EN9
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Transcription
-9-
found that government would feed their children; we've seen how
it worked when communities found that the government would build
their swimming pools; it seems that the same thing might happen
in much more aggravated form if our citizenship would believe that
the national government will see that schools are kept up to
standard. Undoubtedly the maintenance of the home rule principle
will slow up, in some places, certain features of educational
advance, but that's the price which home rule exacts. Under home
rule what the schools will become will depend upon the slow but
sure education of the people of each community for maintenance of
conditions which we all believe are good for children. We are
making great progress in that direction now. Our communities for
the most part are going along with our thinking. In my judgment
we will err grievously if we become inpatient and try to rush
this process faster than the people will support us.
One cannot discuss this whole question of home rule without a
comment on the bearing of this issue to that of the so-called term
of "equalization of educational opportunity". It seems necessary
to state bluntly that the whole idea of home rule necessarily is
incompatible with the concept of "equality of educational oppor-
tunity". If equality of opportunity be a goal of American adminis-
tration of education, of course sacrifice of many factors in home
rule follow as a matter of course. If we really achieve home rule
there will be increasingly great variance in the educational
facilities in different communities. Of course equality of
educational opportunity is not measured by the amount of dollars
spent per child. We know that that is a superficial indicator.
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