Mr. LAWRENCE. I believe that is a conservative estimate, too, Senator. Senator MORSE. Please proceed. Mr. LAWRENCE. In considering the second category, that of children who reside in areas of substantial unemployment with unemployed parents, the task of estimating the number of students within the Los Angeles city school districts becomes quite difficulty. We have contacted the Los Angeles metropolitan area office of the California State Employment Service in an attempt to get the most recent esimate of the number of individuals receiving unemployment compensation insurance benefits. The area manager supplied a total of 315,783 persons who drew at least 1 week of unemployment insurance benefits during the 1963 calendar year; and of this number, approximately 214,125 were estimated to be within the Los Angeles city school districts. One week of unemployment compensation we did not feel was a measure of what this bill was directing itself to. So we asked for some other criteria, and we used one that would consist of a person who had exhausted his benefits, more than over half the year. So using additional figures supplied by the Los Angeles metropolitan area office of the California State Employment Service, we have estimated that approximately 20,399 persons living within the Los Angeles city school districts received unemployment insurance benefits for a major portion of the year. And using your criteria of 2.6 children per family, it would indicate, then, 53,037 children residing with unemployed parents. We recognize that these figures are based on estimates, and that procedures would have to be developed in order to more accurately determine the numbers of such families within the districts, provided this bill is enacted. Further, we are aware that an area must be designated by the Secretary of Labor as one of substantial unemployment in order to qualify under this category. The Los Angeles area has not been so designated since April of 1962 and is presently considered an area of moderate unemployment. In reference to both of the new categories, as proposed in the bill now under your consideration, the Los Angeles city school districts will lend support and cooperation in any way possible to develop the procedures or mechanics for a practical application of these provisions should they be included in Public Law 874. In closing my remarks, and in an attempt to be brief, I am sure the subcommittee is more aware than I that the future of this great Nation rests in the quality of education that we provide our young people. It has also been said that the future of this Nation rests in the struggles being waged in our great cities. Can we then also say that the kind of education provided the young people in the great cities of this great Nation is the thing that will undoubtedly move this Nation forward? Thank you, once again, for this opportunity to appear before your subcommittee, representing Dr. Jack P. Crowther, superintendent of the Los Angeles city schools, and the schoolchildren of Los Angeles. Senator MORSE. Well, Mr. Lawrence, you made your case as far as the chairman is concerned. The Senator from Texas? Senator YARBOROUGH. Thank you for that very concise statement, Mr. Lawrence. There is a great deal of thought in it, particularly the statistic on which the chairman has previously commented that the 65,000 or more children in the Los Angeles city school districts are children of needy families receiving aid to dependent children, and that is approximately 10 percent of the average attendance of the schools there. That is an astonishing figure. I do not mean that it is high. There may be big cities where that figure is higher. There probably are, judging from the dynamic growth of the West, other great cities in the country where the figure would be higher, but it is food for a lot of thought in the overall problem we have in this country. Thank you for this contribution here. Senator MORSE. Thank you very much. Mr. LAWRENCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator MORSE. Some years ago this chairman decided that members of the subcommittee ought to undergo a seminar on some of our educational problems. So I initiated the type of hearing that we are now going to devote the rest of the morning. We are having a group of experts come and serve as our professors for a period of time and conduct a panel seminar on the problem before the subcommittee. This morning the leaders of our seminar will be Mr. Oscar V. Rose, superintendent of schools, Midwest City, Okla.; Mr. B. F. Minor, assistant superintendent of schools, San Diego city schools, Calif.; Mr. Richard Taylor, superintendent of Widefield School District, Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Mr. Bennie Steinhouser, suburban superintendent of schools, San Antonio, Tex. If you gentlemen will come forward and take over the classroom, we will do our best to educate ourselves under your direction. STATEMENT OF OSCAR V. ROSE, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, MIDWEST CITY, OKLA.; ACCOMPANIED BY B. F. MINOR, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, SAN DIEGO CITY SCHOOLS, CALIFORNIA; RICHARD TAYLOR, SUPERINTENDENT OF WIDEFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.; AND BENNIE STEINHOUSER, SUBURBAN SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, SAN ANTONIO, TEX. Mr. ROSE. Senator Morse, we want to thank you for referring to us as experts. I think that may be putting it a little strong. Senator MORSE. Well, I am going to stand by my statement. We are going to learn from you. If we can learn from someone, our teacher is an expert in my book. We will turn the interrogating over to you now, Mr. Rose. We have had Mr. Rose before this subcommittee before, and he knows what our needs are. You go ahead and conduct the hearing. Mr. Rose. I think three of us have written statements. The other gentleman wants to make some comments verbally off the cuff, and then we will be happy to discuss any points that you might wish to bring up from this testimony. Since we do not have any clear order, I believe I will ask Richard Taylor to give his, and then Mr. Minor, and then Mr. Steinhouser, and I will conclude the testimony. Senator MORSE. Fine. STATEMENT OF RICHARD TAYLOR, SUPERINTENDENT OF WIDEFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you. I have a report prepared that I am sure you have copies of. I have attempted in this to point out an area of true Federal impaction under existing laws of Public Laws 815 and 874. Perhaps to read from it, I might start by saying I represent the Widefield School District of Colorado Springs, Colo., which had an enrollment of 5,000 students in the last school year. And 55 percent, or 2,750 of these, were connected by their parents' employment to Federal property, military installations, primarily. Ten years ago, the student body numbered 24 in a one-room schoolhouse. The growth has been due to military bases such as Fort Carson, North American Air Defense Command, and the U.S. Air Force Academy, and American Air Defense Command, and a couple of minor airfields. While the installations have added much to the general economy of the area, they have been a large burden to the school districts. Educational programs could not have been maintained without the support available through Public Laws 815 and 874. Like most areas adjacent to military installations, industrial wealth per school pupil is quite low. The assessed valuation is $2,890 per student. This is not adequate for support of schools and requires that the balance of moneys necessary to educate these youngsters be obtained through the provisions of Public Laws 874 and 815. The present growth rate of 10 to 12 percent each year makes it most necessary that these laws be extended to avoid curtailment of the educational program. I am sure that the subcommittee is aware of school budgeting procedures, and these require that to adequately plan an educational program requires knowledge of available funds being obtainable some time prior to a new school year. Senator MORSE. I want to interrupt. I am so glad you made that point because some of the rest of us have been dwelling on that point. There was a dry run this year, I should tell you, to extend it only for a year. I said, "How do you expect these school districts to budget and plan their program with part of the year already gone if you give them only a 1-year extension?" We certainly ought to have at least 2 years so that they can plan for 2 years. Some of us felt that 3 years would certainly have been appropriate, but we compromised on 2. I want to see these two impacted area laws strengthened, not weakened. The best way to strengthen them, or some of the ways to strengthen them, is along the lines of this legislation and also eliminate any basis of criticism because that is what worries me. In my own State, for example, they found one school district that was getting Federal impacted area money because it had a half dozen families that traveled some 75 miles away to Portland, Oreg., to work in a Federal department. Well, of course, that is just an abuse of the intent of the law. I am just surprised that the people responsible for that school district would be a party to that kind of a shakedown. Now, you weaken a good law that way, and we are going to find out and get ready for it. We are going to find out when this investigation study is conducted and completed that there is going to have to be some elimination of this kind of waste. But when you have the kind of project you are talking about where you have a great military base, your tax base has been weakened by it, you do not have, as you point out here, you do not have an assessed valuation that makes it possible to support a decent school, then the Federal Government has a clear obligation and I am all for that. I am also for extending, however, the general aid beyond the impacted area legislation for the benefit of the other two-thirds of the children of this country who need the benefits, too, because I am critical of some of the abuses of Public Laws 874 and 815. That does not mean I am against the program. I am one of its most ardent defenders here in Congress. I was interested in what the Senator from Texas said about us being somewhat of an educational medium, too, on this whole subject of greater assumption of responsibility on the part of the Federal Government for aid to education. As an old teacher, I have done everything I could to teach that lesson. It has been interesting over the years to find some of my colleagues changing their attitude as they come to understand that their own State or district in their own State are the beneficiaries of a Federal aid program under these two laws, that it might not be so bad to extend it to the other two-thirds. I have not any doubt that when we passed the legislation last session initiating a Federal aid program that the experience of heretofore critics of Federal aid, the experience under Public Laws 815 and 874 had won them over to the program. I did not mean to take so much time, but I was so glad that you made this point in this statement. Go ahead. Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you. I might say, Mr. Chairman, that any surveys that should be conducted, we who are in the Federal impacted aid program now would certainly be most happy to work with and help clean up, if necessary, to do this. We do feel this has been a forerunner to general aid and if it were to go, perhaps, so would the rest of the educational programs. The extension of the existing Public Laws 815 and 874 at this time would be to the benefit of youngsters in all parts of the Nation as regards their future education. I would like to say the subcommittee is to be commended on their past and present efforts to meet the obligations of the Federal Government in the matter of finances to provide adequate education for the federally connected public school children. Senator MORSE. Thank you very much, Mr. Taylor. Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Chairman, how many square miles are there in the district? Mr. TAYLOR. In my district it is 75 square miles. Senator YARBOROUGH. I visited two of these installations mentioned here in June of 1963 with the late President Kennedy when he made the commencement address at the Air Force Academy and visited the North American Air Defense Command. I was in the cavalcade with him. Mr. TAYLOR. I remember you getting off the plane, sir. I met President Kennedy that day. Senator YARBOROUGH. You have a good memory if you remember I was in that party. I was en route to stop in Texas and at the missile base at the Missile Firing Range at White Sands, N. Mex., and I realized then what you are now saying about the taxable value of the square mile per acre of that land. May we go off the record? Senator YARBOROUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator MORSE. Go ahead, Mr. Rose. Mr. ROSE. Mr. Steinhouser, do you want to make some comments? STATEMENT OF BENNIE STEINHOUSER, SUBURBAN SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, SAN ANTONIO, TEX. Mr. STEINHOUSER. I am Bennie Steinhouser, superintendent of schools, San Antonio. I have a couple of oral comments I would like to make. First, we are very pleased that the extension of this law is being considered now and certainly the chairman knows the stituation well when he expressed something to the effect that we were in somewhat of a dilemma the last school year. The extension would mean long-range planning and orderly budgeting, and so forth. We are very pleased about that. Certainly the law can stand strengthening, improving, and certainly these considerations have real merit. In Englewood we have 14 square miles, and instead of 5,000 children, we have approximately 20,000. The district has approximately 28 percent of its students federally connected and to further aggravate the problem of support for an adequate school program is the fact that 12 percent of our students come from low-cost housing projects with no appreciable tax structure and many welfare cases from these low-cost housing projects. The philosophy of low-cost housing, of course, is in keeping with the philosophy of the proposed amendment to Senate bill-Public Law 874. We could not operate an adequate program with the yearly extension of 874. While 28 percent of our students are federally connected, about 32 percent of our operating budget is Public Law 874. The changing nature or the changing situation predicated by federally connected students and certain welfare cases, of course, makes it almost impossible to adapt our local tax structure overnight to meet these cases. This law and the change would certainly help. In closing, I would like to emphasize the point made by my coworker here. We welcome and certainly urge a complete study of Public Law 874 and its administration. I believe that only one result would come therefrom and that is the strengthening of the law. No doubt there are abuses. No doubt there are areas of improvement. But whatever else may come out of such a study, I know that it would strengthen the law for those of us who have found it to adequately serve our local needs. |