STATE OF ARKANSAS, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, Little Rock, Ark., April 24, 1968. Hon. J. W. FULBRIGHT, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR FULBRIGHT: It is our opinion that very significant legislation is : developing in Congress for extension and promotion of vocational education in the Nation. We are giving you a summary of some of the accomplishments and needs in our State in order that you may be of maximum assistance in this legislative effort. You know, we feel sure, that the passage of the Vocational Educational Act of 1963 was the most far-reaching legislation that has ever been enacted for vocational training. Funds available under this legislation made possible construction of eight vocational-technical schools and a technical institute for post high school students and federal participation in the construction of two area high school facilities. Approximately 1,900 post-secondary students are enrolled in the area schools. They are preparing for employment in thirty-five occupations. Next year this number should increase to 2,500 post-secondary students and forty occupations. In addition to training for job preparation, the schools are holding classes of adults for re-training and upgrading for jobs in industry and business. These classes are held at the area school locations and in communities throughout areas served by each school. Passage of the 1963 Vocational Educational Act made possible training in many new occupations. We are pleased particularly with some of the new health occupation fields for which training is being offered for the first time through the program of vocational education. These include training for dental assistants, associate degree nurses, dental hygienists, and nurses aides. Prior to the '63 Act, only training for practical nurses had been provided in the health occupations. Actually training in all of the new occupational areas is available to a very small fraction of the individuals who should be served. We are now in a position to expand greatly except for lack of funds. We will use this year all funds available, and this means that no expansion can be made during the coming fiscal year without additional funds. We need sorely to expand in many directions, such as the following: (1) Increase the number of area vocational-technical schools to the extent that every citizen in Arkansas will have occupational training at a very reasonable cost within commuting distance of his home. (2) Extend training in a large number of occupational fields in areas where only pilot programs have been sponsored. (3) Greatly expand training for disadvantaged individuals. Although some progress has been made in providing training for disadvantaged, an increase in funds for personnel and other costs will be required before anything significant can be accomplished. (4) Expand entry training and supplementary training for specific jobs in industry. This training is being provided on a very limited scale but cannot be expanded until additional funds are available. It is thought that such training will not only increase our per capita income, but will serve as a major factor in attracting and retaining industries. (5) Provide supporting staff members, at local and state levels, to provide services that would encourage students, particularly the disadvantaged, to make maximum use of their training opportunities. The greatest need is for additional counseling personnel. Unfortunately merely making training available for the disadvantaged person is not enough to assure that he will become a wage earner. (6) Provide for innovative projects through which new and more efficient methods may be found for motivating and training youth and adults. At present an extensive evaluation study is under way as an effort to discover the very most satisfactory answers to many questions so that the vocational education program may provide for the citizens of Arkansas the finest possible opportunities for job preparation, thereby meeting the needs of individuals and of business and industry. Although we realize that much good is accomplished by many temporary, special agencies that have been set up to increase the individual power of our people, we feel that the services provided have been more expensive and less productive than they needed to be. Certainly training for the disadvantaged costs more than training for the average individual, but the schools have existing personnel, facilities and rapport which give the schools an economic and psychological advantage. We are not providing this information because we feel you need to be convinced of the need for additional funds for vocational education. We merely feel that it may be helpful to you in working with your colleagues and in evaluating dif ferent legislative proposals. If we can provide anything more specific that you would like, don't hesitate to let us know. Sincerely yours, A. W. FORD, Commissioner. Associate Commissioner for Vocational, Technical, and Adult Education. Senator MORSE. Our last witness will represent the National Associ ation for Public School Adult Education, Mr. James R. Dorland, asso ciate executive secretary, of Washington. You have waited very patiently, Mr. Dorland. I want to thank you for your cooperation. I wish I could have gotten to you earlier, but I am glad to have you close the hearing. STATEMENT OF JAMES R. DORLAND, ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL ADULT EDUCATION Mr. DORLAND. It is perfectly understandable. We have not waited any longer than you have. I have a prepared statement, Mr. Chairman which, with your permission, I would like to submit for the record. I would like briefly to highlight the statement. Senator MORSE. Mr. Dorland's prepared statement will be inserted in the record at this point, and he may summarize it in his own way. (The prepared statement of Mr. Dorland follows:) PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES R. DORLAND, ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL ADULT EDUCATION TITLE III OF S. 3099 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: I am James R. Dorland, associate executive secretary of the National Associa tion for Public School Adult Education, a department of the National Educativa Association. I formerly served as director of adult education in the Canton, Otle Public Schools. Today I wish to limit my remarks to Title III of S. 3099. Sectio1 301 (a) of Title III proposes lowering the age limit for participation in att basic education programs from 18 to 16 years. Section 301(b) of Title III won double the percentage of funds which the federal government sets aside to use for experimental projects. The federal set-aside for special projects is now "no less than 10% and no more than 20%" of the total appropriations for adult base education, and the proposed legislation would increase that amount to 20-400. We do not oppose the principle of lowering the age limit for participation in adult education programs, but we feel that this act is the wrong place for that change to be made. We strongly oppose the proposed increase in the feder..... set-aside funds. On March 7 our Association gave detailed testimony before the General Subcommittee on Education of the House of Representatives on this same Partner ship for Learning and Earning Act of 1968. In that testimony we documented our opposition to the proposed doubling of the federal set-aside with cost, enrollment, and employment data obtained from a survey conducted by our Associatio: The complete results of that survey of 104 state and local directors of adult edacation are on file in our offices and will be made available upon request. From this survey and from additional consultations with adult educators across the country, four principles have emerged which prompted us in our decision oppose the proposed increase in the federal set-aside funds. If the federal setaside were increased from the present 10-20% to 20-40%, this would: 1. Make impossible any meaningful expansion of local programs currently operating. For example, if the adult basic education appropriations were increased from $40 million to $50 million at the same time the federal set-aside rose from 20% to 40%, this would actually cut back local program operations. At the present time local adult basic education programs desperately need more funds in order to serve the large number of adults still on the waiting lists and wishing to enroll in classes. 2. Substantially raise the per pupil cost of instruction. Local adult basic education programs administered through the public schools have been operating at an average cost of approximately $100 to raise an adult one grade level. According to Commissioner Howe's testimony, 1.2 million American adults have already been served through these locally-operated basic education programs. The per student cost of special projects funded directly by the federal government is many times higher than $100 per student. 3. Inhibit innovations by local school districts. The survey which we conducted revealed that many innovative programs are being carried out by state and local departments of education with adult basic education funds made available through the regular channels of the Adult Education Act. These programs address themselves to state and local needs and could be seriously hampered if operating funds were cut back so that programs funded directly by the federal government could be expanded. 4. Launch an expanded program without the benefit of significant evaluative data. Result from previously funded USOE special projects have not yet been significant enough to justify such a dramatic escalation of funds. There have been no published evaluations concerning cost per student, grade level increase, retention power, or program effectiveness in general. It is probably too soon to determine whether or not these federally-supported projects represent a wise expenditure of funds. Until that determination can be made, it would seem prudent to funnel the money where the successes have been evident—in locallyoperated adult basic education programs. Therefore, the proposed adult education legislation is not needed. The Adult Education Act of 1966 was extended during the first session of the 90th Congress as a part of P.L. 90-247 and was signed into law by President Johnson as recently as January 2 of this year. This continued the provisions of the Adult Education Act through fiscal year 1970 with essentially the same principles the program had been operating under for the past two years, including a federal set-aside of 10-20%. Adult education has been a part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act amendments since 1966 and should remain there. There is no logical reason for an adult basic education title being attached to the end of a Vocational education act. Adult basic education is not primarily vocational in nature other than that it is designed in part to help prepare people to become trainable. Vocational training follows adult basic education. In addition to these largely technical reasons, we feel that Title III, Section 301 (b), if adopted, would seriously jeopardize the principle of state and local control of education. In fact, any education program which would permit the federal government to retain 40% of the funds for purposes which only the federal government deems necessary presupposes that a better determination of local needs can be made in Washington than at the local level. In adult basic education we have seen the federal set-aside progressing from zero to five to ten to twenty percent in 4 years-and now a proposed 40%. Unfortunately, this is a classic example of why so many people fear a federal takeover of education. While we do not oppose lowering the age limit for participation in adult education programs from 18 to 16, we wish to point out that this amendmenteven if passed-would have little positive effect on the people needing adult basic education. National Education Association Research Summary No. 1967-81 shows that more than 90% of the school dropouts are 16 years of age or over at the time they leave school. The 1967 edition of the Digest of Educational Statistics, published by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, indicates that 97% of the dropouts had completed the eighth grade. What is needed for these young people is not adult basic education-which extends only through the eighth grade-but adult education at the high school level. Our Association has in the past supported legislation extending adult education through high school, and will continue to do so-not just for youth between 16 and 22, but also for the many millions of other Americans who have not yet completed high school. This is the legislation which is needed. We recognize the support which this Committee has given to adult education in the past, and we have always appreciated the opportunity to make our views known. Legislation dating back to the Economic Opportunity Act in 1964 h permitted adult education to take important steps forward and to provide needed educational services for thousands of American adults. We do not feel that the proposed Title III of S.3099 is legislation which in the long run would be particularly helpful to the field of adult education or to the people it serves We respectfully urge that you remove it from the bill. Additional adult eda tion legislation should be provided for in separate amendments to the E mentary and Secondary Education Act. Mr. DORLAND. I am going to limit my remarks today to title III of this act, actually to the last nine lines of the 35-page bill. These nine lines refer to adult education. The organization I represent, the National Association for Pull School Adult Education, is a department of the National Educatio Association. As you know, the NEA does not have a vocational ed cation unit as such, so we find ourselves a part of NEA but also alle philosophically with the American Vocational Association, with whom we work quite closely. Many of our members are also members of the American Vocational Association. Today we find ourselves in a rather uncharacteristic position, be cause over the last 4 years we have struggled, along with the leadership exerted by the Chairman and members of this committee, to get adult education to the status where it now stands, which is perhap not the highest, but is considerably higher than it was 4 years ag We never lose sight of the fact that the tremendous strides which have taken place, particularly in public school adult education, have been primarily due to Federal money, Federal legislation. We have had an influx of leadership, we have had new programs, and tir have been primarily due to that reason. So when we come here to day in opposition, we are not particularly happy about it, but essertially our position is this: We think that this is the wrong legisla tion in the wrong bill. Furthermore, I submit that even the title, "Reducing the Age Limit in Adult Education," is not really the crux of the situation or of tx administration's concern. AGE LIMIT We can very definitely support lowering the age limit from 18 to 16, but we submit that this is not going to make a great deal of difference. because in our testimony, we have indicated that so many of the peopl who drop out are over the age of 16, and many of them have coll pleted the eighth grade level and are really more nearly ready for hig school education, rather than basic education. So we have supported in the past and will continue to support leg lation extending adult education through the high school level. We are certainly aware of the remarks on the floor of the Senate in December when you, yourself, said that you could not back any false-hope adult high school legislation because there was no money. This is probably the inopportune time for extending adult basic education legislation through high school. We still submit that there is a tremendous need and we hope that when the age limit is lowered from 18 to 16, at the same time the adult education opportunities could be extended through the high school level to take care of those many thousands of young sters who are roaming the streets, who have completed a year or of high school and need the next several years. Our real concern is the Federal set-aside portion of the bill. It has been an interesting progression, at least in our opinion, because when adult basic education was enacted as title II (b) of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, in the first year, there was no Federal set-aside. In the second year, there was a 5-percent set-aside. Then when the bill was transferred from OEO over to the Office of Education as a separate amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1966, which incidentally delighted us because we felt it essentially helped us get closer to the mainstream: at that time language was written into the bill stating that no less than 10 nor more than 20 percent would be held by the Commissioner for whatever reasons-teacher training, special projects, et cetera. EDUCATIONAL BARGAIN Adult basic education to date, I would submit, has been one of the great bargains of our time; 1.2 million people have been involved in adult basic education classes over the past 4 years, with a Federal expenditure of approximately $100 million. Now, this arithmetically figures out to approximately $100 or less than $100 per student. So adult educators have found themselves in the situation of having not very much money to operate programs and having to curtail, cut back, de fer people who are waiting. What we are saying is that they have done quite a bit with rather limited resources. We do not oppose a Federal set-aside of 10 to 20 percent. The first year in which there was an option, the Commissioner elected to use the minimum option, 10 percent. This year he is using the 20-percent option and we are prepared to support that. We feel strongly that there is need for innovation and there is need for the Commissioner to contract with whomever he feels can do the most effective job of adult basic education. We really have serious reservations about doubling the set-aside to 40 percent. If this were a program with unlimited resources, perhaps this would be a different story. We have had a considerable problem with our constituency, as it were, the people who operate programs and who are violently opposed to the 10- to 20-percent set-aside when they are operating curtailed programs at the local level. As we have surveyed people across the country, we have not found a single person operating a local program who is in favor of that level of set-aside 40 percent. That would make it the highest level set-aside of any education program within our knowledge. But we think that at this point in the rather fragile, tenous career of adult basic education-and I recognize the fact that this legislation would not move to the 20 to 40 percent until the following fiscal year-we still think the timing is wrong and we feel that the 10 to 20 percent is certainly adequate at this time. We did conduct a survey of programs across the country to discover Some of the things that are happening, whether any innovation is taking place in programs funded by State departments or local school districts. We think some exciting things are happening there. We are not really picking a fight with special projects funded by the Office of Education. We think it is rather early for results, that the results are not yet in for an effective assessment or evaluation. |