rolled in 5 public community colleges and will have over 3,000 students enrolled in 8 such colleges by this coming fall. They are part of the excellent program which the State has instituted to make higher education geographically accessible at a minimum cost to everyone in Massachusetts who can profit from it.

I might state that in Massachusetts we now have over 70 regular colleges, schools of higher education, but we still feel that these community colleges are a very necessary part of the educational system of our State and of the country.

My bill will eliminate the discrimination against these colleges which now exist in the National Defense Education Act. They and their counterparts throughout the Nation will be able to play an equal part in meeting the growing demands being placed on this country's institutions of higher education. It is education on this level which holds the key to much of the U.S. future. It will provide a greater source of trained and skilled employees for business and industry. It will meet the challenges of technological unemployment with training and retraining, and it will benefit the country as a whole by increasing the knowlege and skills of its young men and women.

Senator MORSE. Senator Smith, on behalf of the committee I want to thank you for making for this record such an able statement in defense of support of community colleges of America. It will be helpful to committee, as you have already heard by this discussion this morning that we will have the problem of considering whether or not your bill ought to be considered as an amendment to the major bill we are considering, or if it cannot be made an amendment to the higher education bill. Certainly one way or the other, the purpose of your bill in my judgment must be enacted into law here.

Senator SMITH. Thank you very much.

Senator YARBOROUGH. I think it is a very fine statement, Mr. Chairman. The chairman has already stated my opinion for me. I agree. I think this should be written into the law this year. Senator Smith has given us very fine leadership in this field.

Senator SMITH. Thank you very much.

Senator CASE. I join my colleagues in commending the statement which you have made, sir, and welcome you to the ranks of supporters of community colleges. I know you have been one in your other capacities. But I am glad to have someone beside us in the Senate working for a long time, who appreciates the seriousness of this matter, and I believe this year may be responsible for getting some action in the higher education bill. I am very happy to have your statement. Senator SMITH. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Senator MORSE. The next witness will be Dr. Edgar Fuller, execufive secretary of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

We are always glad to have you before us as a witness. You make a scholarly contribution to our record each time. You may proceed in your own way within the time limitation.

STATEMENT OF DR. EDGAR FULLER, EXECUTIVE SECRETAI COUNCIL OF CHIEF STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS

Mr. FULLER. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommitt President Carroll is unable to be here, and I am testifying for t council in his stead.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Fuller follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. EDGAR FULLER, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY,
COUNCIL OF CHIEF STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Edgar Full and I am executive secretary of the Council of Chief State School Office The members of the council are the State superintendents and State commi sioners of education of the 50 States and the chief school officers of Puerto Ric the Virgin Islands, the Canal Zone, Guam, and American Samoa. My appea ance here today on behalf of the council is to serve two major purposes.

(1) To testify in general support of S. 1726, insofar as it does not viola council policies, and to evaluate it in the context of possible legislatio including the Kennedy public school bill (S. 1021) and the higher educatio bill (S. 1241).

(2) To examine the several titles of S. 1726 in terms of major issue: and to assess the probable educational effects of certain amendments an new sections proposed.

The chief State school officers are vitally concerned with the several educa tional proposals pending in Congress, and with their relationships to each other They realize that what Congress does in 1961 may determine the rate of growth and eventual scope of Federal general support programs and of Federal specia aids to education as well.

Vital policy issues are involved. Federal financing of public education in co operation with the States and local school districts can strengthen State and local autonomy under general legislation such as S. 1021. Should Federal financing deteriorate into a proliferation of special aids, however, State and local autonomy can be weakened. Should special aids tend to persist after they have served their purposes, as they tend to do, their cumulative long-term effects could stultify the content of education. In areas directly affecting the curriculum, therefore, we are glad to note that your committee has extended certain special aids for terms of years rather than recommending that they be made permanent. We believe this consideration should be given to all titles that are close to the instructional process.

INTERRELATED LEGISLATION

What Congress does in regard to the Kennedy public school bill should affect to some extent what it does about extending the National Defense Education Act. If the school-support bill is passed and the funds the President has budgeted for it are appropriated, some special aids may reasonably be eliminated, reduced or at least not further expanded. The criterion here, it seems to me, should not be the desires of the vested academic and financial interests in the special aids, but rather whether the functions concerned would be well financed and carried on adequately without the special aids. If the latter could be done it would often be desirable.

The principle is that special aids may be necessary to achieve particular educational results that general support funds cannot assure. To illustrate from the National Defense Education Act, titles VII and X, like the educational television facilities bill (S. 205) recently passed by the Senate, may still require specific aid, because Federal funds for general support of education would rarely if ever become available to accomplish their objectives.

Titles II, IV and VI of the National Defense Education Act primarily concern higher education. Like the separate bill to aid higher education, they affect students and faculties in colleges and universities, and also the institutions themselves. Thus any suggestions that the council might make on these titles cannot be made precisely by considering alone a single bill such as S. 1726. Except on major policy issues, we must necessarily remain more or less tentative on National Defense Education Act recommendations concerning titles that may

overlap the content of the Kennedy public school support bill and the higher education aid bill. Much will depend on how Congress deals with these.

COUNCIL ACTIONS ON GENERAL POLICIES

At the 1960 annual business meeting of the council in Santa Fe last November, all chief State school officers who voted or were polled individually favored in general the principles now incorporated in the Kennedy public school bill. A similar concensus currently exists, so far as I am aware. They prefer general support legislation to special aid legislation whenever the general support legislation reasonably insures that important specific objectives will be attained.

At the Santa Fe meeting the matter of extension and revision of the National Defense Education Act was also considered. Only 67 percent of the chief State school officers who voted or were polled individually favored the general idea of revising and extending the National Defense Education Act. Then a legislative subcommittee of the council, which had spent several days analyzing the National Defense Education Act, made specific recommendations which are quoted title by title later in this testimony. Most but not all of the subcommittee's recommendations were adopted by the membership. Some titles, of course, were more popular than others when they were considered in detail. The principal reason the Kennedy public school bill (S. 1021) is supported so enthusiastically by the council is that it provides general Federal support of public education with a minimum of direct Federal activity in the schools. It respects State and local control of education, and is in complete harmony with the State systems of financial support which provide about $5 billion annually to local schools from State funds.

The National Defense Education Act, on the other hand, features several categorical Federal aids for specific areas of education. These were based on judgments by Congress that certain parts of the curriculum in local schools needed special attention in 1958. Such special aids involve Federal regulations and considerable bookkeeping to keep the use of the Federal funds directly on the limited targets defined by the Congress, and increased expenditures for administration by Federal, State and local educational agencies. These limitations of special aids, together with a widespread feeding that some titles included in the National Defense Education Act categorical approach threaten the traditional and constitutional separation of church and state in education, account for the fact that only 67 percent of the chief State school officers favored extension of the National Defense Education Act as a general proposition.

Mr. Chairman, I believe my allotted time is about to expire. I would like to submit the following materials for inclusion at appropriate places in the record of the hearings:

(1) The remainder of this formal statement.

(2) Some short excerpts from State constitutions, laws and policy statements on State financing of private education.

(3) A few specific suggestions received from individual chief State school officers.

(4) Documentation further to explain council support of section 1009 of title X.

CHURCH AND STATE POLICIES

The council's approach to titles III, IV, V and VI realistically includes the knowledge that these titles are currently used to channel Federal services or funds to private schools or colleges. Powerful groups are urging extended use of these titles for similar purposes in the future. My instructions are to state the general position of the council on this major issue. We recall that in 1958 the private school equipment loan provision of title III was added by the Senate committee in marking up the bill, and was agreed to by the House committee in joint conference, all after the hearings had been concluded. We want to take into account the possibility of such contingencies in the legislative process in presenting our views here.

The policy of the council that applies to these situations is as follows: "Federal and State financial assistance for education, whether for current expense, capital outlay or school-connected auxiliary services should be restricted to tax-supported and publicly controlled school systems and institutions of higher education."

1 "Our System of Education," National Council of Chief State School Officers, 1951, p. 29.

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Thus the basic principle is that public funds should be used for public schools and colleges and that private funds should finance private schools and colleges. This principle is supported without questioning the constitutional rights of private schools or colleges to exist or the desirability of having private schools and colleges in our society. It is based on the conviction that it describes the best course of action for the welfare of the Nation, for religious denominations, and for the public schools.

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Most of the chief State school officers favor restriction of Federal funds for elementary and secondary education to public schools. Federal funds for private schools would develop direct private school administrative relationships with the U.S. Office of Education that would constitute distinctive Federal sponsorship and responsibility for local sectarian and other private schools.

Because State educational agencies cannot legally administer educational programs to private schools in a majority of the States, Federal funds for private schools require exercise of Federal discretion in ways that may easily result in Federal controls or Federal favors. Such Federal-local administration causes Federal officials to judge whether each local private school meets Federal statutory requirements. In States where private schools are almost completely free from requirements of reporting and from supervision by the State agency for education, the States would be forced either to change their policies or to leave Federal agents to perform functions for the private schools that the State agencies perform for public schools under State law.

Federal funds for private schools would provide Federal financial incentives for two developments that would be detrimental to public education in many areas of the country: (1) Proliferation of new private schools by splinter groups of various kinds; (2) Federal financing of a very limited number of large churchcontrolled systems of religious schools openly competing with local public schools. Since most religious denominations oppose and do not want Federal aid even for their own sectarian schools, extension of such Federal financing would affect only a few church school systems. In such an alinement the Federal Government would be more closely associated with sectarian local schools than with public local schools; more closely associated, perhaps, than is good for either public or private schools. In the judgment of a majority of chief State school officers further development along these lines in the National Defense Education Act would constitute undesirable public policy in education.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Titles IV, V (B) and VI, of the National Defense Education Act deal with graduate and professional levels of higher education rather than with liberal arts and other undergraduate college programs. There is probably as much difference in fact between these two levels of higher education, so far as the principle of separation of church and state is concerned, as there is between elementary and secondary education on the one hand and undergraduate college education on the other. At the college level there is much overlapping of secondary and higher education; the pending House bill (H.R. 6483) defines as institutions of higher education the same junior colleges that many States define as units of secondary education. As a matter of fact, junior colleges typically have programs of study that amount to 2 years of higher education and also programs of study that are of less than college grade.

Most of the members of the council, I believe, question the wisdom of special Federal aids to private undergraduate colleges far more than they question similar special aids to higher institutions at the graduate or professional level.

OPINIONS ON EDUCATIONAL DESIRABILITY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE EDUCATION ACT

CHANGES

The council favors the appropriate amendment and extension of the National Defense Education Act, inasmuch as its operation as an emergency measure has been of considerable assistance to education and can continue to be of even more assistance in the future. The council favors the following specific changes in the act, and then its extension for a term of not less than 4 years.

These comments on individual titles of the National Defense Education Act include resolutions approved by the annual meeting of the chief State school officers last November in Santa Fe, together with miscellaneous materials that we hope may be of some assistance to the committee.

TITLE II. LOANS TO STUDENTS IN INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

There is every reason to believe that chief State school officers are generally favorable to this title, and that they would probably approve the extensions found in S. 1726. There would be little opposition to the extension of eligibility for loans to students with superior academic backgrounds desiring to teach in institutions of higher education as well as in elementary and secondary schools, and perhaps none at all to adding English to the subject matter specialties required to make students eligible.

This favorable attitude would bring approval for leaving the authorized appropriation open for the future instead of setting a ceiling. We have had no poll on the provision for forgiveness for one-half of the loans for teaching in higher institutions as well as in public elementary and secondary schools. At the Santa Fe meeting the only action taken on title II was to reject by a vote of approximately 2 to 1 a recommendation of the council's legislative subcommittee that the forgiveness provisions be extended to teachers in private nonprofit schools, colleges, and universities.

TITLE III. FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FOR STRENGTHENING SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS, AND MODERN FOREIGN-LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

The action of the council at Santa Fe on this title was as follows: "Amend section 303 (a) (1) to include English, history, geography, economics, and government, along with the original fields of science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages, as subjects of instruction in elementary and secondary schools that may be aided under this title.

"Amend section 305 to permit any funds for loans to private nonprofit schools and unused by them to be made available for reallocation to the States for allotment under section 302(a) and payment under section 304 (a).

"In view of the expanded scope of the title, the council favors an authorization of not less than $85 million annually under section 301 for the purposes of sections 303 (a) and 305, and not less than $6 million annually under section 301 for making payments to State educational agencies to carry out the programs described in paragraph (5) of section 303 (a ) .”

S. 1726 does not include the subjects recommended for addition to section 303 (a) (1), although maps, charts, globes, and good supplies of library books and other printed materials in the fields of English, history, geography, economics, and government would be extremely helpful. The chief State school officers believe this would improve the present unbalanced condition of the title in regard to the subjects for which Federal funds may be used for materials and equipment. S. 1726 includes physical fitness along with science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages as the subjects eligible for materials and equipment, no doubt in direct recognition of the interest of President Kennedy in this field. Chief State school officers appear to be divided on this, with a majority opposed. One may believe in physical fitness without placing it in the context of this title ahead of more suitable subjects.

S. 1726 makes provisions for reallocation of funds and extends the act for 4 years, both in accord with the council's recommendations.

President Charles F. Carroll of the council, who is the State superintendent of public instruction of North Carolina, has recently urged that library equipment and materials be made eligible under title III. There is considerable support for the suggestion. This would further broaden the act, and allay much of the widespread criticism of the limited subjects favored by the title.

TITLE IV. NATIONAL DEFENSE FELLOWSHIPS

The council passed a resolution at Santa Fe as follows:

"Provide a new section to authorize new types of fellowships, traineeships, and leadership institutes for the preparation and inservice training of educational administrators in colleges and universities, State departments of education, and local school districts.

"It is proposed that the appropriations for title IV be increased approximately $40 million annually above the present authorization."

S. 1726 expands the number of fellowships from 1,500 to 5,000 annually. Stipends are made subject to Federal regulations rather than fixed in the statute and the payments to institutions for the cost of program are fixed at flat rates of $2,500 per fellow per year for institutions supplying new or expanded graduate