TO ESTABLISH A NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

MONDAY, JUNE 14, 1971

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION OF THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Chicago, Ill.

The Select Subcommittee on Education met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 204-A, Everett McKinley Dirksen Building, 219 South Dearborn, Chicago, Ill., Hon. John Brademas presiding.

Present: Representatives Brademas (presiding) and Hansen. Also present: Jack Duncan, counsel; David Lloyd-Jones, subcommittee professional staff; Martin La Vor, subcommittee minority legislative coordinator.

Mr. BRADEMAS. The Select Subcommittee on Education will come to order for the purpose of further consideration of bills H.R. 33 and H.R. 3606 to establish a National Institute of Education.

The Chair would like to observe at the outset of these hearings, I am very pleased my distinguished colleague, a gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Hansen, and I are to be in Chicago today for the purpose of hearing the viewpoints of expert witnesses on the legislation under consideration.

The Chair might also observe, for the benefit of those in the Chicago area that the Committee on Education and Labor of the House of Representatives is divided into seven subcommittees, three of which deal with education.

The chairman of one of the three Education Subcommittees is Mrs. Edith Green, of Oregon, a subcommittee which handles higher education legislation.

The chairman of the second subcommittee, which handles elementary and secondary education and vocational education, is an outstanding Member of the House from Chicago, Congressman Roman Pucinski. The third Education Subcommittee, the Select Subcommittee on Education, the one which I have the honor to chair which is here today has within its jurisdiction a variety of educational and other measures. This subcommittee has jurisdiction over the Library Services and Construction Act, the Environmental Education Act, the Drug Abuse Education Act, the National Center on Educational Media and Materials for the Handicapped and the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, the Commission on Libraries and Information Sciences Act, the Older Americans Act, and the National Commission for the Arts and Humanities Act.

We are considering as well the two pieces of legislation this year in addition to the ones I have just enumerated. These are all bills which emanated from this subcommittee in the last Congress and have been enacted into law.

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The subcommittee has before it two very important bills. The Chair would like to take advantage of the fact we find ourselves in Chicago to say a word about one, a bill which is the subject of a very lengthy article in this morning's New York Times. It is a bill on which this subcommittee will be meeting tomorrow afternoon in Washington, for the purpose of continuing what in the legislation process we call marking up the bills. Marking up the bill is the stage of the legislative process, which follows the hearings and which represents the actual writing and amending of the bill.

The bill to which the Chair is now making reference is the Comprehensive Child Development Act. The purpose of this bill is to provide educational help, instructional and related services for the very young children in the United States, regardless of their family income. If one were to put it in oversimplified shorthand one might describe it as Headstart for all children.

There are very many cosponsors in the House of Representatives. and about a third of the Members of the Senate are sponsors of similar legislation.

This is a measure on which the subcommittee conducted hearings last year, in Chicago, in this building.

The Chair invites the attention of witnesses and members of the media to this legislation because it has enormous longrun significance for the people of a great industrial State like this.

Now, the legislation to which we are giving our attention today to establish a National Institute of Education grew out of a message on educational reform, sent to Congress in March of 1970 by President Nixon in which among other measures, the President proposed the establishment of a National Institute of Education. Its purpose would be the support of research and development with respect to all levels of American education from preschool through graduate school including both formal institutions of learning and extra formal institutions of learning.

This subcommittee has heard a number of witnesses in Washington, D.C., beginning with Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

We have in the last month or so visited educational research centers in Paris, Oslo, and Great Britain. It is our hope later this year to visit Poland and the Soviet Union for the purpose of learning how, in that part of the world, change and innovation are built into their educational systems.

Here in Chicago today we are looking forward to hearing from a variety of witnesses, including Dr. Michael Bakalis, superintendent of public instruction for Illinois; Dr. Theodore W. Schultz, professor of economics, University of Chicago: Mr. Sam Mercantini, representing the Indiana superintendent of public instruction, Mr. John Loughlin.

We are looking forward to hearing our first witness today, Mr. James Parton, president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corp., who I believe will be presenting a statement on behalf of former Senator William Benton, publisher and chairman of Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corp.

Mr. Parton, we are looking forward with great interest to hearing what you have to say because we are well aware of the contributions

that Senator Benton and Encyclopaedia Britannica and its associated enterprises have made to education in the United States, and indeed, throughout the world.

We are looking forward to hearing from you, sir.

STATEMENT OF JAMES PARTON AND A. N. FELDZAMEN, PRESIDENT, ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA EDUCATIONAL CORP., CHICAGO,

ILL.

Mr. PARTON. Thank you very much for the very gracious introduction, Congressman Brademas. It is an honor to be here with you and Mr. Hansen and the staff on this extremely important measure.

I have with me Dr. Alvin N. Feldzamen, who is vice president and editorial director for films and publications, and, therefore, the crea tive head of our enterprise and in the best position to answer subsequent questions.

Senator Benton asked me to apologize profusely for not being here himself. He is on his way to Europe, but he was here last week and the paper we are submitting on his behalf runs to 22 pages. I can assure you that he sweated over every word of it, and is wholeheartedly behind it.

Since it is so long, it seemed to me that to be courteous I would excerpt it and summarize it, rather than read the whole document which can be digested at leisure.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Without objection, the entire statement of Senator Benton will be included at this point in the record and I hope you will feel free to excerpt it, Mr. Parton.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM BENTON, CHAIRMAN AND PUBLISHER, ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, INC., AND THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA EDUCATIONAL CORP., CHICAGO, ILL.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is William Benton. I am Publisher and Board Chairman of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., and of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation.

Among the subsidiaries of the former are the G. & C. Merriam Company, the nation's largest dictionary publisher, and Library Resources, Inc., a new ultramicrofiche publisher specializing in reference collections for libraries.

The Britannica companies produce basic reference works, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, and atlases, which appear in virtually every school and library-and are found in the homes of millions of families.

In addition, the Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation has the specific purpose of producing innovative educational materials for use in the nation's schools; in addition to books and book collections, these include educational motion pictures, filmstrips, transparencies, multimedia programs, and other audio-visual instructional aids in the "software" category which are being increasingly used in schools both here and abroad.

Thus, the primary business of all the Britannica companies is education across a broad spectrum of school and home application, and an equally broad range of media and methods.

For this reason we have the greatest interest in the proposed National Institute of Education, and are grateful for the opportunity to testify in these important hearings.

Moreover, my own personal lifelong interest in education, and attention to its needs and progress, may also be measured by the fact that I am a trustee of six colleges and universities, served as vice-president of the University of Chicago for eight years, and for six years as the United States Ambassador to UNESCO. In fact, my mother and father were professors, as were my wife and my uncles and aunts.

Dr. DAVIES. I missed the latter part of your question, Mr. Quie. Mr. QUIE. I say as part of any explanation of what the planning will be, you will wait until the director is in place, is that correct?

Dr. DAVIES. The planning unit has a work plan which we are going to submit to the committee for the record. They will be producing a number of things as they go along which will be very useful in the form of recommendations for the Commissioner and for the new director once he is selected, so he will be able to have a running start and won't have to start from page 1 doing analytical work that is necessary to start an agency such as this.

Three million dollars is in fiscal 1972 budget, which would carry us over to fiscal 1973 which would be the first year operating funds for NIE would be available.

Mr. QUIE. How many people would be involved in the first year? Dr. DAVIES. The planning unit presently has four professionals. We are going to add an additional six and seven people. We will have 10 or 12 people involved in this effort at least between now and December or January. Once the director is selected, he will gradually add to that planning unit so that he will have a substantial nucleus of people who can become a part of the National Institute of Education when it becomes an operating agency.

Mr. QUIE. How many people in the planning unit will be transferred from the Office of Education and how many will be new?

Dr. DAVIES. We can't answer that question at the moment. As I indicated to the chairman, the planning unit has the responsibility as one of its tasks to develop a staffing pattern, and then to develop a process that will deal with the question of how many people will be transferred from OE and who they are going to be.

Mr. QUIE. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony. You, too, John. I gathered you were asking questions on the experimental schools, and I assume you asked all of them so I won't go into all of them.

Mr. BRADEMAS. I don't know that I asked all of them. As a matter of fact, I have two or three more now.

Dr. Davies, to what extent do you, in view of the fact that the administration commissioned it, to what extent does the report of Dr. Levien represent the purpose and structure of the NIE as you and the administration conceive it?

Dr. DAVIES. Dr. Levien's report, which has been very well received in the field, provides a very good takeoff point for the planning unit which Dr. Silberman heads. They are not bound by the recommendations in the Levien report, but they studied it and are using it in great detail, but they are not starting with the assumption that everything in that report is going to be what they finally recommend.

Mr. BRADEMAS. I must congratulate the administration in this respect on having initiated a searching study of a proposal that was to be sent to Congress. This is one of the few times I have seen this done under any administration, and I think it is especially commendable in so significant an area where we have a lot of unresolved questions. Dr. Levien's report is invaluable.

Dr. DAVIES. I could also point out that we have made an arrangement which will make it possible for Dr. Levien to continue to offer advice and consultation to the planning unit as they move along during this next year.