The division of education for the disadvantaged under Dr. Fairley is organized into four branches; program services, program support, program operations, and the migrant program branch. Dr. Fairley reports to the associate commissioner for compensatory educational programs, Dr. Rodriguez, and he in turn reports to me as deputy commissioner for school systems.

The migrant program branch, which has direct responsibility for title I migrant program, is staffed with 9 professional staff members, 1 program assistant and 2 secretaries. The staff of the migrant program branch devotes all of its time to the administration of the title I migrant program. The staff reviews each state application, negotiates changes that may be required, and recommends the issuance of grant awards. The staff also conducts annual program reviews of title I migrant programs in the various states, reviews fiscal and statistical reports, and provides technical assistance to state educational agencies. You are aware of the scope and complexity of title I, a program totalling $1.9 billion for FY 1976. New legislative requirements and new demands for assistance to State and local educational agencies have greatly taxed the limited resources that are currently available for the administration of title I programs. We need to do more in the critical areas of title I administration, including comparability. fiscal accountability, evaluation of program effectiveness, and technical assistance to State and local applicants in program evalution and dissemination.

I fully appreciate, as do you and the members of your committee, the special requirements of the migrant program, such as interstate coordination of programs and the monitoring of the migrant student record transfer system. For this reason, the size of the title I migrant program staff is already, and will continue to be, somewhat larger in proportion to the title I allocations involved than the staff that works with local title I programs.

As Dr. Bell pointed out in his response to your communication, we have considered the establishment of a separate division for the title I program for migratory children, and we have evaluated the resources available in the office of education for the staffing of such a division. In order to maintain our current effort in migrant education, a significant staff increase would be needed if we established a separate office. Currently, additional services are provided to the migrant program staff and for the title I migrant program by 24 program specialists in the division for the education for the disadvantaged and 10 program specialists in the regional office. So, we have concluded that the staff situation would make it difficult to create another separate division. Furthermore, the Congress has rejected most of OE's recent requests for increased staff. Separating the administration of the migrant program from the administration of title I would probably also create financial hardships for many of the States. As a corollary to the current Federal organizational pattern, in most State educational agencies the administration of both title I local and title I migrant programs is handled in the same unit. Thirty-four of the 50 SEA's participating in the migrant program have assigned administration of that program to the title I coordinator. In most local educational agencies both programs are administered in the same unit. Mr. Vittetow from the Kentucky State Department of Education has stated that the current one percent set-aside for administrative costs would not be sufficient to support the cost of administering the program if it were separated from title I.

I feel this would be a costly duplication of administrative services at both the State and Federal levels.

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the concern of this committee for the educational welfare of this segment of the school population which faces severe difficulty in the advancement of their educational careers. Effective Fededal support of programs intended to improve the plight of disadvantaged children in general. and of migrant children in particular, is at the core of the constellation of responsibilities performed by the bureau of school systems. I am confident that a look at the history of our administration of the migrant program will not indicate conflict. Rather, it will indicate much needed synchronization and support, beyond allocated resources for the educational advancement of migrant children. My staff and I will be pleased to respond to your questions.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT R. WHEELER, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, BUREAU OF SCHOOL SYSTEMS, U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE; ACCOMPANIED BY JOHN H. RODRIGUEZ, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER FOR COMPENSATORY EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS, BUREAU OF SCHOOL SYSTEMS; RICHARD L. FAIRLEY, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF EDUCATION FOR THE DISADVANTAGED, OFFICE OF COMPENSATORY EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS; VIDAL A. RIVERA, JR., CHIEF, MIGRANT BRANCH, DIVISION OF EDUCATION FOR THE DISADVANTAGED; ALBERT L. ALFORD, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER FOR LEGISLATION, AND STEVEN N. SCHATKEN, CHIEF, SPECIAL SERVICES BRANCH, OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL, EDUCATION DIVISION

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Chairman, would you like me to identify them, so that you will know who is who?

Mr. FORD. Yes.

Mr. WHEELER. If you will look at your list, on my immediate left is Dr. John Rodriquez, who is the Associate Commissioner in charge of compensatory education programs; to his immediate left is Vidal Rivera; and to his left is Steve Schatken from the Office of the General Counsel.

On my immediate right is Dr. Richard Fairley, who is in charge of the Division of Education for the Disadvantaged, and has the responsibility, the administrative responsibility for the migrant programs; and Albert L. Alford, Assistant Commissioner for Legislation, is on his immediate right.

I have this prepared statement, Mr. Chairman, should I read it? Mr. FORD. You may proceed with it, and highlight it, if you wish. Mr. WHEELER. By way of the program review, it might be useful to set a framework for the testimony this morning.

Title I of Public Law 89-10, the Elementary and Secondary Educatoin Act of 1965, authorized a national education program for disadvantaged children.

This act was amended by Public Law 89-750 in November 1966, at which time the special provisions for children of migratory agricultural workers were incorporated into the legislation.

Section 103 of that law authorized payments to State educational agencies for assistance in educating migratory children of migratory agricultural workers. This law also provided that grant monies were to be used for the interstate coordination of migrant education programs and projects.

Then, in 1974, Public Law 93-380 further amended title I to include children of migratory fishermen, and these children are now being recruited and enrolled in the program during the calendar year 1975 program.

In 1967, it was active in 44 States, and it has now extended to include 48 States and Puerto Rico. The appropriation for the migrant activ ties from compensatory legislation has increased from approximately $10 million in fiscal year 1967 to $97 million in fiscal year 1976.

I think that the committee, because of its ongoing interest in this special program, is aware of the difficulty not only in counting the children, but in accomplishing the transfer of the student records These are very, very important administrative considerations.

In the beginning, we relied on data prepared for us by the De partment of Labor. This information, however, was considered inade quate for our purposes, and we established the Migrant Student Recori Transfer System in 1970.

The purpose of that system was to receive, store, and transmit infer mation about migrant students. That information included educationa and health data. The system transferred information to local education agencies throughout the country which had interests in the education of migrant children.

Because of the structure of that system, which is a computerized system, we began to examine it as a basis for more adequately deter mining the State allocations.

The Congress, in the enactment of Public Law 93-380 recognize the difficulty of counting migrant pupils and provided that the nu ber of students would be estimated from "statistics made available by the MSRTS or such other system as (the Commissioner) may deter mine most accurately and fully reflects the actual number of migrart students."

We compared the data that we were receiving from the Department of Labor with the information which was available from the MSRTS. and that led us to the decision that the MSRTS would be a more accurate system for allocation purposes.

The GAO report, dated September 16, 1975, reaffirmed our decision to use this data. In fiscal year 1975 and in fiscal year 1976, allocations were made on the basis of a count of children using data collected and given to us by the MSRTS computer system.

That system, of course, needed to be examined for its accuracy als and we began, at the outset, to conduct validation reviews. However, the reviews that we have conducted up to this point have been spot checks. Nevertheless, the information led us to conclude that this is an efficient system, and that it gave us more accurate information than we had been getting up to this time.

Now we are going to be engaged in a rather comprehensive stud of the migrant education program, and that will include a validation and a much more comprehensive and thorough validation, of the allo Ication information stored in the system. We are working with the State title I migrant directors to determine what would be the best approach to use in connection with conducting this validation. We directors. We have every intention of continuing to check this system have also made arrangements for the ongoing involvement of the State

as we move along.

When the committee originally scheduled its hearings on migrant education, it indicated an interest in our contractor's concern that duct of this evaluation. We have since visited Little Rock, where the Federal privacy laws were not being adequately observed in the con

MSRTS system is located, and we have talked this all the way through with the contractor and the State migrant directors.

We have also determined that from a legal standpoint we can proceed on the basis of the cooperation of the migrant State directors and that we can resolve this issue in a way that is desirable.

A very high percentage of migratory children attend schools serving attendance areas that have been designated for projects under the title I local program. I think that this is an important consideration. It means that such children are receiving double benefits.

They benefit from the special kind of activities that are taking place in the migrant program, and also the kind of benefit that accrues to children who participate in the regular title I programs under that legislation.

Mr. FORD. Can I stop you there.

One of the things that I find, when talking to people who are working out in the field as we have been doing recently, the subject always comes up of trying to balance the congressional desire that the funds be targeted that funds targeted for migrant education be targeted toward migrants.

Those are the problems that are actually creating segregated migrant education programs. When it gets down into the schools, it gets tangled up with the multiple regulations that puzzle particularly smaller school district people about how they select the target population for title I programs.

While there is a correlation in terms of target schools, as we define them in title I, in a place where migrants tend to reside, when they show up at school, it is not a total correlation. When they get down into a small school, it breaks down altogether.

It is more likely to be correct, for example, in the large cities because of the type of housing that they are forced to go to, and so on.

As a consequence of this, it seems that there is almost a competition in some areas between a title I program in the traditional sense, and the additional need for the migrant child.

To what degree have those problems been brought to the attention of your people, and what kind of efforts are you making to resolve them with the people in the field?

Mr. WHEELER. Let me start the answer, and then I think Dr. Fairley and Mr. Rivera can, perhaps, add to it.

I think that it is true that some of the migrant children would have could be considered as having, a double eligibility, which would mean that they would be going to a school where there is a title I program, but where they would also be eligible for the types of activities that are specifically designed for children of migrant families.

Now, it is my impression that there is very little conflict, and almost no competition in that kind of situation because, first of all, there is eligibility for the migrant student, which we are required by law, and which the school district would be required by law to honor.

In other words, that school district, if it is going to receive money for migrant children, will have to design a program specifically intended to take care of the special needs of migrant children.

Mr. FORD. Once you say that to a local school person, what do you do to keep them from repeating the mistakes we made with Head

start, of setting up little clusters of segregated kids who are identified in their activities as being different.

As a result of this, we found that in some places, while we were improving skills and some other things, we were reinforcing the idea that the kids were different.

Mr. WHEELER. What you have touched on, Mr. Chairman, is a problem that has plagued us throughout our compensatory effort in the schools-where a number of children are eligible, and a number of children are not eligible; how do you provide services that meet the special education needs for the children who are eligible for this additional help from the Federal Government?

It has been my experience that the local school districts handle this fairly well.

It is possible to design a program, which certainly may not succeed completely in keeping the anonymity of the students intact, that is, those students who are participating. At the same time, the school district and the school can take steps so that the identification of the children is not emphasized.

The same problem exists with providing free lunches for children, title I programs, and handicapped programs, and throughout the efforts that the Federal Government participates in, in order to meet some of the needs of that segment of the school population which has special education needs.

I think that while you cannot, of course, get around the fact that these children must be identified, and must participate in special education programs, at the same time it does not necessarily follow that identification in and of itself is an unsavory thing, and that the children have to be segregated in the school activities.

As a matter of fact, we have two prohibitions which, in my judg ment, would prevent a school district from doing that, the necessity of the school district to comply with title VI. To receive any funds, the school district may be engaged in desegregation activities, and has been sensitized to the effect of segregating children. They more than likely will take steps to reduce this to no more than a minimum.

Mr. FORD. It seems to me that for a long time, since we have been working with this program, I have heard over and over that kind of dilemma articulated by people who are trying to implement the program.

Most recently, I have talked to people who have indicated to me that perhaps guidelines suggest that the best bookkeeping arrangement is to try to have a tiny little title on some activity, so that you can call it a migrant program, and the easiest way to do that is to have a period during the day when all the migrant children will assemble in some spot. Sometimes they call them little homerooms, where they do other things, but this is what happens.

We don't do that with title I children. We did, in the early days, in some places.

I just wonder if this is something that comes to your level, or whether this is something that you have an on-going concern for. Mr. WHEELER. I am not aware of the problem. I think that Mr. Rivera can speak specifically to your concern, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. RIVERA. Mr. Chairman, the complexity of programs depends on the time of year that the children come in. We have a procedure in