tion on the basic statistics and data banks, but it is based on your political philosophy or human philosophy, and we stated our philosophy. As we interpret the data, you will note that first, we believe in equalization of educational opportunity, and we believe education should not be a function of the wealth of the district. We believe it should be not only a function of the wealth of the State but also of the Nation. If you hold one belief why can't you hold the other? We agree with you absolutely on that.

Secondly, then, we believe that the education in order to achieve the American dream, should break down barriers between classes and provide for social mobility. You cannot do it with inferior education in sections of the Nation. That justifies Federal aid.

We also, you will note, believe in an equitable system of taxation and equity for taxpayers.

All of those beliefs, when we put them together, constitute our basic philosophy; when we interpreted the data, we could make no other recommendations, and there is no way in the world-let me tell you this no way in the world you can develop a school financing formula that provides equity for the taxpayers in the Nation and equity for children without broad Federal participation and broad State participation; there is just no other way. Âny other recommendation is futile.

Mr. PUCINSKI. I am grateful to you for your frank and forthright statement. That is why I am led to believe that when they commissioned you, they tossed a coin and said, "Heads, we win; and tails, you lose." Whatever you did they accepted, as you know, a very impressive work, but that is as far as it went.

This is, of course, what distresses me; you know you have a very prestigious commission and you spent $2 million to do a good job and pulled together a good case, and then somebody in the White House looked at the politics of the thing and said either they are not ready or they can't do it, one or the other.

I had the strong feeling, though, after listening to the President's speech in Philadelphia, that you get the feeling that the 1972 election scenario calls for some spectacular launching somewhere, maybe later in the campaign, on a massive program of Federal aid to education with a promise that next year, after the November election, would be a good time to consider it.

I don't mind telling you, as I watch the mess unfolding in this country, like most other people, I, too, am losing great faith and hope in this administration's coming up with a meaningful program. Here is a perfect example of $2 million in taxpayers' money spent on a report and a study, and you come in with a good recommendation, and that is just swept under the rug. And the Commission comes out with the report and says: All of this ought to go to the States.

Do you have something to add?

Miss BANZER. I would like to say that this subject does involve political philosophy and while this is certainly a fundamental difference it is something that should be considered. Perhaps the States can resolve their own problems.

For example, Oregon attacked their school finance problem directly, by coming out with a proposal for a massive revamping of the existing school finance program-and we have not been under a court or

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der-but Governor McCall presented a three-point program to shift from the local property tax to a way which they think is equitable. We have taken the initiative in our own State to attempt to correct a problem.

I don't think the taxpayers of Oregon particularly want their tax dollars going to New York and Georgia when Oregonians have accepted the burden of taking corrective measures. If we can take care of our problems, perhaps the rest of the States can also do it. They felt that, in view of the evidence presented, there was substantial reason to believe that the States could meet their own problems. I feel my example of Oregon indicates the validity of this. I think this is what the Commissioners concluded.

As far as the makeup of the Commission staff, if you want to get into partisan politics, it is noteworthy that the staff, with the exception of three people, were Democrats. However, the Commissioners listened to the staff and the staff reports, and I don't feel partisan politics entered into it, but rather a concern for the educational needs of our country.

Mr. PUCINSKI. The fact of the matter is whatever is the political makeup of the staff, the word obviously came from the White House, "Don't shift this to the Federal Government at this time." Apparently the Commission said, "OK; you are the coach, and we will follow the signals."

So here you have this Commission with $2 million of taxpayers' money and a very exhaustive study, and I don't know if Democrats or Republicans work for the National Educational Finance project. Mr. JOHNS. We have some of both.

Mr. PUCINSKI. But here you have a group of educators who come up with one set of findings, and they do it on the basis of educational needs irrespective of any political considerations. Then you have a Presidential Commission that comes along with a report which, I think, was a huge disappointment to everybody in terms of a financing effort. There were very excellent things in the report on restructuring educational concepts, and I share those views, and I think maybe they did a good job, but when it came down to the nitty-gritty of "How do we bail out the American public education system from bankruptcy?" the report, I think, kind of chickened out.

Miss BANZER. The only thing I can say, as a former staff member of the President's Commission and having sat in on the Commission meetings and deliberations, I do not feel that partisan politics were a consideration. I can assure you that the recommendations were not predetermined by a decree from the White House.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Well, that may be very well, but the fact of the matter is and here you have the Presidential Commission making one set of recommendations and the National Educational Finance project making another set of recommendations-when you look at the manner in which the National Educational Finance project arrived at its recommendations, based on a very thorough, probing, searching examination of all of the alternatives and needs, you find here a highly professional presentation by the National Educational Finance project and, except for one little segment which was so obvious that the Commission could not ignore it, the Commission totally sets aside the findings of the National Educational Finance project and comes up with a literally mean

ingless recommendation that "Yes, we have grave problems in America, but the States must solve them."

With all due respect to Oregon, I am not too sure how my Governor is going to be able to absorb the cost of education if the district court orders the State government to take over the whole cost of financing education, as has been done in other jurisdictions.

So that this is a point that we make here; we see here an excellent example of two commissions making recommendations, the one that has based its findings on a professional evaluation being swept aside for political considerations; and, while I have gotten used to lots of things being done for political means and necessities by this administration-I guess others have done the same and, I am sure, the same thing has happened with the Democrats-but it would seem to me that a subject as important as education, we could put partisan politics aside and address ourselves to the real need, and I don't think we have done it. At least I don't think the Commission has done it.

Well, Mr. Johns and Mr. Jordan and Mr. Alexander, is there anything you have to add? Mr. Alexander had to leave-Dr. Jordan might have something.

Mr. JORDAN. I don't have anything to add at this juncture; thank

you.

Mr. JOHNS. We tried to look at education nationally. We know a great many of the problems of the northern cities originated in the South and in the mountain".

I went to Alabama in 1928 and I found some rural schools had been operating for only 3 or 4 months. We still have a great deal of differences in educational opportunities in the Nation. You cannot control the flooding of the Mississippi by leveeing the delta. You must start with the headwaters and the tributaries.

Some have thought that all we had to do was take care of the probblems of the big cities. Well, that is inadequate, because we have to take care of what is causing those problems in the big cities.

So we believe that there has to be a national approach to education and it requires Federal aid to be provided to every State to equalize educational opportunities. It is not an easy task or a small task.

Mr. PUCINSKI. I note one other question that comes up in the answers, because I found it difficult to understand some of the statistics that were used in dealing with the problems, but on page 17 of your condensed version of Future Directions for School Financing, you list a wide range of differences where citizens in some States provide a larger percentage of net personal income to elementary and secondary education than those of other States. For instance, you rate New Mexico as No. 1.

Mr. JOHNS. Yes

Mr. PUCINSKI. There they spent 8.9 percent of net personal income for elementary and secondary education. Your chart shows that Illinois ranks 45th, with 5.39 percent

Mr. JOHNS. Those were the 1968-69 data.

Mr. PUCINSKI. And I wonder if you would be good enough to explain to us, because one of the things I don't quite understand is whether that is really a true reflection. I would imagine that New Mexico has a much lower per capita income than does Mississippi. You ranked Mississippi as No. 5, and you say that Mississippi con

tributed 7.84 percent of net personal income in 1969 for elementary and secondary education. But I wonder if this tells the story.

One would get the impression, then, that the people of Illinois are not making a significant contribution toward education. But when you look at the net income in the State of Illinois as against the net income of New Mexico and Mississippi, Illinois spends a great deal more on education, I imagine.

Mr. JOHNS. That is right. What Illinois could do with a 5.39 effort is to provide a good deal more money for the schools than New Mexico could with a higher effort. We computed net income for each State by starting with personal income reported by the U.S. Department of Commerce and subtracted in each State what was paid in Federal personal income taxes and also subtracted $750 per capita for survival. What is left is net income available to the States.

You may find this effort figure a higher figure than you would find in some other studies. It is a net figure-we assume you couldn't levy taxes for education until you paid Federal taxes, and you also had to live, at least eat. We might have used a bigger figure for survival. The high effort figure for New Mexico does not mean they provided better school but it means they just made more effort in relation to their ability.

Mr. PUCINSKI. But, you see, these figures are misleading in that they would have one believe, if you look at the table, that the people of Illinois really are not making as great an effort in providing education as a lot of people in New Mexico and ergo we ought to provide more help to them at the expense of Illinois, or, say, if you want more help in Illinois, you have to make a greater personal contribution, but the fact remains that Illinois undoubtedly pays a great deal more in Federa! taxes than does either New Mexico or Mississippi.

And the point I make here is that these figures, I think, are misleading in that they would have you believe that because we rank 45th on your scale in a State like Illinois or Michigan or New York, they are not putting out the kind of effort that either New Mexico or Mississippi is, and I believe all three States are.

Mr. JOHNS. New York ranks 15th in effort. Any one set of figures is. of course, misleading. You have to take a whole set of figures. You look at the next table showing the percentage of State and local taxes allocated to elementary and secondary education and you see Illinois rank 10th. You rank pretty high on that measure.

That is one trouble with this condensed version, because it just gives a fraction of the view. You will get a much better view, a more complete view, if you look at volumes 4 and 5, too. I agree with you, any one fragment of information will not help you to draw any conclusions. Mr. PUCINSKI. I would like to present to you a series of questions we would like to have you elaborate on for the record.

Mr. JOHNS. OK.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Will you be good enough to send us back the replies. because they are technical, dealing with the report, and, if you don't mind, I will give them to you and, at your leisure, prepare a memorandum of reply.

Mr. JOHNS. Yes.

Mr. PUCINSKI. We will add them to your testimony, and that is because I think the replies require a good bit of thought, and I will

give them to you now. Please be good enough to send them to the committee, and they will be added to the record here after your statement. (The questions and the memorandum of reply to be furnished follow :)

Hon. ROMAN C. PUCINSKI,

NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL FINANCE PROJECT,
Gainesville, Fla., April 24, 1972.

General Subcommittee on Education, House of Representatives, Rayburn House
Office Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SIR: On April 18, 1972, at a meeting of the General Subcommittee on Education, House of Representatives, you submitted a list of questions to me and requested me to give the position of the National Educational Finance Project staff on these questions. Following is a list of those questions and our reply to them.

1. Question: You seem to recommend massive aid "to eliminate the fiscal variations among the states." Is that correct and how much do you recommend? Answer: The National Educational Finance Project does recommend massive federal aid to the public schools, not only to eliminate fiscal disparities among the states but also to equalize educational opportunity within each state. A number of recent court decisions, for example, Serrano v. Priest in California, Rodriguez v. San Antonio Independent School District in Texas, Van Dusartz v. Hatfield in Minnesota and Robinson v. Cahill in New Jersey have declared that a system of financing public schools which makes a child's education a function of the wealth of the district in which he resides is a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If these decisions are upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, the systems of financing education in fortynine of the fifty school systems of the United States will probably be held unconstitutional. This would require each of these states to equalize educational opportunity among the school districts of that state. Legislatures will then be faced with the policy decision of whether to equalize education upward or downward. We do not believe that legislatures will equalize education downward by taking money away from school districts that have above average financial support and giving it to districts that are less well supported.

We believe that state legislatures will be faced with the necessity of obtaining new revenue either from state taxes or by general aid from the federal government. Most state governments are already in serious financial difficulties and all states will need federal aid in order to equalize education within their borders if they follow a policy of equalizing upward. Furthermore, the states of least wealth will need more federal aid per pupil than the states of greatest wealth in order to provide for variations in fiscal ability among the states. In order to accomplish these purposes, approximately 30% of all school revenue should be provided by the federal government. This would be additional revenue for the most part and not revenue to substitute for existing revenue. In terms of present school revenue this would be about fifteen billions of dollars annually. We would not recommend that the entire amount be made available the first year but that it be provided over a three to five year period in order that the states could plan adequately for the use of these additional funds.

2. Question: You state that even if the federal government were to assume all welfare costs there would still be a need for federal general aid. How much? You mention 30% at one point.

Answer: We believe that the federal government should provide about 30% of school revenue even if it assumed all welfare costs. At the present time more than one-half of all school revenue is provided by the highly regressive property tax. We need federal aid for the public schools in order to provide a more equitable Source of revenue for the public schools. This is a reason for massive federal aid for the public schools in addition to the reasons given under question No. 1 above. 3. Question: You recommend construction grants from the federal and state governments. How much?

Answer: You will note in our report that we recommended that approximately 30% of all revenue be provided by the federal government, not more than 10% by local school districts and the remainder by the states. This policy should apply to state and federal revenue for school construction as well as current operating expenses. We would recommend that the federal aid for school construction be in terms of continuing appropriations to state education agencies rather than construction grants approved on the basis of application to the federal government.