every one of them will get a job the minute he or she steps off that stage with a certificate in his hand. Walk outside the door and they will be hired tomorrow night. You cannot say this of your bachelor of arts people. Mr. Howe. Although we are not here to propose new legislation, I can say that I agree with you about the need Mr. FLOOD. You are here to propose anything you wish. Mr. Howe (continuing). For education beyond the high school. Essentially, this is in the realm beyond the high school, although some of it may be combined with what goes on in the high school. Mr. FLOOD. You are aware of the thousands of young men and women who do not want to go to college for 4 years. They consider it an appalling waste of their time and funds. They do not want to do it. There was a time 15 years ago when mama and papa insisted on it because they were keeping up with the Joneses and drove them like cattle into the universities and colleges. Many of them do not want this. You are not helping them or doing them a favor. They want to go to my institute, and there ain't none. Mr. FOGARTY. Is there and other legislation you want to propose tonight? Mr. Howe. No, sir. Thank you very much. COLD WAR BILL OF RIGHTS Mr. FOGARTY. What about the cold war bill of rights we passed today, upstairs? How will that affect education? Mr. Howe. The GI provisions for continued education? This will provide opportunities for a considerable number of people. It will supplement the kinds of things that we are doing with loans and with scholarship grants and with fellowship grants under various programs. It seems to me this does make sense. it. Mr. FOGARTY. We all voted for it. I doubt if anybody voted against SCHOOL DROPOUTS We will place the statement we asked you to have prepared on school dropouts in the record at this point. (The statement referred to follows:) SCHOOL DROPOUTS Recent statistics indicate that some progress is being made toward solution of the dropout problem. The number of high school graduates has doubled in the last 10 years. This compares with an increase in total enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools of only 40 percent during the same period. The proportion of ninth-grade students staying on to graduation has been increasing slowly but steadily in recent years. Despite this gradual progress, however, the problem of school dropouts remains a critical one for the Nation. Several pieces of legislation enacted by the 88th Congress and 1st session of the 89th Congress provide strong support in meeting the dropout problem. One of the most significant is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Title I provides financial assistance to local educational agencies to meet the special educational needs of educationally deprived children. In fiscal year 1966, $14,700,000 and $16 million in fiscal year 1967 will be used to assist these educationally deprived children. The guidelines for title I call specific attention to the need, as a part of a balanced program, for local educational agencies to develop projects specifically designed for school dropouts. Extensive materials describing programs that might be established have been furnished the State educational agencies for their use in working with local agencies in developing such projects. Examples of projects now being funded by title I are those conducted in the evening which include reading-incentive seminars and reading clinics, since one of the most significant characteristics of school dropouts is serious reading re tardation. Among deprived students the reading problem often is closely related to lack of incentive and to the absence of books. Social workers are employed to do home visiting in an attempt to solve problems relating to home and the school. Other projects are set up in such a way that school dropouts can work toward a high school diploma and develop employable skills. Still other projects are designed to identify the potential dropout and establish program specifically designed to prevent their dropping out. The Office of Education is collecting data on dropout changes over a period of years comparing all schools in a State to schools involved in title I projects. A uniform nationwide definition will be used. Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has motivated educators to initiate innovative and exemplary programs designed to increase the holding power of schools as well as to attract school dropouts into special programs. The initial group of projects selected to title III funding include these projects which are directly concerned with school dropout problems. Orange County, Calif.: For a summer school for dropout recovery. Prince Georges County, Md.: For Operation DIRE (dropout identification, rehabilitation, and education). Pittsburg Unified School District, California: For a dropout prevention project. School Administrative District No. 5, Rockland, Maine: For a demonstration teaching center for slow learners and disadvantaged youth. The following projects are concerned with other problems as well as dropouts: Magnolia, Ark.: For a center for diagnostic and remedial services. Vigo County School Corp., Terre Haute, Ind. For a diagnostic, counseling, and remedial center. Salina Unified School District No. 305, Kansas: For a learning disabilities center planning study. Board of Cooperative Educational Services, First Supervisory District, Penfield, Monroe County, N.Y.: For an educational diagnostic and service center. Kansas City, Kans.: For a cultural and educational youth development center. Du Pont-Fort Lewis School District No. 7, Washington: For a student-family counseling center. In addition, several title III projects relate to remedial education and to learning disabilities which are preventative of situations giving rise to increased school dropout. The stated purpose of the Vocational Education Act of 1963-to strengthen and improve the quality of vocational education and to expand the vocational education opportunities in the Nation-related directly to the dropout problem. A high percentage of schools reporting on the 1963 dropout campaign emphasized the need for strengthening vocational education. Students also expressed a desire for more vocational courses and frequently cited the absence of specific vocational training as their reason for dropping out of school. The Vocational Education Act provides vocational education opportunities for high school students and high school droputs as well as graduates and other adults who need additional or specialized training. It seeks to improve the quality of vocational education by providing funds for grants for research, experimental and pilot programs, teacher training, and similar projects. Emphasis in these projects will be given to the needs of the youths who have academic, socioeconomic, or other handicaps-a group containing a high percentage of actual and potential school dropouts. The act provides funds for locally administered work-study programs. Since a sizable number of students leave school because of a need to contribute to the financial support of their families, or because they cannot afford the expenses incident to remaining in school, these work-study programs help reduce the number of dropouts. Under another provision of the Vocational Education Act, the 1967 budget includes a request of $3.5 million for the initial planning and architectural fees for seven residential vocational schools. These will provide for effective experimental, demonstration, and evaluation of this concept. The National Defense Education Act authorizes programs which are related to the dropout problem. Reaction from schools participating in the 1963 dropout campaign stressed the primary role played by guidance counselors in inducing potential dropouts to remain in school. Many schools urged greatly expanded counseling activities. The Nation's school counseling services have been substantially strengthened by counseling and guidance institutes, established under NDEA, to improve the qualifications of counselors and teachers preparing to engage in counseling and guidance. Initially, participating was limited to secondary school teachers and counselors; subsequent amendments broadened the program to include teachers and instructors in the seventh and eighth grades, elementary schools, and institutions of higher education, including technical schools. The institutes are held at colleges and universities and are financed by the Office of Education. Participants receive a weekly stipend and dependency allowances. During the summer of 1965 and the 1965-66 academic year, about 1,733 counselors and prospective counselors enrolled in 58 institutes. Two other NDEA institute programs are related to the problem: English as a foreign language institutes are designed to improve the qualifications of teachers of English of students whose native language is not English. Since linguistic difficulties of foreign born pupils and those from immigrant homes are one cause of dropouts, improved teaching in this specialized field should strengthen the antidropout campaign. Disadvantaged youth institutes are held for teachers who are particularly close to the problem of school dropouts. The instruction places emphasis on ways of motivating disadvantaged young people to seek further education, which should help to reduce further the dropout rate. A total of 398 teachers have participated in nine English as a foreign language institutes and 4,887 in 121 disadvantaged youth institutes. Indirectly related, but of far-reaching consequence are other institutes for advanced study. English and mathematics are the basic "languages of learning" and institutes in these subjects have contributed to improved teaching in the most important area of the elementary and secondary school curriculum. In fiscal year 1965, 20,368 teachers and others were enrolled in the overall program of NDEA institutes for advanced study. A total of 494 institutes were held at 272 colleges and universities in all 50 of the States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. All programs are fully financed by the Office of Education, including both the cost of operations and stipends and dependency allowances for participants. The slow learner, too often destined to ultimate failure in the classroom. sooner or later becomes a dropout. New teaching methods and new instructional materials included in institute programs are helping the teacher to establish greater rapport with the problem child; in response, the pupil develops a genuine interest in his study and a potential dropout has been averted. Other NDEA institutes are conducted for teachers of history, geography, reading modern foreign languages and for school library personnel and educational media specialists. Civics, economics and industrial arts will be added in fiscal year 1967. Counseling services in the elementary and secondary schools have been strengthened through financial assistance under the National Defense Education Act, title V-A. During the school year 1964-65, some very outstanding State, county, and local school projects were developed which proved to be most effective in reducing the number of school dropouts. One State reported over 250 such programs, many of which were financed with NDEA funds. With what the schools have learned about the characteristics and causes of school leaving, an increasing number of schools revealed that preventive and corrective programs to reduce dropouts must begin at the preschool and early elementary school levels. A growing number of school administrators have recently made statements such as the following: "At present, our school system does not provide a school program which meets the needs of those pupils who eventually drop out of school because they do not adjust to, or cannot achieve in, the general program offered in the regular schools. This segment of the pupil population also does not qualify for special education classes." 1 Mathematics institutes are sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 gives full recognition to the vital role of education in combating poverty. Three parts of this act have a particular bearing on the dropout problem. Part A of title I, creating a Job Corps for the unemployed youth of impoverished families, provides for education and vocational training for enrollees in the Corps. This provision will insure renewed education and vocational training for many school dropouts. Part B of title I provides for work-training programs under which young men and women from 16 to 21 may attend school part time and work part time for State and local agencies and private nonprofit organizations. This part of the act is particularly directed to potential and actual school dropouts who might be induced to return to school. Part C of title I authorizes the allotment of funds to promote part-time employment of students from low-income families in institutions of higher education. This program is administered by the Office of Education with funds transferred from the Office of Economic Opportunity. It is anticipated that the program will help many students from low-income families achieve their aspirations for a college education. Approximately 188,000 jobs were provided to students in 1965, and it is anticipated 320,000 jobs will be provided in 1966, and 450,000 in 1967. The Manpower Development and Training Act, enacted in 1962 and extended and expanded by 1963 and 1964 amendments, provides occupational and basic education in both residential and nonresidential schools for unemployed youths between 16 and 20. During 1965, there were 174,935 trainees and it is anticipated there will be 175,000 in 1966 and 222,000 in 1967, many of whom are school dropouts. During 1965 the Office of Education received and recorded many State and local school dropout studies and programs designed to combat the dropout problem. It also received movies, slides, case histories, tapes, and hundreds of editorials, bylines, and spot announcements from newspapers, magazines, and television and radio stations. The Office acted as consultant to the National Education Association's dropout program, in cooperation with the American Personnel and Guidance Association, in the writing of a book on “Guidance and the School Dropout," and cooperated in preparing a guide to help make dropout studies entitled "Dropout StudiesDesign and Conduct." It participated with the Department of Labor on a study of dropouts formerly enrolled in Manpower Development Training Act programs. Another Office of Education project originated in 1965 and continuing in 1966 is the program for the education of the disadvantaged. The unique contributions of this program to the solution of the dropout problem have been in the area of prevention and coordination. Staff members have jointly reviewed hundreds of community action proposals from all areas of the United States with members of the staff of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Specific dropout programs have been evaluated, but greater stress has been placed on the initiation of longrange programs (tutoring, testing, school social work services, and health services) which would prevent the crystalization of dropout characteristics. Increasing stress has been placed upon initiation of prevention programs at the elementary level. Advice continues to be given school system representatives seeking information on the role of education in the Economic Opportunity Act, and they are counseled as to procedures and possibilities of tieing together the resources of various Federal programs (Manpower Development and Training Act-Vocational Education-Economic Opportunity Act) in behalf of dropout students for whom early preventive efforts were not made. Many studies on various aspects of the dropout problem are being conducted under the cooperative research program. These studies include: University of Michigan. B. Duncan. "Family Factors and the School Dropout." The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of changing social background and community climate on the educational attainment of adolescent males. Points to be examined are the relationship between education and original jobs of youths entering the work force, and the relationship between dropping out and changes in community structure over the last 40 years. Texas Southern University. H. A. Bullock. "Prediction of Dropouts Among Urban Negro High School Boys." This research focuses upon high school pupils in all-Negro schools of a southern city. It will attempt to identify the most critical factors which distinguish dropouts from stay-ins and to develop a method of prediction by which potential dropouts can be accurately identified before their withdrawal from school. University of West Virginia. "Pilot Study on Reducing the Dropout Rate of College Freshmen in Appalachia." Improves reading and study skills of college freshmen whose predicted academic achivement is marginal. Macomb County Community College, Georgia. "An English Composition Sequence for a Community College." Tests effect on increasing basic English instruction from one to two semesters for "high failure risk" entering freshmen. University of Massachusetts. "Effects of Certain Prefreshman Orientation Experiences on Academic Progress." Attempts to reduce dropout rate among engineering students by providing special summer mathematics refresher courses and other precollege aids. York Junior College, Pennsylvania. "Effectiveness of an Interest-Motivated Approach to Junior College Remedial English Instruction." Reducing the usual dropout rate and helping students who are capable of post-high-school studies are expected results of this project. Morgan State College, Maryland. "Improving the Reading and Writing Skills of Culturally Disadvantaged College Freshmen." Uses special materials and methods to reduce attrition on account of poor rhetorical skills of entering students. George Peabody College, Tennessee. "A Research-Training Demonstration Center for Culturally Deprived Preschool Children." This study is part of a larger proposal for a regional research-training demonstration center concerned with childen under 6. The aim of the study is to develop and test a procedure for providing a massive opportunity for mothers of culturally deprived children to learn ways of rearing and teaching their own children that will promote school success of these children. Princeton. "Participant-Observational Study of the Princeton Summer Studies Program for Environmentally Deprived High School Boys." This study is expected to reveal some successful models for future program development to enable potentially capable Negro students from culturally and economically limited environments to complete high school and go on to college. Estimated retention rates, 5th grade through college entrance, in public and nonpublic schools, United States, 1952-60 to 1957–651 1 Rates for the 5th grade through high-school graduation are based on enrollments in successive grades in successive years in public elementary and secondary schools, and are adjusted to include estimates for nonpublic schools. Rates for 1st-time college enrollment are based on data supplied to the Office of Education by institutions of higher education. Source: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Reference, Estimates and Projections Branch. |