lations are children from Federally assisted low rent public housing units, handicapped children of military parents, and Indian children.

The present law requires that Title I type categorical services be provided to low rent public housing children, that an adequate education to meet their needs be provided to the handicapped children of military parents, and that equitable education be provided to any Indian children for whom payments are received.

Those requirements for those three types of children range from being relatively stringent as regards the public housing children to being relatively loose, as regards the Indian children. We would like to find out today the comparative merits and demerits of each one of these three approaches. We hope that our witnesses will address these issues.

First of all, it is my privilege to introduce a colleague of mine in the House of Representatives, a gentleman doing a fine job for the State of Montana. We are honored to have him before our subcommittee to introduce one of the panelists this morning. I know he has a busy schedule, and he would like to make the introduction, and probably get on to his busy chores this morning.

Without further ado, I would like to introduce one of the learned colleagues from the great State of Montana, Ron Marlenee.

STATEMENT OF HON. RON MARLENEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN THE CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MONTANA

Mr. MARLENEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me and would like to introduce Mr. George Tallchief, Superintendent of the Hays-Lodge Pole School District. Mr. Tallchief has been superintendent of this district, located on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in central Montana for five years.

Well over one-third of the budget for the maintenance and operation of the district's elementary and high schools is funded necessarily through impact aid. School facilities are a particular concern and need in the district.

I commend Mr. Tallchief to you for the insight he can give you into the effect of impact aid on Indian reservations, and the school construction program. I know of no one who has a more basic grassroots insight into the problems that we face in Montana-and they are great-than Mr. George Tallchief.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE TALLCHIEF, SUPERINTENDENT,
HAYS-LODGE POLE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Mr. TALLCHIEF. Thank you, Congressman, Mr. Chairman, Committee.

Mr. MOTTL. You may proceed right away. All your statements will be submitted into the record without objection. You may proceed as you deem fit.

We will start with you, Mr. Tallchief.

Thanks a lot, Ron, for the fine introduction of Mr Tallchief. [The statement of Mr. Tallchief follows:]

STATEMENT OF GEORGE TALLCHIEF, SUPERINTENDENT, HAYS-LODGE POLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 50, HAYS, MONTANA

Honorable Chairman Carl D. Perkins and Members of the Education and Labor Committee:

The federal government has proclaimed its responsibility for providing assistance to schools in federally affected areas. It did so with the passage of the Ammendment to the Lanham Act (1941), which authorized federal aid for construction, maintenance, and operation of schools in federally impacted areas and the 1950 Public Law 81-874 and Public Law 81-815, passed by the 81st Congress.

This commitment must be continued! The extensive federal land holdings in Montana drastically diminish tax bases throughout the state. It is only through redemption of this lost tax revenue that the federal government can fulfill the commitment it proclaimed in these laws. Montana has many isolated small schools which are surrounded by federal lands. The 874 money which has been realized over the years has become the life blood of many of these schools.

There are 4354 impacted districts in the U.S.A.; 411 congressional districts have impacted districts; and 357,000 "A" students, 1,500,000 "B" students and 664,000 low rent housing students benefit from impact aid. It was estimated by the Montana State Department of Education that if the "B" students were not funded in Montana, the actual loss in dollars would be 2 to 2.25 million. This could result in the actual closing of some Montana schools. In Montana the average citizen's tax burden is the heaviest in all the eleven western states. In 1970, he paid a property

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tax that averaged $69.02 for every $1,000 of personal income. A Montana citizen making $10,000 per year, paid $372 in state income taxes in 1971 compared to the $199.06 average for the eight western states with income taxes. It is also significant to point out that Montana's per capita income is $300 less than the national average and eighth lowest among the eleven western states!

In concert with this individual tax picture are the governmental tax problems created by the existence of vast tracts of federally owned land. It has been estimated, for example, that in the western half of the state approximately 40 percent of the land is federally owned. The federal government owns 29.6 percent of Montana, or some 27,624,634 acres.

These severe tax realities combined with the extensive tax exempt federal holdings in Montara mandate that the federal government continue to assist local schcol districts with 874 and 815 funds.

If the federal government withdraws from the partnership created by Public Laws 874 and 815, educational programs will be curtailed, the hope of equal educational opportunity will be shattered, and more than one school may be forced to close. These gloomy prognostications are based on financial realities: In some Montana school districts one mill raises only a paltry $125. It is federal funds that offset the disadvantaged tax posture of many Montana schools.

Hays and Lodge Pole are small isclated communities located approximately ten miles apart on the southern end of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation

in north-central Montana. The tribes represented on the Fort Belknap Reservation are Assiniboine, Gros Ventres, and Chippewa. Though they are situated near the Little Rockies, the land is primarily prairie.

Distances

are great. The nearest city of any size is Havre (population 10,558), which is eighty-two miles away; Harlem, a considerably smaller town than Havre (population 1,094), and the site of the nearest high school, is thirty-six miles away.

The economy of the area consists of small cattle ranches and wheat farms.
Since few of the ranches are self-supporting, thirty-eight percent of
the people also do seasonal work. Some residents work on construction
and run small family ranches in addition. Parents and children are the
primary work force on these ranches. Ten percent of the residents on
the Fort Belknap Reservation work on federal programs on the reserva-
tion. As a member of the local Urban/Rural Committee of Hays has said,
"Our only local industry is our school."

As the following table clearly illustrates, the curtailment of 874 funds will precipitate an educational disaster in many Montana schools.

Honorable Chairman Carl D. Perkins and Members of the Education and Labor
Committee:

A cursory look at the history of the white man's educational efforts in America yields an overwhelming impression of continuity of purpose, of methods and of results. The same look at the first Americans - the American Indian yields an equally overwhelming impression of disruption and interference, a hodgepodge of often abortive attempts to remedy intolerable situations and, perhaps most tragically, a picture of honest, sincerely dedicated people striving to improve their situation in the context of absolutely inadequate facilities, improverished financial conditions, and the ironically reasonable outlook that things just might not get any better.

No one will dispute the fact that continuity is essential to any profitable education - or that effective education is the backbone of community growth. Our history as a nation fully supports those statements. must, therefore, be considered not only unfortunate, but intolerable as well, that some American communities have not and cannot by themselves provide a continuously effective education for their children. Hays, Montana, is just such a community; while the community has expended every effort toward effective education, a greaty many of their children, because they must board away from home or endure an excessively long bus ride, find the human costs of education past the eighth grade are simply too great consequently many of them receive little or no high school education. Furthermore, the facilities available for public elementary educa

tion are so limited as to make the quality of that basic education borderline.