No single factor created these conditions. They stemmed from the ever-expanding, ever-shifting, school population accelerated by school planning which often lacks imagination and resourcefulness.

Regardless of any other cause, the deficiencies and deterioration are due to lack of funds. Lack of funds is due essentially to

1. Antiquated tax structures which placed major education dependency upon local property tax; and

2. Lack of supplementary Federal funds.

I am well aware that recitation of educational needs must sound to the members of this committee like a broken record.

However, the facts of the matter are that the financial situations have actually deteriorated, particularly in our larger city school systems which enroll a large percentage of our elementary and secondary boys and girls.

This deterioration is due, among others, to

1. The rising cost of education;

2. The increasing demands upon schools and teachers; and 3. The inadequate and now declining percentage of Federal funds in support of public education.

As a result, many school districts, in 1972, must reduce their school term, curtail school services, and increase class size by not hiring or replacing teachers who retire or leave the system.

Other systems are maintaining a semblance of structure through deficit financing which cannot continue indefinitely.

New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit schools pass from crisis to crisis almost daily, as do the great majority of the 16,000 school districts throughout the Nation.

Included in this presentation are direct statements from the union teacher leaders of these four school systems.

In brief, they show that New York needs $850 million more for school operating expenses and 19,000 classrooms.

Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland are in dire financial straits. Without additional moneys, they may not be able to complete this school term. In the attached Detroit presentation, you will find at the back, I would like to have you notice that 145 buildings in Detroit were built before 1929, and that 80 percent of the buildings were built 50 years ago, therefore, we show the need.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit this for the record.
Mr. PUCINSKI. Without objection, so ordered.

(The material referred to follows:)

THE DETROIT FEDERATION OF TEACHERS,

LOCAL 231, THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFL-CIO,
Detroit, Mich., February 15, 1972.

To SEM-CAP UAW

Re: Detroit Public Schools Fiscal Problems

The Detroit Public Schools are faced with an impossible financial burden which threatens to totally destroy educational opportunity for students in Detroit's public schools.

The threat is so serious and so immediate that we face the prospect of forcing out of school and onto the streets of the State's largest city one-seventh of the school age children in Michigan.

The problem is not a sudden one come upon us with no warning. The school system ended the 1970-71 school year with an accumulated deficit of nineteen millions dollars as a result in large part of the following:

The Michigan Supreme Court decision on free books and supplies.

Curtailed State School Aid including the abrupt cut of .75 mills last February of previously promised and budgeted monies.

Loss of assessed valuation since 1961 which reduced the return from local property taxes by a total of about $91 million over the ten year period.

The cost of decentralization which was imposed on the city by legislative action, but which was not supported by the necessary State funds.

Increase in wages negotiated by employees which bring them up to the going rates in the Metropolitan area.

The deficit occurred in spite of the stringently curtailed budget measures taken last year in February and repeated this school year. In fact, in spite of the extreme cuts in budget, this year will see an additional twenty million dollars added to the deficit which will bring the total to the untenable amount of almost forty million dollars by the end of June-assuming the schools will be permitted somehow to finish the school year. The total budget is $260 million.

So that there can be no misunderstanding of the kind of cuts into the very flesh and marrow of the school program, we will list just a few of those adopted by the Board of Education as part of the "Survival Plan" of a year ago. They have been carried over into this year's budget to the point of severe crippling of the schools. Among them:

Increase in class size throughout the city (except where categorical state or federal funds are assigned) so that there are 35-36 and more children in almost every elementary class including primary grades. 37 to 40 are not too unusual. At a time when the normal elementary class size elsewhere in the State is somewhere around 25 or less, only those Detroit classes with categorical funds can be that small.

Junior and senior high school classes suffer the same kind of overcrowding with the same resulting problems of decreased achievement, increased discipline problems, and general dissatisfaction on the part of both students and teachers. Reduction in purchase of textbooks-so that shortages are common even where books are assigned one per pupil station and not one per pupil-and the newly opened middle schools ordered by the Court had no books at all until Christmas other than what they could "beg, borrow, or steal."

Elimination of equipment and furniture purchase without regard to serious limitations this adds to already limited programs.

Elimination of painting or decorating school buildings (the schedule used to call for re-painting every seven years).

Reduction of maintenance of school plant including essentials-such as the known bad wiring at old Eastern High (re-named Dancy) and Northwestern which recently caused fires amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars damage over and above the loss of the use of desperately needed facilities. False belief that the fires were the result of arson has done nothing to help build school spirit among students or confidence in the expectation of normal safety for their children on the part of parents who send their children to the older schools in the city. (Detroit has the highest percentage of old buildings of the entire metropolitan area-and probably the entire State. See attached charts.)

Elimination or non-replacement of personnel in support positions from custodians, to counselors among others. Reduced work week (from five to four days) for maintenance crews last spring.

Unless some way is found to raise needed revenue or further reduce the already severely crippled educational services, the Detroit schools will have to shut down for lack of money to operate.

Unfortunately, the school system's problems are complicated by the expiration on June 30, 1972 of five mills of extra voted property tax which produces about $28 to $30 million per year toward operation. An election among Detroit's citizens will cost the schools an additional $300,000 unless the vote can be attached to the State presidential primary and precinct delegate election now being debated in Lansing. In any case, the exceptionally high number of retirees on fixed incomes added to the large numbers of unemployed voters make the outcome doubtful. This is particularly true since we are already paying a total of over 57 mills on property plus a two percent income tax which is the equivalent of 14 mills more.

State-wide improvement in the support of public education is essential. Special consideration for the special needs of urban centers-and Detroit is one of them is equally essential.

Urban centers are faced with expenditures above the norm which drain general fund dollars for items such as:

Indigent bus tickets at a cost to Detroit of $700,000 last year when other school districts have transportation provided their students indigent or not. Services related to Federally supported indigent lunch and breakfast programs. No funds are provided for the supervision and general clean-up necessary in the areas where the children eat let alone the supervision of the children before and after the meal on playgrounds that for the most part are extremely inadequately for the numbers of children who use them.

Detroit: 25.89% of all classrooms per 1,000 students are over 50 years old.
Balanco of Wayne County: 0.52% of all classrooms per 1,000 students are over 50 years old.
Oakland County: 0.26% of all classrooms per 1,000 students are over 50 years old.
Macomb County: 1.5% of all classrooms per 1,000 students are over 50 years old.

The large numbers of students in need of special education services which are only partly funded by the State, and as of this legislative session, are mandatory (urban centers are known to have a much larger proportion of children in need than less crowded and stressful areas of the country).

The large numbers of students in need of other special services such as psychological testing, social worker services, etc, which are also not fully funded. Court-ordered desegregation whose cost can only be guessed at now, but which is certain to rise sharply within the next few months.

Detroit has 65% of the minority youngsters in the State, 40% of the children defined as below the poverty level by the Federal government and a proportionately high number of mentally, physically, emotionally or socially handicapped youngsters who require special school programs.

We see a need for the following:

Full State support of a basic K-12 program.

Full State support of all special education programs.

Full State support of student assistance programs such as: indigent transportation, indigent food programs, and free books and supplies.

Full State support of vocational education.

Full State support of the cost of decentralization.

Protection of existing salary formulas.

Establishment of a State-wide maximum class size of 25.

Full State support for school construction.

Financing of the cost of whatever desegregation is ordered by the Courts. Resolution of the budget deficit of approximately forty million dollars as of July, 1972.

Painful as it is in a time of financial pinch at every governmental level, the State must recognize that immediate action is necessary to provide educational opportunities to Detroit children during this school year along with provision for the years to come of funds which will permit a viable school program for the largest concentration of the State's children.

Immediate necessities include:

Financing to finish this school year.

Provision to cover the deficit, especially if there is a possibility of a new system of financing for the future.

Financing of the cost of whatever desegregation is ordered by the courts. MARY ELLEN RIORDAN,

President.

Mr. MEGEL. To alleviate these conditions, the American Federation of Teachers strongly supports H.R. 981, introduced by Congressman Carl Perkins.

This is not to be interpreted as opposition to other educational bills, which have desirable provisions.

H.R. 981, in our opinion, contains more complete educational provisions.

H.R. 981, is a bill to establish a national program of assistance to the States and is cited as the "Nationwide Educational Excellence Act."

The goal of this act is to assure an average total of $1,600 for the education of each child in every school district in the Nation.

This is the major feature of this legislation. By setting a proper expenditure standard of funds for each child, H.R. 981, has a trademark which differentiates it from any other educational bill.

H.R. 981, proposes a 10-year funding program. However, since we are already several years behind the enactment of this legislation and because of the great urgency of need, the AFT is proposing that the program become a 5-year program which would require an additional Federal outlay of slightly more than $5 billion per year, in order to attain a total Federal expenditure of $26 billion per year in 5 years. It is our contention, that the Federal Government should and must provide at least one-third of the cost of education in our Nation.