were left to the not so tender mercies of welfare systems which often seemed better designed to punish than to aid the poor. All too often, desertion of an able-bodied but unemployed male was required as the price of assistance to the family.

Most of the immigrants arrived with the triple educational handicaps of segregated, southern, and rural schools, with their children unprepared for the postwar education binge. Their skin color (or language barriers in the case of Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans) and lack of skills locked them in. With education-conscious parents flowing to the suburbs and the financial base for school support following, the inner city schools were deteriorating as their job became more difficult. Soon those who needed the best schools had the worst. It was no longer sufficient to "Americanize" the immigrant. He was already American. What he needed were the skills which these inner city schools had never been equipped to supply. Lack of education was only one of many handicaps of the ghetto resident. Its availability could not solve all his problems, but there was no solution in its absence.

Educationally all was not well outside the growing ghettoes either. All those displaced by agricultural productivity and declining employment in nonurban industries like mining and railroading did not become urban poor. Many remained in rural depression. Though 30 percent of Americans still live in rural areas, only one-fourth are engaged in agriculture and they are 43 percent of the total poor. Their inadequate schools became relatively worse as suburban schools progressed and rural areas stagnated and lost leadership. There was little or no job preparation for rural youth or adults except in the agriculture which needed them least. The suburban schools modified their old "selecting out" traditions only moderately, broadening their objectives to include a high school education for all, but acting as if all were college bound. In cities of moderate size, a tradition of good vocational education continued, though often marked by racial discrimination in some parts of the country.

As a generalization, in the rural areas, vocational education was limited in content; in the large central cities it was poor in quality; in big city suburbs it hardly existed.

ECONOMIC AND EDUCATION POLICY IN THE FIFTIES

These trends were aggravated by two policies of the 1950's: efforts to restrain inflation led to economic growth rates slower than those necessary to simultaneously offset rising productivity and absorb a growing labor force. The economy which had grown at nearly 5 percent per year between 1947 and 1953, grew only 2.4 percent per year from 1954 to 1960. The low birth rate during the 1930's restrained the pressures during the 1950's; but even then, with the labor force growing at an average of over 1 percent per year and output per manhour growing at nearly 3 percent per year on the average, unemployment could only rise. And it did-creeping upward over each of the three recessions which marked the latter 1950's. A national economy which now had to run faster just to stand still, really wasn't trying. In each recession it was the undereducated, inexperienced, unskilled, and the

victims of discrimination who were the "last in and first out" and who bore the brunt of unemployment.

The other policy was rising support, particularly Federal support, of higher education. It contributed to the educational opportunities of many, but made labor market competition tougher for those who lacked it. The rationale for the G.I. bill was replaced by international competition with the Soviet Union. By achieving nuclear weaponry and by grasping an early lead in space exploration, the U.S.S.R. demonstrated and unexpected scientific and engineering potential. The U.S. reaction was to make science, engineering, and technology primary objectives and "education for excellence" the motto. The National Science Foundation and the National Defense Education Act were the legislative vehicles at the Federal level. For the Nation as a whole, the budget for higher education increased from $750 million in 1940 to $4.5 billion in 1960, and the budget for all education, from $3.3 billion to $22 billion over the same years.

In spite of a minor broadening of vocational education in 1946, preparation for the occupations had low status. In 1954, abolition of Federal aid to vocational education was even seriously recommended to the administration. This occurred at a time when female participation in the labor force was on a long steady rise and the labor force participation of males remained almost constant. Thus almost the entire population entered the labor market at some time during their lives and needed skills for employment. The title II of the Vocational Education Act of 1946, Health Amendment Act of 1956, included provision of practical nurse education and was the only Federal recognition of training for women during this period. It was a very profitable investment indeed.

Just as rising productivity freed labor from agriculture for industrial purposes, continued rises in industrial productivity allowed fulfillment of most of the basic needs for goods and left labor available for services. Thus the period was marked by a continuing shift from a primarily blue-collar and agriculture, goods-producing economy toward a predominance of white-collar and service employment. Thus, a changing industrial and occupational mix and a more sophisticated technology sparked rapid growth in the occupations requiring the longest training time and the most advanced skills. At the same time the proportion of skilled blue-collar jobs declined while that of many relatively low-skilled service jobs grew.

Figure 1 CHANGE IN DISTRIBUTION OF EMPLOYMENT BY MAJOR OCCUPATION GROUP,

REASSESSMENT IN THE SIXTIES

All of these trends continued through the 1950's, but they converged and were brought forcefully to the public's consciousness in the early 1960's. The immediate factors were the emergence of unemployment as a key public issue for the first time since the 1930's; the influx into the labor force of the postwar baby crop; and the growing demands of minority groups for equal rights, equal oportunities, and equal results. Unemployment in the third post-Korean recession exceeded 8.1 percent (unadjusted for seasonality) in February 1961, cutting deeply enough into the politically potent segment of the labor force to demand and to get action. Whether the primary cause of unemployment was slow economic growth and a deficient rate of job creation or inadequate skills in an economy of abundant but high level employment opportunities became a topic of intensive debate. These discussions focused attention on preparation for employment and the need for remedial training programs.

As a resumption of economic growth plucked the experienced unemployed from the labor market, attention shifted to the food of youth who, though better prepared educationally on the average than those already in the labor force, were entering too rapidly for quick absorption. Negro organizations which had congealed around equal access to education, public facilities, and the vote recognized that, without jobs and income, "rights" had little operational meaning. Deficient education in rural depressed areas and urban slums was among the many

obstacles to realistic employment prospects. Numerous remedial manpower and antipoverty programs were introduced: the Manpower Development and Training Act, the community work and training program, the Job Corps, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, the work experience and training program, and others. Each was intended to solve some portion of the emerging crises but all stumbled over each other in the process.

Youth unemployment was triple the general unemployment rate; the rate for Negro youth doubled that. Measures of fighting ghetto and depressed area unemployment were unsatifactory, since even in prosperous 1966, urban slums experienced unemployment rates averaging over 10 percent and reaching as high as 16 percent. Adding the underemployed and those involuntarily out of the labor force developed a "subemployment rate" averaging over one-third. The underemployment and low incomes in rural backwaters were equally depressing. When the key role of education and training became widely recognized, the schools came in for more than their share of criticism. Ironically, in many ways their problems resulted from their successes. Of the three out of four American youth graduating from high school, approximately half were going on to higher education and half of these were completing college. One result was a mobile, adaptable labor force which was the envy of other industrial as well as developing countries. But too little was being done to prepare for employment the majority whose formal education did not exceed the secondary level. The most serious problem was that the availability of large numbers of relatively well-educated people simultaneously encouraged the development of a sophisticated technology requiring higher education and skills and, therefore, enabling employers to demand and obtain these skills (table 1). Those lacking education or training, or those whose education was obtained in defective or inadequate rural and ghetto schools, were simply left behind.

TABLE 1.-THE CHANGING EDUCATIONAL PATTERN OF MAJOR OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS, 1952 AND 1965

Source: Johnston, Denis and Hamel, Harvey, "Educational Attainment of Workers in March 1965." Monthly Labor Review, Washington, D.C., March 1966.

TABLE 2.-EMPLOYMENT BY MAJOR OCCUPATION GROUP, 1964, AND PROJECTED REQUIREMENTS, 19751

Note: Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "America's Industrial and Occupational Manpower Requirements, 1964-75."

One graphic illustration is the following set of facts: Of a little over 1.1 million youths who graduated from high school and entered the labor force in June 1965, 12.4 percent were unemployed the following October. Of these, only 108,000 were nonwhite, but their unemployment rate was 27 percent. Of the 304,000 who left high school short of graduation, only 183,000 or 60 percent were in the labor force in October and their unemployment rate was 20.3 percent. Only 52 percent of the 57,000 nonwhite dropouts entered the labor force, but their unemployment experience was no worse than that of the nonwhite high school graduates.

It was in this milieu that the Vocational Education Act of 1963 was developed. The Federal commitment to vocational education had been small (a little over $50 million in 1962). State, local, as well as Federal educational efforts emphasized the needs of the politically influential one out of six who would achieve a college education. Economists had discovered in the postwar period that education and training were key elements in explaining the process of economic growth. At the same time, the prospects were for continued expansion of those occupations requiring the most preparation and the relative decline of those within the reach of the undereducated and undertrained.

The time had arrived when all workers would need some kind of special training for a successful working life. Yet less than one-half of the noncollege trained labor force had any formal training for their jobs.

Salable skills in the new environment demanded intellectual as well as manipulative content. It was also an environment in which social and political equality demanded realistically equal economic opportunities and results. For many these were achievable only through compensatory education and training. It was toward these dimly perceived goals that the Vocational Education Act of 1963, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and other Federal legislation supporting State and local education were aimed.