Mrs. GREEN. NO; I said, "revenue sharing"; the administration wants revenue sharing which would provide more Federal funds for education, as I understand it.

Mr. KARSH. Well, certainly for general revenue sharing, we did speak to that in terms of its bringing an additional amount of money to education which we assumed would accrue roughly-or, we didn't assume but on the basis that the funds going to education from those States and local sources would essentially bring additional money to education, and we did endorse that, but it was an endorsement.

On the special education revenue sharing, again we endorsed that approach, and we said that both of these programs would benefit education.

Mrs. GREEN. But the States were to pick up somewhere around $14 billion of the cost on this when all reports state they are taxed to their limits now.

The basis of revenue sharing is: They are broke and need funds.

Mr. PIERCE. Well, they would be getting those funds essentially, as the last report indicates, from all sources, either recommended directly by the Commission or endorsed by the Commission, somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 billion annually, which is considerably more than going out now for elementary and secondary education.

Mr. HAWKINS. Thank you, Mrs. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Pierce and Mr. Karsh. I think your statements have been very constructive and most enlightening.

That concludes the hearing, and the next meeting will be Tuesday, April 18, in room 2261.

(Whereupon, the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene on Tuesday, April 18, 1972.)

FINANCING OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY

EDUCATION

TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1972

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

GENERAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 2261, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Roman C. Pucinski (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.

Present: Representatives Pucinski, Meeds, Quie, and Bell.

Staff members present: John F. Jennings, counsel; and Cindy Banzer, minority legislative assistant.

Mr. PUCINSKI. The subcommittee will come to order.

We will resume our hearings before the General Subcommittee on Education regarding the financing of elementary and secondary education. There are a number of bills pending before the committee, submitted both by the administration and by the various members, and I am very pleased that we have with us today Mr. Roe Johns, project director of the National Educational Finance Project, and Mr. Kern Alexander, associate project director, here to give us their findings on the future direction for school financing.

We will print as an Appendix A to these hearings chapters 8 and 10 of volume 5 of your report. Those chapters are the most important part of your report as far as these hearings are concerned.

Mr. Johns, I am most anxious to hear your testimony. I understand you are also going to show us slides. Mr. Johns and Mr. Alexander, you can proceed in any manner you wish.

STATEMENT OF ROE JOHNS, PROJECT DIRECTOR, NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL FINANCE PROJECT, ACCOMPANIED BY KERN ALEXANDER, ASSOCIATE PROJECT DIRECTOR, AND K. FORBIS JORDAN, FINANCE SPECIALIST, NATIONAL EDUCATION FINANCE PROJECT, AND PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION ADMINISTRATION, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Mr. JOHNS. I will just move up a little closer to you. Being a college professor, I like to be near my class.

Mr. PUCINSKI. You are like my minister; he likes to keep close to the people, too.

Mr. JOHNS. You keep awake and can't nap if I am close to you. The National Education Finance Project, to give you a brief background, was funded by the U.S. Office of Education for approxi

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mately $2 million. It was started in June 1968, and it will be continued in operation through the middle of July under our present grant-I hope it will be continued a little longer, because our work is not yet finished.

I want to say that although the Office of Education funded this project, they in no sense directed the project or controlled its recommendations or edited them in any sense. We published our findings, our research, the way we found it, and the Office of Education does not necessarily support or oppose what we recommend. They funded it and simply requested us to study problems of school financing and report findings. It was just that simple a direction.

The study was made with some 38 professors, expert in school finance and economics employed by 20 different universities scattered throughout the Nation.

Mr. BELL. How long ago did you start?

Mr. JOHNS. June 1968.

The general project design was as follows: We first wanted to look at the dimensions of educational needs in the United States, that is who are we trying to educate, and what will be needed financially to meet educational needs between now and 1980.

We next examined the economic factors affecting education, the effect of education on the national economy, educational needs, and program costs of the different programs needed for different pupil populations for instance, the culturally disadvantaged and exceptional education, vocational education, and general and basic education. We also examined the status of current finance programs, both State and Federal. We evaluated these programs and then made recommendations on alternative methods of financing.

You have in your hands volume 5 and a popular summary entitled "Future Directions for School Financing." Our findings were actually reported in five volumes published by the central office and five unnumbered volumes, then 10 satellite volumes-actually 20 volumes in the total, complete report.

But we pulled together the essence of our report in that little popular summary "Future Directions for School Financing." The more complete summary of our report is contained in volume 5 entitled "Alternative Programs for School Financing."

There were a number of the satellite projects, or studies, which we subcontracted to professors in various institutions over the United States. Some of the institutions involved were: the University of California at Los Angeles, Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Wisconsin; University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Chicago University, University of Colorado, University of Indiana, Illinois University, Columbia University, University of the State of New York at Albany, North Carolina University, University of Tennessee, University of Florida, and so on. I have not named all of them, but you get a notion of the national scope of these studies.

If you think I could control the recommendations these 38 professors from different universities, you have another think coming. We asked them to do research and to report their findings. There was no censoring on the part of the central staff of the satellite projects. We asked each researcher to report what he found.

Following are some of the satellite projects: Exceptional education, vocational education, personal income by school district, community colleges and adult education, financing public school facilities, school food services, fiscal capacity, school district reorganization, and early childhood education.

Here (referring to a slide) is where further studies are made. Each spot is where we actually have obtained data for these various studies, either directly or indirectly.

Mr. BELL. Is one of those Los Angeles?

Mr. JOHNS. Yes. It is down there, and San Diego is there, too. That will give you some notion of the national scope of the study which we made.

The next slide shows some of the central staff studies. We published five numbered volumes. Those are the volumes I just mentioned. Mr. Jennings asked me to send you copies of all of those. Most of them are out of print, but we can scrape up a few copies. We published only a limited number of each volume.

The next thing that we wanted to look into was what was happening in the individual States. In making this survey we ran into two main complaints; one, educational opportunity was not equalized within the States and some schools had much better programs than others; and second, there was a general feeling that taxes to support schools were inequitable.

Frankly, there was a major opposition to the property tax. We found that bond issues were being turned down. We found that operating revenues were being turned down-but not because people had lost faith in the public schools but they didn't like the way the public schools were supported.

Mr. BELL. Was that the basis for turning down the bond issues?

Mr. JOHNS. Yes. For instance, we found that if people thought a tax was equitable, they would vote for it, but people are beginning to revolt from one end of the Nation to the other against the property tax which they consider inequitable.

At the present time, as you well know, a little over half of our school revenue comes from the property tax. The demand is to provide a more equitable tax base for the schools.

We wondered if people were turning down bond issues because they were getting disappointed with the public schools. However, we found they were turning down bond issues for hospitals that were funded out of the property tax. If any bonds for any purpose were to be funded out of increased property tax, the public was turning them down. We found no general lack of confidence in the public schools.

Mr. BELL. Didn't the general consensus come to that conclusion because they had been turning down others?

Mr. JOHNS. Yes; that is right, and also conversations we had, interviews.

Mr. BELL. You took kind of a poll, is that what you mean?

Mr. JOHNS. Not a poll but just interviews with knowledgeable people within the States. For instance, we sent letters to the chairmen of the House and Senate committees on education of all of the State legislatures and asked them what was gnawing on the people and what they were griping about.

Mr. BELL. They always came up with the property tax.