Biennial Survey of Education in the United States, 1932-1934. Bulletin, 1935, No. 2. Chapter VIII: A Review of Educational Legislation 1933 and 1934

Acts by State legislatures affecting schools, colleges, and universities during 1933 and 1934 are reviewed herein. During this biennium the legislature of every State had one or more legislative sessions; all of them except Alabama had regular sessions. In approximately three-fourths of the States special sessions of the legislature were called. Moreover, many legislative and constitutional measures affecting education were referred to the people for their determination. This biennium, like the preceding two years, was marked by unusual legislative activity. Efforts to meet the strains produced by the economic crisis dominated the legislative scene. To relieve hard-pressed property owners, many legislatures lowered property tax levies. When this action left schools without sufficient income from local sources many legislatures increased the amount of State funds distributed for the support of schools. These funds were raised by recourse to new non-property tax sources, such as sales taxes and income taxes. Moreover, the legislature acted to reduce the cost of maintaining schools by cutting teachers' salaries, consolidating school administrative units, reorganizing State systems of higher education, extending State control over local school district budgeting, and other means. The central tendency of the legislative action in the past two years appears to be a vigorous extension of the principle of State responsibility for public education. Major legislative trends evident during the biennium are: (1) Extension of State control over administration of public education; (2) Revision of local school administrative organizations and functions; (3) Assumption by the State of wider responsibility for financial support of education; (4) Extension of State control over expenditures for public education; (5) Improvement or revision of methods of distributing State funds for schools; (6) Use of new taxes to raise money for schools; (7) Increased pressure to insure economy and efficiency in the operation of public schools; (8) Elimination of ex-officio members on State boards of education; (9) Coordination of work and functions of institutions of higher education within the respective States; (10) Extension of the practice of requiring tuition of students attending public institutions of higher education; (11) Extension of provisions for free textbooks for school children; (12) Insistence on better provisions for health and safety of school children; and (13) Improvement of facilities for Negroes in institutions for higher education. An index is included. (Contains 4 footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.