TABLE A. -10-year increase in estimated cost of educating nonresident day-school pupils who are exempt from the payment of tuition TABLE B.-Estimated cost of education of nonresident day-school pupils who are exempt from payment of tuition during 1947 [Based on nonresident tabulation prepared as of Dec. 5, 1946] Total number of veterans exempt from the payment of tuition during 1947. 99 53 152 TABLE C.-Estimated cost of education of nonresident day-school pupils who were exempt from payment of tuition during 1937 [Based on nonresident tabulation prepared as of Nov. 1, 1937] Senator CAIN. Let me ask you a few questions which are based on this chart. This arouses my interest. From other States, Territories, and foreign countries, only 37 in 1937, and then in 1947 there were 3. Does that mean to suggest that the children of Congressmen and Senators and various other Government officials are not going to your public schools? Mr. CORNING. I am afraid I will have to give further analysis to that. I am afraid I do not know what the answer is. Senator CAIN. That certainly indicates that hardly any of them go to school. If they live inside the city of Washington do they pay any fees, as the laws now are? Mr. CORNING. No, sir. I could enumerate right at this moment innumerable Congressmen and Senators whose families are in school by reason of conversations that I have had with them. Senator CAIN. Exactly. That is what I was thinking about, and I was wondering where they were reflected. Mr. CORNING. Maybe they are not- Mr. BATES. I am not so much interested, Mr. Corning, in getting information about the children of temporary residents. What I am interested in is to get a statement relative to children of parents who reside permanently in other States, such as Maryland and Virginia, and whose children attend the schools in the District of Columbia or, in other words, I want to know why in the District of Columbia we are educating children free of cost to men and women who are domiciled in Maryland and Virginia, who are legal residents of those States, who are living there today and have lived there for a long period of time. Individuals who come in here, Members of Congress or department heads, temporarily, I am not interested in those. I am interested in those who pay an income tax, say, in the State of Maryland and in the State of Virginia. Mr. CORNING. Well, I would not be able to say. In fact, I do not know how I could get the complete information to you as to just how many of those are living there year in and year out. But there is a constant number, as you can see, who are coming from Maryland and Virginia who are permanently domiciled there, but who do have employment in the District of Columbia and, therefore, by act of Congress, are exempt from paying the tuition. Mr. BATES. That is what I was leading up to. Is it by act of Congress that these children are being educated free by the government of the District of Columbia? Mr. CORNING. Yes, sir. Mr. BATES. So that indirectly it is not a contribution to the District: it is out of funds that we appropriate. Senator CAIN. Do you have a reference to that act? Mr. CORNING. Yes, sir. Mr. BATES. And taxes are levied on the taxpayers of this District to maintain pupils of parents who are domiciled outside the State or outside the District. Mr. CORNING. May I comment on that for just a moment? I have a statement here before me which simply summarizes the costs incurred by the education of nonresident pupils as a result of acts of Congress which have been made. The estimated cost is on the basis of what the prevailing tuition rate is and what the income would be if all those people attended and paid tuition. Now, I cannot guarantee that if tuition were charged they would all attend; nor can we reduce our expenditures by that amount if they did not attend. In other words, it is a book transaction, you can see quite readily, because they are scattered over the city sufficiently so that I doubt if it would cause any great diminution of our expense. Senator CAIN. I would not think it would at all. Mr. CORNING. Nonresident pupils are exempted from the payment of tuition for the following reasons, and all of this is based on congressional action: If they or their parents own property in, and pay taxes levied by the government of, the District of Columbia in excess of tuition rates. That is one classification. If their parents are employed officially or otherwise in the District of Columbia they are exempt. If they or their parents pay taxes levied by the government of the District of Columbia the year next preceding the time of levying a tutelage charge, such amount of taxes paid is to be accepted as a credit or part credit on the tuition, as the case be. If they are soldiers and sailors on duty at stations adjacent to the District of Columbia; if they are the children of officers and men of the Army and Navy, and of employees of the United States stationed outside the District of Columbia. In all of those instances they are exempted from taxes, and there is congressional action covering each one of those conditions. This bears on the question you asked a moment ago, Senator. There are now 315 children in the schools whose parents are officers or enlisted men in the armed forces or Members of Congress living outside the District of Columbia. These 315 pupils are also included in the figure of 3,270 for 1947, which is before you in these tables. Senator CAIN. Yes. Mr. CORNING. While I am speaking of the cost of education, as required by Congress, I have listed one other item, and that is the cost incurred by the schools and institutions under the provisions of Public Law 346, which is the GI training. We have had quite an enormous expenditure, approximately $13,000 a year, on that program, which, of course, is a contribution to the Federal Government at the present time. There is provision in the new bill, the number of which I do not recall at just this moment for reimbursement to local school districts for the work they do in evaluating on-the-job training centers and so forth. But may I add that reimbursement, so far as we are concerned, is of no interest whatsoever, because any moneys that come to us go to the Collector of Taxes, and are not available to us in the District to use except by congressional appropriation out from there. In other words, reimbursement does not exist; there is no machinery for reimbursement in the local set-up. Senator CAIN. I would want to take a good look at this. Mr. BATES. According to this tabulation, you have nearly 3,000 pupils, other than children of officers in the armed forces and children of Members of Congress. Mr. CORNING. That table is further broken down in table B and table C. Table C shows the break-down as to levels of education that they are receiving at the present, and as to States that they come from, the tuition rates, and the resulting revenue, should they all be paying tuition; that is for 1947; and table B gives a similar break-down for 1937, which gives you a comparison. Mr. BATES. I presume there are some school buildings in Maryland and Virginia right over the line, and the parents have a right, of course, to send their children to those schools? Mr. CORNING. Yes, sir. Mr. BATES. But for some reason or other, probably because of superior education, as we have heard it expressed, they decide to send them to the District of Columbia, and we must educate them here at the expense of the taxpayers of the District. Now, if we have, say, 3,000 of such students whose parents are actually domiciled in Maryland and Virginia, and if we use the average cost of $139 per pupil, as set forth in the statement of the Bureau of the Census, that means the taxpayers of the District, for the exactly 3,270 pupils, must pay out nearly a half million dollars to educate those children. Mr. CORNING. That is correct. Mr. BATES. But beyond that, if you divide the 3,000 children by 30 to a classroom, that means that we are providing 100 classrooms also. Mr. CORNING. Theoretically. Mr. BATES. As a capital expenditure if, of course, we have not got the room in individual classrooms to put those children. Now, it seems that is a very important question that we ought to decide here, and I see no reason, just because a man works for the Government that he ought to have the privilege of having the District of Columbia educate his children at the expense of the taxpayers of the District. I do not know the logic behind it, and I think it is well for us to find out. Mr. CORNING. I have put into your hand a series of citations of congressional action which has been taken on that thing. Mr. BATES. Yes. With all the information we have before us, Mr. Corning, we are a little ahead of your testimony in many respects, because we have been giving a good deal of attention to these studies over a period of several weeks. As I said, I would like to have that break-down of classrooms, the number of individual classrooms; you do not have to make up any special report. If you have one already available, I want to quickly look it over and just get the background of that information. Mr. CORNING. Yes. Mr. BATES. I think that is about all I am interested in unless you have something further to offer. Mr. CORNING. As you proceed in your deliberations, if there is anything at all, any question that arises in your mind, and any information that we can provide you with, we will be most happy to do so. Mr. BATES. You agree with the statement of mine that taking the basic salaries of 1937, say $2,200, and adding this $750 to that figure, that will mean about a 70 percent increase in teachers' salaries since 1937. Mr. CORNING. I have no doubt that your computation is correct; I have not done that particular kind of computation, but I would like to say in that connection, sir, that you are starting from a base which was shamefully low; the 1937 level of salaries in the District of Columbia was extraordinarily low. (Additional information later received for the record is as follows:) Washington public school salaries in comparison with those paid in large city school systems, as reported for 1934 by the National Education Association Public schools of the District of Columbia-Comparison of minimum and maximum salaries paid to public-school teachers and percent of increase for the years indicated Public schools of the District of Columbia-Percent of increase of minimum and maximum salaries to be paid teachers under the proposed salary increase for 1948 |