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Remarks by the Honorable Farris Bryant
Chairman, Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
before the
National Conference of State Legislative Leaders
December 1, 1967
I welcome the opportunity to meet once again with the legis-
lative leaders of the states. I saw a number of you in late September
at the meeting of the Rational Legislative Conference in San Antonio.
and as Chairman of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
it was may privilege to welcome many of you to the Conference on Legisla-
tive Leadership that was held in Hashington, D. C. in mid October under
the Commission's sponsorship.
The sponsorship of such a conference was a new experience for the
Advisory Commission. It was undertaken in response to suggestions by
the Government Operations Committees of the Senate and House of
Representatives following their review of the Advisory Commission's
first five years. The Advisory Commission, as most of you know, was set
up in 1959 by Congress as a permanent, independent agency charged with
the dual task of analysing intergovernmental problems and formulating
recommendations for their solution.
The Commission is a 26 member bipartisan body with representation
from all levels of government. A majority of the members are elected
State and local officials--four governors, three State legislators,
four mayors and three county officials. The Tederal Government is
represented by three senators, three congressmen and three officials of
the executive branch. Three public members complete the Commission
roster. Because of its composition the Commission brings to bear on
intergovernmental problems the judgment of law makers and executives
from all levels of government and from widely diverse backgrounds.
The three State legislative members of the Commission are out-
standing colleagues of yours: one of them is your distinguished
president, Senator C. George DeStefano of Rhode Island, a second is
the past president of this organization-~and a gracious host at this
meeting--Speaker Jesse Unruh of California. the third is the young
and very talented Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, the
honorable Ben Barnes. it is a great honor to serve with these gentle-
men. They are able, constructive members of the Commission; and in
the Commission's deliberations they are vigorous and effective repre-
sentatives of the legislative branch of State government.
I was invited to discuss with you some of the problems facing
us in the field of education end some of the resources available to the
States.
Public education in this Ration dates from the early 1800's.
Under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Horace Mann of
Massachusetts, Henry Bernard of Connecticut and many others, our unique
pattern of tax supported free education was fashioned.
The pattern as we now know it did not emerge full blown. Our
schools are the product of nearly two centuries of argument and debate,
of trial and error, of crisis and compromise.
Our system of publicly supported education and our use of the
system gives us reason to be proud. We provide schooling for more
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then 30 million pupils et the elsmentery level, more then 12 million
st the secondery level and more then 6 million et the college level.
All of this is in eddition to the 6.5 million pupils in privete
elementery end secondary schools end 2 million students in privete
colleges end universities.
With enrollments of this megnitude it is e smell wonder that
edncstion is the most costly of the cetelog of services thet Stetes
end locelities ere celled upon to provide. More then s third of ell
Stste end locsl general expenditures go for educetion--the amount
exceeds 35 billion dollers e yeer now end it is still growing. Let me
emphssiee thet the lion's share of the cost of public educetion continues
to be peid by the Ststes end locelities. The Stste-locel shere of
expenditures for elementary end secondery educetion exceeds 922; less
then 81 comes from the Pederel Government. And Stete end locsl govern-
ment pey two-thirds of the cost of public higher educetion. Here egsin
the Pederel contribution is less then 81; tuition. endowment eernings
end gifts provide the remainder.
Indeed we do heve reeson to be proud of the progress thet we
heve msde. Teschers tech, ere better prepared end better psid. Schools
ere better equipped end better meneged.
But there is enother side to the coin. All the problees heve
not been solved, end some of then ere very stubborn indeed. The fourth
Edition of the Encyclopedie Brittenice ves published in 1800. Under
the blunt descriptive heeding "School Teechers Underpeid" wee the
following comment: "At present the selery of s country schoolmesteru..is
not greeter then s ploughmen cen eern...the consequence of which is thet
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this, which is in fact an honorable, because useful, profession. is now
sinking into cents-pt." Boa many tines have you as legislators heard
a sinilar complaint? In a world of change. some things apparently are
constant.
Despite all that we've done, nuch remains undone. And it is to
you, the States' policy makers, that the people look for leadership.
Let us note a few of the items of "unfinished business" that
will clain your attention.
It is a sad fact, but true. that many of our youth who are most
in need of education ere not getting it. Low income, lack of activation
and not enough schooling make up the vicious "cycle of poverty. School
dropouts feel negative toward education and pass this attitude on to
their children who in turn are likely to become dropouts. A Department
of Labor survey indicates that about 65 percent of the youngsters from
families with incomes under $3,000 do not finish school, and about
one-fourth of the youngsters from families in the $3,000 to $5,000
intone bracket will be dropouts. Coupled with this is the fact that
earnings of high school graduates are substantially higher than the
earnings of dropouts. There is no nagic fornula--no panacea--but,
clearly, education must play a key role if we are to succeed in our
efforts to break the "cycle of poverty."
The Advisory Connission recently has completed an extensive
study of "tiscsl Balance in the American Federal System." The study
uncovered alarming fiscal disparities in our great netropolitan areas
between the central cities. where many of the problens are. and the
suburbs. where much of the fiscal capacity is located.
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we found, for example, that educational expenditures in the
central cities are lower than in the suburbs, not only on a per capita
basis but on a per pupil basis as well. He found, moreover, that local
taxes measured against income are more than one-third higher in the
central city than in the suburbs. And we also found that State aid to
local schools is distributed in such a way that the grants to central
cities are lower both on per capita and on a per pupil basis than grants
to suburbs. Yet the central city is where most of the serious pockets
of poverty are located. It's where the number of school dropouts is
critical. It's where the need is greatest for the effective utilization
of our educational resources.
With these findings in mind. the Advisory Commission developed
three specific recommendations for State action, steps that an individual
State may take on its own without reference to other States or to the
National government.
First, the Commission recommended that the States change their
school aid formulas to include factors that reflect the higher cost
of educating "disadvantaged" children, especially in areas of high
population density.
The thrust of the recommendation is obvious. It costs more per
pupil to provide "adequate" education to children from slum areas than
it does to "adequately" educate children from higher income areas. The
reasons are many: One is the need for more personalised attention.
Another is the need for more remedial classes. Still another is the
desirability of keeping the schools open in the evenings, on the
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weekends and in the summer to offer both "catch-up" and "enrichment"
instruction.
Many State aid formulas recognize differences in the fiscal
capacities and the tax efforts of school districts but few formulas
take into account the "third part of the equation"--the higher cost of
educating the poorer child. If we want to break the "cycle of poverty,"
here is a good place to start.
The Lommiesion also recommends that the States provide county-wide
or regionduids school preperty taxing districts. This step, of course,
is suggested for those States where school financing has not already
been placed on a county-wide or regional basis.
An abundance of evidence points up the accelerated erosion of
school finances and school facilities in major parts of many of our
metropolitan areas. The gap between per pupil expenditures in the
suburbs and in the central cities is widening rapidly in many places.
Ways must be found for giving the schools of these problem areas a .
tax base broad enough to provide adequate support. The Commission's
proposal is one way to harness the resources of the entire metropolitan
area to meet the area's educational needs.
In Florida we have attempted to solve the problem of educational
disparities in metropolitan areas by providing county wide school
districts. The Commission's recommendation does not go that far. The
areawide taxing district proposed by the Commission would be for finen-
cing only; the operation of the schools would remain in the hands of
the present school district authorities.
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The third Commission recommendation calls for the sharing of
high cost educational facilities or programs on a multidistrict basis.
The quality of education often is directly related to the ready
availability of specialized facilities and specially trained personnel.
Specialisation in turn relates to the economies of scale. A school
system or district serving a small population may not have a sufficient
number of pupils enrolled in any one vocational training or college
preparatory program to justify the cost of providing specialized
teachers or separate classes. When the unit costs of specialized
education are prohibitive the small district can offer only a general,
canon-denominator program of education that does not adequately prepare
its graduates either for employment or for college. Similarly, small
districts cannot provide special programs for the physically or mentally
handicapped.
By sharing specialized facilities, the participating districts
may improve the quality and increase the variety of their educational
offerings.
Problems in education. as in other fields, frequently have inter-
state implications. In the South, the West and the Northeast. groups
of States have entered into interstate compacts to deal with special
problems in higher education. And the new Education Commission of the
States is an imaginative effort by the 45 member States to pool their
knowledge and information and to join forces in exploring ways to tackle
emerging problems.
One "intrastate" problem with "interstate" implications is
teacher certification.
Our population is mobile. Every year about one-fifth of our
people move. 0f the movers about one-half stay in the same county and
another one-fourth stay in the same State. The remaining one-fourth,
about 10 million people, move to s new State. Teachers, too, are mobile.
One-fourth of them are teaching in a State other than the one in which
they received their professional training.
Every State has established by law certification machinery.
Its purpose is to make sure that only professionally competent teachers
are authorised to teach. The professional requirements are quite similar
from State to State, but not identical. whether a teacher will encounter
difficulty in moving from State to State is uncertain at best; too often
it becomes a time consuming and frustrating ritual of unnecessary "i"
dotting and "t" crossings. Most States must look beyond their own
boundaries to find enough teachers. It's time we took steps to eliminate
unneeded interstate barriers.
New York and nine other States now are working on the problem.
An interstate compact that would authorize flexible teacher certification
agreements is being developed. If these efforts are successful, it will
be easier for States to share outstanding educational talent, and all of
us, I think, will benefit.
In 1961. I was privileged to hear President Kennedy, speaking to
a group in Miami. announce his hope that man would reach the noon during
this decade. As I listened to him outline his bold dream, there came
to me a realisation that what we were doing in education was so inadequate,
so short of the mark. that a revolution would be needed for us to realise
President Kennedy's dramatic objective.
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We are now in the midst of that revolution--it's evolutionary,
of course, because this is a free country--hut its results are revolu-
tionary. Merely keeping up with the demands of an exploding population
is a vast challenge. But in the perspective of history we stand on the
threshold of a new civilization; not new in terms of the exotic products
that will one day he commonplace, but new in the rate of change that has
become the common-denominator of life and new in that the key to productive
living will be the ability to comprehend, to anticipate and to make use
of the rapid rate of change.
I suggest to you that with such a rate of change, self-sustaining
and reproductive in the world today, there has been added a new dimension
of living. By our mastery of the physical world we have started a chain
reaction more pregnant with consequences for good and evil than all
nuclear reaction, and this is the great challenge to education today.
If we are to be ready for tomorrow, we must prepare the students
of today to live in a world, the outlines of which cannot yet be dis-
cerned; a world that sustains the impact of a continuing revolution. Our
students not only must understand and master what 1;, but also what ggx_§g
in this world of geometric change.
Han lives today on an escalator. he goes to sleep in one world,
he wakes up in another. He graduates from college in one world, but
he must deal with and live in and succeed in another, and always it is
changing. Today is yesterday's tomorrow and tomorrow has already dawned.
In such a world our leadership cannot sleep, nor our institutions
remain static. We grow or die.
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instruction. Many State aid formulas recognize differences in the fiscal capacities and the tax efforts of school districts but few Eermulas take into account the "third part of the equation"--the higher ecst of educating the poorer child. If we want to break the "eycle of poverty," here is a good place to start. The "sommission also recymmends that the States provide county-wide or region-wide school property taxing districts. This step, of course, is suggested for those States where school Einancing has not already been placed on a cyunty-wide or regional basis. An abundsnee of evidence points up the accelerated erosion of school finances and school facilities in major parts of sony of our metropolitan areas. The gap between per pupil expenditures in the suburbs and in the central cities is widening rapidly in many places. Ways must be found for giving the schools of these problem areas a tax hase broad enough to provide adequate support. The Carmission's proposal is yne way to harness the resources of the entite me tropolitan area to meet the area's educational needs. In Florida ve have attempted to solve the problem af educational disparities in metropalitan areas by providing county wide school districts. The Commissionis recymmendation does not go that far. The areawide taxing district proposed by the Commission would he for financing ynly; the operation of the schocis would remain in the hands of the present school district authorities.
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