EDUCATION

Mr. GARDNER. First, I would like to turn to the area of education. The keynote of the educational legislation enacted by the Congress in the past 3 years has been increased educational opportunitythrough improved educational quality and increased availability of education and training.

Because of this legislation, the Department's education programs have expanded dramatically. In 1964, about $700 million was appropriated to the Office of Education; the 1967 budget calls for $3.5 billion, a fivefold increase over the period.

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

A milestone in the history of American education was achieved last year with the enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This act recognized that the equalization of educational opportunity must begin with the improvement of educational quality in schools serving low-income areas. Over $11 billion is included in the 1967 budget for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which almost $1.1 billion is for title I aid to low-income areas alone. The act also authorized Federal aid to insure that students everywhere may have books and other instructional materials necessary to improve the quality of elementary and secondary education. In addition, other titles of the act provided for the establishment of supplementary education centers and services within the community, and for strengthening of educational leadership at the State level by offering financial assistance to State departments of education. The 1967 budget requests increases for each of these programs, with special emphasis on expanding support for supplementary centers.

TEACHER TRAINING

Teacher training is an essential element in improving educational equality. Under the Higher Education Act of 1965, the new Teacher Corps program was authorized to provide teacher training for persons to serve in low-income areas. We are requesting a 1966 supplemental to begin this program and a sizable increase in 1967 so that by the end of next year there will be 3,750 Teacher Corps members in service. The Higher Education Act also authorized teacher fellowships and support for strengthening teacher education programs in higher educational institutions. With our 1967 request we would be able to award about 5,800 teacher fellowships and to support 50 teacher education programs. Other teacher training programs would receive a high level of support in the 1967 budget, including the National Defense Education Act institutes, newly expanded under the Higher Education

Act.

I would just emphasize that there isn't anything we can do to increase educational quality more directly than working with the teachers on their education.

IMPACTED AREA AID

Before going on, I would like to take a moment to discuss the impacted area aid programs. In keeping with a study recently completed by the Stanford Research Institute, the 1967 budget proposes a de

crease in Federal aid to school districts serving children whose parents work or live on Federal property. The study concluded that-because the families of such children are often established members of the community and because they all pay State and local taxes of one kind or another-school districts affected by Federal activities should absorb a greater share of the cost of serving Federal families.

In addition to proposing absorption on the part of school districts along the lines suggested by the Stanford Research Institute study, the cutback in Federal aid of this kind is proposed at this time in recognition of the fact that school districts generally are now eligible for greatly increased and more uniform Federal assistance under the newly enacted Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

SENATOR PASTORE'S COMMENTS

Senator PASTORE. I guess you are familiar with the fact that we have received much mail on this cutback in the impacted areas. As a matter of fact, I think I heard from almost every individual in Rhode Island who is interested in it and I guess you have heard from Congressman John Fogarty as well. You make a lot of sense when you cite the Stanford Research Institute study, but when a community is accustomed to a certain largesse and then it is removed abruptly, some problems arise.

The experience has been for you to send up a scanty budget and we increase it.

The thing that strikes me, don't you think there ought to be some more diplomatic and prudent way of bringing about an accelerated program? You just cannot take a community that is receiving several million dollars and then take it away from them when they have already been more or less relying on it. It means changing the tax structure. I have been a Governor of my State and I never tax more than I need. It is foolish to do that. You do not pick up a surplus in taxes by raising tax revenues. You do not do that at all. You tax only if you have to.

Therefore, it means when you take this money away from the communities relying on it, they have to get into a tax program and that is never a popular thing to do. I think some systematic system ought to be worked out here if this is going to be the policy of the Government to either decrease the amount or take it away entirely.

I think we ought to work out some system whereby the shock wouldn't be as severe as it has been in the past. The result has been you take it out and we put it back and where are we? We are with no policy at all. You have an administration policy and you have a congressional policy.

TITLE I FUNDS

Mr. GARDNER. Senator Pastore, what I said before about the title I funds coming in this year seems to me to speak to that point. It seemed to me a perfect year in which to try to deal with this admittedly very imperfect program of aid to Federally impacted areas. Most people in the educational area agree that something ought to be done about this program. I can't think of a better year to do it that this year when the title I funds are flowing to these districts.

Senator PASTORE. Is that exactly true? One is predicated upon the level of income and the community and the other has to do with the

number of people working in the Federal Government. Your formulas are different. You are not filling in a vacuum. There is a different one. Title I is predicated upon the economic situation of that community and based upon that. They are going to get this largesse, whereas your impacted areas are predicated upon the number of people more or less who work in the Federal Government and come into an area where the community can afford neither to build the schools nor provide the teachers for the kind of education that these high-salaried people are entitled to.

Maybe we should never have started it in the first place. All I am saying is once you give a lollypop to a child you don't take it away too easily without that child doing a little crying, and we are getting a lot of crying. I think it ought to be done in a different way.

I think these people ought to be called in. There ought to be some kind of a seminar, an understanding, and do it gradually so they can assimilate it. If you just shut it off overnight, what are these communities going to do? They can't close down their schools. Where are they going to go to get this money? If it is a bad habit, we got them into the bad habits; it is our fault.

This all comes about because you have a very affluent environment in Washington, and I don't blame the Stanford people. When you talk about Montgomery County and Prince Georges County and you talk about Virginia, these are very affluent communities, and maybe they do a lot more without Federal help. The kind of people who live in these communities work for the Government and are in the high echelons, and maybe they can afford to pay more taxes.

But when you get into a little place like East Greenwich in Rhode Island, you have a different situation. If that has led to this change of philosophy, that is one thing, but I don't think you can apply this all over.

Mr. GARDNER. The Stanford Research Institute study was not based on examination of this area alone. This was an examination of the whole array of impacted areas.

Senator PASTORE. Senator Bridges amended the law providing that because of the Portsmouth situation, and this included Virginia, Montgomery and Prince Georges County, and the minute that happened we had a ballooned program that we could not live with.

Mr. KELLY. I would suggest you look at it in light of what Secretary Gardner said. While it is true that the distribution of the title I funds and impacted area aid funds follow different formulas and concepts, it is highly likely that the community that is most depressed and has the least fiscal capacity to run its school system is going to get the greatest amount of funds under title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, so that when you withdraw impacted area aid funds this particular community is aided through title I.

I think you might also consider this problem: If you are going to provide as much support for education as the President's budget does in 1967, is not this particular distribution the most likely to give you national equity for a high-quality education program?"

RESTORATION OF FUNDS BY THE CONGRESS

Senator PASTORE. I am just pointing out this is between the administration and the Congress. You know the Congress never agreed with you on this and they have always replaced the money. I don't

think that is good. I think we should get our heads together with the people who are the beneficiaries of these programs and with the leaders in the Congress and get something worked out whereby this can be scaled off gradually.

I think this can be done. This money is going to be restored by the Congress. We have done it every year. That is the answer I am giving my constituents when I write to them. You know Mr. Fogarty is going to put it back and Senator Hill will, too.

FUNDS FOR ALABAMA AND RHODE ISLAND

Senator HILL. How much will the title I funds contribute to the average community which receives impacted area funds, thereby resulting in a loss of these funds?

Mr. CARDWELL. It varies from community to community. In the entire State of Alabama, for example, school districts would under the impacted area aid program receive about $7.3 million with full entitlement. Under the budget proposal this support would go down to about $1 million.

Senator HILL. It is a pretty substantial reduction.

Senator PASTORE. Wait until he gets to Rhode Island. He will crucify us.

Mr. CARDWELL. Under title I in 1967, Alabama is estimated to receive in the same school districts about $17 million.

Senator HILL. Those same school districts?

Mr. CARDWELL. Yes.

Senator HILL. Under title I?

Mr. CARDWELL. Yes. In the case of Rhode Island, school districts would be intitled to $3 million in impacted area aid. This would be $1.5 million under the budget proposal, but under title I the same school districts in Rhode Island should get about $4 million.

Senator HILL. Four instead of the three they are now getting? Mr. CARDWELL. They would get $4 million in addition to the impacted area funds.

Senator HILL. What do you have on Colorado?

Senator ALLOTT. I have the figures on Colorado. I don't want to interrupt Senator Pastore.

Senator PASTORE. I merely want to say that I don't think that we have explained this specifically enough. Are you actually saying to me that a school district which is now entitled to, let us say, $500,000 in Rhode Island, no matter where that school district is, has this benefit under the impacted area fund for the simple reason that you come in with a great influx of schoolchildren because of a military installation? Are you telling me under title I that same school district is going to get 150 percent more money?

Mr. CARDWELL. No, sir; I am saying the same school districts overall will receive more assistance under title I.

Senator PASTORE. If you have, let us say, an affluent community, affluent in the sense that it is rural, it is suburban and more or less, say, a bedroom location for industrial centers and this is adjacent, let us say, to a military installation, let us say East Greenwich. They receive a dollars through the impacted area which is dependent upon a number of military personnel.

If their level of income is of a certain level, it may well be they are not entitled to this money under title I. They might be excluded. Am I right or wrong?

In other words, they are not putting money in the same places. It is a different kind of program. The two cannot be assimilated. It is true that a certain amount of money comes into a State, but now I am talking about the parochial community-the communities which had been depending upon this money for a specific program. Now, you come along and say you have a larger entitlement under another program but it works out in a different formula.

This title I is to help those localities that cannot help themselves because they have poor families and you are trying to help those communities to help these children that come from poor families. It is a different formula. It is an entirely different formula.

GAPS IN IMPACTED AREA PROGRAM

I don't think you can make the argument we are going to be better off. We are going to be better off overall, but you do not fill in the gaps specifically that are being created by the removal of these funds from the impacted areas.

Mr. GARDNER. The gaps which exist will exist in those communities best able to pay for them. It is true that not all communities will have a cushion as the result of title I, but the communities that do have that cushion will be precisely the communities that need it most. Senator PASTORE. Eventually all these people will have to assume the responsibility themselves if that is the policy of the Government. Thus far, it has not been the policy of the administration and the Congress. That has been the policy of the administration. And all I am saying is that we ought to get our heads together and work this thing out in such a way that we can phase it out without doing irreparable harm to some of these communities. You just do not go out and raise $100 million in some of these small communities.

TITLE I GRANTS REQUIRE STATE ACTION

Mr. CARDWELL. I would like to emphasize that the data we furnished you on title I is in the form of entitlement. It would be up to the local school districts and the State to take advantage of the allocation under the law. There is no guarantee that they will receive the allocation.

Senator HILL. You might amplify that a little bit. For the record, would you state what you mean by that?

Mr. CARDWELL. Under title I there is a formula from which we derive the maximum amount each school district may receive. Individual districts then file a plan with the State department of education, which approves individual projects proposed by local school districts up to the amount they are eligible to receive. This amount is based on the number of schoolchildren in the school district whose families have an annual income of $2,000 a year or less. Senator HILL. Senator Allott.

Senator ALLOTT. First of all, I want to associate myself with Senator Pastore's remarks. I will have to leave for another hearing shortly.