- Minutes of the Curriculum Revision Committee, School of Education, for Friday, September 30, 1938 The meeting convened at 2:50 in Dean Schwegler's office. All members were present, Chairman Russell presiding. Reading of the minutes of the previous meeting was dispensed with. After extended discussion of the sixty hour curriculum for students preparing to teach in elementary schools, it was moved by Schwegler, seconded by OBrien, that the following four-semester curriculum be recommended to the . faculty of the School of Education for adoption: First Semester ~ Principles of Geography ss) Social Science Survey 5 Principles of English Composition (Rhetoric) 2 Elementary School Music 5 Health Education: Personal Hygiene and Community Health _3 16 Second Semester Principles of English —— (Rhetoric) 5 Social Science : : 5 Elementary School Art 3 Playground 5 Principles of Speech eel Elective . | 16 : Third Semester Psychology 3 ethods of Teaching (M1) | 3 Essentials of Reading | 3 Children's Literature 2 Observation and Participation — or elective 2 16 Fourth Semester American or English Literature 3 Management and Administration of amiers Education (A2) 2 Observation and Participation (If not taken previously) 5 Elective — 3 . _§-10 15 Committee adjourned. E. E. Bayles Secretary October ll, 1938. this Steet Wheniihinn oludek, dia. Shab Seuteenier soba a ee a Teacher's Diplams OPTION I: For school superintendents, high eshool | reg and | ne (pe77, eae —e : and Heal: 20 hours in fos dashes 2 Re thee A sateen OPTION IIs For school psychologists and teachers of ooeniel angen sata @s 78, mee noe « 50 lta ins Pheabead whcontlons (See _ page 62 in relation to certificate for Class A schools) UNIVERSITY TEACHER *S ae (pe S1, University ee . cafe for Chass heaton) \ FOARAH | Director of Physical Edueations THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS SCHOOL OF EDUCATION LAWRENCE OFFICE OF THE DEAN October 13, 1938 Monday - October 17 ~ 4:30 p.m. - Fraser Theater My dear Colleague: There is a very definite tendency for professional people of substantially every type to combine in more or less closely knit organizations for the purpose of promoting their social status, their security of adjustment, aid to protect tiemselves against untoward influences from without. How necessary this is in the case of teachers on every level you have of course long ago learned. May I cail your attention to the fact that the Kansas State Teach- ers Association, an organization which undertakes to extend a helping hand to teechers of every sort in the State of Kansas is making a definite effort this year to increase its usefulness and that it is calling a meeting of the teaching staff of the Univer- sity of Kansas for next Monday afternoon, October 17, at four-thirty o'clock, in Fraser Theater, for the purpose of presenting its program and explaining its plans. Superintendent F. L. Pinet who for many years has been the secretary of the organization and Mr. C. 0. Wright, formerly of Atchison, now the assistant secretary, will be present. They will give a bird's eye view of the organization, its legislative program, its plans for a statewide retirement program to be presented shortly before the legislature, and suck other matters as may be germane to our situa- tion. I believe it would be worth your while to take the hour and invest it in iecarning whet this organizution plans to do for you and for our profession. I say this regardless of the special subject matter that you may be teaching or the school with which you may be affiliated. Professionally our problems are very similar to those of other teachers in public schools, and for that reason we are, ultimately at least, keenly interested in legislation and in social arrangements that bear upon teachers as a body of professional folk. Monday -- October 17 -- 4:30 p.m. -=- Fraser Theater. Sincerely yours, This pamphlet is sent to you as a member of the Kansas State Teachers Association so that you may be familiar with the proposals for 2. Kansas retirement program. K. S. T. A. membership cards are available this year in the office of the Dean of the School of Fducation and in the Chancellor's Office. ee ee ee ee SS ee eS School Retirement for ransas A Report To The Legislative Committee Of The Kansas State Teachers Association By R. V. Phinney August, 1938 A publication of The Kansas State Teachers Association. 315 West Tenth Street, Topeka, Kansas EET ee School Retirement For Kansas A Report by R. V. Phinney, Superintendent of Schools, Larned, Kansas THE AMERICAN RETIREMENT PROGRAM Te federal government has recently adopted a national policy of providing old-age annuities for all wage earners on a business basis, and many of the states have already applied this policy so that two- thirds of the public school teachers and some 80 to 90 per cent of all the wage earners of the nation are under some form of retirement plan. The earlier teacher retirement laws date back to 1908. Retire- ment has long been an established procedure in the post office and throughout the federal civil service; also with the railroads, other corporations, and with the churches, etc. In 1935 the National Social Security Act organized and systematized this movement under govern- ment management, and vastly extended it. This law announced old- age benefits based on “any service, of whatever nature, performed within the United States by an employee for his employer.” The gov- ernment then proceeded to provide for this protection for clerks, jani- tors, barbers, bank cashiers, factory workers, typists, laundry women, Hollywood actors, Mexican section hands, Chinese in the salmon can- neries, non-naturalized Polacks in the steel mills, Japanese employees in Hawaii, auto mechanics, supreme court justices, Pullman porters, floor walkers, southern mill hands, lumber jacks, corporation execu- tives, saloon bar tenders, etc. Having planned this gigantic and revolutionary program, the fed- eral government did a strange thing: it picked out three minor groups of wage earners, who are not otherwise protected, and declared them to be ineligible to participate like other wage earners. These three groups are farm hands, hired girls in the homes, and the teachers and other employees of the states and their subdivisions. For the teachers and other state employees there is a legal techni- cality which the Congress did not bother to avoid. The federal retire- ment program is financed by payroll taxes. Under our federal system state pay rolls are not subject to national taxation. So for redress, the school people must apply to the state legislature. Half the states have already taken care of their school employees. Kansas has not. The retirement movement is no longer a theory. It did not originate in the schools, and it was not brought to Kansas by the teachers. The arguments about retirement are, relatively speaking, accepted. The methods have been established by American business and the Ameri- can government. The system is in operation. There are only two main questions at issue: (1) Are Kansas school employees to get what wage earners in other lines almost universally get now; or are teach- ers ineligible to the rights so generally enjoyed by other American citizens? (2) Will the employing school system of Kansas accept its responsibilities, as a modern employer of labor, for the welfare of its school employees, or will it refuse? This bulletin, then, is devoted to listing the accepted principles and procedures of modern retirement and to presenting the significant facts and problems peculiar to the Kansas school situation. Our plan of campaign is to get the facts before the teachers, the public, and the legislature, and see what they will do about it. We cannot expect the state to act until it understands. We can hardly expect the public to understand until the teachers in every community of the state tell the people about it. What School Retirement Is School retirement is not to be confused with old-age retirement assistance, which is based on wholly different principles. The govern- ment of Kansas as a government would donate nothing to teacher retirement. But the employing school system in Kansas, which hap- pens to be a publicly owned enterprise, would cooperate in providing old-age annuities for its own employees, the school people. Today the state itself is the only large-scale employer operating within the state, which does not already do this. The theory that old-age retirement is the concern of only a few aged and feeble job holders was always hopelessly inadequate, and is now obsolete in America. Instead the established principle is that throughout the working life of each and every employee, the employer and the employee shall contribute 50-50 through pay roll taxes, to build up an annuity for the old age of the employee. Hence: excepting for the temporary young teachers who do not plan to continue long at any kind of work for wages, school retirement is of concern to all teachers: to those aged 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70; to those in large cities and in small towns and in rural districts, on the same terms. New Principles of Retirement America is rapidly abandoning the antiquated practices of provid- ing retirement annuities only for those lucky workers who are still on the job at retirement age, and of putting all the employer responsi- bility on the last employer only. Instead every employer and every pay check or pay warrant contributes its share throughout the earning years. Retirement rights are not to be cancelled or cashed-in or lost in any way either because of chance of occupation, or lack of a job when retirement age arrives. Retirement rights are for all, and are based upon service records. When pay checks cease, these rights oper- ate like deferred annuities, with paid-up values in proportion, and when retirement age arrives these become active annuities. Cashing in is neither required nor ordinarily permitted. One major purpose of a modern retirement system is to insure that the employee shall not become a public charge in his or her old age. Cashing in would defeat this major purpose. The question of the financial need of the retiring worker is ruled out in the modern, business type of retirement system. The retiring postal employee or railroad worker is not asked what other resources he has; for that matter, farm assistance has been given freely to well-to-do and to rich men, without regard to their riches. The day of retirement for selected types of employees only, is over. Modern school retirement includes all school employees, janitors, school nurses, stenographers, clerks, bus drivers, as well as certified teachers and administrators. There is some tendency to include in- structors and other employees of the state colleges, and also public library workers in order to cover the public educational system com- pletely in one logical, harmonious program. School retirement is no longer a remote thing existing in the large cities and industrialized states far from Kansas. It has been adopted by our neighboring prairie states of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Dakota and Minnesota. The movement is already well under way in Missouri and Oklahoma. Unless we get action soon, Kansas may be the last state in the Union to recognize worker rights for its own school employees. : So far America has concerned itself about old-age retirement on a business basis for wage earners only. Farmers and independent busi- ness men are not included. Whether or not they want retirement for which they have to pay aS wage earners do, is a question. If they do, it seems probable that all they will need to do is to ask Congress for it. - The farmer seems to prefer what he is already getting in many ways through government aid. He gets more and he gets it now instead of paying out and waiting until he is old, as the wage earner does with his retirement. If all the workers of Kansas who are already protected under retire- ment provisions of the business type, and all the farmers who are be- ing helped by the government, will favor giving the school employees retirement rights comparable to other workers, this movement will succeed quickly. The teachers can sympathize with the other groups forgotten by the federal retirement laws, the farm hands and the hired girls, and other state employees, but they can hardly assume to plan or to speak for them. The retirement system is one application of the modern American theory that the employer and the government both bear a responsi- bility for the welfare of employees. This theory is also taking form in vacations with pay, sick leave on pay, cooperative hospitalization, extra pay for overtime, compensation for injuries, tenure protection against discharge without adequate cause, unemployment insurance, minimum wages, maximum hours, etc. The United States Government and the “soulless corporations” have gone far on these lines. The state of Kansas as a big employer has so far practically ignored this movement. Most of its school employees have not been granted a single one of the worker welfare rights listed above. This may be partly the fault of the teachers, because they have not pressed their case. So the teachers are now asking for just one item in this broad program, retirement. Inevitably, as other worker rights get generally established, the teachers will ask to be attached to the tail end of the procession again. The State Has the Responsibility It should be clear who is the employer of the teachers. Kansas has a state school system. The local schools are merely local agents for the state, without authority to open a school, to levy a tax, to employ a teacher or to retire anyone on an annuity, or to do anything at all except as authorized and directed by the state which is the real author- ity. The local railroad shop or station does not put employees on re- tirement, nor the local post office or telephone office. Other states have generally learned to treat school retirement as a state and not a local function, to be managed and financed by the state directly. About three-fourths of the school employees of Kansas are in the rural schools and small towns, which have few employees per district and change them often. Outside the larger cities, only a state system seems capable of handling the situation. Seven of the larger cities now operate local systems and may wish to continue independently. Their systems are neither modern nor adequate. Just how they would make it alone with a modern system is a question. Their tenure prac- tices are quite different from those of the smaller places. When Kansas accepts its responsibility, as an employer of labor, for its share of retirement costs, it will take a little tax money. Can Kansas afford it? Kansas has accepted this sort of retirement for most of the other wage earners of the state; and, accepted it during the depths of depression without waiting for better times. School retirement would in comparison carry a very small bill. Having swallowed the camel, will Kansas strain at the gnat? Teachers and other school employees, because they pay indirect taxes of many kinds, and because they are consumers paying added costs, contribute all the time to the cost of retirement for all the other wage earners, the clerks, factory workers, railroad men, postal em- ployees, etc. Moreover teachers thus contribute to farm aid. They are glad to do this. But it is a poor rule that does not work both ways. Teachers also will have to pay for their own retirement program, and keep on paying as long as they teach. This is business retirement, not relief assistance. Might the teacher, then, do as well to put her money into commercial savings or insurance with annuities, and let retirement alone? That is where the joint responsibility of the em- ployer comes in. The employing school system should match teacher contributions, and so double their value. Moreover, most wage earn- ers seem to need a little compulsion and guidance in this line. What Annuity Should Be Provided for School Employees? How much annuity can the teachers expect? Modern retirement annuities, except for set maximums, are based on length of service and the size of the payroll taxes involved for each individual. School employee annuities should be comparable to annuities for other work- ers, being figured on a similar basis. The teacher who has credit for only a few years’ service, at a small salary, will automatically get a small annuity. This annuity may be very unfortunate, but it presents a social problem that goes too deep to be solved by the accepted retire- ment practices. Retirement is not to be confused with tenure or unemployment. It is a serious matter when a worker is out of employment at age 50 or 55. But it is not a retirement problem. For such people, retirement does hold the important promise of an annuity to fall back on when retirement age comes. In schools, retirement is generally provided sometime between ages 60 to 70. Outside of schools, America favors the median age 65. A survey of the state makes clear that just any sort of retirement system will not do. Unless we are careful we may set up a retirement system that will create as much unfairness and unjustice as it cures —_ discriminations between teacher and teacher, and between city and country schools. We want no favoritism and no lottery with prizes for the lucky few. Nor is it wise to slash in and cut the cloth wrong, for it might then be impossible ever to make it really fit. The chief danger may be graphically presented in the story of three Kansas teachers, Miss X, Miss Y, and Miss Z. Some thirty years ago they were young women of the same age teaching in the same com- munity. All three have given the best years of their lives, and indeed practically all the work they can ever do, to the schools of Kansas. Today Miss X is settled in a good teaching position in a large first- class city of the state, with assurance of holding her place until she may be retired on an annuity. Miss Y was let out in her early fifties because a board member wanted a young neighbor to have her place, and Miss Y had some gray hairs. Of course, she can’t get any other job. Miss Z is now about 58 years of age, and is still employed in a small town school. For the sake of her health she should quit and she may have to quit any day. Kansas does not want a retirement system which will take care of Miss X, but slam the door in the faces of Miss Y and Miss Z. THE KANSAS SCHOOL RETIREMENT SURVEY OF 1938 What It Shows Through the courtesy and help of local school people over the state, the Legislative Committee of the Kansas State Teachers Association collected data on school employees in the spring of 1938. Reports com- plete enough for tabulation were received from half the first-class cities, from more than half of the second-class cities, and from ens- third of the counties, including the smaller cities and towns. These reports cover in all some seven thousand school employees of every type in every part of the state. Most of the calculations below are based on all-state estimates computed from this considerable sampl- ing. Use has also been made of the reports of the state superintendent, of the American experience table of mortality, etc. The tabulations are many, complicated and bulky; so for the present purpose the sig- nificant showings have been selected and condensed. Of course these figures are only approximate and only round numbers are used. It may be questioned if precise figures can be obtained on some of these points. All this has been done mostly with volunteer labor at a trifling cost in money. How many teachers of retirement age (age 65 or more) are there in Kansas? The term teacher includes all administrators unless other- wise stated. The number now in service is about 120. The number now living, who are ex-teachers, and who have a school record of twenty years or more, is about 1900. If Kansas is to provide for aging persons who have already given the best years of their lives to school service, her chief immediate con- cern is with the 1900 ex-teachers listed. How many teachers are there who are still in service and who are past the maximum age of 70? About a dozen in all the state. Since teachers in service ordinarily may retire at age 60, how many are there aged 60 or more? About 325. Where are these 325 older teachers? The cities of the first class have 35% of them and 14% of all teachers of the state. The larger cities of the second class have 16% of them and 8% of all teachers of the state. The smaller cities of the second class have 15% of them and 8% of all teachers of the state. The smaller cities and towns have 30% of them and 36% of all teachers of the state. The rural schools have not over 4% and 34% of all teachers of the state. That is, where there is one retirable teacher in service now in rural schools, in proportion there are at least twenty in cities of the first class. A large fraction of the counties and some cities of the second class report no active teachers past age 50. Retirement direct from service only thus seems to favor the large cities beyond all reason. Are the 120 teachers now in service and aged 65 or more, and the 325 aged 60 or more, the real retirement problem? There are about 6,500 teachers now in service in the state, who are 35 years or more of age. These people have been teaching on an aver- _ age more than ten years. The women have passed the ordinary marry- ing age. Both the men and the women have passed the age when they can have much chance of getting established in other work. Most of these people will stay in teaching as long as they can. They are as near permanent in their vocation as most any working group in America, so far as their own plans are concerned. Whatever retire- ment rights they are ever to get as employees, must come mostly from the school system. Where are these 6,500 permanent teachers? About 1,560 are in cities of the first class. About 1,300 are in cities of the second class. About 2,750 are in the smaller cities and towns. About 900 are in rural schools. In this connection we must allow for the migration of teachers from rural to town schools, and from town to city schools. How many city teachers began teaching in small towns ? About 25 % of those now teaching in first and second-class cities. How many city and town teachers began in rural schools? About 40 % of those now teaching in first and second-class cities. About 60% of those now teaching in smaller cities and towns. So a retirement program that would provide for these 6,500 per- manent teachers on a service basis would be in reality a state-wide program, which would reach every county and nearly every town. The same may be said for the 1,900 ex-teachers now aged 65 or more. How long will these 6,500 permanent teachers be allowed to con- tinue to earn a living by teaching? They are now aged 35. 50% of them will still be teaching at age 43. 40 % of them will still be teaching at age 45. 15% of them will still be teaching at age 55. 10% of them will still be teaching at age 60. That is, half of them will be “liquidated” after eight years; and only one out of ten will hold on until 60, the earliest retirement age. The earning life of even a “permanent teacher” in Kansas is indeed short. At least in Kansas schools old age begins at forty; and other jobs by that time are mostly closed. It is deemed wholly impractical to put people on old-age retirement allowances in the forties and the fifties, but school retirement can at least offer them something to depend upon when retirement age does come. In first-class cities how long will these “permanent teachers’ be allowed to continue to earn a living by teaching ? 80 % will still be in service at age 45. 40 % will still be in service at age 55. 20 % will still be in service at age 60. ; So even in the large cities retirement direct from service seems to leave most life-long teachers without old age protection. It might be noted that the school boards who let these teachers out in the forties and fifties, are mostly farmers and small town business men, who themselves expect to continue in their own work into the sixties or even later. How long do teachers continue in the employment of one school district ? In the rural schools the median is 3 years. In towns and cities of the third class the median is also 3 years. In cities of the first class the median is 12 years. For the state as a whole the median is 5 years. It would seem that outside the large cities nothing but a state sys- tem can handle the situation; and the tenure in the large cities raises questions. It seems proper to insert here some data on what teachers earn dur- ing this brief teaching life. We have now an official United States standard for minimum wages, set especially for the mill hands of the South. After much jewing down, Congress set a legal standard mini- mum wage, and also a temporary minimum wage. Allowing for full time employment for mill hands and the usual school term for teachers, although many in both groups are not so fortunate, we find that: About 25 Kansas teachers get less than $300 per year. The median salary of Kansas rural teachers is under $500 per year. The temporary minimum wages of mill hands is $572 per year. The standard minimum wages of mill hands is $832 per year. The median salary for Kansas school janitors is about $850 per year. The average salary of all Kansas teachers, including all adminis- _trators is $886 per year. Southern mill hands do not have to go to summer school, or even know how to read. Not all of them even wear shoes at their work. They already have old-age protection, and unemployment insurance. The theory that the Kansas teacher is pretty well fixed financially and may not need any old-age protection such as railroad men and postal clerks have, seems from the facts to be a mirage. How about the other theory that teachers have no one but them- selves to support? Our reports show that more than one-third of all women teachers regularly support dependents. If we omit the very young girl teach- ers, it may be assumed that more than half of all permanent women teachers regularly support dependents. Of course nearly all perma- nent men teachers have families. The median age of all Kansas teachers and administrators is age 30. Median age of permanent teachers and administrators is age 43. The median age of Kansas school janitors is about age 52. The extra earning years allowed the janitor is quite an item. Teach- ing in Kansas does not seem to be relatively lucrative. Mention was made above to a possible probation period before young teachers would be admitted to membership in the retirement system. How many such young teachers are there? About 25% of all Kansas teachers have served 8 years or less. About 40% of all Kansas teachers have served 5 years or less. About 50% of all Kansas teachers have served 8 years or less. About 60% of all Kansas teachers have served 10 years or less. We now turn to afew figures and comparisons which may have no special significance: About 20% of Kansas teachers are men, administrators included. About 70% of the administrators are men. Of the teachers aged 60 or more— More than one-fourth are men. The number is aioout 65. Less than three-fourths are women. The number is about 235. Retirement on a service basis would affect the sexes about oo Some medians in total years of service: All teachers in cities of first class, 17 years All teachers in larger cities of second class, 13 years All teachers in smaller cities second class, 10 years All teachers in towns, 8 years All teachers in rural schools, 4 years All men teachers and administrators, 9 years All women teachers and administrators, 7 years Office clerks (almost all women), 4 years Janitors (including 9 women reported), 8 years All permanent teachers, as defined above, 20 years or thereabout What of teachers with a service record in other states ? There may be some 3,000 such teachers in the state. Their median of service outside Kansas is about three years. Less than 10% of them have taught over ten years outside of Kansas so they do not seem to present any serious problem. Figures for colored teachers run much the same as for white teachers. Reports on the present financial condition of ex-teachers are not complete enough to warrant conclusions. But only half of those re- ported are in even comfortable circumstances. Doubt has been expressed as to the accuracy of ages as reported by the teachers. At least the ages reported tally pretty well with the number of years taught. And women report themselves almost as old as the men do. A TENTATIVE PLAN TO FIT KANSAS The Legislative Committee of the Kansas State Teachers Associa- tion has had these school retirement plans worked out by a sub-com- mittee for the consideration of the school people of the state. This had been requested by resolutions of the Regional Delegate Assemblies, of the State Delegate Assembly, of the Board of Directors of the Kansas State Teachers Association, and of various local groups of teachers. The existence of a vast and comprehensive retirement program in America does not mean that there is a standardized, ready-made plan for Kansas schools to adopt, or any one single law which will meet our situation in toto. School retirement plans that may work very well in large cities and industrialized states, may not fit the facts on the prairies of Kansas. Fortunately, there has been found an established precedent to solve each particular Kansas problem. The following plan was made by selecting such precedents and fitting them into a consistent whole in harmony with the retirement principles already explained. The plan is tentative. We want the subject kept open for discussion _ and suggestions as long as possible. To emphasize the main features, many minor details have been omitted from this bulletin. A legislature is too likely to change such details anyway. 1. The legislature would set up a state school retirement system. This would cover the entire public school system, excepting only those cities which prefer to continue under independent local systems. State colleges and public libraries could be included. 2. Control would be in the hands of a state board, partly appointed, partly ex-officio, headed by the state superintendent. It would employ a permanent secretary. The state treasurer would be custodian of funds, and also of securities, if any. 3. Retirement annuities would be provided for all regular school employees: teachers, administrators, janitors, nurses, librari- ans, office help, bus drivers, county and state superintendents and their assistants, etc. Part time employees, who serve from year to year would be included. Employees who serve a very few years only might be barred as temporary employees only. 4. Employees in active service could retire at age 60, and must retire by age 70. For employees already out of service, annui- ties might begin at 65, the median age. 5. The cost of annuities would be shared 50-50 by the employees and the employing school system. A tax would be levied on every pay warrant involved, at a uniform per cent rate for all, so that each employee would contribute in proportion to his salary. This tax would be collected by the local school boards, for the state treasurer. The share due from the school system would be transferred directly by the state or county treasurers. The rate of levy might be changed by the state board from year to year to meet changing needs. 6. There would be a maximum annuity. Otherwise the annuity coming to any individual would be in direct proportion to her years of school service, and to the amount of the pay roll tax involved. So it would vary from person to person, and could not be determined in dollars in advance. The school boards hire and fire teachers, decide how long they shall teach, and fix the value of their services in salaries. The retirement system would accept what the school boards have done, and fix annuities in proportion. It is not a function of retirement to equalize in- comes or earnings. However, some states set a minimum annuity. These annuities in proportion, based on school service records, would be provided for all living school employees, past, present, or future, who give the best part of their working lives to school service in Kansas. This includes those who quit at 45, or 55, or 65. It includes those who quit in 1945, or 1975, or 1935, or 1915. Unless we adopt such a comprehensive plan, a few of the teachers of the larger cities will largely monopolize the benefits, ~] and the Misses Y and Z of the story above will be left out in the cold. Modern retirement systems are coming to accept this logical con- clusion of the retirement-on-service principle. Witness the prior serv- ice provisions of nearly all states, the five years of grace allowed ex-teachers in Texas, the life-time option allowed ex-teachers in Wis- consin, and the complete coverage of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania pro- vides a school retirement allowance for anyone who ever taught twenty years or more in the state. Our suggested plan is patterned after Pennsylvania. 8. Retirement allowances to fall into three classes. A. School employees who begin after the pay roll tax is put in operation, would retire at ages 60 to 70 as they choose, on full annuities, for half of which they themselves have paid. The earlier the annuity starts, the less they draw each year. The teacher who taught and contributed only five years, or - ten years, would retain retirement rights in proportion. B. Employees with records prior to the beginning of the pay roll tax to have their allowances in two parts. The first part to be a full allowance in proportion, covering the years under the pay roll tax. The second part to be a half allow- ance, under the title “prior service,” covering the years when the employee did not herself contribute any cash. She contributed service only, which is counted as half pay. - C. Ex-employees who quit before the pay roll tax is put in oper- ation, and who themselves contributed no cash (only serv- ice), and who in most cases could not now make any back payments in cash, would receive only half of a full annuity in proportion. For these ex-employees it seems necessary to follow the Pennsylvania precedent, omit the temporary em- ployees of the past, and provide only for those with a service record of perhaps twenty years or more no matter when they quit, or at what age they quit. Since there can be no optional age for quitting for those who are already ex- employees, their allowances might all begin at age 65, which is the median school retirement age, and also the standard American retirement age. ALTERNATIVE PLANS FOR A RETIREMENT SYSTEM Should the retirement system build up cash reserves like old line insurance, or pay-as-you-go without cumulative cash reserves? Either method could carry out the program outlined above. The Reserve System The reserve method enjoys public confidence, and is thought to offer stability and permanence. It is highly individualistic: each annuity is bought with the actual savings of the person concerned and the state’s service savings in her name. So it makes no difference whether others contribute or not. Texas has a reserve plan which illustrates the system. It squarely faces the modern interest situation. The pay roll tax is 5 per cent on the teacher, and 5 per cent paid out of the state treasury. These 50-50 contributions accumulate .in parallel savings accounts in the state treasury, and interest is added as earned. At retirement, the two accumulations are combined to buy or to issue whatever annuity the current market offers. Thus, like building and loan in Kansas, Texas sidesteps all guarantees of interest rates and of dollar value of annuities. If a Texas teacher dies early, there is a net cash refund for her estate; while if she dies late there is nothing net to be refunded. A disability provision is included and some of the optional forms of settlement common to life insurance are allowed. Since Kansas school pay rolls total about $18,000,000 a year, a 5 per cent pay roll levy would take some $900,000 a year from the teacher, and $900,000 from the employing school system. The school system would also bear the cost of annuities based on non-contributory “prior service.” In Kansas this might cost $470,000 a year at first, and gradually diminish. Compared to other public expenditures, this is not relatively a large sum; but it may look large. Because of the highly individual character of such reserves, it is possible to reduce the cost to the state by one-fourth to one-half, by the simple expedient of a probation period of a few years during which the beginning teacher does not pay the pay roll tax, and the state con- sequently has no payments to match for her. A large portion of these young teachers soon drop out so the state would never contribute any- thing on their account, but only would contribute on account of the permanent teaching force. The Pay-As-You-Go System The pay-as-you-go method accumulates service credit instead of cash reserves. It is not individual, but cooperative. Each generation of employees would pay half of the annuities of its predecessors and in turn receive its own annuities out of current revenue, half of which would be contributed by the succeeding generation of employees. In case of early death there would not be much to refund to the estate; and the advisability of any such refund is questioned. Annuities would work out much the same as with reserves, and there could be disability coverage and optional forms of annuities. Pay-as-you-go resembles assessment life insurance, with one marked exception: the individual members of a school retirement system cannot quit paying dues, and so wreck the system. The big argument for pay-as-you-go is the relatively low cost, at least during the early years of operation. It does not call for a lot of money to lay aside on interest. We estimate that there are, all told, some 2,000 active teachers with prior service records and ex-teachers with twenty or more years of service record, now living, who could at once qualify for the half annuities explained above. This number would nearly perpetuate itself for some years to come. Let us assume a standard annuity to be three-fourths of regular pay, and thirty-five years to be a full time service record, and $900 to be an average salary; and that these prospective annuitants have averaged 24 years of service each. Their “half” annuities (as explained above) would then average $235 each per year; the total cost would then be $470,000 per year. A pay roll levy of 1.4 per cent on the salaries of employees would raise their half of this cost. A property levy of Soo of a mill over the state would raise the $235,000 that represents the share of the employing school system. This means about 50 cents a year from the average citizen as a tax payer. But $470,000 is only the first cost. As teachers with credit for full annuities under the pay roll tax retire, the cost would slowly rise until after many years it would double itself on that account. Also, as teachers now active retire with annuities due for service credit of less than twenty years, the cost would slowly rise on that account. Whether the current cost would eventually be as high as under a re- serve method, depends on too many things to prophecy. Just above we have estimated an average “half” annuity for “prior” and hence non-contributory service at $235 a year. It is not large. No attempt has been made to figure this program on a generous basis. Of course, a “full” annuity to a contributing member with a full 35- year service record and a better than average salary, makes a better showing. In any case, it will yield twice as much as other savings investments. In the M. E. church annuities are made adjustable to changing times (whether good or bad), to changing values of the dollar (either up or down) and to rising standards of living. The annuity standard is based on the current level of salaries, with individual annuities pro- portioned to service records. This highly significant precedent could be applied to a pay-as-you-go school retirement plan. Therein may lie the most important suggestion ever made about old age retirement. How Shall the Money Be Raised? How shall the employing school system raise its share of the cost? In any case, the sum would not be great enough to call for any new source of revenue. The tendency in other states is to meet it by legis- lative appropriation directly from the state treasury. That brings the whole matter before the legislature frequently. Instead, Kansas could follow its own precedent as applied in the Barnes and County tuition laws. The legislature could direct the county commissioners in each county to levy the necessary tax, as determined by the state retirement board and certified through the state and county superintendents. That might give more assurance of permanency without abandoning unified state management. WHAT SHALL THE TEACHERS DO ABOUT RETIREMENT? The teachers in many of the larger cities of Kansas have been actively engaged in studying and planning along the lines of this bulletin. But the vast majority of Kansas teachers, who live in the small towns and in the country, have not. It may be questioned if the schools of Kansas outside the larger cities will have retirement rights or any other of the rights of wage earners which are now so common for other workers all over America, until the mature teachers of rural and small town Kansas cooperate with each other and take an active interest. The school patrons, the members of school boards, and the members of the legislature have plenty of troubles of their own. Your State Teachers Association can provide leadership and help. But there is no one to take up the interests of the teachers effectively except the rank and file of the teachers themselves. School boards and tax payers may of themselves be actively interested in such school movements as state aid, but teacher retirement is primarily a teacher affair. An educational campaign is suggested. And the first class to be educated is the teachers themselves. The minority who are already interested in this program can accomplish little until the rest under- stand and cooperate. In the larger cities, groups of teachers have formed themselves into study clubs. It is suggested that at least the mature teachers in every community also form thmselves into local study clubs early this fall or use their organized study groups for the purpose. County and local teachers associations can stress the subject. Inexpensive study material is available in convenient, condensed form. The N.E.A., 1201 Sixteenth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.; issues a Research Bulletin (Vol. XV-No. 3) on Teacher Retirement Systems. Single copies 50 cents. Ten copies for $3.75. The Office of Education, U. S. Department of Interior, Washington, D. C., issues Bulletin 1934, No. 6 on Teacher Retirement Systems. Price 5 cents each. The State Department of Education has recently issued a bulle- tin (Bulletin 4 of the Kansas Program for the Improvement of In- struction) which includes material on this subject. The various monthly issues of the KANSAS TEACHER contain articles on the subject of teacher retirement. Starting with the September, 1938, issue more emphasis will be placed on these articles on school retirement by the KANSAS TEACHER. If the demand justifies, the State Teachers Associa- tion will try to provide copies of this report for study, and also to send representatives to meet with local study clubs. When a local club has studied the situation and the facts and has opinions to express, it can do something definite to inform the public. It can send its own local speakers to the women’s clubs, the men’s ser'v- ice clubs, the P.T.A., etc. It can get explanatory articles in the local papers. The Bulletins contain the material for such articles, and it may find editors who will take a stand in the editorial column. It can personally interview school board members, editors, members of the legislature, etc., and at least let them know that there is such a thing as school retirement, and that the local teachers are interested. All this, if done this fall, may have its weight with the Legislature of 1939. And without some such local show of interest, it is hard to see how the legislature can be moved. It is assumed that the local teachers will have to put up a little money for the expenses incident to their own activities, just as such groups do in the business world. September 30, 1938, Dean. Re Ae. Sclwegler, Sehool of Educations Dear Dean Schwegler: Shiishe ‘vote Dime Wik Seckclbietlé Sintuenk: Mihi sine aural | Bverybody was prin payne nog Mygtoneye al on just like e comensonont address and it hit the spote . I think the neeting was very much worth while, and ee Very sincerely yours, a eh FCAsATI | Varsity Basketball Coach. Dre Allen —= Dean Schwegler stopped at the office this afternoon and asked me to give you the following message: Referring to Sece I of the University catalog, pages 76, 7%, 78 = Option I, For School Superintendents, High School Principels, and Supervisors = with a minor in Physical Training and Health Option II, For School Psychologists and Teachers of Special Subject Matters - with a minor in Physical Education and Health. This was the set up wmder the old system before the Four-Year Curriculum in Physical Education wes inauguratede Obviously the new four-year curriculum is the better plan. Dean Schwegler is asking if either one or the other of these options, or both, should be kept in the regulations, or should they be omitted. He feels it is a matter of departmental policy, and he person= ally has no feeling in the matter, pro or cone He would like you to discuss this with the members of this department, and get their feaction, and then report to him prior to the Education Faculty meeting which is to be held next Tuesday. He thinks the matter might be settled at this meeting, or at the next faculty meetings : es septenbe® 50, 1958, Dean Re As Sehwegier, School of Educatione | en “Tam enclosing a letter which I have just written to Chancellor Lindley. This was a thought that occurred to me that might help you in your project. I thought you might also wish to contact the Chancellor about this scheme. I want you to Imow that Wednesday morning I took the Chancellor dom to the intramural field and he seemed greatly pleased at the great length we had spread the students‘ - intramural money. in the next few days or a week we will have that play field looking grand dow there. 1 We you Se sank it over at your conveniences diechinndiy seeewine x toc Whitamen Ko the toate toe to lock it over, and in the afternoon Blaine Grimes, president of the Men's Student Coumcil, accompanied me to the spot. They ave all intumely pheneed at the preeress we ate meking 2uF on enlargement of the student play facilitiese Thenk you very much for your possible solution of silencing criticisms. I heartily agree that this is a very good plan, and if you will ask it I am sure it will be product= ive of great goods Thank you very much. Very sincerely yours, Director of Physical Education, FCAsAH ‘Varsity Dasketball Coaches Ence g THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS SCHOOL OF EDUCATION LAWRENCE OFFICE OF THE DEAN September 28, 1938 Dr. F. C. Allen Robinson Gym. My dear Dr. Allen: I have your two communications of September 22, one with reference to the visit of the Chancellor to the gymnasium and the other your recuest for suggestions concerning the condition of the gymnasium. I want to congratulate you upon having the Chancellor over. I think it was a step that is likely to prove productive in the changes which you feel should be made. Referring to your second question, namely ways and means of silencing criticism, my suggestion is that the matter ought to be handled through the committee on university athletics. It seems to me that that committee might well be asked to make an inspection and that such suggestions as they may have may be taken under serious consideration -~if necessary presented to the university budget committee for early consideration. It seems to me that proper publicity for such moves when determined upon will silence the opposition, a Sincerely yours, Tard R