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TABLE 9-B.-Estimated current expense and capital outlay, 1954-55

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1 Estimated by NEA research division. Please note that 3 zeros should be added to amounts listed in columns 2 and 4.

2 Per pupil in ADM.

TABLE 10.—Estimated pupil enrollment and percent not attending regular full

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Estimated by NEA research division. Column 8 should indicate percent of total enrollment on halfday sessions or any plan providing less than full regular school day.

2 Includes grades 7 and 8 of junior high schools.

Senator ALLOTT. I will ask you: Were there any suggestions in that wire as to what your opinion was that this bill would not do?

Dr. FULLER. I analyzed very briefly the four titles, calling attention to the things which were contrary to the council's policies and those were noted; yes. That is what I was asked to do.

Senator ALLOTT. I notice in your answers there was quite a repetition almost in the same words in the answers, and I was wondering whether you had suggested what the answers should be, at least from the standpoint of your associations.

Dr. FULLER. I haven't suggested what the answers should be; not at all. I called attention to the parts of the bill which violate the policies of the Council of Chief State School Officers and indicated them in the wire. Again I would say the chief State school officers think for themselves. They have to know every school building in every State. They have to put their staffs to work.

Senator ALLOTT. Let me take up on that question. You made the statement that they were forwarding this to their staffs and put 5 to 6 men to work.

Dr. FULLER. In some States.

Senator ALLOTT. That might be true, but I mean, let's keep it to the facts. You do not know that any of them did it, actually. Dr. FULLER. Yes; I do.

Senator ALLOTT. Were you there?

Dr. FULLER. You will have a witness this afternoon who told me that. You can ask him yourself. It will be the superintendent from Ohio.

Senator ALLOTT. You were not there. You don't know.

Dr. FULLER. Superintendent Eyman from Ohio tells the truth. He will be before you later.

Senator ALLOTT. You don't know of your own knowledge that they all put their staffs together.

Dr. FULLER. I haven't said all.

Senator ALLOTT. You do not know.

Dr. FULLER. I did not say all at all.

Senator ALLOTT. I want to keep this on a level situation.

With respect to the wire that you have from the man in Maryland, or maybe a woman-I am not sure which-the chief official thereDr. FULLER. It is a man.

Senator ALLOTT. Is that an elective or appointive office?

Dr. FULLER. That is an appointive office.

Senator ALLOTT. Do you know whether or not he speaks for the legislature or the Governor?

Dr. FULLER. He speaks for the State board of education.

Senator ALLOTT. Have you seen Governor McKeldin's recent statement on 968?

Dr. FULLER. I saw that.

Senator ALLOTT. Are you aware that he said he is in complete accord with the principles of this bill?

Dr. FULLER. Yes.

Senator ALLOTT. Except for the State of Nebraska-and I am going by memory, as you read them through, and I am subject to correction myself, sir-except for the State of Nebraska, I find no reference whatever in any instance to consultation with either the educational

committees of the legislature, or the governors; is that correct? Do I recall your statement correctly?

Dr. FULLER. I think that is right, although there are 2 or three, I believe, references in the letters, parts of which I didn't read in, where it was mentioned that there had been consultations with the gover

nors.

Senator ALLOTT. Let's assume, here, if I may that we all have an interest in education and as sincere and as deep an interest as I am sure you have.

You referred several times to financing schools by the property tax. Do you have in mind that some other tax should be exerted to finance schools?

Dr. FULLER. As a matter of fact, Senator, at the present time the support of public education in the United States comes approximately 40 percent from State funds and almost all of that 40 percent, amounting to $3,500 million a year is from other than property taxes. Senator ALLOTT. That is right. That is what I was getting at. I can speak for my own State and I know that is true.

Dr. FULLER. That is right.

Senator ALLOTT. But on the local level, it is usually taxed by an ad valorem tax, the taxes are raised by an ad valorem tax. Do you think that is wrong, that local schools should be taxed on an ad valorem basis?

Dr. FULLER. No, I do not think it is wrong, but I am convinced from the surveys made in all the 48 States and from first-hand information and studies made in individual States over a period of years, that the property tax is an inadequate fiscal base for education in numerous places.

Senator ALLOTT. I am not going to argue about that because it is. If you had attended the first 3 days of these hearings, I asked many questions touching upon that at that time. But if a community in the school district is unwilling to do one of several things by way of suggestion, but not total inclusion equalizing the basis of the property tax, increasing their bond limit indebtedness, whether it is by constitutional means or other means, depending upon the State, and showing a willingness to do something for the schools, then I get back to the question that I asked of you this morning: Do you feel that the Federal Government should step in in such places and make a determination that their school facilities are inadequate and go ahead and build schools anyway?

Dr. FULLER. No. We not only oppose the Federal Government doing that, but we oppose the State school building agencies doing it. That is the point I am making. Under these other bills which I am afraid are not very well understood, these other four bills which are before this committee, the determinations would never be made by the Federal Government.

Senator ALLOTT. Can you show me where they would be under the Hill bill?

Dr. FULLER. Yes. The underlined portions of my testimony where the discretionary power is placed in a Federal official. There is one place I didn't even mention which is even more objectionable than any that I did. That is, that under title III on the approval of the small grants for local school districts, in order to enable them to come

up to the starting line and qualify under title I or title II, there would have to be project by project approval by the United States Commissioner of Education.

Senator ALLOTT. In any case, where there have been grants from the Federal Governments, isn't that true?

Dr. FULLER. No.

Senator ALLOTT. What about the Hill-Burton Act?

Senator DOUGLAS. Would the Senator yield for a minute to me? Was the Senator's inquiry addressed to the Hill bill, S. 5? Senator ALLOTT. I didn't refer-not unless I did

Senator DOUGLAS. The answer was in reply to 968.

Senator ALLOTT. They tell me I inadvertently referred to that. I was talking about S. 968, and I think Dr. Fuller replied to that.

Dr. FULLER. I was talking about the bill you mention, S. 968 is the one that has been mentioned. S. 968 is the one that has this project by project approval for the funds which would be the small grants under State plan to enable these districts to begin to qualify under title I or title II.

Senator ALLOTT. Do you know how you are going to have Federal grants without having qualifications set up and controls set up? It is true in the Hill-Burton Hospital Act, for example.

Dr. FULLER. Senator, S. 5, S. 480, S. 522 and S. 686 provide for Federal funds for school construction. The way that would work would be that each State would make up a plan which would include a system of priority among local school districts, taking into account their present and past efforts, taking into account obsolete buildings, overcrowding and lack of physical capacity generally. That plan would have to be approved by the United States Commissioner of Education. This approval is mandatory, and the bills introduced ever since 1948, when I had the privilege of participating in the drafting, has called for that. Each State plan would cover its own State problem in its own State way after that. The local districts would make their applications to the State agency. The priorities in a State of, say, a thousand districts would probably exclude 300 or 400 districts from sharing in Federal funds. The poorest districts would get the funds. There would be a list and you would have a system of priorities. Then it becomes a matter of State administration from that point.

Senator ALLOTT. It is my opinion, and I am sure it is the opinion of others, that the same thing is true under S. 968.

Dr. FULLER. No. Each local project grant under title III of S. 968 would have to be approved by the Commissioner.

Senator ALLOTT. Under title III only, not under the others. It is left completely in the States.

Dr. FULLER. No. The Federal controls on the State school building agency would not leave State school buildings free like the Maine authority is.

Senator ALLOTT. Let me ask you this: When you speak of Federal standards and on page 4 of S. 5 it calls for State plans that in effect is criteria. Those represent criteria for Federal aid. What should those plans be confined to? Should they be confined to simply criteria of construction?

Dr. FULLER. They have nothing to do with that.

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