I should like to remind the committee, in closing, that in the Soviet Union there is a total commitment to education; that if our free society is to prevail, we must maintain a system of education that serves us as well as the Soviet educational system serves the purposes of its social order. In short, if we are to prevail as a free society, we must become as interested in launching educated men and women as we are in launching satellites.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR FRANK E. Moss, OF UTAH, FILED WITH EDUCATION SUBCOMMITTEE, SENATE LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE COMMITTEE

Chairman Murray and members of the subcommittee, as a cosponsor of S. 2, the bill to provide Federal aid for school construction and to raise teachers' salaries, I want to emphasize some of the reasons why I am strongly supporting it.

The launching of sputnik dramatically cast America's school laboratories and classrooms in a strategic role in national survival. It became immediately evident that a nation which does not put top priority on education will not remain a first-class power very long.

That Soviet Russia has overhauled or outstripped us in certain scientific and technological fields, at least, is alarmingly clear. A nation which only two generations ago was almost illiterate is now turning out more scientists, engineers, and skilled technicians than we are.

It is not enough to try to pick up lost ground by simply providing scholarships and advanced study for young people with scientific minds. Our school problem starts where the child starts, in the first grade, and becomes more acute as the child's educational needs become more complex. We must strengthen our school system from the educational grassroots on up.

To do so challenges the ingenuity and financial resources of even the wealthiest of States, counties, and school districts. It poses particularly serious problems for those with low per capita income and meager tax revenues.

My own State of Utah has some unique problems in providing adequate education for its children which indicate how unrealistic it is to believe that our school problems should be left entirely to local communities for a solution.

Utah's birth rate is exceeded by only one State, New Mexico. We have always said that babies are our best crop. Moreover, not only do we have a proportionately larger number of children to be educated because of our birth rate, but these children stay in school 2 years longer than the national average. To put it statistically, one-fourth of Utah's total population is enrolled in our public schools, with the result that the median number of school years completed by persons 25 and older has been 12 years as compared to the national average of 9.3. Also Utah ranks first in the Nation with 48.9 percent of its population as high school graduates as compared to 33.3 percent for the Nation at large. Utah's high educational responsibility is assumed almost exclusively by public tax supported schools. Only 2.06 percent of our schoolchildren are in private or parochial schools, with just three States-Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina-enrolling a smaller percentage.

But Utah must discharge this high educational responsibility with a lower than average income. In 1957, Utah's personal income per capita was $1,694 as compared with the national average of $2,027. Thus, Utah is spending a relative high percentage of its below national average income on the education of its children. In 1957-58, my State devoted 5.51 percent of the total income of its citizens to the support of its public schools as compared with the U.S. average of 3.3 percent. Only New Mexico and Wyoming devote larger percentages of their per capita income to education.

Despite this valiant effort to give our children good education, the amount that Utah can spend per capita on a child is $60 below the national average. We in Utah are actually spending about $280 for each boy and girl as opposed to $340 average for other States.

It is obvious that if we are to equalize educational opportunities in this Nation, States like Utah must have some Federal assistance. In Utah we are proud that we do as much as we can for our schools, but children and wealth are unequally distributed among the States, and the Federal Government is the only agency which is in a position to tax the wealth where it is and make funds available to educate the children where they are. With less money and more children in school, Utah needs and deserves Federal help.

The only source of revenue available to local boards of education is from taxes on real estate, and Utah has been squeezing every penny it possibly can for our schools from this source. The average property tax levy for all school purposes has risen from 19.42 mills in 1946 in a typical Utah school district to 34.32 mills in 1959, an increase of 77 percent.

Our problem is complicated by the fact that approximately 70 percent of the land in Utah is federally owned and therefore not taxable for State and local purposes. Moreover, wartime military installations took over some of our best farmland and removed it from the tax rolls. So Utah is having a real tussle to put roofs over our galloping school population. In addition to the greatly increased local property tax effort, bonded debt of Utah school districts increased 800 percent between July 1, 1946, and July 1, 1958, but our problem is still intense because we are a fast growing State with a high birth rate.

In a drive to make the best possible use of every available State and local tax dollar, Utah has pioneered in setting up an efficient school organization. Since 1915, we have had only 40 school districts in a State with an area of 84,000 square miles. This high degree of consolidation gives us one of the most efficient school district organizations in the country. Nevertheless, it is unrealistic to believe that Utah boys and girls have as high a quality of education as they should, because all of the good organization in the world cannot suffice for adequate school buildings and well-paid teachers who are qualified for their jobs.

I understand a nationwide 1957 Elmo Roper poll showed that 73 percent of the people in the country favored Federal aid to schools. A private research agency poll conducted in Utah in 1952 indicated that 61 percent of Utah residents favored Federal aid, and I am confident our worsening school situation has increased that percentage since that time. Another poll conducted just 2 years ago indicated that of all of the problems facing them, Utah people consider our educational problem our most pressing.

I honestly believe that in past debates on our educational problems too much time, energy, and emotion has been devoted to the fear and the argument that Federal aid would bring Federal control. But as the chairman of this subcommittee has so ably put it:

"Reasonable men can agree that passage of this bill will give local school boards actual instead of nominal control of education. A school district that is bonded to the limit, is holding classes in churches and community halls, and taking any teachers it can get, despite their qualifications, does not have control of education."

I would like to add only one further point: Our experience with Public Laws 815 and 874, the federally impacted area laws, has not resulted in any Federal control of the schools which they helped. If we do not want Federal controls, there is no reason to have them.

In this respect, and to close this statement, I would like to quote Allan M. West, executive director of the Utah Education Association, who says:

"Our experience in Utah has revealed that this Federal money [for impacted areas] has been used to improve education without the suggestion of Federal controls. The only control which has been exercised has been an audit to make certain that Federal funds have been used for the purposes for which Congress appropriated them. We already have Federal support for education and it is working well. Federal control of schools has failed to materialize. But the extent of Federal participation is not great enough to provide the kind of schools we need. It is time for the debate on this academic question to cease and for us to get on to the job of providing the kind of quality public education which the defense of this country and the achievement of our own national ideals demand."

Hon. HENRY M. JACKSON,

STATE OF WASHINGTON,
Olympia, February 10, 1959.

U.S. Senator, Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR: The grave financial situation in the State of Washington and the equally serious problem of providing an adequate educational program for one of the Nation's rapidly growing States, prompt me to urge your most diligent attention to S. 2, Senator Murray's bill for Federal aid to education.

I do not need to remind you that the decade of war effort seriously delayed the normal building program for new school construction and the replacement of the Nation's obsolete school plant. Without a breathing space to catch up the serious lag in school-building construction, a veritable deluge of new school enrollments crowded our Nation's inadequate school plants and have far outpaced our best efforts to meet with new school construction.

No less serious has been the problem of finding and training an adequate force of teachers. Never at any advantage salarywise, the teaching profession has found itself in the past few years falling behind the other professions and at an increasing disadvantage in meeting the rising costs of living. In consequence, it has been difficult to attract the most promising young people to the teaching profession, charged with such grave responsibilities in the light of our new international position.

Action by the Federal Government in support of the national educational program is imperative for the following reasons:

1. The National Government in meeting the emergencies of war established a national pattern of taxes and revenue measures which have left the States with no additional tax resources. The needs of the National Government are apparently such as to prevent its relinquishing these sources of revenue to the States.

2. The continuing emergency in public education is a national emergency in as positive, though less dramatic sense, as the demands of war were originally. 3. The Nation's future position in world affairs is predicated upon steady improvement of the general level of education in this country as well as the development of special skills in the humanistic and in the scientific fields.

Therefore, it is our feeling that the National Government must view the continuing crisis in the adequate financing of the national educational program as an essential part of the Nation's defense and development effort.

The intrinsic local character of educational administration in this country and appropriate local differences that must exist will make it expedient and desirable that the national effort in education be properly directed toward assisting the States in the proper implementation of their respective programs in public education. Determined effort should be made in securing the passage of the Murray bill and similar national aids to education to keep the element of Federal control at the absolute minimum essential to fair and effective disbursement of Federal funds to the various state programs in public education.

I pause in the midst of this most vital session of Washington's State legislature to invoke your determined support of the Murray bill and other carefully drawn efforts of the National Congress to share with the States in facing a most serious national emergency, the preservation of an adequate program in public education.

Sincerely,

Hon. JAMES E. MURRAY,

ALBERT D. ROSELLINI, Governor.

STATE OF IOWA,

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,
Des Moines, March 5, 1599.

Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Education,
Senate Office Building Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR MURRAY: We are pleased to endorse S. 2, with appropriate amendments if needed, to insure State and local control of education.

As you well know, many States have about reached the saturation point in their attempts to provide an adequate educational program for our children in this space age.

We need relief from burdensome property taxes and I feel that the Federal Government can provide funds for such relief.

Sincerely yours,

J. C. WRIGHT,

State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

GREECE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1,

HOOVER DRIVE SCHOOL, Rochester, N.Y., March 18, 1959.

Senator JAMES E. MURRAY,

Chairman Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee,
Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. MURRAY: This letter might be considered a combination of three factors: A hearing; a plea for your understanding; and an urging of the passing of the School Support Act of 1959, H.R. 22 and S. 2.

Today's teachers are usually too busy to take time out to concern themselves with legislative issues. Our school district, fortunately, has concerned itself with the broad educational needs of our country. We have done this through the formation of a legislative committee designed to give serious study to our immediate needs and to the Nation's ultimate educational objectives.

We are certain that your Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee is rapidly becoming aware of these problems. You have heard many facts and figures as to why action should be taken now, but far more important are some of the following reasons:

1. That the psychological damage to teachers is ever present.

2. That the morale is at low ebb.

3. That we are not able to do our most creative job under these overcrowded conditions.

4. That the students must suffer if teachers are required to hold two or more jobs.

5. That we must in such a changing society continue our own personal education with little reward.

6. That education, at the present rate of population growth, may soon be restricted to only those who are above average intelligence. This, in a democracy, could be disastrous.

We therefore, urge your leadership. The costs will be greater later-and schools are cheaper than jails and delinquent centers in the long run.

Most respectfully,

WARREN C. CRANDELL,

Legislative Chairman for the Greece Central School System, representing 280 teachers.

UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

March 13, 1959.

Hon. JAMES E. MURRAY,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Education,

Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare

Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR MURRAY: Attached herewith is a statement from Mr. Joe Herndon, superintendent of Consolidated School District No. 2, Raytown, Mo., which I would appreciate your having made a part of the record in the consideration of Federal aid to school construction.

Mr. Herndon is superintendent of one of our outstanding school districts in Missouri, one of the fastest growing districts in our State or any other.

His presentation emphasizes clearly the need for Federal aid on school construction and I hope that it will be helpful to you and the members of your subcommittee in the consideration of this vital legislation.

Sincerely,

STUART SYMINGTON.

INFORMATION ABOUT CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT No. 2, JACKSON COUNTY, RAYTOWN, Mo., JOE HERNDON, SUPERINTENDENT

We appreciate the opportunity of presenting a statement in the interest of the School Support Act of 1959 or the Murray-Metcalf bill. It is certainly gratifying to know that our Representatives in the National Congress have this continuing interest in the public schools and are ever working and studying to provide financial assistance so that all boys and girls will have the best opportunity for an education second to no other country.

Consolidated School District No. 2, Jackson County, Raytown, Mo., for which we cite facts, is located adjacent to Kansas City. The district is strictly residential. In the past 6 years the district school enrollment has increased over

250 percent. The school district has little or no industry which normally provides a finnacial base for local school revenue.

With respect to our ability to finance education our district is rated "poor." Our need for money to build buildings and to provide day-to-day operation costs is recognized by the district residents. Each year since 1947 voters have approved bond issues to build school buildings. All these issues have been voted by over 90 percent majority. On January 20, 1959, the plurality was 97 percent. The local property tax is among the highest for school districts in Missouri. All these facts are cited to show you that the people are willing to support education at the local level up to the limits of their ability. They are providing the maximum effort but that just isn't enough-more help is needed now.

May we give you some information on our enrollment and buildings' capacities. Enrollments since 1953 have been: 1953, 4,266; 1954, 4,941; 1955, 6,148; 1956, 7,199; 1957, 8,279; 1958, 9,309.

Our estimate for the next 10 years' enrollment is an average annual increase of 1,000. We have doubled our enrollment in the past 5 years and should double again in the next 10 years.

In September 1959, at the beginning of the next school year, Consolidated School District No. 2 will have a desirable capacity of 6,710 as compared with an estimated enrollment of 10,309 in kindergarten through grade 12. Since kindergartens are being housed outside the school buildings now, an estimated 934 could be subtracted from 10,309 or 9,375 in grades 1–12 inclusive. Classrooms will be available to take care of only 71 percent of the estimated enrollment in grades 1-12. A comparison of desirable capacities and enrollments as of next September 1959 is as follows:

As mentioned above, kindergartens are not being housed in district buildings but are being cared for in some eight churches. Also many substandard classrooms converted from auditorium, gymnasiums and hallways have been pressed into use.

Overcapacity enrollment requires the high school to go to double sessions next year. One session will begin at 7 a.m. and the second session will end at 5:30 p.m. This double session high school program will be necessary until the district can build sufficient space. The district has not caught up with the elementary enrollment and has no immediate relief in sight for the double sessions in high school.

With no apparent relief from increasing enrollment the district will not be able to reduce its crowded conditions for many years. The school district can build each year only just what the bonding capacity will permit.

A school building program has been in progress continually since 1947 when new homes construction in the district began. With a large percentage of the district yet undeveloped it is anticipated that the school district building program will continue for several more years.

In Missouri local taxes provide money for the construction of schools. A school district in Missouri may bond a district up to 10 percent of the assessed valuation. Consolidated school district No. 2 has a total assessed valuation of $46,000,000. Ten percent, or $1,600,000, is the maximum indebtedness consolidated school district No. 2 may have. The district's bonded indebtedness is now $4,518,000.

The facts and figures are respectfully submitted for your information and we hope are bases for your future consideration and support of the Murray-Metcalf bill. This bill will materially aid a district like ours which is making every effort to provide good schools but which progressively falls farther behind each year.