tunity to continue to do the excellent and outstanding job that they have been doing in the past. I think this is basic to the American way of life. So I think the point is that all of these things can be good, but we need to be careful that we do not tie the hands of these local boards to function within the kinds of things that we are trying to accomplish. I think, too, to further answer a question that I might have overlooked, school districts, for example, in Minnesota are receiving 65 percent of their State aid from the State. To give you an idea, in Rochester we have received 61.1 percent from the local property tax in 1971-72, with 10.8 coming from the sales tax, 2.3 percent coming from the Federal Government, and 24.7 percent coming from State sources. So there is a wide variance in this State. Mr. STEIGER. Let me go to just a couple of other questions. Mr. STEIGER. Has it worked, do you think? Mr. STRUPP. Reasonably well. I think the impact it has made has been minimal. I think as a tool for involving people and getting a commitment as to what is being done it is good. As far as being in decisionmaking, not particularly. Mr. STEIGER. I have just two further questions. One has to do with the concept of accountability, which means many different things to many different people. There is, I think it is fair to say, a growing interest in what we do to better define accountability in terms of the product of the school, what we get from the money that we spend for education. I would be interested really in two things in this regard. Is there, in your judgment, some wisdom in attempting to define accountability and, second, as you look at what your school system does in three different cities, what specifically if anything, have you done to try and translate the concept of accountability into the school program? Dr. DAVIS. Mr. Steiger, we have attempted in Minneapolis to communicate better the ways by which we are accountable, and I would simply like to say that I believe that the Minneapolis school district has been accountable. Now every teacher on the line knows what it means if parents come and confer relative to the issue of whether Mary or Joe is accomplishing. It is hard for us in schools, it has been hard for us, though we are maturing, and I think developing the ways of doing it, to really convey to large groups of people what we have done in terms of the stewardship of money and the investment of time and energy. In our bulletin of a year ago, we released a considerable amount of information along the line of accountability, which I think now is paramount in that school accomplishment, but if you saw the San Francisco Chronicle of November, wherein its flashing headline said "State I.Q.'s Drop", and the headlines were this big (indicating), you would withdraw from the advisability of releasing information which is not understood or which seems not to have anyone make an effort to understand. This, then, is a reflection on children and their parents, to say nothing of the schools, to say nothing of the teachers. Yes, I have been an advocate of increasing assertions of how we are accountable and the accomplishment that we are making. I might add, there is another aspect of accountability, and that is physical accountability and not related at the moment to what the product is. One of the things we are discovering is that to produce the information which groups of citizens request calls for additions of staff and faculty, staff and personnel who do nothing but check the records, who develop data processing programs, who can run cost analyses, who can find unit values. This is an additive cost of tremendous proportion in the last decade of school administration. I think accountability does need definition, and I am wrestling with it on a national committee at the moment. I could talk further on who is accountable to whom and how, but I haven't organized my thoughts to say it succinctly enough. But may I indicate to your chairman that I have the responsibility at 4 o'clock to meet with the Minneapolis Board of Education and that will require, with your permission, withdrawal from here at about 3:15. Chairman PERKINS. Well, we will finish here in 5 minutes, I hope. Dr. DAVIS. If not, may I go and will you understand? Chairman PERKINS. Wait just a moment. I would like to ask you one question. Do you have any further questions, Mr. Steiger? Mr. STEIGER. Go ahead. Chairman PERKINS. First let me compliment you. I think this great city has an outstanding superintendent of schools. Dr. DAVIS. Thank you, sir. Chairman PERKINS. The same thing goes for the other school superintendents. You have all made an outstanding contribution to this committee in your statements, but I would like to ask one question. You, in substance, have stated, all of you, that title I has worked well in your respective cities. Now, assuming that the special revenue sharing program of the President is enacted, how are we going to protect title I in the future if we don't build up a reserve or peg it at a certain level or something? We can't let it stand at the same level of funding. If we do, inflation will destroy all these good programs that you gentlemen have talked about. Now, how are we going to protect it under the legislation that we are talking about here? Dr. Kinder, that is what I want to know and it will be one of our chief concerns, I feel, in this legislation. Dr. KINDER. I think basically what I was trying to say to you is that the concept of revenue sharing is an excellent one. We want to get away as much as possible from the administrative overhead. Continuously, you know, we have had to get away from the administrative costs, and yet without administrators I think we realize we would all be in bad shape. This is the thing, as we talked about revenue sharing. There are some questions to be answered, for example, administration. Also what I was trying to say was that categorical aid within itself is not bad, but if this is the total concept of the Federal program, then I think we are in difficulty because once again you take away the flexibility of the local school system by saying to the board of education, here's money but you will do this and this and this with it. Well, you have actually bypassed them if this is the total program. I hope that somehow in any type of program that you consider you will take into account that the title I program has been a successful one, and that this could somehow be written into the guidelines, or at least the concepts that are involved. Chairman PERKINS. Well, how are we going to keep future funding at the same level? The President says that he does not intend to destroy title I, which his proposal does not, but how are we going to improve the value of the program if we don't provide more funds for the future? Dr. KINDER. You mean the total dollars? Chairman PERKINS. Yes, in dollars. Dr. KINDER. I don't see how we can continue the type of program that any of us would really be proud of unless we put more money into title I. We keep saying let's hold the line, let's cut out and let's do these kinds of things, and that finger could be pointed to every form of government. Yet when we begin this process and we say, well, maybe this isn't valuable, we have the people all of a sudden jump up and say, that is valuable to me, and we find from all this complexity Chairman PERKINS. Would you suggest a built-in formula, wherein certain general revenues, that we allocate so much of it to title I for these purposes as a priority, something along that line? Dr. KINDER. Mr. Perkins, you are far better qualified to answer that question than I am. I would say that title I is very important to us and the concept has worked very well. If that could be placed within this bill, and you could proceed along these lines, I would say yes, it is very good. It is the kind of thing that we need in education today. Chairman PERKINS. Go ahead, Doctor Davis. Dr. DAVIS. There are now three points I should like to make. In a sense, you have pinpointed one of the concerns. Title I has meant a great deal to cities, and it has made the difference, really. The second point is that title I, in my judgment, in a remarkable way, struck the delicate balance between the maintenance, the assistance of the maintenance of a public school system, and it also built into it the facility whereby aid could flow to children who were not in public schools. It did not upset, in my judgment, that balance which must be maintained with the parochial schools. I do not know what the similar provision should be, but that was one of the great aspects of title I and hope that will not be lost, for cities are dependent, it seems to me, on a varied education option of which the private and independent school is one. Mr. QUIE. Let me say, John, that there would be a follow-through so that the money wouldn't stop at the State, just as it doesn't stop now. Special revenue sharing would not stop at the State any more than it does at the present time. The followthrough to the city is the same way. Chairman PERKINS. Go ahead. Mr. STRUPP. It seems to me that as I read the bill and as I understand the workings of the bill, this would take care of your concern. If you are asking what should happen to the level, I think the level should increase proportionately as the Federal interest in the total education involvement increases. Dr. KINDER. One other point before we stop, educators in this country are not against being held accountable. We happen to know the problems of explaining the workings of the human being. The IQ drops and this type of thing, and I think we are doing many things. I know that time is about gone and I won't pretend to answer that question. I had hoped we would have time to talk about many things of accountability that are going on in this country and in Rochester, in fact, but we aren't against accountability, as such. We want to approach the thing so that it does make some sort of sense instead of just jumping in all of a sudden, saying well, one little thing out here and that determines whether you are accountable or whether you are doing the job. Mr. STEIGER. I would be just more grateful because I don't want to take more time, we are running late, but if both you and Jerry Strupp would be willing to drop a note that we could include in the record on any thoughts you have on that subject, please do. I would be grateful for that. Chairman PERKINS. Let me compliment this distinguished panel. I would like to say in conclusion that your respective cities should be proud of all of you. That is the way I feel about your contributions to this committee. Our next witnesses are Monsignor Habiger and Dr. Raymond Maag. Let me welcome you distinguished gentlemen here. Monsignor, I am delighted to welcome you and Dr. Maag here today. We want to do the best job for education, and we want to hear your views in this regard. Proceed, Monsignor. PANEL III STATEMENT OF MONSIGNOR JAMES D. HABIGER, DIOCESAN SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION, WINONA, MINN. Monsignor HABIGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In listing the agenda for today, you have me listed as being from Winona, Wis. I don't want to put down the great State of Wisconsin, but I really want to be able to claim that Congressman Al Quie is my representative. Chairman PERKINS. I don't know why Congressman Quie did not correct us on that. Mr. QUIE. I didn't even notice it. Chairman PERKINS. All I can say is he is a great legislator and looks after you well, apparently. Go ahead. Monsignor HABIGER. I want to first express my gratitude for the opportunity to speak with you today about the important issues being considered by this committee. Although the primary concern of my office is the continued welfare and improvement of Catholic schools in the 20 southern counties of the State of Minnesota, I, and my counterparts in the State and the Nation, realize that all American schools, public and private nonprofit, church-related as well as nondenominational, are united in the effort to provide better education for the country's children and young people. Nonpublic elementary and secondary schools, moreover, now educate some 5 million American children and young people. One elementary and secondary student in every nine in the United States attends such a school. On the basis of size alone, apart from any other consideration, nonpublic schools, the large majority of which are Catholic schools, constitute a significant segment of the total American educational enterprise. They are, as President Nixon has said, an "integral part" of American education. The Federal Government has the responsibility to take a truly comprehensive view of American education and to adopt programs and policies that will contribute to the well-being of both the public and nonpublic schools' ability to serve American students. President John F. Kennedy stated that our greatest natural resource is the educated citizenry of this country. This must include every American. The Federal Government should view itself as an "enabler" of educational excellence for all American children no matter where their parents, exercising their constitutional rights, choose to enroll them. It must help to create the practical partnership in American education which, one hopes, will be an emerging reality in the years ahead. One example of this help is the Airlie House Conference of November 1971 to which the public and nonpublic school superintendents of the 43 largest cities of the country were invited by the U.S. Office of Education to sit down for 2 days and discuss patterns of better communication and patterns of better funding for the educational effort in the major cities. Mark Shedd, former superintendent of schools for the city of Philadelphia, noted that the two major problems facing the large cities are race and poverty. The only long-range solution to these problems, he indicated, is education. And without proper funding for both public and nonpublic education, the systems will fail and with them the cities will go down. Can the Federal Government sit by and watch this dissolution? The Federal Government, therefore, must concern itself with a vastly expanded support role in the field of education, and this includes the nonpublic schools. As President Nixon concluded in his education revenue-sharing proposal to Congress April 6, 1971, "nonpublic schools bear a significant share of the cost and effort of providing education for our children today. Federal aid to education should take this fully into account." I am not going to read the following analysis that I have made with regard to revenue sharing. I think the record stands that we are in support of the principle of revenue sharing, but we have some very great concerns about the wording, and, therefore, any block granting to the State presents a real problem to the nonpublic school. In the State of Minnesota, nonpublic school children could participate in the national school lunch program only because the Federal Government assumed this responsibility through the regional office of the Department of Agriculture in Chicago. Now, because of Federal funds for administration, the State Department of Education |