but fail to identify specific cases as indicated above and as evidenced 

 by a scatter diagram. 



Population and Expenditures per Capita 



The range in expenditures per capita is much greater for sparsely 

 populated districts having a population under 500 than for groups of dis- 

 tricts having a larger population (Table 10) . Averages, however, do not 

 vary greatly regardless of population, again indicating that population 

 alone is not the sole or most important factor affecting expenditures 

 per capita and in no sense is population alone important in determining 

 patterns. In general, however, average expenditures tend to be somewhat 

 higher among sparsely populated towns than among towns more densely 

 populated. 



Table 10. Relation of Population to Expenditures per Capita, 154 Districts. 



Population Trends 



The proportion of districts (or towns) experiencing a decline in 

 population from 1950 to 1960 decreased as density of population in- 

 creased. Of the fifty-three districts having a population under 500, 

 thirty-three or 62.3 percent declined in population (Table 11) . It is note- 

 worthy that only three of the twenty-three districts having a population 

 between 1,500 and 2,500 experienced any decline in population. An 

 investigation of the more urban centers having a population of 2,500 

 or more, but excluding the thirteen cities, reveals that only three of these 

 districts declined in population and none by more than 6.9 percent. All 

 of the thirteen cities increased in population. 



Among the 154 school districts, the change in population varied 

 from a decline of 31.7 percent (Eaton, population 151 in 1960) to an 

 increase of 106.7 percent (Atkinson, population 1,017 in 1960) . It might 

 be assumed that such extremes would have some relation to other social 

 and economic factors. The 154 districts were separated into two groups, 

 those having a population under 1,000 and those in which the population 

 was between 1,000 and 2,500, and for each group the degree of change 



17 



