Table 8.-Percent of school-age children enrolled in nonpublic schools and percent of income payments to individuals used for public schools, State and local taxes, and Federal individual income taxes

1 Statistics of State School Systems, 1951-52, U. S. Office of Education.

2 Public School Finance Programs of the United States, U. S. Office of Education, Misc. No. 22, 1955. State and Local Government Revenue in 1953, Bureau of the Census, G-SS, No. 37, Oct. 1954. Statistics of Income for 1952, Preliminary Report, U. S. Treasury Dept., Internal Revenue Service. Does not include junior colleges.

•Adjusted to agree with most recent reports.

Table 9.-Revenue per classroom unit and percent of this revenue derived from State sources, 1953-54

Source: Based upon revenues reported in Public School Finance Programs of the United States and a projection of the classroom unit data reported in Expenditures for Education at the Midcentury.

Statement of Exception

(A Minority Report)

(Four members of the Committee for the White House Conference on Education submitted the following statement which takes exception to the Committee's recommendations on Federal aid. The statement was written by Frank H. Sparks, a member of the subcommittee on "How Can We Finance Our Schools-Build and Operate Them?" who stated his agreement with all conclusions on finance except recommendation 7. The statement was also signed by Mrs. Oscar A. Ahlgren, W. Preston Lane, and Harold W. Sweatt.)

Central-government financing of education is the pattern of practically all nations of the world. The United States of America stands almost alone in the decentralized management and financing of its schools. Yet, hardly any country deliberately chose a centralized system of school financing. It came about either as a consequence of an emergency, as in England following two world wars, or by slow accretion, as in Sweden where 87 years elapsed between the first small parliamentary grant and complete nationalization of the schools.

No government during modern times has started on the road to central financing of its school system and turned back. This is partly because the siphoning off of taxes for national support dries up the sources of these taxes for local use, and partly because once local interest and responsibility yield to a larger political unit there is no means, short of revolution, for regaining what was given up.

The facts of history should be a warning to the American people at this time. Formal education is an extension of the functions of the family in the preparation of young people for useful, constructive living. Schools, therefore, should be located, financed, and managed by the smallest unit of population consistent with good educational and economic practice.

There is an emergency schoolroom shortage. This emergency is not so great but that practically every State in the Nation can meet it with reasonable adequacy if there is a will to do so.

The present range in expenditure for public education is a low of 1.9 percent of the total per capita income in Connecticut to a high of 4.18 percent in Utah. The average is 2.7 percent for all States. This is shamefully low. All States should take steps immediately to increase expenditures for school support. This is true because: no State has an adequate supply of modern, efficient school buildings; no State is paying its teachers and school administrators competitively with comparable persons in other occupations; and no State has a school system that approaches the ideal in educational effectiveness.

Good schools promote the economic development of a State, and every increased dollar invested in good schools accelerates economic