Conversely, there are about 312 million of these children who are receiving no special education services. And it seems even more incredible that 1 million of these children are receiving no educational services whatsoever.

They are not in school at all, still in 1973.

Bad as these numbers may sound, if we put this into perspective, we have made a great deal of progress and things are much better today than they were before the Education of the Handicapped Act programs began back in 1958. There has been a vast improvement in the services available to a rapidly increasing number of handicapped children since that date.

We are greatly impressed also with leadership and services provided through Bureau of Education for the handicapped. And in order to make these services a reality they have done a fine job of implementing this act.

While the majority of financial support for education of handicapped children has come from the States and communities, the Federal stimulation and support to the States and to the teacher training institutions has made much of this surge of progress a reality.

Some of the evidences of this that we have seen has been the appearance quite recently as a direct result of this Federal support by this act of such programs as the education of severely and profoundly retarded and education of the seriously emotionally disturbed and recently the education of preschool handicapped children.

Some States are now creating regional resources to help as in the pooling of deaf and blind children together, that we might educate them through 10 regional centers for the deaf-blind.

I think one of the things we might say this morning about the benefits or the impact of this act was rather well stated by one of our directors of special education in a State who said that the Educationally Handicapped Act funds enable us to get out in front of ourselves and to pull the rest of the system along with us.

We have seen the development of many programs within many States aimed at special target populations such as the early childhood group those from birth to 5 years of age who attempt to intervene before the handicap has developed to such proportions that it could not be solved or it would take much longer time and money to solve it. The model programs that have been developed through these funds of this act have enabled other types of handicapped children in various locations to be established and other States and locations can see these model programs and duplicate them and can set State legislation financing in order to make parallel duplicate models happen.

For the various sections of this act, I am most familiar with the section D, as it relates to the special education manpower production element in the training and special education children.

While you may hear of teacher surpluses in other areas of education I can assure you there is no surplus of teachers in special education. The Bureau of Education for the handicapped reports the needs for special education teachers for all areas of handicaps as reported by all 50 States to be in excess of 245,000 teachers needed today. Mr. BRADEMAS. What was that figure again?

Dr. DINGER. 245,000 teachers of special education required yet today. I can validate a tiny piece of this need by stating that every spe

cial education teacher that we can prepare at Slippery Rock State College has a job waiting for him and in many cases many job offers.

Across the Nation we have set in motion through leadership, a very fine system of teacher training to meet the demand for more of these highly qualified special lists who are needed to supply these 245,000 unfilled classrooms for handicapped children.

If you would permit a personal observation about the growth of these type of programs, I went to Slippery Rock 10 years ago to start a teacher training program in special education.

The program consisted of 26 students and I was the total faculty. Now 10 years later we have over 700 students in this program which represents one out of every nine students on our campus and we have 12 full-time faculty members.

This kind of growth, both in numbers and we hope quality of program, in our institution and all of the teacher training institutions around the country, particularly those funded by VEH, we think are leading to the supply of this huge gap in personnel requirements to serve these 245,000 classrooms that are yet unfilled.

So we plead that we need to finish this manpower production project which this act has so effectively started.

For the sake of brevity, I will not go into the excellent results we see emerging from the research and project for which we hear excellent results being reported.

Our formal statement contains a clear picture of the effects of these services. I would like to give one example of how Federal support from this act did produce a service and a product of national importance which could not and would not have been developed by any State or any college or any commercial publisher and I refer to Project Life, an anachronism for language instruction to facilitate education for the deaf.

As you know, teaching a deaf child and to develop the language to use to express himself and to go about asking for more information is an extremely difficult task. This project has had top specialists in deaf education and language development working on a type of pupil selfinstruction in language development for many years and at a very high cost.

We have had meticulous detailed work going into this and the project has now reached the stage of success where it can be produced and made commercially available to all educators around the country.

We have found that it not only helps deaf children to learn to use his own language system but it has been found to be a great help to retarded, brain damaged and learning disability children as well. This I think will be one concrete example of how Federal funds have been used to make something happen that could not have happened any other way.

In summary the Education of Handicapped Act has done a great deal for handicapped children of the Nation. We of the Council for Exceptional Children do recognize, however, the needs for another 312 million children whose needs are yet unserved by any special educational services which their handicap might require.

A new sense of urgency has been forced upon us by the courts in very recent years, 2 years. The court in Pennsylvania has said that

we must provide immediately for the educational services to the severely and profoundly retarded who have been denied their educational opportunities in the schools down through history and this landmark decision has been the catalyst for a number of other States and their courts are saying the same thing that these children must be served and must be served now regardless of the cost.

This is going to be paralleled and duplicated by the same court decisions about other types of handicapped children who have been excluded from services in the schools. You have a yellow brochure attached to our formal statement entitled, "A Continuing Summary of Pending and Completed Litigation Regarding the Education of Handicapped Children," regarding education of handicapped children in which these type of court decisions and mandates are presented in very brief form.

All of the 47,000 members of the Council for Exceptional Children are working toward the day when we will be able to say that every handicapped child has been provided with an opportunity for the appropriate educational services, a correctly designed program, and a highly qualified teacher to teach him.

That day will come but it is going to be sometime yet before that day does arrive. The need for further service from the Education of the Handicapped Act is clearly before us and now is not the time to stop this vital service provided under this act.

The Council for Exceptional Children reiterates its strong support of H.R. 4199 and hopes that this committee will give it prompt attention.

We also hope that at a later date the committee will give its attention to a bill which addresses itself to the even larger question of helping States and communities offset the direct and expensive cost of educating all handicapped children.

Mr. Chairman, the Council for Exceptional Children is proud to note that you have already shown your sensitivity to this larger issue by introducing H.R. 70, the Education of the Handicapped Children's Act.

I should like to thank you very much for this opportunity to present the views of the Council for Exceptional Children on H.R. 4199 today. We of the Council for Exceptional Children again offer any and all assistance we might provide to your future considerations of this final issue and finally if I might add a personal appreciation for the opportunity provided by our national legislative system whereby an unknown person like myself from a very small college and very tiny town in western Pennsylvania, could have the privilege of coming before you here this morning in Washington and adding my views for your consideration of this act.

This is something very good about a government which encourages this type of input from persons like me.

I have been greatly impressed with this new experience of appearing before you on behalf of this act and I think you for hearing me this morning.

[The prepared statement and brochure follows:]

STATEMENT OF DR. JACK C. DINGER, PRESIDENT-ELECT, THE COUNCIL FOR EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN, AND PROFESSOR AND CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL EDUCATION, SLIPPERY ROCK STATE COLLEGE, SLIPPERY ROCK, PA.; ACCOMPANIED BY WILLIAM C. GEER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE COUNCIL FOR EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN, WASHINGTON, D.C.; FREDERICK J. WEINTRAUB, ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, THE COUNCIL FOR EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it is indeed a pleasure to come before this distinguished panel to offer the comments of The Council for Exceptional Children relative to The Education of the Handicapped Act from the standpoint of services provided for this nation's handicapped children.

At the outset, let me emphasize again-in concert with the feelings of past officers of The Council for Exceptional Children-the real and deep gratitude of all of us in the special education profession for the remarkable concern for and efforts on behalf of handicapped children demonstrated by this Subcommittee of the Education and Labor Committee, especially in recent years. This committee long ago acknowledged the special responsibility of the national government for the education of America's exceptional children; and the Education of the Handicapped Act is a singular monument to this committee's attention and this committee's diligence.

And to you in particular, Mr. Chairman, may I extend my special thanks. Throughout your stewardship as chairman of this subcommittee, you have been an unrelenting protector of the interests of handicapped children and an equally unrelenting advocate of their special needs.

Let me make it absolutely clear that The Council for Exceptional Children endorses H.R. 4199 to extend the Education of the Handicapped Act, the foundation of present federal support for the handicapped in education.

Permit me to review briefly the components of this most effective legislation: (See Appendix A, expenditures by state for handicapped.)

(See Appendix B, handicapped served by state.)

(See Appendix C, state of EHA, authorization, appropriations.)

AID TO STATES PROGRAM

The state grant program under Part B (Title VI) has acted as a most useful catalyst to local and state program growth. Joint planning with the states under this program has meant increased programming on a comprehensive basis involving other federal programs (such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Titles I and III) as well as local services.

With appropriation levels for Fiscal 1972 and Fiscal 1973 totalling $37.5 million, this program has stimulated new educational opportunities for an encouraging 215,000 handicapped children in 1972 according to the Bureau of Education For The Handicapped (See Appendix C). The catalytic effect of what might be described as the "seed monies" provided under Part B should not be underestimated. (See Appendix D, grants by states, Title VI B).

Members of this committee may be interested in noting the unusually wide disparity between the authorization level approved by the Congress for Title VI B for Fiscal 1973 and the estimated actual expenditures for Fiscal 1973, i.e. $200 million compared to the actual $37.5 million. (See Appendix C)

SPECIAL TARGET PROGRAMS

The special target programs under the aegis of Part C of the Education of the Handicapped Act have tremendous impact upon our total effort on behalf of exceptional children. (See Appendix E, special target programs by state.)

For instance, the ten regional Deaf-Blind Centers coordinate resources and services for approximately 1,700 deaf-blind children in those regions. As you know, the number of deaf-blind children increased dramatically as a result of the 1964-65 rubella epidemic. In fact, over 4,500 children have been located and identified through the regional deaf-blind program as of December, 1972. The regional centers provide not only educational services (residential and day care) but also diagnostic counseling and tutorial services.

Let me also make brief mention of the crisis care facilities operated under this authority in which approximately 100 children are enrolled. These facilities are aimed at achieving appropriate placement of deaf-blind children in other programs and providing assistance to the parents. A byproduct of such crisis care units not to be underestimated is the reduction of personal anxiety for the parents themselves.

I am pleased to note, as well, the plans at BEH for greatly expanded services at the centers beginning in September 1973. Anticipated are: educational services for 2,900 children in residential and day care facilities; crisis care services for 200 children and their families; diagnostic and educational assessment for 700 children; parent counseling for parents of 2,200 children; inservice training for 1,200 educators, professionals, and parents; summer school and camp programs for 500 children.

Another vital special target component under Part C is the early education programs. This program originally established as the Handicapped Children's Early Education Assistance Act (Public Law 90-538) has as its purposes to: 1. Provide parents with counselling and guidance so that they may effectively respond to the special needs of their handicapped children.

2. Develop programs and materials designed to meet the unique needs of preschool handicapped children and to prepare personnel to work with such children. 3. Acquaint the community with the problems and potentials of handicapped children.

4. Insure continuity of education by demonstrating coordination between various private and public agencies providing services to the handicapped. The importance of early education for handicapped children can not be minimized. For many handicapped children the early years are nothing more than a period of waiting. While other children develop their readiness skills for education from exploring their environments, the blind child and the physically handicapped child remain confined to rooms or homes because of no mobility training; the deaf child remains in a world without communication, because no effort is undertaken to develop existing hearing or other communication channels; the retarded child falls further behind his peers, because no high intensity teaching program is provided and the disturbed child becomes more and more a social outcast, because no one will help him resolve his problems.

Research is clearly demonstrating that we could reduce the demands for special education services within the compulsory school age range or at least the duration of such services, if comprehensive preschooling were available. Realizing this, many states have begun to undertake this responsibility on their own. As we move in this direction the experimental early childhood education programs and its present centers will be critical.

Part C of the Education of the Handicapped Act also authorized the development of regional resource centers to assist teachers and administrators of programs for handicapped children in bringing effective educational services to the entire population of exceptional children. The six centers now in existence served more than 25,000 handicapped children in eighteen states with direct and indirect services in 1973.

The current goals of these centers reflect their overall mission since being created:

1. Provide educational testing and evaluation services for the children referred to them-especially the severely handicapped.

2. Develop individual prescribed educational programs.

3. Assist state and local agencies in finding handicapped children currently not enrolled in schools and recommend suitable programs.

It is anticipated that approximately 40,000 handicapped children will receive comprehensive services from the centers in 1973; and, since emphasis in the centers is being placed upon the too often hidden and unassisted severely handicapped, it is further anticipated that an additional 2,000 severely and multiply handicapped children will be served. (See Appendix E)

And finally, in the special target category, recognition must be given to the program in learning disabilities (Part G, EHA). The National Advisory Committee on the Handicapped reported in 1969 that some 600,000 to 1,800,000 or one to three percent of the total school-age population have specific learning disabilities. The federal effort is aimed at exploring the nature of the disorders,