Fred Hechinger

The following tape recorded programs distributed through the facilities of the National Association of

educational broadcasters.

Oral essays on education and dynamic radio series designed to present leading

personalities of our society as they attempt to discover the scope of problems which confront

modern education. I can this week Dr. James in Terra Michigan State University

College of Education interviews Mr. Fred Hawkins you're the educational editor of The New York

Times who this week analyzes the financial support factor in education.

And now here is Dr. Tim.

We very often hear whenever education is discussed and everything you said costs money

and the competition for the American dollar is very heavy especially with tax dollars.

Now realizing our whole concept of education in this country has tended toward the direction of

making education available to those who can profit from it not

to create a profit making structure. Would you react to this Jeff.

Well first of all I'd like to say that I don't think we ought to

apologize for the fact that education costs money.

We keep saying I know we don't always realize it when we

say it but we keep saying that education is our first line of defense. Well it

is we know it is. There's no reason to believe

that one's first line of defense is a very cheap thing to build up.

You don't assume that in physical defenses we can do it

without without a good deal of money. I think the first thing we have to

do is establish a sense of some priorities in our minds

and on this again I'd like to be very specific.

I have done a good deal of research.

Russian school system Russian school financing. I've

also followed the American school financing debate very closely

last year. In town after town that I

watched one special

topic of concern that came up again and again in

debating with the teacher's salaries for instance could be traced was

if we do all this what do we do about it.

The salaries of other state employees or Municipal Employees

can raise teacher salaries for instance without raising the Firemen's and policemen's

salaries.

Now there is and there hasn't been one instance in all the discussion of Russian

school financing where the pay

of policeman was pegged to the pay of teachers.

And this leads me to think that this is one of the ironies of modern times

that the police state worries less about the pay of its policemen and more

about half its teachers.

This is a very basic thing to to think about. Now the

second point in discussing educational financing is

that I don't think we can continue

to think in terms of a separation

of local state and federal responsibility.

Educational financing has to be able to count

on the money where it is and it has to be able to count

particularly on getting money that will help to

equalize to do away with natural differences

in ability to pay. We know that today

the state has the lowest per capita income

in the country makes an effort

in terms of what it provides for the education

of its children. Roughly about the equal

of the state with the highest per capita income. The difference about 1

percent in effort that we know and when I say effort

I mean the FAA based on the comparison of per capita income between

those two states because that's presumably what they can afford.

Now we know that.

If you're income is very different from that of your neighbor.

If you pay practically the same percentage of that income to

support anything with it your schools your fire department whatever it baby.

If you pay within of 1 percent the same percentage as your neighbor you're

making a much greater effort and you're much closer to the saturation point

and you are much closer. In other words to the point at which you need it.

I think one of the most vicious arguments against some equally sation

in terms of federal aid the most vicious argument against it

has been the argument which you constantly in the wealthiest states that I've always lived

in the way of the estates I've heard these arguments. We don't get anything out of

this. We would be paying more into this than we get back.

This I think is a symptom of what the

chancellor Eddie of the vice chancellor of the University of New Hampshire

called and he was talking only about the college student population called the

new decease of privatization. And he says the slogan of

privatization is what's in it for me. The point is

that. Much more important than what's in it for me is the

fact that we're all in this together. And if

10 or 12 states can't afford to finance

first rate education the other states will suffer just as surely as those

that that can't pay.

Does it seem to you that we are in a situation where we have exhausted these

traditional areas of financial support for education.

I think we've exhausted the traditional areas of support largely because they

were based on an

assessment which is no longer equitable based number one almost

entirely on personal property tax

which is a very debatable way of rasing raising money for

school support it's also a method which inevitably rallies the

forces of opposition on a very

narrow basis.

More important than that we may have exhausted

the structure of our support.

We have come near to exhausting our ability to pay.

Now in this I think is is the most important point to

keep in mind. We are at the height

of prosperity as a nation.

We as a nation have reached a standard a level

of living which is without any question the

envy of every nation in the world. When the Russians talk

about overtaking us that's what they are talking about.

The whole world knows that we live more comfortably. We live in greater

affluence than any civilization has ever done before. I haven't the

slightest doubt that this being the case we

could if we wanted to finance the best education system the world

has ever seen. But it's a question of priorities. We we

may have to spend a little less on some of the things that we now spend money on I think we could still live

comfortably if we did this. But it's a question of what we want to pay for

what kind of what kind of things we want to save a little on.

It's a question also I think and this is even more important of looking on

education not as something that you spend money on.

Money that's lost and gone nobody likes to spend money that that doesn't

come back we all our mind is adjusted in terms of finances

to the idea of an investment that brings returns. We don't hesitate to

to use the term missing money into a venture if we think we are going to get a

return from it. This I think has to be the approach to our support of

education. We are putting an enormous investment potentially

into something that is going to bring much greater much more enormous returns. And by the

same token if you want to put it in negative terms which perhaps is in a in a crisis society

is more successful. If we don't make the investment we are

equally sure to lead ourselves to drive ourselves into bankruptcy and I don't

just mean intellectual bankruptcy I mean economic bankruptcy as

well.

This support you're speaking of you're Do you see that is primarily coming from the

federal level I get the impression you do. I see it coming from us.

Level of stress the federal level only because that is the level that hasn't

been tapped at all I think. If I remember correctly at the last

count about three to four percent of the education

dollars came from the federal government.

The great weight of the education dollar has been

has been coming from the great portion of the education dollars been coming from the

community. The next higher level is the state which has been re apportioning

it to some extent. I think we have learned and I think this is really

where the the crux of the argument lies.

We have learned that at present with our present tax structure

and nobody likes to pay taxes on any level. But as

things stand now the most effective

efficient and equitable level Levy is the federal income

tax. Therefore it is potentially the most

economically warm from which money can be fed back into the

local schools. We know that.

Where ever the meth money comes from Eventually it comes from our own pocket. But it is a question of how

you how you tap it most effectively and and most

justly how you charge the

cost most effectively to those who are most able to pay.

And in many local communities we simply have reached the the

saturation point where the schools can no longer draw on the

local treasury without at the same time disrupting the other services that the

community must provide.

It's of course very interesting to me that you start with the local effort. Let me try to

capsulize here and then get your reaction to a capsule ization. I think we could

reduce this into a formula and A plus B plus C equals X. Now let me

substitute what I'm talking about here. It would be local wealth B would be

local effort x at the other end of the scale would be the kind of

educational system pattern that we would want in turn translated into dollars

to equalize children's educational opportunity and you've given a circle

suggestions on how to do this one of them of course is this commission you referred to on the national level as a

guiding commission. And that leaves me which is the support

which would come from several areas as you've indicated local state or federal.

Now our formula says this is what I'd like your reaction to local

wealth plus local effort plus whatever support it takes from whatever

level we get to equal this equalized educational opportunity. Is this

what you have been referring to this is exactly what I've been referring to and

to underline it.

I want to add only this that the

greatest effort in every way is needed

where there is the greatest economic need whether it is the lowest

economic standard and what I mean by this is number one. In order the

only way.

Let me start this way the only way to uplift

economically. Forget for a minute the educational problem. The only way to

uplift economically depressed areas is through

the best kind of schools. The only way to

get youngsters from those areas to avail

themselves of education high school education college

education graduate school. The only way to get them into this

is by extraordinary financing

much beyond the level of financing in the wealthy areas.

It's the child from the or we call it

under privileged or deprived areas. The

it's the chai from those fields from those regions. Who needs

the major scholarship. Which again means an expenditure

from the outside U.S.. And so that I completely agree

with you for that I'm simply adding this as a documentation for it that

this is needed to give us

a. Sense of excellence across the entire

country. And this is the only way incidentally

through which I think we can continue to have an expanding economy and this is important because

we shouldn't ever talk about the support of

education in terms of what we can afford today if

our aims and goals and dreams really mean anything.

Then this is a almost a pitch

motion idea. As we spend more

product we'll increase people standard of living as they