the Assistant Secretary, your bill provides the usual formula that would prohibit the United States, the Federal Government from interference in the affairs of the school districts?

Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes, Mr. Chairman, it does, in section 2.

Mr. BAILEY. This section that I refer to as the Shylock clause is probably unquestioned interference of the U.S. Government even to the extent of freezing the revenues of a school district. Would you figure that the criticism on that particular approach there would be more damaging than the good effects of that money? How do you have any way of telling how seriously the Federal Government would need funds from 1985 to 1995? We may have a surplus instead of a deficit then?

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman, of course the Congress could take whatever action it thought appropriate in the light of the circumstances then existing and as I said earlier, one is really echoing what the Secretary said the other day. This feature of the bill is not one that we regard as an essential element of the program.

Mr. BAILEY. Did you put it in for trading purposes or what?

Mr. RICHARDSON. We put it in, Mr. Chairman, because we thought that the concept of the bill emphasizing as it did the ability of a community to support school construction out of its own resources up to but not beyond a reasonable tax effort ought to carry with it an obligation to continue to exert that effort for a reasonable period of time after bonds were paid off.

In other words, if the community needed help enough so as to justify the Federal Government and the State government coming in to make payments on its bond issue, then if later the community's situation improves we thought it was reasonable for the United States and the State government to benefit from that improvement in the local situation. That was the only reason for it.

Mr. FREEINGHUYSEN. Mr. Chairman, if we wanted to discuss this in perspective we must recognize that this charge of Federal interference which you just referred to is sure to be levied against any program which this committee might report out. I wonder if you would care to comment on this requirement of a reasonable tax effort and whether that would perhaps constitute Federal interference of a kind which would arouse opposition. In other words, your point is that the determination of a reasonable tax effort will be made by the State. There will be a State plan set up which will insulate the Federal Government from a direct responsibility and that therefore there is no Federal intervention in the determination of whether a community has made a reasonable tax effort and therefore can qualify for Federal funds.

Mr. RICHARDSON. That is entirely correct. I would like to point out in addition provisions of section 6(a) (3), which makes clear that at the outset the State has to decide that the school district could not build a school without having to tax itself to an unreasonable extent. So that the school district comes in in the beginning will be school districts that could not otherwise build a school at all without having to pay more to levy a higher tax on the local tax base than the State feels they ought to have to levy. So that the State will have made this determination in the beginning and most of the school districts that come in will have to be school districts already levying a high

373785911

tax, either a tax at or above the levy called for by the State in determining a reasonable tax. So there will be no coercion on the dis-trict at that point.

Mr. BAILEY. The Chair recalls 2 years ago the full committee got into somewhat of a hassle over some of the procedures in the legislation we were considering at that time. It involved getting an opinion from the General Accounting Office. Have you cleared this proposed legislation with the General Accounting Office procedure?

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman, we have not. I think that problem was a problem that arose in connection with the bond purchase title of the bill in which the question was with respect to the manner in which the Federal Government would finance the purchase of bonds. And that question does not arise here because we have no such title in the bill.

Mr. BAILEY. I remembered Judge Smith, chairman of the Rules Committee, eating up our delegation if I were to ask for a rule and that is one of the things that he was very much concerned about. I am wondering if the same question is involved in this proposed legislation.

Mr. RICHARDSON. No, Mr. Chairman, that question is not involved. Mr. BAILEY. Mr. Udall.

Mr. UDALL. I just have one or two questions.

Mr. Commissioner, you recall my discussion last week with Dr. Flemming concerning the problem of teacher salaries and I suppose that you would share with him the feeling that he has expressed recently that as a national goal we should shoot for doubling of teachers' salaries in the next 8 or 10 years. Does that seem to be a sensible goal for you?

Mr. DERTHICK. I certainly do share that goal.

Mr. UDALL. In that connection, under the type of program that you are presenting here it seems to me since it is not addressed to that particular problem, other than maybe alleviating the general school load, and it does seem to me that we are wise to get down to specific cases, where we can, rather than talk generalities, in your own State of Tennessee, if the Federal Government takes no action directed toward the schoolteacher salary problem, would it be your prediction that your State through the action of the State legislature will double teacher salaries in the next 10 years?

Mr. DERTHICK. It is my judgment that my State can do and must do far more than it is doing in the case of teacher salaries. I think there are movements on the way that I hope will crack the opposition, the handicaps, to improving teacher salaries, but it is a disgrace, I am sorry to say, that my State is not doing more than it is doing and it certainly is able to do more.

Mr. UDALL. Knowing all the forces at work in the State legislatures and the problems that they have and the resistance at the State level to further taxation for schools or other purposes, would you venture to predict that your State is going to double teacher salaries in the next 10 years or would you consider that too optimistic?

Mr. DERTHICK. When you say the next 10 years, I think it might well be possible. I think we are in this situation right now. I really do. I thought a great deal about it and as you would know, I am terribly concerned about it. All over this country we have States and local

communities that are welshing on their responsibility in the matter of teachers' salaries. As I said awhile ago, I think certainly in every school district of suitable size and every school district, the matter of teacher salaries and school support is just a life and death matter. The whole country depends upon every one. I wish I could stand up on a big housetop and just talk to every school district, school district by school district and plead with them. I think that it is terribly important for the local citizens, not just the local patrons, but for the local citizens to be greatly concerned about their schools, to visit the schools, to know their teachers, to know their school boards, to know their school administrators, to be sensitive to the needs and problems, to make suggestions, and offer constructive criticism, to be right in the swim of things. Where we find communities with that kind of citizen participation we usually find good schools.

And I think that that is even more important than money, because the money is going to take care of itself if we have that kind of relationship on the part of the citizens.

Now I certainly would not foreclose the possibility in meeting national interests at some future date that the Federal Government might have to enter this field. But I believe if the Federal Government should enter that field prematurely, that it would do much to stifle this citizen participation and citizen concern and citizen support that is the very life blood of the school. I would not like to see anything done that would put a ceiling on local and State efforts in this matter at this time as much as I am concerned with it. I think we have to do something to jar loose these States and local communities in this

area.

Mr. UDALL. I quite agree with you that this matter of alert citizenry is very vital, if not the most vital thing in the whole picture, and that one of the encouraging things of the past 18 months, I guess, is that there has been an increasing interest. I get the feeling sometimes that we may be lapsing back into the old apathy, but as I look about the country at the picture of what the States are doing, despite the fact that they have been making somewhat better effort, I would not want to heave bouquets at them in the field of school construction, but when it comes down to teacher salaries, they just above have been keeping up with inflation, really, the last 6 or 8 or 10 years, it seems to me, and that if we are to have a breakthrough, and that is what we are talking about when we set out a goal of doubling salaries, it seems to me that we either have to feel that this new citizen interest is going to cause it at the State level, or we have to begin seriously talking about doing it from some other level.

Mr. DERTHICK. Well, you mentioned my State. I will mention my own hometown of Chattanooga. I will be paying my taxes there before the first of March. For the last 2 years I have written the tax clerk of my deep embarrassment that I am paying relatively so little for so much and my city is not making 25 percent of the effort that it is able to make and it can afford to make. If you look at the relative efforts of cities of its classification, and I think it would be a great injury to my city of Chattanooga, if the Federal Government would come in and just take the load off that it is able to carry. Now, as I say, I do not foreclose the possibility at some future date if we have the proper effort and stimulation at the local and State effort, all that

they ought to make. If we are not meeting the national interest in this field we might have to do something. But I think it is pretty serious now that we have to undertake, and the Secretary mentioned a number of means himself, whereby this matter might and I will say as you indicate an optimistic note. Maybe you are not quite as optimistic as I wish you could be. I am not as optimistic as I would like to be. But I am somewhat encouraged.

About 2 weeks ago I chanced to take a look at some school districts all over the country that have gone up to teacher salary levels of $7,000 and $8,000 and $9,000 and $10,000 a year, for maximum. And I know that I was aware of that picture as it existed around 5 years ago and I was quite astonished to see the improvement. I think there are forces underway to do this thing. But I repeat that I should hate to see my city of Chattanooga just excused from its responsibility, not just because it ought to pay its part but because when we relieve it of that responsibility we do much to put the brakes on citizen interest and citizen concern and citizen effort to carry this load.

But I do want to say that I feel that you and I are exactly together in our objectives and in our hopes and in our feelings and in our concerns. I remember that you have been a school board member yourself.

Mr. UDALL. I think we are discussing one of the central questions if not the most important question which confronts this committee in deciding what type of legislation it is going to recommend to the full committee, and I am glad to have had this little discussion with you this morning.

That is all I have this morning.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. Brademas, do you have any comment?
Mr. BRADEMAS. No, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. Commissioner, this may be a little embarrassing, but I feel I would be remiss in my duty if I did not ask the question. Knowing the interest of the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers in maintaining a balanced budget, have you been able to sell them on the legislation? We are getting a lot of requests in here for testimony in opposition to all kinds of new legislative proposals.

Mr. DERTHICK. We shall make every effort to try to sell them. I don't know how successfully.

Mr. BAILEY. I am asking you if you have sold them.

Mr. DERTHICK. The question is have we sold them?

Mr. BAILEY. Have you sold them in advance?

Mr. DERTHICK. I can not say we have sold them in advance, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BAILEY. What the Chair has in mind is this: My State legislature is in session right at the present time. They come in here and tell you that they-I am talking now about representatives of the chamber of commerce and the taxpayers' associations, and the general manufacturers' associations-they tell you that they are cooperating and that this has to be done in the State and local level. Right down at Charleston today they are doing everything within their power to block-the fact of the matter is they have killed in the legislature a State income tax that would have channeled mostly into the field of education. But they will come up here and tell you that they coop

erate fully and the State should do those things and they use every possible effort within their means to block the very thing that they come up here and use as an argument against Federal participation. This goes on, I take it, practically in every other State where the legislature is in session right now.

Mr. BRADEMAS. It is certainly true in my State, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BAILEY. How much good faith is there in their appearance before this committee to preach a doctrine of that?

Mr. DERTHICK. I certainly do not condone those tactics, Mr. Chairman. It is very agonizing to me when those tactics are used.

Mr. BAILEY. They are being used. I do not know. I do not know. I am not ready to accuse the Farm Bureau, but if they are against the legislation, as they were before, and they are the greatest recipients of Federal handouts of any group I know of, yet they oppose Federal grants in the field of education. But they hold their hands out back of them and take all kinds of Federal subsidies and come in here and oppose a proposition on Federal aid to education. Do you want to say something?

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. Just in connection with this question about opposition, I think the problem is one which the Commissioner referred to with respect to subsidizing teacher salaries. It is perhaps as much as anything the reason for some of the opposition. We heard a lot of talk about the transfer of responsibility away from the local school districts, if we developed a Federal program. I think we surely can get more of that same line of argument in developing a Federal program this year and it is for that reason I think we need to define very carefully what the role of the Federal Government is and to see to it that it is not a justified charge that there would be a transfer of responsibility away from the local school districts because we developed a Federal program. I fail to see how they could really substantiate such a charge against a program like this.

Mr. DERTHICK. Mr. Chairman, we feel that this proposal is practical and carefully devised to set up an area of common ground on which many different elements ought to be able to meet, with regard to Federal control I cannot conceive how justifiably that charge can be made and certainly we have a great example in the administration of the National Defense Education Act being the latest, not to mention all the other Federal aid programs, in which we keep the responsibility very vigorously kept, at the State and local level.

You mentioned the Farm Brueau. I happened to be making a speech in San Francisco on the same platform with a spokesman of that agency and I was discussing this very point. His subject was not on the question of Federal aid but he chose to attack it in his speech after I got through. I did not have a chance for rebuttal. But on the platform afterwards I review for him our methods and procedures and his only comment was, "Well, maybe you do not have Federal control now, but if you had a lot more money, why you would have it." I wanted to tell him that the good book said that if we were faithful over a few things we might safely have responsiblity