SALARIES OF TEACHERS. [Table 10.] The average monthly salaries of male teachers have increased in 15 States and Territories, and decreased in 17, out of the 32 in which this change can be determined satisfactorily. As regards the salaries of female teachers, there has been an increase in 17 States and Territories, a decrease in 13, and no change in 2. The greatest difference between the salaries of male and female teachers is met with in the North Atlantic and North Central Divisions; the least, in the South Atlantic Division. The want of uniformity in the methods of computing the average wages of teachers has already been pointed out in previous Reports of the Office; so long as it continues to exist, no reliable comparisons of the wages of teachers in different States can be made. There is one method that is unqualifiedly incorrect, namely, taking the mean between the maximum and minimum salaries of a county or township as the average salary. The average salary of all the male or female teachers of a State possesses no great degree of significance. The classification should be more in detail, distinguishing city from country teachers, and white from colored, in order to be useful as a guide in determining the remuneration of teachers. A consideration of school revenue is chiefly valuable for comparing the relative amounts derived from different sources in the several States. The value of the results arrived at, however, is considerably vitiated through a want of uniformity in the classification of school revenue. As an instance of this, it may be said that certain revenues of essentially the same character in all the States are classed in some States as income from permanent funds, in others as income from State taxes, and in others still as income from local taxes. Also, taxes imposed by a State law, but retained and distributed in the communities where they were collected, are sometimes reported as State taxes and sometimes as local taxes. These taxes may be called compulsory local taxes, as they differ both from voluntary local taxes and from taxes paid into the State treasury and distributed therefrom on some general basis of population or attendance, which latter are State taxes proper. A more detailed classification would remedy the misunderstanding in this matter, were there any possibility of its being adopted. State aid to education.-There may be noted a growing sentiment in favor of having more of the school revenues collected and apportioned by the State authorities according to population or attendance (see Index under the head of "Revenue"). The design is to equalize the school funds, so that all parts of a State may have a school term of equal length, or nearer equal than at present. Ten States and Territories, all situated in the North and West, report no State tax Thatever (Table 11, Column 3). In the North Central Division only 9.8 per cent. of all the school revenue (Table 12 A, Column 3) is raised by State taxes, hardly sufficient to give anything like equal school privileges to all the children in the States composing that division. |