administration has struck out for itself, but let me say I use the words "struck out" in a double meaning. They sure have struck out, and they have lost me, not only on this issue but some of the other issues. I sit here not as a Democrat first but as a Senator first, and I will never substitute any partisan expedient program for what I consider to be the best interest of my country, either before or after an election. I fully realize that the testimony that the administration has given through your lips this morning weakens the chances of our getting action on this bill before the adjournment, but I tell you what else it does. It will magnify many times my determination to see to it that the country knows what the objective of this bill is and knows who is responsible for pulling the switch on it, and who is responsible for the "go slow study" approach. Sit here for the 20 years I have sat here, and you know what that tactic is. It is a stalling tactic. I have had to fight it year in and year out. I simply want to say, Commissioner, that as far as I am concerned, the facts are so clear as to the need for this type of legislation that I am going to continue to take judicial notice that we ought to go ahead with it. I hope when the election is over the matter will be reassessed. As you know, or ought to know, I shall do everything that I can to see to it that the President is reelected-I do not think it is going to be difficult, but I shall certainly support him-but that does not mean I approve of his tactic on this piece of legislation and/or on some other pieces of legislation. I cannot support the policy of this administration to give away in effect hundreds of millions of dollars of the largesse of this country in connection with the foreign trade program that is being negotiated now in Geneva and elsewhere. If one thinks we are going to get any fair treatment from alleged allies in the field of foreign trade or in the whole foreign policy program, they could not be more wrong. I am not going to sit here to vote for that part of the administration's program that in my judgment is doing such a serious economic disservice to the people of this country, and I am not going to support the administration's position on this education bill. I am going to continue to do what I can to see to it that the country, as a result of these hearings, knows what the facts are as the record will show, and it can be the judge. I do not know how we are ever going to do what needs to be done to meet this crisis in elementary and secondary schools if we do not make the kind of segmentized approach that this bill makes possible. You cannot just put these things aside. We have these schools. They are in a deplorable condition. We have a bill here that seeks to do something about it, and we are told by the administration we are going to postpone it until we study it some more. There are some things that one does not have to study. One does not have to study the facts as to what the plight of these schools at the present time happens to be. We ought to get in there and pass some legislation and get some money into those school districts so that these kids in these school districts will have a chance of being saved from delinquency and from unemployment and also be saved from the development of an antisocial attitude and an antidemocratic attitude. You cannot witness what has been going on in Harlem and the Bronx and Rochester and other trouble spots of this country without realizing that education has failed, has failed, as far as those young people are concerned. That should not surprise anyone. I do not see how you could expect the type of schools we maintain in those ghettos and slum areas to develop people that really believe in the democratic process. I think when you get to the bottom of some of these demonstrations you are going to find that you have got thousands of young people in this country that really do not understand, have not been educated to an understanding of what we mean by democratic freedom. I am sorry that I have found it necessary to make these statements of unalterable opposition to the administration's position on this bill, but that happens to be my trust, too. And when I find the leaders of my own party following a course of action that I think is as inexcusable as the administration's position on this bill, this chairman intends to never hesitate to say so. I have two questions I want to ask you. As I understand your testimony, you approve in principle the approach of the bill but feel that a fact study may provide you with a better measure than those given in the bill of the need and the effect upon the school districts in which the children of those families go to school. You are suggesting, for example, that such a measure as the number of children in an area who are in families having an income of less than $1,000 or $1,500 a year might be better suited for your purposes than the ADC criterion? Is that a fair statement of your position? Mr. KEPPEL. Yes, sir, and techniques by which the target could be precisely found. Senator MORSE. We have heard in these hearings, Mr. Commissioner, that a straight 3-percent eligibility factor should replace the 3-percent. and 6-percent figure that is now applied in the impacted area law. What would be your views on that suggestion? Mr. KEPPEL. It would seem to me, sir, that with regard to a method of counting such children, for example, under AFDC, our position with regard to the 3 percent or other eligibility factor would be different and more favorable than I think it is with regard to the way in which Public Laws 874 and 815 have been put together originally. I realize that this is a subject for debate, Mr. Chairman, but this is our tentative thinking. Senator MORSE. Well, Mr. Commissioner, I hope when we reconvene next year I imagine this will be the last time I will have the pleasure of having you before this subcommittee in this session-it will be on a bill on which we find ourselves more in agreement than we find ourselves this morning. Mr. KEPPEL. I profoundly hope so, sir. Senator MORSE. Thank you very much. (The prepared statement of Mr. Keppel follows:) PREPARED STATEMENT BY FRANCIS KEPPEL, COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, DEPART MENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee on Education, the 2 years of the 88th Congress have marked the most productive period in American educational legislative history, bar none. The credit for this exemplary record of the Congress, let it be noted, is in no small measure due to the leadership of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare and to the contributions of the members of this subcommittee. Your subcommittee's considerations have already resulted in landmark enactments: the Higher Education Facilities. Act of 1963 (Public Law 88-204), the Vocational Education Act of 1963 (Public Law 88-210), and the Library Services and Construction Act of 1964 (Public Law 88-269). In this time of accomplishment, then, let me tell you that the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the American educational community are grateful for the creative consideration which your subcommittee has given and continues to give to the strengthening of America's school systems. The proposal before you today, your chairman's S. 2528, is but the latest example of that consideration. We applaud your initiative in devising new approaches to critical problems in American education. We have studied and we will continue to study each congressional proposal on its merits, seeking to accommodate its thrust and objectives to the Nation's educational needs. Together, we can help the States and local communities create an educational structure of which all Americans may be proud. S. 2528 recognizes that the children of poverty, the children of our urban slums and rural depressed areas are no longer solely a State and local problem. We, as a Nation, can no longer tolerate the tragic waste of human re sources which each year robs America of productive capacity and causes us to squander our potentially creative wealth to pay for the social costs of poverty. The present bill, therefore, declares that the Federal Government has a continuing policy and responsibility "to promote full employment throughout the Nation and to encourage education necessary to such employment." To further meet that responsibility, an amended Public Law 874 would provide financial assistance to local educational agencies to aid in the education of "children of needy families and children residing in areas of substantial unemployment with unemployed parents." Public Law 874 provides assistance to local educational agencies upon which the United States has placed a heavy financial burden. It does so because of two facts: (1) School revenues have been reduced as the result of the acquisition of taxable real property by the Federal Government; and (2) School enrollments have been enlarged by children who are residing. or whose parents are working, on Federal property or by the presence of children as the result of other Federal activities. Let us consider the rationale for broadening the Federal responsibility with regard to our children of poverty. Children on the AFDC rolls represent the hard core of culturally deprived and underprivileged children in the United States. Aid to the schools based on these rolls would not solve all of the problems connected with the underprivileged. But it would represent a sound beginning toward recognizing our national concern with breaking the poverty circlethrough education as well as in providing shelter, food, and clothing. The Federal Government has already indicated an obligation by assisting the States and localities to provide for the feeding, sheltering, and clothing of these children. While meeting this obligation represents symptomatic treatment, the improvement of educational opportunity would represent a long-range cure. Substantial unemployment, of course, indicates a weakness in the basic economy of an area. While unemployment compensation must be considered an insurance program, it is also an indication of local need and of weakness in the local tax base unon which schools must rely. Unemployment compensation therefore often identifies a weakness of support for an adequate educational program. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which has already passed the Senate (S. 2642) and is now pending before the House of Representatives (H.R. 11377), represents a step toward implementing this approach. But, as the subcommittee well knows, the language of that legislation specifically limits supportable programs to "special remedial and other noncurricular educational assistance" (sec. 205(a)), and then only as part of a comprehensive community action program in some, but certainly not all, of the poorest communities of the land. Thus, the broad, massive educational assault on poverty for which this sub committee and the administration have called also requires the passage of proposals for aid to elementary and secondary schools akin to those in title IV-A of S. 580. The Economic Opportunity Act will help some communities immensely, of course. But truly effective aid to education must come on a larger scale and scope than the community action program alone can provide. This recognition underlies the bill now being considered by your subcommittee. For purposes of entitlement, the bill uses two indexes of poverty: First, the average daily school attendance of children receiving aid for dependent children under title IV of the Social Security Act; and second, the residence of children in an area designated by the Secretary of Labor as one of substantial unemployment and "with one or more parents neither of whom was regularly employed and at least one of whom was drawing State unemployment compensation." Our preliminary studies indicate that these two criteria related to poverty may have value as measures of educational need although other criteria should also be considered. Communities characterized by a high incidence of longterm unemployment and by children receiving dependent-children aid are, indeed, the communities whose schools are greatly in need of improvement. These communities are to be found from coast to coast in the North and in the South, among our largest cities and our smallest rural counties. One of these criteria-counties likely to receive assistance under the present bill through the aid for dependent children provision-was examined by the Department for Senator Morse. A tentative tally of our findings appears in the Congressional Record of June 25, pages 14608-14620. This tally lists approximately 1,340 counties as probably eligible. From this tally, it is evident that several times as many school districts would be benefited by the bill and that the education of millions of schoolchildren would be beneficially affected. This is dramatically illustrated by the attached map. Despite the probable beneficial effects of the present proposal, however, the administration has concluded that further concentrated study is required. We suggest further study because of a large number of potentially troublesome administrative questions and because we have no reliable guides as yet as to the probable cost of the proposal. Let me illustrate by citing a few of the difficulties we have encountered thus far in our study of the bill. |