having the smallest amount of funds for schools are among the States having the most diversified tax systems at the highest rates. They are due to economic conditions largely beyond the control of the States and their communities, differences in wealth, income and taxpaying ability, in the extent of absentee ownership of national resources and industries, and differences in the number of educable children in proportion to adults, the poor States and communities having the largest proportionate number of children.

INEQUALITIES OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY

The extent, character, and significance of the inequalities of educational opportunities in America are indeed appalling, as the examination of the following data will reveal:

(a) The average school term averages from 92 months in the highest State to 61⁄2 months in the lowest State. In fact, in 8 States the average number of days attended by rural pupils is less than 6 months, and there are over 1,000,000 children enrolled in schools that are in session less than 6 months per year.

(b) If high schools were universally available and attended, the maximum high-school enrollment would constitute about 33% percent of the total elementary and secondary enrollment. In the highest State the high-school enrollment is now 30.9 percent of the total enrollment, while in the lowest State it is only 10.6 percent. There are 12 States that have high-school enrollments exceeding 25 percent of their total enrollment, while there are 11 States that have less than 16 percent.

(c) In one State only 0.8 percent of the population over 10 years of age are illiterate, while in another State 14.9 percent of the population over 10 years old are illiterate. It happens that the first State has for decades spent approximately three times as much per child for public schools as the second State has spent. The differences in per capita wealth and income of these two States are about as great as the differences in public-school expenditures.

(d) Average annual expenditures per pupil for current operating costs in the highest State, $137.69, and the lowest State, $24.50. In this respect there are 13 States in which the average expenditure per pupil exceeds $85, while there are 12 States that fall below $50.

(e) The average annual salary per teacher in the highest State is $2,361, and in the lowest State, $465. In this respect there are 11 States that exceed $1,400

and 12 States that fall below $750.

(f) The value of public-school property per pupil attending school is $570 in the highest State and $62 in the lowest. There are 16 States that have school property exceeding a value of $300 per pupil, while 11 States fall below $150.

(g) The differences in the breadth of education opportunity, resulting from the differences reflected by the statistical data cited above, are correspondingly great.

EFFORT TO SUPPORT SCHOOLS

On

Another recent study shows that the richer the State, the less is the effort required to support the schools, and the less is the effort actually made. the whole, the poorer States spend larger proportions of their tax resources for education than the wealthier States. Although 17 of the poorer States make more than average effort to support schools, 13 of them fall below the national average of school expenditures. Only 7 of the wealthier States make more than average effort to support schools, but 20 of them exceed the Nation's average in expenditures.

It is often said that if the States would "put their fiscal houses in order," all of them could have acceptable standards of school support. But it remains a fact that the States which, according to the standards of the best fiscal experts, have done the best jobs of modernizing their State tax systems are among the poorest States and they still have the least amount to spend for education. some of the rich States would levy the same taxes at the same rates that some of the poorer States now levy, they would raise twice as much public revenue as they now raise.

If

It is a well-known fact that the Southern States are the so-called poor States. Let us look at the record of these States to see whether educational support is a matter of effort and of "putting houses in order."

In spite of the need for improvement, the best organization of local school administrative units, with but few exceptions, is to be found in the South. In 11 of these States the percentage of one-room schools falls below the similar percentage for the Nation as a whole, and 56 percent of all the consolidated schools in the United States are located in the South.

The Southern States lead the Nation in the extent to which they depend upon State support of public schools in contradistinction to local support. As to methods of distributing school funds, the majority of the Southern States compare favorably with any of the other States and far excel most of them.

At least 9 of the 14 Southern States can be classed among the States of the Union that have done the most to modernize their systems of taxation. As measured by diversity of taxes, sources utilized, and by rates levied on those sources, the Southern States rank above most of the other States. Not only do they levy death taxes, income taxes, luxury taxes, and the like, but they have the highest tax rates on gasoline, cigarettes, inheritances, and middle-class incomes. They have far outstripped the rest of the Nation in the proportion of taxes derived from nonproperty sources. In comparison with the rest of the Nation, they have with but few exceptions put their fiscal houses in order as far as taxation is concerned.

Furthermore, these States compare favorably with the rest of the Nation in their effort to support public education, effort being measured by the percentage of their potential tax resources spent for education. These 14 States all fall below the national average in tax resources per child, but 13 of them exceed the average national effort to support public education.

DIFFERENCES IN ABILITY TO PAY FOR SCHOOLS

As a Nation, we have acted as if we believed that inequality of educational opportunities has resulted from difference in the desires of communities and States to educate their children. Yet differences in educational opportunities correspond almost exactly with differences in economic power. What the respective States do for education is not a matter to be moralized about. It is a

matter of dollars and cents.

In California the average expenditure per person for retail sales is $374, in Mississippi it is $71. Surely no one believes that the people of Mississippi spend only $71 each because they do not wish to spend more. Small wonder then that California spends four and one-half times as much per pupil for schools as Mississippi.

The amounts of taxes per capita which can be raised ranges from $18.39 in Mississippi to $109.33 in Nevada. Assuming that each State would spend an average of $60 per year per weighted pupil for schools, it was found that 96.5 percent of all tax resources in Mississippi would be required to maintain schools, while in Nevada only 16.5 percent of the tax resources would be required.

SOME STATES ARE COLONIAL HINTERLANDS FOR ABSENTEE LANDLORDS

Not only are the economic resources of many States comparatively low and the educational burdens great, but the people of those States in a large measure do not own nor control the economic resources of those States. These States constitute a kind of colonial hinterland for the great industrial and commercial centers. The oil, sulfur, timber, electric power, many of the plantations, and the farm mortgages are not owned nor controlled by residents of these States. One noted economist recently said, and proved his statement, that Texas is incomparably the richest foreign colony owned by Manhattan.

Furthermore, it has been estimated that as much as 70 cents out of each dollar produced in some States goes to the people of other States as the result of nonresident ownership.

These facts largely account for the lack of economic ability of these States to support public education. It seems to be a fair proposition that the Federal Government through its taxing power should return a part of the income produced in the States thus affected to help pay for the education of their children who are also citizens of the Nation.

DIFFERENCES IN NUMBER OF SCHOOL CHILDREN

On of the chief factors in the differences in educational opportunity among the States is the great differences in the number of children to be reared and educated as compared to the number of adults to provide for them. The 12 States spending the largest amount of money per pupil annually for schools have only 473 children ages 5 to 20 years for each 1,000 adults ages 21 to 65 years as compared to 740 in the 12 States spending the smallest amount per pupil. Although the 12 upper States have a burden only two-thirds as great as the 12 lower States, they have an average per capita taxpaying ability more than 21⁄2 times as great.

The nonfarm population of the Northeast section of the United States has only twice as many children of school age as the farmers of the Southeast, but they have 21 times as much income. The farmers of the Southeast have nearly 14 percent of the Nation's school children but they have only 2 percent of the national income. The farmers for the entire Nation have 31 percent of the Nation's school children but they receive only 9 percent of the national income.

The poorer the community or the State in this country, the less are the expenditures for public schools and the greater is the number of children. So long as we pursue this practice as a national policy we tend to increase both ignorance and poverty.

FEDERAL AID NECESSARY

The Advisory Committee on Education appointed by President Roosevelt has made a strong case for Federal aid to the States for the support of public education. It is quite impressive also to remember that the National Advisory Committee on Education appointed by President Hoover in 1929 also found a great need for Federal aid for education. The conclusion of President Roosevelt's Committee is summarized in the following statement:

"The facts presented in this report indicate that no sound plan of local or State taxation can be devised and instituted that will support in every local community a school system which meets minimum acceptable standards. Unless the Federal Government participates in the financial support of the schools and related services, several millions of children in the United States will continue to be largely denied the educational opportunities that should be regarded as their birthright The educational services now provided for a considerable percentage of the children are below any level that should be tolerated in a civilized country."

* * *

NEW PROBLEMS IN FINANCING NEGRO EDUCATION

Research Division, National Education Association

The adoption of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States confronted the Southern and border States with a difficult educational problem. In these States lived the bulk of the Negro population. The effect of this shift in national policy was to place on the Southern States the problem of the education of Negroes for citizenship.

For three-quarters of a century the Southern States have struggled to provide appropriate elementary, secondary, and collegiate educational opportunities for their entire populations, white and Negro. The laws in these States require separate schools for white and for Negro pupils; the Supreme Court of the United States has said that these laws meet the requirements of the Constitution, if equal privileges are provided in the two groups of schools. In practice, however, equal facilities have been furnished only rarely. The States maintaining separate schools for Negroes are, for the most part, States with the least economic ability to raise funds for public education. The schools for white pupils have been financed with great difficulty, and the schools for Negroes have been given even less support than those for white pupils. White teachers and educational leaders have deplored this situation but have lacked the funds to correct it.

The last 20 years have seen some progress toward improving the status of the Negro schools. But improvement has been so slow that leaders among the Negro race have undertaken to invoke their constitutional rights as a means of speeding up the process of reform. The years of 1938, 1939, and 1940 each produced at least one major court decision favorable to the Negro litigants-one in the field of higher education, two affecting the elementary and secondary schools.

The purpose of this memorandum is (1) to present and summarize these court decisions, (2) to call attention to some of the financial implications for school administration, (3) to review certain steps that are being taken to meet these financial problems, and (4) to call attention to the responsibility of the Federal Government for the education of Negroes.

1. Court Decisions

This memorandum quotes in full, in the appendix, the text of four recent Federal court decisions relating to the education of Negroes. The four decisions deal with controversies in three States-Missouri, Maryland, and Virginia.

The first case, State of Missouri v. Canada (59 S. Ct. 232), deals with opportunities for graduate study. The case was heard by the United States Supreme

Court and was decided in favor of a Negro student, Lloyd Gaines, who was seeking a mandamus to compel the University of Missouri to admit him as a student in the law school. Lacking a law school in the State University for Negroes, the State had offered to pay Gaines' tuition in some other State, but that was not acceptable to Gaines. The Court held that the payment of tuition fees in another State did not remove the discrimination within the State, which provided legal education for white persons but not for Negroes. The Court said that the obligation of a State to give the protection of equal laws can be met only where its laws operate, and therefore the equality of right must be maintained within the State. The Court also affirmed that the student's right to the educaton sought was a personal one, and that as an individual he was entitled to the equal protection of the law, whether or not other Negroes sought the same opportunity.

The two Maryland decisions dealt with efforts of a Negro school principal, Walter Mills, to challenge the constitutionality of the differential for Negro teachers in the State minimum-salary schedule in the Maryland statutes. These cases were tried before the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. The first suit, Mills v. Lowndes (26 F. S. 792), was dismissed. One basis for dismissal was the fact that the suit was against the State board of education rather than the county board, whereas the county board is free to pay salaries in excess of the minimum required by law and several counties do pay equal salaries to white and to Negro teachers. It was pointed out also that the statute refers to teachers in "public schools for colored children" and not to "colored teachers." The decision on the second suit, Mills v. Board of Education of Anne Arundel County (30 F. S. 245), authorized an injunction to restrain the Anne Arundel County Board of Education, after September 1, 1940, from making any distinction solely on the grounds of race or color in fixing the salaries of white or colored teachers. The judge did not "find it necessary to expressly decide that the State minimum statute for white teachers is necessarily on its face unconstitutional, because it is the county practice rather than the terms of the statute which prejudices the plaintiff.'

The fourth decision, Alston v. Board of Education of the City of Norfolk (112 F. 2d 992), was also rendered by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. A Negro teacher of Norfolk, Va., M. O. Alston, had brought suit on behalf of himself and the Negro teachers' association, of Norfolk, (1) to obtain a declaratory judgment on the unconstitutionality of the discriminatory salary schedule then in effect, and (2) to obtain an injunction to prevent further discrimination.

After disposing of various technical issues as to the right of the parties concerned to sue and be sued on the question at hand, the Court held that the policy of paying lower salaries to Negroes than to white persons, for services of the same kind and character, "is as clear a discrimination on the ground of race as could well be imagined and falls squarely within the inhibition of both the due-process and the equal-protection clauses of the fourteenth amendment." In view of the fact that the lower court had dismissed the action without trial, the case was remanded for further proceedings, with instruction that if the facts claimed were established the plaintiffs would be entitled to the declaratory judgment and to the injunction sought. An appeal to the United States Supreme Court for a review of this decision was denied by the Court.

2. Financial Implications

The recent Court decisions reemphasize the point that the constitutional duty of the several States that maintain separate schools for Negroes is to provide schools, colleges, and universities for Negro students that are equal to those provided for white students. In the words of Chief Justice Hughes:

"The admissibility of laws separating the races in the enjoyment of privileges afforded by the State rests wholly upon the equality of the privileges which the laws give to the separated groups within the State.3

The definition of "equality" is one of the basic issues in each court case that has arisen. The Missouri decision was far reaching in its denial of the assumption that paid scholarships in other States represent equality in higher education. The Maryland and Norfolk decisions were likewise far reaching in their affirmation of the constitutional right of Negro teachers in public school to the same salaries as those paid to equally qualified white teachers for services of the same kind and character. In

One rough measure of equality of educational service may be that of cost. one specific situation the school program for Negroes might cost more per pupil 3 State of Missouri v. Canada (59 S. Ct. 232, 236).

than the same program for white pupils; in another the Negro program might cost less. In general, however, it would seem that the differences would even out and that the cost would be about the same if similar courses of study, school terms, school buildings, salary schedules for teachers, instructional materials, supervision, and auxiliary services were maintained.

This section presents some estimates on the amount of additional money that would be needed in certain States to provide as well financed an educational program for Negroes as is provided already for white pupils. The figures given are merely rough approximations, based for the most part on regional totals rather than on a State-by-State analysis.

Higher education. If the students in publicly supported colleges and universities for Negroes in the Southern States had been receiving as costly a program of education in 1935-36 as was being provided to white students in the same States, at least $4,000,000 more would have been spent in the Negro institutions.1 But less than 2 percent of the young Negroes of 18 to 22 years of age were in college, as compared to nearly 7 percent of the corresponding white population. If 7 percent of the Negro youth had been in college, the added expenditure would have been not less than $30,000,000.

The added expenditures just mentioned include capital outlay and assume that a proportionate amount of the year's experditure for Negro pupils would have been used for new buildings. But existing buildings were not equal in value to those provided for white students. It would have cost about $7,000,000 to increase the existing plant for Negro students already enrolled to the same standard of value as that reported for white students. It would have cost about $80,000,000 to provide buildings and equipment for the hypothetical enrollment of Negro students on the same population ratio as white students.

Elementary and secondary schools.-One of the issues to which attention has been called by the recent court decisions is that of salaries of Negro teachers. In 15 of the Southern States the majority of Negro teachers receive lower salaries than white teachers in similar positions.5 These 15 States already pay more than $30,000,000 to Negro teachers. If the average salary of this group in 1938 had been raised in each State to the average paid to white teachers, an additional $25,000,000 would have been needed to pay the difference. In 4 of these States, the added sum would represent 10 percent or more of the total amount spent for elementary and secondary schools in 1937-38.

If the cost of the total school program, not salaries alone, were equalized, still larger sums would be needed. An estimate has been made of the funds needed to provide Negro pupils with a total school program costing the same amount per pupil as the program provided to white pupils. In 1937-38, for the pupils actually enrolled in schools for Negro pupils, the added expense would have been more than $80,000,000, or about 18 percent more than was spent for elementary and secondary schools in the 15 States concerned.

Suppose that per capita costs for Negro pupils were the same as for white pupils. Suppose, also, that Negro children aged 5 to 17 years were enrolled in school in the same relative numbers as the white children. The extra cost of the school program would be nearly a hundred million dollars a year. The annual revenues for public-school support would need to be increased by at least 20 percent.

But what about school buildings? The schools for Negro children have been poorly housed in many areas. In 1935-36 the per pupil value of Negro school buildings in the 15 States was about one-fourth of the value per pupil of buildings used by white pupils. It would have cost over $300,000,000 to have built for the Negro pupils then enrolled a school plant equal in value to the buildings for white' 4 Estimates of the research division of the National Education Association, based on figures in (1) U. S. Department of the Interior, Office of Education. Biennial Survey of Education in the United States: 1934-36. Bulletin, 1937, No. 2. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1938. Vol. IV, Ch. 2, Statistics of Higher Education, 1935-36. Separately printed, 351 pp. (2) Blose, David T., and Caliver, Ambrose. Statistics of the Education of Negroes, 1933-34 and 1935-36. U. S. Department of the Interior, Office of Education, Bulletin, 1938, No. 13. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1939, 67 pp. The estimates include the 17 States and 1 district where separate institutions are maintained as follows: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.

5 In Delaware, the District of Columbia, and West Virginia equal pay to white and Negro teachers is guaranteed by statute.

6 Estimates by the research division of the National Education Association on the basis of data in(1) U. S. Federal Security Agency, Office of Education. Biennial Survey of Education in the United States: 1936-38. Bulletin, 1940, No. 2, Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1940. Ch. II, Statistics of State School Systems, 1937-38. Separately printed, 178 pp.

(2) Blose, David T., and Caliver, Ambrose. Statistics of the Education of Negroes, 1933-34 and 1935-35 Bulletin, 1938, No. 13. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1939. 67 pp.