The cost to educate is small compared with the cost of failing to educate.

Senator MORSE. General, I thank you very much.

General LABRUM. Thank you very much for your patience. Senator MORSE. You have been very helpful to this subcommittee. Our next witness will be Dr. Benjamin C. Willis, general superintendent of schools, Chicago, Ill.

Superintendent Willis, you may have to do a solo this morning be cause I have just been advised by counsel that Dr. Samuel Brownell, superintendent of schools, Detroit, Mich., may not get here prior to the adjournment of the subcommittee because of plane difficulties. His plane is late. And it apparently has not even landed as yet. But he did get a message to us, and we will put the statement he wishes to make, and would have made, into the record, but it will give you that much more time to enlighten this subcommittee. I cannot begin to tell you because I am more of a student of yours than you probably know-I cannot begin to tell you of my appreciation for your leadership in American education, and I think it is very important that we have your contribution to the record of this hearing. You may proceed in your own way.

STATEMENT OF DR. BENJAMIN C. WILLIS, GENERAL

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CHICAGO, ILL.

Dr. WILLIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am Benjamin C. Willis, general superintendent of schools in Chicago, where I have served since September 1, 1953. I am here to testify on behalf of Senate bill 2528 and to endorse the amendments to Public Law 874, 81st Congress, to provide assistance to local educational agencies for the education of children of needy families and of children of unemployed parents residing in areas of substantial unemployment. I will proceed through this statement so we might have time for questions and discussions if you care to do so.

It is the responsibility of the school to provide for the education of all the children of all the people, regardless of the parents' economic contribution to the community or their direct or indirect payment of real property taxes. But in fulfilling this responsibility, the great cities of the United States are confronted with the effects of four factors shaping our society today: the tremendous mobility of our people, the mounting urbanization of the country, the technological advances, and the tensions of today's world. Each poses a challenge to education particularly in the great cities.

Mobility has drawn to the great cities large numbers of the persons least experienced in urban living while it has drawn to the suburbs many of those persons most highly urbanized. The concentration of people in large centers has altered the way of life and introduced persons needing more help. Not only have technological changes challenged educational programs directly but they have altered employment opportunities, particularly for the least able. Social ills concentrated and accentuated in the great cities have increased the tensions. It is upon the children that the penalties fall.

This situation is not peculiar to Illinois or the city of Chicago.

These figures describe, as you will find in this document, some dimensions of the problem at present, but they do not indicate the dramatic recent growth of the number of children on ADC rolls. In the fall it was estimated that 50,000 pupils lived in public housing which represented some 10 percent of our total school enrollment. What this burden means to the financial health of the public schools in the large cities of America is underlined by the fact that financial support for the public schools in the Nation's great cities comes mainly from the local property taxes, and this is illustrated in a table which I shall skip.

The great cities pay more of the cost of education with local funds and are receiving a smaller proportion of State and Federal support than do other school districts within their State, and there are some tables which illustrate this point.

Less than 1 percent of the public schools' budget in each of these cities comes from the Federal Government, with only two exceptions, Washington, D.C., which derives its funds through congressional action, and Philadelphia, which is a federally impacted area, and derives 2.3, or as the general said a moment ago, I think he used the figure "3," of its budget from Federal sources. The major financial source for the public schools is still the revenue from the local communities.

Now, this sharp increase in cost between elementary and high school instruction and the still greater costs of vocational and special education are revealed in table 3 which summarizes the findings of the Research Council of the Great Cities Program for School Improvement. Revealing as these cost ratios are in themselves, their full significance cannot be understood until they are applied to school budgets.

I would now reflect another financial problem of the schools in large cities arises from the fact that the cost of sites in large cities is many times that of the sites of other school districts. And again we reflect this. It is not anything that the schools can help.

The public schools in the great cities have shown a tremendous growth in enrollment since World War II, and as indicated in table 6, enrollments in 14 cities have grown from 234 million in 1950 to 4 million in 1963 and for 1965, a conservative projection suggests a growth of more than 4 million, an increase of 48 percent between 1950 and 1965. So the problem of financing the schools becomes even more critical as enrollment rises.

The greater loss of taxable assessed valuation in large cities, relative to the loss in the rest of the State, when coupled with the exploding school population in the cities, dramatizes the fact that the large city school systems are in the midst of a financial crisis. And again there is a table dealing with assessed valuation.

Moreover the taxable assessed valuation is not keeping pace with the growth in pupil enrollment and school costs in many communities. The fact is that over the past 5 years, the tax base per pupil has decreased in 10 of the 14 cities listed in table 8 while during the same period the tax base per pupil has increased in 8 of the 10 States reporting.

I will take just a few more moments on this, table 9 illustrates the fact that in these cities from 51 to 77 cents of every property tax

36-177 0-64- 8

dollar goes for nonschool services. In 9 of the 14 cities the nonschool share is 60 percent or more, while in other parts of the State the average local nonschool government is taking less than 50 percent of the property tax dollar and some are taking as little as 22 percent.

This problem is well illustrated by the situation of Pittsburgh, Pa. Of each tax dollar paid by a resident of Pittsburgh for property taxes, 61 cents goes to nonschool governmental units. In the average Pennsylvania community only 22 cents of the property tax dollar goes to nonschool services, only about one-third that in Pittsburgh. The difference of between 61 cents and 22 cents, or 39 percent of the total tax revenue, used by the nonschool governmental units in Pittsburgh, represents, in part, an extra burden that must be borne by its residents to support services not provided in other communities. This "municipal overburden," a phrase used by some, is provided at the expense of education, and constitutes a serious limitation on the local ability to support public schools.

The cost and number of governmental services, other than education, tend to increase with the size of a community and reach very large proportions in the major cities where many services are rendered to nonresidents as well as to residents. Police and fire protection, sanitation services, welfare programs, maintenance of streets and expressways, parks, museums, and zoos are only a few examples of the services to which the large cities must commit a large sum of money.

The large cities are in a position where they must increase the tax rate just to maintain their present educational programs. This leaves little or nothing in their budgets for improvement. In fact, it often results in curtailment of programs because enrollments and costs are increasing while the total dollars available per pupil dwind'e. Such are the common problems of the great cities of the United States. Within each city the problems are particularized, and each has made its own study in depth of its situation and has brought wat remedies it could to this situation. As I am most familiar with Chicago, I can best illustrate with facts about Chicago. We analyzed very carefully the 1960 census data for Chicago and a report was made to our board of education on July 10 where we began to relate the various sections of our city to other sections of the country.

The data on educational levels of persons 25 years of age or older, related to the foregoing, indicated an alarming trend for Chicago as a whole. In 1940 the median number of years of schooling completed by Chicagoans of 25 years of age or older was 8.75, higher than the medians for Illinois or the United States at large. By 1960, though its median had risen, Chicago had fallen behind both Illinois and the country at large. I might say we operate our school district through 21 districts, but the analysis of the city by school districts in comparison to States showed that of our 21 districts, 2 had medians in 1960 lower than the median of any State; only 7 of the 21 districts, or onethird, equaled or exceeded the median for the United States; 9 States surpassed Chicago's best district; only 8 districts equaled the median for Illinois; and no district equaled the highest median among the States.

On July 8, 1964, I made a report to the board of education which utilized census data compiled on maps by the Chicago Committee on Urban Opportunity whereby the city's inner poverty ring was

identified. Those data included percentages of male delinquents, and other facts. Study of the composite map of all indicators of poverty revealed that the inner poverty ring approximated the area of 9 of our 21 administrative districts. These data were then related to school data, the most striking of which for the purpose of this report was enrollment.

Chicago has not, however, been insensitive to the plight and educational need of its schoolchildren. The reports cited and several others have indicated both the extent and location of services and facilities designed to provide for the normal and compensatory needs of children in these areas.

In reviewing these nine districts, we found we had special summer schools, to which I would like to refer a little later, which served some 30,000 children from 1960 to 1964, including 12,000 this year. In the same area we have 66 percent of the after-school reading classes.

Of the after-school reading clinic classes_.

Of the after-school libraries.

Of the hot lunchroom services__.

Of the attendance officer services..
Of the bus trips-----

Of the new classrooms.

Of the elementary-school-freed assistant principals_.

Of the upper grade center programs_.

Of the master teachers_‒‒‒
Of the special service teachers---

Percent

80

80

50

50

40

48

50

57

78

59

Other services could be cited, since the list does not approximate the full range of educational services provided in the Chicago public schools. Moreover, during the same period of time 190,000 additional pupils had to be absorbed; double shift eliminated, and that was 2 years ago, and class size reduced from 39.5 to 32.5.

The educational needs of children in our great cities are unmatched in our history; the problems and challenges equally so. The pressures of population growth, technological change, poverty, mobility, urban growth, and the tension of our time impinge upon the major cities of America. It is in urban centers that people choose to live-must live-under our present way of life. It is to urban centers that our most needy are drawn by a dream of betterment. The great cities are truly impacted areas. The problems are mounting; local revenues, receding. No longer does one city, one State, one area of the United States educate only its own for only its own economy. The highways of America have made us all truly one nation.

A massive effort is needed to raise the level of each for the advancement of the level of all. A larger share of the total tax dollar is essential if education is to bring us completely into the sun, and part of that portion of the tax dollar now collected at the Federal level is needed locally for education.

Therefore, in conclusion, I wish to emphasize the impacted nature of our great cities' educational programs and heartily endorse Senate bill 2528 amending Public Law 874, 81st Congress.

I would like to describe what I referred to a few moments ago, and I have here a report which I would be happy to leave with you, Senator. This report was developed at the end of 3 years of what we still label special summer schools. These are schools for children

from grades 1 through 6. We had 3 the first year, 5 the second, 10 the third, 10 the fourth, and this year we are running 20 of these summer schools. They cost us approximately $50,000 apiece, but we have organized each of those schools in these areas by limiting the grade. enrollment to 100, class size to 25 in each class.

We have enrolled in the four classes in each grade children from various achievement levels as far as we could do so. In each school we used 24 experienced teachers. We have used some additional 5 as supporting cast for these 24 teachers.

We have done a number of things which you will find in this report as to what we label special features.

But the important point of this, when we made a check at the end. of the first year, and the second, because of the nature of the results I felt that they would be misunderstood and maybe we should be more careful in our research, we did it for a third time, so we found that substantial gains in reading and arithmetic were registered for pupils in such special summer programs. I think this is the kind of thing you were talking about earlier this morning. About 612 weeks elapsed between the administration of the first and the second test. Thus a gain of 1.5 months would be considered normal if conditions were average. In this period of approximately 6 weeks, the main gain in reading was 4.6 months and the main gain in arithmetic was 3.2 months. I understand what you were saying earlier this morning, and there is some evidence in this document on this.

Senator MORSE. Dr. Willis, the documents will be made an appendix to this record for reference to it by the committee.

Dr. WILLIS. Fine. And I will hand this in. And a second

Senator MORSE. Excuse me just a moment. Counsel has examined it and says it is not of excessive length. I will change my ruling. The document will be made a part of the record at the close of Dr. Willis' testimony.

Dr. WILLIS. A second report is one that we brought together as a staff study which deals with programs for dropouts. In this report I call attention to what we have in the very beginning on page 3, an analysis of dropout incidence in Chicago. In 1954-55, this was listed by our staff making the study, at 8.4 percent. The high point was reached in 1959-60 when it was 9.5 percent. But in the school year 1962-63, the figure was 6.9 percent, a considerable improvement. In fact, the improvement was about one-fifth which I think is enough to call attention to it. And you might personally like to see this one because in the final two sections of the report, one which deals with the question of looking ahead, and it says if we had the money, if we had the funds, or if funds could be found, or if additional funds could be found, alluding to projects and programs which have been experimented with in our city as many other cities have been doing very intensively for the past 8 years. So you might find this would be of interest.

Senator MORSE. The Chair rules that the report just referred to by the witness will be incorporated in the record following his testimony. Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Chairman, if the chairman will yield for a moment, I want to commend the chairman for the diligence with which this hearing has been conducted this morning and express my regrets at my inability