Then too you have the Spanish population in the Southwest that has not yet been reached. That accounts for part of this 70 percent, but they again, you see, are in these areas that are less able to do anything about this school building problem. Perhaps I have said enough, Senator, to make my case clear. If there are any questions that you would like to ask, if I can answer them I shall be glad to, and I will try to throw together some information in readable fashion that might be of use to the community, to put into the record. Senator AIKEN. There will be no further questions this morning, Mr. Dawson. The information which you have given us will be made available to the full committee when it gets around to acting upon these bills in executive session. I do not know just when that will be. You say, I think, we should get S. 246 out of the way first. This problem also should be considered now. We should begin to consider it now because it is a direct corollary to S. 246 and Federal aid to the problem of education. It goes without saying that the best teachers cannot do the best work in inadequate, poor, cheap, discouraging circumstances and conditions. Mr. DAWSON. You put 50 or 60 elementary children in one room under a teacher, and there are going to be children that get shortchanged. They get discouraged, they get over-aged for their grades. Sure they drop out before they get to high school. Besides that, conscientious teacher could conceivably get so discouraged she would just get out of teaching altogether, being placed under any such circumstances. Senator AIKEN. It is too bad that it took a war to make the country as a whole education conscious, but that seems to be one result of the war, and another result of the war is 3 or 4 million additional school children that we would not have expected under normal conditions. Mr. DAWSON. I do want to make just one other observation for the record. You see this bill proposes to set aside $65,000,000 that does not operate under a formula in order to take care of situations where the educational need is very acute. Now these communities where there are Federal activities going on and where the Federal Government acquires property that is taken off of the tax books is not a new problem, but it is one that is accelerating. I know of a county in Kentucky where the Government took over so much land for parks that their assessed valuation came down from about $150,000 to $15,000 in the whole county. They have a good time running the schools. In situations like that, I think the Federal Government has an obligation to help out because it created the situation. You remember back in the days of the depression when they started the Grand Coulee Dam, I believe, located in a little district which had a oneroom school with about 30 pupils, and maybe $150,000 of assessed valuation. That is all the assessed valuation they had because the Government had the rest of it, and you had five or six hundred children and were expected to run the school system on that kind of a basis. You might be interested to know how that problem was solved. Mr. Ickes used quite a club and made contractors provide the schools. We thought that was a Federal obligation. It is a thing the Federal Government ought to take into account. You have those situations of acute need, but I want to emphasize again that all the places that have acute needs are not places where the Federal Government is going to work. Some of them have acute needs that have been long standing where they just do not have the natural resources as a tax basis to pay for a large capital outlay structure, but they do have the children, and so far as the United. States is concerned, I think it ought not be so much interested in how much taxable wealth the community has as it is in the potential wealth of the boys and girls who are citizens of the United States, so I hope we do not overlook that type of acute need when we are looking at the other, which is very important. Senator AIKEN. Thank you, Mr. Dawson. We will now adjourn until 10 a. m. tomorrow, when we will reconvene in room 412 of the Senate Office Building. (Whereupon, at 10:50 a. m., the hearing was adjourned to reconvene at 10 a. m., on Tuesday, June 7, 1949.) FEDERAL ASSISTANCE FOR CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 1949 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10:50 a. m., in room 412 Senate Office Building, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey presiding. Present: Senator Humphrey (presiding). Senator HUMPHREY. The hearing will come to order. We will hear from the Federal Security Administrator, Mr. Oscar R. Ewing. STATEMENT OF HON. OSCAR R. EWING, FEDERAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR Mr. EWING. Mr. Chairman, it is a cliche that education is the keystone of our democracy. But it is one that bears repeating and reemphasizing. Yet, in relation to our spectacular advance in other fields, our educational plant probably is in worse condition today than ever before in our history. The Congress already is considering legislation to provide Federal aid to the States, to help them meet the costs of day-to-day maintenance and operation. That, of itself, is one measure of the crisis that faces us today. Such aid is essential, for many of our States simply cannot support the schools they have and pay their teachers enough to keep them. This need is paramount. But by the same token, our States and localities cannot afford to construct more school buildings, or to improve existing ones. And the need is great. Just how great it is we do not know in detail, although independent surveys made in a few of the States by their educational authorities give us some indication. In Virginia, for example, it was estimated only recently that expenditures of at least $290,000,000 over the next 5 years would be necessary to fit the school plant to educational needs. For the Nation as a whole, the need over the next 10 years has been estimated variously at from 8 to 10 billion dollars, just to meet the minimum requirements for new classrooms and other construction. This, roughly, is the long-term need. But in this matter, we cannot afford the luxury of thinking only of the future. Educational opportunities lost today cannot be regained tomorrow, and we know that many of our children are being denied their American birthrighttoday for lack of school facilities. Again, we have no way of knowing the exact number, but informed estimates place it at well over 2,000,000. That is, 2,000,000 children are out and not attending school because of lack of adequate facilities. The total number out which should be attending is larger, but there are other causes that enter into it and, necessarily, that figure is somewhat of an estimate, but it is believed to be an intelligent and an informed estimate. We all know that the best buildings in the world will not, by themselves, assure us a good school system. But we also know that reasonably modern buildings, well adapted to the needs of the educational program, are extremely important. And today, in almost every community in the Nation, many children are attending school in classrooms that are overcrowded, in basement or other rooms that are not at all suited to the purpose, in rooms so poorly lighted as to injure their eyesight, in rented quarters over stores and other places equally unsatisfactory, in half-day sessions, or under other undesirable conditions. All the facts we have, and, admittedly, we do not have all the facts, indicate not only that the present situation is bad, but that unless it is faced realistically in the immediate future, it will become worse rapidly. The fact is that we are going downhill in this most important respect, fast. What is the cause? Why is it that we, in this great and wealthy Nation who pride ourselves on the part that has been played in our progress by an unsurpassed school system, face the prospect that many thousands of our children will be handicapped because the schools they must attend are below standard? A study of the available facts shows that the present situation has been developing over a period of years. It is somewhat like a house that has not been painted or had more than emergency repairs for a long time. There finally comes a day when even the casual passer-by recognizes that it needs a major overhauling. Until about 20 years ago, we built many school buildings in this country every year. It is true that many of these were small and not too well planned, but most of them were fairly satisfactory in terms of the situation at that time, before there was extensive transporattion and before many aspects of the present school program had been fully developed. Then came the depression and most school building was stopped. In fact, during the thirties many communities had to struggle to get sufficient funds even to keep their schools in operation. During the latter part of this period the Federal Government provided some funds to communities for school building construction. In general, however, only the school systems in relatively good financial position were able to provide the matching funds required in order to obtain Federal assistance for this purpose. Following the thirties came the war, and during the war there was practically no school building construction except in areas where warconnected developments brought such an influx of population that something had to be done. Even during the war parents were not willing to live in communities in which school facilities were lacking. Furthermore, during that period even repairs had to be neglected in most communities, and buildings deteriorated much more rapidly than they normally would. Following the war, materials and labor were so scarce and the supply so uncertain that construction costs increased more than had been anticipated. Many communities did not have the finances to build at such high prices and many others hesitated to spend $2 to buy less space than $1 would have provided before the war. Now comes the deluge of children born during and immediately following the war; about 1,000,000 additional children each year must be accommodated. For this purpose alone, between 30,000 and 35,000 additional classrooms must be provided annually for the next 8 to 10 years. In the meantime, existing buildings are growing older and more obsolete year by year. Thus we get the estimate of need-8 to 10 billion dollars worth of school construction over the next 10 years, to provide a minimum of 400,000 additional classrooms. It seems to me that the need for Federal aid is plain. Without it, a major crisis has developed already. Schools simply are not being constructed in anything like the number that are needed. Many thousands of our children are already relegated to second- and thirdclass status, as far as educational opportunity is concerned. And the real need is just beginning. The longer we wait the worse the crisis. will become, and the more children will pay the penalty. In my opinion, it is wholly proper, in fact essential, for the Federal Government to act effectively now to meet this crisis before irreparable damage results. Federal concern for the educational needs of the American people is not new. From the earliest times, the Congress has taken appropriate action when the need was evident, always recognizing that school construction, like the actual running of the schools, was a matter of primary State and local responsibility. While never asserting the right of the Federal Government to interfere in educational policies, it has always been recognized that the Federal Government had a duty to all the people to see that educational opportunity was available. This goes far back in our history. As each new State was admitted to the Union, substantial tracts of land were set aside to be used by the State for public school purposes. From time to time, appropriations have been made to assist with various phases of education, including land-grant colleges, vocational education, and school lunches. During and since the depression, the Federal Government has made available substantial sums of money to assist numerous communities in meeting urgent educational needs. All this, however, has been done piecemeal, on a rather hit-or-miss basis and without the establishment of any clear-cut policy. Today, it seems to me, the emergency is too great and the issues at stake too large to permit that kind of approach. Therefore, I would strongly urge the Congress to lay down, along the lines established in S. 287, a clear and definite policy. If the Federal Government is to play any role at all in this field, it must be one of assistance-fiscal and advisory and not, in any degree, one of control. The Congress must, of course, lay down objective criteria to assure that federally collected funds meet the needs that are a national concern, but administrative discretion in the distribution and use of these funds should be rigidly limited. In no case should an agency of the Federal Government |