,” one state a visual education supervisor, and seven states Americanization officers. Generally, however, certain functions predominated most with a rural focus: high school supervision, rural supervision, teacher certification, and vocational supervision. See Schrammel, , “The Organization of State Departments of Education,” 66–67.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Reynolds, Annie, “Certain State Programs for the Improvement of Rural School Instruction.” USBE Bulletin No. 18 (1931); Cook, Katherine, “Rural Education”; “Developments in Rural School Supervision.” USBE Bulletin No. 32 (1929); Cook, Katherine M., “Supervision of Rural Schools.” USBE Bulletin No. 10 (1922); Cook, Katherine M. and Monahan, A.C., “Rural School Supervision.” USBE Bulletin No. 48 (1916); Rogers, Murphy P., A State's Supervision of Its Elementary Schools: The Development and Present Activities of the Elementary Division of the State Department of Education of Louisiana and a Program for Its Future Service (New York: Teachers College, 1936); Hall, H.E., “A Study of School Supervision in the County Districts of Ohio.” Journal of Rural Education 5 (1926): 231–36.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Frost, Norman, “The Development of Rural School Supervision.” National Society for the Study of Education 13th Yearbook, Part I: The Status of Rural Education (Bloomington, IL: Public School Publishing Company, 1931), 180. See also Katherine Cook, M., “Supervision of Instruction as a Function of State Departments of Education.” Studies of State Departments of Education USBE Bulletin No. 6, Monograph No. 7 (1940), 128. Cook includes state-by-state statistics on the number and type of supervisor for each school year from 1913–14 to 1938–39.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Wilson, R. H. to Buttrick, Wallace, 5 March 1915, file 3135, box 300, series 1.2, GEB records; Wood, Moses E. to Buttrick, Wallace, 10 August 1916, folder 3135, box 300, series 1.2, GEB records.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Duke, E.A. to Buttrick, Wallace, 8 December 1916, folder 3135, box 300, series 1.2, GEB records.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Duke, E.A. to Buttrick, Wallace, 31 March 1917, folder 3135, box 300, series 1.2, GEB records.Google Scholar

⁸² Davidson, Isobel, “Rural School Supervision as an Agency for Improving Rural Schools.” Journal of Sural Education 1 (1921): 3–9 For similar state leadership of county level supervisors, including state conferences in California, see Weiler, Kathleen, Women and Rural School Reform: California, 1900–1940. History of Education Quarterly 34 (Spring 1994): 25–47.Google Scholar

⁸³ “Virginia State Department of Public Instruction Score Card for Country Schools” [1915], folder 1765, box 188, series 1.1, GEB records.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Lathrop, Edith A., “The Improvement of Rural Schools by Standardization.” USBE Rural School Leaflet No. 32 (1925). Lathrup includes statistics and analysis of the scorecards themselves and the state programs of standardization. Mueller, A.D., “Standardization of Rural Schools.” Journal of Rural Education 3 (January 1924): 225–231; Sherman, William L. and Theobald, Paul, “Progressive Era Rural Reform: Creating Standard Schools in the Midwest.” Journal of Research in Rural Education 17 (Fall 2001): 84–91. Sherman and Theobald note that Iowa uniquely tied its rural scorecard ratings to state aid.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ For example, the North Carolina state survey critiqued the poor character of many new rural schools buildings. GEB, Public Education in North Carolina; Cook, William A., “Schoolhouse Sanitation: Study of Laws and Regulations Governing the Hygiene and Sanitation of Schoolhouses.” USBE Bulletin No. 21 (1915).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Hill, A. B. to Gendemen of General Education Board, 22 April 1924, folder 236, box 26, series 1.1, GEB records; Brierley, W.W. to Hill, A. B., 24 May 1924, folder 236, box 26 series 1.1, GEB records; Hirst, C. M. to Bachman, Frank, 21 April 1927, folder 236, box 26, series 1.1, GEB records. The GEB helped fund many of these divisions in the South. See “Divisions of Schoolhouse Planning,” in Annual Report of the General Education Board 1924–1925 20–21 “Divisions of Information and Statistics and Divisions of School Buildings,” in Annual Report of the General Education Board 1925–1926, 33–34.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Bishop, , The Development of a State School System; Cook, “Schoolhouse Sanitation.”Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Deffenbauch, Walter S. and Keesecker, Ward W., “Compulsory School Attendance Laws and Their Administration.” USBE Bulletin No 4 (1935); Segel, David and Proffitt, Maris M., “Pupil Personnel Services as a Function of State Departments of Education.” Studies of State Departments of Education USBE Bulletin No. 6, Monograph No. 5 (1940).Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Noall, Irvin Simon, “Administration of Compulsory School Attendance,” (Ed.D., University of California, 1935).Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Buttrick, Wallace to Alderman, Edwin A., 1 April 1905, folder 1680, box 180, series 1.1, GEB records. Fosdick, Raymond B., Adventures in Giving: The Story of the General Education Board (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).Google Scholar

⁹¹ Payne, Bruce, Gloss, E.C., Sydenstrickler, Edgar, , James Conner Jr., and Russell, E.H., “The Public High School Situation in Virginia: To the Co-Operative Education Commission of Virginia” [ca. 1905], folder 1680, box 180, series 1.1, GEB records; “The Need of Public High Schools in Virginia” Press release for newspaper editors, December 1905, folder 1683, box 180, series 1.1, GEB records. Both reports estimated that only 20 schools in the whole state had four or more high school teachers.Google Scholar

⁹² Payne, Bruce R., “Summary of High School Instituted in Virginia During the Present Year [1906],” folder 1684, box 180, series 1.1, GEB records.Google Scholar

⁹³ Payne, Bruce R., “Secondary Education in Virginia; Report for the Month of April [1906],” folder 1653, box 180, series 1.1, GEB records.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Maphis, Charles to Sage, E. C., 15 December 1914, folder 1686, box 180, series 1.1, GEB records.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Maphis, Charles to Flexner, Abraham, 3 August 1915, folder 1682, box 180, series 1.1, GEB records.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Maphis, Charles to Buttrick, Wallace, 15 May 1914, folder 1681, box 180, series 1.1, GEB records.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Zelizer, Julian E., “The Uneasy Relationship: Democracy, Taxation, and State Building Since the New Deal,” in The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History, Jacobs, Meg, Novak, William J., and Zelizer, Julian E., eds. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). In his study of California, Peter Schrag argues that when local school boards were stripped of power to raise local school taxes, community (and particularly local business) interest in schools and candidates for school board dramatically decreased. Peter Schrag, Paradise Lost: California's Experience, America's Future (New York: New Press, 1998).Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Noall, , “Administration of Compulsory Attendance.”Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Theobald, , Call School Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Leo Favrot to Wallace Buttrick, 28 August 1913, folder 213, box 24, series 1.1, GEB records.Google Scholar