Provisions in title I for expanding opportunities for individuals in higher education supports the efforts of the total profession to secure greater numbers of well-educated teachers and scholars in all academic fields. Provisions for additional graduate fellowships and for summer session fellowships will encourage many to seek advanced training who could not otherwise do so. The student-loan features of NDEA, with the forgiveness features, should be continued and extended. The Nation faces the critical need for an ever-increasing number of scholars, researchers, and teachers. The provisions of this title can provide material support for able students who might not otherwise be able to continue their education. I am pleased that benefits will be available to students in both private and public institutions.

Provisions for the expansion and improvement of higher education, included in title II, are supported by the overwhelming majority of the education profession in America. Loans for construction of academic facilities, assistance in developing college libraries, and grants for improving graduate programs will benefit teaching, learning, and scholarship in every academic field.

Urgently needed in this country is the strengthening of elementary and secondary education. Passage of provisions of title IV for assisting in classroom, construction to eliminate overcrowding in school and to make possible smaller classrooms is formally supported by the National Council of Teachers of English in a resolution passed unanimously by directors representing 150 regional and local associations from 48 separate States.

The NDEA provisions for purchase of science, mathematics, and modern foreign language instruction equipment (pt. B) have proved their effectiveness in strengthening school programs. These provisions should be continued and extended to include English, and English as a second language. In both of these vital areas, assistance is needed so that school districts may obtain the tape recorders, language laboratory facilities, recordings, and teaching machines, required for modern teaching. Teachers of English as a second language require the same equipment for successful teaching as do teachers of modern foreign languages. The demands for specialized equipment in regular English classes are less well known, but are particularly pressing in metropolitan schools faced with the problem of teaching the standard English dialect to large numbers of educationally disadvantaged young people.

The National Council of Teachers of English also urges passage of provisions of title VI dealing with an expansion of continuing education. Current surveys being undertaken by the council reveal that thousands of teachers of English do not have access to evening, weekend, and summer course work, even when they wish to complete such studies. In addition, the needs of adults seeking to develop basic skills of literacy or the special problems of many seeking to master English language and literature for the first time can be satisfied only by a thorough strengthening of our total educational effort. In continuing education, too, the improvement of public library facilities is essential.

Passage of many provisions of the National Education Improvement Act of 1963 is essential to the future of American society. In its comprehensive approach and its broad purposes, H.R. 3000 comes to grips with the complexities of one of the major social problems of our day.

Mr. PERKINS. Would you have one question, Mr. Quie?

Mr. QUIE. Well, now, I have two.

Mr. PERKINS. Well, the order is to clear the room at 12 o'clock, and it is now on 12.

Mr. QUIE. Just quickly, following up on this, Dr. Fischer, even though you can't say that a 6-year-old is more important than a 20-year-old, or a 20-year-old is more important than a 6-year-old, you don't say that the Federal Government's responsibilities in all levels of education are exactly the same, do you?

Dr. FISCHER. No, they are not the same, but I would certainly say that the Federal Government has a responsibility in all of the levels of education.

Mr. QUIE. And has exercised it in the past, too?

Dr. FISCHER. But quite differentially.

Mr. QUIE. You don't think that it ought to be even exercised differentially?

Dr. FISCHER. Of course, but I think the difference ought to be in terms of the nature of the assistance which is needed at a particular level. You don't help a kindergarten, for example, by building a cyclotron.

Mr. QUIE. Let's get onto the question; I want to find something out about the bill. We have been arguing this back and forth for weeks

now.

But coming down to part A-and this was referred to by Mr. Bellsection 302 of the bill says, in determining the subject matter areas which advanced studies will be provided under this part

The Commissioner shall give preference to those areas in which he finds there is a widespread need for improvement in the quality of instruction.

Under NIH and NSF most projects are determined by a panel of experts. Don't you think that would be a protection in this part as well as the next part B, if a panel of experts made the decision rather than the Commissioner, himself?

Dr. FISCHER. I don't have any strong feeling about it one way or the other. The experts are used in these other programs primarily to judge the relative merits of proposals for research projects and so on, that are submitted. I think the intent here is of a different nature, and while I certainly have no objection to the Commissioner's calling in whatever additional help he needs, my own guess would be that his own staff, as it is now constituted, probably is better able to give him, or at least able to give him the kind of help he would need here as most groups of experts that he could bring in, but I would have no objection to seeing experts involved here.

Mr. PERKINS. Thank you very much, Dr. John Fischer, and Dr. Totaro, and Dr. John H. Fisher and Dr. James Squire, for appearing here this morning as representatives of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Your testimony has been very useful and helpful and we appreciate it and I know the full committee will appreciate it.

Dr. FISCHER. Thank you, sir.

(Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m. the hearing in the above-entitled matter was recessed.)

NATIONAL EDUCATION IMPROVEMENT ACT

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1963

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met at 10:15 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 429, Cannon Building, Hon. Carl D. Perkins, presiding.

Present: Representatives Perkins, Landrum, Holland, Dent, Pucinski, Carey, Hawkins, Sickles, Gibbons, Gill, Frelinghuysen, Quie, Bell, and Taft.

Also present: Dr. Deborah P. Wolfe, education chief and William O'Hara, counsel, Special Subcommittee on Education.

Mr. PERKINS. The committee will come to order. A quorum is present.

Our first witness for this morning is Dr. Benjamin Willis, who, by the way, is an outstanding expert in the field of vocational education. The President recognized his great ability in this area, and he was selected to head the President's Panel on Vocational Education.

We are delighted to have you here with us this morning. Dr. Willis, and, if you will, come forward and take your seat. If you have anybody you want to bring up with you, bring them up with you.

TESTIMONY OF DR. BENJAMIN C. WILLIS, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CHICAGO, ILL., ACCOMPANIED BY J. CHESTER SWANSON, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CALIF.

Dr. WILLIS. I should like to introduce, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman with me, who is Dr. Chester Swanson from the University of California, who was chief of staff in producing this report.

Mr. PERKINS. Yes.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. PERKINS. Yes, I yield.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to be here to welcome Dr. Willis. And, in view of that very fine introduction that the chairman gave to Mr. Willis, I am afraid there isn't much I can add except to say that we in Chicago are extremely proud to have Mr. Willis as the superintendent of our public schools there. He has done a tremendous job. He has brought Chicago great fame, and he certainly has introduced methods of education that are making Chicago's school system among the finest in the country.

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I am sure that I speak for all the people of Chicago in saying that I am certainly proud to have Dr. Willis here today to add his great knowledge on this subject to the study of this committee.

Mr. PERKINS. Proceed, Dr. Willis.

Dr. WILLIS. Thank you, Mr. Pucinski.

Mr. Chairman, my name is Benjamin C. Willis, general superintendent of schools in Chicago.

You have in your folder copies of a formal statement concerning the National Education Improvement Act of 1963, and, with your permission, I ask that that become a part of the record. I would like to use my allotted few minutes to discuss some particulars.

Mr. PERKINS. Without objection, the statement will be inserted in the record.

(The statement follows:)

STATEMENT BY DR. BENJAMIN C. WILLIS, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS,

CHICAGO, ILL.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to testify on behalf of the education bill with special emphasis on those parts which pertain to secondary education. I wish first to speak to title V, part A concerning vocational education. During all of my years in the superintendency, I have had a concern for those programs of education which make direct and obvious contributions to the skill levels of young people planning to go directly from the secondary schools into the world of work.

Also, I wish to recall to you the remarkable service rendered during World War II by the vocational education programs-directors of vocational education, teachers, and boards of education throughout the country. You will recall that vocational teachers worked through the evening, night after night, in the shops of our high schools, training and retraining adults for various phases of the war production effort. We had for the program the facilities and in the staff, the skills which made this emergency activity possible. We had much on which to build. Today, we have a peacetime need for intensifying and diversifying further the vocational education program for the young people of America.

The importance of skill to the individual is obvious and paramount. The importance of a high level skill running throughout the population is equally important to the Nation. Whether we are thinking of the technical abilities to design and manufacture missiles; whether we are talking of the office and clerical skills; or whether we are talking of auto repairs and maintenance of the home, we are talking of the skills needed in general.

Everyone is deeply aware of the changes in our way of life brought about by the technical advances of our times. It must be equally obvious that a broader base must be provided in our educational program throughout the country to foster the general capabilities of all citizens in the country. We cannot survive, we cannot grow, by having a limited number of persons with high skills and many people with low, if any skills.

The Congress is fully aware of the grave challenges which lie in the decade ahead. America has established a public school system designed to prepare young people for their adult responsibility, but we must consider carefully whether the program as it is today will enable all young people to measure up to the extraordinary responsibilities which will await them both as productive workers and as participating citizens. The school must help 26 million youngsters find their places in the next 10 years. It is fundamental to the problem before us today to realize that of every 10 youngsters who are now in elementary schools 3 will never finish high school; and of the other 7 who will earn a high school diploma 3 will go to work, some, of course, as wives and mothers.

Of the four who will continue their education in a formal program, only two will finish 4 years of college. Yet we must anticipate that while 8 out of 10 will not complete college, college enrollments will double.

We must ask ourselves some very searching questions. How will the young people fare who do not avail themselves of a traditional college program? How will those fare who will go to work directly out of high school? How will those 3