they had submitted for Prospect Street Elementary School which is located in Lake Mills. The summer school started on June 7, transactions were submitted on June 15, and records were mailed June 16 to the Prospect Street Elementary School for fifteen enrollments. On the 17th of June, twelve more students were enrolled by a transaction by the terminal operator and records were mailed on June 18 for these enrollments. cause of the privacy of which the writer mentioned, they would not have received records until the children were enrolled in that school.

Be

The next statement which is very disturbing to me is that "if MSRTS is to accomplish its mission, it must provide information to all programs within a matter of days." Evidently the writer did not know that we provide information to all programs in a matter of one to two hours via critical data which enables the teacher and administrator to begin preparing the prescription for each individual child.

The article mentioned that "records themselves must be more accurate and comprehensive" as if to say that inaccurate information is put into a child's record. If this is in fact correct, then teachers themselves are placing inaccurate information into the record. This I find hard to Evidently the writer does not know that parents, students, and

believe.

teachers can see and check for inaccuracies on their records.

The writer mentioned that the records arrive "with no entries except the student's name and number." Evidently this particular writer did not understand migrancy or the recruiting program that is carried on by the states. Many times the child is recruited and moves immediately without having any further data to be put into the record.

I also noticed that this particular writer mentioned the "potential invasion of privacy of any student records" and that questions have been

raised in this respect. It was also stated that most of these records
are "more vulnerable to abuse of confidentiality than records stored for
years in a single school." It is with great pride and dignity that I
refute such asinine and bias statements. It is this group of children
and their families that state directors are dedicated to serve and pro-
tect from any misuse of information. Parents have also been provided a
copy of a child's record. This is encouraged because the System was
designed for a copy to be given to the student/parents before he moves
from one school to another or after his enrolling in another school.
If there were some incorrect and incomplete information, they could then
request it to be corrected. To this date, not a single parent has made
such a request.

On page 40 and 41, the writer mentions the development of the MSRTS and refers to it as "a costly example of the pitfalls both in USOE's refusal to deal with non-SEA's and SEA casualness about fiscal responsibility." Also, relative to the statement made about the Department of Education as the prime contractor and the University of Arkansas Medical Center as the subcontractor and the net profit that was made by the Medical Center, I feel the writer should do much more research and read all the correspondence between the Arkansas Department of Education and the auditors. In doing more research, the writer would find that the only audit exception of any consequence was an overcharge of $8,089 by the subcontractor. This was done by the subcontractor for the rental of an optical character reader which did not pertain to the development or operation of MSRTS. This subcontractor withheld that amount ($8,089) from the very next monthly billing and fulfilled all audit questions. The writer did not read or print the remaining statement of fact from the auditor which showed

the subcontractor had successfully shown the auditor that the scope of work had increased and that they had only a very small profit relative to the amount of work they did. In fact, the subcontractor would have gone into a hole had they charged off all the indebtedness that had occurred in the expansion of a new building.

I have only addressed those statements which directly pertain to the MSRTS. However, I did see many inaccuracies in the remaining text

also.

If the writer wanted to quote some information, I would suggest that she look at reports other than the Exotech Report which was replied to and the writer taken to task by many educators. The Exotech Report was responded to by many people pointing up the many fallacies. There is one commonality that I see in this report and the Exotech Report-that is, both are incorrect and filled with many inaccuracies.

I regret that I was unable to attend last week's hearing
on the Title I Migrant Program. However, there are a
number of questions which were apparently not addressed
at that hearing which I would like to have answered and
to have both questions and answers inserted in the hear-
ing record for that day.

Attached are the questions. I would appreciate a prompt
response to them.

With kind regards, I remain

Sincerely yours,

ALBERT H. QUIE
Member of Congress

AHQ: cma

Enclosure

cc: ✔Honorable Carl D. Perkins, Chairman
Committee on Education and Labor

QUESTIONS FOR DR. RIVERA

1.

2.

3.

4.

Are there procedures to insure that the LEA does get funds from the SEA for its 5 year migrants? How is this monitored?

Are there any procedures to insure that once an LEA gets money for a 5 year migrant, the funds are spent on services to that child? How is this monitored?

What if a 5 year migrant enrolls in a non-target school? Is he or she still served?

Both the law and the interim regulations make a distinction between the children whom SEAS "must" serve--5 to 17 year olds-and the children whom they "may" serve--preschool and 0-4 year olds--among the migrant population. Since the program is fully funded, and there are many projects serving the discretionary preschool population, may we assume that the entire mandatory population is adequately served? If not, please explain the rationale for this discrepancy.

5. Several members of the panel spoke of the difficulties of serving older migrant students during the summer months when they are attached to work crews. May we assume that during the rest of the year this population does receive adequate services? If not, what are the reasons for this situation?

6.

7.

8.

9.

One member of the panel alluded to migrant students who may
be in local schools for only a few days or weeks. Yet the
Exotech evaluation study reported that 83 percent of the
migrant student population in that survey had not attended
more than two schools during the school year. Exotech
offered several hypotheses to explain why this finding might
be misleading. Obviously, if the finding were confirmed,
it would have far reaching implications for the migrant edu-
cation program.
What specific steps has USOE taken to
resolve this question?

Please submit for the record a chart showing how much money each state would get if the dollars going to 5 year migrant children were put into LEA grants. Also, please submit for

the record a chart showing this distribution if the 5 year children were funded at pro rata reduction levels.

Please submit for the record your best estimates of the size of the migrant population ages 0-4 (which does not now generate funds) and the size of the 5 year "settled out" migrant student population.

Do you have records or estimates of the amount of money spent during the last program year on preschool and early childhood programs?

Response to letter not received in time for publication.