We have been in conference after conference, day after day, and week after week, doing everything we possibly can do, to achieve the result that you suggest.

At the same time, I think President Holden is entirely right in saying that the general educational level of the school, if it is raised, out of it will come the talented and the gifted. Some of them are so talented and so gifted that no school could be bad enough to hold them down. There are those.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. How do you know, if you do not follow the suggestion in the Elliott bill or in the administration's bill, if you do not go out and try and conscientiously test these people. The sheer geniuses, you say, will shine through, but how about someone who is at a very low grade, eighth, ninth grade educational level who may drop out for economic reasons or some reason or another. He should be discovered and pushed on, particularly if he has some talent, some genius.

Mr. FULLER. Schools are giving more and more attention to that, just as much as they possibly can. That is the truth of it at the local level and at the State level, too.

I do not know how we can do more. If anybody can make suggestions that would improve the impetus of those efforts, they would certainly be appreciated by school people generally.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. The Commissioner of Education has been before the committee as has Secretary Folsom and others who have been before this committee. They have stressed this idea and they have criticized it. They have taken a somewhat more pessimistic view than you have. They have felt that there are 200,000 people, to be specific, who do not go on to college who may be among those forty or fifty thousand who should go on to college. The reason they do not is because they are not discovered at an early age.

Mr. FULLER. We have analyzed that 200,000 figure. About 85,000 of them are girls who get married. They may go later. Mr. WAINWRIGHT. You mean go back?

Mr. FULLER. To a different kind of college.

Others are people who eventually will be in colleges. A few are the sheer genius type that go on for themselves.

When you break that down, it is not quite as frightening as when you round it off at 200,000, which, incidentally, is merely an estimate. Nobody knows those things for certain.

Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Chairman, this point that I want to make may have some definite, real advantage to your point. I am wondering whether you are setting off as contrasting and conflicting the necessity for identifying talent early and developing it and, on the other hand, a broad family finance program of education for everybody.

In Vermont, of course, our numbers are mostly small, but I think that the trends there would be, in general, the kind of thing that is happening over the country.

If this talent is going to be identified early, and that we all feel is very important, sometimes the question of going to college or not is though it is partially a financial matter-is also partially a matter of aspiration. If a child comes from a family that never had any member in college, they never think of going to college. They go into high school with no college expectation, even if they have all that it takes.

Those young people have to be identified in the upper grades desirably, and it may take a few years of counseling with the child and his parents to make him realize that here is a real opportunity for which you are well qualified and for which means can probably be found.

So the counseling provisions in the schools are important. In Vermont, we have about 80 secondary schools. Six years ago we had 18 of them who had counseling activities. Somebody on the staff had time officially reserved for counseling and guidance. That has moved up to the point where during the current year there are 51 of those schools that have someone on the staff with some time reserved for these counseling activities.

We estimate that approximately 75 percent of the State secondary school population are in schools where there is some modicum, at least, to have this definite counseling service available.

We still have a way to go.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. You mean, trained guidance counselors? You mean, 75 percent of the schools have trained guidance counselors!

Mr. HOLDEN. No; it may be a principal who has 2 periods a day reserved, and he is taking 1 or 2 courses in counseling. It may be at that low level.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. But at least something is being done?

Mr. HOLDEN. Something is being done, but the coverage is thin. This 75 percent is not of the schools. It is of the population of the secondary schools.

In general, the largest schools, of course, tend to be set up with counseling service more than the smaller schools.

Mr. NICHOLSON. Would you say that the GI's that came out of World War II and went to college, and thousands upon thousands of them made good and never had people in their own families who had been college people or anything, doesn't that knock your argument to pieces, the statistics on GI education?

Mr. HOLDEN. I think that the GI's are something different from a child of 12 or 13 or 14 years of age who has never been out of his neighborhood. These GI's have seen some of the world, and even if they came from families that had no college expectation, the sort of thing that they have been going through, plus the financial opportunity, made college quite a natural thing for them. There is no question that they change the character of the student body in many of our colleges in a very favorable way.

I was teaching in a college when the G. I.'s started coming back, and they had a real impact. It seems to me that those boys who have been through the wars and are 22 or 24 years old certainly are not ones you can compare with these children growing up in these communities now. Mr. FULLER. Mr. Chairman, may I proceed with my statement? I am afraid the time is getting short, and there are some actual figures about how the superintendents throughout the country think in these matters that I would like to get in.

Mr. ELLIOTT. The report that you mentioned earlier to the gentleman from New York will be made a part of the record following your testimony.

Mr. FULLER. I wanted to read those into the record.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Yes, you may proceed.

Mr. FULLER. With regard to State and local autonomy, we believe that from the point of view of allowing each State to meet its own

needs within the general purposes of the legislation, the administration's proposal in section 223 (a) of title II is better than any comparable provision of the Hill-Elliott bill.

Here the major portion of the funds authorized are to be distributed to local school districts on the basis of State plans which have wide leeway in meeting State and local needs.

The funds may be used by local educational agencies to employ additional science or mathematics teachers, or to increase the rate of compensation for such teachers already in service; or to provide special equipment necessary for teaching science or mathematics and for minor remodeling of laboratories, or for any activities or expenditures not involving teachers salaries, provision of equipment or capital outlays which the State educational agency finds will otherwise expand or improve science or mathematics instruction. We believe this is the sort of flexibility which will make the funds most useful in each State according to its own needs.

In some States, laboratory equipment may not be needed as badly as additional teachers of science and mathematics. Elsewhere, the competition of industry for science and mathematics teachers from high schools may have depleted the supply of such teachers so badly that additional salaries, at least on a temporary basis, will be desirable. In other States, laboratory facilities and equipment may be the first priority. Many States will combine 2 or 3 of the alternatives in their State plans.

Best of all, the administration's bill permits a State to develop additional means on its own initiative to carry out the purposes of the legislation. We hope your committee's final bill will carry these alternatives, Mr. Chairman, if you decide on a bill with multiple special aids.

On information and statistics: The administration's bill provides for greatly needed assistance to the State agencies for the gathering of information and statistics, but it does so under a pattern we believe could be improved. It concerns reporting of educational facts from nearly 50,000 local school districts to the States, and subsequent reporting by the States to the United States Office of Education. At present the States are under no legal obligation to report to the United States Office of Education, although all of them do this as a matter of professional cooperation.

Our system of educational reporting is far from perfect. We make some sacrifices for local control of education. Such democracy is more difficult to operate than a centralized system. In recent years great improvements have been made, however, through cooperation of local, State, and national school officials.

The principal difficulty is in the slowness of the States in receiving the information from all of the thousands of school districts, and the statistics are not official and ready for transmittal to the Office of Education until they are complete.

Title V of the administration's bill could legally impose another system of data gathering on the existing one, paid for 50-50 by the Federal Government and the States, and based on contracts by the States with the United States Commissioner of Education. Although we are certain that the present excellent Commissioner has nothing of the kind in mind, he could legally prescribe the statistics to be gathered or withhold the money from the States.

It seems to me that title V should provide the funds for programs as defined by the States, and that the Office of Education should rely, as it does now, upon the excellent professional contacts it now has to get the information it needs.

Mr. Chairman, the national security in regard to the rest of the world, the economic conditions of our society at the present time, and the responsibilities for adequate education that we have toward our rapidly increasing population of children and youth all justify Federal action in education.

We congratulate the administration for introducing its legislation. We congratulate Representative Elliott for introducing even more liberal legislation which will go further to meet the needs of national security, the educational requirements of our children and youth and the economic conditions prevailing in the United States. Then, we hasten to add, the bill introduced by Representative Metcalf should be given thorough consideration.

THE MURRAY-METCALF BILL

The theory of Representative Metcalf's bill is fundamentally different from the bill of the administration, and considerably different from the bill which you have yourself introduced, Mr. Chairman. It assumes that there is a responsibility in the Federal Government to share in meeting the costs of education, just as it now shares in meeting the costs for building highways, for health services of various kinds, social security, public welfare, and public works of many kinds except schools.

It is a simple plan, leaving to the States whether they shall use the funds for the salaries of elementary and secondary public school teachers or for the construction of elementary and secondary public schools, each State according to its own need.

The formula is the flat grant, a fixed amount per child of school age. Where substantial funds are involved it is our opinion that the flat grant is the most equitable system of distribution because the inherent leveling effect of the progressive Federal tax system itself contains a very large element of equalization.

I would like to submit for the record here a State-by-State computation of what the actual tax load is in each State to support a billion dollars for schools, assuming allocation back to the States on the basis of school-age population 5 to 17 years of age.

When the Federal tax incidence has been computed to make certain that the Federal tax load falls where it is actually borne rather than merely where the Federal taxes happen to be collected, you will see that the actual equalizing effect as between a school-age person in Mississippi and one in New York is almost 7 to 1 according to Federal taxes paid. We have long favored this formula for distribution where large funds are involved.

If Federal funds were allocated on this theory, the bogey-man of Federal control of education would recede into the background. The States would have almost complete control of the use of the funds to intermix with their State funds for education, using substantially the entire amount for the improvement of education at the local level.

The Metcalf bill has an excellent provision to insure maintenance of State and local effort. This sort of help is preferable in theory and in

practice to a series of special aids for education such as are presented by the administration's bill and by your own bill, Mr. Chairman.

Based on district by district surveys last year in about three-fourths of the States, the need for additional classrooms is now 140,400 and the excess pupils 1,937,000. This is a reduction from a need for 159,000 classrooms and an excess of 2,295,000 pupils last year. The crowded conditions, of course, affect about 7 million pupils. The overcrowded pupils in a classroom of 45, for instance, include both the normal 30 and the excess 15.

During the past year the school housing situation improved in 24 States, became worse in 17, and remained about the same in the remaining 7 States. We believe the Metcalf bill would be of great assistance in housing our pupils, including an adequate supply of laboratories and scientific equipment.

It is unreasonable to suppose that Congress will build all sorts of public works and leave out the schools that are the basis of the Nation's long-term national defense and economic capacity. No antirecession legislation can provide as well for the long-term national welfare as building schools.

Now permit me, Mr. Chairman, to read into the record a summary of opinions from chief State school officers on this legislation. Their evaluations of the administration's bill, the Hill-Elliott bill and the Metcalf bill were made independently and at different times.

I might add that when they evaluated the administration's bill and the Hill-Elliott bill that the Murray-Metcalf bill had not yet been introduced. They were done independently, and singly, and specifically with instructions to consider that bill as though it were the only bill as they registered their preferences.

Then we asked them which of the three proposals they preferred or whether they preferred no legislation at all.

I am going to read those into the record here as rapidly as possible, in order to give the general consensus.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Let me say to you, Dr. Fuller, insofar as the Metcalf bill is concerned, it is not pending before either of these subcommittees for hearing at this time.

Mr. FULLER. I see.

Mr. ELLIOTT. So if you could put the emphasis on the administration's bill and on the Hill-Elliott bill, that might be helpful to us. I do not know when the Murray-Metcalf bill will be heard, but I assume that it will be reached at some future date. It is not now under consideration, however.

Mr. FULLER. It is not now pending?

Mr. ELLIOTT. Not by these two subcommittees.

Mr. FULLER. Do you want me, Mr. Chairman, to omit reference to the Metcalf bill?

Mr. ELLIOTT. I assume it is in your statement, so you may incorporate it. My thought was that since we did not have it before us, that maybe you might not want to read the part pertaining to the Murray-Metcalf bill.

Mr. FULLER. It is much more briefly dealt with, and the only part, then, that I will read into the record will be when the three of them were put together in an inquiry on the administration's bill, the HillElliott bill, and the fourth choice of "no legislation at all."