TABLE XIV.**

PERCENTAGE OF SCHOOL FUNDS RAISED BY THE DIFFERRENT TAXING UNITS AND SOURCES.

Montana and California furnish the greatest percentage of aid from state funds, while Idaho and Oregon furnish none. Oregon and Idaho furnish the greatest percentage from local sources, while those states having a state tax furnish much less locally.

Although the state funds in California furnish over 25% of the school funds, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in his last report recommended that more state and county aid be furnished, in the following words:

the law should be so amended as to give more state and more county aid to the elementary schools, as the burden is falling too heavily on many districts. The more wealthy sections of the state can give this local aid, but the less fortunate sections cannot. The results are that the population is tending more and more toward the city, where these educational advantages can be secured."

Oregon with her vast undeveloped natural resources and her large areas that are practically frontier can well note the tendency spoken of by the Superintendent of Public Instruction of California; and attempt to make the conditions there so that the frontier people who are really developing the country will not leave these sections where the most is to be done.

9. Summary.

The following points have been noted:

(1) That education is a state duty or function.

*Included in State Tax.

**Data from p. 17 Report Com. of Ed. 1914.

(2) That Oregon has made wonderful progress since 1873 in furnishing educational opportunities for the rising generation.

(3) That Oregon is raising less money per census child than most of her neighboring states.

(4) That the ability to raise money, the amount raised, and the results accomplished under the present laws in the different counties are not uniform, and therefore cannot offer the children of the state uniform opportunities for a common school education.

(5) That the differences in ability to raise money in the districts is far greater than in the counties, causing some districts to levy excessively heavy taxes to support their schools, while other districts have no levy to make.

(6) That the raising of a continually increasing percentage of the school revenue has been gradually shifted from the state and county to the district, which bears heaviest upon those least able to bear the burden.

(7) That some of our neighboring states are levying state taxes for school purposes, while Oregon raises more of her school revenue than any of her neighbors locally.

II. THE EQUALIZATION OF THE BURDENS AND OF THE OPPORTUNITIES OF EDUCATION THROUGHOUT THE STATE.

1. Increase the Funds from the Larger Fiscal Units and Lower the Demands Made Upon the District.

The aforementioned facts and hundreds of similar cases would seem to lead to the following conclusions:

First, the state should furnish a large enough part of the cost of education to relieve the inequalities between the different counties.

Second, the counties should bear a larger part than the state, so as to remedy the larger inequality between the districts.

The question naturally arises as to how this extra money may be raised, and the following suggestions are offered:

Increase the State Inheritance Tax by lowering the exemption, and by making the rate more intensely progressive.

A State Corporation Tax may be levied in lieu of the local tax, as most corporations draw upon a far larger territory for their support than the small districts through which they pass, or where their business is located.

A State Stumpage Tax may be levied in lieu of part of the local tax upon forests. This is a special tax upon the timber yield at the time it is cut, and has the advantage of being collected at the time it can be most easily collected. It would necessarily mean that the local tax upon the forests would be materially decreased until it is ready to be cut, and would meet with opposition from the districts which get a large part of their revenue from the regular land tax upon forests.

The above taxes being new and difficult to tell what any one of them would yield, the regular property tax has been taken as the basis for revenue in this paper.

From Table XIV it is seen that the average percentage of state aid furnished by the four neighboring states which furnished it is about 24%; which it is assumed that Oregon should raise to equalize the differences between the different counties.

From Table XIII it is seen that the percentage of funds raised by the counties was only 28 in 1914, but running back over the former years it is seen that the average is nearly 50%; which it is believed is much more nearly the percentage needed to equalize the great differences between the different districts.

The Irreducible School Fund will furnish about 5% of the amount needed for the proper maintenance of the schools, and this will leave about 20% of the funds to be raised in the districts.

2. Apportion School Funds so as to Secure Uniformity of School Advantages.

Mr. Elwood P. Cubberley in his work entitled "School Funds and Their Apportionment" gives the following classification of apportionments:

1. Taxes-Paid basis is one of the oldest and poorest methods of distribution. The state or county was simply the collector of school taxes, and no effort was made by distribution to equalize opportunities in the different smaller units, or to stimulate growth. The people who originated this basis were still in the days of intense localization, and individualism. The state had not yet felt the duty to provide a uniform system of common schools and that every child should be given an opportunity to get a common school education. Many states tried this and later abandoned it for a better basis as other states found a basis more in accord with the growing idea of the need of education in a democracy.

2. Value-of-taxable-property basis was also another early basis. It has the same defects as No. 1, and also the fact that it takes no account of the districts which paid their taxes and those that did not.

3. The total-population basis was an early attempt to distribute the funds according to the needs. The principal defect of this basis is that the population bears no definite relation to the number of children to be educated, or the cost of education in the different districts.

4. The School-Census basis was about the next in origin. It was found to be defective in that it bears no definite relation to the real cost of the maintenance of a school, the principal part of which is the number of teachers who must be employed. It favors the city or large schools as opposed to the small schools. The teacher teaching one grade of 30 pupils in a city graded school ought not to be paid three times