of the hard and fast regulations prove inapplicable or unresponsive to a new situation, new regulations, exceptions, and redefinitions are enacted in a neverending struggle to keep pace with the real world."

We are trying to run an Indian controlled contract school out here in the real world and we looked upon P. L. 93-638 as a real solution to some of our real problems.

Now, however, we find a situation similar to that described by the Journal. We have read 58 pages of fine print being proposed for the unique situations in more than 800 Indian tribes, bands, or organizations listed in the 1970 Census, including 792,730 tribal members in 50 states and the District of Columbia, ranging from Oklahoma with 96,803 to Vermont with 204, living on 115 major Indian reservations and many more smaller ones or in 30 metropolitan areas with Indian populations over 2,500 and countless smaller towns.

The 1970 Census also says the median years of education for Indians living in Washington, D.C. is 12.6 so they probably can wade through all the governmental language in these 58 pages, but we Indian people out here in the real world have a heck of a time because our median years of education is only 9.8.

In 1970, there were approximately 20,000 pages in the Federal Register covering rules and regulations. In 1974 that figure jumped to 46,000 pages, and this year the estimate is at last 50,000 pages.

The 58 pages added to the Federal Register on Indian Self-Determination are the straw that is breaking our backs and blowing our minds in our struggle to comply with federal paperwork.

Your Subcommittee should take the lead in turning this country around and make a significant contribution to the real meaning of the Bicentennial Celebration to allow people on the grassroots level to operate government programs in a way best for them. This means the proposed rules and regulations on P. L. 93-638 should be flexible enough for the unique situation on our reservation as well as the other 114 major reservations in the country.

This can be done in part by ordering the Secretary of the Interior to bring these proposed rules and regulations back to your Subcommittee within 10 daysin a form not to exceed 10 pages in the Federal Register.

Impossible? Maybe, but it would make a real goal. After all, one of the best set of comprehensive rules ever laid down was given to Moses by God Himself on 10 stone tablets. By following this example, your Subcommittee can set the pace for the rest of the government in dealing with "burrocracy" where stubborn adherence to the rule that paperwork begets paperwork is bordering on illicitness. Thank you.

Senator ABOUREZK. The next panel is Glen Barnes, Les Klevan, Keith Taylor, and M. J. Rabenberg. I would like to welcome you all to this subcommittee hearing. If you are ready to begin your testimony, we are ready to hear it.

STATEMENT OF GLEN BARNES, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, TODD COUNTY, MISSION, S. DAK.

Mr. BARNES. Thank you, Senator Abourezk. I would like to introduce the other members of the panel: Mr. Les Klevan, chairman of the education committee for the house of representatives, Pete Rabenberg, superintendent of Sisseton public schools and Keith Taylor, president of board of directors of the Associated School Boards of South Dakota.

I have a short statement which I would like to read and then speak to specific points.

Senator ABOUREZK. It seems that you have left out somebody

Mr. BARNES. This is Sam Sears who came in with us. We have one additional person who came in. Pete, would you like to introduceMr. RABENBERG. This is Leroy Helwig, chairman of the school board. Senator ABOUREZK. Would you like to come up and join the panel, Leroy?

Mr. BARNES. On behalf of the Association of Federally Impacted Schools of South Dakota, the State Board of Education, the Associated School Boards of South Dakota, and the chairman of the house education committee, South Dakota State Legislature, we would like to express gratitude to you, Senator Abourezk, chairman of the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs for extending an invitation to us to state our concerns with the proposed rules and regulations promulgated by the Departments of the Interior and Health, Education, and Welfare to implement Public Law 93-638, the Indian Self-Determination and Assistance Act.

In your letter of instructions and ground rules, Senator Abourezk, you asked us to identify the major issues we perceive in connection with the proposed rules and regulations. You also asked us to respond to several questions raised by the committee in connection with said rules and regulations.

The major issues we perceive with the proposed rules and regulations center around part 403 dealing with education contracts under Johnson-O'Malley Act, but more specifically the powers and duties of the Indian Education Committee in relation to the school operational support programs, the arbitrary 75 percent and 51 percent eligibility requirements and the visitation of State education officials to public schools located on Indian reservations or tribal lands.

We feel that only one question posed by the committee would be applicable to us and that is:

Do the regulations governing Federal Assistance for education (including educational services and school construction) of Indian children in public schools and in tribal or Indian-operated schools deal fairly with the various types of organizations which are eligible for such assistance?

Speaking primarily for those public school districts which are either eligible or have a proven need for assistance in the form of operational support, we would emphatically say that we are not being dealt with fairly under the proposed rules and regulations.

While we fully support and encourage the concept of parental involvement in educational programs affecting their children, we cannot agree that rules and regulations which would permit a lay committee to usurp the powers and responsibilities of a lawfully established and duly elected Board of Education of a public school district are fair.

We cannot accept as fair treatment rules and regulations which would eliminate schools with major Indian student impaction from financial support for basic program needs.

Further, we cannot accept as fair treatment a rule or regulation that, could in its extreme, prohibit visitations by State educational officials into public schools located on Indian reservations thereby bringing about loss of accreditation and financial assistance.

We would seriously question, that it was the intent of Congress when Public Law 93-638 was passed, that rules and regulations would be adopted which would provide the potential to bring about the destruction of every public school district located on an Indian reservation. If this was indeed the intent of Congress, then it should have been so stated in clear and unmistakable language in the law itself rather than be left to agency or department rules.

We would now like to speak more specifically and first I would call on Mr. Kleven.

STATEMENT OF LES KLEVEN, CHAIRMAN, EDUCATION COMMITTEE, SOUTH DAKOTA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, STURGIS, S. DAK.

Mr. KLEVEN. I am State Representative Les Kleven, of Sturgis, S. Dak. I represent district 21 in the South Dakota House of Representatives where I serve as the chairman of the House Education Committee. Further district 21 encompasses Meade and Ziebach Counties, with Ziebach County composed of about 50 percent Indian reservation and 50 percent non-Indian population.

The purpose of my testimony is to call your attention to the fact that the proposed rules are in direct conflict with the South Dakota constitution and the laws of the State of South Dakota. I feel very strongly it is wrong for Federal rulemaking to supersede the power of my State-its constitution and South Dakota law.

I will file with the clerk an official opinion of the attorney general of South Dakota, No. 75-174, which confirms the questions that I have about conflicts between the proposed rulemaking and South Dakota law.

Section 1, article VIII of the South Dakota constitution reads as follows:

The stability of a republican form of government depending on the morality and intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all; and to adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education.

It is obvious to me as a legislator that these regulations transplant the authority given to me as a legislator into the hands of an Indian education committee, which is not mandated by South Dakota law, duly passed by our legislature.

The conflicts with South Dakota law are many, for example, SDCL 13-1-12, states that the policy for "school classification and accreditation" clearly rests with the State board of education, and that board shall have the power to establish the standards-approving and accrediting elementary, secondary, adult education in both public and nonpublic schools.

Your proposed regulations certainly conflict with this section of South Dakota law, mandated by our constitution.

SDCL 13-1-25, again clearly states that—

General supervision of elementary and secondary schools.-Subject to policies established by the State Board shall exercise supervisory control over the acts and doings of the school board pertaining to the management and conduct of such schools.

SDCL 13-3-47, clearly states that it shall be the duty of the superintendent of elementary and secondary education to classify and accredit elementary and secondary schools in South Dakota.

SDCL 13-5-1 and 13-8-1, set forth the fact that school boards will have absolute power over the schools of our State. SDCL 13-8-1 further quoting now states:

School board defined.—The school board is an elected body created according to the laws of the state to serve as the governing board of a school district for the purpose of organizing, maintaining, and locating schools and for providing educational opportunities and services for all citizens residing within the school district.

Senator ABOUREZK. Les, if I can break in for a moment. This law and other laws in the South Dakota constitution you are talking about really come together and clash and I guess you know that. On the one hand, if you insist on following the South Dakota constitution to the letter, then you can do that but you can't expect Federal money, which is intended for Indians. If you don't accept as a school board in South Dakota, if you don't want to accept Federal money intended for Indians, then you are subject to a class action by someone who will say you are discriminating against Indians because you are refusing the Federal money intended for them. It is really a mixed bag and a serious problem that we have to address ourselves to and I don't know how to do it.

Mr. KLEVEN. I would like to respond to that but first I would like to go through the conflicts a little bit more. Then I would like to talk about some things going on in our State that could possibly resolve that conflict at a later time. The establishment of the responsibility for school attendance is clearly mandated to the proper authorities in South Dakota and is clearly set forth in our law. Teacher evaluation, the same way.

The attorney general states in his opinion to me dated a couple of days ago:

In South Dakota, the constitution places the duty on the legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools, the legislature has therefore enacted numerous statutes relating to education, a few of which are set forth above. In answer to your specific question, it is my opinion that there is conflict between certain proposed Federal regulations (part 403) to implement Public Law 93-638 and the statutes cited above and other statutes not cited herein.

Further, there are serious questions raised with the right of Federal bureaucratic officials to change, not by law, but by regulation, the affirmative statutes of the State of South Dakota. As elected and duly appointed officials of the State of South Dakota, school board members, the Office of the Governor and myself are bound to give precedence to carrying out the legal mandates of State law. (Signed) WILLIAM J. JANKLOW.

That letter is attached herewith. In way of summary, I would say this that certainly the problem, the one you enunciated so clearly, could be worked out if our State in the future, and a long time in the past, could provide adequate funding on a State level to provide equalization for those districts that don't have the assessed valuation and resources to provide education equally for all students across the State. As I read these regulations, laying it right on the line, there will be one or two schools in Indian communities that will severely be cut in funds because of an inability to meet the regulations as set forth. That will not provide an equal educational opportunity for anyone and I am of the opinion that if you withhold the effective date of these proposed regulations, we have a committee which I happen to chair which is meeting very actively and another member in this room is also a member of that committee, to work out a plan where the State might provide the adequate equalization funds so that there can be true equalization in our State. We are one of the lowest in the Nation, as you well know, providing only 13 percent State funding but that has not been changed in the last 50 years and it won't be changed in the next 10 minutes and it will take time.

The legislation has moved forward in this area and has the desire to solve some of the problems of equalization and we are working on it now. To close schools in the meantime isn't going to solve anything. [The prepared statement and attachment follow:]

STATEMENT OF LES KLEVEN, STATE REPRESENTATIVE, STURGIS, S. DAK.

I am State Representative Les Kleven, of Sturgis, South Dakota. I represent District 21 in the South Dakota House of Representatives where I serve as the Chairman of the House Education Committee. Further District 21 encompasses Meade and Ziebach Counties, with Ziebach County composed of about 50% Indian reservation and 50% non-Indian population.

The purpose of my testimony is to call your attention to the fact that the proposed rules are in direct conflict with the South Dakota Constitution and the Laws of the State of South Dakota. I feel very strongly it is wrong for Federal rulemaking to supersede the power of my State . . . its Constitution and South Dakota Law.

I will file with the clerk an official opinion of the Attorney General of South Dakota number 75-174, which confirms the questions that I have about conflicts between the proposed rulemaking and South Dakota Law.

Section 1, Article VIII of the South Dakota Constitution reads as follows: The stability of a republican form of government depending on the morality and intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all; and to adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education.

It is obvious to me as a Legislator that these regulations transplant the authority given to me as a Legislator into the hands of a Indian Education Committee, which is not mandated by South Dakota Law, duly passed by our Legislature.

The conflicts with South Dakota Law are many, for example SDCL 13–1–12, states that the policy for "school classification and accreditation" clearly rests with the state board of education, and that board shall have the power to establish the standards . . . approving and accrediting elementary, secondary, adult education in both public and non-public schools.

Your proposed regulations certainly conflict with this section of South Dakota law, mandated by our Constitution.

SDCL 13-1-25, again clearly states that "general supervision of elementary and secondary schools.-Subject to policies established by the State Board shall exercise supervisory control over the acts and doings of the school board pertaining to the management and conduct of such schools."

SDCL 13-3-47, clearly states that it shall be the duty of the superintendent of elementary and secondary education to classify and accredit elementary and secondary schools in South Dakota.

SDCL 13-5-1 and 13-8-1, set forth the fact that school boards will have absolute power over the schools of our State. SDCL 13-8-1 further quoting now states, "school board defined. The school board is an elected body created according to the laws of the state to serve as the governing board of a school district for the purpose of organizing, maintaining, and locating schools and for providing educational opportunities and services for all citizens residing within the school district."

SDCL 13-8-39 mandates management of the individual schools to the school board directing that the board will have the power to hire necessary personnel. It does not say anything about hiring personnel from a list of approved persons mandated by an Indian Education Committee. SDCL 18-10-2 again clearly sets all hiring policy with the elected school board.

SDCL 13-11-2 clearly sets forth that the school budget is a function of the school board.

SDCL 13-15-2, allows the state board of education to contract with the federal government for the education of Indian children, but it also clearly states that such education shall proceed under rules as the state board of education may establish.

SDCL 13-27-1 and SDCL 13-27-20 establishes the responsibility of the parent or guardian for school attendance. There is no provision in South Dakota law for some other group consenting to this action. The law clearly establishes the responsibility.