It does no good, as you in California know better than any, to say: "That is the business of another State." It is the business of our country and in addition, these young uneducated boys and girls know no State boundaries as they come west as well as north and east. And they are your citizens as well as citizens of this country. The second question relates to the quality of our education. Today one out of every three students in the fifth grades will drop out of high schools. And only 2 out of 10 will graduate from college. In the meantime, we need more educated men and women and we need less and less unskilled labor. There are millions of jobs that will be available in the next 7 years for educated young men and women. The demand will be overwhelming and there will be millions of people out of work who are unskilled because with new machines and technology there is less need for them. This combination of a tremendously increasing population among our young people, of less need for unskilled labor, of increasingly unskilled labor available combines to form one of the most serious domestic problems that this country will face in the next 10 years. Of Americans 18 years of age or older, more than 23 million have less than * years of schooling and over 8 million have less than 5 years. What kind of a citizen can we what kind of judgment, what kind of response can we expect of a citizen who has been to school less than 5 years. And we've got in this country 8 million who've been less than 5 years. As a result they can't read or write, or do simple arithmetic. They are illiterates in this rich country of ours and they constitute the hard core of our unemployed. They can't write a letter to get a job and they can't read, in many cases, a help-wanted sign. JOBLESS RATE HIGH One out of every ten workers who failed to finish elementary school are unemployed as compared to 1 out of 50. In short, our current educational programs, much as they represent a burden upon the taxpayers in this country, do not meet the responsibilities. The fact of the matter is that this is a problem which faces us all, no matter where we live, no matter what our political views must be. Knowledge is power as Francis Bacon said 500 years ago, and today it is truer than it ever was. What are we going to do by the end of this decade? There are 4 million boys and girls born each year in the United States. Our population is growing each decade by a figure equal to the total population of this country at the time of Abraham Lincoln, just 100 years ago. Our educational system is not expanding fast enough. By 1970 the number of students in our public elementry and secondary schools will have increased 25 percent over 1960. Nearly three-quarters of a million new classrooms will be needed and we're not building them at that rate. By 1970 we will have 7 million students in our colleges and universities-3 million more than we do today. We are going to double the population of our colleges and universities in 10 years. We're going to have a build as many schools, college classrooms, and buildings in 10 years as we did in 150 years. By 1970, we will need 7,500 Ph. D.'s in the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering. In 1960 we graduated 3,000. Such facts make it clear that we have a major responsibility and a major opportunity, one that we should welcome, because there is no greater asset in this country than an educated man or woman. Education is the responsibility-education, quite rightly, is the responsibility— of the State and the local community. But from the beginning of our country's history, from the time of the Northwest Ordinance, as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson recognized, from the time of the Morrill Act at the height of the Civil War, when the land-grant college system was set up under the administration of President Lincoln, from the beginning it has been recognized that there must be a national commitment and that the National Government must play its role in stimulating a system of excellence which can serve the great national purpose of a free society. It is for that reason that we have sent to the Congress of the United States legislation to help meet the needs of higher education by assisting in the construction of college academic facilities and junior colleges and graduate centers and 95-466 O HEARINGS BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE UNITED STATES SENATE EIGHTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON S. 8, S. 580, S. Res. 10, and others BILLS TO IMPROVE EDUCATIONAL QUALITY AND VOLUME IV JUNE 10, 11, 12, 13, AND 14, 1963 Printed for the use of the U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1963 CONTENTS Pincus, Celia-Resumed. Hill, Alfred T., executive secretary, the Council for the Advancement of CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES JUNE 10, 1963 Root, Margaret, executive secretary, Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers, Page 1841 1853 1878 Rich, William A., member of the Legislative Committee, District of 1887 Stults, Mrs. Walter B., legislative chairman, Ben W. Murch Home & 1891 1892 JUNE 11, 1963 Truitt, William, assistant director of legislative service, National Farmers Union.. Nagle, John F., chief, Washington office, National Federation of the Blind Mobley, M. D., executive secretary, American Vocational Association, Peterson, Milo J., president, American Vocational Association; professor, Minn Logan, William B., director, Distributive Education Services, Ohio State on Vocational Education Coe, Burr D., director, Middlesex County Vocational Technical Schools, Patrick, C. W., assistant superintendent of schools; president, San Diego Dennis, Miss Catherine T., State supervisor of home economics education, JUNE 12, 1963 Boggs, Hon. J. Caleb, a U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware-- 1895 1916 1920 2030 2054 2069 2069 2095 2101 2105 2117 2126 2133 2137 |