(Mr. Levering submitted the following brief:)

TESTIMONY ON S. 472 AND OTHER BILLS PROVIDING FOR FEDERAL AID TO EDUCATION, BEFORE SENATE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE, ON APRIL 23, 1947

I am Samuel R. Levering of Ararat, Va., which is 8 miles from the North Carolina line. I am an orchardist. Today I have been asked to speak for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. This committee is widely representative of all Quaker groups in the United States, among whom I travel extensively.

We favor the general principle of Federal aid to education, with liberal provision of funds. There are two major reasons for this position as we see it. In the first place, the relative financial status of various States makes it impossible for all of them to afford, without undue sacrifice, adequate programs of education. The inequality of income per capita in some States relative to that in others has been well illustrated in figures published by the National Education Association. The statistics relative to the two States in which I am most interested as compared with the national average and with the expenditures in New York follow:

In the second place, education is a national, not a local, problem. To begin with, it is a fact that low-income areas are generally marked by a high birth rate. This is especially true in the mountain and rural regions of the South. A large percentage of these children, after school age, migrate to other States. If they do not receive the proper schooling in the South where they spend their childhood, they will never get it; and the Nation as a whole will suffer from this deficiency. Real democracy and ability to participate intelligently in helping to determine the role of the United States in world affairs depend on education, which gives a vision beyond the local mountains or rural communities. Federal aid is especially necessary if Negroes and underprivileged whites are to receive adequate education. As far as Federal control of the use of funds is concerned, three remarks may be made:

1. There should be a provision that an equitable proportion of Federalaid funds must be spent for education of minority groups, especially Negroes; 2. Minimum standards of education should be prerequisite to receiving Federal-aid funds;

3. The Federal Government should have nothing to do with content taught or selection of teachers.

I should like to illustrate the way we feel about the need for education in the South by citing the situation in my own community. The school where my two daughters go, in Carroll County, Va., is supposed to have a principal, another high-school teacher, and three grade-school teachers. This year we have no principal, no high-school teacher, or high school. Of the three grade-school teachers, only one has a certificate; the other two are qualified only to the extent of graduation from this poor high school. The question might be asked, "Has anything been done to obtain improvement?" We have made efforts in various other directions but found all of them futile. We have offered to supplement funds locally to get qualified teachers, but this was rejected because that would cause dissatisfaction in other parts of the county. We have worked for more

State aid. We see no immediate answer except finding private schooling for our children. But very few people in our poor rural county can afford that.

Senator AIKEN. The next witness is David I. Ashe of New York City.

STATEMENT OF DAVID I. ASHE, LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, UNITED PARENTS ASSOCIATIONS OF NEW YORK CITY, N. Y.

Mr. ASHE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am here representing the United Parents Associations of New York City. We are a federation of parents associations and parent-teacher associations in New York City, comprising both public and private schools, and we are chartered by the State of New York. We have been in existence for the past 25 years.

I would like to make it clear on the record, since our organization is not as well known in Washington as it is in New York, that we are nonpartisan, nonpolitical. We have members of every religious faith, every possible economic status, and of all political persuasions. Our only interest is in questions concerning the welfare of children, schools, and education, and as parents and taxpayers we have come before you today to plead for Federal aid to education.

It is our view that if our children are to be prepared to cope with the growing complexities of life, brought on particularly as an aftermath of the war, we must expand and improve our educational facilities throughout the Nation, and educational services. We believe that there can be no more worthy purpose for which public funds should be expended.

Unless the grave situation in which our public schools find themselves today is remedied, and remedied quickly, they will be faced with a progressive deterioration which will seriously threaten their continued functioning as a bulwark of our American way of life. It is hardly necessary before you gentlemen to stress the need for Federal aid. The remarks made by the members of the committee this morning have indicated that you well understand the problem, but if anyone has any doubt he has but to read the excellent theories of articles written 2 months ago by Dr. Benjamin Fine, educational editor of the New York Times, which appeared in that paper just about 2 months ago, and which were the result of a 6-month survey made by Dr. Fine after an extensive tour of the country from coast to coast. In my statement, which you have before you, I have summarized some of his conclusions, and I will not go into them at the present time. I do, though, want to point this out: New York State is among the highest in the amount spent for public education. Even in New York City, however, where I come from, there is a great and continuing exodus of competent teachers from the school system, largely because of poor compensation. Buildings are still in use in New York City which were erected before the Civil War, some in the 1940's, and they are not only dilapidated so that the children cannot possibly go there with a sense of getting a lust for learning, but they are definite health hazards and have been so found by building authorities and by medical authorities, yet children have to attend there with hazard to themselves and to their teachers.

Senator THOMAS. Are those buildings paid for, or are they still in debt for them?

Mr. ASHE. I don't know just what the exact financial set-up in New York may be on that, but I do believe that most of them are paid for. There are some newer ones, perhaps, on which some bonds still are outstanding-very few. They are paid for. However, we

60144-47--10

have a constitutional debt limit in New York City which prohibits the raising of additional funds for badly needed buildings at the present time.

With such conditions existing in New York, no one can imagine what exists throughout the country. What I want to stress, though, is that in the world-wide conflict of ideologies, the conflict between democracy and totalitarianism which is raging all over the world today, how can we hope to prevail if the United States at the present time spends 1.5 percent of the national income for schools, while Great Britain spends 3 percent and Russia spends 7.5 percent?

Senator AIKEN. I might say there, Mr. Ashe, that the chairman of this subcommittee got into a little difficulty when he quoted these percentages the other day, and made the statement that Russia spends 7 percent of their income for schools and the United States only 11⁄2 percent. Today I received some of the local papers from up home. They headline that "Aiken favors Russian plan for education." [Laughter.]

Mr. ASHE. Let me place myself on record, Senator I may just say for the record that the one thing that I would like to avoid is the Russian plan for education, and I think the only way we can hope to meet that problem is by our Government, if not matching the 7.5 percent, at least increasing substantially the amount. That is the only way we can possibly do it.

Senator AIKEN. I agree with you, in spite of the headlines.

Mr. ASHE. An intelligent, educated citizenry is absolutely essential if the United States is to retain its position as the leading democratic country of the world. May I say parenthetically here that you gentlemen voted only yesterday to supply $400,000,000 to aid Turkey and Greece, in order to prevent the spread of totalitarian doctrine in certain portions of the world. We certainly cannot afford to permit our own citizens to lose the benefit of democracy by default because we do not educate them to what democracy means, to what the American system of government, the American democratic way of life means. An uneducated citizenry, ignorant of the meaning and the benefits of our American way of life can easily be misled by foreign totalitarian ideology.

I don't know whether the United States Chamber of Commerce is scheduled to appear before your committee, but it has published a very interesting report entitled "Education and Investment in People," in

which it shows

Senator AIKEN. (interposing) I beg your pardon, they are scheduled to appear. I had understood they were not, although their attitude is well known.

Mr. ASHE. Then you are familiar with their report and with what it shows as to the correlation between the amount of money a State spends on its public schools and the social and economic level that it reaches.

There was also some reference made by the first speaker this morning about findings which appeared as a result of the last war. I am going to be very brief, Senator. What he did not point out—and I think this is very significant-is that the equivalent of 20 divisions were unavailable to the United States Army during World War II because of rejections for lack of educational requirements, not for mental dis

ability but for educational requirements, according to the report that your own committee gave last year.

In view of the serious teachers' shortage which Federal Education Commissioner Studebaker has called a crisis, we favor the principle embodied in S. 81 and S. 170, although I am not here to discuss with you the amount involved-I think the teachers' organizations would be more qualified to discuss those but in any event, increasing teachers' salaries would not be enough. We therefore favor, and favor very strongly, the appropriations provided under Title I of S. 199, so that no State would spend less than $100 per pupil in public elementary and secondary schools after 1953. We think that is a minimum below which we ought not go.

We do believe, however, that a proviso should be written into any bill which your committee approves, similar to section 7B of S. 472, which would prohibit any State or local government which receives Federal aid from decreasing the amount of its present expenditures for public education. Federal aid should be provided in order to increase educational services or facilities, not to decrease them or keep them static.

We also favor the principle embodied in 7A (1) of S. 472 about no discrimination between different minority groups in States receiving Federal aid

As to the amount of money that would have to be expended for such Federal aid, I think it is interesting, gentlemen, to note that the money that will be appropriated for the entire year 1948, under Title I of S. 199 would be less than twice the amount expended by our government each day to carry on World War II after VE-day. In other words, after the war in Europe was over we were still spending per day something like $250,000,000 to carry on the war to its conclusion. And for the entire fiscal year ending June 30, 1952, and thereafter, under Title I of S. 199, the amount would be equal to the cost of carrying on the war for 5 days after VE-day. This is certainly a small enough expenditure for insuring that the democratic ideals to which our Nation gave not only so much money but so many thousands of human lives to preserve, will be protected. As a matter of policy, though, gentlemen, we believe that such aid should be limited to schools of a completely public character.

And aside from any issue of policy, I submit that Title II of S. 199 is unconstitutional, as violative of the first amendment, and that Section 6B of S. 472 suffers from the same infirmity insofar as it permits the use of Federal funds for parochial schools in those States which now render financial assistance to such schools. I refer-you, gentlemen, to the very able dissenting opinion in the Everson case which, though it is a dissenting opinion, summarizes in great detail the entire history of the fight for the separation of church and state, beginning with Madison and continuing down to the present day.

I do not want to rely, however upon a dissenting opinion, of course. I therefore turn to the majority opinion in that case, where the Court said:

The first amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. And the only reason why the majority of the Court in the New Jersey

parochial bus case, by a majority of 1, upheld the expenditure there was that, in the Court's opinion-and I quote—

The State contributes no money to the schools. It does not support them. Its legislation as applied does no more than provide a general program to help parents get their children, regardless of their religion, safely and expeditiously to and from accredited schools.

I am not going to enter into any discussion as to whether the majority or the minority were right on the parochial bus issue. I am not concerned with that here. Neither are you gentlemen. What is directly in point here, though, is that all the members of the Supreme Court, including your recent colleague, Mr. Justice Burton, agreed that public funds may not, under the first amendment, be contributed to or used for the support of parochial schools, yet that is precisely what title II of S. 199 proposes to do, and with all due respect to the chairman, may I point out that in the Congressional Record of January 15, 1947, Senator Aiken said—or at least this is an extension of remarks, I believe

This bill proposes, frankly, to face the public-private-church-school issue through a plan which would authorize the use of tax moneys collected by the Federal Government from all the Nation's citizens to reimburse nonpublic, tax-exempt schools of noncollegiate grades for an important part of their expense of operation. Such aid from tax sources would encourage the establishment of privately controlled schools of secondary grade or less.

And section 6B of S. 472 would permit the same unconstitutional use of Federal tax money.

I am not discussing here the importance of parochial schools or the importance of private schools. I am not here to argue against them. I do believe, though, and submit for your consideration the fact, that whether we like it or not, the law has been so interpreted by the Supreme Court in very clear language, and this would be unconstitutional.

Senator AIKEN. Do you consider that medical inspection or school nurse assistants, or transportation to school, or even the furnishing of maps and books constitute expenditure of public funds to private schools?

Mr. ASHE. Senator, if I read the majority opinion of the Everson case, I believe that that would be considered unconstitutional.

Senator AIKEN. Do you believe, under the opinions for instance, that the State of Louisiana will be obliged to forego furnishing supplies to private schools? Or that the school authorities of Vermont will have to forego permitting a child to attend a private school within a mile of his home, and go 20 miles to the nearest public high school? Do you think that his opinion will require that?

Mr. ASHE. As far as the latter is concerned, the Everson case decided, at least for the time being, by a 5-to-4 decision, that transportation may be furnished.

As to the first question, that came up once before in the Supreme Court in a case involving Louisiana, with which Senator Ellender may be familiar, Cochran v. Louisiana. However, the only question argued, and the only question decided there, was whether paying moneys from the public treasury to parochial schools and other private schools for the purchase of textbooks and supplies violated the due-process clause of the fourteenth amendment. The first amendment was neither argued nor considered by the Court.