Mr. BENITEZ. I have no further questions, but do you have any additional statement or additional expressions you wish to make in connection with this testimony?

Dr. ASHE. Yes, I would like to say I am a little sensitive about being the director of this project and not being Puerto Rican. I tried very hard to find after we wrote the proposal, a Puerto Rican who could and would do it. There is no one who is Puerto Rican who holds a doctorate degree in guidance and counseling. For the credibility of the degree, I have to be here.

I like to think, too, of myself in an organization of change agentry as a linkage person, one who is sensitive to the problems that exist and one who can move in the educational establishment with ease and that my role is a facilitating role here and I promise to get out of the way as soon as we have brought our students and staff that we have now up that doctoral ladder that we are planning and let them take over and do for themselves.

Mr. BENITEZ. Let me contradict you on this, too, as I have contradicted others. In Puerto Rico, as you know, we have had this problem of language with us for now 76 years and while we appreciate there are people whose native tongue is English and they are best at that and others whose native tongue is Spanish and they are best at that, we have also discovered that with languages there is an ultimate language of human understanding and human commitment, two important things, and appreciation, and that language is the basic one and you speak that fully.

Dr. ASHE. Thank you. Again thank you for your time.

Mr. BENITEZ. The meeting stands adjourned and we will resume tomorrow at the same time.

[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m. the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m. of the following day, Thursday, March 28, 1974.]

BILINGUAL EDUCATION ACT

THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1974

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

GENERAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to call, in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Shirley Chisholm presiding. Present: Representatives Chisholm, Biaggi, Bell, and Lehman." Staff members present: Jack Jennings, subcommittee counsel; Toni Painter, secretary; and Christopher T. Cross, minority legislative associate.

Mrs. CHISHOLM. The General Subcommittee on Education will continue hearings on the question of bilingual education.

The chairman was unavoidably detained. We hope he will be able to get here a little later. But it is important that we commence the hearings and that we continue.

The first witness this morning will be Hon. Frank Carlucci, the Under Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Welcome, Mr. Carlucci. You may introduce the other persons who are part of your panel.

Mr. CARLUCCI. Thank you, Mrs. Chisholm.

To my right is Dr. John Ottina, Director of the Office for Education.

To his right is Dr. John Molina, Director of the Division of Bilingual Education of the Office of Education.

To his right is Mr. Homero Acevedo, Education Program Specialist, Office of Equal Educational Opportunity Programs of the Office of Education.

To my immediate left is Mr. Charles Cooke, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislation (Education), HEW.

To his left is Dr. Thomas Glennan, Director of the National Institute for Education.

STATEMENT BY HON. FRANK C. CARLUCCI, UNDER SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Mr. CARLUCCI. Madam Chairman, members of the subcommittee. I am happy to appear before your subcommittee this morning to discuss the policy and program implications of the Lau decision on educational programs to assist students who are disadvantaged because of limited or non-English-speaking ability.

The Supreme Court decision in Lau v. Nichols focuses our attention again on the special problems of some children in our society in achieving equal access to educational opportunities available to others in their community and the need for the public school systems of this country to deal explicitly and effectively with such problems.

In its simplest terms the Supreme Court in Lau affirmed the responsibility of local educational agencies, LEA's, to comply with Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and HEW regulations and guidelines issued pursuant thereto. These guidelines and regulations require that school districts take affirmative action to rectify the language deficiencies of limited and non-English-speaking children in such a fashion that they may enjoy equal access to the education opportunities provided to all other students by the school system.

In the Lau case, no specific remedies were sought and the Supreme Court prescribed none, but rather remanded the case to the district court level for "fashioning of appropriate relief." The Court therefore left open the nature of the appropriate relief required as do our HEW Title VI regulations and guidelines. But while much about the nature and application of remedies for English language deficiencies remains unclear in the Court's decision, it is clear that local educational agencies are obligated to develop effective affirmative action programs for dealing with such problems, and that HEW, under Title VI, should continue to enforce its regulations and guidelines pertaining to such obligations.

There are several dimensions of both the educational problems of students of limited English-speaking ability and potential solutions to their problems which distinguish the needs under discussion today from other special educational issues facing our school systems. I will deal with those distinguishing characteristics shortly. But first it seems to me important to deal with the characteristics which this issue has in common with other special educational problems those of handicapped students, the student involved in schools undergoing desegregation and educationally disadvantaged students-to name some of the most prominent examples. All of these problems have a common dimension and all raise the question of the proper Federal role in seeking solutions.

In each case, LEA's across the country are being required, as a matter of Federal statute, Federal or State court order, or just sound public policy, to provide specific educational opportunities for students with special problems. The State and LEA response has ranged from ignoring such problems, to dealing with them inadequately, to doing an excellent job within the constraints of fiscal capacity.

Providing sound educational opportunities for students with special problems can enable them to become productive or self-sufficient citizens of the Nation as well as of the localities and States in which they live.

While there are exceptions, such as some types of handicaps, the distribution of students with special educational problems is often uneven geographically. They are usually concentrated in a limited number of States or in a limited number of districts within a State. Dealing effectively with these special problems usually involves

some additional costs though these additional costs may vary in duration. Desegregation cases would be an example of short-term requirements for special funding whereas education of the severely handicapped would be a problem of long-term duration. The additional costs may fall unevenly, due not only to differing concentrations of students having such problems, but also because of the differing character of the problem and the nature of an appropriate solution. As an obvious example, minor speech defects are much simpler and less costly to deal with than serious mental retardation, and similarly, special education for a high school immigrant youngster who is already fluent and literate in one language is far less costly than that for a youngster from the barrio in his first years of school who is literate in no language and speaks only nonstandard Spanish. Within this broad framework, it is appropriate to explore the roles which should be played by the local, State, and Federal levels of government. Clearly, most would agree that the educational system which directly serves students, with or without special problems, should be operated predominantly at the local level. Only in rare instances where a special problem is so infrequent that few if any States would be able to operate a program or facility economically should the Federal Government consider assuming responsibility for the direct provision of the special services required.

On the other hand there is a clear Federal role and responsibility in conducting a vigorous civil rights compliance enforcement activity-not because LEA's and States are necessarily unwilling to achieve voluntary compliance with the law, but because the Federal Government is obligated to ensure that such compliance actually occurs. That is, we must ensure that Federal statutes and court decisions requiring State and local educational agencies to address special educational needs so that all children are provided a sound and equal educational opportunity are carried out. I would note that the growing awareness in all sectors of the legal and educational community of the need to ensure equal educational opportunities has greatly reinforced the importance of a comprehensive Federal civil rights compliance/enforcement strategy.

Beyond a Federal civil rights compliance/enforcement strategy, a generally accepted Federal role would include research, testing and dissemination of educational approaches, models, and techniques for teaching students with special education problems. This capacity building role would include such related activities as curriculum development, teacher training and technical assistance to States and LEA's attempting to meet their obligations to provide equal educational opportunities to all students. While these activities are obviously not exclusively Federal, and should not be, the ability of the Federal Government to mount such efforts with the needs of the entire Nation in mind makes it an obvious and substantial participant in such endeavors.

In turning to the question of who should provide financial support for the actual provision of educational services, and on what basis, we move onto much more controversial and less clear ground. That question-specifically with respect to the Federal role- however, is

now before us in the education policy implications of the Lau decision and, indeed, most special education problems. It is both a complex and important question and we all need to think about it as carefully and clearly as possible.

One school of thought would simply embrace all special education costs as a Federal responsibility with the Federal Government underwriting the entire incremental cost of providing special education services. I do not believe that a persuasive case can be made for this approach on historic, conceptual, legal, or fiscal grounds. Historically, education has been and remains today a predominantly State and local activity. Although our population is increasingly mobile and the benefits of a sound education accordingly do in part accrue to the Nation as a whole, those benefits obviously most heavily accrue at the State and local level. Legally, there is an increasingly less persuasive case for Federal intervention in the form of direct educational financial support on the ground that States and localities will refuse to provide such support for wholly inappropriate reasons, that is, in order to discriminate. Federal and State statutes and court orders with resulting appropriate compliance and enforcement machinery are rapidly depriving school systems of the opportunity to avoid such responsibilities.

On fiscal grounds, where the case is often argued most strongly, the basis for total Federal assumption of all incremental special education costs is equally weak. I am particularly troubled by the frequent tendency in discussions of this problem to concentrate solely on the fiscal plight of local educational agencies and to ignore the appropriate role of the States in the provision of educational services. In this regard I would call attention to the continuing deficits in the Federal unified budget-estimated at $14.3 billion in fiscal year 1973 as compared with aggregate State and local budget surpluses estimated at $11 billion in calendar year 1973. We have a situation in which the States are able to address the problems they are confronting as a result of the Lau decision. This is especially true because of probable reductions in budget demands on establish State and local tax bases which can be expected to result from decreasing school enrollments.

It seems to me quite clear that many local school systems are fully able to finance, without a large proportional increase in outlays, the incremental cost of providing appropriate educational programs to deal with special problems-especially where the incidence or concentration of those special problems is low and the fiscal capacity of the school district is sound. In those cases where the incidence or concentration of special educational problems is high or the fiscal capacity of the school district is low, I believe that the State has a major role in the equalization process to ensure that all children within the State are provided equal educational opportunities.

As mentioned earlier, I believe that States are increasingly recognizing this obligation in determining the allocation of their fiscal resources. It is interesting to note that 65 percent of the general revenue sharing money which was made available for State expenditures -some $643 million-in the January 1, 1972, through June 30, 1973,