AL 93 Page 14 weighted. You have to have weighting because different types of programs cost different amounts. You have to consider pupil/teacher ratio, exceptional children, vocation education, and so on. Well, the legislature got mad and changed it. We had also set up in it a minimum salary schedule, because the salaries had been so low. But the legislature said, "We do not appropriate money for teachers. We appropriate it for students," so they changed it to a pupil unit. That was sort of rebuke to the teachers. As far as I was concerned, it made no difference whether it was teacher weighted, pupil weighted, or instruction weighted. Now, there is an important matter here. We had to get those weights in originally for the instruction unit so that if the district had a program for exceptional education, and that unit was weighted, they had to actually provide the program before they got that unit. The same was true for vocational education. Of course, programs for exceptional education, vocational education, and certain other things are weighted differently. In Florida, they are weighted a little bit differently for a difference in the cost of living. But it could be quite equitable. It is not equitable just to appropriate the money on a flat per-pupil basis. You also have to take into consideration the differences in local tax-paying ability that you have within a particular system. If you did not, then the Board of Education would put on the cheapest programs instead of an expensive program. But if you weight the pupils, you make it possible for them to put on an expensive program for crippled children and that sort of thing. [A good example is] the crippled Kennedy boy. He lost a leg to cancer, and he spoke at the convention. Of course, the [U.S.] Supreme Court has now declared that you have to provide for these exceptional pupils. It gives them a chance to have an education. It is under civil rights. But before then, we could not get the boards of education to do that sort of thing because it cost more money. C: Back in the 1940s, at the time of the Minimum Foundations law, what was the curriculum like in the schools? J: Well, it was limited. There was very little printed. Many of the larger, urban counties in south Florida did not have any program as far as education of the handicapped. I doubt if there was in Alachua County. C: I do not think there was. J: Most counties did not have any. The vocational programs were limited, and there was very limited science. For instance, my daughter is now teaching over