However, we seriously doubt whether such minor remodeling can restore a dilapidated, outmoded school building to the extent that is necessary to insure the student body of such a school of the same educational opportunities as those students attending modern facilities. We say this with the knowledge that the shabby quality of these buildings has time and again been central elements in the court's findings of fact that segregated school systems do not result in equal education.

Therefore unless these buildings are replaced, we envision much of the Federal effort in this area merely resulting only in a change of the color of some of the children who will be denied an equal education.

It should also be noted that frequently segregated pupil patterns both de jure and de facto, arise as a result of the location of school buildings. In many such areas these patterns can best be broken by the strategic placement of new schools.

Unfortunately the bill closes this option. While we would agree with the administration that this bill should not be turned into a school construction bill construction costs should be an eligible item of expense and an important proviso if it is part of an overall desegregation package.

Finally I might add that in advancing desegregation consideration should be given to the hardship which a plan might work on children and parents. Therefore, school districts should be permitted to weigh the merits of erecting a new building as an alternative to say a situation where large numbers of students will have to travel long distances for a number of years before there are sufficient local funds then for construction.

There can be no question that for these reasons-that is, overcrowding, irreparable condition of existing facilities, in an educational sense, the efficient placement of desegregated schools, and local hardshipsthere is a crying need for new construction.

In conclusion the purposes of S. 3883 holds a bright promise for many children whose future would otherwise slip away in substandard schools.

Whether this promise can become reality will directly depend upon the type of program which Congress writes into this law. We believe that language providing for administrative discretion to determine the amount any district would receive and to determine the priority in which districts or programs would even be funded, detracts from the viability of the bill.

We have similar private reservations regarding the manner in which the bill provides for the participation of private agencies, its effective exclusion of the States, and its failure to include funding for the construction of new schools.

We therefore urge the correction of these provisions.

Senator PELL. Thank you very much for specific and well-thoughtout testimony. I am glad that in general you believe we should move ahead.

Mr. STEIN HILBER. Most definitely, sir.

Senator PELL. Your suggestions are excellent and will be seriously considered. If you had your choice as we may, between moving ahead with the bill as presently written, and with Mondale type amendments added on to it, would you support it, or oppose it?

Mr. STEIN HILBER. If it is exactly as it is presently, we could not support it.

Senator PELL. In other words, you feel your recommendations would have to be included in it for you to support it?

Mr. STEINHILBER. Yes.

Senator PELL. I appreciate your specific recommendations. They are of help to this committee. We will take them under advisement and do the best we can to either come out with a bill that is acceptable. You again may find that if there is not enough enthusiasm for the bill, we will get bogged down.

I hope not.

Mr. STEINHILBER. In retrospect, Mr. Chairman, I would like to underscore our support of the goals of the bill. As I was stating our official position, I kept thinking of the negative manner in which I spoke of a number of these provisions, and yet there is a crying need among many school districts which for one reason or another, normally local political reasons, they cannot get money locally to support desegregation efforts, and we encourage Congress to look toward providing this kind of funding, because the need for our children is so great.

Senator PELL. Obviously we will not be able to take all your suggestions, but we hope in the end to come out with a bill that you could support, because of the regard we have for your association, and the help this committee has received in the past from you, which has been very valuable to us.

Thank you very much, indeed.

(The following material was subsequently supplied for the record:)

NATIONAL SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION,
Washington, D.C., September 10, 1970.

Hon. CLAIBORNE PELL,
U.S. Senate,

Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR PELL: Recently when we testified before your Subcommittee on S. 3883 the Emergency School Aid Act, you asked if we would oppose the bill in its present form. My answer was that we would oppose it because of our fear of the broad discretion language contained in that legislation. Future events, namely the promulgation of rules for the Emergency School Assistance Program on page 13442 of the Federal Register of August 22, have underscored our fears. Quite frankly had we known in advance the scope of these regulations, we would have opposed the additional $75 million appropriation for desegregation contained in P.L. 91-380 and as you recall we were one of the leading proponents for this appropriation item.

As for specific objections on the regulations, first concerns the unilateral manner in which they were developed. The National School Boards Association was not even consulted during their development. I have double checked with all of the major education associations namely the National Education Association, American Association of School Administrators, and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Their officials have likewise indicated a complete lack of involvement on this one of the most critical issues facing American education.

Another aspect of the regulations which astounds us is their apparent disregard for Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments of 1967 as amended by P.L. 91-230. Section 421 is completely disregarded with respect to the thirty (30) day delay requirement between publication in the Federal Register and final effective date. This section is largely emasculated with respect to the requirement that all regulations contain citations to their legal authority. Instead of justifying regulations in terms of specific legislative intent, the citations given in most regulations are boiler plate references. Section 181.7 of the new regulations contains no citation at all. Most of the other sections

contain identical citations. May I use one example to illustrate this point. One citation to the Education Professions Development Act-20 U.S.C. 1119-1119aappears ten (10) times in the regulation. It is used as legal authority to justify regulations requiring student advisory committees be set up in each and every school in a district affected by any desegregation project. We really doubt if the Education Professions Development Act was ever considered by Congress to justify such a specific requirement.

The regulations also require local school districts to select at least five (5) local organizations to review desegregation efforts. A number of specific organizations are specified as ones which "should ordinarily be among those selected." Those specified organizations include Community Action Agencies and City Demonstration Agencies. Congress has always striven to have broad local involvement in education, a position which the National School Boards As ociation has likewise supported, but to my knowledge no where has local school districts been required by federal law to recognize and delegate governmental responsibilities to specific organizations.

The new regulations may be in violation of Section 422 of the General Provisions Concerning Education. They certainly exercise direction over the program of instruction, administration and personnel of a school system. At best the Department of HEW has considered the prohibition against federal control of education in its most narrowest sense and often this kind of restrictive language has been completely ignored as excessive verbiage.

Sincerely yours,

AUGUST W. STEINHILBER, Director, Federal and Congressional Relations. Senator PELL. Our next witness is Mr. Carl Megle, director of legislation for the American Federation of Teachers.

STATEMENT OF CARL J. MEGLE, DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATION, THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

Mr. MEGLE. Thank you.

Senator PELL. We welcome you here, Mr. Megle, and proceed as you will.

Mr. MEGLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Carl J. Megle. I am the legislative director of the American Federation of Teachers, a national teachers union of more than 200,000 classroom teachers affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

It is a privilege for me to appear here before this committee to present the views of the American Federation of Teachers in reference to S. 3883, a bill designed to aid school districts and meet special problems incident to desegregation in elementary and secondary schools. The American Federation of Teachers has a proud record in support of integrated education. The amicus curiae brief which we filed with the Supreme Court in 1954 was followed by an American Federation of Teachers convention resolution which required integration of all of our segregated locals, a directive which became an accomplished fact by the end of 1957.

Unfortunately the rate of school integration has proceeded at a much slower rate. Accordingly there is a legitimate and urgent need for a carefully defined Federal assistance program to aid school districts to complete school integration.

However, integration for the sake of integration alone is only a partial educational solution and becomes truly meaningful when accompanied by quality education.

Therefore our emphasis must be directed toward a goal of quality integrated education. In this area we maintain that one of the bars to quality integrated education for both students and staff is the lack

of proper compensatory programs and facilities in schools of high

student enrollment.

While any efforts to effect full integration within our schools are commendable, we're concerned because the bill is directed only incidentally toward elimination of the indisputable public school needs, and the shortage of fully qualified teachers, and the outmoded physical plants.

These are the basic deficiencies which burden our children with inferior educational opportunities. Inferior in that they fail to prepare for living in this advanced age. The advance of technology and automation have generated a need for profound changes in our educational program if we are to achieve equalized educational excellence in the schools throughout our Nation.

S. 3883 authorizes the Secretary for Health, Education, and Welfare to approve plans which involve compensatory education programs. Quality integrated education cannot become effective without compensatory programs based upon the total school improvement approach used in the MES program which the AFT has pioneered for many

years.

In the best of schools teaching is hard enough. Without the education staff provided under compensatory programs teachers will have difficulty in achieving success and satisfaction and hence are apt to be driven off to other teaching jobs or to seek other careers.

S. 3883 authorizes the appropriation of $12 billion to be appropriated for carrying out this act. Moreover the allotment among the States as outlined in section 4 would limit funds to only those districts which are under court order or HEW directive.

This limitation means that with few exceptions only schools of southern districts would qualify for this money. It is true that HEW has directed a few northern cities to integrate; yet it is also true that HEW has not been able to investigate all de facto situations in the north.

For this reason we propose that the sum authorized to be appropriated then be at least doubled and that any school district anywhere in the United States that wishes to submit an integration plan either to overcome de jure or de facto segregation of its school system shall be eligible too for funds.

Irrespective of the total number of dollars eventually authorized to be appropriated, it must be clearly stated that none of the funds shall be obtained by transfer from any other program now in effect. It occurs to us that the $12 billion authorized in this legislation is almost identical to the allocations under the ESEA act, title I.

Transfers of any of these funds from title I would represent a grave error. We strongly urge that this legislation clearly specify that any authorized funds be appropriated in addition to any and all existing funding.

Moreover if the double accounting provision is included then certainly any school district which conforms to an approved integration plan should qualify for double accounting for those minority children who according to the plan were actually moved from a segregated into an integrated system.

In so doing school districts which desegregate their schools but fail to integrate classes should be denied assistance of any kind.

An obvious weakness of the bill is that it relies on its incentive features to secure good faith performance by public officials. In fact, it rewards those school districts which have extended the least effort to eliminate segregation within their school systems.

We believe that the allocation of one-third of the appropriated sums to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare to be expended as he may find necessary or appropriate to be extremely unwise.

Public officials who violate the law should be held responsible by the proper authorities.

The Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary possesses punitive powers only through withholding of funds which negates the intent of the legislation to encourage integration of school systems.

Moreover vesting all power in the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare bypasses the Commissioner of Education and is counter to general procedure of all other federally funded education programs. We strongly urge that if the Congress should decide to enact this legislation that it should do so only after it has established and included strict guidelines, criteria and allocations in order to reduce to a minimum the discretionary powers of the Secretary of HEW in order to avoid the legislation becoming a political grab bag.

Moreover, we have strong convictions that all necessary implementation of this act can and should be accomplished through the existing public school system. We would strongly urge deletion of paragraph (b) under article 3 of section 5.

To bypass the authorized public school system through grants or contracts with any public or private agency could not guarantee the desired quality integrated education program but instead would most surely degrade the existing public school system.

While any effort to effect complete integration of our student population is commendable, we continue to believe that the basic answers to the problems facing American education is through expansion of general Federal aid in an amount which will eliminate the indisputable public school needs. Specifically we have in mind proposals outlined in S. 2950. Hearings for this legislation are still pending before this subcommittee.

We strongly support authorizations which provide for additional teachers to reduce the teacher-pupil ratio. We recommend remedial and other services in order to meet the special needs of children affected by the planned-for integration.

Moreover teachers must have a definite role in planning and drawing up any integration program. The orientation must not be completely from an administrative point of view.

Since authorizations for public information have already been specified in Public Law 91-230, section 110, we recommend similar inclusions in the proposed legislation.

We appreciate the opportunity to appear before this committee. We sincerely thank the chairman for the courtesy which he has extended to us in making it possible to testify.

Senator PELL. Thank you. As I understand it, the AFT supports this legislation, but would like some changes made. If we were faced with the choice of passing it or not passing it as presently written, with the addition of Mondale type amendments, would you support its passage, rather than not?