title IV of Public Law 230 (Ninety-first Congress)) shall apply to the program of Federal assistance authorized under this Act as if such program were an inapplicable program under such General Education Provisions Act, and the Secretary shall have the authority vested in the Commissioner of Education by such parts with respect to such program.

(b) Section 422 of such General Education Provisions Act is amended by inserting "Quality School Assistance Act of 1972;" after "the International Education Act of 1966;".

SEC. 11. (a) (1) Section 3 of the Act of September 30, 1950 (Public Law 815, Eighty-first Congress), is amended by striking out "June 30, 1973" and inserting in lieu thereof "June 30, 1975".

(2) Section 15 (15) of such Act is amended by striking out "1968-1969" and inserting in lieu thereof "1970–1971”.

(b) Sections 2(a), 3(b), and 4(a) of the Act of September 30, 1950 (Public Law 874, Eighty-first Congress), are each amended by striking out "1973" wherever it appears and inserting in lieu thereof "1978”.

(c) Section 16(a)(1)(A) of the Act of September 23. 1950 (Public Law 815, Eighty-first Congress), is amended by striking out "July 1, 1973" and inserting in lieu thereof "July 1, 1975" and section 7(a) (1) (A) of the Act of September 30, 1950 (Public Law 874, Eighty-first Congress), is amended by striking out "July 1, 1973" and inserting in lieu thereof "July 1, 1978".

Chairman PERKINS I am extremely pleased to welcome before the committee outstanding representatives of the education community as the committee initiates its field hearings on the operation of federally supported elementary and secondary education programs and, at the same time, attempts to determine what, if any, are the additional needs of elementary and secondary education that might appropriately be supplied through additional Federal legislation.

I personally feel that one shortcoming of Federal programs we have already enacted has been the low level of funding. For example, for the major Federal support program for elementary and secondary education, title I, the authorization is $6 billion, but for the fiscal year 1972 only $1,597,500,000 has been appropriated.

We have authorized $216.300.000 for title II of ESEA for textbooks, library resources, and other instructional materials, but only $90 million has been appropriated for fiscal year 1972.

For title III of the National Defense Education Act we authorized $140.500.000, but only $50 million has been appropriated. For title III of ESEA. supplemental education services and centers, we authorized $592.250,000, but we only appropriated $146,393.000.

For the dropout-prevention program under title VIII, $30 million is authorized, but only $10 million has been provided.

Pilingual education under title VII of ESEA has been authorized $100 million, but only $35 million has been appropriated.

I could also enumerate the lack of funds in authorized Federal programs supporting elementary and secondary education in the areas of Federal impact and the Education Professions Development Act, education of the handicapped, and vocational education.

In one sense the recitation of the gap between authorizations and appropriations answers in part the question at which our hearings are aimed, that is, that the funding of programs at only 25 percent of the amount that the program is reasonably expected to cost to reach effectively all eligible children means that we are not going to be able to operate programs to fulfill the objectives of the Federal authorizing legislation. To me it is amazing that the programs I have observed have been as successful as they have been.

I look forward to your presentation on the administration and operation of the present ongoing Federal programs.

At the same time, I also look forward to your views with respect to obtaining additional funds for ongoing programs and your views with respect to future Federal education legislation to support elementary and secondary education.

Never in the two decades it has been my privilege to serve on the House Education and Labor Committee have elementary and secondary education needs been so great.

We face a critical situation in our schools. In many areas our classrooms are overcrowded.

In many areas our school facilities are dilapidated, poorly equipped, poorly lighted, and obsolete.

In most every school district there is a need for additional paraprofessional and supportive teaching personnel.

Our teachers' salaries are too low to attract and retain qualified personnel unless, as is most often the case, people dedicated to the needs of children enter and stay in the field at great personal sacrifice.

Never has the need for expanded early childhood and preschool education been greater.

In many areas there is an inability to finance essential portions of the school program by the employment of welfare workers, psychologists, and experts in the field of nutrition and health.

Everywhere there is a need for special programs for the gifted, the handicapped, and the multilingual for which there are no funds. In the face of all these critical needs, our local property taxpayers in many areas are overburdened and in revolt.

Many changes now seen only on the horizon for education must be prepared for. These are forecast by the court decision in Serrano v. Priest, California decision, and in the U.S. Federal court decision in Texas affecting the validity of local property taxes to support elementary and secondary education.

I look forward to the educators' views with respect to the matters I have discussed.

We have this tremendous problem in connection with financing. We are seeking the assistance of people dedicated to education in America to help us solve this problem. All of the local communities are overburdened with taxation. More funding, in my judgment, must come from the Federal level.

I know communities in the area that I am privileged to represent that are completely out of resources. In the mining communities, people have migrated to other places and the school buildings have, to a great degree, just deteriorated, and there are no funds or resources in those school districts to carry on, except for the funds they get from the State level.

There is a lot of talk about the property tax. The property tax has been with us for thousands of years. No doubt we have a lot of inequities. We have inequities involved in the distribution of Federal funds. We are hoping to come up wth some means of doing more at the Federal level than we have in the past.

I want to state this morning that it is a great pleasure for me to be in Minnesota with one of the most outstanding gentlemen in the

U.S. Congress, and that is Al Quie. I have always told him if the Democrats ever lose a majority in the Congress, the chairmanship of the House Committee on Education and Labor will be in good hands with his integrity, his honesty, his ability, and know-how and the contributions that he has made in the past, all through the years, commencing with the enactment of the Vocational Education Act in 1963. I know that he steered the bill through the committee in 1968 when the subcommittee was having some difficulty. The whole country is indebted to Congressman Quie.

Not only is he a great education leader, but he is one of the top legislative leaders in the U.S. Congress, qualified for any position in this country from the Presidency on down. I certainly want to tell the people who sent him to Congress that he should be returned as many times as he puts his name on the ballot, and I certainly hope that always happens. That is the way I feel about Al Quie.

We have another distinguished gentleman here this morning who came to the Congress as a young man from the Midwest, Wisconsin. Very few people have brought to the Congress the leadership that Congressman Steiger has. His contributions in the area of education have been unexcelled by any other member on the committee. He works diligently, and he spends a lot of time, also, with labor problems. He is one of our great labor experts in the Congress.

It is a great pleasure for me, as I stated in the beginning, to be here with such outstanding leaders who are really dedicated to the cause of education. We are hoping, by working together, to come up with some solutions to the problem. I don't know what kind of bill will be introduced in the next session of the Congress but, at any rate, if it is promising for the people of this country, and we have to authorize greater programs, with the leadership of Al Quie and Bill Steiger, I think we can accomplish something.

We are going to continue as rapidly as possible today, and we will continue through the lunch hour. We can go down at intervals to get sandwiches.

It is a great pleasure for me to call as the first witness Dr. Duane Lund, superintendent of schools of Staples, Minn.

Dr. Lund, I know of your great leadership in education in the past. You may want to make some remarks about the views of the advisory committee in that connection.

It is a great pleasure to welcome you here.

Al, if you have any remarks at this time, go ahead.

Mr. QUIE. Thanks. Mr. Chairman.

I want to welcome you here to the North Country in Minnesota. When I left Austin this morning, after a breakfast meeting down there. I expected to be here on time, but the snow was bad between there and here. I know you can't believe looking outside the windows here, that there was snow. But in Minnesota it can snow in some parts of the State and be completely clear in others. I wish I could have welcomed you with a good snowstorm but I wasn't able to do that.

I want to tell this group, too, how deeply pleased I am that you could be up here for the testimony, because so often we hold hearings, listening in the ghetto of the city or some of the other places.

where they are having a difficult time providing quality education. Here you will be hearing testimony from an area of the country where we really have quality education. We have the lowest rate of illiteracy of any place in the Nation and the highest retention rate in the schools, and I think it is good for us to get a point of view from people who are doing such an excellent job as they do in Minnesota. I also think that this is an important time, because we are moving, I believe, to the next step in the expansion of Federal assistance to elementary and secondary schools. We don't know the direction it is going vet, really. I believe that the testimony taken in the early part of 1972 will be as significant as any we have taken, because I think before this year is out we are going to be passing some extremely significant legislation for elementary and secondary schools. Of course, one part of the important legislation that is on the agenda has already been introduced. This is the consolidation of programs. There are about 100 to 105 programs administered by the Office of Education, and I think most Members of Congress feel that there ought to be consolidation, to let the local schools in the States have more leeway in fulfilling the need as they see it.

The chairman mentioned the need for additional funds, and I think there will be additional funds. We have made some progress in the last 3 years increasing the appropriation for the Office of Education from about $3.6 billion up to $6.1 billion and that really was under the authorizations that were in effect at that time. I think with new authorizations there will be additional expenditures of significant amounts.

My last comment before we turn it over to the witness is to say how pleased I am to have Duane Lund here. He has been on our side of it. He was on the staff of Senator Thye at one time, so he has seen it from the Washington scene and has been all the way up and down the line in education. He is great: he's been around for a long time. He was probably doing that when Bill Steiger was in knee pants. We always kid Bill that he learned to shave when he came to Congress.

Mr. STEIGER. Just before he grew his hair long, at the same time. Chairman PERKINS. Bill, do you have any remarks to make at this time?

Mr. STEIGER. Not a thing. I am delighted to be here and pleased to be with both of my colleagues. I want to hear from Duane. Chairman PERKINS. Go ahead, Dr. Lund.

STATEMENT OF DR. DUANE LUND, SUPERINTENDENT OF
SCHOOLS, STAPLES, MINN.

Dr. LUND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I can recall, though, Mr. Steiger, when Mr. Quie came to Congress. He came in midterm. I was working there at the time. One of the doormen would not admit him to the House Chamber; he thought he was too young in appearance.

Mr. Chairman, we do appreciate so very much the fact that you and your committee have come to us so that we can make a presentation to you. Otherwise, it would not be possible for most of us in this room to have this opportunity.

We are very proud of Congressman Quie, especially those of us in education are so grateful to him for what he has done for education nationally and for us in Minnesota.

It really is an honor for us to have you here, Mr. Perkins, because I don't know if you realize it or not, to those of us in education, especially in vocational education, you are a legend in your time. Vocational education and the name of Carl Perkins are synonymous to us who work in this field, and we are grateful to you for what you have done over the years and will be doing in the future years.

Chairman PERKINS. That would not have been done but for Al Quie and, as I stated, my good friend Mr. Steiger. We have all dedicated ourselves to promoting vocational education.

Dr. LUND. As a member of the National Advisory Council on Vocational Education, I do not speak for the entire council, because I did not share with them the fact I would be speaking this morning with you gentlemen. So I speak only for myself, as one member, but I suspect that most of the members will agree with what I have to say, particularly George Ramey, who is also on the council and just has to be one of the finest vocational directors in this Nation. When you see George, ask him about fishing in Minnesota. He was here last year and we had a great time together.

I want to begin my testimony with a strong appeal for property tax relief. I am speaking now, I guess, mostly as a small town school superintendent, because, whether accomplished through revenue sharing or some other form of Federal aid to the local districts. I feel we just have to have, on a nationwide basis, property tax relief if education is to move.

The single most important factor contributing to inequality of educational opportunity in our country today and yesterday is the fact that the property tax remains the basic means of support for education. In our State of Minnesota, the legislature this year did make possible substantial property tax relief. I think it was landmark legislation for Minnesota, and yet that relief will only average out, we are told, at about 10 to 15 percent across the State. In fact, the St. Paul papers carried an article just this past week indicating there will be about 5 percent tax relief only for the city of St. Paul, but it is above 15 percent in some communities. As small as that is percentagewise, it is significant, and hopefully now we can hold that property tax figure where it is at the present time with only very small increments, but it will take, I think, some Federal help if it is to be meaningful enough to the taxpayers of Minnesota even. I also urge Congress, if you do anything in the way of property tax relief, to include capital outlay and debt service; otherwise, we aren't going to really equalize educational opportunity.

In our own school district, for example, the vast majority of the cost of operating our school system comes from outside of our school district even now, and yet when we build a school building, apart from a vocational school, an elementary or secondary school, every cent has to come from our local taxpayers and, of course, facilities are a part of educational opportunity. So I hope anything you do will consider debt service and capital outlay.

I feel that we need to equalize educational opportunities in our country and also raise the general level of educational opportunity in