The Organization and Administration of the State School System

Abstract

RESEARCH ON THE STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM was not reviewed as a separate section in the cycle for the REVIEW preceding this. However, several recent sources review the major research and developments of state organization and administration to 1940. Coxe's brief review (13) may well be supplemented by the more extensive treatments such as Moehlman's (24), which is comprehensive and primarily administrative in emphasis; Mort and Reusser's (27), that primarily deals with the financial aspects of the state and education; Reavis and Judd's (30), that concentrates on the teacher's interests in the state and education; and Hamilton and Mort's (21) treatment of the legal phases of state organization and administration. All these emphasized that education is a state function, for which the local management is usually delegated in large part by constitution or statute to locally selected school officers. They pointed out the variation between states in administrative organization, the common problems of conflict between state and local authority, the tendency toward greater emphasis on the duties and responsibilities of the state department of education, and the increased pressure for or provision of state support for education.