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Nobody needs to send his child to a private school, but millions do. No useful purpose is served if these children grow up knowing less history or less chemistry than children who attend public school." This is just a sampling of the thinking on the subject that has contributed to the change in public opinion over so short a span of time.

In concluding my statement I should like to return briefly to the main point toward which my testimony has been directed: The omission in part A of titie IV of S. 580 of any provision for aid to children in church-related schools. The enactment of a Federal-aid program with such an omission would, I respectfully submit, be out of harmony with President Kennedy's call for a measure to promote the educational excellence of all children and, indeed, out of harmony even with the laudable stated purpose of the bill itself.

Since there is no definite constitutional barrier that would prevent Congress from including children in church-related schools in a Federal-aid program on some equitable basis, traditional American concepts of justice and fairplay and our long-range national interest cry out against their exclusion. They are entitled to the same consideration as the children in their neighborhoods whose parents have chosen to send them to public school. These children grow up together, play together and often pray together; when they become adults they will work together, vote together, pay taxes together, serve together in the Armed Forces of their country, and, sadly enough, perhaps even die together in that service. There seems to be no sound and defensible reason why, by some means or combination of means best left to the collective wisdom of Congress, these children should not all share with at least approximate equality in any Federal program claiming to strengthen and improve educational quality and educational opportunities in the Nation.

I am grateful to the chairman and members of this subcommittee for the opportunity to present this testimony, and on behalf of His Eminence, Cardinal Spellman, I express his appreciation.

Senator JAVITS. The subcommittee will stand in recess until 2:30. (Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 2:30 p.m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

The subcommittee reconvened pursuant to recess at 2:30 p.m.. in room 4230, New Senate Office Building, Senator Morse (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senator Morse (presiding).

Senator MORSE. The hearing will come to order.

It is our purpose to have two witnesses from the Governor's Committee of One Hundred for Better Education of the State of Pennsylvania, Mr. Duane Wilder, the chairman, and Mr. David Gerard, executive director.

Gentlemen, if you will come forward and accept my apologies for keeping you waiting as long as I have. I regret that we have not been able to get through with our testimony as rapidly as we had planned. You may proceed in your own way.

STATEMENT OF DUANE WILDER, CHAIRMAN, AND DAVID GERARD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GOVERNOR'S COMMITTEE OF ONE HUNDRED FOR BETTER EDUCATION, STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. WILDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If it is agreeable with you we are as interested in the testimony heard this morning as you were, and we enjoyed the hearing very much.

If it is acceptable to you, rather than read the prepared statement that I have I would just like to outline the major features of it ex

temporaneously, and then you may ask any questions that you may

care to.

Senator MORSE. I will tell you what I will do, Mr. Wilder. I will insert the full statement in the record and then you may summarize it in your own words, and I will ask any questions I have.

Mr. WILDER. Thank you, Senator, very much.

I am Mr. Wilder, the cochairman of the Pennsylvania Governor's Committee of One Hundred for Better Education.

Mr. David Gerard is to my left, the executive director of that com

mittee.

I am a businessman and chairman of the finance committee of the National Forge Co., a steel firm located in Pennsylvania.

My cochairman on this committee is Mr. Arthur Sinkler, the president of the Hamilton Watch Co., in Lancaster, Pa.

I would like to explain also that I am a member of the State council of education in Pennsylvania, and after my summary remarks here I might comment briefly on some of the things said by Monsignor McDowell from Pittsburgh, and the role of the State council of education in Pennsylvania.

I appreciate the opportunity, and the committee does, to appear before you today to express our views on S. 580. We favor S. 580 and hope that it will pass substantially as it is or major sections of it.

The Committee of One Hundred of Pennsylvania is a committee primarily of lay citizens, only a few professional educators being on the group.

It was appointed in 1962 by Gov. David L. Lawrence to draw up a legislative program in Pennsylvania to improve the education system of that State.

We are really a followup committee of an original Governor's committee appointed by Governor Lawrence in 1961 which made a major study of education in the Commonwealth.

That original committee recommended in its report a substantial doubling of expenditures for education in the Commonwealth in the decade of the 1960's.

As part of our program, the original Governor's committee endorsed the principle of Federal aid for education, principally to equalize educational opportunity throughout the Nation, to aid States unable to support a minimum adequate program on their own, but also to assist Pennsylvania and States like it to undertake programs in addition to the minimum adequate programs that they could afford.

PENSYLVANIA PROGRESS

Pennsylvania has not just sat idly by waiting for more substantial Federal aid. It is making progress with its own educational program. The projected budget of the Commonwealth in 1962-63 is about $1.1 billion, 45 percent of it going for public education, around $500 millon.

To pay for it, only yesterday the General Assembly of Pennsylvania approved a 5-percent sales tax which, I believe, is the highest Individual rate of any State in the Union.

Despite this high tax rate only a minimum program can be purchased in Pennsylvania with it.

Governor Scranton has reviewed the recommendations of the Committee of One Hundred, and largely adopted them as his education program for this year and next year, and through this additional money that will be raised, teachers' salaries, for instance, will be raised an additional $300 this year and, hopefully, next year, making Pennsylvania more competitive for good teachers with the other leading States, although we still will not, by any means, have the maximum salary rate of the larger States.

We have also this year a bill to establish a statewide system of community colleges.

In addition we are revising our State education policy board, to create a more effective body, really replacing the State council of education with a State board of education to shape education policy more effectively.

We hope further to undertake a fundamental study of our needs in the technical education and vocational education fields.

We have money to begin a statewide network of educational TV to more effectively utilize our limited teacher resources.

In addition, we hope to sustain and refine a plan to reduce the number of school districts in the Commonwealth from 2,100 to somewhere between 300 and 500 so that we can have more effective local units to administer the schools.

Despite these State activities and a number of others, I must say to you that most of the major innovations in programs to improve educa tion in Pennsylvania have been related to programs stimulated and supported by present Federal aid, primarily through the National Defense Education Act.

Pennsylvania was one of the first States to plan for the effective utilization of these funds. We have done a number of things with it. I will cite only a couple of examples.

For instance, in the field of science instruction, where equipment and inservice training have been available to us, from a small handful of students studying advanced science, now nearly one-third of the students in high schools in Pennsylvania have the advantage of programs in advanced science.

In mathematics we also have made substantial increases in the number of students taking mathematics beyond that formerly offered at the high school level.

In modern foreign languages, we have 20,000 students now taking more than 2 years of at least one modern foreign language, and 15 percent of all sixth grade students in the Commonwealth are also taking a modern foreign language.

I realize S. 580 considerably broadens the scope of the Federal aid to education. We endorse this broadening, and we endorse the bill as a whole.

To save time, I will just briefly refer to a few sections that would be of particular interest to Pennsylvania at this time.

NATIONAL DEFENSE EDUCATION ACT CONTINUATION AND EXPANSION

We are vitally concerned and interested in seeing the continuation and expansion of the National Defense Education Act. We are particularly interested in the feature providing support for capital ex

f

penditures relating to a community college movement, because we are about to undertake this program; and, similarly, in the feature providing aid for college level technical education.

We are concerned about and interested in as much help as might be available for inservice and advanced study for teachers.

We are also interested in the provisions for graduate school expansion and additions.

Pennsylvania's State and local governments will continue to do their part, and a large part, in increasing annually their contribution to the public education system.

The original feeling of the Governor's Committee, however, remains true, that is, the need for Federal aid in our State and throughout the country increases each year, despite the best efforts of State and local government, again both for the purposes of equalizing educational opportunity and, second, to supplement those programs that we have undertaken at the State and local level.

Pennsylvania recently has come to realize that its economy, tied to the heavy industries of steel and coal and iron, is declining, at least not growing.

It is not a healthy economy. We are doing what we can to help that situation. But it will be increasingly difficult for us to find major new sources of local revenue. While we plan to go on raising new revenue, we are faced with a serious problem in hurting ourselves as. we face the future.

Therefore, I hope that this committee and the Congress as a whole,. will be able to give favorable consideration to all or major portions of Senate bill 580.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Wilder follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DUANE E. WILDER, COCHAIRMAN, GOVERNOR'S COMMITTEE OF ONE HUNDRED FOR BETTER EDUCATION

I am Duane E. Wilder of Warren, Pennsylvania and cochairman of Pennsylvania's Committee of One Hundred for Better Education.

I am a businesman by profession, being chairman of the finance committee and a director of the National Forge Co. and director of two other companies. The cochairman of the Committee of 100 is Mr. Arthur B. Sinkler of Lancaster, also a businessman, who is president of the Hamilton Watch Co.

On behalf of Mr. Sinkler and the other members of the Committee of One Hundred I should like to express our appreciation of the opportunity to discuss. with you certain of the merits of Senate bill 580 and its beneficial effects on the education system of our State and of the Nation.

The Committee of One Hundred is a citizens group composed largely of persons: not directly involved with education professionally, who nonetheless are deeply Concerned with our schools and colleges and the part they play in the State's well being. The committee was appointed in 1962 by then Governor Lawrence with the specific purpose of drawing up a legislative program for Pennsylvania that would serve to improve the education system over the next half decade and more. Its general purpose has been to support and advocate recommendations for major fundamental changes in Pennsylvania's education system as conceived by a predecessor citizens group. Governor Lawrence's 30-member Committee on Education. A hard-working diligent member of this group, incidentally, was

Senator Joseph S. Clark.

Among nearly 150 recommendations of this first committee, most of whose members form the nucleus of the group I now represent, was a comprehensive statement concerning Federal aid for education, which we may properly say is the position of the majority of members of the Pennsylvania Committee of One Hundred for Better Education.

98 466--63-vol. 3- -37

This recommendation reads, in part, as follows:

"We recognize that among the 50 States there are some which are economically unable to support a minimum adequate program without additional Federal aid. Pennsylvania does not belong to this group; neverthe less we urge the Governor to support Federal aid for school construction, higher educational academic faculties, teachers salaries and scholarships, provided that it requires State and local governments to maintain and increase their support of education; that it allocates Federal funds to each of the 50 States in such a way as to equalize educational opportunity without unduly penalizing the wealthy States; and provided that it is flexible enough to permit the funds to be paid into each State's education subsidy fund where such a fund exists, for distribution under a subsidy plan which includes an equalization factor."

The position of the committee I represent is further expressed in these two important sentences:

"Federal aid should not be used in Pennsylvania to reduce either State or local effort. It should be a welcome addition to the minimum program [we advocate]."

As we understand Senate bill 580 from our study of it, the legislation under discussion satisfies each of these conditions, and we commend those Members of the Senate who are responsible for its preparation.

There is, however, one point in the above statement which requires some amplification. We assert that Pennsylvania is not among those States which are economically unable to support a minimum adequate education system without additional Federal aid. This is true. Unfortunately, our minimum is a low minimum. That is to say, every school-age child in Pennsylvania does have a school of some kind to attend and some kind of a teacher to instruct him. Yet in far too many areas of the State, both urban and rural, his school may have been constructed in the Civil War period or before the turn of the century. His textbooks may have been printed during the last year of the depression. His teacher may not have had sufficient education to earn a simple bachelor's degree from a teacher's college. The high school he expects to enter may offer him no trade or industrial training, no modern science or mathematics, no effective instruction in foreign languages, no rigorous disciplines in the fundamentals of learning. If he reaches the first year of high school the chances are 3 out of 10 he will drop out before his class graduates. Of those who graduate less than a third will go on to college, and of those who graduate 8 percent will not have found a job within nearly a year after receiving their diplomas.

We repeat, in far too many areas of Pennsylvania, education facilities and the level of instruction may be adequate by comparison with conditions in other States, but they are barely adequate. In other words, we believe that many thousands of young people are being deprived of the chance to develop their talents and abilities to the utmost and this denial of opportunity to them is injurious to the individual and to the State and to the Nation.

These sentiments are strongly subscribed to in our State. Leaders of the education community continually remind the public of the State's academic shortcomings. Even our political leaders have been known to say publicly that much remains to be done to improve education. And here, I feel, we approach the center of Pennsylvania's education dilemma: While we surely recognize our needs, and while we are leaving unexplored no way that could lead to large-scale improvement, it is becoming more and more evident that the resources to support the minimum adequate school system we now have are growing fewer and fewer. Public education in Pennsylvania is a monumental responsibility. Out of a total projected State budget for the coming first year-$1,121 million-more than 45 percent will go to the support of public schools and colleges-some $50 million.

To raise only 80 percent of that $508 million, the people of Pennsylvania have been forced to levy upon themselves the highest sales-and-use tax in the land5 cents on every dollar.

The program of education to be supported by this notable effort is a modest one. With relative pride, I point out that the program is the product of the Committee of One Hundred with a few modifications by the present administration of Gov. William Scranton. Since Governor Scranton has endorsed all of our major recommendations, with luck this is what will happen within the nex: year:

(1) Teachers' salaries will be raised an average of $300, thus putting our schedules in a better competitive position with the leading States.

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