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guage will take him all the way. Mr.
Kirkland and Delegate Frank J. Blair,
Sixth District of Baltimore City, another
backer of equality language feel it will
require the legislature to provide out-
right grants for low cost long-term loans
applicable after graduation. They say the
words of the clause may compel some
form of assistance to students whose
economic status might force them to
leave high school before graduation to
find a job."
I submit this is an accurate report. This
is exactly the basis upon which this lan-
guage was adopted by the Committee, and
while favoring the principle, the minority
does not feel, especially in view of the fact
that no testimony was elicited from wit-
nessees on this point, like rushing head-
long into such a commitment. I must take
exception with Delegate Wheatley when he
says the Committee rejected this inter-
pretation.
We agree with the majority that any
language about anti-discrimination in edu-
cation is repetitive and unnecessary in this
constitution. By means of Amendment No.
3 to R&P-1, we have adopted overwhelm-
ingly a proposal that no one in the State
shall be subjected to discrimination by the
State.
This certainly would apply to education,
and we feel that any repetition of this
point would be unnecessary.
Now, this language, equal educational
opportunities, presents many problems. I
will not go into the details of them because
I think they are contained on pages 3, 4
and 5 of the minority memorandum, but
the point is that the language has never
appeared in any constitution of any state
of this union. No one really knows what
it means, although the majority has indi-
cated that they know at least one specific
application of it.
I would like to close this part of the
discussion by just mentioning that the pro-
poser of this language really was Dr.
James Coleman of Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity who wrote a very famous report last
year for the Federal Office of Education
titled "The Quality of Educational Oppor-
tunity;" and I suppose that this would be
a piece of source material if language like
this were adopted. He said, that some of
the difficulties and complexity of any solu-
tion derived from the premise that our
society is committed to overcoming not
merely inequality in the distribution of
educational resources, classrooms, teachers,
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libraries, etc., but inequality in the oppor-
tunity for educational achievement is a
task far more ambitious than has ever been
attempted by any society, not just to offer
in a passive way equal access to educa-
tional resources, but to provide an edu-
cational environment that will free a child's
potentialities for learning from the inner
qualities imposed upon him by the accident
of birth into one or another home and
social environment.
I think that Delegate Wheatley has indi-
cated that the majority has already fallen
back from its position supporting a man-
datory language in this section. This would
be the least that would be acceptable to the
minority in view of the impressive defini-
tion and the lack of any guidance from
construction of other states. It is urged by
the minority that this language should be
struck from the constitution altogether.
Section 3, regarding the school fund,
perhaps needs no more to be said because
Delegate Wheatley has apparently con-
ceded that this provision is no longer
needed and will be struck by consent.
Sections 4 and 5 really contain the heart
of the statutory structure of education as
it now exists in the Maryland Code Article
77. What has been done is that the statu-
tory structure has been elevated from the
statute into the constitution, and part of
the thinking seems to be that this is a
consitutional reward to be offered to boards
that have existed for a long time and have
apparently done their job quite well. Dele-
gate Wheatley said that local boards have
been in existence since 1826, and they have
stood the test of time. The same is true
for the State Board of Education, which
has stood the test of time; and therefore
its powers and responsibilities should be
set out in the constitution.
We submit that this backward-looking
approach of testing a set-up and a statute
for a while and then moving it along and
graduating it, to use an educational term,
into the constitution is a dangerous one
and will frustrate to a great degree the
intent, I am sure, of the educators of this
State, because it will allow them no further
flexibility.
Now, I want to talk for a minute about
the relationship between the State Board
of Education and local boards. It has been
suggested that this is a "delicate balance".
The majority agrees or has suggested it is
a delicate balance, but the minority feels
the balance would be greatly upset if this
language of the majority report is adopted.
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