Senator PELL. Also it is a program, that can be used by local option on a State level. However, since there is some objection from the N.E.A. and other groups, it would be hard to try for local approval in an area that had a strong tradition of public schools.

Monsignor GEOGHEGAN. Senator, there is one problem. As it is now being tried out it is pretty much restricted to areas where there is manifest poverty. I would feel at the present time if this would be tried in Rhode Island most likely it would be Central Falls, but it does seem to me we're speaking here of all children. I am speaking of children going to Moses Brown School just as well as I am to any other school. Senator PELL. As long as they are from Rhode Island. Monsignor GEOGHEGAN. Right.

Senator PELL. Has the idea been advanced to the State legislature? Monsignor GEOGHEGAN. It was.

Senator PELL. What was the effect, I do not recall.

Monsignor GEOGHEGAN. Unfortunately, it was sidetracked. However, I think there are two things that need to be checked. One, I don't know whether this should be done at the national level or the State level, but I think the voucher tuition grant at one level perhaps and something else tried at another. In Canada there may be one, the Vancouver Province, which has not adopted it. But every province has adopted a method whereby the taxpayer is asked which way does he want the school dollar to go, to the public schools or to the nonpublic schools and this has been going on for 15 or 20 years. The quality of education is excellent in Canada and there is certainly separation of church and state in Canada. Everyone seems to be happy with it and there certainly seems to be a quality of justice there.

In other words, all you would have to do is simply build a school and it can be any kind of private school and a certain amount of money is allotted to you.

Now, naturally there have to be modifications in this country it is quite different from what we know, but I do think it is well worth looking at. We are not talking about a theory, we are talking about something that has been in existence in Ottawa for at least 15 to 20 years.

Senator PELL. I knew it existed in the Eastern part of Canada because the problem they have between the French Canadian

Monsignor GEOGHEGAN. To my knowledge every province except one and I suspect that one is Vancouver but I am not sure. I know it is in Ottawa certainly in Quebec, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland. Senator PELL. Federal assistance provides about 7 percent of the cost of public education. If the needs of your school are the same as the needs of the public schools you are going to need more help than 7 percent. All the Federal help at present goes to public schools and if it went to private and nonpublic schools, it still would only be 7 percent of the operating costs which would not be a significant amount. Monsignor GEOGHEGAN. Every amount is significant.

Senator PELL. Earlier it was stated that the objective of church education was the promotion of the faith, would that be a correct statement?

Monsignor GEOHEGAN. The purpose of a church-oriented education is to develop the total child. There is no doubt that in his total educa

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tion there should be some province for God. I think it was Mr. Boyle that implied that he just didn't see how you could set up a sound moral system with God disbarred.

Senator PELL. I think it is rather significant from the viewpoint of some of the previous witnesses that there is a conflict here as to the purpose of church schools and one witness stated the view that the purpose of it was to promote the faith.

Monsignor GEOGHEGAN. If this is what he says is the purpose, and I believe this is also what has been said by Supreme Court Justice Douglass, and this is absolutely untrue.

Senator PELL. That was my impression and this was what was quoted and my reaction was more the same as yours.

Monsignor GEOGHEGAN. This would have to come from somebody quite unacquainted with what goes on. He must feel that a church related school teaches catechism all day long. Actually, in my survey made throughout the country, the church related schools have done very well against any kind of schooling with the exception of very small groups of maybe 10 in a class.

Senator PELL. Thank you again very much, Monsignor Geoghegan, for your statement.

Our next speaker is Mr. Garaberdian, who is a member of the city of Cranston school committee.

Mr. GARABERDIAN. Senator Pell, I find myself in that good old position of always near the end. Last year in the general assembly or 2 years ago there was 54 speakers and I was 54th at that particular hearing which started at 10 a.m., and was over at 5:15, so we are ahead of schedule.

Senator PELL. You are more lucky this time, you are not last.

STATEMENT OF ARAM GARABERDIAN, MEMBER OF THE CITY OF CRANSTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE

Mr. GARABERDIAN. I am a school committeeman and I am the father of two children. I have one child in public school and one child in private. I am an elected official of Cranston, the city of Cranston, and have been on the school committee for 5 years.

Your previous speaker mentioned some key words like grassroots and I come to you this afternoon to give you some of my observations relative to aid to education. It would be unrealistic it seems to me to consider nonpublic education without discussing public education. The problem in this whole thing centers around power. The people of this country, and I know many of the people in Cranston who we represent, find that our courts have developed a greater concern in some cases for the minority rights but not necessarily their freedoms, the freedom of rights of the majority. The inconsistent court rulings have left the public confused. Why do private colleges get Federal and State construction grants, yet there is no aid provided for kindergarten grades to the private schools and the public schools. We know that we get aid in a public law and it is possible that Federal construction grants provide for college facilities which provide places for religious, worship, yet, don't provide private schools and public schools facilities for our classroom space.

Between the courts, teacher unions and the lack of courage by publicly elected officials, irreparable harm is done to the public schools. The schools are no longer publicly controlled, but simply publicly attended and in many cases not in the neighborhood of their own choice. The turn of events in the last few years have made a turnabout in the stand which I had about 5 years ago. When Cranston made the decision to appeal the textbook case, I opposed it at that time and I was totally opposed to all aid to private parochial schools. I always felt that a parent was responsible for the education of his child and if he elected to choose to go to private schools he should pay.

After 5 years of being on the Cranston school committee, I have come around to a philosophy which might not be the majority of the school board members and local control over education is diminishing rapidly. We have school committee members some 50 years ago that were given the care of the public schools and through the election process we thought we could elect school officials to represent them in everyday operations of the schools. What has happened since then? We have legislation in the State of Rhode Island, as in many other States. We have a powerful lobby in Washington, D.C., called the N.E.A. with 1.2 million membership and far more resources than the National School Board Association or any local school committee can muster. What has happened in our schools? Where we once had the elected officials making policy we have now through collective bargaining brought out an action where the teacher now is running the public schools and not the people.

We have certain public officials through the guise of consolidations and regionalization that bring about better schools but in doing so we lose our freedom, freedom of Cranston to run its own schools or the freedom of Warwick to run its own schools. Our schools have become inferior not better. We have a situation here in Providence where children are bused throughout the city, not that they want to go, but because someone has the bright idea of busing children around the city and by changing the scenery they are going to get a better education. This won't work. What happens in every major city in the country is we have found people moving to the suburban areas. We know about the Richmond case which only a week or two ago caused great problems.

We in the city of Cranston and people I talk to every day know what is happening, we know about Richmond and it is hundreds of miles away. Last year the city of Cranston organized a rally against regionalization, consolidation, and 3,000 people came. We called it a day of concern. I was labeled in some of the press media where they referred to me as a racist and I have never been, but my whole concern comes down to the local control of education. We have a serious problem on the public taxes collected from local property, we have a Supreme Court case on desegregation, we have the Richmond case, we have problems in terms of recent Supreme Court decisions saying it is OK to use public funds for college aid construction, but yet, it is improper to use the voucher system for private, parochial students. We have the situation in California where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that in the area of low-income housing the power of the ballot box is above everything.

Teacher unions over the past 5 years-as a school board member I average approximately 1,000 hours a year-the teacher unions are one of the greatest problems confronting public education in America. Their powers are such that while they do not have the right to strike, they strike. The way things are going in this country I think that the great majority of the people would support a voucher system as suggested by the previous speaker.

I turn your attention, Senator Pell, to June 1969 Gallup Poll, where they indicated that 80 percent of those living in areas served by the public, private, and parochial schools would reestablish all three types of schools if they were to build in the communities. Thirty-two percent of those questioned rated the quality of public education above that of parochial and private education, 24 percent rated private schools highest and 21 percent rated parochial schools highest and 20 percent rated all three equal. So you see, already in the country, according to this poll, people aren't too sure what type of school system is really the best, but more favor private schools than the public schols. Here is the key, Senator. If tuition were free how would people go about choosing schools? Thirty percent of those questioned would send them to private schools, 29 percent would send them to parochial schools for a total of 59 and 41 percent to public schools. The four reasons cited for favoring nonpublic schools were in this order: Superior education, social prestige, discipline, and escape from racial difficulties. I only cited a few problems of public education while many of the speakers spoke about the problem of money and I say to them the problem of public schools outweigh the problems of parochial schools.

Their main problem is money and our problem has gone beyond that. We have a situation where we are losing local control of our public schools. We have a situation where the U.S. Office of Education recently furnished a report on gifted children in America where they said these kids have a higher retarded growth than children who are now in retarded schools.

We have not much in terms of Federal funds in the State of Rhode Island. Last year the expenditure for all schools was $145 million and the Federal funds were $4,415,761. It seems to me, Senator, after 5 years of being a board member and spending about 5,000 hours unpaid being involved in every type of situation, seeing parents who are afraid to go to their local schools because of some reprisal to their own child, the tactics employed by the teacher unions and I feel that what we must do is provide every parent money for their children and let each and every one of them select their own school. This is a complete turnabout for me, but I feel with the Federal decisions coming in the area of financing, busing question which bothers me more than any other question because it involves freedom, I think that you people in Washington, before this coming November, will find that many, many people will be contacting you and are going to increase their support for this tuition for the type of voucher system because many of them as in Richmond, cannot run out of the State. People in Richmond, according to the Wall Street Journal, are already buying properties in other areas. Those who feel that integration is the answer or busing is the answer are only finding resegregated situations. The point about different amounts of dollars as was pointed out by the previous

speaker, and it almost seems that we prepared our texts together, although we have never been together before, but there is a necessity of different amounts of money for different school levels.

As far as the Canadian system, which was already mentioned and which I was prepared to mention, supporting nonpublic schools in Canada, that goes through the entire thing. I would close, Senator, by saying that I think the time has come that every parent will get far more in terms of educational tax dollars by returning the control back to the parent, back to the individual, back to the local communiy and people decide for themselves where the children are going to go to school. If they don't like it, they can go to another school and I believe in returning back to the school where 6 years ago in Cranston we had a local board of trustees and let the people run their own schools with as little Federal intervening and without as many State controls that we have today.

That is my feeling, Senator.

Senator PELL. Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Garaberdian. Our next speaker is Mr. Walter Roberts, also of Cranston, R.I. I believe also that Mr. Roberts has left.

Now, is there anybody in the room who would like to testify? I should state here that Mr. Walter Adler submitted a statement. (The prepared statement of Mr. Adler, with attachments follow :)

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