But the graduate in math or any science has a wide choice of better paying jobs than teaching when he looks around for a career. That is why you find so many people teaching those subjects who are better prepared in other fields, and hope to get into the other fields soon.

They are frequently uninspiring teachers in these fields, and they do not wish to advance in them but to get out of them quickly. Every effort must be made to draw good mathematicians and scientists into the teaching field and to hold them there. This bill makes a good start. We cannot adequately meet this problem of teachers' salaries, however, unless we meet it head on. Today we have some 91,200 full-time teachers in our schools on an emergency basis, holders of substandard certificates. This constitutes only about 7.3 percent of the total teaching staff, nationwide, but it represents the teachers of millions of pupils in thousands of classes.

Some 69,800 of these unqualified teachers are in elementary schools. About 21,400 are in high schools. The greater danger is that the emergency will become permanent.

What is the recent situation with respect to our teachers? They are suffering heavily from the continuing rise in the cost of living. From 1956 to 1957, according to Office of Education figures, the national average teacher's salary increased by 2.6 percent.

During the same period the consumer price index rose 3.5 percent, so that the teachers suffered a net loss in income. For many such a cut would be serious, for teachers it is almost unbearable.

The average income of United States teachers in 1957 was $4,330. The median beginning salary for all teachers in the United States last year was only $3,600, according to the Office of Education.

Remember, that means that half of the teachers in the United States had a starting salary below $3,600 a year.

The former United States Commissioner of Education, Samuel M. Brownell, has put the situation graphically. Mr. Brownell said that, assuming teachers work 6 hours per day for the 190 school-year days, their pay in Detroit, where Mr. Brownell now works, is at the rate of 15 cents per hour for each of 35 pupils, less pay per child than that received by the average babysitter.

These facts speak for themselves. We are not properly compensating good teachers with such substandard pay. It is impossible to attract competent new graduates into the teaching profession on the required scale with such marginal pay, and it is impossible to retain enough of the limited number of good teachers we have even now with such meager compensation.

What should be the income of a good teacher? Should it be less than $100 per week, say merely $5,000 per year? Only two States in the Union have an average teacher income that high.

The Heller committee of the University of California in 1956 established a family living standard, by no means luxurious, which, adjusted to 1957 prices, would require an annual income of $5,776.

Not only are teachers underpaid now, both absolutely and relatively, but their relative position is steadily declining. With the continuing climb in the Nation's cost-of-living the prospect is bleak indeed and teachers are taking heed of these economic realities.

One of the aims of the Congress, in legislation on this problem, should be to provide sufficient money for teachers' salaries to assist them in reestablishing themselves in the public esteem.

The job satisfaction we all like to find in our occupation ceases at some point on the economic downturn. In a society where success is often equated with income we can easily recognize the teachers' need. As important as salary itself may be, more important is the recognition by social action and legislation of the immense value of teachers to the national community. Salary improvements would be a signal that we recognize the worth and importance of our teachers. The labor movement does not believe for 1 minute that Federal scholarships can replace the need for prompt increases in teachers' income. We need not make an agonized choice. We can afford both. The obvious need is for prompt and sufficient Federal financial aid for teachers' salaries.

The section providing for improved guidance and counseling service in the Elliott bill can help the future of science in three ways.

First, it should mean that able students are steered into the challenging courses for which they are fitted, instead of drifting into something easier.

Second, it should also aid in keeping out of the tough courses those students whose abilities do not match their parents' ambitions, and who now sometimes pull down the level of work in classes to which they should not have been admitted.

And third, it relieves the overworked teachers of a burden of counseling with students and parents for which they lack the time and the special training.

The American labor movement is of course particularly interested in the provisions for technical training for essential occupations, including, as it should, instruction for apprentices. The men at the drafting boards and in the laboratories need the best college training we can give them. But the men in the shops must be well trained too, or they cannot carry out competently the production jobs which need to be done. Skills become obsolete quickly in our civilization, and an adequate plan for training, and retraining, technicians and all types of skilled labor is a vital necessity.

Mr. Chairman, my testimony has covered a broad range of problems, all under the subject of education. I wish to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear on this occasion and to present our views on these matters of paramount concern.

We are confident that the House will act boldly and courageously to meet this challenge. We hope you will give attention to bills like the Kelley bill, H. R. 1, the Frelinghuysen bill, H. R. 11530, and the Metcalf bill, H. R. 10763, as well as the Elliott bill, so that a wellrounded program of Federal aid to education, including school construction and teachers' salaries, can be developed.

Given this assistance, we feel sure that our educators will respond and will provide America with the school program it requires, one which will be second to none on earth.

Thank you.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Thank you very much, Mr. Biemiller.

I recognize now the gentlelady from Oregon, Mrs. Green.

Mrs. GREEN. I should like to discuss priority for a minute.

I notice you say, or you infer at times, that you do not have to choose between and I am inclined to agree with you.

But supposing from a practical consideration this Congress, or this committee, does have to choose and does have to establish priority,

98049-58-pt. 3—37

what would you place in your top priority in the educational program, aid to teachers or building additional classes at a high-school level?

Mr. BIEMILLER. As a practical matter, I think we would choose school construction.

Mrs. GREEN. From an educational standpoint, or antirecession? Mr. BIEMILLER. A combination of that.

First, I think there has been a good educational job done throughout the country on this subject, by PTA's, the labor movement, and other groups. I think in my opinion you will find in almost every opinion poll that has been taken, either by professional pollsters or the numerous polls I see in the appendixes of the Congressional Record taken by Members of Congress, that Federal aid for school construction always comes up with a good majority, not just bare ones, and I think this is a fact that ought to be recognized and a serious fight done.

When you have a corollary to it that at the same time this would provide stimulants to the economy I would urge that if priorities have to be made this should be the No. 1 priority.

Furthermore, it is our firm conviction that one of the reasons for present difficulties in the high schools and in the colleges, with the alleged bad intellectual background that some children seem to have, much of that is due to the overcrowding that exists in so many of our schools.

We do not believe that a teacher can be expected to do a thoroughly good job when she is burdened with 35, 40, 45, and more students and when she has had a bad area in which to do the teaching in many places.

We think it is important to provide classrooms so that we can get a decent teacher-pupil ratio as one of the fundamentals for the improvement of our education.

Now, if you want to go to a second priority, I would say probably teachers' salaries are more important, in our opinion, than scholarships, but I would insist that you do not have to make priorities; that this job should be tackled by the American people and all of them done at once.

Mrs. GREEN. My own personal philosophy would agree with you. I am talking about practical politics. You make it perfectly clear that you would put a Federal school construction program at the elementary and high-school level above aid to teachers?

Mr. BIEMILLER. If that choice has to be made.

Mrs. GREEN. Now, a question which is a little bit off education, Mr. Chairman, but if I may ask it while Mr. Biemiller is here.

Again in priorities and antirecession, since you brought the subject up as far as construction is concerned, you place the building of schoolhouses as the most important thing in a construction and antirecession program.

Mr. BIEMILLER. You are taking in the entire economy on this matter?

Mrs. GREEN. I am referring to the post offices.

Mr. BIEMILLER. Certainly we think it is more important than post offices, but, at the same time, I would not rule out for 1 moment the question of building more homes, which is also a vital need of the

American people. We have millions of substandard homes at the present time that this is also a vital necessity.

Mrs. GREEN. This is not a kind of program in terms of a publicworks program or construction program.

Mr. BIEMILLER. I understood you to say as recession measures. If you mean in terms of Government moneys

Mrs. GREEN. I do.

Mr. BIEMILLER. Then I would say that schools are certainly on a par with any public-housing program or anything of that sort that has to come along.

Mrs. GREEN. Do you place obtaining jobs for the American people as first priority above, for example, the extension of unemployment compensation?

Mr. BIEMILLER. Well, you pose a problem there that again gets into one of these unfortunate either/or categories.

We can answer in those terms that we think the whole job should be done at once. But I think we have made it clear that in the opinion of the American labor movement, if you will notice the last statement that the executive committee of the AFL-CIO issued 9 days ago, we think the first and immediate project of the Congress should be a cut of at least $6 to $8 billion dollars in taxes with the emphasis in getting that money into the hands of the lower income groups.

If you want an arbitrary definition, we use $5,000 as our definition, with the bulk of the cuts going to those whose taxable income is under $5,000 a year.

Second, we testified only yesterday that we think it is extremely important that the very faltering State unemployment compensation system be given Federal grants and also Federal standards at the same time to make sure we won't get into this mess again with our very sad unemployment system.

Mrs. GREEN. I really was concerned only whether you place the construction and so on ahead of the attention to unemployment compensation.

Mr. BIEMILLER. We think the whole thing should be done at once. We do not regard this as an either/or problem.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Our time, let me say to my colleagues, has expired, but I am going to arbitrarily extend it 5 minutes and at the same time arbitrarily extend the time that we can hear Mr. Mitchell when he comes to testify in the belief that we will have an extra 5 minutes, maybe, before the quorum bell sounds.

I recognize Mr. Gwinn, of New York.

Mr. GWINN. Mr. Biemiller, on page 3 you mention the shortage of classrooms and the need of 44,000 new classrooms by September 1958. You cite no other authority except the United States Office of Education.

That, I take it, is based upon the testimony that was offered last year, is it not?

Mr. BIEMILLER. Their findings, yes, based upon that statement which, as I understand, was based on information from the chief State school officers.

Mr. GWINN. Yes, and that was under considerable question, as you may remember.

Now, do you have any statistics showing how many new classrooms will be built by September 1958? I do not mean from the United States Office of Education.

Mr. BIEMILLER. Sir, I do not know where anyone would go besides the United States Office of Education to get nationwide data on education.

Mr. GWINN. We went to the American Association of Bond Dealers, which compile the school bonds that are actually sold each year in all the school districts. That is one source.

Mr. BIEMILLER. That is one source, but certainly would not cover everything because some schools are not built with bonds. Many schools are built out of direct taxes.

I repeat that I think the best source of information is the Office of Education who rely in turn, as I repeat it, upon the chief State school officers.

Mr. GWINN. Well, that is your only source of information; is that right?

Mr. BIEMILLER. That is the data we are using; that is correct? Mr. GWINN. And you have no up-to-date data since last year? Mr. BIEMILLER. I have the latest data issued by the United States Office of Education.

Mr. GWINN. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ELLIOTT. The gentleman from Montana, Mr. Metcalf.

Mr. METCALF. Mr. Biemiller, I would like to go into some of the things that the gentlewoman from Oregon has raised.

On the 28th of April, the chairman of the other General Education Subcommittee has announced, he will start holding hearings on school construction and teachers' salary legislation, the bills you mentioned, and others.

Mr. BIEMILLER. I am delighted to hear this.

Mr. METCALF. I hope to see you before that committee and we can continue this discussion.

Mr. BIEMILLER. Right.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Would my two lovable colleagues, the gentleman from South Dakota, Mr. McGovern, and the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Nicholson, forego their privilege of questioning this gentleman so that we might go on.

Mr. NICHOLSON. I have a question.

Mr. ELLIOTT. The gentleman from Massachusets is recognized.
Mr. NICHOLSON. This question will take only a minute.

You are a highly educated man, I realize that. Perhaps you can tell me what this sputnik is and what it accomplished, in a few words. Mr. BIEMILLER. This is an area which I can give you only a layman's opinion, obviously, but its quite obvious it is a man-made satellite which is carrying a good many scientific instruments from which important scientific data is being learned, the same with our Vanguard and Explorer.

We are finally finding a means of confirming certain theories or disproving those theories that scientists have formed about the conditions in outer space comparatively close to the earth.

Mr. NICHOLSON. We have not found out anything yet, though; have we?

Mr. BIEMILLER. I am in no position to judge that. I do not make any pretense to being a trained scientist.