whole program, we are breaking down into factions quarreling over a single piece of cheese. There are other examples of the adverse effects of short funding. The U.S. Office of Education has come up with a principle which it calls concentration. This stems from a suggestion made by the present Attorney General, Mr. Richardson, when he was Secretary of HEW. He was, I believe, at this very table, when he ventured the opinion. that money does make a difference in educational quality, but that you have to have enough of it to have some impact. Somebody asked him how much that would be, and he said $300 more than we are spending now. This now has become doctrine, and it is called concentration. In principle it is a good idea, but not if you take the $300 away from some kids to give it to other kids. This is precisely what would happen because of the low level of funding of title I. Primarily the problems in American education stem from lack of money. When I speak of lack of money I am not talking about getting more Federal funds for teachers' salaries, although I think teachers should be well paid. I would be willing to see some provision in the Federal aid bill which would provide for maintaining in the use of Federal aid the same proportion between money which goes into salaries and money which goes into other things as now prevails. I would favor that sort of thing because very often the thought in the minds of listeners is, "This fellow is only trying to get a few extra bucks for some teachers." Senator BEALL. On that point you are saying you would favor a provision in the Federal law which stated that if we gave money to a district the money should be divided between salaries and other educational costs as it is now in that district? Is that what you are saying? Mr. SELDEN. Yes. Senator BEALL. That assumes they have the proper relationship at the present time; does it not? Mr. SELDEN. I would be willing to put in some tolerance limits. My main purpose is to take away the negative argument that all I am seeking is money for teachers' salaries. Senator BEALL. That assumes though that the present percentage relationship at the local level is correct. I am not sure that assumption can be made. Senator HATHAWAY. Right. Mr. SELDEN. I agree with you, but some measure could be devised. You could do it as a nationwide, average, perhaps, or maybe we could discuss a flat percentage, but the point is that I am not coming up here and asking for more Federal aid for education primarily to increase teachers' salaries, although I think that is a worthy objective. We are primarily interested in the staffing ratio. We would like to see more teachers and more paraprofessionals and more specialists in the schools in order to help teachers do the kind of job they want to do. At the present we have layoffs of teachers and other education employees. People talk about a teacher surplus. There is no teacher surplus. There is a money shortage. The teachers are there and willing to work, and the students need the teachers. It is the administration and Congress which is denying the children the educational service that they need. Senator HATHAWAY. What is the basis for that? What teacher-pupil ratio is an ideal ratio? You say there is not a surplus now. Are they teaching 1 to 20 or 1 to 25? Mr. SELDEN. No. It depends on the level of schools, but in elementary schools, which in my mind are crucial, it is probably higher than 1 to 30. Senator HATHAWAY. Not 1 to 40? Mr. SELDEN. No, but then you are talking about the ratio. Mr. SELDEN. I have in my hand some programs that we have devised called comprehensive program for American schools. It is a national design for model schools which do have adequate staffing ratios, and in the elementary schools we talk about no class exceeding 22 pupils. which means a ratio of about 1 to 16. Senator HATHAWAY. With the supplementary teachers included? Mr. SELDEN. That is right. Senator HATHAWAY. Do you have data there that backs that up as being an ideal ratio? Mr. SELDEN. Yes. Senator BEALL. On that same point about the teachers not being in oversupply, are there sufficient schoolrooms to use all of the teachers at the present time? Mr. SELDEN. Yes, sir. Senator BEALL. At the present school schedules? Mr. SELDEN. Yes, sir. There may be some localities where building programs would be necessary, but on a national average there is enough plant space if used efficiently to provide a place for every teacher to teach. Senator BEALL. I thought I read that we have too many social science teachers. I also read we do not have enough math and science teachers. Is this correct? Mr. SELDEN. That data I think is rather out of date. At one time there was a shortage of math teachers in terms of the positions available. At the present time the supply-demand in terms of positions available is about adequate, but the point I am making is that the positions have been eliminated—5,000 of them in New York City, to give an example: a thousand or more in Detroit; and many other areas have cut back on positions without a proportional decrease in enrollment. Class sizes have gone up. Curricular offerings are reduced. As you reduce the number of teachers, you do drastically affect the quality of education. Senator HATHAWAY. You mentioned, your first point, that you thought there ought to be increased Federal funding, and I would agree with you. One of the reasons for not getting it is there is no real public support for Federal funding for education. I think one reason there is not more public support is that the public is generally disappointed with what the schools produce. They turn out kids who are not equipped to be employed anywhere; they have no particular skills. I am going to offer an amendment to the effect that no school be entitled to any Federal money unless it has as part of its curriculum skill training which is mandatory so that every high school graduate, whether or not he is going on to college, will be able to hold a job. It is foolish to require kids to take 4 years of a foreign language in school when they are not going to use that language. Mr. SELDEN. No high school requires 4 years of a language. Senator HATHAWAY. The kids have to take enough so they can satisfactorily pass the language requirement. Maybe they can do it in 2 years, but there is no necessity for them taking any if they are never going to speak the foreign language. Mr. SELDEN. We are very far afield. I hold no great brief for the present high school curriculum, but it has modified a great deal since you and I went to high school. Senator HATHAWAY. But not as much as I would like to see it. REVENUE SHARING IN EDUCATION Senator STAFFORD. Mr. Selden, are you familiar with the President's proposals for special revenue sharing in education? Mr. SELDEN. Yes, I am. Senator STAFFORD. Would you care to state what your reaction might be to them? Mr. SELDEN. I am rather ambivalent about them. I think that there is a need for grant consolidation, and we met with some representatives of the administration yesterday to discuss that matter. I think that they made a pretty good case on grant consolidation. I do question the whole principle of revenue sharing, however. I think that it is passing the buck on policy. We are saying we are going to pass the money back to the States and the localities because they know best what to do with it, but States that have been running poor school systems all along, who have been depriving people of proper education on racial and other improper grounds, are not going to be improved just by getting more money. There must be Federal leadership. Under the special revenue sharing plan States would be required to devise a plan for utilizing the money, but that plan would never be given to anyone with a broader interest, a national interest, for any kind of evaluation. Yes, you have to have a plan, but there are no standards or very few standards which would require the plan to be fair and equitable. I just am not in favor of taking my money and sending it to Missisa w or whatever State, and letting them do with it whatever they feel they want to do with it. Mr. Humphrey, who is an assistant legislative representative, would like to comment. Mr. HUMPHREY. I would just like to say something in connection with what Senator Hathaway said earlier. One of the proposals outlined to us was consolidation of vocational education. They did not give us much in the way of details. On the surface I must admit there was some merit to it. On second thought, one of the problems of vocational education, if you do not have Federal standards, if you do not have some sort of legislative priorities, so much of this money can end up, as an example, in homemaking and consumer education, this sort of thing. We are not against either of those factors, but that is hardly a way that vou can use or best utilize vocational education to accomplish the purpose Senator Hathaway made, to prepare an individual to provide him with a skill so that he can gain useful employment. I am very much afraid, we as an organization are very much afraid, if you deal specifically with vocational education and you have this problem with other categories as well, in that manner turn it over to the States without what we call priorities of the administration, without the strings, you are going to end up with this money being used in a manner that is just not very productive either for the individual who comes out of the school with some vocational ed or for the country as a whole. Mr. SELDEN. In other words, we say that if you go to the store for a loaf of bread you do not want to come back with a bag of crumbs. Senator HATHAWAY. So you are in favor of the regional offices being more or less autonomous, making decisions on applications within the regions? Mr. SELDEN. I am in favor of regional offices. I do not know how autonomous they should be. There are regional practices, particularly in racial matters, that are not in the national interest, and I would hate to establish another barricade behind which people could hide and carry on racist practices. However, I do think it would be a good idea to provide access on the part of local school systems and local teacher groups to the Federal bureaucracy. This might be a way of doing it. HEW did have regional offices, and just when we were beginning to utilize them, they were amended out of existence or administrated out of existence. I do not know what happened to them, but they were discontinued. Our experience at that time was not too good because the people who were in the offices seemed to have no authority. We would like to see some way in which regional offices could be given a degree of authority. Primarily we are looking for access into the Federal bureaucracy, and this might be one way of doing it. Senator HATHAWAY. My understanding is this administration of regional offices does have by Executive order more authority than they have had previously. Mr. SELDEN. This is unknown to me. Senator HATHAWAY. This Administration is moving under the Executive order. Mr. SELDEN. Yes, that is the intent, but at the present time I do not think there are any. [Senator Pell assumed the chair.] Senator HATHAWAY. Let me ask you one question with regard to the free formula which you criticize. I am not necessarily an advocate of it. Do you not think we ought to be pouring the money into those areas where the education is inadequate, regardless of whether it be high or low income areas, where the education is very poor, where they need the money? Mr. SELDEN. No, Senator. If a district has a high assessed valuation per child and still has a lot of kids that are not learning up to snuff, something is wrong with the school system, and it should not take Federal money to cure it. You should look to the local administration, or look for special local conditions. Wealthy districts have the money to run good schools without massive Federal aid. What the proposed changes in the title I formula are designed to do is to put money where there already is money, and where the district does not qualify for aid at the present time. Senator HATHAWAY. Do you not think it will roughly correlate the areas where the tests show the children are not doing as well will be the poor areas? Mr. SELDEN. Yes; but there are better indexes of educability of children. For instance, New York City has a category of school called a special service school. Such schools receive extra staff allowances. The formula for determining a special service school takes into account attendance figures for the school, involvement of children with courts, poverty figures, mobility—that is, the frequency of kids transferring in and out. This is a very accurate way of predicting the success that a school is going to have. It establishes a degree of difficulty related to the educational task confronted by the school. That sort of formula would be much superior to the testing idea. Furthermore, there is more to the testing thing than meets the eye. It involves not only testing kids, but testing of a whole new theory of education. It is tied to a certain kind of testing: criterion-reference tests. Criterion-referenced tests are a hot thing in education now, and those of us who have been around education a while have learned to be somewhat cool toward hot things until we see how they really work out in practice. Education is notorious for discovering the "innovation of the year"—something new that is going to solve all the problems. Senator HATHAWAY. Thank you very much. Senator PELL. Thank you, Senator Hathaway. Mr. Selden, I have just one question of a general nature. What is your view with regard to the Jencks theory that schooling really does not make much difference; it is all a question of the environment? Mr. SELDEN. Somebody said Jencks spent 5 years and 400 pages to prove that the United States needs socialism. Someone else says that Jencks is right: You cannot cure ignorance by throwing money at it, and you cannot cure measles that way either. I think his whole basic assumption is wrong. Schools do not exist primarily to equalize income. Public schools exist to give us an informed citizenry so that democracy can work. That is their primary purpose. Beyond that they exist because individuals need schooling to live fuller and more satisfactory lives. You cannot have those things on a mass basis without a mass education system, and the better it is, why the better our country will be. Senator PELL. We have tried to get Mr. Jencks to come before the committee but he has been a rather elusive guest, but we are still trying to get him to hear his theory. Thank you very much. It is always good to see an old friend of the committee like you. [The prepared statement of David Selden and other information supplied for the record follows:] 97-457 73 pt. 5 13 |