You recognize that a free society places special burdens upon any free citizen. To govern is to choose, and the ability to make those choices wise, and responsible, and prudent, requires the best of all of us.

No country can possibly move ahead, no free society can possibly be sustained, unless it has an educated citizenry whose qualities of mind and heart permit it to take part in the complicated and increasingly sophisticated decisions that pour not only upon the President and upon the Congress, but upon all the citizens who exercise the ultimate power.

EFFORT IS CITED

I'm sure that the graduates of this college recognize that the effort that the people of California, the Governor, the legislature, the local communities, the faculties that this concentrated effort of mind and scholarship to educate the young citizens of this State has not been done merely to give this school's graduates an economic advantage in the life struggle.

Quite obviously, there is a higher purpose. And that is the hope that you will turn to the service of the State, the scholarship, the education, the qualities which societies have developed in you, that you render on the community level, or on the State level, or on the National level, or the international level, a contribution to the maintenance of freedom and peace, and the security of our country and those associated with it in a most critical time.

In so doing, you will follow a great and honorable tradition which combines American scholarship and American leadership in political affairs. It is an extraordinary fact of history, I think unmatched since the days of early Greece, that this country should have produced during its founding days in a population of a handful of millions such an extraordinary range of scholars and creative thinkers who helped build this country-Jefferson, Franklin, Morris, Wilson, and all the rest.

GREAT TRADITION

This is a great tradition which we must maintain in our times with increasing strength and increasing vigor.

Those of you who are educated, those of us who recognize the responsibilities of an educated citizen, should now concern ourselves with whether we are providing an adequate education for all Americans, whether all Americans have an equal chance to develop their intellectual qualities and whether we are preparing ourselves today for the educational challenges which are going to come before this decade is out.

The first question, and the most important, is that every American boy and girl have an opportunity to develop whatever talents they have. All of us do not have equal talents but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop those talents.

Let me cite a few facts to show that they do not. In this fortunate State of California the average current expenditure for a boy and girl in the public schools is $515, but in the State of Mississippi it is $230.

SALARY DIFFERENCE NOTED

The average salary for classroom teachers in California is $7,000, while in Mississippi it is $3,600.

Nearly three-quarters of the young white population of the United States have graduated from high school, but only about two-fifths of our nonwhite population has done the same.

In some States almost 40 percent of the nonwhite population has completed less than 5 years of school, contrasted with 7 percent of the white population.

In one American State over 36 percent of the public school buildings are over 40 years of age. In another, only 4 percent are that old.

Such facts as that one could prolong the recital indefinitely, make it clear that American children today do not yet enjoy equal educational opportunities for two primary reasons: One is economic, and the other is racial.

If our Nation is to meet the goal of giving every American child a fair chance, because an uneducated American child makes an uneducated parent who produces, in many cases, another uneducated American child, we must move ahead swiftly in both areas.

And we must recognize that segregation in education-and I mean de facto segregation in the North as well as the proclaimed segregation in the South,

It does no good, as you in California know better than any, to say: "That is the business of another State."

It is the business of our country and in addition, these young uneducated boys and girls know no State boundaries as they come west as well as north and east. And they are your citizens as well as citizens of this country.

The second question relates to the quality of our education. Today one out of every three students in the fifth grades will drop out of high schools. And only 2 out of 10 will graduate from college.

In the meantime, we need more educated men and women and we need less and less unskilled labor. There are millions of jobs that will be available in the next 7 years for educated young men and women. The demand will be overwhelming and there will be millions of people out of work who are unskilled because with new machines and technology there is less need for them.

This combination of a tremendously increasing population among our young people, of less need for unskilled labor, of increasingly unskilled labor available combines to form one of the most serious domestic problems that this country will face in the next 10 years.

Of Americans 18 years of age or older, more than 23 million have less than 8 years of schooling and over 8 million have less than 5 years. What kind of a citizen can we what kind of judgment, what kind of response can we expect of a citizen who has been to school less than 5 years. And we've got in this country 8 million who've been less than 5 years.

As a result they can't read or write, or do simple arithmetic. They are illiterates in this rich country of ours and they constitute the hard core of our unemployed. They can't write a letter to get a job and they can't read, in many cases, a help-wanted sign.

JOBLESS RATE HIGH

One out of every ten workers who failed to finish elementary school are unemployed as compared to 1 out of 50. In short, our current educational programs, much as they represent a burden upon the taxpayers in this country, do not meet the responsibilities. The fact of the matter is that this is a problem which faces us all, no matter where we live, no matter what our political views must be.

Knowledge is power as Francis Bacon said 500 years ago, and today it is truer than it ever was.

What are we going to do by the end of this decade? There are 4 million boys and girls born each year in the United States. Our population is growing each decade by a figure equal to the total population of this country at the time of Abraham Lincoln, just 100 years ago.

Our educational system is not expanding fast enough. By 1970 the number of students in our public elementry and secondary schools will have increased 25 percent over 1960. Nearly three-quarters of a million new classrooms will be needed and we're not building them at that rate. By 1970 we will have 7 million students in our colleges and universities-3 million more than we do today. We are going to double the population of our colleges and universities in 10 years. We're going to have a build as many schools, college classrooms, and buildings in 10 years as we did in 150 years.

By 1970, we will need 7,500 Ph. D.'s in the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering. In 1960 we graduated 3,000.

Such facts make it clear that we have a major responsibility and a major opportunity, one that we should welcome, because there is no greater asset in this country than an educated man or woman.

Education is the responsibility-education, quite rightly, is the responsibilityof the State and the local community. But from the beginning of our country's history, from the time of the Northwest Ordinance, as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson recognized, from the time of the Morrill Act at the height of the Civil War, when the land-grant college system was set up under the administration of Fresident Lincoln, from the beginning it has been recognized that there must be a national commitment and that the National Government must play its role in stimulating a system of excellence which can serve the great national purpose of a free society.

It is for that reason that we have sent to the Congress of the United States legislation to help meet the needs of higher education by assisting in the construction of college academic facilities and junior colleges and graduate centers and

technical institutes, by stepping up existing programs for student loans and graduate fellowships and other student assistance programs.

We've got to improve and we have so recommended the quality of our teachers by expanding teacher training institutes, by improving teacher preparation programs, by broadening educational research, and by authorizing-and this is one of our greatest needs-increased training for teachers for the handicapped, for the deaf, for those who can't speak and those who are otherwise handicapped. And it's designed to strengthen public elementary and secondary education through grants to the States for better teacher salaries, to relieve critical classroom shortages, to meet the special educational problems of de pressed areas and to continue and expand vocational education and counseling. And finally, we must make a massive attack upon illiteracy in the year 1963 in the United States by an expansion of university extension courses and by a major effort to improve our libraries in every community of our country.

DIFFICULT ASSIGNMENT

I recognize that this represents a difficult assignment for us all but I don't think it's an assignment from which we should shrink.

I believe that education comes at the top of the responsibility of any government at whatever level. It is essential to our survival as a nation in a dangerous and hazardous world and it is essential to the maintenance of freedom at a time when freedom is under attack.

I have traveled in the last 24 hours from Washington to Colorado, to Texas, to here, and on every street I see mothers standing with two or three or four children. They are going to pour into our schools and our colleges in the next 10 or 20 years and I want this generation of Americans to be prepared to meet this challenge as our forefathers did in making it possible for all of us to be here today.

We are the privileged. And it should be the ambition of every free citizen to express and expand that privilege so that all of our countrymen and women share it.

Senator CLARK. Our first witness this morning is Miss Margaret Root, executive secretary of the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers.

Miss Root is my old friend. I welcome you here before the subcommittee.

Miss Root, we have your statement.

Senator MORSE (presiding). I cannot persuade my very able Pennsylvania assistant to preside here. I do have the particular pleasure of presiding when this witness is appearing before the subcommittee.

I might say, Senator Clark, I was in Philadelphia a few weeks ago and talked to the teachers' union on the problems of this bill and Miss Root was there. They showed me the gracious hospitality they always do.

We are delighted to have you back before this subcommittee again. We know very well the helpful contribution you made to our record last year and I am looking forward, as I know Senator Clark is, to your testimony this morning.

You may proceed in your own way.

Is Miss Pincus in the room?

Miss Root. Yes; she is in the back.

Senator MORSE. Miss Pincus, why don't you come up to the table?

STATEMENT OF MARGARET ROOT, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, PENNSYLVANIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFFILIATED WITH AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, PENNSYLVANIA AFLCIO, AND CELIA PINCUS, PRESIDENT, PHILADELPHIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

Miss ROOT. Senator Morse, Senator Clark and members of the Education Subcommittee, I am Margaret Root, executive secretary of the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers. On behalf of our members and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, with which we are affiliated, I thank you for this opportunity to discuss selected parts of S. 580 as they relate to Pennsylvania. I am talking about Pennsylvania rather than Philadelphia, while Miss Pincus takes Philadelphia.

We are concerned about title IV, part D, on federally affected areas. Pennsylvania, although it ranked third in population in the 1960 census, does not rank third in appropriations under Public Law 874. In fact there is much irritation in Pennsylvania, as Senator Clark well knows, that so few defense industries and contracts have been placed in a State that has so much unemployment.

One session at a recent Commonwealth conference on economic growth in Pennsylvania, which I attended, was devoted to discussion of this aspect of the State's decline.

IMPORTANCE OF ENTITLEMENTS TO PENNSYLVANIA

According to table 2 on pages 86-87 of the annual report on Public Laws 874 and 815, issued June 30, 1962, Pennsylvania ranked 18th in net entitlements.

California.

Virginia..

Texas---

$42, 033, 957 15, 559, 386

13, 981, 061

over 9, 000, 000

Washington, Maryland__.

Oklahoma, Colorado, Massachusetts-

Alaska, Florida, New York..

New Jersey, Kansas, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, New Mexico,

Pennsylvania___.

over 7, 000, 000

over 6, 000, 000

over 5, 000, 000

But the $5,096,775 is very important to the Pennsylvania school districts that share in it.

Philadelphia receives the largest entitlement of Pennsylvania school districts, $2,152,546 for fiscal 1962.

I know there has been quite a bit of discussion about the large amounts that go to specific places, but lest you be unduly impressed by that amount, five other school districts receive more: Fairfax County, Va., $3,997,987; San Diego Unified, $3,842,329; Montgomery County, Md., $2,831,885; Prince Georges County, Md.; $2,775,984; Norfolk, $2,664,856. Their revenue under Public Law 874 is, in order, 13 percent, 8 percent, 7 percent, 9 percent, 18 percent of their current expenses in fiscal 1962.

For Philadelphia in that same year the revenue under Public Law 874 is 2 percent of current expenses.

It is estimated that 19,000 pupils are involved with an average daily attendance of about 15,000. We think the number is actually higher, teachers have both willingly and under compulsion been forced to

work very hard on this, but diligent search has not been able to overcome completely the refusal of parents to sign data on employment. When fathers and mothers will not answer where they can be reached in emergencies, they are far more likely to refuse if they think they will no longer be able to avoid the 1.625 percent city wage tax. That $2 million plus may not seem significant in a $120 million school budget, but it is. Philadelphia, like most of the large cities, is unable to recruit and retain enough qualified teachers in competition with the higher salaries and the pleasanter working conditions of the other school districts in their areas.

You will remember that Philadelphia dropped in population in the 1960.census. But the school population did not decrease; it is still going up.

At present, the Philadelphia schools are practically begging in the legislature (and unsuccessfully to date) for the right to raise local taxes. The tax difficulty stems partly from the shining new changes in the State sales and use tax from 4 to 5 percent and in extension of articles covered, plus further increases in liquor and cigarette taxes.

Senator CLARK. I wonder why you call them shining new changes. Miss Root. Well, right now, they are not only new, but everybody is paying a lot of attention to them.

Miss PINCUS. I think when you are the highest in the Nation, that is shining.

Senator CLARK. Some of us say it is another nickel off the bill. Miss Root. The loss of $2 million at this time would be a severe blow to Philadelphia schools.

Another region seriously affected would center around Harrisburg. Some 60 percent of the school districts in its county, Dauphin, benefit from Public Law 874. The percentage of current expenses so covered ranges up to 13 percent. Fifty percent of the districts in Cumberland County, cover up to 6 percent of current expenses through impacted aid.

In a county that you might not thing so much of, that would be so much affected, Bucks County, 25 percent of the districts are included. It shows, therefore, that it would repeal, or failure to extend that law would not only affect individual school districts, but would affect whole areas.

I have already mentioned that Philadelphia cannot afford to lose $2 million in its present financial crisis. A spot check of reimbursement fractions under the State aid formula shows that some of these districts are very poor. Here are some examples:

REIMBURSEMENT FACTOR

The Department of Public Instruction got together some of these figures for me. In Franklin County, which is on the border of Maryland, seven of the school districts, and it has quite a few that are receiving impacted aid, seven of those school districts have a State reimbursement fraction ranging from 0.8001 to 0.8892. Senator Clark was on the first Governor's Committee on Education, so that I am