that supports the State at the Federal level, and this is without State or local advocacy.

In every State there is somebody worried about the handicapped children. In every State there is some kind of local or State attention to the slow reader, or to the child who is not getting proper nutrition and to all of the other things with varying degrees of concern, but it is there.

There has developed, quite naturally, in almost every jurisdiction a local concern as to the constitutency. The same thing has not happened and is not likely to happen without outside stimulus for the migrant child.

Let me put it this way. In the several years that I have been concerned with the program, and with its inception, still only a handfal of States actively advocate the increase in his program and the support of this program.

We get very little political clout. If you saw the way in which we maneuver to keep this program alive, and what we have to trade to get it, you will find that even among our greatest liberals in the House and the Senate, it is just not a program that turns a lot of people on be cause there is not anybody out there with voting power.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that-first of all, you mention the fact that the number of people in the migrant program is about the same as it was several years ago. I guess that this is true. There has not been any great increase in the number of persons being

served.

At the same time, the entire personnel situation in the Office of Education has similarities and conditions which are particularly true of the Bureau of School Systems where, because of fiscal stringencies we have found ourselves with additional responsibilities and with fewer staff with which to take care of those responsibilities.

In the meantime you should know that there are 24 program spe cialists in the Division of Education for the Disadvantaged and also 10 program specialists in the regional office which also contribute services which Dr. Fairley described previously for the migrant

program.

Mr. FORD. Mr. Dent has some questions.

Mr. DENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am very much disturbed over the education of the children of migratory workers. Since my committee handles the wage problem for them under the minimum wage law, we learn a great deal about the educational inadequacies as we go around the country with our

public hearings.

I am disturbed because migrant children are dependent on title I money under the disadvantaged children's programs. It almost gives in the same way as the handicapped children and others who come under the disadvantaged programs, whereas the only handicap they may have is the question of educational deprivation.

I know that in our State, where the major part of the money comes from the local real estate, they are not too happy about having the

migrants attend their schools because of the terrific problems. They have to get an allocation of money from the State, which first of all, has little or no head-count capabilities. Also there is an

antagonism toward taking money out from the disadvantaged program appropriation moneys to put into migratory funds, or to see that the migratory children get their funds.

Therefore, when it follows down to the local districts, there is little or nothing done. They don't even consider it as part of their responsibility to get them into the school closest to where they are working. Why don't we get a recommendation based upon sound examination of the problem, to separate the migratory children into their own category in order that they are not treated as abnormal, or subnormal, or some kind of a classification, by putting them under the disadvantaged.

They are not disadvantaged in anything except the opportunity for education. That is all your responsibility.

My opinion is that we should give them the best opportunity that you can give them for an educational opportunity to learn as any normal child, attending any normal school.

I think that if we could get some action on that point, we would start to be moving like we are moving under the minimum wage, just consider them as employees, and wiping out that sort of a term of "migrant workers.”

They are considered by many to be an uneducated category of people, just drifters and floaters. Most of them are considered not to care if their children get educated or not.

This might have been true a couple of generations ago, but I think that right now the parents of these children are just as eager to give their children as many advantages as possible, educationally.

They might be considered disadvantaged because they had so many years that they were not taken care of. But, actually, I think that they ought to flow into the general school body without being designated with a badge on their lapel, saying: "I am a migratory child," or something like that.

The States are probably more guilty, as the chairman has already stated, than the Federal Government where we have tried to do something, but they are not following it up. They are not giving them the same type of consideration that they give all the normal kids that are looking for an education.

Sometimes, I think that the whole business of migratory workers ought to be considered under a separate law, their education and their work program.

I have tried to put into the chairman's hands the minimum wage for migratory workers so that is could be treated as a complete problem. their education, their housing, their rights, all rights, their wages, and so forth.

I feel you should address yourself to the possibility of such a study, and the possibility of such a move. Do you think that it would be better that way, or best left where it is?

Mr. WHEELER. Let me respond this way, Mr. Dent. The term "disadvantaged" has different connotations when it is considered by different people. We have struggled with this, but we have-we cannot escape the need to designate this particular segment of the school population as something or other.

We have to use s... term to describe this segment of the Ameria school children who, I guess, would number about one-third of t:school population.

Mr. DENT. Did you say one-third?

Mr. WHEELER. Yes, one-third are eligible.

Mr. DENT. Are they considered deserving, disabled, or di advantaged?

What has happened is that we have not discharged our responsibily to this group, which is composed largely of minority children. childre in poor economic circumstances, and that the school systems have b responded to the special need that these children have.

Isn't it true that when you talk about that phase of it, you are tal ing about urban standards and not the rural standards. Because in the rural standards, I don't remember any time when the state, the e nomic state, had anything to do with the kind of schooling that was given to you in a rural area, because all the children of school age went to the same school.

Now when you had those who had a physical disadvantage of se kind, we had absolutely nothing for them. This is what we started or to do under the disadvantaged school children program.

We have expanded it now to include someone who does not have th language capabilities, who might belong to the third or fourth genera tion Spanish, or something.

At home they still only speak Spanish. Now we are prepared to call them a disadvantaged child, in a sense, because we have created other burden on the taxpayers with the so-called bilingual schools. It is becoming bigger, and maybe bigger than we can swallow pretty soon. We had to put in a class because they claimed that they are bilingually disadvantaged.

These are the things that we have to settle. I think that the educa tional community is not doing its job in trying to analyze what is "disadvantaged". Now we have a bilingual class, and we have its cost set aside. We have a migratory program, and its costs should be set aside so that you know how much money you have to work with. not depending on your count as opposed to the count made by some body else. I think that you are not getting your share out of the dis advantaged funds, which you ought to have.

Mr. WHEELER. I think that we are doing the best that we possibly

can, under these circumstances.

Mr. DENT. I did not ask that question.

Mr. WHEELER. I have no way of answering that.

The information that we have is the best possible information that we can get. Now, whether or not it will be an increase, which I suspect that it will be, as a result of the M.S.R.T.S. count, there will have to be a determination made after we have made a much more compre

dren who are out there.

hensive, much more intensive examination of the count of the chil We are fairly secure that we are carrying out the mandate of the legislation which says that the Commissioner must use the best possible available data, and we are conscientiously pursuing that direction.

Mr. DENT. Who gives you your data?

Mr. WHEELER. The data is collected by computer system, and it nes from the States and, in turn, it is collected from the local school encies.

Mr. DENT. Have you found any discrepancies in what your field n find to be the number in any given community that you consider ght to come under the Migratory Act, or that portion of title I aling with the Migratory Act?

Do you find that it is a rather accurate number count, head count? Mr. WHEELER. We have found that it is rather accurate. We have ecked the information all the way back to the local school district, id the only anxiety that we have at this time is that the check has not en comprehensive enough. The check has not included enough of the ildren.

Mr. DENT. That is the point that I am driving at.

Mr. WHEELER. We are just beginning to use this system in fiscal year 975, and we have plans for a very intensive, very comprehensive udy that will give us information so that we have more security in

e count.

Mr. DENT. We have the so-called disadvantaged children. They are isadvantaged and selected from the normal school population, set side into a category of disadvantaged.

In your migratory count, are there disadvantaged as we consider lisadvantaged to be in the normal schoolchildren, or do you separate hem?

Mr. WHEELER. If I understand your question, Mr. Dent

Mr. DENT. Disadvantaged other than being a migratory worker. Mr. WHEELER. If you will, I will let Dr. Fairley answer.

Mr. FAIRLEY. Mr. Dent, I think that in the amendments of 1974, Congress sort of defined the disadvantaged child as one who is one or more grade levels behind. So we kind of think of the disadvantaged child as one who is not achieving at his grade level, and any migrant kid would fit that category. They are not doing as well as their peers. Mr. DENT. Is that because they have a disadvantage other than being migratory?

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes.

Mr. DENT. Then you would put them under the other programs and not in the migratory programs.

Mr. FAIRLEY. They might be in both programs.

Mr. DENT. How do you count them?

Mr. FAIRLEY. They would be counted as migrants for purposes of the migrant allocation.

Mr. DENT. The question of migratory worker ought to be based upon all migratory children, and not otherwise disadvantaged, so that the funds come under the disadvantaged program for disadvantaged children no matter where they may rest.

So, you don't say this child is disadvantaged because he happens to be a migratory worker. He may only have that disadvantage. He is one that we would hope you would be able to put in the normal stream of children going to school, rather than in the disadvantaged program with the connotation of having something wrong with you, other than missing some schooling, or not having a chance.

Mr. ALFORD. If I may comment. I think that this is a program that is based both under the title I and the migratory program. The distribution of funds under title I, generally, is based on the poverty factor. This assumes a high correlation between the disadvantaged and poverty.

We know that under the title I programs, for example, the group for which we pay money to the local education agencies includes children who are poor by the current definition, but many of them are not disadvantaged in the sense that you are thinking of it. They can perform in a regular classroom and do so.

Therefore, we gave the authority to the local educational agencies to set up, in effect, their own determinations of what will be disadvantaged in the target school areas. The children that they select for these programs have no relationship, necessarily, to the children on which the money is paid.

I know that there is a high correlation in the case of migratory children. You have a little different situation there, you are paying money on the basis of children in the program. They are the ones in the record system now, under the new count. They are children who have already been identified as being migratory children of migratory agricultural workers, and included in those, I am sure, are children who just need to get in a classroom and they can perform, perhaps, without extra performances.

However, I would call your attention to the House report in relation to H.R. 69, which would bear out the proposition that there are probably as many disadvantaged children among this group as you would find in the basic title I programs.

On page 22, Mr. Chairman, if we might refer to that, the committee report indicates that: "By extending the authorization for the migratory program, the committee wishes to reemphasize the need for a national program for the education of migrant children. These children are often being called the most educationally deprived children in America."

As the National Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children states:

The migrant child is constantly moving. He has no continuity in his educational life, in general. He is in the largest group of non-English speaking children under the Title I program. He is out of the main stream of any stable society, and has few bases for security. His parents are in the fields all day. and in the formative years or after, he is either there working with them, or at home baby-sitting with younger children.

In February 1972, a report to the Congress on migrant education, by the General Accounting Office stated that its analysis showed that: (1) in reading, mathematics and language skills, migrant children were not achieving at the grade levels in which they were enrolled, and that in those skills they were below those of other students in their classes;

(2) educational deficiencies usually became greater as the student moved into higher grades."

Then they go into the Spanish-speaking parent, and so forth. All of this indicates that the disadvantaged situation, as far as the migrant children are concerned, is every bit as heavy, if not heavier, than the normal title I population. That is why I cannot really distinguish the fact that this program would necessarily be handled in a far different way than the title I programs.