country where there are extensive low-income areas, that many of their children never get out of the area for years.

If you want to know what it means to really live under ghetto conditions, look at some of them. How do you expect to produce a large percentage of good citizens under that kind of a situation? That is why I think we have got to expand both of these laws to provide some Federal dollars to come in and build up those schools. Your testimony this morning buttresses the point that I have been making on this committee now for 3 or 4 years.

What do you gentlemen think about an out-and-out proposal that we have a uniform 3-percent figure rather than 3 percent for the small districts and 6 percent for the large districts if I am right that you are to keep your eyes on the children? Is there any objection among the educators to a uniform 3 percent?

Mr. ROSE. We would have no objection whatever. The fact is we would think that it would further make this legislation more equitable. Now, I even think of something else, and I have talked to some of the larger city school superintendents, schools of larger cities, that take 3 percent of Los Angeles. Now, that would be 21,000 people. Suppose they came down just to 2.95. Then they could have, well, over 20,000 pupils and not even qualify under a strict percentage.

I believe that percentage plus some, what we might call a floor and a ceiling, would be more equitable than simply a strict percentage. Senator MORSE. I am inclined to think so.

All right, Mr. Rose.

Mr. ROSE. Before I start my written testimony, Senator Morse, I was interested in your comment about the reaction to general aid to education. I think you will recall when I mentioned it at one of the first hearings that I appeared before or sat through when you were the chairman, it must have been back in 1947 or 1948, but a gentleman from Indiana who is now State superintendent, I believe we call him Little Willy, since he is about 7 feet tall-he related how his board of education when they got perhaps a first grant under the Lanham Act to build a building, they would not accept it. And he related many things he tried to do to lead them to accept it. That was the beginning of this. There is nobody now that is turning it down. So we have made some progress.

Senator MORSE. We often forget those things when we think we are not making progress.

Mr. ROSE. Then I think of the experience I had 3 years ago, I believe it was, at our State PTA convention. Dr. Derthick, who was then commissioner of education, made a speech and there was strong opposition to approving some of the resolutions that were proposed by the national PTA organization and we had quite a lot of talking against it on the floor. I got my head just a little bloodied by expressing the fact that right across the street from the building we were meeting in there was a Federal project that no one objected to. It happened to be construction and the city in which we were meeting was a federally impacted area school city. They were just the host city, of course. Some of the loudest voices heard were schools that I knew were getting aid under Public Law 874 and I made this simple statement. What is the merit of whether Federal aid to education. or assistance to education is sound or is not? And then I challenged them in this fashion. I said, "Is the real criteria that we are going

to accept today, if I get it (Federal aid), it is good, if you want it it is bad?"

I did not have any takers on that. And so it is changing. We have not had any problem the last 2 years at our State PTA organization convention. So I think we are making progress. And I think our experience here is helping to do it.

Senator MORSE. Your telling us about that experience recalls to my memory a hot one I had in 1950. One of the slogans against me in the campaign was "spendthrift votes." One of the great sins I had committed, according to my opposition, was that I not only, had voted for Federal aid to education, but as a member of this committee I had been active in sponsoring or authorizing bills relating to education. There was some truth to the charge. In fact, starting with the Bob Taft Federal aid to education bill in 1947, in which I was one of the cosponsors, I either was a cosponsor or author of every major bill on education that has come to the Senate ever since. they were hopeful of beating me because of my spendthrift votes, one of which was my vote for Federal aid to education.

But

I opened that campaign-and I have told the story once before at a meeting of the committee-I opened that campaign in 1950 before the forum meeting of the Portland Chamber of Commerce. That is a good place to open a political campaign because it is always up from then on. You never can go down after that. The legislative committee of the chamber the preceding week had passed a resolution against Federal aid to education, and our leading newspaper, the Oregonian, welcomed me to the forum that day with an editorial asking about this issue of "spendthrift votes." One of them, the third one on the list, was my vote for Federal aid to education. So, I thanked them for directing my attention to the editorial and said I would be very glad to answer those questions. Mr. Minor, you will appreciate this, because you were out in that part of the country about that time. In fact, I said, "Of course, members of this chamber ought to be the last group in the State of Oregon to even whisper criticism of Federal aid to education. When you think of the thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars that Portland, Oreg., has received, and you people in the chamber have been the beneficiary of it, through Federal aid to education through the impacted defense education legislation in connection with your shipyards you should be the first to support this program. I then good naturedly called their attention to a great drive they had put on to get the shipyards there in the first place. which were needed, and all helped to get it. I recalled to them all the assurances that were given, and then I said, "You were entitled to the benefits of the defense school legislation but since you have received thousands of dollars, tens of thousands, now go on down and ask the school superintendent if he has had the slightest interference from the Federal Government in any way whatsoever in the administration of the schools of Portland."

Now, I said, "I do not want to hear any more from you about my spendthrift vote, so-called, on Federal aid to education, it was one of the greatest benefits I have helped bring to the State of Oregon."

I want to say in all fairness, several of the members of the legislative committee as well as other members of the chamber came up and said. "You win, you win. We never thought of it that way before."

That is what you have to do. People mean to be fair. A lot of these people that were opposing me on the basis of my support of Federal aid to education just did not know the facts.

Now, in my subsequent campaigns, we did not hear this argument anymore. In fact, the pressure is on for me to get more of it rather than oppose what we already have. We just have to remember that in our position of public service, and that is what your position is, too, we have got to be educators. We have got to be willing to take the criticisms along with the job. I seem sometimes, I suppose, to get a little discouraged about it all. In fact, I am not, considering the progress we are making. I have been in this field more than 14 years, and that is not long. Within 10 years we will have a public acceptance of the fact that all of us owe a duty to exercise our Federal citizenship responsibility to be of assistance in educating the young of the country as well as our responsibility as citizens of our State and of our local school district to be of help to them. But do not get discouraged even though sometimes sitting up here I do not give you the most rosy picture. Go ahead.

Mr. ROSE. As you know, I have been actively interested in the present impact area legislation providing Federal financial assistance to more than 4,000 school districts located in every State of the Union as well as Guam and the Virgin Islands. As you know, since I came to Midwest City in 1943, I also had experience with the Federal legislation which preceded Public Laws 874 and 815.

The legislation which preceded Public Laws 874 and 815 was based almost completely on the principle of need in that the Federal payment was calculated by determining the deficit of a given school district budget after all other available State and local funds were applied. This deficit then became the Federal payment to the individual schools. While this plan met the dire emergency need of World War II, it subjected the local authorities to an excess of control over the total local school budget by the Federal administrating agency-and I might say, that is no criticism, it was the only way it could be donewhich, of course, seriously affected the educational program. This type of legislation was reenacted or extended until it became obvious that a more careful study should be made of the Federal responsibility to the education of children whose parents were employed by the Federal Government. This study was undertaken by a special subcommittee of the House which held hearings throughout the country taking testimony and observing deplorable conditions under which the school districts affected were required to operate an educational program. The original Public Laws 874 and 815 resulted from this study and I believe have proved to be a fair and equitable plan for the Federal Government to meet its responsibility.

As you know, they have been amended and extended each 2-year period since, and I certainly want to express my grateful appreciation to this Senate subcommittee and the full Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee for its recent action in extending them for another 2-year period in connection-that is, it is now ready for the Senate and the House to determine whether they will go along and I think they will-with the extension of an expanded National Defense Education Act which has greatly improved certain areas of our educational program, and I feel certain will have the same result on the additional areas included under the expansion of that particular legislation.

In view of my comments expressing approval of Public Laws 874 and 815, I hasten to say that I fully agree with the expression of

both Houses of the Congress that again they should study this legislation with the view to examining the philosophy, equity, Federal responsibility, administration, or any other phase of its operation. Such a study can also be concerned with other areas of Federal assistance such as those being considered in S. 2528 and S. 2725 which we are discussing today.

While I am naturally not as familiar with the educational problems caused by children of families receiving aid to dependent children or families whose wage earner is unemployed and thus is required to live on unemployment compensation as I am those problems resulting from children whose parents work on or both work on and live on tax-exempt Federal property, I am rather certain there are definite and unusual educational problems resulting in both of these cases. It seems to me that it is most important for the Federal Government to be concerned with the educational opportunity of children as well as their other necessities of life.

In general, that is simply what S. 2528 proposes to do in the case of at least two known and identified groups of children. Frankly I am afraid that there may be other groups of underprivileged children show up in our society as we meet the rapid changes in our economy which must result in greater mobility of people, urban renewal, suburbanization, needed work skills, technical training, et cetera. The children we are concerned with here today will be either contributing to, or creating greater problems for our society in just a few short years. Which one of these categories they fall in as adults is being determined now and all our people have a responsibility in meeting this problem. The solution in my judgment is not local, or State, but Federal, since this is the only governmental entity through which all our citizens may have a part. For instance, the citizens of Oklahoma cannot wisely sit complacently and smugly by and ignore the problems of St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Rochester, or other great centers of population with a feeling of secu rity.

Monday I listened to testimony presented to the House Select Subcommittee on Education by the superintendents of two of our larger city school systems. I did not hear the Los Angeles testimony Monday. I was called out. I have heard it this morning, so I can now say three. And I understand they will appear before this committee tomorrow.

The increase in the number of children in the two groups for which S. 2528 recognizes a Federal responsibility in financing an adequate educational opportunity is alarming. Also, the complete tabulated data placed in the Congressional Record by the honorable chairman of this subcommittee on June 25, 1964, shows how general this need is throughout almost every county and State in the Nation. S. 2528 proposes a possible solution, and I urge this subcommittee, the Senate, and the Congress to give serious consideration toward enacting it into the law of our land.

Americans have always had compassion and concern for the general welfare of their people as well as the people of other lands. Especially is this true when disaster strikes as it did in the form of an earthquake in Alaska and floods in Montana. Those are two recent disasters that are well within our memory. S. 2725 proposes an orderly plan for all citizens to assist in replacing destroyed school facilities and insure the continued operation of schools in such disaster areas as de

termined by the President. Certainly, we can do no less for our neighbors. Again, the Federal Government is the only entity through which this can be accomplished.

In this regard, I would hope that the replacement of funds available to the Commissioner of Education for other purposes but the use of which is required to meet the cost of S. 2725 will be made secure in the final draft of this legislation. Otherwise we may create an educational emergency in an effort to meet one. That is no criticism, but I think that ought to be considered. I have faith that this will be done by this subcommittee and the Congress.

In conclusion, and as one who has been privileged to present testimony to this committee and other committees of the Congress many times and I might say on general aid to education and any other aid to education subject that might be before them-and as one who appreciates the response of the Federal Government in helping to provide an educational program in a federally impacted school district, where the number of pupils has increased from 135 to over 16,000 in 21 years, I think I know something about the problems attendant to such growth. I also know the absolute necessity of continuing Public Laws 874 and 815. For your convenience I am attaching a copy of some material, pointing out this necessity, which I prepared some time ago and some of which Senator Morse placed in the Congressional Record last week and again the full committee approved its action yesterday. That is when they advanced the extension of these two public laws. I have every reason to believe that the Senate and the Congress will also approve this action and thus my major concern at this time is that S. 2528 and S. 2725 will also receive favorable action expanding Public Laws 874 and 815 to the greater improvement of education for more children of America. That is my philosophy with reference to this effort that is being made.

Senator MORSE. Thank you for your statement. Your full statement will be incorporated in the record following the testimony. (The prepared statement of Mr. Rose follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF OSCAR V. ROSE, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS,

MIDWEST CITY, OKLA.

The attached data is to point up the unusual problem which will result to certain school districts being assisted under Public Law 874 should this legislation not be extended during the present session of Congress. Certainly this problem will be of greater concern the longer any assistance is postponed prior to the present expiration date of June 30, 1965. It is not intended to evaluate or discount the problem which would maintain in all of the 4,182 schools assisted under this program, but it is believed that in general the financial problem becomes more acute as the ratio of Federal funds to total budget increases. While this data concerns only those schools receiving above 20 percent of their budget from Public Law 874, it is not suggested that there is any magic in this percentage. However, it does create a division point above which we believe serious difficulty would be encountered in attempting to maintain a full term of school with the loss of Federal funds now being received. Perhaps many schools would find the same problem who receive less than 20 percent, but this study is designed only to point out the most serious cases. Some of the facts disclosed by this tabulated data

are:

1. Two hundred and eighty-nine of the 4,182 school districts receiving aid under Public Law 874 in fiscal 1963 received 20 percent of their budget funds from this source.

2. This represented 6.9 percent of the total applicants.

3. These 289 schools received 23.3 percent of the entitlements of all 4,182 schools.