Mr. LAMBERT. No; the bill does not require the States to set standards of quality. The States only certify that the money is spent in accordance with the bill's provisions.

Mr. ALEXANDER. That is what I mean.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well, the bill's provisions are to improve the quality by providing means to bring up the salaries of teachers to the levels commensurate with those in other professions, which is a tall order, as I say, because the money capacity of some industries would certainly outrun what you would normally think of as the capacity of the teaching profession or the universities or the schools to provide finances.

Mr. LAMBERT. Can I say one thing at this point? Although I am not recommending it, I think this committee could consider the possibility of salary funds being used only for bachelor's degree teachers. That is, the decision of the committee, if it feels a step in this direction is necessary.

I know that milling around in the general population throughout the country are perhaps a million teachers that could be brought back into the classrooms. Many of those have left for more salary, a greater earning capacity. Many are housewives who cannot see the advantage of teaching at the present teachers' salaries, and employing a maid who costs maybe half or three-fourths as much as she would earn as a teacher. After she pays her income taxes, she has nothing left. There are many highly qualified teachers who are not teaching. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Maybe it would be up to us to subsidize the maids.

Mr. BAILEY. The Chair would like to call a brief recess at this time to enable the photographer to snap the committee.

(Brief recess.)

Mr. BAILEY. Now, you may proceed.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I think I might turn to the second need that I have cited in my testimony, the need for better classrooms.

As has already been indicated in testimony this morning and by the able Congressman who introduced the bill, the need for classrooms still prevails in this country. We have data here showing that in November 1957 over 62 million of our urban elementary-school children are in classes that are generally regarded as being too large for effective teaching, that almost 300,000 elementary-school pupils are on half-day sessions, getting a half-day education rather than a full-day education.

These conditions we know are widespread. They appear in all types of communities in the United States, metropolitan as well as rural. All of us who have worked in this field of curriculum and teaching feel certain from our experience that more effective teaching is done in manageable size classes.

In the early years of school particularly, little children profit by elose attention of a teacher. I think that was brought out in Mrs. Pagel's testimony.

I would like to add, too, the idea that children toward the upper reaches of the high school profit very greatly by close and intimate contact with the teacher, who is in a position to guide them and guide them well, to help them over this period.

We know, too, that in this era of specialization we could do more effective job of teaching if we had more specialists in v parts of our program. These would require places to work; tional classrooms are needed for these many purposes.

I was talking a few days ago with a teacher who, I thought, an apt remark. She is a fifth-grade teacher. She said: "You I have 52 children in my classroom this year. I figure that w get as many as 50 children they are getting about 50 percent of they ought to be getting."

Whether this could be statistically verified I am not sure, but positive from my own observation that a good teacher given pils can do ever so much more for those children than she can

or 60.

We know full well that as we learn how to handle better t ficiencies in arithmetic, in speech, in reading and writing, addi corrective instruction will be needed. As I said a moment ago, tional classrooms will be needed for these people.

Passing on to the third need I cite here, the need for a well-ro program of studies, one thing is very clear from the many d over secondary education that have been waged in the past few in the public press, as well as in educational circles.

Mr. BAILEY. Doctor, may I interrupt you at this point to as if you feel that the title in the General Defense Education Act last session of the Congress on guidance is going to be benefic what you are talking about at the present time?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Yes, it seems so to me. It is a laudable pro and I am very sure there will be increased services made ava from the States, increased equipment, but it seems to me ther defect here. The teachers' salary schedule on which the coun salary is based is still too low to attract able people into this w The counselor is a teacher, and the counselor may get in som tems $100 to $200 more per year than may a classroom teacher, or she is still operating on the same basic salary schedule. Coun needs able people, too.

Perhaps the gentlemen of the committee are familiar wi Conant report that has just been released.

Dr. Conant in his recommendations puts the counseling syste for the American high school. He recommends that we n employ one counselor for every 250 to 300 children in high s in America. This would, of course, very substantially increa number now employed, if the recommendation were implemer Mr. BAILEY. To what extent is there training in our instit of higher learning for counselor work?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I think the training programs are prett organized.

Mr. BAILEY. What are you doing about it down at Peabody? Mr. ALEXANDER. We have a definite training program for selors, as do other teacher-training institutions. They may strengthening or more personnel. We have the same personnel age here as we have in the teaching profession as a whole.

It was estimated last year that we needed 15,000 more high counselors in the United States. Correct me, Dr. Lambert, i wrong. I understand there was this much of a shortage.

To train these people requires that we recruit them. We have to find the kind of people who would be good counselors. We have to select them out of the teaching group, and again on this point, we run squarely into the problem of salaries.

Mr. BAILEY. Would there be any advantage in having another title in the same bill I referred to, that provides for fellowships?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I think it will help in the training, but there is still the question of rewards in terms of income, after they are trained. That was what was omitted in the Hill-Elliott bill of last year.

Mr. BAILEY. Going back to a statement you made when you were discussing the serious situation as regards your teaching personnel, is there anything that can be done to increase the participation of male teachers beyond 14 percent of your elementary-school teaching staffs?

Mr. ALEXANDER. The only answer I can give, Mr. Chairman, is to raise the salaries to a level where they will be interested in this work. If you were in my business you would be counseling constantly young men and women who are already in teaching or who are leaving teach ing. I think some of the most heartrending conferences I have ever had have been with young people whom I knew to be very able young teachers, who simply told me the time had come when they had to get out of teaching unless they could get more income. Their bills were unpaid, their mortgages were being foreclosed or threatened, and they had to find more income.

Some of them were carrying jobs as painters, like Mrs. Pagel's illustration, but even this was not enough, so they went over into business or industry, or perhaps to some other job.

Mr. BAILEY. Go ahead.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I would just like to say a word more about the high school problem.

The problem of secondary education in the United States is a very complex one, but certainly we know that we can provide a better program of secondary education. This better program, however, can be provided only at tremendous expense, in the small districts which predominate in the country, or by a consolidation of schools.

Consolidation, of course, raises many questions in many communities, but if we consolidate there must be new schoolhouse construction. If we do not consolidate and attempt to provide a well rounded program in the many high schools enrolling less than 100, 200, or 500, we have to employ additional teachers to teach additional subjects. We cannot provide opportunity in the small schools for youngsters to take a highly academic program, youngsters who need one, and also provide a complete program of vocational education and provide for all of these youngsters a well-rounded general education.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Dr. Alexander, you talk about the advisability of having a well-rounded program of secondary education provided more economically in larger schools. I do not suppose many would argue with such a statement. I don't suppose many would argue with a statement that there are too many small school districts, which are hampering the quality of the education which we provide.

When you say, "We need larger schools," are you saying that Washington, the Federal Government, should be trying to hasten what we all recognize is a beneficial process?

Mr. ALEXANDER. No, sir. I think this goes back to the earlier discussion.

It seems to me as an individual that the role of Washington is to provide funds for the States, which under State control, can be spent either to give more money to the small schools or to provide large schools.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Is not that the trouble? If what you are trying to do is to provide quality education, may you not be freezing the uneconomic school district setup; because there is not any financial necessity which results in a regional high school, such as my State has developed, are we not running into hazards that way, by providing a massive dose of dollars, along these lines?

Is that not one of the reasons why the Federal role has to be pretty carefuly thought out so as to encourage what we all recognize are beneficial trends, but whic hmay be lowered, and not eliminate those trends altogether?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I say again, I think this committee has very difficult problems to consider, and I am delighted to have this chance to observe the thought which the committee gives such questions.

My own judgment is that our States have been able to continue moving toward reorganization of school districts and school consolidation along pretty good lines; even though we still have the 17,000 high schools that do not meet the standards proposed by Dr. Conant, we have a considerably larger average-size high school than we did when I was in high school. We have been moving in the right direction.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Is that not perhaps the case because there is not any substantial Federal fund available to build these schools, and that they must look around for the most economic way of building, the most feasible one? In other words, what I am driving at is whether or not there is not real value, if we are going to develop a Federal program, in requiring some local and State participation? In other words, Mr. Metcalf has dismissed as no longer necessary or advisable the matching of funds. I am wondering whether the matching is not going to result in something very beneficial, a continued feeling of responsibility to see that the system that is being set up is the best and most economical that can be afforded?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I don't know what formula you might set up for matching, and I certainly do not want to get into the technical aspects of this problem. But when I know the situation in Tennessee right now, where yesterday morning's paper came out with banner headlines that the teachers' pleas were refused, and know that this is because in that State, from what I know, they have almost reached the limit of State resources for the support of education, I simply cannot see any program of assisting them which would require the State to raise additional funds, if that is what you mean.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Actually, you are asking, in effect, for New Jersey to bail out the State of Tennessee, then?

Mr. ALEXANDER. No, I am asking New Jersey to raise its level alsoas I understand this bill-by participating in the program. New Jersey would get a smaller percentage of increase, but it would get the same number dollars per school age child.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. But the absence of any matching program, to my mind, makes a very real difference in the nature of the program,

and I think it would certainly make it have far less appeal. I do not believe that there are many States that would willingly confess the fact that they cannot afford to do more. A lot of States are not giving as much as we would recognize teachers' needs, or schools' needs generally to be. But it is not necessarily because they are bankrupt.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Dr. Lambert has some data on this.

Mr. LAMBERT. A few days ago we were compiling records on the tax effort of the various States; that is, tax effort as measured by total State taxes collected as a percent of total personal income payments. It happens that New Jersey is at the bottom of the 43 States in State tax effort, again as measured by total State tax collections as a percent of personal income payments. But I think we have to recognize that some States are doing three or four times as much-putting forth three or four times the effort that New Jersey is now putting forth, in terms of State revenues.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. But this bill does not look at effort at all. That is what I am saying, and the chairman was saying earlier.

Mr. THOMPSON. Are those figures based on the States' efforts?

Mr. LAMBERT. They are obtained by dividing total State tax collections by total personal income payments in the State.

Mr. THOMPSON. It does not take into account the municipalities?
Mr. LAMBERT. That is right.

Mr. THOMPSON. The ad valorem taxes?

Mr. LAMBERT. No local taxes. In other words, I think in New Jersey, what you have-as compared to other States-is a relatively low State taxload but probably a heavy taxload on your local districts in your property tax.

Mr. THOMPSON. You do not pay taxes on the State level in New Jersey, unless you bet on horses, smoke cigaretes, drink whisky, or drive a car or die.

Mr. LAMBERT. But you pay high property taxes.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. It means the citizens are not making an adequate effort.

Mr. THOMPSON. They ought to drink more.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. It does not mean the citizens of the State are not making an adequate effort to provide education facilities, because they are. Granted, the State is not as aggressive in this as some would like to see.

Mr. LAMBERT. It is a problem of State-local sharing in New Jersey. Mr. THOMPSON. That is right. And this problem is not unique in New Jersey. One reason why I am so much in favor of this legislation is that the State has usurped the municipalities' tax functions, as the Federal Government has usurped the States' tax functions. On the local effort, the ad valorem taxes are carrying virtually all of the load. We had a cigarette tax passed while I was in the New Jersey Legislature, and put on the stamps was "New Jersey School Tax." Those funds were diverted to highways and institutions and agencies and other things.

We do not allow, under our new constitution, dedicated funds. I think my colleague will agree with me that our State has been quite derelict as a State, but the individual taxpayer is carrying a tremendous burden.