Mr. ERLENBORN. This was a question that troubled me when I was drafting the bill. We made some suggestions in section 4(b) on page 5 as to minimum and maximum apportionments to the States. I think if we chose a figure between the minimum and maximum and multiply it by 50 for the number of States, we could probably come up with a figure which might be better to have in here rather than the general authorization for whatever sum may be necessary.

I anticipate, as I said before, that the States themselves would participate in the cost of this and the Federal funding should not be the sole source.

Mr. PUCINSKI. The middle ground between 25,000 and 75,000 is the figure of 50,000 for the State, meaning roughly $22 million. I imagine we would probably need a similar amount to handle the preparation at the national level. Would a $5 million figure be about right? Mr. ERLENBORN. I think $5 million would be ample.

Mr. PUCINSKI. To handle both the States and the national level. Mr. ERLENBORN. Yes; actually at the national level there probably would not be that much necessary. We are not going to have a large expenditure at the national level. Most of the activity will take place in the States and in the localities. It will only be the culmination at the end of the year preparation that will involve much in the way of expenditures at the national level.

Mr. PUCINSKI. I think it is an excellent idea. I agree with you; I hope we can move along both in the subcommittee and full committee. Mr. Dellenback.

Mr. DELLENBACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Erlenborn, I commend you for having been the one to surface this particular idea. As proposed in the bill, I think this is a very forward looking concept. I would be interested in more information on the background of the 1955 conference. Would it be suggested that the committee itself established under section 3 of your proposal would lay down basic structure and that the States would follow that basic structure, or would each State walk its own particular road initially? Finally would the individual activities of the 50 States be coordinated into the final meeting of the committee?

Would you amplify this a little as you visualize it?

Mr. ERLENBORN. I would suggest that the latter would be the route to be followed. The bill itself in section 2 sets forth in very broad terms the scope of the conference and within those terms I think the States and the people in each community, where community conferences as well would be held, should determine what the actual final conference will take up within the scope of section 2 rather than to have some 35 members of the national committee tell the States the structure of the conference and the questions to be considered.

In other words, we want the ideas to come from the communities and from the States rather than from the national committee.

Mr. DELLENBACK. While there are only five categories in section 2, they are of tremendous breadth covering all the major areas of education very effectively, running from preschools to primary to occupational to higher education, and then to the whole package. You have in effect included in the scope the entire broad reach of education. Is it your feeling that the States with this broad mandate would, if left

to their own devices, walk different roads but that the final result would be an evaluation of the nationwide picture? I gather from what you say that Illinois, Oregon, and Florida might want one particular emphasis primarily more than something else, while other States would be doing something else. But the culmination would give the national committee an overall picture of what individual States think is most important? That is why you structure it this way instead of trying to predetermine it with the committee in advance, am I correct?

Mr. ERLENBORN. That is right. You will also notice, I think this also has bearing on the concept that you have expressed, which very well expresses what I intended in the bill, you will notice that the national committee will have 35 members, no more than 12 of whom shall be educators. So, it won't be a matter of intellectual incest, if I may use that term.

We will get a broader look at education than just educators themselves. We don't even want the educators to be half of the steering committee. So that we can get the concerns of those who need education, the young people, those who need educated people, the employers, people in Government. We want as broad a look at the question of the needs of education for the last quarter of our century as we can get.

I think there is a value in having citizen participation outside of the professional educator. I think we see this in our school boards and so forth across the country.

Mr. DELLENBACK. May I ask just a few questions on the dollars involved. As the chairman has pointed out, if we use what you have suggested in section 4(b) as a minimum we would come to one and a quarter million dollars in total. If we went to $50,000 as the average we would come to two and a half million dollars as the authorization. I think that we ought to be very careful not to set this figure higher than is realistic although high enough to be adequate.

You indicate that the national expenditures will be two and a half million dollars. I would be inclined to agree with you as you have outlined it. Would it be your feeling that we could probably set the authorization lower than $5 million, maybe adding a million or something of this nature so that we come to a total authorization of three and a half million dollars. Do you have anything else you would like to say on this, Mr. Erlenborn?

Mr. ERLENBORN. Really, the dollars, as I said before, trouble me because I don't have enough real information on which to base judgment. I would guess that the two and a half million dollars would be sufficient for the State allocations and something less than two and a half million dollars, maybe a million or a million and a half dollars at the national level would be sufficient, so that in my opinion somewhere between three and a half to $4 million would probably be sufficient authorization.

Mr. DELLENBACK. When you mentioned the State legislatures meeting in 1971 was it your feeling that the States would not only structure their own individual background to go into the conference but that in some instances the States might also be appropriating funds on their own to back up what they do at the State level?

Mr. ERLENBORN. Very definitely.

Mr. DELLENBACK. So it is not anticipated that the Federal Government will carry the whole load. We are talking about its sharing the load with the individual States.

Mr. ERLENBORN. That is right. You will notice we have not made it a condition of participation in the conference. We are not saying to the States you must under some formula appropriate and authorize. So that the citizens committee will be able to function in a State where the legislature has not acted but probably in the larger States in particular the citizens committees will prevail on their legislatures to share in the funding.

Mr. DELLENBACK. Actually from a technical and mathematical standpoint under section 6 you include other things besides the 50 States. Our multiplication will be a little bit higher but not very much.

Again I commend you for your real concern about a problem we are familiar with from service with you on the Education Committee. You know a great deal about it and have devoted a great deal of effort to. This bill, H.R. 17772, is but another example of your own deep involvement in the area that you have made significant contributions to during the years we have served together on the Education Committee, and I commend you for this latest significant contribution. Mr. ERLENBORN. Thank you.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Counsel?

Mr. JENNINGS. I have no questions.
Mr. PUCINSKI. Minority Counsel.

Mr. RADCLIFFE. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PUCINSKI. I want to thank you for coming here. We will try to do whatever we can to move this in this session. Surely if we are going to go anyplace we have to do it now so that everybody will have time to tool up and crank up for the conference.

We concluded during extensive hearings on the educational needs of the 1970's that there is just no question that the educational needs of the 1970's are vastly different from the educational needs of the 1960's and 1950's and 1940's. I was impressed with one aspect of your statement, it is rather significant, in 15 years we have been able to make school management more effective by reducing the number of school boards from 60,000 to 18,000. I suspect that the two White House conferences probably had something to do with this kind of movement. I don't know but I would rather imagine they did.

Mr. ERLENBORN. Mr. Chairman, I do know in our own State of Illinois the greatest pressure for reduction in the number of school districts came as a result of the 1955 conference, and great gains were made in the latter part of the 1950's in reducing the number of school districts in Illinois. We could still do a great deal more. As you know, we have had some limitations because of our constitutional provisions limiting bonding power and requiring therefore, if we are going to have sufficient bonding power for construction that is needed, limiting the possibility of the combination of high school and grade school districts. We have maintained by and large separate school districts. But as you also know our constitutional convention has just reported. As I recall there are some provisions in the proposed constitution that will relieve this necessity and we may make greater strides in Illinois toward reducing the number of school districts if our new constitution is adopted.

Mr. PUCINSKI. I think another strong argument in support of your proposal, which has been called to my attention by our counsel, Mr. Jennings, is that many returns on the national assessment will be coming in just about that time. I don't know what that national assessment is going to show but if some of the early predictions are true. this country might very definitely want a White House Conference on Education Needs in the wake of the findings of that assessment.

So, you might be a good deal more prophetic than you think in proposing at this time the tooling up for a White House Conference in 1972.

I would be of the opinion that when the results of the national assessment become fully published it will be important to have a prestigious meeting such as you have proposed to evaluate them, see where we are and where we want to go. So there are a lot of good arguments in support of your proposal. We will do all we can to move it along. Mr. ERLENBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Thank you very much.

Our next witness is our good friend Lowell A. Burkett, executive director of the American Vocational Association.

Lowell Burkett has been ahead of his colleagues in education so many times and on so many issues that he is a source of great inspiration to all of us. It is always a privilege to have you before the committee, Mr. Burkett, because of the fine work that you do for the AVA and for the educators of this country. So, I should think the sponsor of this bill, Mr. Erlenborn, would be most pleased to hear that the prestigious voice of the AVA will be added to this legislation. We are very happy to have you here.

STATEMENT OF LOWELL A. BURKETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN VOCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

Mr. BURKETT. Thank you, Congressman Pucinski, for those kind words. I appreciate it very much.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommitte, thank you for this opportunity to be here today representing the American Vocational Association. We are here in support of H.R. 17772, a bill introduced by Congressman Erlenborn and others, to authorize a White House Conference on Education.

In a document released July 18, President Nixon's National Goals Research Staff reported:

We have an educational system that is in many respects unparalleled. It has grown in size and resources to the point where we have nearly universal education through the secondary schools and a proportion of our population attending institutions of higher education that is unprecedented. Yet, this system is under severe attack and criticism; it is seen as having been set up to serve the needs of an America that as greatly changed in the intervening years. There are many who argue that it is necessary for the schools to de-emphasize quantitative expansion along traditional lines and emphasize adaptation to the needs of a rapidly changing society.

While this statement of the National Goals Research Staff is not addressed directly to the question of a White House Conference on Education, it does, in my opinion, point effectively to the necessity and desirability for such a conference.

I can serve no good purpose here by any lengthy discussion of the ills, past or present, that exist in American education. Certainly the members of this subcommittee, working as you do day after day to legislate in this field, are acutely aware of the needs, the issues, the problems, and proposed solutions. No White House Conference on Education, in and of itself, can bring about solutions to the many problems in education. However, I believe we will all agree that such a conference, supported at the highest level of our Nation's Government, can provide a much needed forum for discussion as well as a catalyst for action.

Educational institutions of all kinds, and at all levels, are in a period of change and controversy. Americans are asking serious questions about the basic and fundamental purposes of education. Not only are we looking at the basic purposes of our educational institutions, but we are also asking for concrete measures of their performance. At such a time, a White House Conference on Education seems most appropriate as a vehicle for opening lines of communication and for uniting all the forces in education to move toward building an educational system that more adequately serves the American people.

I am especially pleased that Congressman Erlenborn's bill, (H.R. 17772) recognizes the urgency for assessing the role of vocational education in the Nation's educational structure. This is one of five priority topics assigned to the proposed White House Conference on Education.

In the 50 years that have elapsed since passage of the Smith-Hughes Act, vocational education has been plagued, particularly in the largest cities, with woefully inadequate funding and the hostility of the academic and general education establishment which controlled educational systems and institutions. More often than not, the vocational education program has been treated as the unwanted tenantisolated, tracked, and deprecated.

These attitudes are changing, and dramatically so, since passage of the 1968 Vocational Education Amendments. Even so our educational system still tends to reward the college bound and the baccalaureate degree seeker. We still suffer from snobbishness and elitism.

We fail to get 80 percent of our schools' product through 4 years of college; we fail to get half into college at all; we fail to provide onefourth of our high school students with either an educational alternative or a job, sending nearly 1 million high school graduates into the labor market each year without a marketable skill; our school dropout rate has remained consistently high despite concerted efforts to keep more and more youngsters in school through grade 12. In summary I suggest that education is the only system I know to blame its product for its failure rather than the system. I also suggest that the figures I have cited represent failures of our public educational system, We believe that vocational education offers a program, as well as a learning process, that can bring needed changes in our educational system.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we urge passage of H.R. 17772. We commend the authors of this legislation for assigning priority to vocational education for the proposed White House Conference on Education and we urge that this provision be retained.

Thank you very much.