"school" was not used. Well, that is true. The word "school" was not used, and actually we made no special request that it be used, and in checking back with Dr. Hansen's office, I was informed that they were not authorized to, in any way, indicate that they give official approval or certification of any agency or organization as a certified school because they have no legal authorization to do so.

Senator GRUENING. Who said this, Mr. Hansen or Mr. Gray?
Mr. BERNSTEIN. No, Miss Pepper.

Now, Mr. Gray's point was that the word "school" was not used. But we feel that such words as "educational" and "training service," the fact that the public schools do refer pupils to us

Senator GRUENING. Will you describe your work?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes. We have essentially two programs. Rather, our program is divided into two major parts. One is a sheltered workshop type of facility and the other is an evaluation and training program where we specifically attempt to evaluate the vocational potential of a client, develop this potential, and we hope eventually to place the individual in a job in the community, and I might add that we have been very successful in doing this.

Senator GRUENING. You say you have children referred to you from the school system?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Oh, definitely.

Senator GRUENING. Children who are retarded and cannot keep up with the regular school curricula, and therefore they come to you? Mr. BERNSTEIN. That is right. You see, the public school system has only one school for the trainable retarded. Those are children with 50 or below IQ.

Senator GRUENING. Is this school accredited in the same way that private schools of the District are?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. You mean our place?

Senator GRUENING. Yes.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. No. It is not, because the public school system has no authority, you see, to

Senator GRUENING. But you consider it a school in every sense of the word? A school for retarded children?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. We consider it a school in that we are providing an educational facility for these people and we are training them, and we are supplementing the work, and in some instances doing the work that the public school system just cannot do.

Senator GRUENING. What is the basis of the refusal of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare? What did they give as their reason? They must have a specific reason.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Well, from what I can understand from Mr. Gray, it was specifically because the word "school" was not used in this letter from Dr. Hansen.

Senator GRUENING. Is Mr. Gray here?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes, he is.

Senator GRUENING. Mr. Gray, would you be kind enough to come forward and join in this discussion? We will make this quite informal.

You have heard the testimony of Mr. Bernstein. What is the position of the Department on this matter?

STATEMENT OF J. WENDELL GRAY, CHIEF, DIVISION OF SURPLUS PROPERTY UTILIZATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Mr. GRAY. We have had two difficulties in connection with this particular institution. As I mentioned the other day in describing how we determine eligibility, we seek to establish that, first-we must, because the law says "schools"-that it is in effect a school and second, that if it is a school, that it is approved or accredited by a responsible body, and we look to the State education departments, wherever that is possible.

Senator GRUENING. In this case it would be the District of Columbia.

Mr. GRAY. The District of Columbia. And Mr. Bernstein advises me, he did the other day when we had our discussion, that the District of Columbia apparently lacks authority to approve or disapprove an institution of this kind.

Senator GRUENING. Where is such authority?

Mr. GRAY. Well, if there is no such authority in the District of Columbia, then such authority would be lacking, as far as I can see. Senator GRUENING. Well, can you not cut the Gordian knot as the representative of the Department of Education of the Federal Government? Could you not make an administrative decision? If there is no authority, are these people destined to be suspended in a vacuum indefinitely?

Mr. GRAY. Well, we have another measurement that we use and many schools have obtained eligibility on this basis. We have said to them, in the event you cannot acquire approval or accreditation by reason of the lack of authority, if you can demonstrate that students from your school are accepted when they reach a certain point by other accredited schools, that they can move back and forth, then this would certainly be evidence that you are carrying on an approved and accredited program.

Senator GRUENING. Would it not be evidence if they are received in this institution from the school system for the purpose of training? Would not that be evidence that it is a school?

Mr. GRAY. That is certainly some evidence, yes.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, may I say something on that point? With the type of program that we have, it is highly unlikely that we would refer any of our people to another institution, because if we are taking them at the age of 16 or over, these people, as far as the public schools are concerned, have about reached their maximum limits within the special education facilities here in the District.

Now, if we are going to work with these individuals for a few months or a year or possibly two, there is not much point in this particular kind of program to refer them to another institution. Either these people are going to be rehabilitated and placed on a job in the community or they are going to have to be put in other special-put in another type of special environment such as possibly a sheltered workshop, but these people almost never at this point go on for more extended training, because if they have not been successfully improved by this point, then most likely they are not going to be.

Senator GRUENING. Well, Mr. Gray, would you not think that receiving these pupils from the school system was a more compelling factor than what becomes of them ultimately?

Now, it is very obvious, as Mr. Bernstein says, they are deficient in being able to keep pace with the normal education system, so they come here. What ultimately becomes of them, of course, depends on how much they can be rehabilitated and whether jobs can be found for them, but I should think it would be clear that they would not be likely to be referred to other educational institutions after this. This is the end as far as their chance of being rehabilitated, and I find it difficult to understand why on a wholly technical reason this is denied them.

I think this would be a very logical place for the Department of Education to find a way to move in here.

Mr. GRAY. Well, Senator, Mr. Bernstein

Senator GRUENING. If I am making a mistake, please clarify it. Mr. GRAY. As Mr. Bernstein will tell you, we are continuing to explore this thing.

The other difficulty we had-Mr. Bernstein has not mentioned it, but I presume he intends to-there is a Maryland county also referring some youngsters to his institution. The thing that troubles us, the law says it must be a school, and neither the superintendent in the District nor the superintendent in this Maryland district, Prince Georges County, has been willing so far to refer to this as a school. They refer to it as a workshop, or as a training center, and we asked them specifically, well, can't you say to us-you are an educational authority-can't you say to us this in your view is a school, and they have been very reluctant to do so.

Senator GRUENING. Are we not getting down to a matter of semantics? Is not a training center a school? You do not expect to teach these children Greek, but you do teach them workshop matters. Why isn't that approval? I do not see why your Department cannot make that decision administratively.

Mr. GRAY. Well, our attorneys have told us that on the basis of the evidence submitted in this case, we cannot. This case has been reviewed by our counsel and

Senator GRUENING. Is your attorney here?

Mr. GRAY. Yes, Mr. Hiller is here.

Senator GRUENING. I wish he would come and join this discussion. Mr. Hiller, apparently you are the obstacle in the road here. Will you explain your process of reasoning?

STATEMENT OF MANUEL B. HILLER, CHIEF, ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES BRANCH, OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Mr. HILLER. Well, as Mr. Gray has indicated, we had great difficulty in finding that the organization met the standards and criteria which we have established under our regulations.

As you know, sir, we operate under law and pursuant to regulations which are prescribed for the purpose of implementing and carrying out the law as we see it and as we understand it. Our regulations require and define the organizations which are considered to be schools,

colleges, and universities, which terms are mentioned in the section of the act which confers eligibility, and organizations of that character are required under our regulations to be either approved or accredited by appropriate approving authorities of the State or, as Mr. Gray has pointed out, where there are no such authorities or where authorities are not legally authorized to confer approval or accreditation upon schools of a private nonprofit nature, why then the extent to which these schools receive the equivalent of approval or accreditation in the form of a recognition of their credits and their studies by other schools which are approved is considered as qualifying or alternate to the approval or the accreditation that our regulations require.

Now, it may be that in a given isolated case these standards or criteria are not all encompassing. If that be so, well, then, we just can't help the situation in the sense that our function as we see it is to carry out the act and the regulations.

Senator GRUENING. Well, is there any other school in the District for retarded children that is receiving help, receiving surpluses?

Mr. HILLER. I would not be prepared to answer that question, sir, though I do think that there is a school for retarded children that is operated by the District Board of Education itself.

Mr. GRAY. That is correct, and they would be eligible as a part of the public school system, the school system itself.

Senator GRUENING. And that other school is receiving surplus now! Mr. GRAY. Yes. Any school that is a part of the public school system.

Senator GRUENING. Well, I should like to find out what this particular workshop is lacking that prevents it from getting this accreditation. If the District of Columbia school system cannot do it, can't you find some language, Mr. Hiller, that would make that possible! The great Comptroller General, Mr. John McCall, during the Roosevelt days, once informed me-and it has proved very useful-that if you can get language, you can do almost anything in the Govern

ment.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, may I bring out one further point? We were talking here about approval, and for the life of me in any language I cannot understand how we are not approved, and I would also like to point out that the Prince Georges County Board of Education has authorized our agency to be paid county funds, county education funds, for each pupil that is referred to us and accepted into our program by the Prince Georges County schools.

Now, if this isn't some kind of official approval by the Prince Georges County Board of Education, I just do not know what is, because certainly these people cannot pay out tax funds which are collected for the specific purposes of educating the county's children and pay such funds to a private agency out of the county and out of the State for the education of these children. This to me is a very strong kind of approval.

Senator GRUENING. What would you say to that, Mr. Hiller?
Mr. HILLER. I am not sure that that information was presented

to us.

Mr. GRAY. That information was not presented to us at the time we made our determination. It was presented to me last week, and

officially in a letter from the Prince Georges County Board of Education, which I received only Friday afternoon. That information was not available at the time we made the decision.

Senator GRUENING. Well, then, our problem is solved, is it not? You have the information.

Mr. HILLER. I would be reluctant to make a determination at this time, sir.

Senator GRUENING. Would you not say in addiiton to the fact that Prince Georges County supplies funds and that the District school. system sends children there, is not that recognition?

Mr. HILLER. Well, I do not recall precisely the manner in which the District sends their schoolchildren to this organization. I do not believe that in sending them there they send them in the sense of supporting them and paying for their tuition or other expenses of attendance there. My understanding is that this is a referral and a recommendation to go to this organization for such services as this organization can perform on behalf of the children. But it is nothing more than a referral or recommendation.

Am I correct, sir?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes; that is true, but I do not believe that the District of Columbia Board of Education has funds to purchase educational services from anybody. I do not believe that they have the same power, for example, in this situation that the Prince Georges County Board of Education does.

I might add another thing, too, that there are situations where the Board of Education feels that they have taken a given child to the maximum level that this child can reach in the public school system, and releases that child from the public schools on the condition that he come to our workshop, to our training center.

Mr. HILLER. There again, sir, is another factor which I do not recall having been informed of as of the time the problem had been presented to us for our review.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Well, getting down to brass tacks, I just cannot imagine the Board of Education referring anybody, whether it is with payment or without it, to any place that they do not approve of. Certainly they are not going to refer a pupil or his family to a place where they feel that the child is not going to be helped, where they feel there is not an educational program, where they feel that the child cannot be furthered in his education. Certainly they are not going to do that. Senator GRUENING. I think we agree referral is recognition. Mr. BERNSTEIN. I would think so.

Senator GRUENING. Mr. Hiller, you would not refer a person to a lawyer or counsel unless they were trustworthy and competent in this field. If the Department of Education in the District of Columbia sends children there, refers them there, that certainly is recognition, and whether the word "school" appears seems to me highly technical and I think the Department, in view of this new information which it has just received, might make a decision that would be favorable to this institution.

Mr. HILLER. May I suggest, sir, we are always willing to review decisions that we have made, particularly where additional or new information is presented. But I am sure you will agree that we are always under surveillance, in a manner of speaking, of the General