School-age population (5-19) increased by 23,700 (15%). Actual school enrollments increased more than 37,000 (35%), due primarily to expanded kindergarten programs and a modestly successful program to reduce school dropouts. Working-age population (20-64) decreased 21,100 (4%). The student group certainly, and the older age group in many cases, require greater public services and public facilities. These needs cannot be ignored. The District must also replace and modernize a physical plant that is aged and rapidly becoming obsolete. Of the public schools, for example— Over 38% were built totally or in part before 1920. Yet, the demands of the rapidly increasing school population, combined with limited appropriations for school construction, have made it impossible even to house new students, much less to modernize the existing school plant. Indeed, there is no fact of which we should be less proud than that in the Capital City of this great Nation there are some 2,100 children compelled by lack of classroom space to accept part-time education. EDUCATION Operation of the school system in 1967 will require $82.6 million, an increase of $6.9 million over 1966. These increased funds will provide Additional classroom teachers needed to maintain the pupilteacher ratios now in effect. Additional positions in special subject areas such as science, mathematics, and reading needed to enrich and strengthen the District's educational program. Addition of 24 librarians to provide one in every school in which physical facilities exist to house a library. Additional counselors to achieve the Board of Education pupilcounselor ratios of 750:1 in elementary schools and 400:1 in secondary schools. Four pupil personnel service teams. Each team will be composed of psychiatrists, clinical and school psychologists, social workers and attendance officers. They will be able to meet acute needs of literally thousands of pupils whose opportunities to achieve the maximum of their potentialities are now impaired because the schools do not have adequate information on their abilities, achievements, and emotional stability. In addition, an increase in the salaries of teachers will be proposed to the Congress. There has always been a substantial increase in funds available to the District school system through the several national programs for aid to education. In 1967, these funds will approximate $14.5 million. This Federal assistance has properly been concentrated in low-income areas of the city, where the needs are the most severe and potential for accomplishment is the greatest. While these funds make possible many improvements, they cannot and should not be used as a substitute for the basic educational program financed directly by the com munity. Together, however, the two sources of funds make the opportunities for major educational progress in the District brighter than ever. The budget also includes $32.9 million for various stages of construction of 35 school construction projects, including 7 new schools, 18 additions to existing schools, and 10 school replacements, including the critically needed Shaw Junior High School. When they are all completed, they will provide 19,550 additional pupil spaces. This will, at long last, eliminate foreseeable part-time classes; and permit in 1968 the beginning of a concerted program to replace obsolete school buildings. Among the other important District measures pending in both houses are A bill to authorize in the District of Columbia a community college and a college of arts and sciences under a Board of Higher Education. RURAL LIFE PROGRAM The President's Remarks on His Message to Congress. January 25, 1966 There is one purpose in the message that I sent to Congress today. We must improve the lives of those who live in rural America. The need for improvement is clear and is here, and the time is now. Here are the facts: Rural people lag almost 2 years behind city people in educational attainment. The President's Message to the Congress Proposing Establishment of Community Development Districts. January 25, 1966 To the Congress of the United States: Last year in my message on Agriculture I described poverty's grip on rural America: -rural people lag almost two years behind urban residents in educational attainment. * The Office of Economic Opportunity has increased its efforts in rural areas. Community Action Programs are underway in a number of rural counties. -supporting community action planning. -providing remedial reading courses, vocational instruction, and adult education. The beneficial effects of recent legislation, providing for more extensive professional relationships between rural hospitals and urban medical centers; the improved schooling that will soon be available in rural areas; improved roads and transportation-all will reduce the . difficulty in recruiting physicians for rural areas by increasing the professional and educational opportunities available to them. Nevertheless we are not recruiting sufficient numbers of medical students from the families of the urban poor and rural areas. A financial incentive that will make it possible for children of these families to undertake a medical career, and at the same time draw upon medical students from other areas to settle in rural medical practice, is urgently needed. I shall soon propose, therefore, that a loan forgiveness program modeled upon the National Defense Education Act Amendments of 1965 be applied to medical students who choose to practice in poor rural areas. * A PROGRAM FOR AMERICAN CITIES The President's Remarks Upon Transmitting His Message to the Congress. January 26, 1966 * What I have offered is a massive program, involving everything that we know about building homes and schools and parks and streets that are safe from fear. The President's Message to the Congress Recommending a Demonstration Cities Program and Other Measures To Aid Urban and Metropolitan Areas. January 26, 1966 From the experience of three decades, it is clear to me that American cities require a program that will: concentrate our available resources-in planning tools, in housing construction, in job training, in health facilities, in recreation, in welfare programs, in education-to improve the conditions of life in urban areas. 2. The demonstration should bring about a change in the total environment of the area affected. It must provide schools, parks, playgrounds, community centers, and access to all necessary community facilities. THE ECONOMIC REPORT FOR 1966 The President's Remarks at the Signing Ceremony in the Cabinet Room, January 26, 1966. Released January 27, 1966 We must retrain our jobless, we must educate our young, we must care for our sick, and we must house our poor. We must protect the public against strike emergencies. We must extend and raise the minimum wage. We must strengthen unemployment insurance. THE ECONOMIC REPORT FOR 1966 The President's Annual Message to the Congress. January 27, 1966 Gains for the Disadvantaged-The disadvantaged and less fortunate members of our society also shared in our 1965 economic gains. For the poor who were capable of earning more, there were job training and help in finding jobs, improvements in education, and the breaking down of barriers of discrimination. Moreover, there is new respect in the world for an America concerned with using its abundance to enhance the quality of human life: for a people who are resolved to lift the quality of education at every level; UNITED STATES SENATE YOUTH PROGRAM The President's Remarks to Student Representatives in the East Room. January 28, 1966 My young friends, I am delighted to welcome you here to the East Room this morning. Nothing that I do during the year gives me greater pleasure than welcoming you young folks to the White House. As some of you doubtless will remember, I began my life as a school teacher. For more than 35 years now, I have been in some branch of the Federal Government. So all of my adult life has been mainly concerned with two things: youth and public service. * NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION Announcement of Transmittal to the Congress of the 15th Annual Report. January 29, 1966 President Johnson today sent to Congress the 15th Annual National Science Foundation Report, which reveals that the NSF appropriation for fiscal 1965 was the largest ever-$420,400,000. The Foundation continues to give its greatest support to basic research, with new emphasis on science education and institutional science programs. Of the fiscal 1965 total, $208,887,136 went for basic research and supporting facilities; $120,414,677 for science education; and $60,236,979 for institutional science programs. NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION The President's Message to the Congress Transmitting the Foundation's 15th Annual Report. January 29, 1966 In the field of education, it is enough to say that more than half of all our science and mathematics high school teachers have now received vital refresher training through the Foundation's education program. In the classrooms, the Foundation has played a major role in modernizing scientific curricula to make them responsive to our age. And in a more recent activity, the Foundation has launched a program to strengthen the science departments of many of our smaller universities throughout the nation by providing new laboratories, modern equipment, and fellowships to promising graduate students. THE FOREIGN ASSISTANCE PROGRAM The President's Message to the Congress Recommending a Program Emphasizing Aid to Those Nations Willing and Ready To Help Themselves. February, 1, 1966 I recommend a program to help give the people of the less-developed world the food, the health, the skills and education-and the strength to lead their nations to self-sufficient lives of plenty and freedom. Yet today the citizens of many developing nations walk in the shadow of misery: half the adults have never been to school; * To combat ignorance, I am proposing a major new effort in international education. I propose a 50% increase in AID education activities to a total of more than $200 million. Shortly I will transmit to the Congress a special message proposing an International Education Act which will commit the United States to a campaign to spread the benefits of education to every corner of the earth. Nothing is more critical to the future of liberty and the fate of mankind. We will review frankly and constructively with cooperating countries the obstacles to domestic and foreign private investment. We will continue to support: training of labor and business leaders; Technical Cooperation: This request-$231 million-will finance American advisors and teachers who are the crucial forces in the attack on hunger, ignorance, disease, and the population problem. The dollar total is relatively small. But no appropriation is more critical. No purpose is more central. |