STATEMENT OF RALPH B. JONES, STATE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, LITTLE ROCK, ARK. Senator AIKEN. You may proceed, Mr. Jones. Mr. JONES. I will speak here from the standpoint of the way this bill looks in an individual State. With your permission I should like to preface my statement by saying that the educational agencies of Arkansas which I represent are not here to beg for charity, to ask for a handout from the generosityof the Federal Government. Rather, we are here to try to represent a cause and to present the point of view of those on the firing line of the most gigantic battle in the world's history. The battle is joined for the survival of our democratic way of life against the planned and determined encroachments of other ways of life. Because there are other ways than ours and the democratic way which is now embattled for its very existence will not be saved either by beautiful allusions to its past grandeur or by shouting its economic benefits from the industrial housetops. It will be saved by its own self-regenerative powers which spring from the unpredictable richness and unmeasured productivity of human resources in the rare climate of a society of free people. It will be saved and perfected exactly to the extent that every single one of these human resources of ours is guaranteed a full and complete opportunity to develop its latent powers of performance in a free society. It is the unreasoned and unjustifiable waste of these individual human resources, these latent powers, these untold potentialities of our people that constitutes the greatest threat to our country and its way of life. It is this senseless erosion of human possibilities that alarms, discourages, and dismays those of us who face it every hour of every day and see its ghastly ravages among our people. But, what evidence of such waste can be shown? Take my own State, for example, which is quite typical of many of the 48 comprising this Nation. There we have a population of educable youth, by actual house-to-house enumeration, amounting to 446,000 between the ages of 6 and 17 years, inclusive. The total enrollment last year, 1945-46, in all schools of all types and classes was 406,000 leaving 40,000 educable youth in one State alone who were not in any school of any kind during that year. This is 10 percent of our future social and economic productivity which must not only be written off as a total loss, but in addition must be carried as dead weight by the other 90 percent. However, the picture darkens as we look a little farther. The average in daily attendance for the same year was 322,000, leaving 124,000 who either were not in school at all or attended so irregularly as to gain very little, if any, benefit. That is 27 percent of future productivity of our State to be written off as loss. Of the 406,000 enrolled and attending more or less regularly, 50 percent are housed in poorly constructed, overcrowded classrooms because of lack of funds to provide adequate buildings and employ sufficient numbers of well-trained teachers. And while on the subject of teachers, it should be noted that our public schools in Arkansas last year were staffed with teachers in the following categories of professional preparation: 36 with no high-school training at all; 48 with 1 year of high school; 40 with 2 years of high school; 45 with 3 years of high school; 2,170 with 4 years of high school but no college work; 584 high-school graduates with less than 1 year of college; 1,855 with 1 year of college; 7,847 with professional preparation of from 2 to 5 years of college. Of the State's 12,625 certified teachers, nearly 40 percent had less than 2 years of college, and nearly 20 percent had no college training at all. Yes, Arkansas has her chapter in the story of the vanishing teacher. From an analysis of this chapter we select only two challenging facts from among thousands. One class of 30 children in the Little Rock public schools, the largest and wealthiest school district in the State, has already had 5 different teachers this year. Imagine the confusion and bewilderment of those children. Eight thousand qualified teachers since 1941 have given positive evidence of their vanishing by making affidavit to their intention of leaving the profession for good and withdrawing their contributions from the State teacher-retirement system. Imagine the irrevocable loss to the children, the pupils of these former teachers. Isn't it about time to shift some of the emphasis in our thinking from the vanishing teacher to the vanishing educational opportunities of our children? For is it not true that our concern over the vanishing teacher is because it inevitably means vanishing educational opportunities for children? For the record, permit me to insert a few pertinent statements taken from a report of the National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards made March 28, 1947. I quote as follows: Freedom and equality, these two essential pillars upon which the structure of a free society must rest, both need strengthening in our day, but unless American people provide for action that will guarantee equality of opportunity, their freedom will fall into ruinous collapse. We cannot allow an American child to be limited in his development by a school with inferior teaching equipment and supplies just because he is born in an economically depleted area. We dare not idly stand by while the God-given gifts of youth who are poor are prostituted from high purposes. We cannot remain silent while careers are closed to American youth because they belong to the "wrong" race or have the "wrong" creed. If we indicate that a minimum of 4 years is required for the adequately prepared teacher, then we mean that we must have adequately prepared teachers for rural schools as well as for city schools. If we talk about high schools suited to the needs of boys and girls, we mean that there must be such schools in poor districts as well as in wealthy ones, for Negro students as well as for white. If the commission talks about opportunities in higher education, they mean that those opportunities shall be open to all qualified students. The past century removed most educational discrimination against girls and women; this century, this decade, must see the removal of economic, geographical, and race discriminations. The promise of American life, in the final analysis, has its roots here: The free opportunity to each individual to develop to the maximum his potentialities as a citizen, producer, and as a spiritual being. The activation of this ideal means providing the rural child with the same or equal chance as the urban child; the elementary child as the secondary child. It means providing for the rural children and elementary children, teachers, buildings, equipment, and curriculum of a quality equal to that provided for the urban and secondary children. If a teacher with minimum preparation of 4 years of college is the standard for secondary schools or for urban schools generally, then the same standard must be applied to elementary schools and to the rural schools. If a curriculum broad enough to serve the needs of every child is an accepted standard for urban children, then the rural child is entitled to the same quality of curriculum. This is the universal training program which America needs, and this commission is convinced that to advocate the creation of Federal structures and programs, whose purposes, in the final analysis, are to compensate for the failure of America to provide in the home community the equal opportunity to which we give fervent, incessant lip service is a dangerous begging of the fundamental question. It is a dangerous departure from traditional concepts of individual initiative and freedom upon which our creativeness as a people and our strength as a nation have been rooted. Further, it is a form of escapism—an expression of our unwillingness to come to grips with the more difficult problem of giving substance to the American dream through the functioning of our local institutions. It is a philosophy of failure of our homes, our churches, our schools, which this commission cannot accept and which the Commission believes is not substantiated by the facts. The answer to the proper defense of this Nation and to the ongoing of a healthy economic and spiritual life is the strengthening of the sources of these qualities rather than their further neglect and bypassing through superimposing remedial devices at the top. The universal training program the United States must have is the universal, free, and equal opportunity for every child for the release of his talents as close to the home environment as possible. Basic in a democracy is the belief that every child, regardless of the incidence of birth, regardless of the social or economic status of his parents, regardless of race, color, or creed, should be given such educational opportunities through the public school as would make it possible for him to develop his full capabilities for good and constructive productivity. As yet the Federal Government has seen fit to give, in the main, lip service to this democratic belief, because it is an economic fact that certain areas of the Nation do not have sufficient taxable wealth to maintain decent educational opportunities for all of their children, as Dr. Norton has so effectively shown. We have not been indifferent to the educational need of our children in Arkansas. We have not sat complacently by, waiting for the Federal Government to come to our assistance. We have urged and secured action in Arkansas before we presumed to urge action by the Congress. As a matter of fact, may I say parenthetically that we have scraped the bottom of financial resources in our State, as some of the facts which I intend to bring out further on will indicate. In 1934 the net receipts of local school districts from State funds in Arkansas amounted to $2,000,000. This year, 1946-47, they amounted to $17,000.000, and the general assembly at its recent session appropriated $21,000,000 for each year of the next biennium. Senator AIKEN. Is this the first year that they appropriated that amount? Mr. JONES. This is the largest amount that has ever been appropriated. Senator AIKEN. How much has it been increased over the last year? Mr. JONES. About $4,000,000 annually. Senator AIKEN. Does Arkansas have an income tax? Mr. JONES. Every type of a tax you can imagine; yes, sir. Senator AIKEN. But the $17,000,000 is raised principally from real estate? Mr. JONES. No, sir; the $17,000,000 figure is the amount the State has allocated this year from State funds, and it will be increased to $21,000,000 each year of the next biennium. Senator HILL. In other words, it does not include city, county, or district tax. Senator AIKEN. What percentage of the total cost of education does this $17,000,000 amount to, can you estimate that? Mr. JONES. Better than 60 percent of the total amount spent. Senator AIKEN. The State of Arkansas must be up close to the top in the percentage of State appropriations for the maintenance of the schools? Mr. JONES. That is true. Senator AIKEN. Yes; because in so many States the county bears. almost the entire expense. Mr. JONES. And in some States almost entirely from local funds. Senator AIKEN. That means the schools in those States are supported almost wholly from real-estate taxes. Senator HILL. You have a State ad valorem tax, have you not? To continue, this was accomplished only by increased taxation, which in some instances required a vote of 75 percent of the membership elected to each house. For each year of the next biennium the people of Arkansas will provide through taxes for the support of their public elementary and secondary schools in all of their phases approximately $31,000,000. That is both State and local support, Senator. In 1946 the estimated income of the people of Arkansas was $1,020,000,000. In 1946 they spent on public school services $27,000,000, State and local funds, which represents 2.6 percent of their income. Appropriations for next year represent, for each of the next years of the biennium, about 3 percent of last year's income, as compared with one and a half percent which I believe is the percentage that is recognized for the Nation as a whole. In spite of this significant effort, however, the average salary of teachers in Arkansas this next year will be only approximately $1,450, which is about $300 less than the average industrial wage in the State. With the increased cost of living, with the competition of higher wages in other fields, with overcrowded classrooms which can be relieved only by reducing the salaries of present teachers to employ other teachers, with very few young people training for teaching, the problem of the vanishing teacher remains in Arkansas, in spite of the fact that from 1937 to 1947 Arkansas increased its teachers' salaries from $534 average to $1,450 average. To provide increased financial support for public schools, colleges, State-supported charitable institutions, and highways, the general assembly appropriated every dime of available surpluses this year and passed a law which allocates to specific services every State tax dollar which accrues except 10 percent of all revenues other than highway taxes which are all earmarked, in excess of $33,050,000 per year. Appropriations for the next biennium are predicated on an anticipated tax income of $40,500,000, which would leave a surplus at the end of that of only $745,000 per year. I place that statement in there because it has been said so often that States, because of these vast accumulated surpluses, are in better position to finance their educational programs than is the Federal Government. In Arkansas, we will have no surplus. We do not have any surplus. In behalf of the children of Arkansas, almost half a million of them, I urge favorable action by the Congress on S. 472 because: These children, and millions of others like them, are citizens of the United States and as such are entitled to free, universal, and comprehensive educational opportunities. The people of Arkansas have provided a higher percentage of their income for the education of their children than many other States have provided, and still there is not enough money to do the job as it ought to be done. We believe that Federal aid is inevitable, because the people will eventually insist that the educational needs of their children be satisfied. The real issue is: In what form will Federal aid come? Will it come in a sane and sensible form such as that provided in S. 472and some other proposed measures which preserves local control over the public schools, which prohibits any discretionary power over the public schools on the part of any Federal officer or agency, which allocates funds to the several States on the basis of an objective formula, I might say formula of need and ability, and then leaves the administration of these funds in the hands of the established officers and agencies of the several States who operate under State laws and constitutions, and which insists that Federal funds be allocated only to public agencies under public control? Senator AIKEN. Are you opposed to section 6B of S. 472? That permits the States which are now spending money on nonprofit private schools to continue to do so. Mr. JONES. Senator, with your permission, I would like to present a statement on that point, since you raised it. The question raised by section 6B of S. 472 is not whether public funds should be used for nonpublic schools. In this connection it is not incompatible for one to support section 6B and at the same time be unalterably opposed to the principle of using public funds for nonpublic schools. The question is whether Federal Government or our State governments shall determine the eligibility or lack of eligibility of nonpublic schools for public support. The political philosophy upon which S. 472 is based includes as a chief factor the maximum possible protection of State control over education. With few exceptions, the determination of schools eligible for public support has been for more than 150 years a State function. There are those who argue that Congress should deny to the States the right to use Federal funds under S. 472 for nonpublic elementary and secondary schools made eligible by State governments for State and local taxes. There are others who argue that Congress should require the States to spend Federal funds under these acts for schools not approved by the States for local and State taxes. In both instances, the argument trespasses upon the principle of States' rights. Section 6B leaves the issue where it has, with few exceptions, always had its residence-in the States. The provision does not require the State either to spend Federal funds or not to spend Federal funds for nonpublic schools. It does say the States may spend the Federal funds for such schools if by State authority they are eligible to share in State and local school revenues. The section is, therefore, politically sound and is in keeping with the basic tenets of American Government. More specifically, it is in keeping with the principle of State and local control of education. Senator AIKEN. You have answered the question quite completely, Mr. Jones, and you understand what prompted it is the fact that there are those who say they would oppose it and still hold out for absolute rights of States, and there seemed to me to be an inconsistency there. I am glad you have by your answer shown that you are not inconsistent. Mr. JONES. I rather anticipated some question might arise on that, so I prepared a special statement. To continue, I ask the question again: Will we have Federal aid as |