The past winter has been perhaps the stormiest season which the
incipient movement for vocational education has had to weather in this
country. Before state legislatures and national Congress the battle has
been fought. In Washington, D. C. the Page and Lever bills granting
federal aid to industrial education in the states inflicted mutual
slaughter on each other and died in conference. In Illinois a fight has
waged over two measures, one providing for the “dual” system of
administration and the other for the “unit,” and the probability is that
neither will pass at this session.
But in spite of these casualties the war has not been without its
fruits. Indiana enacted practically without opposition what is perhaps
the most comprehensive statute on this subject yet passed. The Indiana
Commission on Industrial and Agricultural Education, appointed in 1911,
published during the closing days of 1912 a vigorous report on the whole
subject of vocational training for youth. The reasons why boys and girls
need such training were put by the commission as follows:
“The larger part of the boys and girls leave school before the
completion of the elementary course, unprepared in anything which will
aid them in their immediate problem of earning a living with their
hands. From statistics available in other states it is safe to
estimate that there are fully 25,000 boys and girls in this state
between fourteen and sixteen who have not secured adequate preparation
for life work in the schools and who are now working in “dead end” or
“blind alley” jobs, or in other words, jobs which hold no promise of
future competence or advancement. The investigations in Massachusetts
and New York city show that not more than one out of five of the
pupils leaving school at fourteen do so because it is necessary to
help make a living. The conditions are doubtless even better in
Indiana. The remainder, four out of five, leave school for a variety
of reasons, chief among which is the feeling among pupils and parents
that the schools do not offer the kind of instruction which they need
for the work they expect to do and which would justify them in
foregoing wage earning for a time in order to get it.”
The commission found no organized effort in Indiana to put pupils in
touch with the opportunities for life work. The pupils are in the main,
it declares, left to their own resources in choosing a vocation except
where enterprising teachers have been able to give personal advice. It
believes that every city and town should survey the vocational
opportunities within its borders and place the information, together
with all information available on vocational work, within reach of the
pupil at the proper age.
Contrary to the claims of some of those who are administering industrial
education in other states the commission found that the largest problem
in carrying out such training is the lack of teachers competent to do
the work. “If the vocational subjects are to find and hold the place
that is due them in the common schools of the state,” says the
commission, “the teachers must be educated to handle them more
effectively than they have been able to handle such subjects in the
past.”
The Indiana statute, which was signed by the governor in March,
established a state system of vocational education and gave state aid
for training in industries, agriculture and domestic science, through
all-day, part-time, continuation and evening schools. This work is to be
carried on either in separate schools or in special departments of
regular high schools. In every case, the local control is vested in the
regular board of education for the community and the laws are to be
administered as a whole by the State Board of Education. The state board
has been reorganized so that seven of its members must be professional
educators. The remaining five may be laymen. Two of the laymen must be
citizens of prominence and three of them shall be actively interested in
vocational education. One of these last three shall be a representative
of employes and one of employers. Attendance upon day or part-time
classes is restricted to persons over fourteen and under twenty-five
years of age; and upon evening classes to persons over seventeen years
of age. The state superintendent of public instruction is made the
executive officer and a deputy superintendent is to be placed under him
in charge of industrial and domestic science education. The agricultural
work is carried on by another deputy.
Local communities are required to supply the plant and equipment for
carrying on the work. When this has been approved by the State Board of
Education, the community is to be reimbursed out of the state treasury
to the amount of two-thirds the salary of each teacher giving
instruction either in vocational or technical subjects.
In order to secure the benefit of the knowledge and co-operation of the
layman, local school authorities are required to appoint, subject to the
approval of the State Board of Education, advisory committees composed
of members representing local trades and industries, whose duty it shall
be to counsel with the board and other officials in the conduct of the
affairs of the school.
In both Pennsylvania and New Jersey bills creating state systems of
vocational education are likely to pass soon. The Pennsylvania measure
has already gone through the House by a vote of 182 to 2. This latter
bill is very similar to the Indiana act. The State Board of Education
administers the act, with the state superintendent of public instruction
as the executive officer.
The regular board of education is in charge of the local schools. They
are required to appoint advisory committees composed of members
representing local trades, industries and occupations, to aid them in
making the work practical and effective.
In general the New Jersey measure is similar to those of Indiana and
Pennsylvania. There also the work is to be administered by the State
Board of Education and local boards of education, and may be carried on
either in approved schools or departments; these departments must
consist of separate courses, pupils and teachers. Advisory committees
are not provided for in the act, but it is expected that these will be
required by the board of education under authority conferred by previous
legislation.
In Connecticut and New York, which have already made some provision for
vocational education, laws are pending which considerably extend the
scope of the systems. In Washington a measure establishing a “dual”
system of vocational schools is regarded as unlikely of passage. In
Massachusetts a pending amendment to a former act authorizes school
committees, with the approval of the State Board of Education, to
require every child between fourteen and sixteen years of age who is
regularly employed not less than six hours a day, to attend school at
the rate of not less than four hours per week, during the school year.
Another measure which will probably become a law raises the compulsory
school age from fourteen to fifteen, for all children, and for
illiterates from sixteen to seventeen. Attendance on a vocational school
of children fourteen years of age is accepted as school attendance.