STATEMENT OF WILLARD E. GIVENS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

Mr. GIVENS. Mr. Paul M. Cook and Ira Kline, the president of Phi Delta Kappa, had to leave for an installation at George Washington University, and they asked me to file this statement in favor of S. 1313 for them.

I also ask that the two letters addressed to me be made a part of the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. We are glad to have them. (The statement and letters referred to are as follows:)

Senator ELBERT D. THOMAS,

Chairman Senate Committee on Education and Labor,

PHI DELTA KAPPA,
Homewood, Il.

Washington, D. C.

Honorable SIR: In behalf of Phi Delta Kappa, a professional fraternity composed of nearly thirty thousand men engaged in professional education, largely as teachers and administrators, we endorse the provisions of Senate bill 1313 providing for financial support of public elementary and secondary schools at present restricted in their efficiency because of insufficient financial support. We believe that the provisions of this bill are in the best interests of education the Nation over and essential to an adequate system of education for total national defense. We maintain that an adequate and fairly equalized educational opportunity for the youth of our Nation is vital to national defense and second in importance only to adequate military defense.

We therefore urge the adoption of Senate bill 1313 and pledge our unqualified support of the principles of (1) equalized educational opportunity; and (2) education for national defense.

We wish to state that the support of the bill by Phi Delta Kappa is contingent upon retention in the final draft of the principle involved in the statement of policy, line 23, page 2, through line 18, page 3.

Respectfully,

Dr. WILLARD E. GIVENS,

STATE OF OHIO,

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,

Columbus, Ohio, April 26, 1941.

Executive Secretary, National Education Association of the United States, 1201 Sixteenth St. NW., Washington, D. C.

DEAR DR. GIVENS: In your letter of April 17 you requested a statement showing the need for Federal aid to education in the State of Ohio. Ohio has a program of State support for its public schools which goes a long way toward eliminating inequalities due to differences in wealth.

We do have, though, two or three problems which have become more serious due to the uncertainty of further local support. We have very few districts operating under a single salary schedule. We have raised the standard for elementary teachers requiring 4 years of training. In all fairness, the elementary teachers should now receive the same salary as high school teachers. To bring about this equality, it would require at least $4,000,000 in Ohio.

We do not have any problem arising from court decisions pertaining to Negro teachers. In fact, we have a very small percent of Negro teachers in our State. Ohio, one of the leading industrial States of the Union, has been selected by the Federal Government for some of its largest plants for the making of defense materials. These plants are being erected very rapidly and thousands of people are migrating into sections where they are located. This influx of population will render a hardship on local school districts due to the lack of school facilities. The areas around Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Ravenna, Canton, and Sandusky

will find it most difficult to meet the problem unless the Federal Government renders some assistance. At the rate at which the influx of population is taking place now, I estimate that it will take at least $2,000,000 to provide additional school facilities in the areas mentioned above. Under the laws of the State there is no way for the above districts to secure immediate educational funds for this purpose. There are also in the State several large Government reservations such as the one located near Wright Field, Dayton, and the Federal Hospital and Prison at Chillicothe. There has always been a legal question as to how far the State can go toward paying for the education of children located on these reservations. There is no legal way to collect tuition.

During the past few years there has been an increasing migration of families from Southern States into the industrial areas of Ohio. This migration was accelerated by the present defense program.

Our State has a tax limitation making it necessary for local districts to vote additional funds for school operation. While it is true in the past we have been quite successful in voting these levies, we are quite fearful with the additional Federal tax, which seems imminent, that the voting of these levies will be much more difficult, if not impossible. I see quite a danger in this to the schools of Ohio. In fact, I am afraid that unless there is Federal assistance, the next 2 or 3 years will see many schools forced to close in Ohio or curtail their school programs.

If there is any assistance our department can render toward securing the passage of Senate bill 1313, please call upon us for we realize that something desperate must be done.

DEAR MR. GIVENS: Minnesota faces a difficult problem in the equalizing of educational opportunities among the children enrolled in its schools. A wide disparity of taxpaying power influenced the State to set up a system of aids to care for the situation and specifically established a system of supplemental aids under which the State would come to the assistance of the local school districts when a 30-mill levy for maitenance proved insufficient to support a minimum educational program. Fundamentally this aid is sound and would meet the needs of

the State except that funds are not available for the payment of the aid.

To meet the situation it has been necessary to prorate aids at as little as 50.2 percent, leaving some school districts in a position where they have not been able to carry on and attempts to provide additional funds for distressed school districts have failed through a lack of funds.

Our opinion is that the needs of schools in Minnesota can be effectively met only through revenues which would be made available through Federal assistance and, therefore, urge you to use every effort in securing the enactment of S. 1313. The above-mentioned needs will be accentuated as defense contracts more and more bring children into schools adjacent to defense areas, in which districts current revenue is already inadequate to meet the needs of a minimum educational program.

Very sincerely yours,

WALTER E. ENGLUND, Executive Secretary.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Howard H. Long.

STATEMENT OF DR. HOWARD H. LONG, REPRESENTING THE ASSOCIATION OF PRESIDENTS OF LAND GRANT COLLEGES FOR NEGROES

Dr. LONG. Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Subcommittee on Education and Labor: I appear on behalf of (1) the presidents of land-grant colleges for Negroes in States where these institutions are maintained separately by law for Negroes; (2) the American

Teachers Association which is a national organization composed of Negro teachers and officers from the nursery school through the university, with membership and affiliations aggregating approximately 20,000; and (3) the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the oldest Negro Greek-Letter college fraternity in the world, having a membership of approximately 6,000 located in all the States of the Union.

We approve this bill in its present form because it seems to us to be the best drawn bill of its kind and for its purpose that has come to our attention. We like the objectives stated in the bill; the establishment of a board of apportionment and the prescriptions under which it must operate; the principles of certification and payment; the requirement that the State shall by overt act of its legislature accept the provisions of the bill; and the method of auditing and reporting. These are, in our judgment, all very commendable features. We are especially solicitous that none of these provisions as written shall be weakened by amendment. We are interested in all of the groups whose educational progress it aims to promote, but we are particularly interested in those aspects of the bill intended to aid in equalizing educational opportunities of minority races. In some respects, of course, the interests of the minority races parallel the interests of other groups as, for instance, in the case of the provision for rural schools.

It seems necessary, however, to point out that this bill will not be a panacea for our educational and financial ills. It does not touch the other Federal appropriations which now are being used so largely for the education of white persons. Moreover, the real cure for inequality of educational opportunity in most of the States which maintain separate schools by law for Negroes lies, we think, in a more equitable distribution of State and Federal funds for all of the people, but this seems impossible without depriving a part of the children of advantages now enjoyed. We seek equalization without reducing one whit the educational opportunities now offered white persons in these States. In other words, we seek equality of educational opportunity by additions to the present outlay, if practicable, instead of diminishing the educational opportunities of others by subtraction from what they already have.

As we see it, if there is any aspect of the bill about which one may reasonably entertain doubt, it lies in section 6 (a) (1) (F), beginning with line 25 on page 8 and extending through line 8 on page 9. This provision reads:"

n States where separate public schools are maintained for separate races, provide for a just and equitable apportionment of such funds for the benefit of public schools maintained for minority races, without reduction of the proportion of State and local moneys expended for current expenses (not counting moneys expended for the construction or equipment of school buildings or the purchase of land) during the fiscal year ended in 1940 for public schools for minority races;

* * *

There is danger that the expenditures during "the fiscal year ended in 1940" may freeze a floor for current State expenditures for Negroes which in time may become outmoded and unjust. We suggest the desirability that the fixing of the floors become the object of recurrent legislation in appropriations bills from year to year, but that under no circumstances is it to fall below the current expenditures of 1940.

We respectfully urge enactment of this bill without weakening amendments for the following reasons which are intended to supplement testimony already before this committee:

1. As is well known, as of January 1940, 9 of the 17 States maintaining separate schools for Negroes have passed laws providing graduate fellowships for extra State education. They are Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Maryland, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina. In a number of instances these fellowships are based upon the differences of cost of education in the State institution and the cost of education in the nearest available institution of learning which offers the subject which the student seeks and which is not offered in the Negro public schools in the State. This has the disadvantage in some instances of limiting the student's opportunity for getting training of a high order. It also loses the advantage which a good home institution has of advertising education in the community and attracting a larger percentage of the population. These laws are encumbered in a number of ways. In some States the student must have been a resident citizen of the State for a number of years. Kentucky and Oklahoma require that the applicant be a resident for 5 years. Texas apparently requires an 8-year residence for the applicant. Finally, there is a marked variability among these scholarships. According to Oliver C. Cox, from 1936 to 1939, Kentucky awarded 304 scholarships averaging $54.62; Maryland, 130 averaging $83.75; Missouri during the period 1937-38 awarded 279 averaging $91.96. During the period 1936-38 Oklahoma awarded 228 averaging $36.42; Virginia, 517 averaging $74.14; and West Virginia, 198 averaging $61.35. Up to January 1940 only two of the Negro land-grant colleges awarded degrees above the Bachelor'sTexas and Virginia. Texas offers the M. A. degree in four fields-two in agriculture and two in education. Virginia State College for Negroes offers the M. A. degree in agriculture, education, English, home economics, and the science-mathematics group.

The provisions of this bill, we believe, will help remedy this situation and harmonize it with the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States.

2. Although the land-grant colleges for Negroes awarded degrees in a number of fields in the year 1939-40, I think everyone will agree that these institutions are insufficiently supported for the work they are undertaking. In order to illustrate this lack of proper support I have organized from Circular 187, Preliminary Report, Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, Year Ending June 30, 1940, United States Office of Education, comparisons between the support given the landgrant colleges for Negroes in the 17 States providing separate schools by law and the support given corresponding colleges for white persons in those States.

In studying table I, one must keep in mind that the 1930 percentage of Negroes in these 17 States of the total population is about 23. We observe that from Federal sources the Negroes received only 3.6 percent of the moneys appropriated for land-grant colleges (this does not take account of the Smith-Hughes and George-Deen funds which are matched by the States); from the States, 10 percent, and from the counties 1.7 percent. From all sources the land-grant colleges

for Negroes received 7.3 percent of the regular income from Federal, State, and county sources listed in circular 187.

TABLE I.-General income from governmental sources, year ended June 30, 1940

Table II gives a break-down of the Federal funds received by the land-grant colleges, 1939-40. Through the Interior Department: 1862 land-grant fund, land-grant colleges for Negroes received 15 percent; from other Federal land-grant funds, 0 percent; supplementary Morrill funds, 28.6 percent, (this is the fund well known because the law specifically provides that the money shall be divided on a population ratio). Through the Department of Agriculture: Hatch-Adams funds, 0 percent; Smith-Lever funds, 0 percent; Clarke-McNary funds, 0 percent; Purnell funds, 0 percent; Capper-Ketcham funds, 0 percent; Bankhead-Jones funds for agriculture, 0 percent; further development funds for extension, 0 percent; other funds, 0 percent. It is probable that some of the funds received by the white colleges are spent on Negro extension work or otherwise. The Negro land-grant colleges received 5.9 percent of the P. W. A. funds.

The

Table III gives the collegiate enrollments in these schools. number of Negro students of college grade 3 weeks after the beginning of the fall term 1939-40 was 14.7 percent of the total. In the summer session of 1939-40, 20.3 percent of the total enrollment in land-grant colleges were in land-grant colleges for Negroes. Thus it is clear that although the Negro colleges had 16.5 percent of the total collegiate enrollment in land-grant colleges, they received not in excess of 8 or 9 percent of the funds from Federal, State, and county sources, bearing in mind omission indicated above.