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Show THE SCHOOL BUDGET WAR There has been a war on public expenditures ex-penditures but unfortunately the offensive of-fensive has been directed mostly against school budgets. No advantage can accrue from further prolongation of the conflict. It has doubtless produced pro-duced results to the extent that it caused school officials to scrutinize carefully their annual appropriations. It has been a hollow victory if it has caused boards of education to slash expenditures regardless of rhyme or reason. It has been good if it has demonstrated that generally school finances have been handled conservatively. conserva-tively. It has been a calamity as well as a defeat if it has unloaded all the economies on the schools while other agencies have not been called upon to bear their proportionate share. It has been good if the people at large have had the courage to fight for the preservation pre-servation of child interest in the community. com-munity. It has been bad if through lack of courage school officials permitted per-mitted the schools to be unduly handicapped. han-dicapped. It has been good if it has emphasized the necessity of providing provid-ing support from cash taxes, transferring trans-ferring the burden from real property. proper-ty. It has been bad if it has permitted the old regime of realty tax with its consequent tax delinquencies to continue. con-tinue. In the fight for reduction of expenses ex-penses in governmental agencies aside from the schools, the movement has not been as successful as desired lias not produced the savings anticipated antici-pated or warranted. This is in part due to the personal interests involved involv-ed in such reductions the elimination elimina-tion of jobs and the wrecking of political po-litical machines. In the schools no such self-interest opposition exists. The effects of school retrenchments have been more impersonal than personal per-sonal the effort more vociferous and the plea more urgent. In the absence of the personal equation and the lack of organized opposition, especially where school officials feel they represent rep-resent taxpayers rather than school children, the war on school budgets has been all too successful. One result of the war on school i . budgets is the unbalanced budget-seme budget-seme divisions remaining intact and I normal where special interests de-I de-I fended the expenditure others bearing bear-ing the brunt of the cu's. A second result of the war has brought about a restricted curriculum the elimination of motivating subjects sub-jects and the adherence to drill subjects. sub-jects. It is unfortunate that this move should have come at a time when "spread work" employment plans are develpoing, which will produce added compulsory leisure for the worker without any provision for useful utilization utili-zation of that time. It should not come at a time when more mature students are being forced back to school, many of whom are not adapted adapt-ed either by capability or interest to function on mental stimulates alone. The unemployment situation and I the added leisure call for stimulation of the hand' and the eye, the aesthetic j as well as the mental. Instead of depicting de-picting the curriculum of art, music, ! and social activities, there should be greater provision for such subjects. I Instead of eliminating industrial ! courses, greater stress should be laid on the coordination of hand and brain j education. ! Warden Lawes of Sing Sing points out tTiat less than five per cent of the j prisoners in that institution have vo-Icational vo-Icational training. Hand interests control con-trol the mind. A controlled mind does not tend to criminality. , ' A war on school budgets may have been instrumental in savings but there is evidence that it will be a substitution sub-stitution not a saving. The dollar saved in the schools may be spent in the juvenile courts and other corrective cor-rective agencies. If so, the war on budgets, while seemingly won, was in realiLy lost. School officials will do well to scrn- tinize anew such budget cuts as influence in-fluence the curriculum deletions, the teaching load, the supplies and equipment, equip-ment, lest the paring be so great as to cripple the services of the schools. For any such school districts, the war on school budgets has been lost. |