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Colonel OWENS. Certainly.

Senator FULBRIGHT. If these boys come back with a desire not to have anything to do with the rest of the world, it will be to a great extent because of their poor education at these elementary and secondary stages, don't you think?

Colonel OWENS. I personally would think so. The services, of course, cannot propagandize while the men are in service, on subjects like that.

Senator FULBRIGHT. Yes. I was just asking your opinion. You have seen these boys. You know how poorly educated they are. And, as a citizen, it seems perfectly evident to me that that is one of the great dangers, that they do not understand. When they come back perhaps some will say, "I participated in this war; I don't like the British or the French or the Italians," and they will have that attitude because of misunderstanding of what we are trying to do. Colonel OWENS. I think so.

Senator ELLENDER. Are there any further questions?

Senator SMITH. I would like to ask, Do you contemplate setting up new schools for these fellows especially, and how could you set them up?

Colonel OWENS. Well, I certainly do not think that veterans 20 and 25 or 30 years of age who want to go to school should be put in the same classrooms with the boys and girls who are much younger. That isn't fair to the youngsters, and it isn't fair to the veterans. It will probably vary in States as to what they can do. I think that there are several approaches to it. Some favor expanding the facilities of college campuses to do certain things below the college level.

The colleges don't favor that much. The indications are that most of these boys, the majority of the boys, want some kind of vocational training. For instance, of 10,000 boys who recently passed several weeks at Camp Fort Dix, 50 percent of them said they wanted vocational training, and most of them will have to make a living at the same time that they are getting that training.

So it seems to me that the veteran's education program will be largely an adult educational program, that means that the present adult educational program in this country must be greatly increased. New York State, on paper at least, proposes to build or establish 16 veterans' institutions for vocational training. I don't know whether they are going on through with that or not. But there are facilities which if expanded and equipped in Mississippi or New York, can probably meet the needs. I don't think that we want to jump off and spend a lot of money building things unless we can prove we are going to continue to use them. The present facilities can be expanded.

Senator HILL. They have got to be expanded if we are going to meet the promise which we have made in the GI bill; isn't that true.

Colonel OWENS. Yes, and if we are going to take advantage of this opportunity, an opportunity we have never had before, to give them a chance to upgrade themselves, we must expand educational and training facilities. There is nothing in the GI law, in Public Law 346, that now permits the Government to do anything about providing the facilities.

Senator HILL. But you and I know that when these boys come back, with all that has been said about the GI bill and the program of education, if the facilities are not here for them to take advantage of the

provisions of the GI bill, there is going to be trouble and disappointment and terrible disillusionment; isn't that true?

Colonel OWENS. Yes, sir. And I think we must consider this phase of the thing. We hear so much about the boys not going back to the farm. I think that we would be doing a wonderful service if we could provide facilities, if necessary, buildings, for the farm boys in the various rural communities where they can go and learn how to farm well enough to make a living again.

Senator ELLENDER. I think the purpose of the GI bill is to leave the veterans after the war where they would have been if the war had not come. In other words, to make it possible that all high-school graduates will have an opportunity to go to college. Certainly, a boy who didn't go to school at all until 18 years of age couldn't be expected to go and enroll in a two-room school. The idea of the GI bill is to give to the soldiers the same opportunities they left behind when they went into the service.

Colonel OWENS. That is right.

Senator ELLENDER. Any further questions?

Senator HILL. Were you going to make some comment, Colonel? Colonel OWENS. About 333 percent of the high-school graduates in the Army have some kind of plan for continuing their education, either full time or part time. That figure is from a sample test. Senator ELLENDER. Thank you.

The meeting will stand in recess until tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.

(Whereupon, the committee recessed until tomorrow, Wednesday, January 31, 1945, at 10 a. m.)

FEDERAL AID FOR EDUCATION

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1945

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a. m. in room 357, Senate Office Building, Senator James E. Murray (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Murray (chairman), Ellender, Hill, Chavez, Johnston, Taft, Fulbright, Smith, Donnell, Morse, and Aiken. The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order.

Before proceeding with the hearing I wish to read into the record a telegram just received from Matthew Woll, chairman, committee on education of the American Federation of Labor. The telegram is addressed to me as chairman of this committee, and it reads:

The committee on education of the American Federation of Labor met today and has approved principles in regard to a program of Federal aid for education. These principles will be presented to the executive council of the federation meeting early next week. We shall then seek your support for the principles for which we stand. We respectfully ask that this message be presented to your committee with request that no formal action be taken by your committee prior to consideration of our proposals.

The first witness this morning will be Mr. E. B. Norton, State superintendent of schools of Alabama.

STATEMENT OF E. B. NORTON, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, STATE OF ALABAMA

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Dr. Norton.

Dr. NORTON. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am here today representing the National Council of Chief State School Officers, which is an organization of the State superintendents of education and State commissioners of education. This council has repeatedly gone on record in favor of Federal aid for education without Federal control, and over a period of years has developed policies adopted by the vote of the council itself concerning such aid.

I would like to read a statement of policies voted at our last annual meeting, without a dissenting vote by this council. [Reading:]

This council holds that this Nation does have, should have, and must have the right to reach into the most poverty-stricken home in the remotest part of the poorest State in this Union and draft the young manhood of that home to face the battle line for the protection of democratic ideals and institutions, and that this Nation must find some way to dedicate a reasonable portion of its resources in order that every child in every home throughout the land may have a reasonable opportunity to develop his intelligence, his skill, his talents,

his ideals, and his attitude in such a way as to make him fit to serve a democracy in time of war or peace. In achieving this objective the following policies

should be observed:

1. In a democracy such as ours, wealth should be taxed wherever it exists to educate children wherever they are.

2. Federal funds should be made available to the States to assist the States in equalizing educational opportunity throughout the Nation to the extent of making possible an adequate minimum or foundation program of education in each State, without Federal control of education.

3. Federal legislation providing for the distribution of appropriations for public education should incorporate equitable and objective techniques for determining allocations to the States.

That is in the legislation itself.

4. Federal financial assistance to public education should take the form of grants-in-aid to the respective legally constituted State educational authorities rather than grants-in-aid to local school administrative units (1943).

5. The regulation and control of public education is a legal responsibility of the States. The Federal Government should neither directly nor indirectly usurp that power by fiscal controls exercised through the administration of Federal grants (1943).

6. All Federal grants-in-aid for education should be restricted to support of tax-supported public educational agencies (which, of course, the State departments of education. are).

7. All Federal auditing of Federal grants-in-aid to public education should be restricted to the auditing of respective State central educational authorities.

8. The Federal Government should not attempt to shape the American system of public education according to a preconceived Federal pattern by imposing upon the States any conditions for participation in Federal aid for education as would tend toward that end.

9. The States should make such reports in such form to the United States Office of Educaion as may be jointly agreed upon by the United States Office of Education and the National Council of Chief State School Officers.

I would like to remind the members of the committee that the council which I represent is the Council of Chief State School Administrators, and that we have the responsibility, delegated to us locally within the several States, of administering the program of education. Therefore, we could guard more zealously, probably, than anyone else the rights and prerogatives of the State in the administrative controls of education.

The National Council of Chief State School officers is convinced that this bill does safeguard the rights and the privileges and responsibilities of the States in administering their separate programs of education.

Senator TAFT. Is that statement in support of the part of the bill appropriating $200,000,000 or just the other part of it appropriating $100,000,000?

Dr. NORTON. The entire bill, Senator.

Senator TAFT. It seems to me anything stated there in regard to the first part of the bill is obviously interfering directly with the administration of the States by requiring the money to be paid for salaries not within the discretion of the local board of education, and we are immediately running down the Federal policy as to how the State should spend the money.

Dr. NORTON. This particular grant-in-aid though

Senator TAFT (interposing). I am not talking about the $100,000,000, I am talking about the $200,000,000 fund.

Dr. NORTON. This particular grant-in-aid would meet an emergency which all the State school administrators recognize is a primary emergency at this time.

Senator TAFT. We are saying to every school administration in this country: "You must spend this money for teachers' salaries and other school employees' salaries." That is immediately an interference with the State's administration of education.

Dr. NORTON. I do not see that it is, because it is a grant-in-aid, to enable us to do a thing which we, as State administrators of education say we need the Federal Government to do in this emergency.

Senator TAFT. Some may not say that. Some may say: "We need this money for schools; we need it for facilities; we do not need it all for education." We, in Congress, are setting up the whole program by starting out and saying: "You must use the money for teachers' salaries, and that only."

Dr. NORTON. You do not set up any teachers' schedules or have any say in the choice of teachers, or the qualifications of teachers.

Senator TAFT. You immediately pass upon the first question of principle, which should be a matter of local administration.

Dr. NORTON. Our council has been thoroughly convinced that this bill provides more definite, more specific, and more rigid safeguards to the State's functions in controlling the administrative aspects of education than have been thrown around any of the appropriation bills providing funds for such services as public health, highways, agricultural extension services, or any of these other services.

Senator TAFT. I think the bill is greatly improved from what the old bill was, but we are setting a precedent which will guide Congress the next time they are appropriating money by saying: "You must spend this money for this; you must make them put colored and white schools together; you must spend this money for building school houses; you must spend this money for initiating a program for the teaching of American history," and so forth. It does not leave any discretion, I agree, to the Federal Department of Education, but it immediately assumes for Congress the principle of deciding how to spend the money. You are setting up a precedent for every additional bill that may be passed for Federal aid to education.

Dr. NORTON. Of course, they will receive Federal grants-in-aid with as little restrictions of any nature as can be thrown around it.

I would like to remind the committee also that this Council of Chief State School Officers, in writing this set of principles to govern any Federal aid for education, are recommending policies that are consistent with the policies they are also recommending for the States in dealing with their local units. In other words, we are recommending the extension of the program of equalization of education within the States at the same time that we are recommending the extension of equalization of educational opportunities among the States. We are constantly striving for revisions of State laws to bring about greater equalization of opportunity by the use of State funds and yet preserving as much as can be preserved of local initiative, that is, local control of the school systems within the States.

I would like to give a few facts now about the State which I represent as a chief State school officer, simply to reemphasize the need for this thing in a little different form than you have had it up to now, although you have had practically all of the governing prin

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