FEDERAL AID TO EDUCATION

THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1947

UNITED STATES SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION of the

COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., in room 357, Senate Office Building, Senator George D. Aiken, presiding.

Present: Senators Aiken (presiding), Smith, Donnell, Thomas, and Ellender.

Senator AIKEN. The committee will be in order.

We will continue the hearings on the various educational bills which are now before this Senate committee.

The first witness this morning is Miss Selma Borchardt, substituting for Matthew Woll. Really, Miss Borchardt is not a substitute for any body. Mr. Woll was slated and is not here and I understand that Miss Borchardt will testify for the American Federation of Labor.

STATEMENT OF MISS SELMA BORCHARDT, APPEARING FOR MR. MATTHEW WOLL OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

Miss BORCHARDT. Mr. Woll is very, very sorry that the activities of the American Federation of Labor's committee meeting prevents his being here and I would ask permission, if I may, to submit Mr. Woll's statement for the record with such exhibits as are mentioned therein; and, if I may, Senator, to summarize the report there rather than read it.

Senator AIKEN. You may do so, Miss Borchardt.

The statement of Mr. Woll will be inserted in the record in full and then you may proceed to summarize. You may be seated.

Miss BORCHARDT. We do not come before this committee at this time, Senator, to ask for charity. We come before this committee to plead for the American public school and for every child in the United States because we feel that you gentlemen are in sympathy with such a program as a basic right.

Furthermore, we are not presenting victims of our social lack at this time for we feel that the members of this committee with the expert services at their command may get the statistics on the great need, and we think every member of this committee is convinced of the great need for Federal aid.

We do beg for action now. We feel that the problem is simply this: We cannot keep teachers; we cannot get teachers unless we pay

them; many of the States cannot pay their teachers. Therefore, the Federal Government must supplement the salaries of the publicschool teachers and we feel that the teacher needs this money more than any other employee.

Then, Senator, we are also not submitting data to you to show that there are States which cannot afford to pay teachers what they should be paid. We feel that every one of the members of this committee is convinced of that fact and can get such additional statistical data as he may need.

We therefore address ourselves specifically to how we may meet the problem. Gentlemen, we are not pleading for our bill. We are not pleading for credit of doing a particular thing. We are pleading for the maintenance of the American public school and for the services which will help every child in America become a better citizen. We feel that today a broad statesmanlike approach is necessary and, gentlemen, nothing less than $1,000,000,000 could possibly meet the needs of America's children.

We do feel that this is something that has priority No. 1 on America's Treasury service for our children.

We are asking for three forms of aid. We are asking first for aid to enable the States to pay public-school teachers more nearly adequate salaries. We are asking for services for every child in America. We are asking for funds for scholarships to enable the children and the youth of America to remain in school and serve their country.

In asking for the money for these three purposes, we are supporting something in each of the bills before the Congress. We want to say first of all that we feel there is a genuine desire on the part of every member of this committee to do something. We are therefore pointing out first of all that in the bills introduced by Senators McCarran, McGrath, and Green there is the essence of one part of the program for which we stand-salaries for public-school teachers. We feel that in the bill introduced by Senator Hill, Senator Taft, and others, that there is the essence of an equitable distribution on the basis of relative need. We feel that in the bill introduced by you, Senator Aiken, there is the recognition of the fact that we need aid not only to maintain our public schools but we need aid also to service all children in America. So we propose that there be taken from each of these bills those qualities which are essential and which we believe are basic to developing such a system.

Now, as to the question of the salaries for the public-school teachers, we think there is no difference of opinion in our America as to the need of paying our teachers in the public elementary and secondary schools a more nearly adequate salary. When we realize that in some of the States, in a number of States, in fact, teachers are receiving less than $1,000 a year the need of supplementing the pay of the public-school teachers in the elementary and secondary grades is very apparent and recognized as urgent.

We like the definition of the teacher that appears in the McGrath bill; we like the fact that it recognizes that the crisis in public-school education is in teachers' salaries. There is no shortage of school administrators at the higher bracket level.

We urge, therefore, that not less than $500,000,000 be available to be distributed on a basis of relative need for the payment of public school teachers' salaries.

Then, gentlemen, we come to the question of services. There are certain services that are so essential that without those services, a public school, a nonpublic school is worthless. We refer to the essential teaching aids, to the textbooks, to the maintenance of the health and the well-being of the children, transportation to get them. to the schools, something for sustenance while they are in the school. Gentlemen, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that it is fitting and proper, in the decision rendered by Mr. Justice Hughes, to supply funds for textbooks, the nonreligious textbooks, for the children of all of the schools. Our Supreme Court has just ruled within the year that it is fitting and proper to provide the transportation with which to take children to the school of the choice of their parents.

And here may I digress just a moment to say that while we all recognize, and again our Supreme Court has long recognized, this fact the right of any parent to decide where and how his child shall be educated-some of us have not recognized the fact that to deny the child certain services for his physical well-being and his proper social growth, while attending that school, which his parents select, is an implementation of the right which is fundamental in itself.

Then the question comes up, will that not produce a divisive society to have some children in one school and some in others? It will divide people according to their beliefs, surely. But we want unity and not uniformity; we contend that the greatest unity in our America grows from bringing together for a common purpose various approaches for the common good.

We repeat, salaries should be paid from public funds only to the teachers in the public elementary and secondary schools and for that reason we do not approve of the language in section 6B of the Taft bill, although we recognize the validity of the purpose which wants to give services to the children in the nonpublic schools. We are for giving those services. We think that the Supreme Court's decision, and more than that, the laws unanimously enacted by the Congress of the United States, are eloquent testimony as to the propriety of such procedure.

The GI bill makes funds available for every youth and he may use those funds in any institution. Every man now in the Senate who was here last year supported the conference bill on the school lunches. That bill said, and it was unanimously adopted in its conference form, that the Congress of the United States deems it fitting and proper to make food available for every child in our America and furthermore, to make available the equipment with which to furnish that food. So we say, in the name of consistency and in keeping with the decisions. of the Court, make those services, those essential services, available for every child.

Then we have a third approach and that is for scholarships for children and youth from the ages of 14 to 20. Over half of the youth of our country from the ages of 14 to 20 leave school because they cannot afford to remain in school. That, we think, is a terrible waste, a shocking loss to our country's welfare. You gentlemen have just established again a very, very fine precedent and that precedent is that you believe there should be a national foundation through which to develop the resources of our country, the human, the social, intellectual resources of our country. You are going to make scholarships

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and fellowships available for those people who are eligible for this higher form of education. We say to you, in all equity there must be found a means through which to enable the poor girl and boy to be eligible for those scholarships and fellowships which you have provided for the person who will have completed his college work. So again we ask that there be a legislative recognition of the propriety of having funds made available for scholarships to enable youth to remain in school.

Senator SMITH. Miss Borchardt, I may state that the science bill to which you are referring and I appreciate very much your reference to it provides for scholarships as well as fellowships. It provides both. So it is open to the poor as well as the rich. Anybody who is qualified would be eligible to those science scholarships.

Miss BORCHARDT. That, we think, is fine and I know that last year you were one of the people who was plugging for this very thing and I am very happy about it. Our point is to get the people eligible to reach that higher level of scholarship, do you see; get the people who could not go to do the first part of college work to make some form of scholarship available for those under 20, 15 to 20, where the greatest number drop out of school.

Senator SMITH. Well, scientific youth would be eligible as soon as they get through high school, at the beginning of their college schooling. Of course, it would depend on the decision of the committee in charge, naturally, to designate those fellowships. But it was proposed that youth just entering the college stage would be eligible. Miss BORCHARDT. We hope to get them up to the college stage where that huge number drop out.

Well, then, on the question of distribution of funds, we think the general principle of relative need must govern the general allocation of funds. But we recognize that there are two kinds of needs: First, the relative need of the States themselves, and we think that the Taft-Hill-Thomas bill provides a very equitable approach to the distribution of funds on the basis of need. We are not necessarily wedded to the formula because economic conditions may have changed since that was written. But we are convinced of the value of the basic principles that formulated that formula. So we hope that the principle will be recognized in making funds available for the teachers in the public schools for salary purposes.

We also would like to point out there, and on this your technical expert would be able to give you the figures very accurately and very completely, that some money should be available to those richer States that have a State-aid program. In other words, there are certain poor communities in the rich States and if the formula in the Taft-HillThomas bill could be adjusted so as to recognize some need for a basic contribution to the States which, though rich, could, if given this fund, through a State-aid program make available funds to local communities that are desperately in need thereof, then we do feel, however, that the services for children should be allocated on a basis of the number of children in need thereof.

Now, our convention of A. F. of L. has never taken a position on total population versus average daily attendance. They have never approached that. But, to those persons in the policy-making positions in the A. F. of L. with whom I have spoken, there seems to be the recognition of the need of putting in on a basis of daily attendance

rather than on a basis of population because we may, by putting it on a basis of school population, reward those school systems that do not properly enforce school attendance laws, and so we think S. 88 is a better and more truly social way of doing it when you compute the number of children to be aided.

We think that every child in every State should have the advantage of basic services, the nonreligious school textbooks, transportation, teaching aids, and physical and welfare services. That, we feel, is in keeping, as I say, with the Supreme Court decisions.

We feel, also, that these scholarships should be available regardless of where the child or youth may be for every one of them.

Senator THOMAS. May I ask a question? On the aid to the private schools, would you be willing to accept an amendment that aid be given to the private schools on the basis afforded the ordinary teaching subjects, to those private schools that have been certified as properly living up to the public school standards?

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Miss BORCHARDT. When you come to naming certain specific standards, we would demand that, almost. We feel that this bill is not simply to blow off money: 'come on, take it," but we feel you have the responsibility in the Senate and in the House of not only preparing a bill, but of demanding that the money be expended with safeguards, that it be used in the proper way.

For example, that point that you have raised, not one cent should go to any institution or be channelled through any institution which does not meet the educational standards of the State. We think if there is not a specific title, and we hope there will be for teachers' salaries, public-school teachers' salaries, that there should be a fund expressly earmarked because we are not interested in building up an educational machine in any State, and we do know that that is happening in many States, and unless the money is earmarked for the salaries of the public-school teachers, and as I said before you came in, Senator, we like the definition of teacher that appears in the McGrathGreen bill. We think it is one of the finest, broadest definitions of a teacher to be found anywhere, in a technical sense.

If we consider that, we would want certain other safeguards. We would want the money made available to every part of the State in need thereof. In other words, we say to the State, use it, but you must make it available to every part of the State that needs it. That is a provision in a number of the welfare bills that the Congress has demanded and we urge that that be included. That would prevent political logrolling of the fund within the State.

We believe, of course, that there must be maintained the educational budget of the States and its subdivisions, that the Federal money must supplement and not supplant State money; that the teachers' salaries must be kept by the State and its subdivisions at the present level; that the Federal funds must increase and not supplant what the State has done.

We like the provision in your bill, Senator Thomas, for requiring the State to pay, to guarantee to pay, a very definite amount as a basic unit for the welfare and education of each child.

We think those are essential safeguards and I am very glad, Senator, that you referred to that.

If there are any other questions I would be very glad to answer them. I feel that your time is so occupied that I do not want to talk on;