February 17, 1972. Rodriguez appealed to Supreme Court. Mr. PUCINSKI. Mrs. Carey may want to allude to this material in further detail, but it will all go in the record at this point. Mr. BELL. Mr. Chairman, are all members of the group before us from California? Mr. PUCINSKI. No. I believe they are from different parts of the country. Mr. BELL. I want to congratulate all of you on the success of your studies and your work. Mr. PUCINSKI. I would concur in the statement, I think the cases in California and the other States have really turned around this Nation's whole thinking on financing education, and I believe when the record is written, we will probably find that the work you people have done has made a great contribution for every child in this country, black, white, rich or poor, and will provide for him or her an equal opportunity for a quality education, more so than any other single legal action taken in the history of this country. I am impressed with what you did, I am pleased that you are here. We will now hear from Mrs. Carey. STATEMENT OF MRS. SARAH C. CAREY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER LAW Mrs. CAREY. Thank you. As a panel, we have representatives, as the chairman pointed out. from various States, where positive decisions have been handed down, and each of those persons will discuss the case with which he was involved. Mr. Mark Yudof of Texas was unable to come to speak about the Rodriguez case, because the committee could not pay his way, and he has no funds, so Steve Browning will describe progress under that case. In brief outline, we want to tell you what the cases that have been decided require, and what they do not require. There has been some confusion on that point. We will also point to other cases that have been filed subsequent to the Serrano case; they will add addi tional ramifications. We will also touch upon what the State legislatures have done having been commanded by the courts to come up with new formuli. And finally on the basis of these cases, we will make suggestions concerning what the Congress can do to meet some of the problems raised in the cases. I think it is interesting to note in almost all of the States from which Congressmen here come from, there are suits pending. There are presently, 38 lawsuits challenging financing systems in 22 States. A large number of these decisions are similar to Serrano. We are literally in the midst of a legal revolution. A couple of brief comments on the background out of which thes cases evolved: The cases are based on the traditional commitment of this Nation to a free system of public education, as a means of giving each student a way of developing to the best of his ability, and premised on the idea that this is to be a classless society, one that does not reinforce rigid economic and social lines. The cases in effect show that we have abandoned our original commitment to universal, equal education. The kinds of facts developed in the cases and the kinds of solutions requested show dramatically, and quite shockingly, that in many ways, the present educational system is "subsidizing the rich at the expense of the poor," as the court in the Texas case put it. We are giving poorer schools less money, and richer schools more money. As a consequence of this, the public school system is reinforcing in schoolchildren the economic status of their parents, so that the children, from the moment they enter school, are more or less tracked for life. This has recently been documented by the Fleischmann Commission report, in New York. This means we have come a long way from the original concept of Thomas Jefferson of education in this society. The second major problem that the suits bring out and that gave rise to the suits in the first place, is the fact that we have an inflexible system of education. It is all right, as Mr. Seldon was saying, for the normal child, but it does not take care of the exceptional child, or the child with handicaps. The New York study showed that in New York State one out of every 10 children has some sort of physical, mental, or emotional condition that impairs his ability to participate in the public school problem. Yet less than 50 percent of those children are being taken care of by special programs. In some jurisdictions, the only way to get handicapped children into schools is through a lawsuit; Philadelphia, New York, and the District of Columbia have recently had such lawsuits, and one is in preparation in Boston. The public education system is even harsher on students with less overt handicaps, that is, children who have special learning problems because they come from particularly disadvantaged backgrounds. Almost no States take their kinds of need into consideration. A few like Rhode Island, do take into consideration AFDC enrollment as a factor in handing out money, but the State contributions is so insubstantial, it does not make much difference. In 1969, it was estimated that only eight or nine States had compensatory education programs and these accounted for only 2 percent of the school budget. In some States like New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, children from Spanish-speaking families, which are growing in num bers, do not have special English classes; they sit in class and learn nothing. Other peripheral problems have been brought out by the school finance cases, and by the Commission studies; parents on school boards no longer feel they control the schools, there is no accountability; teacher salaries are shooting up, but there has been no increase in productivity; little or no research is going on in terms of what works in education. The Office of Education collects massive data, but they do not bother to analyze it, all which is a tremendous waste, and this is true even of their own programs, like title I. You cannot figure out what works, and under what circumstances, and finally, as the Fleischmann Commission study recently pointed out, over 66 percent of the children enrolled in school do not enjoy school; a substantial number find it a painful experience. This is quite a commentary on one of the world's leading public educational systems. Underlying all of the problems is the fact that the present system of financing is totally inequitable and irrational. There is no business in the world that could survive on a financing scheme similar to the school financing system. I think the recent experience in the District of Columbia, which has turned into almost a comedy situation, illustrates the point. They cannot tell you how many teachers they have, what they are spending, or how much it costs to educate children There is no relationship between the amount of money made available and actual costs. The educational system is second highest to defense in terms of public expenditure and you cannot find out what anything costs and what it is being spent for. It is out of this kind of situation that the lawsuits we have discussed this morning have arisen. They do not get at all the problems I mentioned earlier; they focus on the problems of collection and distribution of revenues for public school financing. In brief: There have been 12 lawsuits decided in this area, six of these in Federal Court, the others in State courts. As you know, the first case started out in Illinois, McInnis v. Olgilvie in 1968, in which the Federal judge decided that he could not handle it. The issue was too broad. He had not been given a manageable standard. The plaintiffs, he thought, were asking for distribution of funds according to educational need, and not according to any other more measurable standard of equality. Finally, he could not see anything irrational with a system where money was handed out on a basis of local property tax values, as opposed to the cost of education. The McInnis was followed by two others that took the same line, an Oklahoma case and a Virginia case, both of which were negative. The movement stopped for a while until last summer, in August 1971, with the California decision in the Serrano case. This represented a shift in terms of the kind of standard that the plaintiffs were seeking from the court. Instead of talking about educational need, they set a standard of fiscal neutrality; the money cannot be handed out on the basis of wealth, other than the wealth of the State as a whole. They sought to break the connection between the property tax and the distribution of the State funds, because that nexus prevented equality of distribution. Serrano was followed quickly by a case out of Minnesota which came out with a similar decision adopting the Serrano reasoning. Then in December, Rodriguez was decided in Texas by the three-judge Federal court. The ruling followed Serrano, with a slight twist. The court found education to be a fundamental interest but also declared that the Texas system was so irrational, it should be knocked out even without a fundamental interest finding." Rodriguez is probably the case that will move first to the U.S. Supreme Court. An appeal has already been filed; we do not know whether the court will review it or not, but we assume it will. Finally, we have a case that will be discussed. Robinson v. Cahill from New Jersey, that is one of the most interesting cases in terms of the interpretation of the State constitution. As you know, almost every State constitution requires the State to provide a system of education. In New Jersey, it requires a "thorough and efficient" education, and other States have similiar qualifying words. These words have had no content for years. They have not been interpreted by the courts. The New Jersey case says that the "thorough and efficient” requirement should be taken seriously, that the State is, in effect, mandated to live up to that standard. You will hear more about that from Mr. Ruvoldt. In Illinois, three cases have recently been filed; they are also relying on unusual wording in the State constitution. The constitution was amended in 1970, I believe, to state specifically, that the State shall provide the primary financing in the school area. Suits are now being filed by a variety of people, to get that interpreted as meaning over 50 percent. This would mean a fairly good increase in local aid. There have been a couple of other decisions, generally along the line of Serrano: A positive Wyoming decision, a negative New York State decision-that relied on McInnis-and an Arizona decision. That is roughly the scorecard in terms of what has been decided. It is easier to run that down than to say what it all means. It is clear from the ruckus that occurred after Serrano, a lot of people thought it meant things that it did not mean. Serrano established a negative standard. It did not say you have to go out and do anything specific. It said simply, that you cannot give school funds to localities on the basis of the wealth of the locality. This permits a tremendous range of solutions. It allows anything from a substantial increase in the State's equalization contribution, you could have California providing sufficiently more State funds so the local property tax contribution was no longer the dominant contribution. You could have equal dollar expenditures, provided from a variety of tax devices; you could have power equalization, something dreamed up by professors out in California, whereby the State lets local school districts pick their own tax rate, and then guarantees that comparable rates will produce comparable amounts of money, by taking from the rich to give to the poor. And then you could have a more sophisticated kind of formulation of distribution. They are all possible, they are not ruled out. Judging from the past actions of State legislators they will probably opt for the minimum. It is unlikely in many of our States that the legislature will select the optimum plan. In New York, for example, the Fleischmann Commission has come up with some very exciting proposals; to provide extra funds for disadvantaged kids, to leveling off with property tax, with the State assuming special responsibility for the handicapped and other kind of difficult problem children. But given the climate in New York today, the taxpayer revolution in that State, it is unlikely that these provisions will be enacted. Even if New York had a Serrano decision, such measures would not be required. That is the tough thing with these cases, and one of the things that produces frustration on the part of lawyers. The lawyers can help to remove the obstacles to reform but they cannot shape the future except to a minimum extent. It is interesting, cities were among the biggest pushers for this kind of reform. After the Serrano decision there were mayors all over the country calling us; they wanted to file suit tomorrow. But it has been February 17, 1972. Rodriguez appealed to Supreme Court. Mr. PUCINSKI. Mrs. Carey may want to allude to this material in further detail, but it will all go in the record at this point. Mr. BELL. Mr. Chairman, are all members of the group before u from California? Mr. PUCINSKI. No. I believe they are from different parts of th country. Mr. BELL. I want to congratulate all of you on the success of you studies and your work. Mr. PUCINSKI. I would concur in the statement, I think the cases in California and the other States have really turned around this Nation' whole thinking on financing education, and I believe when the recor is written, we will probably find that the work you people have don has made a great contribution for every child in this country, black white, rich or poor, and will provide for him or her an equal oppor tunity for a quality education, more so than any other single lega action taken in the history of this country. I am impressed with what you did, I am pleased that you are here We will now hear from Mrs. Carey. STATEMENT OF MRS. SARAH C. CAREY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER LAW Mrs. CAREY. Thank you. As a panel, we have representatives, as the chairman pointed out from various States, where positive decisions have been hande down, and each of those persons will discuss the case with which he was involved. Mr. Mark Yudof of Texas was unable to come to speak abou the Rodriguez case, because the committee could not pay his way, and he has no funds, so Steve Browning will describe progress under tha case. In brief outline, we want to tell you what the cases that hav been decided require, and what they do not require. There has bee some confusion on that point. We will also point to other cases the have been filed subsequent to the Serrano case; they will add add tional ramifications. We will also touch upon what the State legislatures have don having been commanded by the courts to come up with new formul And finally on the basis of these cases, we will make suggestions co cerning what the Congress can do to meet some of the problems raise in the cases. I think it is interesting to note in almost all of the States fro which Congressmen here come from, there are suits pending. There are presently, 38 lawsuits challenging financing systems in States. A large number of these decisions are similar to Serrano. are literally in the midst of a legal revolution. background out of whic the traditional comm ic education, as A couple of brief comments on t cases evolved: The cases are based this Nation to a free system of giving each student a way of deve premised on the idea that this i does not reinforce rigid economi |