Yet, this autonomy is one of the most precious things that needs to be developed.

Senator MONDALE. If, in fact, one's appraisal, and self-esteem, is essential to the learning process, then local and parental control is essential, isn't it?

Dr. GEIGER. I agree.

Senator MONDALE. If a black child sees the only one capable of bringing about his success is an outside white teacher, that says an awful lot.

I think this is central to our Indian education program. It is taught in English, with white teachers, and the poor Indian child comes to school and suddenly realizes that everything he thought to be of value and importance really isn't any good at all, that the white man is the only one who understands.

The anxieties that are produced and the destruction of self-esteem are such that you can't prepare them.

Dr. GEIGER. If you are asking me whether such programs should be professional centered or population centered, people centered, mother and father centered, I agree entirely with the latter.

I think we have had just about enough, and I speak of medicine as well, and some of my own errors as well, of programs that meet the needs of professionals, or satisfy professionals because they give them the opportunities to do things they think they should be doing, and may be grossly irrelevant to people who are supposed to be served. Senator MONDALE. On the nutrition committee, we spent several months trying to find out what the poor should eat.

Dr. GEIGER. Why didn't somebody ask the poor?

Senator MONDALE. And we were surprised to learn that the poor get a higher ratio of protein per dollar than most people. They know how to stretch a buck.

Dr. GEIGER. The role of the professional is to provide the input that will allow people to make choices of their own. When we were working out the crops that the North Bolivar County Co-op would plant, we sat down with the people and said, "From what you say, and what Department of Agriculture tells us, it looks like the soils will grow the following things, and these are things that nutritionists tell us we should consider, beans, fruits, and leafy vegetables.

"Here is the way the soils are, these are the vegetables that will grow. What would you like to eat, and what would you like to grow?” They worked it out shrewdly. If we had come along and said, "Grow this and this and this," it might not have worked.

Senator MONDALE. One last point. I assume many experts who will look at your chart, which shows the DQ of 117 on the average and slipping in a matter of 3 years to 85 on the average.

Dr. Schaeffer's studies indicate somewhat the same. They started at 108 and dropped to 89.

Do you know of any efforts with experimental and control groups in and around this area where one group was given a chance to have normal nutrition and educational opportunities and the rest that show the extent to which this deterioration might be diverted?

Dr. GEIGER. The problem is, you can't do that type of study ethically with human beings. There is no human way to say, "OK, this bunch of kids is going to get food and that bunch of kids isn't, so we can find

out precisely and scientifically what the effect of nutrition is on emotional development."

Senator MONDALE. But it is your judgment that a multifaceted approach could divert much of this deterioration?

Dr. GEIGER. I think there is every reason to believe that. I think the evidence of the better performing children in this study, and there are some that remain at relatively higher levels-the bar graph is the mean or average values-suggest that where there is more environmental input and better food, there is better performance on the part of the children. In many areas, we commit vast sums of money on the strength of much less scientific evidence than now exists for the premise that preventive action would be effective. Indeed, given these social and environmental circumstances, and the fact that Headstart does not begin until age 4 or 5, the criticisms of Headstart-in the Westinghouse study and elsewhere seem to me to be a cruel and cynical joke. It is as if, like the medieval Chinese, we bound the feet of infants at birth and then, at age 3 or 4, when they are all significantly crippled or deformed, we came along and said "Now, we have this thing called Headstart, and we're going so give you track shoes and teach you how to run." And then, after a year or so, we say "Gee, you don't run very fast-Headstart must be a failure."

Senator MONDALE. This is a very important point, I think, for the committee to establish, Mr. Chairman, because if in fact the very poor are given a just allotment of intellectual ability, but then through social oppression this erodes and deteriorates so that within a few years of life they go from youngsters who have college potential to youngsters who can only do marginal work, then this is costing this Nation billions and billions of dollars just in the sheerest kind of economic

terms.

Dr. GEIGER. I remarked to Senator Nelson, I believe, on the occasion of my last appearance that we seem to be spending a great deal more time worrying about oil depletion than the depletion of human beings, and acreage restriction than in the restriction of these kinds of human beings, and the loss of human resources is, I believe, staggering.

I don't think it is reasonable to demand absolute scientific assurance of efficacy in advance, and I believe Dr. Mendelsohn made this point. I don't see how in humanity and in our national interest we can fail to make this kind of effort in what is our primary national resource. Senator MONDALE. Do you think the program should be channeled through the States?

Dr. GEIGER. No; and I have two reasons for saying firmly and immediately no, two or three reasons.

First, in the South, the official State agencies in health, education and so on are very much a part of that same structure we have been discussing, which I think is going to be opposed not only to innovation, but to the participation and control by poor populations, be they black or white, but particularly if they are black.

Second, I think to channel it through official and existing State agencies is to limit the possibilities for innovation and experimen

tation.

Some of the biggest critics and enemies, in a way, of the comprehensive health centers as they were being developed were the established health agencies.

39-081-70-pt. 1- -5

Once, the director in the Mile Square Neighborhood Health Center was explaining to a visitor that as a part of giving comprehensive health care, she was, of course, very interested in an intensive program of tuberculosis care and followup.

The visitor turned purple, he turned out to be head of the State health department tuberculosis control program, and he ended up solemnly shaking a finger at her and saying, "Do you realize what you are doing? You are fragmenting tuberculosis."

I think the fragmenting of human beings is worse.

I think the local programs will come better through autonomous citizens' groups, or autonomous groups like our own, the North Bolivar Health Council, or in partnership with some people that can provide some input and resources, educational institutions, institutions of higher education and the like.

Senator NELSON. In the interests of a balanced record, in response. to Senator Mondale's questions concerning the effect of the deprivation of the minority in Mississippi, the relationship to opportunities, nutrition, and power structure, it is correct, is it not, that we get the same consequences from the same problem in New York City, Detroit, Chicago, among the minorities there and among the Mexican Americans in various parts of the country?

Dr. GEIGER. Absolutely. I think we can do ourselves no greater damage than to continue to think that this is a regional problem. It has been fashionable to point the finger at South, but not worry what is happening a mile away from some of our comfortable northern homes.

Let me say also, in an attempt to balance the record on that last issue, that we have had significant help, once started and once established, from institutions, technicians, and people, within Mississippi. Some of the best help that has come to us has come from Mississippi State University and its Agriculture Department.

I think there are many people who have some interest in helping, if you make it politically feasible to help by letting the autonomous group get started, and not asking them to have the political courage to support that starting up. That is too costly and expensive, and it doesn't tend to happen.

It would be unfair to pretend that every individual and every institution in Mississippi or Alabama or elsewhere is opposed to this kind of progress. I think by judicious treatment of the way grant applications are allowed to be made, you might make it possible for more Southern institutions to help.

Senator NELSON. I want to thank you for your valuable contributions to this hearing.

We will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.

(Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the subcommittee recessed to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, August 5, 1969.)

HEADSTART CHILD DEVELOPMENT ACT

TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1969

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT,

MANPOWER, AND POVERTY, OF THE

COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 9:30 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Senator Gaylord Nelson (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.

Present: Senators Nelson presiding, Mondale, Cranston, Dominick, and Murphy.

Committee staff members present: Robert O. Harris, staff director; William R. Bechtel, majority counsel to the subcommittee; and John Scales, minority counsel to the subcommittee.

Senator MONDALE (presiding pro tempore). The subcommittee will come to order.

This morning our first witness on the Headstart Child Development Act are Mrs. Clara Godbouldt and Mrs. Connie Ortega of the Project Headstart, Los Angeles, Calif.

I understand, Senator Cranston, you would like to introduce them. Senator CRANSTON. Yes. Thank you very much.

I would like to say a few words about these hearings, as I introduce two constituents from California.

I first want to say, Senator Mondale, that I think you have rendered a great service in the imaginative and comprehensive approach to child development for disadvantaged infants and youngsters you have taken in your bill, S. 2060, of which I am delighted to be a cosponsor with you. As the testimony from Drs. Mendelsohn and Geiger yesterday so powerfully illustrated, Headstart as presently constituted in the fifth and sixth year of a child's life may more aptly be termed "catchup." According to the Westinghouse learning study, it may well be too late at that point in life to make up the gap in a child's development.

If "Headstart" or even a "Fair Start" is the goal-and I think it must be the emphasis on prenatal care and the first several years of life which Senator Mondale's bill makes is, I feel, urgently needed. I join with Senator Mondale in asking the administration for fully and adequately funded programs rather than grand rhetoric and pilot projects in the war on poverty. That is the test of serious commitment to giving 6 million disadvantaged children a chance to overcome the debilitation and learning impairment which their environment may be producing.

Headstart is symbolic in being just that, the "start" of antipoverty efforts in point of time for the individual involved. In providing for approximately four times the amount of funds as were appropriated (61)

last fiscal year for Headstart--as would be authorized by S. 2060what is really at stake is our national security; no less.

Our survival as a great, democratic nation is, I believe, challenged at this point in time by our failure to establish the proper order of priorities to best secure the lives of all our citizens. No Federal investment promises more far-reaching and, hopefully, enduring effects than total commitment to a program at a level over 5 years sufficient to reach the total infant and child population so badly in need of assistance, and to do so in the crucial earliest years.

This morning, Mr. Chairman, I have the honor of introducing the first witnesses for today's hearing. They are as you have indicated: Mrs. Clara Godbouldt, chairman of the Headstart Policy Advisory Committee of the Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency of Greater Los Angeles; and Mrs. Connie Ortega, a member of that committee.

The record of the Los Angeles Headstart program is most impressive. The first full year Headstart program in Los Angeles County was conducted during the 1966-67 school year. During that year and the following year, the program was run on a 12-month basis. During the 1968-69 school year, the program was shortened to 10 months due to a 12-percent cut in Federal funds.

Of the approximately 8,500 children currently enrolled in Headstart programs in the county, 7,035 are attending classes administered by the Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency. Fifteen students are enrolled in each of the 469 classes, which meet at over 200 locations in Los Angeles County.

I understand that parents and other members of the community are employed as aides in these programs, and many have qualified for a California children's center permit, which certifies that they are capable of service as a head teacher in the Headstart program.

I consider this a vital aspect of the program and strongly support the emphasis on parental involvement in section 502(b) and on employing low-income persons in career ladder opportunities in section 502 (e) in Senator Mondale's bill.

It has been estimated that 75,000 children-3, 4, and 5 years oldare eligible for the Headstart program in the area administered by the EYOA.

Yet, only 10 percent, 10 percent of these children are now being served by the program. We must do far more in Los Angeles County. And we must do far more nationally. This is the challenge of Senator Mondale's bill and the challenge we face this morning.

Our first two witnesses are eminently qualified to tell it how it is in the Headstart program in the Los Angeles area. Mrs. Godbouldt and Mrs. Ortega have each put several of their children through Headstart, and Mrs. Ortega and Mrs. Godbouldt both have also been deeply involved in this important community effort.

It is of great value for the subcommittee to have firsthand testimony from Headstart mothers who have played so instrumental a role in directing a community-oriented Headstart program.

I am delighted to welcome you ladies here this morning, and I look forward to your testimony.

Before you begin, let me apologize in advance to you and the Chairman for I must shortly excuse myself to attend an executive session of another committee, on housing, which is another very important