think that the NEA in the future could refuse to support that kind of a program.

Mrs. FLANIGAN. May I add to that?

Mr. MAZZOLI. Yes, ma'am.

Mrs. FLANIGAN. Last year we surveyed the large city school systems, and we found about two-thirds of them pretty much in a crisis situation.

The testimony we got from one Southern system which was under court orders for busing was that the only children in the system getting public funds for schoolbooks, supplies, and so forth were the children in title I. Now, quite obviously, they were the children who needed it

most.

We do fear that while the situation will not be that exaggerated if, for instance, there is a loud call in the State, probably through court order, for one type of child or another, it will divert funds from the low income children, from the neglected children, from the delinquent children, from the first Americans, et cetera.

Mr. MAZZOLI. What you are really saying is that you are not sure you could withstand the politics at the lower level?

Mrs. FLANIGAN. That is a part of it. The other part of it is the sheer fiscal crisis which has been existing annually at the local level.

Now this, coupled with the need for the State to equalize among districts, would give not very much protection to these special classes of children who live in fairly well-to-do districts, as we measure them, but as they may not be in fact.

Mr. Mazzoli. I wish I could pursue this further, but we are in a 5minute limit here.

Let me ask Mrs. Barrett how can you equalize per pupil expenditures, as these many court cases purport to do, when you in NEA have advocated adding generally on top of the categorical programs? Isn't that in and of itself unequal?

Mrs. BARRETT. No, not necessarily. It is not.

We are talking about general school aid, general school funds. We are talking about a basic program that will be adequate to the needs of every child.

Mr. MAZZOLI. Equalize expenditures, if you are going to have some children getting categorical programs, which would then mean that the per pupil expenditure for that exceeds an average? How can you have equal educational expenditures?

Mrs. FLANIGAN. None of the courts have indicated that they have considered it an unequal situation where a child needed and received additional educational services.

Mr. MAZZOLI. If I might just intrude a minute, I sat in here last year, and we had some lawyers who speculated that anything beyond an average for any pupil was unequal, as they read the general holdings, and they felt that that is what the Supreme Court will, in effect, say. Mrs. FLANIGAN. Well, the response to the Minnesota case, for instance, permitted them to count in the welfare children at 1.5. We had an average weighted factor for them, and the court approved that. All of the formulas have considered such weighting.

Mr. MAZZOLI. Then we can say that the NEA feels that unequal expenditures, is what it really amounts to? Mrs. FLANIGAN. Yes.

you can have

Mr. MAZZOLI. Let me ask a final question.

Mrs. Barrett, you indicated when Mr. Quie talked to you about the formula, title II and title I, which permits some money to go to private and parochial schools as not being offensive to your standards and the NEA position.

You further said any use of public funds for private or parochial schools would be offensive, and in speaking with Mr. Meeds, you amended that to say that the use of it through ESEA was not in the end product in opposition to your feeling.

So we say, therefore, you don't have a feeling that it is unconstitutional, that it is wrong, that it is a derogation of public education to have private and parochial schools wrapped into, folded into, ESEA, but that a separate program where the direct Federal funds go for pupils, or a system of tax credits, would be in fact a derogation of public education?

Mrs. BARRETT. That is correct.

Mr. MAZZOLI. All right. Now, tell me why. Why do you make that distinction?

Mrs. BARRETT. Stan, you take that.

Mr. MCFARLAND. We have based our position essentially upon the Court's decisions. Aid to the child as handled under ESEA is constitutional.

Mr. MAZZOLI. If we were to put a bounty on each child of $50 or $100 or $200, or whatever it is, just for him to be spent, would that be offensive? Would that not be aid to the student?

Mr. MCFARLAND. Yes.

Mr. MAZZOLI. And that would be OK by you, then, as far as use in the private or nonpublic school?

Mr. MCFARLAND. Well, the basis of the child benefit theory is that support comes through the aid of public agencies to provide better educational opportunities.

You are talking about some kind of a direct

Mr. MAZZOLI. I was just trying to get to the point of saying I can't really quite get the distinction. I think it is a very subtle one.

Mr. MCFARLAND. We would be very happy if the court-and there are several cases going to the court in New York and otherwise—would resolve this problem.

Mr. MAZZOLI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman PERKINS. Mrs. Barrett, I understand that this is your first appearance before a congressional committee, and I certainly want to compliment you for doing an outstanding job. In my judgment, you are well representing the National Education Association. Mr. MAZZOLI. I believe you had one comment.

Mrs. BARRETT. I had one sentence I would like to give at this time. We cannot suppose, Mr. Mazzoli, that all children start out equal in this world, or equal in the field of education. Therefore, if we are talking about absolute equal in what is offered them in education, we are discriminating against them before we start. They do not start out equal.

Mr. MAZZOLI. Many of us share that point of view, and wonder about the whole effort to making equal expenditures to provide somehow an equal pupil at the end of the line.

Thank you very much.

95-545-73-pt. 1- -10

Mr. LEHMAN [presiding]. Mr. Bell.

Mr. BELL. I am happy to welcome you before the committee, and also thank the NEA generally for its very fine work throughout the Nation.

Mrs. Barrett, I was interested in page 4 of your statement in which you talked about the National Education Association tending to favor legislation establishing a priority for distribution to school districts with a high proportion of pupils who are dependent on those in the uniformed armed services. That is a rather interesting concept.

Are you saying that you would prefer this as a more clearcut way for impact aid, to go that route, and that you would eliminate some of the other features of impact aid?

Mrs. BARRETT. I will ask Mr. McFarland to speak.

Mr. MCFARLAND. No, Mr. Bell. As I said before, our concern is partly an authorizing problem, and also an appropriations problem. School districts where 25 percent of the revenue comes from P.L. 874 live on a year-to-year basis, which entails in many cases reduction in educational services, teacher services, and so forth. They live on more of a crisis basis than the other people who receive benefits from P.L. 874.

Mr. BELL. I see. Would you generally favor, or your organization generally favor eliminating some of the P.L. 874 people, such as those in the B classification?

Mr. MCFARLAND. No, sir. We do have concerns about possibly some of the inequities of how the money is distributed under the В categories, and we would be most happy to offer our suggestions to the committee.

Mr. BELL. You do feel, don't you, that the general categorical type aid through the impact method has been somewhat overlapping and has not really been functioning as effectively as it should, and that it really has not been meeting the ball on this problem, would you not say?

Mr. MCFARLAND. Are you referring to the aid case?

Mr. BELL. The general impact aid program.

Mr. MCFARLAND. We like the general impact aid program. It is the only true general money that flows into the local school district that can be used for general purposes.

Mr. BELL. In other words, you want the impact aid program that has been going on year after year to continue as it is?

Mr. MCFARLAND. In general, yes.

Mr. BELL. I see.

Mrs. Barrett, you talked about redtape and the purpose of the revenue sharing being primarily to eliminate redtape. Would you not think in some cases that could be very important, the elimination of some of this so-called redtape?

I know in some of my districts in California, and in other areas of California, we have had some momentous problems of small school areas trying to fill out forms and adequate forms to get the kind of money they need under this category or that, and in some cases they didn't have the manpower or the ability to fill out the forms properly-they didn't understand it-they therefore didn't get it.

Would you not concur that under revenue sharing you have a certain amount of flexibility-that is what the local school may need? Mrs. BARRETT. Yes, I would agree that there would be a degree of

flexibility. A prime example of that kind of redtape is my own school district had to go through on a small funding for nonprivileged youngsters in that particular school district.

There was so much redtape that a large committee came down here and started at the congressional level to try to unwind the redtape which grossly discriminated against some districts, only to find that starting here, going back to the State and going back to the local, after putting an inordinate amount of time on it, we could not unroll, unwind, the redtape.

Mr. BELL. This was when?

Mrs. BARRETT. This was last year under a special program in our inner-city schools.

Mr. BELL. That was not under the revenue-sharing program then; was that?

Mrs. BARRETT. Stan?

Mr. MCFARLAND. Sir, although one of the stated purposes in the revenue-sharing program submitted last year was that that program would eliminate redtape, we feel that that is not necessarily the case. Obviously, it is an opinion, from what we have heard. The details of the way it is going to be handled, the committee did not even hear.

Mr. BELL. You said something a few minutes ago that is rather interesting. You said that you felt that the people at the local school level were generally fairly talented and, I take it from that statement, that you feel they understand where the emphasis should be in the schools.

Assuming that you do eliminate some redtape, would you not also think, considering your comment about the school personnel, that they could probably do it a little bit better than people directing it from the Commissioner's office in Washington?

Mr. MCFARLAND. Oh, I would agree with that, but I don't think the situation is going to change that much. Under education revenue sharing in the proposal last year, a number of direct State grant programs and discretionary programs would in some cases be lumped together.

The systems for operating these programs are quite different. Your discretionary programs are those programs you have to apply for directly from the Commissioner.

Now I would assume that whatever the administration sends up this year, there will probably be changes and revisions, and so forth. We can only speak in terms of what we saw from the past year. We can only anticipate.

Mr. BELL. I think you have to judge more from the philosophy of revenue sharing rather than one or two individual cases at this early stage. I don't think there is any question, and I see it true-I see it true in business. I see it true in government, I see it true in schools, I see it true in everything-that you can usually run things better at the local level than you can from long distances away.

And I don't think that you can deny that. As I understand your comments to Congressman Mazzoli a few minutes ago, you sort of accepted that the real reason why you don't like the revenue sharing program is basically because you don't feel you will get enough money. Mr. MCFARLAND. I don't know that there is any guarantee. We have not heard of anything in the material from various people who have

discussed the special revenue programs that there is going to be really any substantial difference in terms of redtape, paperwork, and regulations at the local level.

Because there are categorical programs, you are going to have to spell out and follow the regulations. Whether they come from the Federal or State level, they are regulations.

Mr. BELL. There are some regulations, but I think a very clear distinction of the special revenue sharing is that it is going to be less control and less influence. That is the whole purpose of it.

Mr. MCFARLAND. Well, sir, we don't feel that is the case.

Mr. BELL. No, you have to go through the old statement, "If you have not tried it, don't knock it." Certainly with the system we have been using in California, there have been a lot of complaints, and I have had to live with them.

Mr. MCFARLAND. There is authority on the books that through HEW, the Education Division, and OE, that could bring about the very same thing that they are trying to legislate through grant consolidation.

In fact, there have been target programs in several States several years ago to attempt to do this very same thing in terms of reduction of redtape and consolidation, cataloging of guidelines, and regulations. Mr. BELL. You have heard of the Cranston amendment, have you not? As I recollect, the Cranston amendment, which was adopted last year, prohibited HEW from doing the very thing you are speaking of.

At any rate, as I said earlier, I think you are going to get more efficiency if you give more flexibility to the people at the lower level, and I think they will also get more flexibility.

Mr. MCFARLAND. That is why we are interested in general aid for money flowing in where they can make those decisions without the paperwork.

Mr. BELL. But the general aid programs of the Elementary and Secondary Act, which I helped to write in 1965 along with Chairman Perkins, were good for that time and were needed--but I think there is a lot left that needs to be done, a lot left to be desired.

Mr. MCFARLAND. We do not consider ESEA general aid. The problem was that there were too many requirements.

Mr. BELL. No, I said the Elementary and Secondary Education Act which was not necessarily general aid, but was to some extent honed in on title I purposes, and so forth.

Mr. MCFARLAND. Sure.

Mr. BELL. I gather that your main complaint, however, is the amount of funding.

Mr. MCFARLAND. This is further compounded by the administration budget request which was made public on Monday.

Mr. BELL. Beg pardon?

Mr. MCFARLAND. This concern is further compounded by the administration budget request which was made public on Monday, because the program part of it is based on a special revenue sharing or a grant consolidation basis, and our fears were certainly borne out in this regard.

Mr. BELL. In other words, your concern is that there will be lack of funding?

Mr. MCFARLAND. Yes, sir.