COLORADO

CURRENT EXPENDITURE PER CLASSROOM UNIT

$500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 4,500 5,000 5,500

Ꭲ Ꮐ Ꭲ Ꮑ Ꮮ

50

10

30

20

10

KANSAS

CURRENT EXPENDITURE PER CLASSROOM UNIT

$500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 4,500 5,000 5,500

TOTAL

50

40

30

20

10

State total

318,726

17,770

100.00

MAINE

CURRENT EXPENDITURE PER CLASSROOM UNIT

$500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 4,500 5,000 5,500

SOUTH DAKOTA

CURRENT EXPENDITURE PER CLASSROOM UNIT

$500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 4,500 5,000 5,500

The American Youth Commission of which Newton D. Baker and Owen D. Young were respective chairmen came to this conclusion:

"Our most imperative duty in connection with education in the United States is to bring the schools everywhere to the level where all children and youth, regardless of race, will receive at least a sound elementary school education." 2 The Educational Policies Commission concluded that:

"Gross inequalities in opportunity now characterize education in the United States." "3

The White House Conference reported as follows:

"The facts do not support the assumption of equal educational opportunity for all children. Whole regions, many States, and large areas within States are inadequately supplied with school facilities in quantity, quality, and accessibility."4

The study reported in Unfinished Business in American Education arrived at this conclusion:

"We know now that millions of children are living in communities whose schools have so little financial support that they cannot be expected to provide decent educational opportunity." 5

That millions are denied any decent opportunity to go to school is attested by many facts. The following are illustrative:

1. The 1940 Federal census revealed that 10,000,000 adult Americans had so little schooling that they were virtually illiterate.

2. This census listed 3,000,000 adults living in the United States who had never attended any kind of school.

3. The 1940 census enumerated 2,000,000 children, age 6 to 16, who were not in any kind of school-and this number was substantially increased during the war. 4. It has been estimated that there are at least 3,000,000 children in the United States who by any reasonable test should be in school-both for their own good and for the good of the country as a whole-who are not in school.

5. General Hershey, Director of Selective Service, stated early in World War II: "With great pressure on our manpower resources, it is regrettable that we lost so many physically qualified, who must be rejected because of illiteracy."

If millions are denied the opportunity even to learn to read and write, they doubtless are also denied the health education, the preparation for democratic citizenship, the vocational training, and the other forms of education which are essential for successful and happy living under modern conditions.

It is a profoundly disturbing fact that the United States which above all other nations has stood for equality of opportunity fails to provide such opportunity at a key point. Equal opportunity becomes a meaningless phrase unless every child and youth who is willing to profit from attending a good school actually has a chance to go to such a school.

The plain fact is that millions of children and youth never have a chance to go to a good school and some have no chance to go to any kind of a school.

The fact that gross inequality rather than reasonable equality of opportunity characterizes public education today should be profoundly disturbing to every intelligent American citizen. This situation constitutes the most serious internal threat to the American way of life which exists today.

II. THERE SHOULD BE FEDERAL AID FOR EDUCATION BECAUSE THE SOCIAL ILLS, WHICH RESULT FROM DENYING DECENT SCHOOLING TO MILLIONS, ENDANGER THE WHOLE NATION

Ignorance cannot be quarantined. It lurks to weaken the Nation as a whole in times of national danger. It remains to fester in States and localities which have poor schools. It also travels on the wings of a mobile population to plague areas which maintain good schools. From the slum areas of American education come a disproportionate percentage of citizens of substandard health, low earning capacity, and incomplete preparation for good citizenship.

The social ills which flow from denial of, and inequality of, educational opportunity are many. Let us look at some of the evidence of this point.

2 American Youth Commission, Youth and the Future. American Council on Education, Washington, D. C., 1942. P. 114.

Educational Policies Commission, Education and Economic Well-Being in American Democracy. National Education Association, 1940.

P. 195.

4 White House Conference on Children in a Democracy. Final Report, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1940. P. 150.

Unfinished Business on American Education, National Education Association and the American Council on Education. 1946. P. 11.