sectarian interest in them. The care of children is one means of propagating the faith. The intensity of the desire to breach the wall of separation of church and state is exhibited in the bill S. 199, title II, section 202, which provides that in the distribution of funds for services the Federal Government shall make the payments directly to the schools in States where State laws prevent the distribution of funds to religious institutions. Such a procedure would be a flagrant misuse of Federal power. I would remind you that while Congress prolongs these discussions about the boundary between civil and ecclesiastical authority and about what the educational needs are, millions of children suffer from the lack of great educational opportunities that this nation could give them. Children have a way of growing up rapidly. While their elders dispute over their intellectual and spiritual welfare they grow up in relative ignorance. Many thousands of them are not in school at all because of the lack of teachers and school facilities. This is a disgrace to a nation so powerful, so enlightened, and so wealthy as the United States. I know I express the wish of millions of organized working people when I urge you to action on this most vital need of our times. A representative of labor before the Senate Committee on Education the other day said the Federal Government should be spending a billion dollars a year on the schools. That is not an extravagant sum to mention in view of the need of the children and the wealth of the Nation. But the teachers whom I represent, and I am sure the vast majority of the teachers of the country, would prefer the more modest sums mentioned in bills S. 472 and H. R. 2953 with guarantees that the great principle of religious freedom and equality will not be violated than billions without such guarantees. Respectfully submitted, CHARLES J. HENDLEY, Representing, The Teachers Union, Local 555, UPW-CIO. TENNESSEE'S EDUCATIONAL CRISIS, SUBMITTED BY A. D. HOLT, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, TENNESSEE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION TO THE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION Following are conditions existing in Tennessee's schools at the present time: TEACHER TURN-OVER Fifty thousand different teachers have filled Tennessee's 20,000 teaching positions in the past 5 years. Dozens of classrooms have had two, four, six, and even eight different teachers in the course of 1 year. Six of every ten high-school teachers now employed were not in their present positions 5 years ago. Only 33 of the State's 95 county superintendents were in their present positions in 1940. TRAINING OF TEACHERS The average training of Tennessee's county elementary school teachers dropped from approximately 3 years of college training in 1941-42 to approximately 11⁄2 years of college training. There are five times as many teachers now with less than 1 year of college training than there were in 1941-42. Approximately 700 teachers employed in Tennessee's schools this year had not graduated from high school. Many of them had barely graduated from elementary school. Five thousand of Tennessee's teachers this year were granted temporary permits to teach because they had inadequate training to secure a teacher's certificate. OUTLOOK FOR NEW TEACHERS Of Tennessee's 30,000 students enrolled in 36 public and private institutions of higher learning, only 499 have expressed their intention to secure elementary school teaching certificates this year. Over 5,000 are needed to fill our vacancies. A recent survey of 50 rural counties indicated that only 70 high-school graduates of 1946 are now in college preparing to teach. Ninety percent of a group of highschool seniors recently interrogated gave inadequate pay as their reason for failure to choose teaching as their profession. TEACHERS' SALARIES The average salary of all teachers and school administrators in Tennessee this year is approximately $1,300. The average for county elementary teachers, who compose half of the State's teaching staff, is $950. Dozens of teachers in the State have incomes of less than $700 per year. RECENT INCREASE IN STATE'S SCHOOL APPROPRIATIONS The 1947 legislature recently enacted legislation which will substantially increase the State's appropriations for all phases of public education. However, these increases will bring the State's average school expenditures per student to approximately $90 per year, whereas the average for the Nation will approximate $125. The average salary of Tennessee's teachers next year will probably be $1,650, whereas in at least six States the minimum for qualified teachers will be $2,400. Funds for supervision, transportation, health education, teaching supplies, etc., although increased, will still be woefully inadequate for a satisfactory program of education. TENNESSEE'S FINANCIAL LIMITATIONS With the recent enactment of a 2 percent retail tax, Tennessee has practically exhausted its potential sources of increased State revenue for schools. On the basis of any index which may be used, Tennessee will rate around the top of the list of States in financial effort to support its public schools. At the same time, it still rates around the bottom of the list of States in the amount actually spent per student on public education. SOLUTION OF THE SITUATION Because of Tennessee's unusual educational burden and its financial limitations, the only hope for an adequate program of education in Tennessee lies in Federal aid to education, such as is provided in S. 472. The Tennessee Education Association heartily endorses S. 472 and urges its early enactment into law. Hon. GEORGE D. AIKEN PENNSYLVANIA STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Education, Washington 25, D. C. MY DEAR MR. AIKEN: It is my wish in this communication to inform you that the Pennsylvania State Education Association with a membership of 54,000 teachers and administrators approves and urges the passage by the Federal Congress of S. 472, which provides for assistance to the States for public education. In urging the enactment of this measure may we point out that we strongly urge there be retained in it a minimum of Federal control. The association of which I am president is greatly concerned with the inequity of educational opportunity among the different States of the Uuion, the absence of public educational opportunities for children in some sections of the United States, and the low level of educational opportunity that prevails in certain areas of even our wealthiest States. We believe that the children of America are its greatest resource, that America can continue to be great only as these human resources come to their full development, and that material and military defense, no matter how effective, will fail unless bolstered and supported by citizens who through education are prepared well to act their part in maintaining the freedom and power inherent in our representative form of government. Very sincerely yours, FRED W. HOSLER, President. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY, Senator GEORGE D. AIKEN, Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Education, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR AIKEN: Since I cannot appear before your subcommittee in behalf of S. 472, I want to make this statement for the committee and urge that a bill embodying the principles in S. 472 be reported to the Senate. I have been director of teacher education in Kentucky since 1933. I have worked with national committees and regional committees in the promotion of higher standards for teachers. We in Kentucky and in the southern area have done everything we can to maintain a staff of trained teachers for our schools, but always we have faced the fact that we are not able to pay our trained teachers an adequate salary. Kentucky is one of the many States in the Union which is making a definite effort to maintain its teaching staff. There are approximately 18,164 teachers employed in Kentucky. When the war started, the demands of the war years began taking our teachers from the classrooms. Their places were taken by emergency teachers. We had hoped that then the war was over these teachers would return to the classrooms. They have not returned. We are now faced with the appalling fact that we have issued more emergency certificates in 1946-47 than anytime during the war years. We simply are not able to offer the salaries sufficiently large to attract back to the classroom those good teachers whom the war took away from us. We have made great efforts to stem the tide, as the following facts will show. Since January 1, 1944, the State allotment to local districts for school purposes has gone from $10,000,000 to $19,500,000. This, as you can see, is approximately 95 percent increase over a 3-year period in the State's allotment to the local school fund. In addition to this, the legislature has raised the maximum permissive tax rate from 7.5 mills to 15 mills. One-half of our districts have raised their local tax rates since this permissive tax rate was increased. In the face of these major efforts, more than 50 percent of our teachers receive less than $1,400. When the war was started our Government selected the sons of the men from every State in the Union-the poor States and the rich States. No question was asked as to whether these boys and girls came from wealthy States or poor States. These men, gathered from every nook and corner of our land, risked their lives to fight for the ideals of democracy. The very core of democracy lies in the right of every child under the flag to an education. These men have returned and are rearing their own families. They have children who will have to go to school. They want the best schools for them. These men should have for their own children some of the democracy which they offered to the world. I can think of no better way for a grateful people to express their appreciation for the sacrifices, of men than to guarantee for their children an opportunity to an education. S. 472 is not the complete answer but it is a step on the right road. In listening to you and watching you preside over the Subcommittee on Education and Labor, I am convinced that you are making a major effort to stop the delay in answering this call which has been heard for many years throughout the country a call for educational opportunity among the several States. Cordially yours, RICHARD E. JAGGERS, Director, Teacher Education and Certification. QUOTA CLUB INTERNATIONAL, INC., Washington 6, D. C., April 30, 1947. Senator ROBERT A. TAFT, Chairman, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR TAFT: Quota Club International, Inc., wishes to go on record during the hearings on Federal aid to education as in favor of S. 472 with the exception of section 6B, which we believe should be deleted. We are of the opinion that whereas States may have the right to use State funds in any manner they see fit, Federal funds should be used only on public nonsectarian educational projects which are offered without restriction to all children and young people. Quota International has voted at successive conventions in favor of Federal aid to education, and our members in clubs throughout the United States support the policy of Federal aid to equalize educational opportunities in all parts of the Nation. Sincerely yours, GLADYS W. JONES, General Secretary. MISSOURI STATE TEACHERS ASSOCIATION, Hon. GEORGE D. AIKEN, Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Education, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR AIKEN: The Missouri State Teachers Association, at its meeting in Kansas City on November 6, 1946, unanimously adopted the following resolution on Federal aid to education: "The Missouri State Teachers Association records its belief in the necessity for a program of Federal aid sufficient in amount to guarantee an adequate program of public education, and emphasizes its belief that Federal participation should be channeled through the regularly constituted educational agencies in the several States." We are truly in the throes of an educational crisis in Missouri. Two thousand three hundred sixty-eight emergency certificates have been issued; 309 departments and classrooms in high-school districts have been closed; 5,200 teachers are new to their positions this year; the preparation of teachers is rapidly declining, only 3 out of 10 rural teachers teaching this year were even teaching in 1941; the average annual salary of rural teachers is $1,063, and the average annual salary of all teachers in the State is $1,793. The situation is growing increasingly worse and it is obvious that it will be most acute for the coming school year. Sincerely yours, Hon. GEORGE D. AIKEN, EVERETT KEITH. NEW JERSEY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Education, Washington 25, D. C. DEAR SENATOR AIKEN: The New Jersey Education Association has been on record for Federal aid to education for more than 15 years. The platform of the association, adopted in November 1946, contains the following statement: "Education should be financed by a carefully coordinated and balanced program of local, State, and national communities. "1. Federal funds should be provided, on an equitable basis, and under State and local control, for the support of education. "2. In emergencies, Federal or State funds should be available, to prevent interruption of educational progress." This association, representing 27,000 teachers in the New Jersey public schools, therefore wishes to be recorded, at your hearings on S. 472, as in favor of Federal aid to education, and specifically in favor of S. 472, of which New Jersey's Senator, H. Alexander Smith, is a sponsor. Through the National Education Association, New Jersey educators have played a substantial part in the development of this bill. We fully recognize that the Federal-aid plan incorporated in this bill will not bring Federal funds to our State at the present time. We accept the principle that limited funds should be used in those States where the need is greatest. We have supported that same principle in the distribution of our own State's money for education. Naturally we hope that, as the principle of Federal aid becomes established and accepted, the Federal Government will recognize its obligations toward all children, wherever they may live. We believe that the Federal Government can well use some of its taxing power to help support in all States a program of education that will develop better citizens in all. New Jersey will, however, benefit from Federal aid as provided under S. 472. Ours is a highly urbanized, highly industrial State which draws its citizens not only from New Jersey, but from the whole country, and especially from the very States which. S. 472 most aids. Between 1920 and 1940 New Jersey virtually doubled its Negro population, largely through migration from the rural South. The better the education these men and women receive in their native States, the better New Jersey citizens they become. The 1940 census shows that nearly one-third of New Jersey's American-born citizens were born in other States. This is far higher than in any other State in our section of the country. As population shifts, New Jersey consistently draws more people from other States than it loses to them. Thus the educational standards of New Jersey's people depend not only on our efforts, but on the standards of its sister States. S. 472 would help raise these. Our association heartily endorses the following principles on which S. 472 is based: (1) absence of Federal control; (2) use of Federal funds under the individual State's constitutional provisions governing education; (3) provision for a minimum foundation program for American public education. We hope your committee will report S. 472 favorably, and we ask that this statement be entered in the record of your hearings. Very sincerely yours, BERTHA LAWRENCE, President, New Jersey Education Association. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Washington 25, D. C. FEDERAL AID TO ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION CONTENTS 1. The national problem of school finance. 2. The cost of the Nation's schools. 3. Federal policies in education. 4. The current questions relating to Federal aid. (C. A. Quattlebaum, General Research Section, April 23, 1947) 1. THE NATIONAL PROBLEM OF SCHOOL FINANCE The problems of adequate financial support for the Nation's schools are perennial.1 A study of the history of education in this country indicates that probably never before have these problems been so important or their solution so urgent as now. The general problem of school finance is national in character and in scope. There is common agreement that the educational attainment of the population is important to the welfare and progress of the country as a whole. That a fairly high minimum level of education for all citizens is of fundamental importance in a modern democracy is no longer a subject for debate. The broad question at issue is to what extent the Federal Government is responsible for maintaining this minimum educational level, and to what extent the Federal Government is responsible for providing equal educational opportunity for the future citizens of the Nation. From its inception the Federal Government has assumed a share of the responsibility for the financing of public education. In most of the States the public schools are still receiving considerable income from land grants initiated by the Congress of the Confederation in 17852 and increased through many years to a 1 Paul R. Mort and Walter C. Reusser. Public School Finance. New York, McGraw Hill Book Co. 1941. P. 3. L. E. Blauch. Federal Relations to Education, Encyclopedia of Educational Rescarch. New York, the MacMillan Co., 1941. P. 495. |