Mr. RARICK. I am here today talking about racial balance in the schools in our Nation's Capital. I am not even talking about taxes. I am trying to get a voluntary agreement with the members that federal officers and employees put their children in public schools in D.C. If we change the racial composition of the schools in the District, and the problem you discuss handicaps education, we still have school teachers and educational facilities available. The teachers can use the buildings to perform the same services you suggest. I am not a member of the District Committee and I don't know what facilities now exist or are needed for extra parental child care. Mr. DELLUMS. I would like to make a brief comment. The reason I asked the latter question is this: Obviously to implement this kind of policy certain nuances would exist. I wonder whether you thought it through far enough to make commitments. It is obvious from your answer you have not gone that far. This is a community of 750,000 people. 73 percent of them are black. I come from a State 2,500 miles away, so some of my statements will be speculation but not far wrong. This community is 73 percent black because there are a lot of people who have left this community because they have not been willing to deal with the serious and critical problems confronting the District as a major urban city. They have walked away from this city not only because of educational factors but because we have not addressed ourselves to other critical issues confronting us. I will not play games with you. I honestly believe your resolution does not address itself to that problem in any way. If we are talking about the quality of life and education of the people in the District then we are talking about spending substantial sums of money to deal with all those critical issues-the questions of mass transit, employment, poverty, hunger, disease, and education in this District so we make the District of Columbia a model city. But if this Congress was willing to pass a piece of my legislation that I think was called a crime bill which is a violation of constitutional rights, it seems to me we can in fact make Washington, D.C. a model urban city for the entire United States. You would not deal with that in this kind or resolution in a strange way-a few people having the courage to stand up. You do not address yourself to the quality of life. You address the quality of life by people being courageous enough to deal with critical problems and be willing to stop spending so much money killing people elsewhere in the world and start dealing with the problems of building a community that is worthy of black, brown, red, yellow, and white. Your resolution does not address itself to that issue. Until we deal with that you are not getting to the real contradiction. We in Congress have all the fringe benefits and amenities that accrue. our "stations in life" but if we advocate these ideas to working classes, races in the North and others, it is a radical conspiracy. That is the contradiction and hypocrisy we have to deal with. I don't think your resolution deals with that at all. If we enhance the quality of life in the District you will not have to pass a resolution for people to come in. One of the tragedies I see in coming from the California educational system is that I see a tremendous commitment to private institutions and not a real commitment to public institutions. I have that commitment. My children are in public education and I will fight to see this becomes the best educational system in the country because I have a vested interest not only in my own children but other human beings. You do not deal with those problems in this resolution. If you are willing to join me on the Floor of Congress to fight for more money for education, more money to solve problems of crime, unemployment, poverty, hunger and disease than I would consider you a real civil libertarian, a person concerned about equal justice. We do not have it in this District or in this country until we deal with that. Your resolution giving a kind of perfunctory approach to dealing with hypocrisy, you are not dealing with real hypocrisy of this country. When you do I will join you and we will join hands and say we are fighting for equal justice. Your resolution does not do that. Mr. BROYHILL. This resolution does not require people who reside outside the District to send their children into the District of Columbia? Mr. RARICK. No. I earlier said I would have no objection to the Committee's amendment to change "and" to "or". But there is no requirement. Mr. BROYHILL. I have a question about children in Berkeley going to Oakland. Mr. DELLUMS. I am sorry. Mr. BROYHILL. It says in the resolution work and reside, work for the Federal Government and reside. I asked a question about those who reside in the District and work for the Federal Government outside. In your testimony, you did say something about sending children into the District of Columbia, did you not? Mr. RARICK. I was asked if I knew of such a jurisdiction where there was boundary crossing by compulsion. I know of no such action by force of law. This resolution makes any pupil assignment voluntary. It is intended as a good faith commitment by those who espouse racial balance. If I had not been here and heard it with my own ears I would not believe the statement I just heard. Mr. BROYHILL. What is the situation now? Mr. RARICK. White people have fled for safety to the suburbs, increasing the imbalance in the D.C. schools. The member from California said the District is now 73 percent Negro. His suggestion offers no hope for change. Rather to maintain a status quo. The only way Washington, D.C. can ever become a model city is for the racial makeup to be representative of our country. A racial balance of 11 percent colored to 89 percent white, which can be accomplished only by determined and positive action by those who helped set in motion the forces which have resulted in racial imbalance. If those at the helm of our Nation who live and work in the Nation's Capital feel that they have at least a moral commitment to the rest of the American people to make this a model city then we can have a racially balanced federal District to house the government of the United States. One drives to the suburbs in Virginia and in Maryland and sees only whites. One drives in Washington and it is predominately black. We have become the laughing stock of our own people. We have surrendered our Nation's Capital to a minority control over the seat of their government. It is time we re-established a semblance of national balance. Mr. STUCKEY. Further questions? Mr. RARICK. Several educators had indicated a desire to testify in support of H. Con. Res. 172, but were unable to be present on such short notice. I ask that the statement of Dr. Max Rafferty, former Superintendent of Education of the State of California, and now with the Department of Education in Alabama, along with a letter from Dr. R. McIntyre Bridges, President of the Louisiana School Boards Association, be inserted at this point. Mr. STUCKEY. Thank you. Without objection, so ordered. Mr. RARICK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. (The matters referred to by Mr. Rarick follow :) PUBLIC STATEMENT OF DR. MAX RAFFERTY, FORMER SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION, CALIFORNIA, ON H.C.R. 172 The assumption has been made by the courts and by many legislators in this Congress that ethnic balance in a given school situation will in itself produce better education for the pupils enrolled in that school. Whatever the political and sociological implications of forced integration may be, as an educator I can testify that desegregation alone and without other qualifying factors does not, cannot, and will not result in better education for anyone. Integration accompanied by smaller class sizes will lead to improved results. Integration followed by better books, finer teachers, and improved curriculum will bring about superior pupil competence. Integration which brings with it an emphasis on Education in Depth instead of pragmatic permissive Progressive Education will certainly be a vast improvement and a true windfall for children fortunate enough to experience it. But any change which brings into a school smaller class sizes, better books, finer teachers, improved curriculum, and Education in Depth will produce an immense change for the better insofar as the educational output of that school is concerned. Desegregation in and by itself produces no instructional benefits at all. Neither, incidentally, does segregation. Either condition is simply irrelevant to true education. Justification for mandated ethnic balance in a school must be found outside of education. A school with more interesting books and more inspirational teachers will be a better school than one without, and it doesn't matter in the slightest whether the student body is black, white, brown, yellow, or polka-dotted. The courts, despite all this, have decreed that ethnic balance shall prevail, and until this interpretation of the Constitution, unknown until our own generation, gives way to another, it is the duty of parents and children, teachers and school boards, to obey the law. My own State of Alabama has done its duty in this respect, and will continue to do so. Members of the two houses of Congress in addition to the judiciary and the Federal bureaucracy, however, have a duty over and beyond that of mere concurrence with the court's decrees. That duty is to set a salutary example from which their constituents may profit. It is this duty to which H.C.R. 172 addresses itself. Logic as applied to the principle of ethnic balance in the schools is inexorable. Either compulsory desegregation is good for all American school children or it is not. The official governmental assumption must now be that it is. Therefore, to confer its benefits upon their own families, as well as to perform a needed act of leadership which will inspire general compliance with the latest constitutional interpretation on the part of all parents in the land, congressmen and other Federal officers who have supported the principle of ethnic balance should now enroll their children in the mixed public schools of the District of Columbia. It is common knowledge that such enrollment is not now the case. A regrettably infinitesimal pedcentage of Federal offspring are currently attending the public schools of this city, despite the need to set an example coupled with the undeniable fact that the Washington schools are controlled and financed by the Congress itself. This latter fact should serve as an additional and important reason for legislators and other officials to send their own children to what are, in a very real sense, their own public schools. Failure on the part of this House to abide by the tenets and the philosophy embodied by H.C.R. 172 would be inconceivable, if only because it would place members of Congress in a posture of detestable hypocrisy. Surely, if it is our government's position that America's children should attend racially integrated schools, the families of congressmen should-like Abou Ben Adhem-lead all the rest. Enrollment of those same families in exclusive private schools, unexceptionable enough for an ordinary citizen, is unacceptable for a member of a government which is presently pushing ethnic quotas and mass busing upon millions of Americans who cannot afford this easy way out of a dilemma created by the Federal government itself. To say to those millions, "Your children will have to live in the situation which we have devised for you, but ours will be allowed to escape the consequences" would be to set up a dual standard of conduct which would constitute the champion cop-out of the twentieth century. I support H.C.R. 172 because I support our Congress. Especially for those members who have been vocally indefatigable in their defense of the High Court's recent decision, here is an absolutely golden opportunity to put their children where their mouths have been-bearing witness to all the advantages attendant upon forced ethnic balance in America's schools. CHAIRMAN, Committee on District of Columbia, LOUISIANA SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR SIR: It is my desire to address the committee concerning House Concurrent Resolution 172. This Resolution asks that each officer or employee of the federal government who is residing or working in the District of Columbia and who has a child qualified to attend elementary or secondary school should send such child to the public schools of the District of Columbia. Mr. Chairman, the necessity of such a resolution strikes me as the height of hypocrisy and to think that in our nation's capitol there are those employed who blatently disregard the law of the land. How can we expect the people of this great country to respect our federal institutions when the employees openly defy the law in our nation's capitol. Washington, D.C. was to be the hallmark for the elimination of discrimination in public education. Because of the racist views of federal employees, the public school system of Washington, D.C. has become 90% black. How ironic for those who run around the country from Washington, D.C. being employed by H.E.W. and the Justice Department shouting from every crook and cranny that racism must end in the south within public education, while they at the same time send their children to segregated schools for the most parts in adjoining states to our capitol or to some private school. We must ask ourselves how our nation's capitol is allowed to become a black capitol in regard to public education with so many of the federal employees being of the white race. Certainly one must admit there are severe double standards and can we allow the same people who draw up the guidelines for public education in the south to blatently fail to follow their own guidelines in Washington, D.C. One marvels at the respect for the law by the people in the south over the past two years, and can this respect continue in the failure of our nation's leaders to condemn those racists within the nation's capitol. I do not seek the moon, but only pray that reason will prevail at home and the nation's capitol as well. Respectfully yours, R. MCINTYRE BRIDGES, M.D., FACS. STATEMENT OF WILLIAM ROBINSON, ASSISTANT CORPORATION COUNSEL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Mr. ROBINSON. I present the letter of the D.C. government respecting House Concurrent Resolution 172, as follows: THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Hon. JOHN L. MCMILLAN, Chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia, United States House of Representatives, Washington, D.O. DEAR MR. MCMILLAN: The Commissioner of the District of Columbia has for report H. Con. Res. 172. The resolution expresses the sense of Congress that each officer or employee of the Federal Government who is residing and working in the District of Columbia and who has a child qualified to attend an elementary or secondary school should send such child to an elementary or secondary school in the public school system of the District of Columbia. In the belief that a strong public school system, supported by the community as a whole, is a desirable objective, and in light of the fact that the resolution expresses only the sense of the Congress and does not impose any mandatory requirement upon the school system, the Commissioner of the District of Columbia has no objection to the enactment of H. Con. Res. 172. Sincerely yours, GRAHAM W. WATT, Mr. ROBINSON. I am accompanied by Mr. Neil Dickman, of the Public School System, who also has a statement to read with respect to the resolution. STATEMENT OF NEIL DICKMAN, RESEARCH ASSISTANT, D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS Mr. DICKMAN. Mr. John D. Koontz, associate superintendent for Administrative Services was not able to be here, so I should like to read his statement, as follows: Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: House Concurrent Resolution 172 provides that "it is the sense of Congress that each officer or employee of the Federal Government who is residing and working in the District of Columbia and who has a child qualified to attend an elementary or secondary school should send such child to an elementary or secondary school in the public school system of the District of Columbia." While there may be merit in such a resolution, we believe that it raises several problems which should receive close scrutiny by this Subcommittee. First, it may introduce a coercive element into Federal employment which is contrary to the individual right of such employee to send his child to a private or parochial school if he so chooses. Secondly, the resolution appears to single out Federal employees who live and work in the District from other Federal employees who live and work in other jurisdictions. These first two points while not directly affecting the D.C. Public Schools does affect Federal employment and should, we suggest, be considered by the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee as well as this Committee. Lastly, if all those children who fall within the purview of this resolution and are not now in the District of Columbia Public School System were to suddenly be required by law, regulation or otherwise to attend this school system, we estimate that our budget needs (ignoring any increased benefits from Impact Aid) would be increased by approximately 4.2 to 5.8 million dollars. In addition to increased expenditure requirements, overcrowding and administrative difficulties would also present serious problems. |