option of using the GATB and exams at the disposal of employment security.

The trainee's first step in entering our program is to visit his local employment security office in Everett, Mount Vernon, or Bellingham. The Washington State Employment Security Department then does the referral to the local reservation school. The local office also assists our teachers in making out the weekly training allowance form. The local office will also test the trainees and do the job development. They have also provided help in filing out the MA-102, which is the termination or transfer form. As our staff becomes more familiar with the forms, we will become more proficient. Employment security has been of great help to our program and we appreciate their cooperation.

The Indian advisory committee, 11 members, has a key role in the success of this program. The committee is composed of 11 Indians and represent the Indians that the program serves. They offer their advice on the policy that the program should follow. These are some of the suggestions that they have made: (1) An 8-hour training day to be relative to the employment day, (2) arriving on time every day for training, (3) safety training on the job, (4) punishment for drinking during the training, and (5) an insistence on trainees taking pride in themselves.

Despite many handicaps, we have had an attendance record of about 90 percent. It has been amazing to me that we have had that high a percentage. This is due to the fact that (a) the classes are held on the reservation, and (b) the advisory committee plays a big role in trainee enrollment, conduct, attendance, and termination. We feel that for the program to succeed, the advisory committee must be kept informed by letter and also by day to day contact about the total program. To the degree that the Indian advisory committee participates in the program, to that degree the program will be a success.

Other pertinent data: (1) The National Opinion Research Center is using the ABLE in testing all trainees at the Tulalip school. This is a program that extends over a period of 22 years to test the benefits of MDTA training. Tulalip falls within the urban area. (2) We have been able to provide day care at Lummi through our health occupations class. This has been a necessity, particularly in light of the $35 per week training allowance. If a female trainee has to pay for day care out of her allowance, it leaves her very little money to pay her bills. Some of this day care training that these women received was not good. (3) Tulalip made a significant step by having a meeting on the reservation of their adjacent Marysville school district superintendent and all principals. I was able to sit in on this meeting and I related to them that I was impressed by the fact that the administrators would attend such a meeting at tribal headquarters. (4) On April 6, 1970, all superintendents of Island and Skagit Counties will meet at our Swinomish school.

We have a list of agencies here which is not complete which we have contacted and we will contact in the future as far as helping us in our

program there. As to the future years, I won't go into those because each of those would be quite a case in itself, particularly number (j). Agencies contacted: (a) Employment Security, concerning trainees MDTA training allowance and advances; (b) Public Assistance, concerning food stamps, child care services; (c) Washington State Parole. regarding two of our trainees who are on parole; (d) Salvation Army, concerning emergency help for trainees: (e) Western Washington State College, regarding New Careers testing; (f) American Legion. assistance for a trainee who is a veteran; (g) Whatcom Foundation, Inc., application for financial assistance for housing for a trainee; (h) Bellingham Technical School, one trainee was enrolled; (i) Lummi Health Clinics referral of trainees in need of medical care; (j) BIA, regarding training information; (k) School principals (Tulalip): (7) Karman Center (drugs).

The flexibility of Skagit Valley College in handling this program cannot be overemphasized. The college was able to recognize the deficiency of Indian education because of the fact that Swinomish was the teaching responsibility of Skagit Valley College prior to the beginning of the program. However, by offering the classes in the familiar setting of the reservation, we can enroll a larger number of trainees. It is our desire that any program wishing to deal with employment training of Indians consider the flexibility of Skagit Valley College. training on the reservation and consultation with an Indian advisory group.

Recommendations: (1) Many programs have been attempted on our reservations that were of a short duration. I would encourage that some mechanism be found to fund MDTA or other training program for over the present 1-year period. Our greatest danger is not a failure in training employable Indians, but to once again disillusion the Indian by starting a program, offering hope, and then withdrawing the program; (2) the relationship between Employment Security and Skagit Valley Community College has been a good one and I would recommend that this relationship as it exists in our MDTA program be continued; (3) the employment and education problems on reservations are unique and difficult to understand. It is our belief that local people and local agencies are best equipped to deal with these unique problems. A community college, such as Skagit Valley, is able, because of its contact with the reservation, to understand and deal more effectively than a regional office; and (4) the reservations are in a rural area and this fact again points up the importance of consulting with local Indian, educational, and employment resources. To quote from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

No buttoned down zealot, fresh off a jet from Washington and to the big city born, skipped onto the reservation this time with a head and briecase chocked with ideas for improving the Indians' lot.

The Indians participated in the planning of every step along the way with Skagit Valley school officials and, in the doing of it, got a training program tailored to reservation needs.

(The document referred to follows:)

APPENDIX I.-REPORT OF LABOR FORCE: (X) MARCH-TULALIP RESERVATION, WASHINGTON, 1970

Mr. MEEDS. Thank you very much, Mr. Bill.

Would either you, Dr. Cole or Mr. Roberts, have anything that you would like to add?

Mr. COLE. Congressman Meeds, of course, you were in on the early planning of this project. Mr. Roberts was the person who worked very hard, very diligently over almost a year's time in the preparation of this program. The point is, I think, in most areas of education one has to decide what kind of priorities one does want to expend the available resources on. We felt in the case of our Indians that there had been too much paternalism for hundreds of years now and we should go to them for advice. I think you were in on a meeting one night, which was the most thrilling thing that ever happened to me, when one of the participants said for the first time, "Somebody has come to us and asked us what we want." That has been the attitude under which this program was developed.

Walt worked on this most of last year in the development of this along with the others and there is no telling how much money Skagit Valley College expended in its program without any kind of help, without any planning, and I would like for Walt to explain a little bit of the planning in just a moment.

One other thing that I would emphasize here and that is rural areas do have problems just as much as the city areas and I would disagree with the Honorable Mayor when he said all problems are in the cities. They are not. The same conditions exist. We have our poor, we have our minorities. We do have a little more time to do some planning.

But if the big cities had done some of this planning and used some of their resources wisely, maybe some of the problems would have been solved long before this.

So, I would close by saying it is important for us to have local selfdetermination. But, at the same time, I would also recommend that we do have a coordinated effort.

Mr. ROBERTS. Thank you, Mr. Congressman.

I think I'd just like to say that I wish in the formation and development of the bills which you are presenting that you would take a very close look at the implications of putting the responsibility into one agency. I think if you digest the report Mr. Bill made very closely, you will find this is an educational venture with labor as the supporting element.

I am not going to try to take anything away from the responsibility of labor in all of these determinations, but I would like to say that I would hope that HEW would have a very strong voice in any bills that you might put before Congress.

In the formation of this program and in the development, I think that education needs a strong voice. I know that Skagit Valley College put itself out on a limb. We made decisions that I think in this case only education can make. I think this came from years of experience working with groups such as the Indians. I'm not saying that labor might not have the perception to do the job we did. They are doing it and we need them very badly. But I am not too sure in the rural areas. I think you can call the State of Washington, in general, a rural area and it needs to have a strong voice in education. I think labor is very effective in the metropolitan areas, but I would say in the rural areas their education system has the flexibility, it has the know-how, it has the perceptibility to implement some of the programs that are unique in nature. I think many of us have the ability to implement such

programs.

Thank you.

Mr. MEEDS. Thank you very much, Walt, and thank you all, gentle

men.

I have a couple of brief questions. I will direct this question to you, Mr. Bill. I have had several letters since the inception of our hearings on manpower bills from Indians entreating us not to place the responsibility for manpower programs on a State basis but to retain the jurisdiction in the Federal Government for manpower programs. I know that is a very general statement, but I got the definite impression from many of these letters that the Indians who were speaking for their tribes because they were directed from tribal councils were very apprehensive about dealing with the State governments under which they found themselves. Could you comment on that and give us any insight that perhaps we could use in this legislation, Mr. Bill?

Mr. BILL. First, I would have to know which Indians. There are as many varied Indian opinions as there are varied other opinions. I would have to know who those Indians were, No. 1.

No. 2. I can only speak for the five reservation groups and particularly for the three where we are holding our schools in, and we work on a day-to-day basis with them. I have their advice and it is their advice upon which this program is working, that it is effective and that the trainees are taking tremendous pride in themselves. This is not something that these people take casually because we are dealing with trainees who have had records of unemployment and we know why. They don't get to work on time. They come to work not in condition to work. They don't stay on the job. They stay a week and quit. They wind up in prison. So, I know the reasons and that is not a casual statement. This group says this program works and they do not mind the jurisdiction it is under right now. They are in favor of it because it is working.

So, speaking for those three tribal councils, if I can do that, I would say that we would differ with those Indian letters you have received. Mr. MEEDS. Thank you.

As I recall now, the funding for this program, the overall program, is coming through the Department of Labor; is it not?

Mr. COLE. Yes.

Mr. MEEDS. How much funding do you have for the present year under which you are operating?

Mr. BILL. A total funding of $708,000.

Mr. MEEDS. How many Indian people do you have in training at the prsent time?

Mr. BILL. Approximately 130.

Mr. MEEDS. All of this is being directed through Skagit Valley College; is it not?

Mr. BILL. Yes; the training is provided by Skagit Valley Community College along with referral.

Mr. MEEDS. Is this the type of admonition, Walt, that we have from you, that you want to keep HEW in it? Is this what you are saying? Are you talking about local educational agencies?

Mr. ROBERTS. I am saying that we should take a very close look at a cooperative venture that would put both labor and HEW on an equal level. Perhaps what we need at the national level is, and I hate to say "super agency," something that would be responsible, a board, if you so desire, that would be responsible to see if it is labor, HEW or both that would do the job at the national level and see if there are multiagencies which have to be involved in this kind of thing and that they are utilized.

Mr. MEEDS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Steiger?

Mr. STEIGER. Chairman Meeds, I listened with great interest and I must say that I am pleased to know the kind of work you have done.

Since you raised the question, Mr. Bill, about number (j), the Bureau of Indian Affairs, you said that is a case history in itself, I would be fascinated to know what is going on.

Mr. BILL. Well officially I am going to make our first presentation to the Bureau of Indian Affairs next Tuesday in Portland, Oreg. There is a regional meeting of the Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendents. Again, it is on the advice of the committee that I go to them and tell them about our program and seek cooperation without being abrasive.