CHAPTER IV. PRESIDENTIAL RECOMMENDATIONS AND RELATED STATEMENTS CONCERNING EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Consideration by the 89th Congress of bills concerning education and training was influenced early in the 1st session by President Lyndon B. Johnson's state of the Union message on January 4, 1965, and by his annual education program message on January 12, 1965. Many later messages and statements from President Johnson in 1965 related in whole or in part to legislation concerned with education and/or training.

Following are the texts of recommendations to Congress and other principal statements concerning education and training expressed by President Johnson within the period of January 4 to November 8, 1965. The purpose of this compilation is to bring together these recommendations and related statements in one place.

In some cases the quotations in the following pages are excerpts from longer messages or statements, which are identified in this compilation and are available to persons interested in reading the complete texts.

A. STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE, JANUARY 4, 1965

(Excerpts)

A NATIONAL AGENDA

I propose we begin a program in education to insure every American child the fullest development of his mind and skills.

I propose we honor and support the achievements of thought and the creations of art.

Our third goal is to improve the quality of American life.

THROUGH EDUCATION

We begin with learning.

Every child must have the best education our Nation can provide. Thomas Jefferson said no nation can be both ignorant and free. Today no nation can be both ignorant and great.

In addition to our existing programs, I will recommend a new program for schools and students with a first-year authorization of $1,500 million.

It will help at every stage along the road to learning.

For the preschool years we will help needy children become aware of the excitement of learning.

For the primary and secondary school years we will aid public schools serving low-income families and assist students in both public and private schools.

For the college years we will provide scholarships to high school students of the greatest promise and greatest need and guaranteed low-interest loans to students continuing their college studies.

New laboratories and centers will help our schools lift their standards of excellence and explore new methods of teaching. These centers will provide special training for those who need and deserve special treatment.

B. EDUCATION PROGRAM MESSAGE, JANUARY 12, 1965

In 1787, the Continental Congress declared in the Northwest Ordinance: "Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

America is strong and prosperous and free because for 178 years we have honored that commitment.

In the United States today

One-quarter of all Americans are in the Nation's classrooms.

High school attendance has grown eighteenfold since the turn of the century-six times as fast as the population.

College enrollment has advanced eightyfold. Americans today support a fourth of the world's institutions of higher learning and a third of its professors and college students.

In the life of the individual, education is always an unfinished task. And in the life of this Nation, the advancement of education is a continuing challenge.

There is a darker side to education in America:

One student out of every three now in the fifth grade will drop out before finishing high school-if the present rate continues. Almost a million young people will continue to quit school each year-if our schools fail to stimulate their desire to learn.

Over 100,000 of our brightest high school graduates each year will not go to college and many others will leave college-if the opportunity for higher education is not expanded.

The cost of this neglect runs high-both for the youth and the Nation:

Unemployment of young people with an eighth grade education or less is four times the national average.

Jobs filled by high school graduates rose by 40 percent in the last 10 years. Jobs for those with less schooling decreased by nearly 10 percent.

We can measure the cost in even starker terms. We now spend about $450 a year per child in our public schools. But we spend $1,800 a year to keep a delinquent youth in a detention home, $2,500 a year for a family on relief, $3,500 a year for a criminal in State prison.

The growing numbers of young people reaching school age demand that we move swiftly even to stand still.

Attendance in elementary and secondary schools will increase by 4 million in the next 5 years; 400,000 new classrooms will be needed to meet this growth. But almost one-half million of the Nation's existing classrooms are already more than 30 years old. The post-World War II boom in babies has now reached college age. And by 1970, our colleges must be prepared to add 50 percent more enrollment to their presently overcrowded facilities. In the past, Congress has supported an increasing commitment to education in America. Last year, I signed historic measures passed by the 88th Congress to provide

Facilities badly needed by universities, colleges, and community colleges;

Major new resources for vocational training;

More loans and fellowships for students enrolled in higher education; and

Enlarged and improved training for physicians, dentists, and

nurses.

I propose that the 89th Congress join me in extending the commitment still further. I propose that we declare a national goal of

FULL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY

Every child must be encouraged to get as much education as he has the ability to take.

We want this not only for his sake-but for the Nation's sake.

Nothing matters more to the future of our country: not our military preparedness, for armed might is worthless if we lack the brainpower to build a world of peace; not our productive economy, for we cannot sustain growth without trained manpower; not our democratic system of government, for freedom is fragile if citizens are ignorant.

We must demand that our schools increase not only the quantity but the quality of America's education. For we recognize that nuclear age problems cannot be solved with horse-and-buggy learning. The three R's of our school system must be supported by the three T'steachers who are superior, techniques of instruction that are modern, and thinking about education which places it first in all our plans and hopes.

Specifically, four major tasks confront us—

to bring better education to millions of disadvantaged youth who need it most;

to put the best educational equipment and ideas and innovations within reach of all students;

to advance the technology of teaching and the training of teachers; and

to provide incentives for those who wish to learn at every stage along the road to learning.

Our program must match the magnitude of these tasks. The budget on education which I request for fiscal year 1966 will contain a total of $4.1 billion. This includes $1.1 billion to finance programs established by the 88th Congress. I will submit a request for $1.5 billion in new obligational authority to finance the programs described in this mes

sage. This expenditure is a small price to pay for developing our Nation's most priceless resource.

In all that we do, we mean to strengthen our State and community education systems. Federal assistance does not mean Federal control-as past programs have proven. The late Senator Robert Taft declared:

"Education is primarily a State function-but in the field of education, as in the fields of health, relief, and medical care, the Federal Government has a secondary obligation to see that there is a basic floor under those essential services for all adults and children in the United States."

In this spirit, I urge that we now push ahead with the No. 1 business of the American people-the education of our youth in preschools, elementary and secondary schools, and in the colleges and universities.

I. PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS

My budget will include up to $150 million for preschool projects under the community action program of the Economic Opportunity

Act.

Education must begin with the very young. The child from the urban or rural slum frequently misses his chance even before he begins school. Tests show that he is usually a year behind in academic attainment by the time he reaches the third grade-and up to 3 years behind if he reaches the eighth grade. By then the handicap has grown too great for many children. Their horizons have narrowed; their prospects for lifetimes of failure have hardened. A large percentage of our young people whose family incomes are less than $2,000 do not go beyond the eighth grade.

Preschool programs have demonstrated marked success in overcoming this initial handicap:

In New York City, children from slum neighborhoods who attended nursery school have performed better when tested in the third and fourth grades than those who did not attend.

In Baltimore, children with language and cultural handicaps are being helped greatly by a preschool program. According to preliminary reports, two-thirds of them are in the top 50 percent of their kindergarten and first grade classes on a citywide measure; one-sixth of them are in the top quarter.

But today, almost half of our school districts conduct no kindergarten classes. Public nursery schools are found in only about 100 of our 26,000 school districts. We must expand our preschool program in order to reach disadvantaged children early.

Action on a wide front will begin this summer through a special "head-start" program for children who are scheduled to begin school next fall. In addition, funds for low-income schools, regional education laboratories, and supplementary educational centers and services (recommended below) will be devoted to these vital preschool programs.

II. ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Elementary and secondary schools are the foundation of our education system:

Forty-eight million students are now in our grade and high schools.

Seventy-one percent of the Nation's expenditures for education are spent on elementary and secondary schooling.

If these schools are to do their job properly, they need help and they need it now. I propose that we give first priority to a program

of:

A. To low-income school districts

I recommend that legislation be enacted to authorize a major program of assistance to public elementary and secondary schools serving children of low-income families. My budget for fiscal year 1966 will request $1 billion for this new program.

One hundred years ago, a man with 6 or 7 years of schooling stood well above the average. His chances to get ahead were as good as the next man's. But today, lack of formal education is likely to mean low wages, frequent unemployment, and a home in an urban or rural slum.

Poverty has many roots, but the taproot is ignorance:

Poverty is the lot of two-thirds of the families in which the family head has had 8 years or less of schooling.

Twenty percent of the youth aged 18 to 24 with an eighth-grade education or less are unemployed-four times the national

average.

Just as ignorance breeds poverty, poverty all too often breeds ignorance in the next generation;

Nearly half the youths rejected by selective service for educational deficiency have fathers who are unemployed or else working in unskilled and low-income jobs.

Fathers of more than one-half of the draft rejectees did not complete the eighth grade.

The burden on the Nation's schools is not evenly distributed. Lowincome families are heavily concentrated in particular urban neighborhoods or rural areas. Faced with the largest educational needs, many of these school districts have inadequate financial resources. This imbalance has been increased by the movement of high-income families from the center of cities to the suburbs—and their replacement by low-income families from rural areas:

The five States with the lowest incomes spend only an average of $276 per pupil, less than half the average of the five highest income States.

Despite a massive effort, our big cities generally spend only about two-thirds as much per pupil as their adjacent suburbs. In our 15 largest cities, 60 percent of the 10th-grade students from poverty neighborhoods drop out before finishing high school.