school media services in 'illinois' regional offices of education

david cooprider
assistant regional superintendent
macon county
decatur, illinois

For many years in Illinois there has been a continuing educational policy debate regarding the structure and role of the intermediate unit of this state's school system, which today is called the Educational Service Region (ESR). The authors of studies contributing to this debate have examined both the functions the ESR should perform and the structure the ESR should have (particularly, the governance structure, with debate centering on an elected versus appointed superintendent). They have made recommendations regarding both. Most studies, though they varied in their recommendations for the ESR's governance structure, have recommended that the ESR perform the function of school media services. This article will review the development of the function of the delivery of school media services from the ESR in Illinois, and then will look at what other states' intermediate units are doing about providing school media services to their schools. Finally, we will review the recommendations which have been made in recent studies for the school media services functions of the ESR in Illinois.

I. Development of the Educational Service Region in Illinois

The intermediate unit, presently named the Educational Service Region, has its origins in the County School Lands Commissioner of the early 1800s.¹ This officer was directly elected by the people and was frequently referred to as the County School Commissioner. The function of this office originally was to oversee the funds derived from the sale, rent, or use of the school lands set aside by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 — the sixteenth section of each township. This responsibility gradually came to include enforcement of the growing number of state regulations regarding the school funds. Along with enforcement came interpretation of the regulations, and in a natural evolution, advisement regarding school operations.

In 1865 Illinois changed the name of the County School Land Commissioner to County Superinteindent of Schools. The growing responsibility of the superintendent in the enforcement of school regulations continued. The advisement of school operations evolved quickly into supervision and significant control of the schools, particularly the many small rural schools. The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century County Superintendent of Schools visited and supervised the many schools in his jurisdiction, enforced school regulations, issued teachers certificates, and conducted the examinations which qualified individuals to receive certificates. He (or she — there were many female county superintendents) completed and transmitted to the state office of public instruction the required reports. He also conducted examinations of the students at the eighth-grade level to determine if they were to graduate.

Illinois statute in that period required the County Superintendent of Schools to maintain a collection of the texts used by the schools. Apparently the purpose was to provide a library of the materials the schools used for public inspection. Some county superintendents expanded on this function and established small libraries of supplementary instructional materials which they circulated to the small rural schools within their constituencies.

During the period immediately after World War II the many small school districts in Illinois were consolidated into larger school districts. In the five-year period from 1947 to 1952 what had been fifteen thousand school districts in Illinois became only fifteen hundred. The county superintendent then found himself supervising only a few districts, and in some cases only one district. Since the functions of issuing teacher certificates and of conducting eighth-grade examinations had already become obsolete, many county superintendents found they had little enforcement of regulation to do, and began searching for service functions useful to their districts. Consequently, the functions the superintendent performed came to include a number of cooperative services useful to the districts in the county, such as the county film library operated from the office of the county superintendent.

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With the added impetus of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 many services were placed in the office of the county superintendent so that by 1969 the law was changed renaming the holder of this office the Regional Superintendent of Schools. The territory the regional superintendent supervised became known as the Educational Service Region. That same legislation provided for the consolidation of smaller counties (in population) into larger multi-county ESRs so that at the present time what once was one hundred two county superintendents of schools now has become only fifty-seven regional superintendents of schools. However, since population was the sole criterion of consolidation, there remain thirty-one county Educational Service Regions all with a population in excess of thirty-three thousand.

This development in Illinois was not unique. The development in other states of the office of county superintendent of schools paralleled the development of the city superintendency. The first state to establish the county superintendency of schools was Delaware in 1829. New York established this office in 1843, and by 1879 thirty-four of the then thirty-eight states had created the office of county superintendent of schools.

Two general alternate paths of intermediate unit development were followed in the first half of this century. Some states, mostly in the South, developed county units of local school administration. In some cases, these county school districts continued to elect the school superintendent. Eventually most county school districts in these states came to be governed by an elected board and an appointed superintendent. Alternatively, other states (including Illinois) retained the elected county school superintendency, but permitted the formation of small school districts within the county, thus placing the county superintendency in an intermediate position between the local school district and the state department of education.

In response to a number of changes in state school systems after World War II, many states changed the governance structure of the intermediate unit from direct election to one of several alternative structures. In this period, the role of the county superintendent was greatly changed by the massive consolidation of small, rural school districts throughout the nation. Shortly after this period of consolidation, some state legislatures concluded that their states (e.g., New York, Missouri, and Kansas) should abolish or permit local abolition of the office. In its place most of these states established new-style intermediate units primarily to provide needed services on a more efficient scale. Some states which did not abolish the county superintendency transformed it into a very different kind of intermediate unit. Table 1 indicates the name of present intermediate units in some states.

II. School Media Services Delivered From the United Intermediate Units in Other States

Describing the intermediate unit in the United States today is difficult because changes are occurring so rapidly. In 1970, Hooker and Mueller² conducted a survey of the states' intermediate units, and identified thirty-two states with three-echelon state school systems. Only nine years later, Stephens³ identified only twenty-six states which had such intermediate units of school administration.

There is, however, one relatively constant element of the services offered by intermediate units of state school systems. That function is the provision of school media services. School media services is an almost universally observed function in the intermediate units of the states which have them. Stephens' survey found that of 275 such units, 261 or 95 percent offered school media services to the local educational school districts.

The ubiquity of school media services in other states' intermediate units, however, is not surprising, given the historical developments in several of the states. In Iowa and Texas, for example, the funds received in the mid-sixties through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (PL89-10), Titles II and III particularly, enabled those states to establish large-scale units of media and other regional services to local school districts. These units continue in existence today as the Area Educational Agency in Iowa, and the Regional Educational Service Center in Texas.

In New York, the unit called the Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), and the unit in Michigan called the Intermediate School District were primary recipients in their states of funds to establish and implement full-scale instructional media services for their constituent districts.

Such services seem to be very popular where they are provided. Stephens⁴ found that media and library services was ranked third in importance among twenty-six program areas, behind only general administration and special education. Stephens subsumed the following services under the heading of media and library services: audiovisual equipment loan; audiovisual equipment repair; curriculum library services; educational television; production center; film library; TV tape production; other instructional materials; professional library services; tape/record/TV tape library.

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III. School Media Services as a Recommended Function for Illinois' Educational Service Region

Over the past twenty-five years at least thirteen studies have focused on the Illinois intermediate Unit — its functions and its governance structure. Nine of these studies made specific recommendations regarding the services the office should offer. (See Table 2.)

For some of the authors of these studies, the inclusion of media services as a recommended function of the ESR was a result of a view of the intermediate unit as an office which could make more effiicient the delivery of needed educational services. That is, the ESR was perceived as an element of a rational system of school resources management, effecting economies of scale which would benefit the smaller units of local schools. For others the recommendation came as a result of asking educators whether such a function should be provided by the ESR.

Three studies specifically recommended that the ESR perform school media service functions, and arrived at that recommendation from the "efficiency" point of view. They were Pringle⁵ in 1957, Stephens⁶ in 1977, and The Educational Service Region Study Commission chaired by Nowlan⁷ in 1979.

Pringle's study in 1957 was one of the earliest of the "modern" studies regarding Illinois' intermediate unit. He examined the then existing County Superintendent of Schools office and made a number of recommendations based on an analysis of the functions he thought it should perform. From this basis he concluded that a restructured and consolidated county office of education in Illinois should offer "A minimum program of services to be offered to local school districts by the intermediate administrative unit should include . . . library and audiovisual (services)."⁸

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Stephens conducted a study of the ESR in 1977 and made a number of recommendations regarding the services the unit should offer and how it should be structured. Among them he recommended in these words that the ESR perform media services:

Each Educational Service Region, either unilaterally or jointly with other Educational Service Regions, should have responsibility for the development and administration (but not necessarily the direct operation) of a comprehensive media program including: film library; closed circuit television; professional library; production center for the development of slides, charts, maps, study prints, and models; fine art prints; printing services; tape and record library; specialized reference textbooks and materials; and, audiovisual repair and loan services. A full range of support services should be provided including a planning component, curriculum development component, staff development component, evaluation component, and delivery system. All existing publicly supported media joint agreements in the region served by the Educational Service Region should be placed under the administration (but not necessarily the direct operation) of the unit. Large school districts having requisite student population bases should be permitted to operate their own programs, within guidelines developed by the Educational Service Region and the State Board of Education/Illinois Office of Education.⁹

The Educational Service Region Study Commission appointed by the Illinois State Board of Education and chaired by James Nowlan conducted hearings and authorized staff studies regarding the future of the ESR. The commission recommended in 1979

that the Educational Service Regions should be authorized to plan and coordinate services or to supervise other agencies in doing so under guidelines established by the State Board of Education. Such services may include, but are not limited, to the following: (in the list of twelve service areas which follows one is "media services."¹⁰

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Four studies approached the question of what services should be offered by the ESR from the point of view of the preferences of Illinois school administrators. They were Hoffman¹¹ in 1973, Johnson¹² and Ashby,¹³ both in 1976, and this author¹⁴ in 1980.

In his summary Hoffman concluded that the ESR should "provide film library and other instructional material to local school districts."¹⁵ This was based on his finding that more than 60 percent of Illinois school administrators desired this service. Ashby also surveyed a large number of Illinois school administrators and concluded that there was considerable support for the ESR performing many school media functions. Specifically, he recommended that libraries of high-cost materials be maintained at the ESR level, and that they be disseminated to local school districts and buildings from that level.¹⁶ Johnson conducted a survey in 1976 among Illinois school administrators regarding future services to be offered by the ESR. He found that 83 percent of the respondents felt that the ESR should "provide regional audiovisual and media services," and 55 percent thought the ESR should "keep an adequate amount of textbook material available for inspection by educators within the region."¹⁷ This author surveyed members of selected groups influential in school legislation in Illinois in 1980, and found high agreement among them that school media services should be performed by the ESR.

Conclusion

It seems clear that there is substantial agreement among students of the ESR in Illinois that school media services is at least one important area of service which the ESR should offer. Furthermore, it seems clear that the specifics of this service, while tailored to the needs and desires of the local constituent school districts and school buildings, nevertheless would have at a minimum the acquisition of high-cost items (e.g., films, video tapes, etc.), the preparation of some special instructional materials, and a variety of services which can be offered at the intermediate level of state school administration in a manner to effect economies of scale.

Footnotes

1.  The author based his summary of the history of the intermediate unit on these secondary sources: (a) Ronald F. Campbell. Organization and control of American public schools, first and third editions (Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Books, 1965 and 1975), chapter 5; (b) Shirley Cooper and Charles O. Fitzwater. County school administration (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954), chapters 4 and 5; (c) Educational Service Region Study Commission briefing book. (Springfield, Illinois: Illinois State Board of Education, 1979), unpaged — section entitled "historical development"; (d) N. William Newson. "The legal status of the county superintendent" (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Office of Education. Bulletin No. 7, 1932); and (e) William P. McLure. The intermediate administrative school district in the United States (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois, Bureau of Educational Research, 1956), chapters 1 and 2.

2.  Clifford P. Hooker and Van D. Mueller. The relationship of school district reorganization to state aid distribution systems. Part I, Patterns of school district organization. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota, 1970.

3.  E. Robert Stephens. Education service agencies: status and trends. Burtonsville, Maryland: Stephens Associates, 1979.

4.  Stephens, p. 36.

5.  Robert Andrew Pringle. "A proposal for a new intermediate administrative structure for education in Illinois," Ed.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1964.

6.  E. Robert Stephens. A proposal for the improvement of the Illinois delivery system for elementary, secondary and adult education: A concept paper. Springfield, Illinois: Illinois Office of Education, 1977.

7.  Educational Service Region Study Commission. Report to the Illinois State Board of Education. Springfield, Illinois: Illinois State Board of Education, 1979.

8.  Pringle, p. 145.

9.  Stephens, A proposal for the improvement of the Illinois delivery system for elementary, secondary and adult education: A concept paper. p. 66.

10.  Educational Service Region Study Commission, p. 12.

11.  Kenneth E. Hoffman. "Analysis of needs and services of intermediate districts in the State of Illinois," Ed.D. dissertation, Miami University, 1973.

12.  Donald R. Johnson. "An analysis of educational service regions in Illinois," Ed.D. dissertation, Northern Illinois University, 1976.

13.  Robert Ashby. Report to the Regional Services Planning Committee on the Educational Services Opinionnaire. Illinois State Board of Education, 1976.

14.  David Cooprider. "Governance structure of the Educational Service Region in Illinois: preferences of members of selected groups," Ed.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1981.

15.  Hoffman, p. 66.

16.  Ashby, p. 11.

17.  Johnson, p. 79-80.

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