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CHAPTER II

DESCRIPTION OF MEASURES

There are no entirely satisfactory measures of the adequacy of a State's program of equalization of educational opportunity. Two factors must be taken into consideration in appraising a State-aid program: (1) Are the funds made available for the support of education sufficient to provide substantial equality of opportunity? (2) Is the method of distributing the funds designed to make the burden of financial support relatively equal among the various local fiscal units of the State? Lack of adequate data on the differences in social burdens and tax-paying ability of the various administrative units of the States makes it difficult, if not impossible, at present to determine exactly what is an equitable distribution of State funds to the school districts of a State.

Certain measures, nevertheless, may be employed to indicate with a fair degree of precision the extent to which the various States have satisfactory programs of equalization. If counties in which the number of children per 1,000 adults is high, in which the plane of living is low, and in which the assessed valuation per child is unusually small do not receive from the State distributive fund a considerably larger amount per child to be educated than counties having a small number of children per 1,000 adults, a high plane of living, and a high assessed valuation per child, it is reasonable to conclude that the system of distribution of State funds is unsatisfactory.

Distribution of State Funds

In this study the present distribution of State funds is shown by the amount of funds per child 7 to 13 years of age

apportioned to the counties, or to the districts within the counties, for educational purposes.1

Values for another somewhat similar measure were determined for the counties of several States by computing the amount of State aid per child in average daily attendance. If this measure were to be employed, it appears that in some States the different counties would receive approximately the same amounts that would be received on the basis of children 7 to 13 years of age. In other States it appears that the number of children in average daily attendance approximates the number of census children in only those counties in which the plane of living is high and the educational burden light. For this study the amounts based on children 7 to 13 were used because from a broad social view the measure of the educational burden of a community (county or State) is the number of children residing in it.

It is not assumed in this study that children 7 to 13 years of age constitute all or even a major part of the educational burden. However, the extremely high correlation between the number of children in this age group and the number in any other age group, or in all age groups combined, indicates that the group 7 to 13 years of age may be used as a measure of relative burden.

Measures of Relative Need

Three measures of relative need are employed: (1) Assessed valuation per child 7 to 13 years of age; (2) an index of the plane of living; and (3) the number of children 7 to 13 years of age per 1,000 adults 20 to 64 years of age. No one of these alone provides an adequate measure of the relative need of various counties in a State; these three different measures, however, will provide a general pattern by which the adequacy of the present distribution of State funds can be judged.

1 State funds entered in the reports as "State and Federal funds for vocational education" were omitted except in those instances in which the totals were broken down to indicate the amount of State funds included. The amounts contributed by the States, however, were small as compared with the distributive funds and, in most instances, their exclusion makes practically no difference. Data on the distribution of State funds were from published reports of the chief State school officers and, in a few instances, from tables provided by chief State school officers. In most cases data are for the year 1935-36. Population data were obtained from the 1930 census.

Assessed valuation.-The amount of funds per child 7 to 13 years of age which would be provided by a 10-mill tax levy has been used as a measure of the ability of counties to support education.2 The use of a 10-mill tax is a matter of convenience since if the decimal is moved two places to the right the figures for taxes available per child may be read as the amount of assessed valuation per child.

The use of a measure based on the assessed valuation per child is indicated for two reasons: (1) It is the only direct measure of tax-raising ability of local units available, since the general property tax is the only tax which can be used to any significant extent by local units; (2) assessed valuation or the proceeds of a specified tax is the measure of ability usually used in State equalization plans. It is of some importance to compare the actual distribution of State funds per child with the distribution of the funds available under a uniform application of the measure of tax-raising ability now in use.

If the relative need of counties is investigated and the adequacy of State distribution plans is judged from a broader point of view, various limitations of assessed valuation as a measure of ability must be taken into account. It is well known that the ratio of assessed valuation to the actual value of the property varies from one county to another in many States, between urban and rural property, and from State to State. Where the assessment ratios vary markedly within a State assessed valuation is not an accurate measure of ability to raise taxes by the use of the property tax. It seems likely, however, that the assessed valuations in the poorer counties approach the true valuations as closely as is the case in the richer counties. Whatever may be the case, no attempt has been made in this study to take account of the variations in assessment ratios within States or from State to State.

Even if it is assumed that assessed valuation provides an accurate measure of the ability of counties to raise taxes by the use of the property tax, the limitations of the value of property as a measure of ability must be considered. Indi

* Data on assessed valuation by counties were taken from the latest, as of the summer of 1937, published reports of chief State school officers, State auditors, tax commissioners, boards of equalization, and from tables provided by chief State school officers. In most cases data are for the year 1935-36.

vidual incomes are not directly proportional to property values; furthermore ability to pay taxes for the support of social functions of government is not proportional to income but increases more rapidly than income.

Statistical data are not available for measuring the effect of these limitations of assessed valuation directly. It is possible, however, to form some judgment as to the accuracy of assessed valuation as a measure of ability for various counties within a State by comparing it with other ability measures. If, for example, the child-adult ratio is low and the plane of living is high, a low assessed valuation per child probably does not reflect the relative financial ability of the county. But if the child-adult ratio is high and the plane of living is low, then a low assessed valuation per child probably does reflect the relative financial ability of the county.

Plane of living index.-A composite index of plane of living is employed as a rough measure of economic well-being. The index is based on "the number of individual federal income tax returns for 1928, the number of residence telephones in use January first, 1930, and the number of families who reported radio sets to the 1930 Census." It was computed by dividing the number of income tax returns, residence telephones, and radios per person in the different counties by the number of income tax returns, telephones, and radios per person in the Nation as a whole. The sum of the three quotients was divided by three to give the index values. Values for the counties range from 1 to 273.4

Child-adult ratio.-The number of children 7 to 13 years of age per 1,000 adults 20 to 64 has been used as a partial measure of the burden of child care and education resting upon the main productive age group in the population. If each 1,000 adults in one county have the responsibility of

3 This index is described in Carter Goodrich and Others, Migration and Economic Opportunity. The Report of the Study of Population Redistribution. Industrial Research Department, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1936), pp. 18-21.

4 Limitations of this index and the warnings of its formulators have not been overlooked. An estimate for any given county may not be an entirely valid or reliable measure of the plane of living. In distributing the estimates to classes the procedure was followed of Goodrich and Others, op. cit., Plate 1, opposite p. 14. Values of 0 to 14 were allocated to the lowest class, 15 to 29 to the second lowest, 30 to 69 to the third lowest, 70 to 99 to the fourth lowest, 100 to 129 to the fifth lowest, and 130 and up to the sixth lowest or highest class.

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