OFFICE OF EDUCATION STATEMENTS OF HAROLD HOWE II, COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION; ARTHUR L. HARRIS, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER FOR ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION; PETER P. MUIRHEAD, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER FOR HIGHER EDUCATION; RICHARD L. BRIGHT, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER FOR RESEARCH; JOHN R. LUDINGTON, ACTING ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER FOR ADULT AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION; NORMAN KARSH, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATION; JOE G. KEEN, BUDGET OFFICER; AND JAMES F. KELLY, DEPARTMENT COMPTROLLER Comparative statement of the Appropriations for fiscal year 1966, and the estimates for fiscal year 1967-Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare In addition the following requests for program costs in 1966 under existing legislation are anticipated by the President's budget and not reflected above: Expansion and improvement of vocational education. Defense educational activities.. $1,000, 000 184, 000, 000 24, 200, 000 -$34, 187, 000 1 The President's budget indicates that, if proposed legislation is enacted, request will be submitted for supplemental appropriations for 1967, as follows: PROPOSED 1967 BUDGET Senator HILL. Commissioner Howe, Commissioner of Education. We are glad to have you here and we welcome you. You may proceed in your own way. Mr. Howe. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I welcome the opportunity to appear before you today to present the proposed 1967 budget of the Office of Education. As you know, this will be my first presentation to you of the total program that I have been asked to administer. It is a program that, in large measure, you 60-302-66--10 143 gentlemen have helped to shape. It is a program that attempts to meet universally acknowledged needs. And it is a program which certainly constitutes a central portion of the administration's effort to achieve a society to which all citizens contribute and in which each citizen can live with freedom and purpose. We have witnesses with us today who will present to you the details of each of our appropriations. However, before we begin, I would like to give you an overview of our total program, of what we are doing and of what we are hoping to do in the forthcoming fiscal year. I hope that this will help to place in perspective the discussion of individual program elements which will follow. In presenting these introductory remarks, I am aware that many of you have participated over the years in the developments I shall discuss, and that you are more familiar than I with many aspects of them. I shall, therefore, make my observations brief. AMOUNT OF REQUEST The 1967 budget for the Office of Education contains 15 separate appropriations, and will support more than 100 individual programs. Our total request for 1967 amounts to $3,491,261,000. On the assumption that the Congress will approve our presently contemplated 1966 supplemental appropriation requests of $209,200,000-an assumption which we hope is a valid one-our 1967 funds will reflect an increase over 1966 of $265,187,000, or approximately 7.5 percent. This budget and the budget which preceded it constitute what might be termed near revolution in the fiscal role of the Federal Government in the support of education in the United States. Our total budget for fiscal year 1965 was $1.5 billion. In 1963, it was $652 million. During the coming year the central task of the U.S. Office of Education will be to meet the challenge the Congress has set for it in the legislation of the last session. This will not be easy. As President Johnson has said, the 89th Congress made educational history. Our job is to continue to write that history in accordance with the principles the Congress has laid down. Particularly in the area of Federal-State relationships in education, we have been and will be writing new chapters of history. We are determined that they shall reflect a constructive, growing partnership between State and Federal agencies and that the Federal partner shall not dominate or control. We are determined also to carry out our responsibilities for administration of the acts Congress has passed so that the principles laid down in them are given careful attention and so that the intent of Congress is carried through. EFFECTS OF NEW LEGISLATION My own work in education in North Carolina for the past several years has given me the chance to see the beginning effects of the new legislation for which I am now responsible. At the State level and in local communities the impact of new energy available from Federal sources is clearly apparent. School people and community leaders are actively going about the business of planning for effective use of the new funds and in many places new programs are actually underway. My judgment of what I have seen and heard is that the legislation you have passed and funded, and for which we here ask continued funding, is beginning to have its intended effects. It is too early for us to present to you any comprehensive evaluation of the results of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act. But I do want to assure you that there is much hopeful activity already launched. We shall be evaluating the results of this new legislation, and we shall be reporting to you in the years ahead, the outcome of our studies. I would make one further general observation. It is that we need to keep a balanced view of our diverse educational system in this country. It is a system which has many problems and many shortcomings, it leaves many of our people without the services they require. All of us in education concede the need for improvement and we are working hard to provide it. But criticism of this kind is only part of the story. The other part is that no other country in the world has expected so much of education and received so much from it. We have good schools, strong colleges, and dedicated educational leaders who are striving for quality. As we focus our attention on the aspects of education which the Federal Government is joining the States to improve, we should not forget the achievements of our schools and colleges. After all, our Nation is the product of our people, and our people are the product of our schools. Now with your permission, I would like to focus a little more closely on the appropriations requested for fiscal year 1967. There are many ways to look at the programs for which we are responsible. Knowing that you will wish to discuss each requested appropriation in detail, we thought that it might be helpful for purposes of an overview to group our requests in certain broad categories. FUNDS FOR OPERATIONAL SUPPORT Roughly half of our dollars in fiscal year 1967 will be used for the direct, operational support of educational services, through local school districts, through public libraries, and through institutions of higher education. This major proportion of our funds, amounting to approximately $1.8 billion, will provide for support of educational activities during fiscal 1967, in contrast to the future benefits of construction and research funds. Chief among these federally supported activities is the assistance to educationally deprived children. We are aiming to improve the educational opportunities of some 7.5 million children from low-income families. Approximately $1.2 billion will be for this purpose. In addition, 5.8 million students will be enrolled in vocational and technical education programs; public library services will be made available to 2.5 million people currently without any such resources; developing institutions of higher education will be helped by providing funds for cooperative arrangements with more established and developed institutions; and a new emphasis will be directed toward the solution of community problems through the recently enacted community services and continuing education program. CONSTRUCTION OF FACILITIES In fiscal year 1967, over $863 million, or 25 percent of our budget, will be directed toward the construction of facilities. These con struction funds will be applicable to all levels of education-elementary and secondary schools affected by the impact of families employed by the Federal Government, undergraduate and graduate institutions of higher learning, facilities for vocational education, public libraries, research facilities, and facilities for the handicapped. STUDENT AID Funds for aid to individual students next year will total $428 million and account for 12 percent of our program. This includes undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, and financial assistance to students in higher educational institutions as well as in vocational schools. The fiscal year 1967 budget reflects a proposed change in the financing of student loans rather than continuing Federal contributions to college loan funds. It is not intended to reduce the amount of loans, only to change the manner of funding. This will, of course, be explained more fully by subsequent witnesses. Senator HILL. That change raises quite a question. We will get into more detail on that. Senator ALLOTT. Who will cover that later? Mr. Howe. It will be covered later by Mr. Muirhead and I will participate in that discussion, also. TEACHER CORPS We are proposing $227 million, some 7 percent of our funds, to improve teacher preparation and to help bring teachers to schools desperately needing them. A major contribution to this end will come from the Teacher Corps. Current plans call for the placement of 3,750 teachers in schools by this fall, with additional numbers being trained during fiscal year 1967. Training of teachers of the handicapped will be increased. To meet a critical shortage in this particular area, 5.000 teachers began training in September 1965, 6,500 are scheduled to begin training in September 1966, and 9,100 in September 1967. Senator HILL. You said they were scheduled? Mr. Howe. We should rephrase that. They are in training. Approximately 3 percent of our program will be devoted to educational research in fiscal year 1967. A total of $107 million will enable us to continue research already started and to begin new investigations to benefit education in the future. Research will be conducted in many fields of education including vocational education, improvement of education for the handicapped, and curriculum development. We are making particular efforts to bring the results of research into action in the schools. We invest in research a smaller proportion of our budget than is usual in business. In my view, these efforts should grow in the years ahead. REGIONAL EDUCATION LABORATORIES I might mention as an aside here, Mr. Chairman, we have just announced the development of nine regional education laboratories covering the country rather widely. These were given grants in this recent announcement for planning purposes but will rapidly be receiving funds for the actual operation of these laboratories under title IV of the Elementary-Secondary Act. Senator HILL. Could you give us the locations of those nine? Mr. Howe. The first one is the Southeastern Education Corp. which includes three States-Alabama, Georgia, and Florida-and will be located in Tallahassee. Senator HILL. Is that Florida State University? Mr. Howe. Yes, this will be the central focus but it will include interests from the State departments of education from these three States. Next, the Applachia Regional Educational Laboratory-West Virginia and parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky; the Midcontinent Regional Educational Laboratory-eastern Kansas, western Missouri, and parts of Nebraska; the Central Midwestern Regional Educational Laboratory-eastern Missouri, western Kentucky, western Tennessee, eastern Illinois, and northeastern Kansas; the Upper Midwest Regional Educational Laboratory-North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota; the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory-Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska, the Far West Regional Educational Laboratory-northern California and western Nevada; the Continental Divide Consortium-parts of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska; and finally an organization known as Research for Better Schools, Inc., which is organized as a laboratory including southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. Senator ALLOTT. Where will the consortium be located? Senator ALLOTT. You said for the Continental Divide. Mr. Howe. I was referring to Better Schools. The consortiumBoulder, Colo., in affiliation with the University of Colorado at Boulder. I am glad we made the awards in these places. Senator ALLIOTT. We are justly proud of our university and I am glad to hear that. Mr. Howe. There were a number of applications for labs that were not awarded and we are negotiating with the people involved in these with an attempt to cover the entire country with these organizations. These represent the best proposals received. CONCEPT OF UNDERDEVELOPED CHILDREN Senator ALLOTT. While we have this interruption, I would like to ask you a question about your previous paragraph, if that is all right, Mr. Chairman. Senator HILL. Yes. Senator ALLOTT. You say 3,750 teachers in the schools by this fall and this raised a question. When those teachers go to a school, what types of schools do they go to? Is this based upon the so-called underdeveloped schools or those that you believe do not have a high enough educational standard? Mr. Howe. It is based more on a concept of underdeveloped children, if I can use that phrase, than underdeveloped schools. But the two are likely to go together. The Teacher Corps will focus in on training teachers to work with disadvantaged youngsters. Fre |