I say I appreciate your personalizing it in that way. That is very useful. So many of my colleagues-and it is a natural thing-tend to look at overall trends, and look at an issue such as this as if they were statistical phenomena rather than real life circumstances.

Mr. Chromy, I especially appreciated your sharing the observations about your family in Minnesota, and how they would react and how they would be affected. That was very useful. I really don't have any questions to ask. Your statement was excellent. We would like to put the whole statement in the record. Your observations were very good and we appreciate your sharing them with us. Mr. CHROMY. Could I share on that last question that you did ask: does it really affect people? I watched it affect, in special Olympics, for example, when we asked parents to volunteer to drive a group of mentally retarded athletes to a Saturday competition 40 miles away, and they are thinking in terms of their Chevrolet, and 40 miles back and forth is almost a half a tank of gas. And if you recall when you pull into a gasoline station what a half a tank of gas costs nowadays. That is a $10 bill, or close to that, going out of your pocket. You can just see people trying to wince when they have to think in terms of that extra half a tank of gas and that $10 bill, that it really does make a difference to people. They still put it out, and they still do a lot of it. But it is hurting and I think it is an important issue, sir.

Senator ARMSTRONG. Thank you very much. Thank you all.

There will now be a brief period for the changing of the guard. [Pause.]

Senator GRASSLEY. We now want to proceed to consideration of S. 108. I am the originator of S. 108, and I have a statement that I am going to put in the record rather than reading it at this time, in explanation of my legislation and support of it.

Our next list of witnesses as Congressman Ron Wyden, from the State of Oregon; Gary Conkling, director of government relations, Tektronics, in Beaverton, Oregon; Wayne Newton, trustee for Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a constituent of mine, I might point out; and Dr. Richard Greenfield, chancellor of St. Louis Community College, St. Louis, Mo., and ask you all to come. I would like you testify in that order. Congressman Wyden, if you are in a hurry and you have to leave before the panel is done, would you please tell me as I have one or two questions that I want to ask you.

Representative WYDEN. That would be most helpful, Senator. Senator GRASSLEY. All right. Then we will proceed with you and I will have a dialogue with you before we go on to the remaining members of the panel. Would you proceed?

STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF OREGON

Representative WYDEN. Senator, thank you very much. It is a great pleasure to be here and testify in support of your legislation, S. 108. It is also a pleasure to be seated on the panel with Mr. Gary Conkling of the Tektronics Corp., a gentleman of considerable talents. Tektronics, our largest employer in the State of Oregon, has

done a tremendous amount to promote educational reform. I have to admit not being unbiased with respect to Mr. Conkling. He is my former administrative assistant. My loss is Oregon's gain, and I am very happy to be here with him.

Senator, I wholeheartedly support this legislation. I am convinced that by enacting this bill, Congress will take a major step toward making available to our young people the training that they are going to need for tomorrow's jobs. For the last several months, as a member of the House bipartisan task force studying the concept of merit pay, I have been deeply involved in the issues of educational reform. At hearings that were held in Washington, D.C., as well as one that I just held in Oregon, one witness after another said that any effort to reform education in this country simply must address the prospect and the need to beef up vocational education in the United States. That is why I am very glad to be able to support this legislation that helps answer some of the concerns that I have heard witness after witness raise around this country. In particular, we have got to look at new ways to figure out how vocational schools and community colleges can get the instructors and the equipment that is needed to train workers for the changing job marketplace.

I think it is pretty clear that tomorrow's jobs are going to require expertise in technical knowledge. The Task Force on Education for Economic Growth wrote in its June 1983 report: "Jobs which offer upward mobililty will increasingly be those which require the use of technology."

To meet this challenge, we need vocational training programs that are as modern as the job market. That means schools with new textbooks, skilled teachers and state-of-the-art equipment. Tight budgets everywhere, especially in education, mean that we need to develop a new, mutually beneficial partnership between the parties directly affected: business, government, schools, and parents. I think that S. 108 offers an opportunity for the Federal Government to promote that kind of partnership. S. 108 achieves this by recognizing the great importance of how our community colleges train workers. With more than 1,200 of those colleges across the Nation, they are in the position to train students in a short period of time in a particular vocation, and to work with local businesses to provide employer-specific courses. Their track record is impressive: Community colleges train more than 11 million workers every year. But I think there is room for improvement. To maximize the potential for training students for the advancing job market, our nation's community colleges need to have the correct tools: state-of-the-art tools such as electronic engineering technology, computer software, and new medical equipment. They also have to have the teachers who know how to use this equipment and who know about current developments in these

areas.

I think your bill, Senator, gets right to the root of the problem. It will provide tax incentives to industries which donate equipment for vocational education programs, as well as tax credits to companies which allow employees to teach vocational programs without compensation or which employ temporary full-time vocational education instructors.

In my own home State of Oregon, as in many States, the budget for higher education has been increasingly hard-pressed. Appropriations for higher education have fallen 3 percent in the last 10 years as our State legislature, like so many, has looked for ways to hold down spending. At the same time, Oregonians have been—and are reluctant to pay additional taxes, leaving school levies in Oregon with very, very tough prospects for approval.

With money short, one of the first things to be cut from a college or vocational school's budget are the funds to purchase expensive equipment. I think we all realize that computers aren't cheap.

Your legislation would help cover some of the expense of modernizing that equipment with a very modest cost to the Federal Government. It would also provide incentive for industry to donate personnel to help teach student about new technologies so they will be ready to come out of training and take up a job quickly, thus furthering our competitive standing in the international marketplace.

Again, in Oregon, Senator, the economy is just beginning to recover from 3 years of serious recession. Unfortunately, most of the equipment in our community colleges is 5 to 10 years behind the times, seriously outdated, and the need for new equipment has been simply too great for either the colleges or the businesses to meet. I think it is a need we have got to meet. We must train more students to work in high technology fields. To do that, the people and the tools have to be made available to vocational schools.

I have often said that to keep pace with our foreign competitors, we must have an educational system which is committed to keeping our human capital as rigorous as our investment capital. S. 108 would help us to achieve that goal. I very much urge your support and congratulate you for all the leadership that you have brought to this issue, Senator.

Senator GRASSLEY. Well thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony. I think you have answered my first question because it was in regard to whether or not you felt that the bill provided an appropriate Federal role in meeting the equipment and staff to develop a means for our community colleges by encouraging greater private sector investments. I think your enthusiastic support of your testimony indicates that. Did I interpret it right?

Representative WYDEN. Absolutely. And I think what your legislation does, Senator, is carve out a modest and yet still very meaningful role for the Federal Government to play in promoting vocational education. I think you and I would both concur that with a $200 billion deficit staring us in the face we cannot go out and start enormous, new programs and just spend money indiscriminately. What your bill does is it gives us a chance to target a specific problem, a very real problem, in my State and throughout the country. And for that reason I think it does carve out a modest and yet still very meaningful role for the Federal Government.

Senator GRASSLEY. Yes. Could I ask your view-it is somewhat related to the bill, but not totally related to it-whether or not you see a need for more Federal support for technician training programs as opposed to professional engineering and science programs?

Representative WYDEN. I think we ought to proceed vigorously in both those areas. I think that the technological revolution is going to produce job opportunities in both of those areas. I would just suggest that at this point we move vigorously in both of them and not try now to sort out one at the expense of the other.

Senator GRASSLEY. All right. Thank you very much. And I appreciate the fact that, the House being in session, that you have to leave. And I thank you for your contribution.

Representative WYDEN. I very much appreciate your graciousness, Senator. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Congressman Ron Wyden follows:]

AUGUST 1, 1983

TESTIMONY

OF

CONGRESSMAN RON WYDEN

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to speak before this subcommittee in support of Senator Grassley's bill, S. 108.

I wholeheartedly support this legislation. I'm convinced that by enacting this bill, Congress will take a major step towards making available to our young people the training they need for tomorrow's jobs.

For the last several months, as a member of the House bi-partisan task force on merit pay, I have been deeply involved in the issues of educational reform. The issue of vocational education has come up again and again.

That is why I am glad to be able to lend my support to a bill that helps answer some of the concerns we have discussed

principally,

how vocational schools and community colleges can get them got the instructors and equipment needed to train workers for the changing

job marketplace.

It is clear that tomorrow's jobs will require technical knowledge. As the Task Force on Education for Economic Growth wrote in its June 1983 report: "Jobs which offer upward mobility will increasingly be those which require the use of technology."

To meet this challenge, we need vocational training programs as modern as the job market. That means schools with new textbooks,

skilled teachers and state-of-the-art equipment.