Mr. BAILEY. I am chairman of the subcommittee that reported out the National Education Act in the last session of Congress.

I am interested in knowing whether you have any suggestions that that law should be amended.

Mr. HILL. The National Defense Education Act?

Mr. BAILEY. Yes.

Mr. HILL. The statement I made first was that there were rontrols being exercised under the act because the Commissioner of Education has to approve the plans before they get any money and that this has been criticized by the Secretary of the State Chief School Officers.

Mr. BAILEY. It is not a Federal plan; it is a State plan, and, therefore, does not have Federal interference.

Mr. HILL. Are you talking about the National Defense Education Act, or the Federal impacted area program?

Mr. BAILEY. I am talking about the National Defense Education

Act.

Mr. HILL. A State cannot get any money, though, until its plans are approved by the Commissioner of Education.

Mr. BAILEY. They are not the Federal Government's plans; they are the State's plans.

Mr. HILL. They cannot be used, though, until the Commissioner of Education approves them. They are sometimes sent back again and again until they are approved by the Commissioner.

Mr. BAILEY. What questions do these raise about it? I had not learned that that was happening in the administration of the bill.

Mr. HILL. This superintendent of the State of Oklahoma said that they had submitted theirs three times, it had been rejected, it had finally grown to 80 pages under title III, that the Office of Education had had it 49 days the last time and still had not approved it. * Dr. Fuller, the State chief school officer, was criticizing the control here.

Mainly his criticism was the budget department making sure that these funds were going to be spent for the purpose that Congress had set forth, a perfectly reasonable position.

Mr. BAILEY. Proceed. You are going to have to end your testimony before too long.

Mr. HIESTAND. Are you on page 9 now?

Mr. HILL. No, sir; the questions and answers have covered much of the intermediate, so I think I can, instead of laboring thus, I will move on over to page 15.

Federal school support means that we discriminate against the citizens in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in favor of the citizens of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Kentucky.

This would be done without any real concern for existing spending patterns, tax burdens, and without appreciation for cultural, economic, and social priorities of the citizens of the various school communities and States.

Some States would gain money from the program and others would lose money. All might lose something more valuable than the subsidies, that is, State and local control over education.

Federal school support, through discrimination against some States in favor of others, would tend to equalize school costs and perhaps per

pupil expenditures. This might be more important if we could equate expenditures and educational achievements. This seems to be impossible.

Naturally, a school system can be pauperized by lack of funds, but expensive schools are not necessarily good schools.

Success has not blessed any of the serious efforts to find a correlation between expenditures and educational achievement. Larger school expenditures in the wealthier States do not necessarily result in higher educational achievements there as compared with achievements in States with less wealth and lower expenditure per pupil. Some States and some school districts simply have to pay higher salaries than others. Also, school expenditures are factors of pupilteacher ratios and these are largely influenced by school unit organization.

The highest paid teachers in Indiana are employed by school districts in Lake County. But the most experienced and best trained teachers are employed in small towns of central and southern Indiana, where the average salaries are up to $1,000 less per year.

An illustration of why certain States spend more than others is shown in the relative school construction costs. The U.S. Office of Education has made some interesting cost studies.

For example, a few years ago when the Office of Education calculated building costs at $630 per pupil in Alabama and $715 in Florida, it fixed the costs at $1,383 in Illinois, $1,447 in Maryland, and $1,483 in Ohio.

H.R. 22 introduced by Congressman Metcalf, contains many discriminatory features. In this respect the bill is not unusual. A Federal program based on this bill would discriminate against States in which the school districts are efficient, States which are above average in income, and States which, for one reason or another, are not making an effort approximating the national effort.

Schools in States with large numbers of small school districts and relatively few pupils would receive a windfall under H.R. 22. If they are in States which also fall below the average in income per school age child, the bonus may be larger.

This is true because States with large numbers of small schools tend to have unrealistic pupil-teacher ratios. This ratio magnifies per pupil costs and results in wasteful expenditures.

Because the per pupil cost is high and the resulting effort substantial, such schools would get favorable treatment under H.R. 22. Now, this is H.R. 22. It does not take into consideration all these things and no practical bill could do so.

In other words, it is difficult and impossible to devise a Federal school program that is not discriminatory.

Aside from this all States, it seems to me, are placed in danger of losing something under a general Federal school program and that is control over their local school systems.

In general, the Murray-Metcalf bill would discriminate against the wealthier States.

Mr. BAILEY. But it is elective; is it not? You are not forcing them to take the money; it is elective. There is no compulsory provision in the bill.

Mr. HILL. They are not being forced to take the money, that is true, Mr. Chairman, but the size of the program would either require Congress to raise taxes or borrow money. Either way, the long run, the wealthier school districts as well as the poor ones are affected by that.

Mr. BAILEY. Are we not borrowing money now on an increasingly national debt level and running a deficit of $10 billion in the current budget and are we not borrowing money to carry on programs just like this abroad under our economic program?

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.

Mr. BAILEY. In the debate over the school construction I called attention to 184 existing contracts that the Government had with institutions and colleges in this country carrying on educational programs abroad in which we were building school buildings and paying the salaries of the teachers.

If we have money to do that, why bring up the question of the deficit or that we cannot afford it? If we can afford it for that program we can afford it for the American boys and girls.

That is one of the issues you are going to have to face in this session of Congress. If we are going to have all this austerity at home in domestic programs I am fearful it is going to be at the expense of some of these liberalities that we are subsidizing from Pakistan to Patagonia and some other places in the field of education.

Mr. UDALL. Mr. Chairman, I hope the chairman will get the hearings back on the track here.

Mr. BRADEMAS. May I interrupt with one observation I really am constrained to make.

Mr. BAILEY. Before you make your point here, let me remind the witness that the organization you are representing here today favors every program which has a dollar sign on it where they can improve business for their members, but when it comes to helping their schools, where there is no possibility of making a few dollars, your businessmen are not interested.

They are for the road program. Why?

Mr. HILL. The Council of State Chambers of Commerce were not for that highway act.

Mr. BAILEY. They were not?

Mr. HILL. They were not.

I have to disagree with you on that statement that the Council of State Chambers and its members are for every act that would help them. I do not think that is true.

But I would like to agree with you on what you are saying about sending abroad money for salaries and buildings and everything else and not doing it at home. This is one of the things that makes it difficult. We are spending money for everything else, why should we not give some for buildings and teachers? That is hard to answer, of course.

I think that the answer is that we are spending money for too many things abroad now. I think that you will find that the group I represent will be glad to support and testify for a reduction in these expenditures so that the budget would not have to be out of balance by $10 billion or $12 billion.

Mr. BAILEY. You are in support of this economic aid program, are you not? You always have been. If there has been any change on the part of the chamber, I have not learned about it. They are always against me when we are up for reciprocal trade legislation.

They have always been on the other side, your chamber, and your National Association of Manufacturers and your Farm Bureau.

Let me say that the Farm Bureau has been the recipient of more Federal handouts than any other group in the country. Yet they come up here and oppose doing something for our own boys and girls, but they will stick their hand out and take it in millions of dollars. Let us be consistent here for awhile.

Mr. HILL. Could Mr. Rinta answer that question? He is more familiar with all the different programs.

Mr. BAILEY. Certainly.

Mr. RINTA. With respect to foreign aid, I will speak on that first. Over the past several years the Council of State Chambers of Commerce has consistently recommended substantial reductions in the foreign aid program.

In connection with the fiscal 1958 appropriation we recommended a reduction of nine hundred and some million dollars which is pretty near what Congress did cut it.

Last year we recommended a reduction of approximately 22 percent, which came to, again, about $950 million; the Congress cut about $100 million, part of which is going to be reinstated now.

Our recommendation in connection with the current $3.9 billion proposal of the President is a reduction of $846 million.

Mr. BAILEY. But you still support the program?

Mr. RINTA. We have not supported the program; we have recommended time and again that this program be brought to an end at the earliest possible date.

But it is impractical to bring a $3.9 billion program of that type to an end all at once.

Mr. BAILEY. Well, I am agreeably surprised to learn this.

Mr. RINTA. As far as the highway program is concerned, our groups recommended that the Federal Government cease the taxation of gasoline, permit the States to collect all gasoline taxes and build all the roads.

Mr. BAILEY. Nevertheless, I am rather inclined to think you are sold on the program. You did not make any national fight against it like you are making here.

Mr. RINTA. Yes; we did.

Now, you are talking about two different organizations. You are citing the position of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Dr. Hill and I are here representing the Council of State Chambers of Commerce, which is an organization consisting of State chambers of commerce and some regional chambers throughout the country.

Mr. BAILEY. Then it is true that the national chamber does support that?

Mr. RINTA. I believe they supported the highway program; yes. I think they had a referendum on it.

Mr. BAILEY. I do not want to get confused. I still was right about it in general, but your group down here, you do not claim to be a part of this National Chamber of Commerce?

Mr. RINTA. No.

Mr. HILL. The United States Chamber does not make policy for any local chambers and State chambers and frequently they are in disagreement.

Mr. BAILEY. They always say they are representing the man the other day said he was representing 3,400-3,480 groups, of different local chamber organizations; he was speaking for all of them. That must include Indiana.

Mr. HILL. We are members in Indiana; and, of course, on some things their policy reflects ours, on other things we are in disagree

ment.

Mr. BRADEMAS. May I say I am a member of a South Bend, Ind., Chamber of Commerce, and I sometimes am in disagreement with your position.

Mr. HILL. Most of us are members of a lot of things, speaking of legislation, and seldom do they represent everyone.

Mr. BAILEY. Now, I will give you 5 addition minutes, Dr. Hill. You go ahead and use whatever there you care to use and I will see that nobody interrupts you.

Mr. HILL. The Murray-Metcalf bill contains many discriminatory features. In this respect the bill is not unusual.

A Federal program based on this bill would discriminate against States in which the school districts are efficient, States which are above average in income, and States which for one reason or another are not making an effort approximating the national effort.

Schools in States with large numbers of small inefficient school districts would get a windfall under this bill. If they are in States which also fall below the national average and per capita wealth they would get a double bonus.

Mr. BAILEY. The Chair will interrupt you at this point.

Do you have a county unit system în Indiana, or do you still have three or four thousand school boards?

Mr. HILL. We have about 1,020 school districts.

Mr. BAILEY. What is your chamber doing about that?

Mr. HILL. The State chamber is the main force behind legislation just enacted to bring these schools down. We have done this for years. We have spent a lot of money on research, promotions, speeches, pamphlets of all kinds.

In 1957 we got a bill through the senate, it died in the house. The vote was 50 against it, not enough to kill it because that would take 51, but we could do no more.

In 1957 to 1959 a lot of work was done. In 1959 the bill passed each house easily, very little opposition to it except there was some, of course, from the township trustees who administered the schools in those districts.

We expected them to oppose a bill which would reduce their responsibility and eliminate it, but it is passed and we think the number will be substantially reduced.

But there are States with 4,000 school districts that have fewer pupils than Indiana. Florida has a slightly smaller enrollment and 67 school districts.

This should be reduced. In those States where you have a lot of small school districts the ratio of pupils to teachers is low. This,