Federal Aid (Contd.)

A leading voice of the blue-chip U.S. business community this week tackled an issue that politicians must face in the 1960 presidential campaign (TIME, Jan. 25). After a three-year study, the Committee for Economic Development (180 top executives and educators) concluded: "Where the decentralized system cannot provide good schools, federal aid to education is an urgent necessity."

Citing recent school improvements in a 90-page report entitled "Paying for Better Public Schools," C.E.D. suggests that rising prosperity alone will produce enough new money to hold the gains. But is this enough? Far from it, says Ralph Lazarus, head of C.E.D.'s educational subcommittee and president of Federated Department Stores Inc. "We cannot pay for better schools just by continuing our present effort. We should do more than this minimum--and we can afford to."

Three key recommendations:

P: Better organization of permanent citizens' groups to "generate the energy."

P: Mandatory state action to consolidate the nation's present 45,000 school districts into about 10,000.

P: A sharp rise in state spending to relieve the local districts where property taxes are stretched to the limit. State money should go first to lagging districts through an equalization program.

"Clear Need." What about the poorest states? "The clear and present need," says the report, "is for federal financial assistance to the states that have extremely low personal incomes relative to the number of schoolchildren." In 1957-58, for example, eleven mainly Southern states with 22% of U.S. public school pupils spent less for education than 80% of the national average. To climb even to this level would have required a stiff (and "unlikely") spending boost, from 13% in Maine to 63% in Mississippi.

But C.E.D. would not have the U.S. simply hand over the money, since "this would penalize states now making the greatest effort to support schools and reward states making the least effort." Instead, C.E.D. suggests giving aid to states where personal income falls below a certain national "foundation" (minimum): 80% of a figure arrived at by dividing all U.S. personal income among schoolchildren only ($9,157 in 1957-58). Each state would receive a percentage of its deficit, equivalent to the national ratio of school spending to personal income. Sample: in 1957-58 the ratio was 2.83%, and Mississippi's personal income per pupil was $4,264 less than C.E.D.'s suggested foundation. Thus it would have received $121 per student, or a total of $54 million.

No Controls. For all deficient states, estimates C.E.D., the annual federal payout would be about $600 million. To protect the Government, states would get the money only if they boosted their own school spending to the national rate and kept it there. To protect the schools, no federal controls on education "whatsoever" would be allowed--"no federal requirement for 'loyalty oaths,' and no control of subject matter, teaching methods, teacher qualifications, or any other aspects of the educational process."

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