This is particularly an acute problem in urban areas, because a number of other services are financed from the same property tax base. For example, municipal service requirements, such as police protection, fire protection, health care, hospitals, et cetera, are all fiananced from the property tax base, and school districts as a result have to compete against these other revenue demands, and needless to say they compete very poorly. As a result, urban populations and these low income populations who reside there spend greater amounts of their income in support of the municipal and educational service requirements of their municipalities. With these problems in mind, the Urban Coalition undertook a study of the applications for Federal grants to States, studying their developing equalization plans, commonly called 842, as we referred to it today. What we have found is that indeed even though States where these kinds of problems have not begun to be addressed, few of them had made plans to undertake these kinds of studies; that is to say, area cost and pupil need differences. I would add, however, that the intent of the 842 appropriation is a very beneficial one for the States. What we would urge with respect to 842, based on our examination of those applications, is that the Federal Government indeed again appropriate an authorization of this type which will allow States to look at the various cost differences and pupil need differences within their States. Also, where States have aleady developed these indicators, we would urge that the Federal Government go even further by providing States with some kinds of matching grants for implementation of these indicators. I would point out that I agree with the previous speakers on the need for State legislative involvement in the preparation of these equalization plans, and in school finance reform in general. I would add, however, that it is important that we structure citizen involvement in the development of these plans as well. One way of doing that would be for the subcommittee to hold a series of regional hearings or conferences on issues of school finance reform problems, and alternative solutions. In addition to providing the subcommittee with information on the nature of local school finance problems, these conferences or hearings could further be used to elicit from citizens, State legislators, as well as school officials, recommendations for effective Federal involvement. In addition, we would recommend that the committee insure that the equity guidelines that are stipulated in the 842 legislation, if another appropriation is made, are strictly adhered to. Finally, we would recommend that any future legislation require that districts focus their studies on very specific items. These I will name once again. That would be the individual needs of pupils, which includes the needs of economically and the linguistically disadvantaged child, variations in the cost of providing equivalent services for different pupils, and variations in the ability of local education agencies to generate educational revenue from their tax base. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. QUIE. Mr. Long I believe is the last witness. We will hear from you now. STATEMENT OF DAVID LONG, LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS [The statement of Mr. Long follows:] STATEMENT OF DAVID C. LONG, DIRECTOR, SCHOOL FINANCE REFORM SEPTEMBER 28, 1977 My name is David C. Long. I am a staff attorney at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and director of its School Finance Reform Project. I appreciate your invitation to discuss the role that the federal government could play in eliminating the great inequalities in educational opportunities that presently exist among school districts in many states. This nation has long viewed education as necessary to enable children to have an equal chance to succeed in life and to realize their talents. Those who wrote the state constitutions enshrined education as the most important obligation of the state and expressly mandated state legislatures to ensure, in the words of many state constitutions, a "thorough", "efficient", "uniform", "general" or "adequate" free public educational system. These high aspirations for equal educational opportunities were heightened by the Congress which granted to states, on admission to the Union, large amounts of land dedicated to the benefit of the public schools. Congress, throughout the westward -2 development of the nation, played a central role in promoting these aspirations, which remain unfulfilled. Our ideals recoil from accepting governmental decisions to make available a higher quality education to some children than to others based on such capricious factors as the wealth of school districts or to perpetuate through the public educational system the disabilities of poverty and racial discrimination. Within many states, educational opportunities differ dramatically among school districts. It is not unusual to find some districts spending two or three times as much per pupil as other districts. Such differences in expenditures translate into inequalities in educational services and facilities in areas such as pupil-teacher ratios, the availability of educational specialists, the scope and quality of the curriculum, special services for handicapped and disadvantaged students, and maintenance and sanitation. Moreover, these are inequalities caused by government itself, which compels children to participate in the unequal system it has created. These inequalities generally reflect no rational educational or economic policies as, for example, providing higher expenditures to meet greater educational needs or higher costs. Rather, they are manifestations of the uneven distribution of wealth and educational tasks among school districts throughout a state. In most states the wealth of a school district, rather than educational and cost considerations, fuels the machinery that allocates educational -3 Since the California Supreme Court's 1971 decision in Serrano v. Priest, litigation has brought discriminatory systems of educational funding into full public view and set the agenda for reform. The School Finance Reform Project of the Lawyers' Committee has been involved in virtually all of the subsequent cases seeking reform of inequitable allocations of educational resources among school districts. School Finance Reform Litigation In Serrano, inequalities among school districts in educational expenditures and educational opportunities caused by disparities in local tax bases were held to violate the equal protection provisions of the federal and state constitutions. Serrano called for an end to making "the quality of a child's education depend upon the resources of his school district." The principle that educational expenditures should be determined by the wealth of the state as a whole rather than by the wealth of each school district has been termed "fiscal neutrality." In the months following this decision, over 30 cases were filed challenging inequitable school finance schemes in other states. Rulings applying the fiscal neutrality principle of Serrano quickly followed in federal district courts in Minnesota and Texas; state trial courts in Arizona, Kansas, and New Jersey; and in the Michigan and Wyoming Supreme Courts. Less than two years after Serrano, the United States Supreme Court, in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, virtually ended the role of the federal courts in -4 eliminating wealth-caused inequalities among school districts. In reversing the earlier decision of a Texas federal district court, the Supreme Court found that education was not a fundamental interest, because it was neither explicitly nor implicitly guaranteed under the federal Constitution; nor, the Court held, did discrimination based upon district wealth amount to a suspect classification. The Court, therefore, refused to apply any heightened judicial scrutiny to the educational inequalities in the Texas system and found that they passed the most lenient rational basis test for discriminatory classifications. However, the Supreme Court did not endorse the status quo. Instead it recognized the need for "greater uniformity of opportunity" and for reform "in tax systems which may well have relied too long and too heavily on the local property tax. Moreover, Mr. Justice Stewart, while concurring with the majority, described the Texas system as "chaotic and unjust." и Rodriguez had the practical effect of placing the equity issues pertaining to school finance squarely in the laps of state courts. State constitutions generally give explicit attention to education as a state interest of singular importance. For example, virtually all state constitutions mandate the state to provide public schools. Subsequent to Rodriguez, the supreme courts of three states, California, Connecticut, and New Jersey, have ruled inequities in their school finance systems unconstitutional. Many people thought that the Serrano case ended in 1971. In fact, the California Supreme Court ruled only on plaintiffs' |