The purpose of the Veterans' Readjustment Benefits Act of 1966, as stated in section 1651, chapter 34, title 38, United States Code, follows: "The Congress of the United States hereby declares that the education program BUT, FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES, FARM VETERANS ARE LEFT OUT The provision of the 1967 Act, requiring a minimum of 12 clock hours of classroom work per week, instead of the former provision of 200 hours a year in the classroom and 100 hours on the farm or in group tours, has made it impracticable for farm veterans to attempt to take this training. A MAN CANNOT FARM FULL-TIME and at the same, time CARRY THE EQUIVALENT OF A FULL-TIME COLLEGE LOAD. Congress should act in 1968 to make education training under the G.I. bill available to farm veterans on a workable basis. T ISN'T 30 SIMPLE TAKE UP RE YOU LEFT OFF EW YEARS BACK PACE OF TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCE IS FAST IN MOST INDUSTRIES EXCEPTIONALLY FAST IN MODERN-DAY AGRICULTURE It is not easy to begin over again in one's education or in one's pation. What is accepted good procedure at one time can within a few short become obsolete and inefficient. Keeping abreast of change is a problem for those in various professions, ding agriculture, even for those whose career is not interrupted by a call to nal service. The biggest change which has occurred in U. S. agriculture has been ological change. Something over a generation ago, land and labor made up of the inputs in farming today, capital and the purchased inputs which al makes possible, accounts for 60% of the inputs. We see more technical and scientific change in a year than our ancestors in a century. Technological research, innovation and adoption of new farming techniques ot only continue in the future, but may occur at a more rapid rate than in the Will the young farmer, who interrupted his career to serve the nation, have hance to catch up with technology? A workable educational program under the Bill can make a great difference. Do you have any comments, Dr. Venn? Mr. VENN. Only that I think I would have to agree with all the testimony, Senator Morse. Senator MORSE. This is terrific testimony. Mr. VENN. Very excellent. Senator MORSE. I had no idea that these 300,000 left at 3 o'clo in the afternoon and started coming back at 7 in the morning. You tax base goes with it. Mr. BRIGGS. This is right. Senator MORSE. It leaves the internal city really without a tar base. There is some base, but the earning capacity of the populati to the extent of the 300,000 moves out of the city with them. At th rate you create your poverty problem. I think it is very dramat testimony. Mr. VENN. There was one point that he stressed which, I think s a key to expanding these kinds of programs more rapidly; that is the responsibility of the schools for the transition from school to work, the job placement of these youngsters. I think that when the noncollege bound youngsters, can see school as the best place to be to get a job, then I think we are going to see these programs develo in the schools the way that they should. If the school is involved the placement, the youngster is hardheaded enough to know that th is the best place to be. In that way our dropout rate will be reduce dramatically and the program will really expand. I can not help be agree with that wholeheartedly. Senator MORSE. Thank you very much. I suppose in the Office of Education you are doing everything you can. Is there anything mo you can do to disseminate information about the Cleveland plan! Mr. VENN. We have a program in development at this time for th dissemination of regular publications of this kind throughout th country. We will choose programs like the one in Cleveland, and others, as examples of what can be done successfully in a new dire tion for vocational education. Senator MORSE. I want to thank you very, very much. Thank yo gentlemen. Mr. BRIGGS. Thank you, Senator Morse. Senator MORSE. At this point I order printed the prepared state ment of Governor Rampton of Utah. (The prepared statement referred to follows:) PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CALVIN L. RAMPTON, GOVERNOR OF UTAH; CHAR MAN, EDUCATION COMMITTEE, NATIONAL GOVERNORS' CONFERENCE; CHAIRMAN EDUCATION COMMISSION OF THE STATES To the Education Subcommittee of the Senate Labor and Public We'r Committee: N No other area of education is of greater concern to the governors of the sta and territories than vocational education. As the Committee knows, unem ment among youth far exceeds the national average. Further, we are fa with a substantial and growing disaffection among our youth. There is room for doubt that lack of educational opportunity, occupational training a employment opportunity are major factors in this disaffection. Finally, in era, we have come to realize that we face now and in the future a need and desire for what amounts to lifetime education-the necessity to provide continual adult education and occupational retraining. need for improved and expanded vocational education is not only great, rgent. As the Committee knows, we must not only provide more of what e already doing but also devise new and more effective approaches for g the need. We must do everything we can to correct deficiencies in our g programs. Action to fulfill these obligations is in many cases already aps the best way for me to discuss the legislation before the Committee to consider it in terms of problems and needs as recognized by the ors of the states and territories. ne of the most serious difficulties experienced by school officials at all n making efficient use of federal funds has been the timing of the federal riation process which has caused grants of funds to be made after the f the school year and long after planning for the school year must be ted. Late funding has accounted for by far the greatest number of comabout federal aid programs for education. The President and his adminn and the Congress are to be commended for recognizing this very seriblem. In the case at hand, the Administration has acted wisely in proposextend the early funding provisions of the Elementary and Secondary ion Amendments of 1967 to the provisions of the Partnership for LearnEarning Act of 1968 (S. 3099) which affect the Vocational Education 1963. I am sure that the members of the Committee recognize the overmportance of extending the early funding principle to vocational educahope the Congress will retain this provision of the Administration bill. roliferation of categorical programs of assistance has required states tain as many as 26 separate accounts in vocational education alone. uirement that states match funds by categories has introduced a high of rigidity into state programs and ensnarled vocational education is in administrative complexities. The result has been a degree of federal a to the state budgeting process. Dictation in the program area without o the most urgent needs in individual states has been even more severe. er, different sets of regulations governing the various categories of aid ensified the difficulties of coping with the system. These problems have ovement in support of more generalized federal aid to education at all tate governments and local school officials are in substantial agreement ust the desirability but also the necessity for movement in this direction Is may be feasible. It is gratifying, therefore, that the Administration in ent bill has moved to consolidate authority for vocational education pronder the Smith-Hughes Act and the George-Barden Act and to eliminate arking of funds by purpose under much of the Vocational Education 63. The Congress has already indicated a considerable degree of support lidation of federal aid programs. It is to be hoped that this Committee nately the 90th Congress will approve consolidation in the vocational area. The flexibility and the simplification which the bill would permit ubsequent harmonization of regulations applying to vocational programs at promise for more efficient and effective operation at the state level. der existing legislation, state plans for vocational education have often more than legal agreements between the states and the federal governstate advisory councils have been neither as broadly representative nor l as prevailing circumstances may require. These conditions have led als that specific proportions of vocational education funds be set aside arked for urban programs, for post-secondary school programs, and a f other purposes. The present bill may go far toward eliminating the or such earmarking. The proposal that states prepare vocational pros specifiying their long-range objectives, that these plans be updated and that operation under them be evaluated annually should guarantee become genuine comprehensive educational plans. The requirement for epresentation on state advisory councils and for substantial participaby the councils and the public in the planning and evaluation process ft the responsibility for determining such matters as the proportions llocated for urban and for post-secondary programs to the state level. hey should make it possible to establish priorities and allocations on -f the real needs of the individual states. It may be that it is impossible, legislation is enacted and given a chance to work, to determine nese mechanisms proposed by the Administration will actually cope with the problems that now exist. However, in view of our belief, on substantial evidence, that the states themselves have better bases for determin their own priorities and that federal aids should be consolidated and generalizes where feasible, I believe the Administration's proposals for state planning an creation of advisory councils should be tested in practice before we embark further earmarking of aid. But in this regard, I would like to present one sa gestion. The proposed legislation would require each "state" to create an advisor, council. In application, this has meant in the past that the state board of voer tional education or state board of education appoints the council. Such a pres dure often has the defect that it introduces into the appointed body the si biases and weaknesses from the appointing body which led to the requiremen for the advisory body in the first place. State governments vary substantially their structure. But they all have at least one condition in common: that is that the governor is the one official whom all the citizens hold responsible and at the same time the person on whom all the citizens call to redress imbalances a grievances. It is the governor whom the people expect to weight their commissi and advisory committees to reflect the interests and needs of the enti population. We, therefore, propose that this committee give serious consideration to aber! ing the legislation to provide that the governors of the states and territories point the state advisory council. To anticipate and avoid suspicions that p motivations might enter into such appointments, you might consider proï 115 for staggered terms, to the effect that no governor in a single term mit ap point a controlling number of the members. IV. We have all recognized a need for a greater sense of national pur» ** 2 Vocational education--and for a more intensive and disinterested mode of et ation of our effectiveness in carrying out our responsibilities. Hence the g ernors of the states and territories can only express approval of the Adna* tration's proposal for the creation of a permanent National Advisory Co on Vocational Education. I am familiar with the work of the Advisory Coe, on Vocational Education appointed pusuant to the requirements of the Vo tional Education Act of 1963 and particularly with its recently issued rep entitled The Bridge between Man and his Work. It is an excellent statement? the prevailing circumstances in vocational education and of how we can meet urgent needs in this field. It is gratifying that so many of the recommendatis of the Council are embodied either directly or indirectly in the Administrate bill. The Administration deserves commendation for its attempt to impleme so many of the Council's recommendations. However, the Council's impera nence has necessarily limited its scope. Thus I believe the Administration moved in the right direction with the provision of its bill that the Council o become a permanent body of 15 members, to be appointed by the Secretary Health, Education, and Welfare. The Council would advise the Commissipat of Education on regulations and policy matters, including the procedures to "* followed in approving state plans and exemplary programs and proje's l' would have still broader authority in that it would prepare and submalt to t President and the Congress an annual report on the administration of vocat education programs in the country. I hope the Committee and the Congress approve this proposal. V. There is a great need for innovation in the field of vocational educate We must find better ways to carry on the types of programs which now we must also find ways of meeting needs which are now going unmet. Per contrary to common belief, there is a great deal of innovative thinking experimentation going on in many states. But there is a clearly established cm | for a major Federal contribution. My purpose here is to applaud the it Title I of the President's vocational education bill and to couple that wake expression of hope that the federal government will not, either in legishtat in administration, restrict the states in their efforts to find new ways to old needs and ways to meet new needs. VI. There are several, not necessarily related, matters which I will ar together for convenience. One is the need for research funds and 1767) which I believe is obvious. There is also a great need for information se 7° * going vocational programs. There have been criticisms that available f 1 |