STATEMENT OF HON. FRANCIS KEPPEL, U.S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION; ACCOMPANIED BY DR. B. ALDEN LILLYWHITE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF SCHOOL ASSISTANCE IN FEDERALLY AFFECTED AREAS, OFFICE OF EDUCATION

Mr. KEPPEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I will, if I may, brief the testimony which I would like to include in the record.

Senator MORSE. The present statement of Commissioner Keppel will be inserted in the record at this point.

Mr. KEPPEL. One of the parts of the statement that I regret briefing is a statement about the extraordinarily effective work of your committee, sir, in educational legislation that has already passed this Congress. I confess I regret having to brief that, but I will, sir, in view of the time. I think it is an important statement for the record. Senator MORSE. You are very kind.

Mr. KEPPEL. In my prepared testimony we discuss the rationale. upon which Public Laws 874 and 815 are based, and then turn to a more detailed consideration, Mr. Chairman, of the two aspects of the bill before us for consideration, namely, the Federal responsibility with regard to children of poverty and unemployment which are, of course, central to the legislation that you have presented, sir.

The position of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and of my office, as you will see, sir, from noting these paragraphs, is very sympathetic to the conviction that these two aspects of the problems of our society deserve very careful consideration indeed-perhaps I might even use the phrase target objectives on which special action is needed.

It is clear, of course, sir, as I point out, that the Economic Opportunities Act of 1964, which has already passed the Senate, represents a step toward implementing the approach, but as you well know, sir, the language of the Economic Opportunities Act of 1964 specifically limits supportable programs to special remedial and other noncurricular educational assistance those words in quotes-and that these programs are only as a part of a comprehensive community action program in some but certainly not all, Mr. Chairman, in some of the poorest communities of the land.

It is for that reason that we continue to feel very strongly about the importance of the passage of the proposals for aid to elementary and secondary education akin to those in S. 580 in your bill.

To go into a little more detail concerning the two indexes suggested in your bill, that is, the average daily school attendance of children on the AFDC rolls, and the residence of children in an area designated by the Secretary of Labor as one of substantial unemployment. With regard to those two, sir, our preliminary studies-and I may say, these studies-indicate that these two criteria relating to poverty may have value as measures of educational need, although other criteria, Mr. Chairman, we think should perhaps also be considered. There is no question, sir, that the communities that have a high incidence of unemployment and of children receiving dependent children aid are indeed the communities whose schools are greatly in need of improvement, and they are to be found from coast to coast, from North to South, everywhere.

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You will recall, sir, of course, the tentative tally of findings that appeared in the Congressional Record of June 25 which showed that 1,340 counties probably will be eligible. I understand that is out of a total of slightly more than 3,000, under this arrangement. Clearly several times as many school districts will be benefited by the bill and clearly education of millions of schoolchildren would be beneficially affected, and I took the liberty, Mr. Chairman, of introducing in the printed text a map which, though perhaps a bit difficult to read because of shading problems, does suggest the distribution of such counties.

Despite what I have described, sir-that is, the probable beneficial effects of the present proposals-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 do not feel that we as yet have reliable guides as to the probable cost of the proposals.

If I may illustrate just a few of the difficulties we have already encountered in the study of the bill, and the problems. The proposed new section 4(a), of course, is very closely patterned after section 3 of Public Law 874 with regard to identifying the children to be counted. Under section 3 a parent-pupil survey was conducted by the school district in which the status of residence or employment of the parent is shown in the questionnaire.

Now, obtaining information, sir, from a parent or guardian with respect to the welfare status of a child we believe poses problems that might make the information unreliable. There is an element of stigma here when you try to seek information about the employment of a parent or the fact that a child is on the rolls of aid to dependent children.

The second question of a technical sort here is the high rate of change of families who receive aid to dependent children. The median time for a child on the rolls is 2.1 years, and a few years ago the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare made a study showing that 17 percent were on the rolls for less than 6 months.

I may say, Mr. Chairman, that my colleague, Mr. Charles Hawkins of the Welfare Administration, is well versed in these matters and I am grateful that you asked him to join me here.

Another problem is that one of the major reasons for a child being on the AFDC program at all is the incapacitation-that is the language used-the incapacitation of the father. Now, nearly 40 percent of the fathers in that category had less than 5 years of school and among those were some who never attended school at all.

Now, with regard to the unemployment factor, the bill, of

course, as you know, provides that an area must be in such a status for a major portion of a year. As we understand it, labor area market trends are reported monthly and the status of an area is subject to monthly change from one degree of unemployment to another, and until a major portion of a year-I take it a school year-has passed, a finding of eligibility or ineligibility might be difficult.

The bill provides that the child must reside in such an area of substantial unemployment, and secondly, as you will recall, at least one parent must be drawing unemployment compensation and neither parent may be regularly employed. A determination as to whether

a person is regularly employed, however, presents a difficult administrative problem. It is hard to define and to obtain accurate information. Employment status, moreover, is likely to change frequently, and the question would arise as to when the child would be eligible for those periods when neither parent is regularly employed.

I should also note in candor, sir, that the department has not yet had time to complete its estimates of the cost of the proposal which covers a very broad area to which precise and technical eligibility or other requirements apply.

On this basis that nearly 70 percent of children on AFDC rolls are of school age, we believe that there are about 2 million children who would be eligible, but as I will have to note in a moment, sir, some of them will live in districts that may not meet eligibility requirements.

Now, in view of the several rather difficult administrative factors, chiefly the average number of children of school age for each parent drawing unemployment compensation, and also the loss of eligible children by virtue of their residing in ineligible school districts, we are not yet able to assess your cost estimate, sir, of about $218 million for these amendments. And there are other areas of analysis that have not yet been undertaken, but we think doubtless should be.

That is, since the rate of payment would vary widely from State to State, a projection of costs by States instead of on a national basis. should be made. And as I understand it, there are in addition to the 39 so-called major areas of substantial unemployment that were shown in the Congressional Record of February 20, smaller areas of substantial unemployment, and there would be some additional cost to serve those areas.

Also, sir, as you noted, there is the problem of an offset in the potential entitlement which is very difficult to predict. Even within major areas of substantial unemployment, there will be school districts where eligible children reside but in which they will comprise less than 3 percent of the total average daily attendance. In States like California, New York, Pennsylvania, and others there may be school districts within a given county or a given labor area. Again we have a problem there that I think we ought to pay a lot of attention to.

In view of these as yet unresolved problems we think it only wise to give the Morse-Dent proposals for the amendment of the impacted areas programs the most careful investigation in the coming months. We will do this with a view toward formulating proposals, Mr. Chairman, which will adequately recognize the Federal Government's role in improving educational quality and opportunity for the children of our slums and rural depressed areas.

This is not to say that the Department is indifferent to the immediate needs of the 4,200 school districts now receiving Federal payments under Public Laws 815 and 874. As you know, the temporary provisions are due to expire on June 30, 1965, and these temporary provisions last expired on June 30, 1963, and weren't subsequently extended until December 18 of that year, and the appropriations indeed were not appropriated until the current calendar year. We can well understand the anxieties now felt by school administrators over the impending expiration of the Federal impact program.

Uncertainty in educational planning, brought about by the inability of many school districts to contract expenditures for which there is no legal assurance of receiving Federal financial assistance, should be avoided wherever possible. Accordingly, we would not object to a 2year extension by the current session of the Congress of the expiring provisions of Public Laws 815 and 874.

Thank you, sir, for your patience in permitting me to present this information.

Senator MORSE. Mr. Keppel, I only have two or three questions to ask, but before I do, the chairman wishes to make a brief statement for the record expressing his disapproval of the administration's decision to drag its heels on these two pieces of legislation. It is not very often that this committee lags behind the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, particularly the Office of Education, but we are so far ahead of you on this one that you look pretty bad. You apparently have overlooked the doctrine of judicial notice. When facts are so glaringly clear we lawyers say the court just takes judicial notice, but you, the Secretary, and President-let us put the responsibility where it belongs, right on the shoulders of the President-are not taking judicial notice of one of the serious domestic needs that confront this country; namely, the plight of the elementary and secondary schools.

Now, this committee has worked cooperatively with the administration under both President Kennedy and President Johnson, under the administration of Secretary Ribicoff and Secretary Celebrezze to meet this great domestic need in the field of education. If anyone can point out a greater need in this Republic, the need to do something about the educational crisis, I will be glad to hear what it is.

I believe that we cannot continue long in this country with a continuing breakdown of the educational processes and remain very secure. I believe that the school system of this country is one of the three greatest defense weapons we have. The economy is another. Our Defense Establishment is the third.

But if you weaken the educational structure of society, you weaken the economy of the society, and you have a society that fails to take care of its self-defense protective measures. That society is not going to last for very long.

The elementary and secondary schools in this country are in a sad, sad plight, we all know. We have had great legislative problems in recent years trying to get through a general aid to education bill for elementary and secondary schools. No one is better informed than you are, Commissioner, as to the problems that have prevented the passage of that farseeing program of the late President Kennedy in connection with S. 1021 of the 87th Congress and S. 580 of the current session.

I know, as a result of my many conferences with him, both while he was in the Senate and on this committee and when he went to the White House, that President Kennedy agreed with the chairman of this subcommittee that as important as aid to higher education is, of greater importance is aid to the elementary and secondary schools. We all know the major emotional blockade that has prevented over the years a general aid bill. I remember very well in the 87th Congress how hard we all worked together to get S. 1021.

The legislation that is before this subcommittee this morning is a bill that takes a segmentized approach to this great crisis. As I said in the hearing yesterday, it is not going to resolve it, but it may help it.

You mentioned the need for future study as to the bills cost. Let me say, Mr. Commissioner, if costs were doubled from $218 million that I estimate in the statement I have already made on the floor of the Senate and inserted in the record of this hearing, it would amount to nothing in comparison with the problem that it seeks to solve. If the cost were tripled, we ought to pay it and be glad to pay it willingly in order to get the benefits that this bill is bound to deliver into the slum areas, into the depressed areas, into the unemployed areas, into the areas where we are pouring out millions of dollars of welfare funds for parents who are, for one reason or another, unemployed or unemployable.

I am just aghast to understand an administration that is given an opportunity to come forward to support a bill but which says to this subcommittee this morning through you, "We are going to stall." I know there is an election coming on, but I expressed myself on this issue of stalling on needed legislation on the floor of the Senate the other day, and I express it again here this morning. Here is one Senator who is never going to hesitate to carry out what he considers to be his trust for any reason of political expediency. I think we ought to pass our legislation when we have the opportunity to pass on it, and when we can take judicial notice of the fact that the need is clear. We would not waste a dime by enacting this legislation, but it would save a lot of young people in my judgment from wrecked lives, and in so doing you would save the taxpayers in my judgment many times per year what the costs of this bill would be per year be it x, y, or z dollars. If you sat in my position, Mr. Commissioner, and you saw the administration spending now about $2 million a day in an undeclared war in South Vietnam, in obvious violation of the international law obligations of this country, when you have watched your Government pour down the international rathole over $5 billion in South Vietnam, when you see a Government pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a wasteful program in connection with foreign aid, which your Comptroller General has in report after report proved to be a program in many respects that is shockingly wasteful and inefficient and not only that, but the cause of a great deal of corruption around the world, you do not find yourself very much moved by an administration that thinks you ought to stall for further study and investigation an elementary and secondary school bill which seeks to do something about some of your underdeveloped areas in your own country. I want to say to this administration that the underdeveloped ghetto areas of New York City, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Chicago and every other metropolitan area of this country should be of much greater concern to it than underdeveloped areas anywhere else in the world. As I said on the floor of the Senate in a speech the day before yesterday, the time has come for us to take care of the economic needs and interests of the American people first.

Now, I fully realize the position that you find yourself in, and I fully realize that there is nothing that I can say from this chair this morning that can in any way change the course of action that this