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THE OVERLOOKED ANSWERS

A partial solution to the problems of unemployed youth as well as those of the employer looking for skilled or semiskilled help does exist within our educa tional system-the vocational or technical school-but it has been neglected and ignored. In some cases it almost seems that our school administrators have taken the attitude that if they don't look maybe these schools will go away While vocational education is not offered as an absolute solution to all of our social and economic problems, it should be more vigorously pushed, better administered, and more fully financed.

During the past year, the American taxpayer, through local, State, and Federal taxation, paid a total public school bill of $18.1 billion. Of this, $56 billion was for secondary (high school) education. Only $254 million, or 43 percent, of this secondary school budget was spent on vocational education Four and one-half percent of the budget was spent to supply the kind of skills needed by the 50 percent of our school population who will enter the labor force without a college education.

Although $254 million is a sizable amount of money, it must be remembered that this is divided among the 50 States and among the 9.6 million high school students who form the 80 percent. This average out to about $28 spent for each of these pupils. This hardly seems adequate.

On a national scale this, in effect, amounts to no vocational education at all. There are, of course. examples of fine programs producing excellent results One such oasis is the city of Milwaukee, Wis., which spends $4.8 million annually to train some 18.000 youths in all types of vocational and technical skills. An interesting side effect of the Milwaukee effort should be cited. In Milwaukee the high school dropout rate is 5.5 percent compared to the highest high school dropout rate in the country-40 percent. The city of New York has recognized the need and has established some excellent vocational schools. Undoubtedly. they should be expanded in scope and amount of expenditures.'

In contrast, the city of Philadelphia, four times larger than Milwaukee, spends only one-seventeenth as much annually ($280,000).

Another glaring contrast to Milwaukee is Washington, D.C. In the National Capital the crime rate is climbing rapidly, juvenile delinquency has reached the crisis point, school dropouts constitute a major problem, youth unemployment ranks high as a source of concern, and welfare rolls are bulging. In this city the budget for vocational education is less than 4 percent of the total school budget.

THE FEDERAL ROLE

In this area of education the Federal role is historic, dating back more than 100 years. The first Land-Grant College Act was a demonstration of the Govern ment's faith in a system of academic and vocational education and a demonstration of the concern the Government held that those who work with their hands be trained properly to perform their tasks with skill and stature in the community In 1917 this concept was broadened by the Smith-Hughes Act to include high schools. Congress after Congress since then-regardless of the party in powerextended and broadened this basic law.

In 1961 the administration called together a panel of experts to study voca tional education needs. Headed by Chicago School Superintendent Benjamin C. Willis, the panel reported back a year later, in November 1962. The experts agreed there is a deep-seated need for added vocational and technical courses and that the need will increase during the years ahead. They recommended an immediate start and set a price tag of $400 million.

Yet, in its school message the administration came up with the figure of $73 million. A study of the complex problems facing young people today-and the society into which they must fit-indicates that perhaps the experts, not the administration, were on the right track.

ATTITUDES MUST CHANGE

More than financial assistance is needed. There must be a fundamental change in the attitude toward vocational education on the part of school boards, school administrators, and the general public.

1 A survey is currently being made of the 50 State programs, how they are financed and administered, and how well they are working. When results are complete enough to pro

The "glamorous" aspects of education are emphasized. Most of our money nd time is spent providing an increasingly excellent background for the few who vill graduate from college, ignoring the fact that this type of schooling is not solving the problems of the vast majority to prepare them for a useful career. Many of them sit and fidget through class after class until they reach the legal age limit when the truant officer no longer holds power over them-and they irop out. Meanwhile, they have become "problems" for the school administrator. In most school systems the machine shop, the woodworking lathes, and the garage equipment are relegated to the basement, or worse, to obsolete schools which no longer are considered good enough to house academic classrooms. Little, if any new equipment is bought. Not enough well-trained teachers are hired.

Vocational courses have been given a second-class status and a stigma attached to those taking them. Whether we like to admit it or not, facts indicate that too often administrators use vocational schools as dumping grounds for the unruly and the "problem children." The vocational school becomes, in effect, a reformatory without bars. It is little wonder that many parents object strenuously to their children taking part in such programs.

Glance through any report on school problems and almost invariably-as in the case with the administration's school message the emphasis is on the academic program. That school message devoted 4 whole paragraphs of a 13-page message to vocational education.

To achieve a really adequate vocational program will, then, require some fundamental changes in attitude among school officials, teachers, and the general public. The dignity of those attending vocational schools or taking vocational courses must be reaffirmed. A society cannot exist where no one is supposed to get his hands dirty.

Closer attention to this problem by community and national news media and by local and national civic organizations might help in bringing about this necessary attitude change.

Because such a program is designed to fill an educational vacuum for the vast majority of students, greater emphasis on finances must be accompanied by greater interest on the part of school administrators.

Such a program must be long range in character. Lack of spectacular immediate results would not mean failure since appreciable results cannot be expected for at least 4 years, perhaps not even that soon.

A well-rounded vocational program should include a greater degree of on-thejob training in cooperation with unions and business but under the supervision of school officials. Such a program would have a twofold benefit. It would enhance the value of classroom learning with actual experience and it also would provide students with much-needed dollar earnings.

It must be remembered that in many of our urban centers families depend on their children's earnings to maintain themselves. If the students can bring home the needed money with pride, it not only points to a better future for them, it starts the family itself on the road to rehabilitation, another possible side effect of a well-grounded vocational program.

Such a program cannot be achieved in this country by spending 4 percent of the budget or 4 percent of the administrator's time.

Schools by themselves cannot solve the problem of juvenile delinquency. This is a problem for the home, the church, and law enforcement authorities as well as for the educator. Schools by themselves cannot provide jobs for the jobless or hope for those desperate young men and women who have looked but who cannot find dignified employment.

OTHER PROGRAMS QUESTIONED

In addition to its message on education, the administration has sent to the Congress this year requests for other types of youth programs. These include the Youth Conservation Corps and the local area youth employment program. The administration is obviously, through these programs, turning away from education for a solution to problems which it knows exist.

Even if approved by the Congress, these programs would only postpone for a year or two the impact of the employment problem on the young people and the Nation. These programs offer no real training or skill-acquisition opportunities. They are, in simplest terms, a new form of dole, a new form of burying our

The young men and women who participate would find themselves up": emerging, still without the necessary skills to meet modern job requiremen They would soon become once again among the unemployed.

OBSTACLES

There are obstacles to the creation of a truly effective vocational educatic: program.

(1) The attitude of the administration, of school boards, school offici teachers, and the public must change. Their apathy and even hostility mitigate against a sound program and must be changed before effective steps can be taken.

(2) Teachers in the academic field would undoubtedly object to a changed emphasis. After all, their jobs are at stake in this. If more emphasis were placed on learning the needed skills, more technically trained teachers and fewer academicians might be needed. Their unions and associations also cor be expected to object.

(3) School administrators would find it difficult to hire the properly traine vocational teachers needed in such an expanded program. Because the program in the past has been so small, teachers' colleges have either ignored it or place! upon it the same lack of emphasis as the school boards. Unless the public is properly informed, it will never overcome its apathy and provide the necessary support needed to encourage forward-looking school administrators to adop the proper programs.

(4) Initial union resistance might occur. As long as the skilled labor market is limited, union members will draw high wages and overtime pay and some union leaders might adopt the shortsighted policy of limiting the labor supply. Obviously, however, as the number of skilled earning union members increases the unions themselves are improved and the union movement is strengthened With the decline and near disappearance of the apprentice system, it may we be that vocational schools offer the major manpower pool from which future trade union members are drawn.

Of these factors, the most important is the attitude of the Government, school officials, and the public.

Public school education is valuable to the extent it prepares children to be come useful citizens. If our American educational system is to meet this challenge and fulfill its responsibility, there must be a fundamental change in attitude and approach.

If our educational system does not meet this basic responsibility to all of our children, then regardless of how many billions we spend, we have failed the next generation.

Senator MORSE. I ask also that there be included in the record & story from the Washington Post, April 28, 1963, entitled "Voca tional Fund Plan Inadequate," as well as a letter to Senator Prouty dated May 21, 1963, from David S. Teeple, staff director, Senate Re publican policy committee, bearing on the forgotten youth report that I just inserted in the record, along with various letters and communications that were collected in connection with the preparation of this study, many of them addressed to either the Republican policy com mittee, to Mr. Teeple or to Senator Prouty.

(The letters referred to may be found on pp. 4353 ff.)

[From the Washington Post, Apr. 25, 1963]

VOCATIONAL FUND PLAN "INADEQUATE”-AFL-CIO

(By Susanna McBee, staff reporter)

The amount of money President Kennedy is asking to aid and improve vocational education is "completely inadequate," the AFL-CIO charged yesterday. Also, the Washington NAACP declared, State and Federal job training pro

The President has proposed reforming vocational programs and increasing ederal expenditures from the current $56.9 to $73 million in fiscal 1964. Testifying before a House Education Subcommittee, Andrew J. Biemiller, FL-CIO legislation department director, praised Mr. Kennedy's proposed nprovements but added:

"No one can seriously believe that for an additional amount of $16 million, ocational education throughout the United States can be expanded to train ubstantially more people in more fields for more occupations, to construct odern and well-equipped area schools, to train more teachers, and to build n effective guidance and counseling program."

Either Congress should give more money "or the proposed legislation will be ust a piece of paper which will have an inconsequential impact on our classooms," he added.

The AFL-CIO proposed that first year appropriations be increased to at least $150 million and that the program be expanded to a $400 million expenditure in he fifth year. Last November a panel of Presidential consultants recommended in immediate $400 million appropriation.

Also, Biemiller said, the program should not be limited to 5 years. "We are not breaking new ground," he said. "We are adding to a proven foundation." Clarence Mitchell, Washington director of the NAACP, said in a prepared statement which the subcommittee will hear later that, since 1941, "most plans to end inequalities in vocational and apprenticeship training have been torpedoed by career employees in the Federal Government."

He also said that in some States courses are offered but Negroes are barred from them because of race. White youths in many schools are trained in electronics, tool and die design, and machine shop while Negro children "are still jammed into such things as shoe repairing, dry cleaning, and auto mechanics," he said.

Mitchell urged passage of a national fair employment practice act, a strict requirement that vocational or apprentice programs receiving Federal aid accept qualified persons regardless of race, and denial of collective bargaining certification to labor unions that discriminate.

Senator MORSE. Our next witness will be Dr. Peter Sammartino, president of Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey.

If President Sammartino will take the stand, I would like to say this before he starts to testify. Some weeks ago, I lectured at Fairleigh Dickinson University and our witness honored me by attending the lecture.

He further honored me by having a group of his faculty and members of the board of trustees attend a dinner in advance of the lecture. During the course of that dinner and the discussion which followed the lecture, I was the beneficiary of this university president's views on some of the educational problems that are of great concern to this subcommittee.

I was so impressed with Dr. Sammartino's views that I asked him then, if he would be willing to come down sometime during the course of our hearings on the education bill to give the entire subcommittee the benefit of his views and to make them a part of the official record of this hearing.

He kindly obliged me by accepting my invitation. I wish that I could extend to him while he is in Washington today the same hospitality that he extended to me. I am going to do my best.

But the real feast that we are going to have is the feast of his testimony this morning. I am privileged now to call upon him to

STATEMENT OF DR. PETER SAMMARTINO, PRESIDENT, FAIRLEIGH
DICKINSON UNIVERSITY, RUTHERFORD, N.J.

Dr. SAMMARTINO. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the subcommit tee:

I wish to state that I am president of Fairleigh Dickinson Univer sity, a private institution which has over 16,000 students on its thre campuses in New Jersey. I also happen to be president of the New Jersey Association of Colleges and Universities. Since the invitation to appear before this subcommittee did not reach me until Monday of this week, it has been impossible for me to poll officially the members of this association. I therefore speak as an individual.

In order to put my remarks in perspective, I should like to stare that our university was started in 1942 with 60 students and one building. Since that time we have constructed $24 million worth of buildings and have an endowment of $10 million. Our value in the educational picture of this country is to show how a private institution can draw upon the resources of the region in order to serve the consttuents of the same region. We have done everything we could do with our own forces and the results speak for themselves.

SUPPORT FOR SMALL, PROMISING COLLEGES

There are some things that we as a young institution and a relatively poor one cannot do. I therefore wish to make the following points.

It would seem wise to pick out 30 or 40 of the younger institutions in this country that have shown willingness and aptitude in growing and to help them serve their regions better. At the present time probably about 85 percent of Federal help goes to some 20 to 30 insti tutions, most of whom are over a hundred years old. The older and the richer institutions are getting more and more. The younger ones are generally bypassed. Some formula must be found through which a greater proportion of help is funneled to the younger institutions.

Some private institutions, the older ones, have astronomical endow ment funds. They can spend $5,000 to $25,000 out of endowment income for every undergraduate student they take in. The younger institutions have to operate within the tuition income the student pays We cannot very well say to a student, "You are to pay $900 for tuition for your own courses, plus $500 to pay for research that some of the professors are doing.

Let me cite two more examples of what I mean. Today, we can all agree that physics is, in terms of national priority, one of the most important subjects to be taught in college. I daresay, however, that in the next 5 or 10 years physics as a major may be eliminated from most private liberal arts colleges. In order to produce the doctorates in physics, we need a broad base of physics undergraduate majors to draw upon; yet what is happening is that we are reducing this base At our institution it is costing us about $1,000 for each physics major. How long can we keep it up?

Another example is that of medical schools. Most medical schools in this country started on a shoestring. But today you have to start with a healthy deficit. In our own institution we have practically

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