Items of Interest October 2, 1915 Issue

Items of Interest

The most radical reconstruction of New York city's school system ever recommended by a city official is contained in a report made to the board of estimate by Comptroller Prendergast, who is also chairman of the board's committee on education. The principal recommendations made are as follows:—

The total elimination of any increase in the budget of the board of education for 1916. The total elimination of part time and overcrowding in the schools. This is to be accomplished by intensive use of school buildings as they now exist. New construction will be limited almost exclusively to new districts, or where present buildings are in bad condition. The extension of the school year of forty weeks to forty-four weeks. The lengthening of the school day from five to six hours. The total elimination of extra pay to teachers for service in vacation schools, and other forms of extra pay for persons employed on annual salaries. A reduction of 10 per cent in the number of positions for teachers. This is made possible by lengthening the school day and the school year. A change in the system of promoting teachers, whereby merit alone shall control. The reduction of the common school course from eight to seven years. Mr. Prendergast commeds the application of the "Gary plan," as specially worked out for New York.

The twenty-second annual convention of the International Irrigation Congress began in Stockton, Cal., Sept. 13, and ended in San Francisco Sept. 20. Meetings were also held in the cities of Fresno and Sacramento. This convention gave serious and extended consideration not only to the administrative and teachnical phases of the subject, but to the pressing humanitarian problems involved in the settlement of the irrigated lands. The subjects discussed included, first, the problems of land settlement, embracing those humanitarian problems growing out of the settlement and development of irrigated lands throughout the West; second, methods and results, within which are included such practical questions as engineering, application of water to land, irrigation law, and irrigation districts; and third, financial problems, including the subject of rural credits, marketing, and means whereby irrigation securities may be strengthened.

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