that we have had from the Federal Government, I do not believe the city of Cleveland could have effectively provided for the children of the poor.

[Chart 2 shown, may be found on p. 1699.]

This next chart shows how we are spending our Federal money. We spend 92 percent of the money we receive under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for basic skills, and 8 percent for administration.

Senator STAFFORD. Would you define basic skills for us.

Mr. BRIGGS. Yes, and in anticipation of your question we have a definition here: 54.2 percent of the total amount we receive from ESEA is spent on reading; 27.5 percent on mathematics; and 10.3 percent on supportive services.

Some of that amount is used for busing youngsters to reading clinics or readig centers; some of it is for dental services, psychological services, and similar supportive services for poor students, as well as for their parents.

Administration, again, is exactly 8 percent.

We do not have trouble with the direction of our money or where it is going as far as basic skills are concerned.

It is interesting to note the age of the students on whom we concentrate our funds.

[Chart No. 3 shown, may be found on p. 1701.]

For example, we spend 16.7 percent of our money for 2,301 students in the preschool level.

In the other elementary grades we spend 72.1 percent for 9,926 students.

We spend 11.2 percent at the age level above the sixth grade with programs involving 1,558 students. I might say, however, that all of this portion is spent below the high school level; in fact, most of it is concentrated on the transitional classes designed to help poor children easily make the transition from junior high school to senior high school, with all kinds of additives for their educational program. Our heavy concentration, therefore, is in early childhood and in the elementary years.

[Chart No. 4 shown, may be found on p. 1702.]

Here is a chart which may at first appear a little complicated, but it is very easy to understand, I think it is one of the most significant pieces of research which I have seen recently [pointing].

This line represents the national average of reading readiness of first graders in the United States. In other words, 68 percent of all students in the United States who enter the first grade in any school this fall are ready to be taught reading.

We have 92 schools in the city of Cleveland with more than 33 percent of the students at poverty levels, 6 of these have more than 90 percent. Looking at these schools with high concentrations of the poor children, we find that in 1968, before effects of our preschool program could be seen-we began 2 years prior-61 percent of the children from poverty schools were ready for reading. That was well below the national average.

The next year, in 1969, the first children who had the benefit of 2 years of preschool education entered elementary school. Seventy

four percent of these students were ready to learn reading. The national average was 68.

Then, the percentage steadily increased from 61 to 74 to 79 to 82 to 85. And, this fall, the reading readiness of first graders in Cleveland's ghetto schools is 87 percent.

This kind of evidence demonstrates that categorical aid from the Federal Government in Cleveland concentrated on basic skills, poor children, in early elementary levels is beginning to show results.

Senator STAFFORD. Mr. Briggs, I hate to keep interrupting. Mr. BRIGGS. You are asking very good questions, Senator. Senator STAFFORD. Would you tell me what you mean when you say a child is ready to be taught reading when he enters the first grade? Mr. BRIGGS. This means that the child has reached sufficient emotional and educational maturity to be exposed to and to comprehend the first basic reading lessons.

As you know, in so many of the homes of the poor, reading is not one of the family activities. For this reason our preschool programs have heavy emphasis on relationships with the mother. We bring the mother into the school for a couple years, even mothers who sometimes cannot read themselves. We have them on our committees, helping to select books and helping to set up an atmosphere where reading becomes important.

This even leads to the opening of libraries and the flow of materials into the home. We work with anybody and everybody who will assist in just creating a feeling that there is something exciting about reading. All of these things bring a child earlier to a readiness for reading.

Too often in our ghetto schools, children come into the first grade with no orientation or sensitivity to reading, and no evidence that reading is important. They have not seen it at home, there are no books, no pictures, no magazines, no newspapers.

So we have been concentrated very, very heavily on reading. As one ghetto mother said to me not too long ago, "You know, Mr. Superintendent, the best place to start reading is to parallel it with potty training." She said, "When you are toilet training children, this the time to start reading to children."

We do not have such a unit in the Cleveland schools.

Senator STAFFORD. That could result in a lifelong habit, I might

say.

Thank you very

much.

[Chart No. 5 shown may be found on p. 1703.]

Mr. BRIGGS. We have some interesting significant results calling for careful scrutiny and investigation.

This group represents nonproject pupils in title I schools. This group represents project pupils in title I schools, and, as you know, your guidelines-not the law-do not allow us to enroll in special programs all those who are eligible.

Looking at last year's nonproject pupils in project_second and third grades we measured growth in reading by months. In a 9-month period, which is a period of measurement, the nonproject pupils in reading under normal programs improved 6.5 months. But the project pupils in the same school, having more severe handicaps than nonproject pupils, but with having the concentrated effort in reading, improved, on the average, 10 months.

In other words, the reading growth pattern of children from the poor, particularly in our ghetto schools, improved more than the national average. This tells us that the kind of concentration that we are experiencing with the quality of programs that we have been able to develop is bringing about a real improvement.

The same thing is happening in mathematics, maybe even more dramatically. Our nonproject students in project schools show 8 months' growth in mathematics. But the project students in the project schools show 11 months' growth in mathematics. This demonstrates that if we can get the youngsters, concentrate services, and do the things that title I has allowed us to do, we can in this country bring the reading level of our city urban children up dramatically.

This is why, gentlemen, I have to be for categorical aid, because you are zeroing in with a rifle-like approach to a very distinct problem. [Chart 6 shown may be found on p. 1704.]

When we take a look at who happens to be served and who is not served, we find that title I now in our city serves 13,785 students or 49.2 percent of those children who are eligible to be served in the project schools.

Pupils who are not served but who are eligible number 14,215 or 50.8 percent.

I want to raise a question here. Last December 15, I believe it was, the Federal District Court in Toledo ruled that the Cleveland Board of Education was practicing a new kind of discrimination in the food prgoram, because not all poor children were being fed.

The court in effect said to us if you feed one child from a poverty area and do not feed another, you therefore are practicing discrimination against the one you are not feeding.

We cannot argue with that logic. We had a little trouble with the financing because the food program was not fully funded. We had real trouble with the financing. The court however said to us on financing: if you are able to teach reading, you are able to feed children.

I submit that if at the cafeteria table we are guilty of discrimination because we do not give a free meal to all poor children, we are equally guilty in the classroom, at the classroom desk, when one-half of the children who qualify because of poverty and also because of the location of their homes are not served, because of the guidelines of title I being restrictive.

While I strongly favor categorical aid—we referred a moment ago to the rifle approach-I would like to have just a little bigger bore rifle so that we hit a little larger target. It is unfortunate for us to have children in our classrooms where we have the technology and the knowhow to bring their basic skills closer to standard, and not do it because of certain Federal guidelines.

[Chart 7 shown may be found on p. 1705.]

The impact of Federal funds on our school system is considerable. We have a little grocery list of things that show the before and after. We go back before the act. With reading specialists in the Cleveland school district we had none. Now we have 109. These are specialists. These are not classroom teachers, but these are individuals who work with classroom teachers as well who work with children who have reading problems.

We had not a single library open in the Cleveland public elementary schools in 1964. We have 135 libraries now. It is needless for us to teach reading if we keep libraries closed.

Concerning adults in adult basic education, we have a city where 50,000 adults cannot read or write. At the present time 3,510 are in basic education programs financed by Federal legislation.

Children eating breakfast, we now have 25,000 children each morning in the city of Cleveland having a free breakfast. We could take this money I suppose and spend it on truant officers to go out and chasee children and find them in the streets and bring them in. I do not know your experience with truant officers, but they have never been the great success story of the Nation.

The children they do bring in are not in a mood for education. We have taken our money and put it in the direction of meeting some of the basic fundamental needs children have, and food is one of them.

We have breakfast in the classroom with the teacher and her students. It has created an atmosphere that has the child feeling the school is more closely related to some of his more human needs.

The attitude of the children improves tremendously. As I told your colleagues over in the House a few years ago, we started the program first with a pilot program that we did not announce, to which we gave no publicity locally.

We took the school with the highest incidence of absenteeism, not dropouts, and we quietly started serving breakfast. That school move right around 22 other schools as far as attendance was concerned.

We asked the teachers to give us something very subjectivecertainly not scientific. We asked what happened to the way you have marked the youngsters in reading and mathematics? Would you let us look at your books? Four or five of them said yes; they opened their books, and they showed they were giving these youngsters a better grade in reading.

Now, I doubt if their reading had immediately improved, but the attitude and the relationship between the teachers and the pupils had improved so that education could move ahead. This is very important.

Today we are feeding 48,000 pupils a hot lunch in the Cleveland schools. We are under Federal court order now. We have to almost double that figure before the end of the year.

In vocational education classes we had 52 in 1964 and now we have 408.

As to participants in manpower training, we had no programs in 1964, and we now have 1,373.

With the handicapped in vocational programs, we had zero then and we have now 666 handicapped students being prepared for employment.

In job placement for our innercity students, we placed about 25 percent on jobs in 1964. At the present time a 5-year average on this now is 95 percent placement of those who want to work to have jobs.

We have gone back and studied those graduates 1 and 2 years afterwards to find out what had happened. We find that 90 percent are still working, and 50 percent of them have had a promotion.

These are some of the ways we have been spending outside the field of just basic education some of the moneys from the Federal Government.

Senator STAFFORD. Mr. Briggs, one question here occurs to me, while we have the figures in front of us. The 48.000 who daily receive a Federal funded lunch, is that lunch provided irrespective of the poverty or nonpoverty situation of the student?

Mr. BRIGGS. We are going to phase this lunch into the elementary. We have had no cafeterias in our elementary schools. We started with the junior high schools and now we have taken the school of the biggest incidence of poverty and put in kitchens. We have gone into a systems approach.

We do now have a central kitchen capable of turning out 100,000 meals a day. We are using the systems approach to get these meals priced low while maintaining quality.

We do not have the satellite kitchens-receiving kitchens-in our elementary schools completed sufficiently to increase the numbers.

Now, the individuals who get free lunches are those who qualify under Federal poverty guidelines. They are children from the poor, and all children from poverty are so qualified. We have the eligibility lists not from our own makeup but rather from the welfare department. The computer gives the list of those students who are eligible. Senator STAFFORD. Do you supply a lunch to others who can afford to pay for it?

Mr. BRIGGS. Yes, we do; and we charge for that.

Senator STAFFORD. How much is that?

Mr. BRIGGS. In the high schools this year I believe it is 50 cents, up 5 cents from last year; and I think 30 cents in the elementary grades.

By the way, we have not gone to peanut butter and jelly this year; we still have meat on the menu.

[Chart 8 shown may be found on p. 1706.]

Now there are two other areas of concern. I just want to touch on this briefly. I think one of the great things this Congress has done a few years ago was to make it possible for us to hire disadvantaged youth in the summer. We were really interested in 1965 and 1966 in the days of the riots-Watts riots and so on-in seeing that the junior and high school youngsters had some activity in the summer.

By the way, I might point out we enrolled better than 80,000 students in summer programs in the public schools. But the summer job program was a very important one, and it was one that developed from a small beginning with us in 1965 with 794 students, and then it went up in 1966 to 1,500.

In 1966 we began saying, let's put some educational components into this. It is not enough to have children picking up paper on the streets. Let's get some education into it.

We got some orientation, some guidance and some education, developing a continuing kind of thing. We hoped that we could use employment in the summer to tie children in with the fact that we want them back in school in the fall; that they have to finish up. In 1967, we had 3,900 students.