ing systems, and general sanitary equipment, so that the school plants may be up to date in every particular.

STATISTICAL DATA.

Statistical data to June 1, 1923, are available for the six schools that are representative consolidations and transport pupils and for the North Fourth Street school. All are elementary eight-grade schools. Three are four-teacher schools, two are five-teacher, one is six-teacher, and one employs nine teachers. The school grounds, used wholly for play purposes, range in size from 1 to 2 acres. The buildings and equipment cost from $6,000 to $25,000. In each one there is an auditorium for community meetings. Of the 37 teachers employed, 7 are college graduates and 14 are normal-school

4

graduates. Twenty-six have had more than three years of experiThe salaries range from $1,000 to $1,500 a year.

ence.

TRANSPORTATION.

The schools own and maintain 14 conveyances that transport an average of 30 pupils each at a cost of 8 cents per pupil per day. Drivers are selected by the board of education, are not required to give bond, and are paid an average salary of $50 a month. Pupils are conveyed from 2 to 4 miles one way and are from one to two hours on the road.

SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND COSTS.

Some interesting comparative data as to enrollment and per capita costs in the small schools and in the consolidated schools that have replaced them are here given:

The consolidated schools are costing from three to six times as much per pupil as the small schools did, but in 1920 for the entire United States the cost per pupil enrolled in all schools was $48.02 and per attendance pupil was $64.16. Even with the increase these

schools of Bernalillo County are not costing an excessive amount as compared with other schools in the United States. Before the increases not enough money was being spent on them and they were very poor schools. In the advantages offered the children they are now above the average of rural and village schools.

THE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL.

None of these rural schools offer any high-school courses. They are in a definite sense outlying schools of and tributary to the county high school maintained by the county and located at Albuquerque. It was established in 1914. After having finished the eighth grade, the children of the rural districts in and along the Rio Grande Valley may, without cost for tuition or transportation, take their secondary work at the county high schools. It is a standard junior-senior high school, employs 25 teachers, enrolls 600 pupils, and offers, besides the usual academic training, courses in domestic science, printing, commercial work, automobile repair, sheet-metal work, and other vocational subjects. In addition to the transportation arranged for children that live far from the rural schools, free auto transportation is furnished for students from rural districts to the high school. The longest distances that high-school pupils must travel are 12 miles for those that live south of Albuquerque and 8 miles for those that live north of the city.

THE EFFECT OF CONSOLIDATION.

The consolidated schools and the county high school have had a remarkable influence in the improvement of rural life and educational conditions in the county. A large number of people of a very desirable class have been attracted to the county and are buying land and building fine homes, largely because of the good schools. Formerly the rural people of the county who wanted to give their children the advantages of an education had to move to town. Those that could not afford to move or send their children away to school were forced to keep them at home and endure the old conditions. In six years, a short time in the educational life of a community, Bernalillo County laid a strong foundation for a fine public-school system.

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TRAINING COURSES IN CONSOLIDATION OF
SCHOOLS AND TRANSPORTATION
OF PUPILS.

By J. F. ABEL, Assistant in Rural Education.

Courses devoted entirely to methods of managing consolidated schools and carrying on pupil transportation are offered as part of the teacher-training curricula of several institutions that have special interest in rural education. They have been developed in the past five years in response to an urgent need for administrators trained to handle successfully the unusual and peculiar problems connected with consolidation of schools and transportation of pupils at public expense. The table gives a list of the colleges and universities having such courses and the titles and rank of the courses.

COURSES IN CONSOLIDATION AND TRANSPORTATION.