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Innovative VEA programs of proven value, have been incorporated into the school system's regular services. In the final analysis it is the management which directs the judicious use of VEA funds. It is this management which directs the

articulation of programs, prevent duplication, and has the capability of coordinating all services in a comprehensive system.

State administrative supports which are threatened in the new legislation, have

provided great benefits to the local education communities.

be preserved in the Federal law.

This support should

The fiscal crises which grip most urban centers, and New York City especially, make

it impossible to fund the administrative services from local sources. Without federal support, the benefits of VEA programs would be in serious jeopardy.

STATEMENT OF LOWELL A. BURKETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN VOCATIONAL ASSOCIATION; ACCOMPANIED BY DANIEL DUNHAM, STATE DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF VOCATIONALTECHNICAL EDUCATION, MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION; AND GEORGE QUARLES, CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF CAREER EDUCATION, BOARD OF EDUCATION, NEW YORK

Mr. BURKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. We appreciate the excellent leadership that this committee has given in perfecting Public Law 94-482. We believe that it is good legislation. It will help to expand and improve the program of vocational education.

We also appreciate your willingness to look at the legislation and to make such technical amendments as necessary so that the purposes of the act can be carried out to our best advantage.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we applaud the purposes of this act. I think we need to look at those very carefully as we consider the administration of the program. The purpose is to improve planning, to expand, improve and, where necessary, maintain programs, develop new programs, to overcome sex discrimination, sex stereotyping, and provide student support for those students who need the support in vocational education.

Our concern is that certain provisions in this act will affect the States and local communities in carrying out these purposes. We certainly want to do all that we possibly can to achieve the purposes set forth by the Congress.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I have examined the technical amendments that are in H.R. 3437 and believe that you have detected most of the changes that will be necessary. However, I have some concern about one or two of them.

Chairman PERKINS. Go right ahead.

Mr. BURKETT. The local and State administrators will have the major responsibility for the comprehensive planning that is called for in this legislation. This is going to take some astute leadership from people at those levels to accomplish that purpose, because it is going to involve working with many agencies, many types of programs that we have not worked with before.

For that reason, the responsibility of the administrator is going to be greater than it has ever been before.

In this legislation, another thing that is called for is the evaluation or accountability. It is going to call for a considerable amount of evaluation of the programs, the followup, working with employers to see how well the students have been trained. It is going to call for involvement with many agencies and advisory committee, particularly at the local level, which is spelled out in the law.

So again, I want to reemphasize the fact that administration and leadership is going to be a factor in the implementation of this act to accomplish the purpose that Congress has set forth, and which we applaud. We believe that the provision in the act for $25 million for planning that contains the State administration is not adequate. Our survey, which is in the testimony, indicates that much more money is

currently being spent-Federal money-that is in the $25 million with the added responsibility for planning and evaluation that is called for in the act. This would not at all satisfy the needs.

We applaud the fact that in your proposed amendments to H.R. 3437 that you remove the State administration from section 102(d), section 102 (a), because that will provide the States the money that is needed to administrate the funds. We believe the 50-50 matching set forth in the law will be the factor that will help to hold down the use of Federal funds for administration and keep it in balance. We applaud that.

We are concerned, however, about the fact that both the House bill and the Senate bill did make provisions for local administration, but we came to the conference and the local administration was left out. We are wondering why.

Really, the real responsibility for carrying out the evaluation, particularly in the planning, will be at the local level, so there is a great need for it. Some States have taken the State and local moneys to do that administration. However, due to the fact that most State legislatures will not be meeting, it will be difficult, within only a 2-year period, difficult for some of them to take on that responsibility.

I think you are going to find that local administration will be hurt in some States, not in every State. For that reason we would hope, Mr. Chairman, that the committee would consider the possibility of including the use of 102 (a) funds in local administration where that is necessary.

Another concern that we have we are not sure that it is going to require any legislative changes, but it may need some clarification— is when you say that you want to improve, to expand programs, the improvement will come through research, exemplary programs, and teacher training or inservice and preservice teacher training.

We are concerned that the 20 percent supportive services, the 20 percent basic grant for supportive services, may stifle some States in improving their programs, because there is a great need for inservice and preservice teacher training, upgrading standards to make them so that they can handle the programs of today.

We would hope that there would be some clarification and hope that the 20 percent would actually be a minimum rather than just a set amount of that.

Again, in the planning process, if it is done well, some States may use less, some may use more. To restrain the States from doing that may affect the quality of programs in some States.

Another concern that I have in the proposed amendments is the fact that you have taken State administration out of section 150 for home economics. I am fearful that what will happen in some States, that it will eliminate their State leadership in home economics. If there is only one program which needs strong leadership to make the changes necessary in the program, it would be home economics.

I would hope that you would continue to keep that in section 150. I notice that it has been removed and I would imagine that it was done. because of the fact that you were placing administration over in section 102(a).

One of the reasons why vocational education has been able to expand and improve is the leadership and technical assistance given by the

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State and local administrators. I sincerely hope that you will restore that into the legislation.

To me, Federal legislation, Federal support, has been the stimulus that has caused State and local communities to invest in the program and I would hope that you would do everything that you possibly can to stimulate those things that is going to do better planning, is going to improve the program and expand the program, because that is where the Federal dollars are really paying off at the present time.

Mr. Chairman, that is my brief statement or summary of what I have in my statement and I have with me a couple of gentlemen that I would like to have make a few comments.

First I have Mr. Dan Dunham, State director. Division of Vocational-Technical Education of Maryland. I would like for him to make a few comments.

Chairman PERKINS. Keep in mind whether you are spending any of the public funds in local education and what would happen if we did not make that permissible in the future.

Mr. DUNHAM. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I would like to clarify and concur with what Mr. Burkett has suggested to you as some of the key provisions of the bill, that you have introduced to make technical amendments to the existing law.

We welcome, first of all, the accountability dimensions of this new law. It has been too long in coming.

I think that if those are going to become realities, we must, indeed, have the capacity at the State and local levels to carry out the intent and mandates for accountability that are woven throughout this very excellent law.

With regard to the State administration issue, I concur again with the statements of Mr. Burkett. In our State, the proposed allocation funds, based upon the present level, would cause us, at the State level, to fall about $100,000 short of being able to maintain our administrative cost level, in terms of using Federal funds, even though we are currently matching at a 50-50 percent rate for State administration and have, for some years, in the State of Maryland.

The local administration issue is a critical issue, perhaps more so in other States than Maryland, as you can see by the data that is before

you.

In our case, approximately $125,000 is currently being spent for local administration. Portions of the salaries and support cost for administrators number 128. These are people who are local county supervisors, coordinators of vocational education, area local technical center directors, and deans of occupational education in community colleges. By and large it would affect, not drastically but significantly, the capacity to support the efforts of the local level, to eliminate the capacity in the law for use of the funds to pay portions of the cost of local administration.

It is my view that the local administration area in vocational education has been the primary reason that we have had progress and success with the programs that we do have.

I do think we need an amendment to include this as a part of the instruction, because it is instructional support. Without it, much would not get done at the local level; much of what we are doing very well would be compartmentalized and fragmented rather than being co

ordinated and giving us the capacity of broad-based programs as opposed to single-tracking types of programs.

There are only two or three other issues, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, that I would like to point out.

Again, in support of what Mr. Burkett has said, in the area of improvement of support services, the limit of 20 percent is a serious limit. În fact, in almost every State with whom I have visited over the last several months-in our own case, the whole issue of improving programs, curriculum and teacher education research, exemplary, et cetera, has been a high priority for us.

Of our six priorities for vocational education in the State, curriculum development as a method of improving programs and personnel development as a vehicle for carrying that out are top priorities. As a matter of fact, under the provisions of this law as presently constructed, we would cut almost in half the level of supportive services that we are able to provide in that part of the act which is popularly called subpart (3). That is a 20 percent.

There is a related issue that has to do with the set-asides of our disadvantage, handicapped, and proposed secondary. Under the present reading of the law, those issues appear to be aimed only at instructional programs. We have no capacity to draw on those funds for related supportive services for disadvantaged, handicapped, and postsecondary programs, because they are in another part of the formula. In fact, that is carving this money up. I suggest very strongly that we be able to deal with the set-asides in a way similar in the manner exactly the same as the rest of the money, which is that there should be 20 percent, at least as a minimum, of those set-asides available for program improvement purposes.

As a matter of fact, the most important issue that we have in our State today with regard to the disadvantaged and handicapped is the preparation of teachers and counselors who deal with those who have special needs, the handicapped, disadvantaged, in the regular program of vocational education, and we are simply going to be hamstrung in doing this if we do not have the capacity to reach into those dollars to do some things that we have been doing all along-they have been good things, I assure you to improve the capacities of those teachers to deal with those students who have those special needs.

I am suggesting, along with the amendments proposed in this resolution, that you clarify the splitting of funds to the end that we can excess the disadvantaged and handicapped moneys at some percentage level is I suggest 20 percent, as perhaps in this case, a maximum as opposed to a minimum, so we can have those developmental activities taking place there.

As a final point, I do concur with the comment about home economics. In our State, we would have a tough time justifying spending vocational educational dollars or State administration dollars for home economics. It is not a vocational education program; it is a consumer and homemaking program.

That is why it is a separate part of the law as it is.

I strongly urge you to place the capacity to spend dollars out of home economics for State administration, because it is a unique program. In my case, we simply could not support State-level staff in terms of our policies and procedures within the law.