Dr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Commissioner.

The law under which the Pittsburgh project "identification and development of talent" operates is 531. It was passed by Congress in 1954. The program has been in operation for more than 3 years And in this program, which authorizes the Commissioner to contract with the State departments of education and colleges and universities throughout the country for research on education, we have an advisory committee which passes on the applications for research assistance. The University of Pittsburgh is eligible under this program to make application for assistance. One of the areas in which we originally, over 2 years ago, had announced an interest, was this whole matter of finding new and better ways to help students develop their abilities, to help the country recognize what the talents of our students really are and how they ay be developed through an educational program.

We had already supported quite a few projects in this area, and about 30 of the Nation's prominent people got together a little over 2 years ago and started developing this project, having to do with the identification and development of talent. The University of Pittsburgh submitted the application. Our review committee went through it and studied it very carefully and made certain recommendations to the Commissioner its costs, the sampling and other things that should be considered in contracting the project; and as a result of these kinds of consideration the Commissioner signed the contract with the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Flanagan, who is a full professor at the university, is director of the project. So this is a project under Public Law 531, which was passed in 1954.

It is a research project and not a national testing program in any sense of the word. It has some testing in it, surely, in order to find out what a large sample of the high school students' abilities, aspirations, college plans, motivations, and so forth, really are. It is anticipated that when we get this information, it will be thoroughly analyzed and reported on by the University of Pittsburgh to educational institutions around the country with reference to guidance and counseling, the nature of the programs, the economy factors, and so forth simply in an endeavor to find out what kinds of educational programs and what kinds of experience and what kinds of guidance and counseling tend to enable students to develop their potential.

We think it is a very worthy project, and our advisory committee highly recommended it to the Commissioner, and the Commissioner approved it into a contract.

Dr. DERTHICK. I think we should make clear that this is, then. conducted by the University of Pittsburgh, just as we have contracts with many universities all over the country; that any testing done will be done as a part of research, and that schools and students that participate in it will participate only on a voluntary basis and with the approval of the school authorities in that State and in that local school system. You could even go to the point where no child would participate whose parents objected. I am sure that would be true, from the local school system's point of view.

Mr. Chairman, since there has been some comment and misunderstanding about this, it might be very helpful if we could file a statement in the record giving the highlight facts that Dr. Hall has reviewed.

Mr. ELLIOTT. I would like to have you do that, and to include with that statement, without objection, pertinent provisions of Public Law 531, under which that program is being carried on. (Information referred to follows:)

REPORT TO HOUSE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR

THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH RESEARCH PROJECT-THE IDENTIFICATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND UTILIZATION OF HUMAN TALENTS

Public Law 531 was enacted in 1954 and funds for implementing it were appropriated in 1956. The cooperative research program was established to implement the law. This law authorizes the Commissioner of Education to "enter into contracts or jointly financed cooperative arrangements with universities and colleges and State educational agencies for the conduct of research, surveys, and demonstrations in the field of education. It also provides that no contract or jointly financed cooperative arrangement shall be entered into under this section until the Commissioner of Education has obtained the advice and recommendations of educational research specialists who are competent to evaluate the proposal as to the soundness of their design, the possibilities of securing productive results, the adequacy of resources to conduct the proposed research surveys or demonstrations, and their design, and their relationship to other similar educational research already completed or in process."

In carrying out this law the Office of Education identifies, with the help of researchers, educators, and professional groups all over the country, the areas in which research is most needed.

Two years ago the Office announced that one of the most crucial problems in education is this matter of helping parents, pupils, teachers, and educators generally find better ways to identify, describe, and develop the abilities and potential achievements of students. State departments and colleges and universities were encouraged to stimulate interested and capable researchers to develop research proposals dealing with this problem. By the end of 1958, 16 different research projects had been initiated and signed into contract with State departments and colleges and universities, all of which projects were designed to yield more information about this problem. Studies already completed in Arkansas, Indiana, and Wisconsin had indicated the complexity of this problem and some of the factors and relationships which may contribute to it. The committee felt these should be studied more comprehensively.

The University of Pittsburgh, with assistance from about 30 of the Nation's most interested and competent researchers in this field, spent 2 years developing the design for project No. 635. Dr. John H. Fischer, superintendent of schools, Baltimore, Md., is chairman of this planning group and Dr. John C. Flanagan, a noted researcher in mental measurements and a former U.S. Army Air Force colonel who set up the evaluation and selection program for air crew candidates, is the director of the program.

The proposal was submitted to the Office of Education last fall. Eight different Federal agencies have expressed an interest in the study and four wish to share the support in order to use the findings in planning their own services and programs National Institute of Mental Health, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and the Office of Education. It was felt by the agencies and the committee that it would be more economical and feasible to have the study done as a unit by OE. After it was reviewed by the Office of Education it was sent to the Research Advisory Committee for their review and appraisal. This Research Advisory Committee is composed of nine outstanding researchers and educators:

Ralph W. Tyler (Chairman), director, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University;

Finis E. Engleman, executive secretary, American Association of School Administrators;

Chester W. Harris, professor of education, University of Wisconsin;

Erick L. Lindman, professor of school administration, George Peabody College for Teachers;

Henry J. Otto, professor of education, University of Texas;

J. Cayce Morrison, assistant commissioner for research, New York State Education Department (retired);

H. H. Remmers, director, Division of Educational Reference, Purdue University; Dewey B. Stuit, dean of College of Liberal Arts, State University of Iowa;

Dorothy Adkins, chairman, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina.

After the Committee had reviewed the proposal they met in Washington on February 12 and 13, 1959, to discuss it along with 82 other proposals, 26 of which they recommend to the Commissioner of Education. One submitted from Iowa is investigating the impact that special training during the summer months may have on the achievement and adjustment of gifted children. Another is testing the effect of group counseling on the academic and personal adjustment of gifted adolescents. Still others deal with ways of increasing the potential of mentally retarded children.

The proposal submitted by the University of Pittsburgh was entirely in keeping with the authorization and procedures of Public Law 531. It was presented voluntarily by an institution which is interested in and capable of helping do research on a problem important to its own program and education generally. Its purpose is to find out more about why some students learn and others do not, why some students do poorly in high school and then seem to find themselves in college, while others do well in high school and fail to adjust to college. It will attempt to find out more about the students' interests, career plans, and whether the courses they take are consistent with the objectives they have set for themselves in life, and why so much of the Nation's human potential is lost because students do not realize their own potential.

For many years educators at all levels have been seeking information on these important questions, and while many studies have been conducted in school systems and on a statewide basis, a study of the magnitude proposed by the University of Pittsburgh seemed to the Advisory Committee to be a highly valuable way to throw enough light on this subject to enable educators throughout the country to understand the nature of the problem and be rendered capable of doing something about it.

Not only tests, but many other methods (interviews, questionnaires, and achievement records) will be used in obtaining the data necessary for this significant study. If new tests are developed, they will not be used except for this study. They will not be standardized and adopted by the Office of Education, nor will they be commercialized in any way. They will not be in competition with existing tools of research except in terms of showing the way to improve the quality of such tools. This kind of competition is healthy and good for education and test makers. The contract between the Commissioner of Education and the University of Pittsburgh will be very clear on this matter. Both the school systems and the students in them will participate in this study voluntarily. All invitations to participate will be extended through official State and/or local channels.

Budget and related facts

The Office contract with the University of Pittsburgh calls for $479,620 to be expended for data gathering and analyses between now and June 30, 1960. The Office of Naval Research is contributing $25,000 and the National Institute of Mental Health, $70,000. The Federal Government, therefore, is contributing $574,620 to the carrying out of this research undertaking during the next 2 fiscal years. This is slightly more than $1 per person for the collection and analyses of a wide variety of data from 500,000 high school students. This project, therefore, is as economical as it is significant.

There is no connection between the University of Pittsburgh project No. 635 and the provisions for testing under title V of the National Defense Education Act of 1958. Title V provides financial assistance to the State departments of education to improve guidance, counseling, and testing within the States. The States design their own plans, select, and administer their own tests, and use the results of the tests in the improvement of their own programs.

Act establishing cooperative research program

Public Law 531, 83d Congress, provides as follows:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That (a) in order to enable the Office of Education more effectively to accomplish the purposes and to perform the duties for which it was originally established, the Commissioner of Education is authorized to enter into contracts or jointly financed cooperative arrangements with universities and colleges and State educational agencies for the conduct of research, surveys, and demonstrations in the field of education.

"(b) No contract or jointly financed cooperative arrangement shall be entered into under this section until the Commissioner of Education has obtained the

advice and recommendations of educational research specialists who are competent to evaluate the proposals as to the soundness of their design, the possibilities of securing productive results, the adequacy of resources to conduct the proposed research, surveys, or demonstrations, and their relationship to other similar educational research already completed or in process.

"(c) The Commissioner of Education shall transmit to the Congress annually a report concerning the research, surveys, and demonstrations initiated under this Act, the recommendations made by research specialists pursuant to subsection (b), and any action taken with respect to such recommendations.

"SEC. 2. There are hereby authorized to be appropriated annually to the Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, such sums as the Congress determines to be necessary to carry out the purposes of this Act." Approved July 26, 1954.

Dr. HALL. Could I for the record, sir, correct one other false impression about this project, if you do not mind?

Mr. ELLIOTT. You certainly may.

Dr. HALL. I think the public is entitled to this information. Originally the University of Pittsburgh requested almost a million dollars for this project and offered to contribute $130,000 of University of Pittsburgh money. Now, this is a cooperatively financed project, as most of the projects under 531 are. If an institution has a program of research it wants to carry out, it simply asks the Federal Government to assist. If the project is one in which the Office of Education is also interested it is considered for support. When our review committee considered this project, they questioned pretty definitely whether the Federal Government should obligate roughly a million dollars for a 5-year program without seeing more definitely what kinds of data are needed and what kinds of followup studies. So in the final analysis, after sampling experts were employed to make the study of this project, we actually wrote into the contract less than a half a million dollars for this project.

Now, that, with the contribution that two other Federal agencies are making to the same project, and the contribution that the University of Pittsburgh is making, brings the project up to slightly over a half a million dollars. And remember that they are trying to get a sample of a half a million students, and they are going to collect data with a variety of instruments.

This means, Mr. Chairman, that we are getting information from students at slightly over a dollar per student throughout the United States. And I want this in the record, because this is one of the most economical kinds of ways to get at basic information about education that we have yet devised. And when you figure that you can get this kind of information from this many students for slightly over a dollar per student, then you get this whole matter of a million-dollar project, a so-called million-dollar project, into some kind of perspective here.

Mr. ELLIOTT. What other Government agencies are cooperating with you on that study?

Dr. HALL. The Office of Naval Research and the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. DERTHICK. There are other agencies in the Federal Government that are interested, and I know Mrs. Green will be pleased to know of that example of cooperation and coordination. The fact is significant that these other governmental agencies are intensely interested in this project; also the fact is impressive that we have had so many leaders in education advise on it, in addition to our regular advisory committee, composed of experts from around the country.

You have a special committee on this one project, I believe, composed of very distinguished people.

And so the Government agencies, the regular advisory committees, the special advisory committees, and individual leaders who have participated in this review and the examination and the planning and design of this project, all feel that it will produce results very important for education.

We think that all that people need to do is to know the facts about this project, to be reassured. We are sorry that there has been misunderstandings.

Mrs. GREEN. May I ask one question?

I do not understand the payment procedure. If I understood you correctly, Dr. Hall, you-or Dr. Ludington-said there were 27 States where the nonpublic school students were not administered the tests by State agency, and therefore HEW administered them directly; is that right?

Dr. LUDINGTON. Right.

Mrs. GREEN. What is the priority of payments? How much money is involved in this program, and what is the priority of payments?

Dr. LUDINGTON. We withhold from the State's allotment a per capita amount sufficient to carry on a testing program in the nonpublic schools comparable to that provided by the State in the public schools. And I have a table which I can leave for the committee, indicating the amounts withheld in order to cover this phase of the program.

(Information left with the committee.)

Mrs. GREEN. And when that money is expended, that is all you can use?

Dr. LUDINGTON. Our only resource is the amount we withhold from the State's allotment, where the State by law cannot provide the service. If we withhold an amount above that necessary to do the job, we then return to the State any balance that exists.

Mrs. GREEN. Thank you.

Mr. LAFORE. In that connection, Dr. Ludington, what is the reason, or what are the reasons, that in these 27 States the commissioner is required to handle it with the nonpublic schools?

Dr. LUDINGTON. By the State laws or constitutional provision, State expenditures of money for this purpose are prohibited.

Dr. DERTHICK. I might explain that when the Commissioner does thave the responsibility of administering testing programs for private schools, parochial schools, or whatever they might be in the States, it is expected that he will not do so directly, but will follow the pattern set by the State for the tests for the public school students, and undoubtedly will use the same instrumentalities for administering the tests that the State uses.

For example, a given State will have developed its testing program for public school students. We will simply take that and apply it to the other students, and if the States use the State universities to administer the tests, we will do likewise. So we will not be in the business of designing and administering any testing programs from Washington.

Mrs. GREEN. These are funds, then, that do not become State funds?