Mr. BLOUIN. Thank you. We appreciate your coming. We have no more questions. We thank you for your continued interest.

The subcommittee will be adjourned until 8:30 tomorrow morning.

[Whereupon, at 9:55 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene at 8:30 a.m., Thursday, September 22, 1977.]

97-528 O 77 pt. 12-15

PART 12: NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1977

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY

AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:30 a.m., in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Carl D. Perkins (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.

Members present: Representatives Perkins, Kildee, Quie, and Pressler.

Staff present: John F. Jennings, majority counsel; Christopher Cross, minority senior education consultant; and Nancy L. Kober, staff assistant.

Chairman PERKINS. We welcome Dr. James D. Graham, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Kentucky State Department of Education, Representing: Council of Chief State School Officers; Dr. Gordon M. Ambach, Commissioner of Education, New York State Department of Education; Dr. Edward Keller, Deputy Executive Director, National Association of Elementary School Principals; Representative Delwyn Stromer, Iowa, and Assemblyman Cliff Wilson, New York, Representing: National Conference of State Legislatures; and Mrs. Ruth Mancuso, Vice President, National Association of State Boards of Education, accompanied by: Mr. Robert H. McBride Governmental Affairs Committee, NASBE. Congressman Grassley.

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IOWA

Mr. GRASSLEY. It is my good fortune to introduce to you, Chairman Perkins, and members of the Education and Labor Committee, my good friend Delwyn Stromer. I had an opportunity to work very close with him in the Iowa Legislature.

Mr. Stromer has a reputation in our State for probably being the only Iowa Legislator who understands our complex aid formula. So, his serving on the committee in that field is very great. We consider him a great leader in education in our State.

Therefore, I want to introduce to you my friend, Delwyn Stromer.

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Chairman PERKINS. Representative Stromer, I would just like to say that the gentleman who just introduced you, Congressman Grassley is one of our most honored members in the Congress. We will lead off with the Kentucky State School Superintendent, Dr. Graham. Go ahead, Dr. Graham.

STATEMENT OF JAMES D. GRAHAM, SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, KENTUCKY STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, REPRESENTING: COUNCIL OF CHIEF STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS

Dr. GRAHAM. Let me say, I appreciate being here and I want to pay tribute to Carl Perkins, the distinguished Representative from our state.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to come before you today to review some common issues regarding the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. With the Committee's indulgence, I would like to focus my testimony on Title I. Since you've already had the benefit of the views of my colleagues within the Council of Chief State School Officers in the areas of paperwork burden, Title IV and other ESEA-related issues, you should know that the points I raise today represent a summary of opinions from various state and local officials that was pulled together by the Council of Chief State School Officers. From this survey, there has been developed a series of legislative recommendations that we believe will lead to an improvement of service to students with the greatest educational need.

The Council of Chief State School Officers reaffirmed its longstanding commitment to the educationally disadvantaged last November with adoption of the following policy:

Educational programs must be devised for students who are educationally disadvantaged, including migrant children. These programs should be designed to meet the special educational needs of disadvantaged children in order to help them achieve their individual learning potentials and participate successfully in American society.

With the adoption of Title I ESEA in 1965 the Congress expressed this shared commitment. After 12 years of operation, Title I has reached millions of children with a wide variety of compensatory educational services. Let's review for a moment some preliminary evaluation findings recently published by the National Institute of Education.

Ninety percent of the nation's school districts received Title I funds.

In Title I districts, an average of 90 percent of the eligible schools receive Title I funds.

Approximately 5.9 million public school students in grades K-8 receive Title I or State-funded compensatory education services. This is 19.5 percent of all public school children enrolled in those grades.

An estimated 116,218 nonpublic school students or approximately 5 percent of the total enrollment in nonpublic schools receive Title I-funded compensatory services.

Of all public elementary school teachers in 1975-76, an estimated 111,087 or 9.5 percent of the total, were involved for some portion of their time in providing compensatory education instruction.

While Title I services are diverse and vary with the needs of the school districts receiving funds, on an average the greatest portion of the budget is spent in the following ways:

The national average share of the Title I budget spent on instructional services is 76 percent. However, when districts are classified by economic status (average family income), lower income districts spend 20 percent less of their Title I budget than wealthier districts on instructional services.

The national average share of the Title I instructional budget spent on reading is 53 percent.

The national average share of the Title I instructional budget spent of mathematics. is 19 percent.

The national average share of the Title I instructional budget spent on language arts is 10 percent.

Clearly the Title I program has been successful in reaching large numbers of children to povide them with valuable compensatory education. However, the Council believes that the Federal Government must make firmer commitment to full service in the years to come.

Despite the successes of the Title I program, only 57 percent of the eligible children are receiving services. In order to meet the Federal commitment to serve all disadvantaged children with special educational needs, the Federal contribution must be increased to, at the very least, full funding of the authorized $5 billion. Even so, recent estimates indicate that even this amount may be inadequate to meet the need.

The Council is aware of the competition for Federal funds; however, States have the responsibility for providing regular education services as well as shouldering the major burden for education programs for non-Title I children with special needs, that is, handicapped children.

Inflation and rising energy costs have made the competition for State and local education funds even more intense. Indeed, some districts have had to reduce their Title I enrollments to provide adequate services to the more needy children. Since the major responsibility for providing compensatory education services to disadvantaged children has rested historically on the Federal Government, it is appropriate that present funding commitments be honored at the Federal level and that more realistic funding levels be authorized in the future.

The Council urges the Congress to reaffirm the original Declaration of Policy for Title I which is to provide financial assistance to school districts serving areas with concentrations of children from low-income families, and within these school districts, to school buildings serving the highest concentrations of educationally disadvantaged children. This policy can best be realized by legislative changes which allow greater authority and flexibility at the State level, to develop plans for meeting the unique educational needs faced by each State.