How Hard an Effort?

Despite the outcry after Sputnik, the actual outlay of the average U.S. school district is only 1.7% more per pupil than in 1958. School Management magazine, which recently invented a "Cost of Education Index," reported last week that the average district puts out 10.1% more in dollars than in 1958, but school costs have risen 8.4%. And some areas are spending less in real dollars for education than at the time Sputnik soared and critics roared.

Is massive federal aid the answer? Not everywhere, suggests the magazine, which devised a "local effort" formula to measure a school district's performance as compared with its possibilities. Key is the property tax, source of local school income. The magazine figured out the actual market value of all property in 1,200 sample districts across the U.S., and in each case divided into the total the number of pupils to be educated from the property tax. Result: the true wealth behind each pupil--if citizens cared to tax it heavily enough. Calculating what each district spent per pupil as a percentage of the wealth behind him gives the district's index of effort.

By this index, the average U.S. school district measures .92%. Best effort: 1.67 in New England, though many of its districts are poor. In the South the average is only .59. On the prosperous West Coast the rate is a rock-bottom .57%.

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