interfere with any Indian community having cultural programs in the school if that is what they wanted. I am just speaking for myself.

Mr. MEEDS. Well let's assume, just for the purpose of this question, that it is all right to teach culture in schools. Is it a proper expenditure of Johnson-O'Malley funds to teach Indian culture in a school community that is composed of 60 percent Indian children and 40 percent non-Indian children?

Mr. JONES. No, I don't think it is. I think it should be done out of basic educational funds. That is, I have been accused of favoring segregated programs, which I don't at all. I think that integrated programs should be supported with integrated money and not with Indian money.

Mr. MEEDS. Yet if there is not a good understanding by Indians and non-Indians alike of the values, traditions, and so on of Indian culture, it becomes much more difficult to obtain funds in the future, which might deal with some of these problems. Do you not agree?

How can we understand other cultures if we have not at least had an opportunity to be subjected to some kind of cultural education? Mr. JONES. Well, that is what worries me.

Mr. MEEDS. What I am saying really is I think your attitude in fact can be self-defeating. Now I may be wrong. I would like you to respond to it.

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. I would like to respond to it. I would be for greater funding but I just think there is a limit to what public schools can do with the funds because partially there is such a gap generally between an Indian community and the school community.

To each one they are "those other guys." Most Indian parents are not very clear about what happens in school or why or how. They either accept it or don't accept it or are indifferent but they are not involved. They have become involved to a great extent through Johnson-O'Malley committees though, but when they do become involved, it can also be very frustrating because the power of the committee can build up and build up and build up and when push comes to shove they don't have as much power as the school board.

So I approve of giving Johnson-O'Malley committees absolute signoff, but I think you can have a situation where you have a deadlock. The school wants something and the committee won't buy it and the school says if you don't buy it you won't have it.

Then I think you have a negative deadlock. I think the only real substitute for that would be Federal funding that doesn't go to the schools but goes directly to the parents where they can reward achievement and also be held responsible for the system.

So you can say to the parents, well, how are the Johnson-O'Malley programs at your school? And they can say, oh, they are lousy and they didn't at all do what we wanted them to do. And then we can say, OK, that is up to you now. Don't give them the money next year.

And, you know, maybe the people would like to start their own schools. Maybe because we are talking about money being available on an entitlement basis for Indian children from birth through the completion of high school, maybe in fact it would make a lot more difference if they could have programs for 2-year-olds rather than just use the public schools.

But I think that it really can be changed, Mr. Chairman, only if the parents have some sort of reward and punishment device-well, maybe that is a little strongly put, but some sort of reward or withheld reward in relation to the schools, perhaps a small token system. Mr. MEEDS. You appear to be involved in continuing discussion and study of this whole area of Johnson-O'Malley. I wasn't a part of too many of those hearings on the Kennedy bill, so I am not as much of an expert as you. But I do know that when we had our hearings back then, discussion was focusing on the establishment of local JohnsonO'Malley advisory committees.

My observation at that time, for whatever it is worth, was that these committees were largely paper organizations. I don't mean to criticize the whole thing, but in many instances they were "establishment" Indians on the advisory committees. The local school board superintendent sat down and decided the district was going to use the money about the same way it had used it for the past 20 to 30 years. Then the advisory committee kind of rubber stamped the whole operation. First question, is that a view which you might share with me about the past performance and secondly has that changed much?

Mr. JONES. I agree with your assessment of how it was. I do think that is true. I think that is still true in some places that there are still committees that have no clear authority and there are still places where there are no committees.

But I think that the committees in some cases have gotten far stronger. Since that is the major part of my work, that is, training committees. I like to say that. But I also see that whereas the JohnsonO'Malley committee is a great opening into school involvement it is a trap in itself because some of the better committees get stuck on Johnson-O'Malley alone and in dealing with perhaps 2 percent of the funds within the school system and the other 98 percent go unnoticed and everyone is focusing just on a step.

And so, some school systems have turned it over to the Indians and made it a kind of tokenism saying, well, we will run our schools and you run your Johnson-O'Malley. So you get really strong committees asking for things like Indian library books out of Johnson-O'Malley. And I say it shouldn't be from Johnson-O'Malley. That is the school's job. And many strong committees have actually accepted the idea that this should go on and produce that general, dull gray, "Robert Hall"-type education and that the only hope is going to be through Federal money.

I think that has created a problem in itself.

Another problem with some of the committees has been that they are direct extensions of tribal politics and in some parts of the country that means that they are all men on the committees. My own experience has been that women generally are the ones who know what is generally happening in the school-and maybe everywhere for that matter but in the schools particularly-and the men deal on a political level with the school superintendent once or twice a year but the real nitty-gritty day-to-day action could much better be handled by women. Mr. MEEDS. Well, it may have changed. I hope it has, but again my observation was that few of the advisory committee members to whom I spoke had a very great understanding of the total school

budget and the relationship of Johnson-O'Malley funding to that budget and indeed even the basic concepts of what Johnson-O'Malley funding was all about initially. Has that been changed substantially? Mr. JONES. It would really help me if I could say it has changed substantially, but in truth it hasn't. We have done some very complicated training building up to this budget form, to this New Mexico budget form and we have gone over the entire budget form. We have stopped just short of giving questions on it. We have gone out of our way to try to train people on Johnson-O'Malley in its full context, but it is very difficult. I think that there are some people, sometimes not more than one or two people in any given district who really like detailed budget stuff but most people are just turned off by it. And part of our training program has been to hold mock budget hearings and to have people go to the full budget hearings. Of course one of the problems with Johnson-O'Malley has always been that even though it is supplementary it is planned 12 years before the school budget is. Now how can you plan a supplement before you plan what it is supplementing? The answer is you can't. So the Bureau says it needs 2 years because that is their planning schedule but the schools by definition operate on a 4- or 5-month fiscal planning schedule and that is when the real option takes place. That meeting 2 years beforehand is a hoax.

But the Bureau, Mr. Chairman, really doesn't care. I mean, it starts out as a program but by the time it gets to Washington there is nothing there but a computer printout. I mean they don't care whether you buy library books or offices or what. They are just dealing with a total dollar figure for the area office. You could get no money for one district and $6,000 a kid to another district and it is no skin off the Bureau's nose.

Mr. MEEDS. Mr. Trimble, who testified just before lunch, suggested that we ought to have a national advisory committee and even State advisory committees on Johnson-O'Malley. Do you think that might help eliminate some of the problems, or at least provide a safeguard against lack of more precise knowledge by establishing statewide or national goals?

Mr. JONES. I think a national advisory board would help if it was chosen on a functional working basis rather than a political basis and if for once the Bureau didn't name its own employees to the board. The last time the Bureau had a national education advisory board I represented the Albuquerque area and worked in the Albuquerque area office as a tribal area officer there. So it wasn't really very advisory. It wasn't even Mickey Mouse with real ears; it was just a musketeer-hattype Mickey Mouse.

You see the problem is the Bureau does not administer the funds in any way. The Bureau only job is the gate through which the money passes. They don't know what is going on with Johnson-O'Malley and don't even think they're supposed to know.

I was just reflecting this morning the Bureau doesn't even know who the service population is. You ask whether or not Johnson-O'Malley services people off reservations and the answer is, Mr. Chairman, of course they do. There are no reservations in Oklahoma and JohnsonO'Malley has been going into that area all the time.

I think the Bureau sees its job as meeting once a year to sign the

contract.

Mr. MEEDS. It is my understanding that present Johnson-O'Malley requests are somewhere in the area of $2.6 billion and also my understanding in your statement that you disapprove a request for $65 million for title I under Johnson-O'Malley

Mr. JONES. I just wondered why there is a ceiling on it.

Mr. MEEDS. Pardon?

Mr. JONES. I just wondered why there is a ceiling on it.

Mr. MEEDS. In effect if appropriations are presently available, they could be $2 billion or $3 billion, but they list the eligibility at $65 million

Mr. JONES. Correct.

Mr. MEEDS. Go ahead.

Mr. JONES. I don't know the workings of authorization at all. Maybe there is some purpose in putting it on. I just didn't understand it because I thought there was no limit now.

Mr. MEEDS. First, do you propose that we get around the present restrictive practice of making Johnson-O'Malley funds available only to Indian children "on or near reservations"? If you propose that, how do we do it?

Mr. JONES. I would propose what is proposed in the red regulations and that is that it go to the Bureau service population.

I would hope the Bureau service population would increase. Mr. MEEDS. How does the Bureau increase its service population in the red regulations?

Mr. JONES. Oh, they do it by saying there is an entitlement for all Indian students from birth through graduation from high school.

There are now some Indian students applicable for Johnson-O'Malley under all of the items in the regulations but who don't receive any funds because of peculiarities in the State plan. Arizona is the best example of that. We have close to 2,500 Indians who live on reservations who receive no Johnson-O'Malley funds because the district tax I think is below average.

So in that respect it would be increased. I am told that the Supreme Court will probably consider the question of who is eligible for Bureau services, also.

Mr. MEEDS. How would you respond to a distinction or a definition in the bill which described "Indian" as those of one-quarter blood or more or who were considered by the community in which they resided to be Indians. This then would be the BIA's service population.

Mr. JONES. I personally wouldn't have any problem with that. I see that question as related to the question of formula.

By the way, formula in the entitlement, well, for example, when we were discussing regulations with some people from the Alaska Federation of Natives, they were concerned about the eligibility of Anchorage under proposed regulations because they thought that if small rural areas in Alaska had to compete with the relative city slickers from Anchorage for Federal funding, that the rural people would lose out. And I think that if there is competition for funds as

in fact there has been under Johnson-O'Malley that there is unlegitimate concern about urban participation.

I don't think anyone is concerned if the money is going to be available for everybody. If a formula grant is possible, I don't think there is any concern.

Mr. MEEDS. OK, well, thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony.

[The full statement of Myron Jones, together with the attachments thereto, follow:]

STATEMENT OF MYRON JONES, DIRECTOR, INDIAN EDUCATION TRAINING, INC., ALBUQUERQUE, N. MEX.

I. INTRODUCTION

My name is Myron Jones. I'm a Tuscarora Indian and the Director of Indian Education Training, Inc., located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I thank you for the invitation to testify before this Subcommittee. I would like to focus all my testimony on those issues raised by this legislation (S. 1017) that would effect the Johnson-O'Malley Act, i.e., Title II, Part A.

Two years and four months ago, I was invited by Congressman Meeds to testify before an education subcommittee that met in Gallup, New Mexico to collect field testimony on several pending pieces of Indian legislation. Then, as now, I represent an organization that both trains Indian education committees and monitors Federal programs and funds. Our organization has been at this for the past four years, and though that represents a relatively short span in the total history of Indian education, it has been long enough to enable us to identify some clear points of progress and some clear instances of remarkable intransigence.

In June of 1972, the State of New Mexico adopted a new Johnson-O'Malley plan which clearly stated that all programs had to be supplementary. It also gave more authority to district Johnson-O'Malley committees and introduced a new budget form (Exhibit A) which helped considerably in relating the use of supplementary funds to a school's overall program planning. Eleven of New Mexico's Johnson-O'Malley school districts now receive their funds, not through the State, but through inter-tribal and tribal groups. The remaining seven school districts (all Navajo) are now involved in negotiations for a Navajo tribal contract for next year.

Nevada, Oklahoma, California, Alaska and Wisconsin have also revised their State Plans. In all cases, but to varying degrees, these States provided protection against supplanting. Two and a half years ago, only North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska had tribal or inter-tribal contracts. Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico and Alaska have now joined this list. The Natonabah lawsuit in New Mexico was decided in favor of the Indian plaintiffs and a similar lawsuit (Denetclarence) was settled in terms highly favorable to the Indian plaintiffs. That's a summary of the good news. The bad news is that all these reforms were accomplished without any changes or constructive guidance in the form of Bureau of Indian Affairs policy.

Two and a half years ago, there was a national movement to change B.I.A. Johnson-O'Malley regulations and 28 months and 14 drafts later, there still has been no change in Johnson-O'Malley regulations. The system and rationale for distribution of the funds remains as mysterious as ever.

Because all reform has been initiated at a local or State level, those States (most notably Arizona) that have been both stubborn and arrogant have not only been able to use all their funds for basic support but have received steady increases in their total dollar amounts. The Phoenix Area Office this year recommended that their budget be increased from $4 million to $10 million. That was shortly after the State Department returned the Bureau's program evaluation form with the simple explanation that the form was inappropriate because they ran no programs (Exhibit B).

I'll return to the question of reform and regulations after a specific analysis of the proposed legislation.