he many community
schools attended by significant numbers of military dependents. These
schools received considerable federal support through the impact aid
program.

The federal support program for schools in "federally impacted" areas
added yet another dimension to the administration's reappraisal. The
impact aid legislation (Public Laws 815 and 874),[19-53] like similar
programs during World War II, was based on the premise that a school
district derived no tax from land occupied by a federal installation
but usually incurred an increase in school enrollment. In many cases
the enrollment of military dependents was far greater than that of the
communities in the school district. Actually, these programs were not
limited to the incursion of military families; the most extreme
federal impact in terms of enrollment percentages was found in remote
mountain districts where in some cases almost all students were
children of U.S. Forest Service or National Park Service employees.

[Footnote 19-53: PL 815, 23 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 967; PL
874, 30 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 1100.]

In recognition of these inequities in the tax system, Congress gave
such school systems special "in-lieu of tax" support. Public Law 815
provided for capital projects, land, buildings, and major equipment;
Public Law 874 gave operating support in the form of salaries, (p. 488)
supplies, and the like. If, for example, a school district could prove
at least 3 percent of its enrollment federally connected, it was
eligible to receive from the U.S. Office of Education a grant equal to
the district's cost of instruction for federally connected students.
If it could show federally connected enrollment necessitated
additional classrooms, the school district was eligible for federally
financed buildings. Such schools were usually concentrated in military
housing areas, but examples existed of federally financed schools,
like federal dependents, scattered throughout the school district.
Students from the community at large attended the federally
constructed schools and the school district continued to receive state
support for all students. Although Public Law 874 was far more
important in terms of general application and fiscal impact, its
companion piece, Public Law 815, was more important to integration
because it involved the construction of schools. From the beginning
Congress sought to prevent these laws from becoming a means