handicapped, and supporting materials and services could be shifted to any other of the national purpose areas which the State determined to be of higher priority in that State. Similarly, 30 percent of the funds for federally-connected children living off Federal property could be transferred to school districts not having any such children.

Such determinations would be made in the process of creating a comprehensive State plan for the use of Federal education funds. The plan would be a comprehensive plan, not one designed to satisfy the conditions of a narrow categorical grant. The plan would be comprehensive and involve real planning by State and local people who could make a genuine effort to decide objectives, establish priorities, identify resources and establish valid yardsticks for the measurement of success. The comprehensive plan would be developed as the result of broad public debate within the State and with the assistance of an advisory council representative of the persons served by Federal education programs. However, the plan would be entirely the work of the people of the State. There would be no requirement for submission of the plan to the Federal Government for approval. Similarly, the way funds would be used within each of the five national purpose areas would be a matter for determination within the State, subject to necessary Federal requirements.

State

and local administrative costs would be reduced since most of the tedious and expensive grant application process would be eliminated.

The New Federal Role Under Revenue Sharing

In my view, one of the most significant aspects of the education revenue sharing concept is the new Federal role which will emerge as the result of this legislation and through enactment of the President's proposal for a

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National Institute of Education.

Our re-examination of the Federal role has focused on how we can encourage responsible people at the State and local level to respond to matters of direct national interest or concern. In view of the increasingly evident bankruptcy of the categorical grant-in-aid device, we have concluded that the Federal role should be to stimulate the development of knowledge and the identification of significant opportunities for innovation.

The Federal

role should also be to communicate what we have learned to Sate and local school officials and to provide assistance for putting into effect what we have learned.

And

This means, then, that we need first of all to strengthen the capacity of the Federal Government to stimulate the development of new knowldege. this objective, of course, underlies the proposal to establish the National Institute of Education, which, as you know, is in the Higher Education bill both as it was passed by the Senate and as it is coming to the floor of the other body this week.

Secondly we need to develop much more vigorous techniques for assessing the potential value of what has been discovered through research, development, testing, pilot programs, and so on.

I think it is fair to say, speaking not only of research programs in the Office of Education but of a majority of the R&D efforts within HEW, that there has been a major short-fall between the performance of research and its translation into practice. We have simply not had in place the

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machinery that forced a rigorous assessment of the value of an R&D product. Until such machinery is in place, we have no way of deciding what results are important enough to disseminate to those in a position to put them into effect. The creation of this dissemination machinery for educational innovation is a necessary second step to follow up the work of the NIE. The third major step, apart from communication of opportunities to strengthen and improve the quality of education, is the need for technical assistance in bringing these things into realization.

We have

a number of thoughts about this problem, and Commissioner Marland and *his colleagues are currently giving consideration to it. This will require the availability, to State Departments of Education and local school systems, of OE personnel who can assist in the development of the comprehensive State plans which I discussed earlier. Education revenus sharing would enable personnel in the Office of Education who have heretofore been absorbed in the endless and repetitious processing of applications, to work with State and local school systems to help them achieve the results which the State and local officials want to achieve. In other words, we believe the Office of Education should be staffed with personnel who can perform a role something like that of a pharmaceutical house detail man or an agricultural extension agent; people who know the resources of the Office of Education; who know the results of innovative work that has been carried out through the research and development process; who are sensitive to the needs, views and attitudes of the administrators with whom they are dealing; and who are effective in helping them to adapt the results of new learning and new experience

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to the particular community with which they are concerned. The President's proposal for education revenue sharing needs to be understood in terms of how it will enable us to do our job better, as well as in terms of what it means to the State and local school districts.

Let me now be more explicit as to how the legislation would work.

1. Allotment and Use of Shared Revenues

From the amount appropriated, an amount attributable to the presence within the school district of pupils whose parent resides on Federal property--similar to the present "a" category pupil under P.L. 874-would be passed through directly to the district enrolling the student. These funds would be available for any educational activity, just as they are under the existing Impact Aid program.

Once this amount had been subtracted from the total, the remainder would be allotted among the States based on their relative populations of children from low-income families, of children whose parents work on Federal property, and of children aged 5-17 as a whole. That portion of a State's allotment attributable to the presence of low-income children would be passed through directly to the district enrolling such children, and would be available only for programs and projects designed to meet the special educational needs of educationally disadvantaged children who reside in school attendance areas having high concentrations of low-income families. These funds could also be used for special programs for migrant children and for neglected or delinquent children for whose education the State is directly responsible.

Funds based on the presence of "b" category Impact Aid children could

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be used for any educational purpose, as under current law. Of the remainder, one-sixth would be available for education of the handicapped, one-third

for vocational education, and one-half for supporting materials and services. These funds could be retained at the State level for operation of State-wide programs or distributed among local educational agencies according to relative needs for the types of assistance available.

It should be noted here that the Federal commitment to the disadvantaged is maintained and even strengthened through revenue sharing. The bill provides (1) that no funds may be transferred away from this purpose; (2) that all funds for the disadvantaged will pass through directly to the local school district; (3) that full comparability on basic expenditures among schools in a local district must be achieved as a precondition to the receipt of any of these funds; and (4) that the definition of "lowincome family" will be sufficiently responsive to local conditions to assure that funds flow to districts most in need of them.

2. Transfers Among Purpose of Assistance

The State would be permitted to transfer up to 30 percent of the funds available for any one purpose to any other purpose, except that, as noted earlier, the bill would prohibit the transfer of funds allocated for the

disadvantaged.

Additional transfers above the 30 percent limit would be permitted if the State demonstated to the satisfaction of the Secretary that such

action would more effectively achieve the purposes of the Act.

3. Operation of the Program