RECOMMENDATIONS 1. It is recommended that Public Law 815 and 874 be continued with the exception of minor modification for Public Law 815 as heretofore mentioned (see letter of transmittal). 2. It is recommended that where districts like Granite have a Federal impact sufficient to perpetuate serious overcrowding, that a waiver be given regardless of any percentage requirements. 3. It is recommended that any law formulated recognize all categories of children whether directly or indirectly federally conected (i.e., Hercules Plant 81 employees are counted and Hercules Plant I employees are not, even though both plants are necessary to the war effort). Senator Moss. I would like to make only one more point with reference to impacted area laws. I feel the program should be expanded to include the District of Columbia. It is obvious to all of those of us who live in the District of Columbia, or in its environs, and who read its daily newspapers, or listen to its radio or TV stations, that the District schools are vastly underfinanced. If they are to be representative of the Nation's school system-as they should be we must provide the District School Board with more money to build schools, to buy textbooks, and to pay teachers. Again, the impacted area laws proride a sturdy and appropriate instrument. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me this time. I have restricted my remarks to part D of title IV of S. 580-to the impacted area laws-not because I do not have firm convictions about other titles in the chairman's bill, and in other school bills before the subcommittee, but because I wanted to use my time to promote what I feel is a approach to strengthening our grammar schools, our junior high schools, and our high schools where our children get their basic sound traming. I am also very much interested in advanced education programs, loans and scholarships, in college housing, and in other facets of the overall educational problem in America. The subcommittee has my best wishes and support in bringing a broad and practical educatotal bill to the floor of the Senate for debate. Senator YARBOROUGH. Thank you, Senator Moss, for a very fine statement and very forceful manner in which it has been presented. Senator Goldwater? Senator GOLDWATER. I have no questions. Senator YARBOROUGH. Senator Moss, when you introduced your bill, had had no proper opportunity to study or examine it at that time. Now that I have studied and examined it and heard your statement, I desire to be listed among those now sponsoring it as a cosponsor. Senator Moss. I will be very happy to make that request at the appropriate time on the floor of the Senate. Senator YARBOROUGH. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you very much, Senator Moss. is a pleasure to welcome to this subcommittee one of the dynamic The next witness is Senator Howard W. Cannon, of Nevada. It Members of the Senate from the great Southwest area. We have some other energetic Senators, and we congratulate you, Serator Cannon, on your activities and leadership in the field of education and for the statements you have made on education in past ions and your very, very active work in the Senate. You may proceed in your own way. STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD W. CANNON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEVADA Senator CANNON. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Senator Goldwater, Senator Jordan, no nation remains free which restricts the development or impairs the nurture of ideas. The whole panoply of our constitutional and social fabric is interwoven with this fundamental concept. Our past has been illuminated because of this attitude: and the plateau of achievement on which we presently stand could not have been attained with a lesser idea. But we cannot recline on the attainment of a prior effort. The challenges we face as a Nation make marginal those we have met and mastered. To meet and conquer these new areas which face us we must continue to provide the intellectual climate where ideas can sprout and grow. Because of the expanding demands on our Nation, we need to provide for the expansion of our academic institutions in order that all those who wish to and can contribute to the Nation's future may have full opportunity to do so. Our educational system should be so organized and advanced that the potential capabilities of the Nation's students can fully flower. The present system is inadequate at every level to meet the coming demand. To submit the specífics as to why this is so would amount to redundancy for this committee. ACTION NEEDED Rather, I would prefer to indicate to the committee my own firm conviction as to the imperativeness of congressional action. Repeatedly during the last year or more I have called the attention of the Senate to the urgency of doing something about the Nation's scientific manpower policies which were woefully inadequate to meet the exigencies of the Government for technicians and engineers. It has long seemed inconceivable that we can know our reserves of raw material such as plutonium or iron ore down to a gnat's hair while not having the faintest notion as to our more priceless resource-our engineering and scientific talent. The same theme was eloquently enunciated by Dr. James R. Killian, Jr., in the March issue of the Atlantic Monthly. He said: The issues are profoundly important not only to our national security and world position but also to the Nation's general welfare, its economic growth, the utilization of its human resources, and the integrity and strength of its system of higher education. His closing paragraph illustrates the possibilities which the Nation has if we meet our responsibility. I quote: As a research-oriented society, we have the possibility of-in fact, we may now be in the midst of a great creative thrust in which the energies of our people will find a new measure of release and our power as a nation will be raised to a new level of benignity. This renaissance through research, especially corporate-sponsored research, can afford a flowing of individual skills and new avenues of individual fulfillment that will draw out as never before the latent talents and the sense of joyous exploration in increasing numbers of our people. Such is the promise of research if we deploy our funds and creative talent wisely. Mr. Chairman, others have given equally lucid comment, much of which you have heard, on various aspects of the Nation's need, and the locus of education in any system of solution. Our responsibility in the Congress is clear. Perhaps our course is less clear. Many would decry the actions we take, projecting on the screen of their future a multitude of fanciful evils-usurpation of State prerogatives, bureaucratic expansion, merciless Federal controls. Yet the programs we have devised in the past have been noted for the language which precludes such evils. I think those safeguards were necessary. I would propose to continue them in this legislation. They have assured the discretion of State educational administrators. And I believe that no Senator would wish to change that. Still the criticism comes. The need is ignored for fear the procedure is inherently bad. We must respond to the demand of the present and the future. SUPPORT OF S. 415; NEVADA SITUATION My own interest has been in preserving and extending that which has proven workable, while seeking sensible innovations to meet existing and new exigencies. This session I have sponsored a bill, which is before the Finance Committee, to provide a tax incentive to the parents of university students. I have cosponsored an expansion of the GI benefits to include the veterans of the cold war. S. 415, to extend the impacted areas aid, includes my name as a sponsor, and may I say, parenthetically, that I hope the committee will not delay action on this aspect of the total package so as to disrupt the planning of those school districts which receive this aid. By way of illustration, I would point out that Nevada received over $3 million in fiscal year 1962 under the combined impacted area programs. Even if the student registration were to remain static so that no expanded demands were necessitated, it would be virtually impossible for the State treasury to absorb the loss of the Federal funds. The potential difficulty is telescoped to alarming proportions by the realism of our rate of student influx. In Las Vegas alone, which incidentally receives a large part of the Federal payment, the building demand calls for construction of two new classrooms each week. Mr. Chairman, I think that is a record high throughout the country today for any area of comparable population. Think of that. Two new classrooms a week in an area of that size to keep up with current rate of growth. The required financing is hopefully expected to come from a 1-percent increase in sales tax which the State legislature is submitting to the voters in referendum June 11. And I point this out to show that We are not trying to look solely to the Federal Government for help but we are trying to solve at least part of the problem ourselves. Certainly the imposition of taxes is something that is not a pleasant. method to look forward to by any of us, and I find myself in a rather enviable position this year in that we are talking about reducing taxes at the Federal level, where at the State level now, as I previously stated, we are talking about the imposition of a tax. |