DOLLARS PER PUPIL

TABLE 4.-AVERAGE PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES AND STAFF PER 1,000 PUPILS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN 3 CITIES BY SOURCE OF FUNDING AND PERCENTAGE OF LOW ACHIEVING PUPILS, 1969-70

TABLE 5.-Expenditures Per Pupil in Elementary Schools in Three Districts by Percent Educationally Disadvantaged and Sources of Funding 1969-70 (mean values)

RECOMMENDATIONS

To this point, I have attempted to summarize some of the main findings of our research relating to 1) the pattern of Title I distribution, 2) the magnitude of Title I, and 3) the school-by-school differences in spending levels and their relation to the proportions of educationally disadvantaged pupils. It is my judgment that the data and the findings I have described have direct relevance to the task facing this committee: consideration of possible revision and extension of Title I of ESEA. Therefore, I would like to present the following four recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of Title I.

1. Title I-or aid for the educationally disadvantaged under educational revenue sharing-should continue as a categorical program with clear guidelines for states, local educational agencies and schools covering distributional and service objectives.

While Title I has served as an effective fiscal tool over the past eight years, and has made educators and citizens more aware of the possibilities of providing more effective educational opportunities for the disadvantaged, the long range goal of allocating services to pupils on the basis of their educational needs is far from achieved. Indeed, in recognizing how far we have to go we might well ask the question, "Where would our schools be today without Title I?" in terms of serving the educationally disadvantaged and providing additional funds to hard pressed urban and rural districts for that purpose. If annual appropriations of 1.5 billion had been distributed as general aid since 1965, would they have accomplished what Title I has achieved? I am persuaded that the answer is "no," and that the nation clearly requires a strong federal continuation of compensatory aid. Strong federal initiative is necessary for two reasons. First, those districts that have benefited most from Title I would probably not get the help they need from their states. Second, the immense problems facing core cities are not local, or even state-generated conditions. The degenerating fiscal plant of older cities and the character of their urban populations are problems created by national economic conditions and the mobility patterns of the general population, and as such they deserve national responses.

2. Title I should be fully funded.

Despite the host of problems related to Title I, its funding should be vastly increased to bring its appropriations to the levels envisioned in the original legislation. Only when it is funded in that manner can the program be fairly judged. While evaluations of the educational benefits of Title I thus far have been mixed, as I noted earlier, its record as a fiscal device is clearly the best of any program in American educational finance. Much still remains to be learned about how best to teach the children of the poor, but this is no excuse for failing to make the greater resources that had been envisioned in Title I available to teachers of these pupils.

However, Title I has not been a failure. It has succeeded admirably to serve one of the legislative purposes set forth in the Act, namely to assist school districts in meeting the costs brought on by heavy concentrations of educationally disadvantaged students.

3. Title I should be used as a lever to insure wide participation in Title I planning at the local level. Specifically, this means that parent advisory councils should continue to be required and comparability reports should occur annually and be readily available to parents and other citizens.

The implementation strategy of federal aid has been essentially topdown. Federal and state standards supposedly were designed to insure that local agencies responded to federal categorical priorities. The program negotiations were conducted among professional administrators at all three levels with little involvement of parents, teacher organizations, students, and community agencies. This top-down strategy of regulations and guidelines contains neither the sanctions nor incentives sufficient to accomplish the categorical purposes of federal aid in general and Title I in particular in all fifty states. Moreover, the topdown strategy does not have sufficient leverage to reorient classroom practice or to insure that money always reaches the intended targets.

A potentially more effective system would be to reverse the flow of sanctions and incentives substantially so that students, parents, and teachers with the desire to effect changes would be provided with access to the means to accomplish national purposes. For example, the difficulty of determining and assessing comparability over the past few years has become one of the knottiest prob

lems associated with the administration of Title I. Neither the typical state nor the USOE has the way and often not the will to really determine and enforce comparability standards that both fulfill federal guidelines and yet remain flexible enough to adjust to local conditions. A potentially more effective method of auditing school district behavior in terms of comparability requirements would be to place responsibility for the auditing function in the hands of local citizens. To accomplish that approach, data such as that contained in the current comparability reports would have to be compiled annually. Indeed, it should be a routine part of a comprehensive management information system and should be readily available for examination and analysis by parent groups and other interested citizens. Also, local citizen groups should have the services of state education agency staff, or if necessary, USOE staff who can assist them in determining whether the district is fulfilling federal guidelines.

4. State level and school level administration of Title I should be governed by flexible administrative patterns designed to meet guidelines and objectives through a variety of means. The federal role should be used as a lever to get states and local districts to plan more effectively for the allocation of resources and the educational experiences of disadvantaged pupils.

One of the clearest conclusions drawn from Professors Berke and Kirst's analysis in Federal Aid to Education: Who Benefits? Who Governs? Is that states and local school districts differ markedly in their ability and willingness to plan effectively to meet the educational needs of their citizens. The federal role in dealing with state and local education agencies should reflect those differences. Considerable latitude should be given to those states and local districts that engage in some form of comprehensive planning or priority setting. States might be permitted to define high need pupils in a manner different from the federal government, say, by the use of achievement test scores. Similarly, the federal government might require that states move toward systems of assessment of performance of their educational programs in order to enjoy greater latitude in allocating resources. States might also be permitted to merge Title I funds with state compensatory funds and distribute them as one package. Local districts might be permitted to develop a system to insure comparability that is different from the USOE comparability report as long as the intent of the legislation is clearly followed. For example, the primary objective is that schools and classrooms with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils receive substantially higher levels of resources. As far as the individual principal or teacher is concerned, the source of funding for those resources is immaterial as long as they get the resources. If comprehensive planning, comprehensive information systems and wide citizen participation can insure that objective, the district should be permitted to conduct its business in terms of locally rather than federally determined procedures.

On the other hand, states and districts that do not engage in a planning process approved by the USOE should have allocations to individual districts and perhaps even schools determined by the USOE. In short, if local districts and states want local control over decision-making concerning resource allocations to the disadvantaged, they must indicate their willingness and ability to exercise that control in terms of national as well as local objectives.

SUMMARY

It may be useful to summarize. From the studies we have conducted over the last four years at the SURC Policy Institute, two conclusions about Title I ESEA are apparent. First, Title I has been a substantial success as a fiscal device. It distributes added revenues to those local distric's which are least ale to previde extra resources for high need pupils. In particular, higher levers of ritie 1 funds go to those school districts which are characterized by central city or rural school finance problems; which have higher proportions than ordinary of minority pupils; whose income level tends to be lower than normal, and where greater educational need exists as measured by average achievement

scores.

Second, Title I has for the first time linked the concern of educators for the disadvantaged child with an effective process of abroctim, resou, es for his education. Enhanced awareness of and concern for educational disadvantage, as well as heightened fiscal equity within school districts, are among the positive achievements of the program.

On the basis of our research, on my own experience as an educator, and from my personal conviction that the federal government has a responsibility to help

in overcoming the patterns of unfairness and irrationality that characterize American public education, I have drawn the following four recommendations:

1. Title I should continue as a categorical aid with clear guidelines for states, local education agencies and schools covering distributional and service objectives.

2. Title I should be funded at its authorization levels.

3. Title I should be used as a lever to insure wide participation in Title I planning at the local level. Specifically, this means that parent advisory councils should continue to be required and comparability reports should occur annually and be readily available to parents and citizens.

4. State level and school district level administration of Title I should be governed by flexible administrative patterns designed to meet guidelines and objectives through a variety of means. The federal role should be used to help states and local districts to plan more effectively for the allocation of resources and the educational experiences of disadvantaged pupils.

I hope that this testimony has been of use to the committee and I am delighted to respond to whatever questions you may have.

APPENDIX TO REPORT OF FEDERAL AID RESEARCH, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CORPORATION

The following appendices display data in which federal and state aids are compared to the distribution of racial/ethnic characteristics, the value of owner occupied housing and monthly rents in a sample of school districts in nine states. The school district fiscal data were collected in the USOE's ELSEGIS III survey for the 1969-70 school year. The socio-economic characteristics are from the 1970 census of population and housing mapped for school district boundaries also supplied by the USOE.

TABLE 1a.-TITLE I, STATE-LOCAL AND DISCRETIONARY FEDERAL REVENUES BY DISTRICT POPULATION PERCENT NEGRO FOR 9 STATES, 1969-70