to improve the educational opportunities of our Nation's children and young people. After years of stalemate on the issue of Federal aid to education, Congress began to meet the problem by passing legislation designed to meet specific and identifiable needs.

The National Defense Education Act as first passed recognized a special national interest in the quality of teaching in science, mathematics, and foreign languages. As other national interests in specific subjects were identified, these subjects were added by amendments to the original act. Public Law 874 recognized the impact of federally affected areas and provided Federal assistance for the operation of schools in these areas. Public Law 815, dealing with the same type of problems, provided Federal funds for school construction.

Provisions of the Civil Rights Act provide Federal assistance to schools attempting to eliminate segregation and its related problems. Many of the provisions of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 bear upon educational needs. Special legislation has been enacted to improve educational opportunity available to handicapped children. The Vocational Education Act of 1963 provides substantial Federal support in a field of major educational importance. We could go on at length extending the list, because recent Congresses have been extraordinarily productive in the field of educational legislation.

We believe that in adopting this categorical approach, Congress made a wise decision. Yet in so doing Congress created a new need. If school systems are to make the best possible use of the funds available to them under this wide variety of programs, they must undertake far more comprehensive planning than any in which they have previously engaged. They must systematically identify their needs, organize them into a coherent pattern, and relate them to all of the available funds under existing Federal programs.

Many school systems have had little experience with long-range planning and with the methods of obtaining grants. We are troubled by the extent to which many school systems have turned to private consulting first to help them obtain the grants that Congress meant them to have in the first place.

The addition of Federal funds for educational planning will do much to help to meet this growing need. The proposed amendment involves a rather modest expenditure which will make possible the best use of the very substantial net expenditure which the Federal Government is now making in the field of education.

We would like to suggest, however, that the committee give serious consideration to amending section 523 (a) (1) to specifically name the State Departments of Education as the planning agency. It is the AFL-CIO's feeling that these departments are the appropriate agencies for carrying out the comprehensive statewide programs envisioned under this part of the bill. In making this suggestion, the AFL-CIO is not proposing similar changes under other titles of the act, but we do believe this proposal has merit under the "grants for comprehensive educational planning and evaluation" part of title V. Title I includes also a section providing assistance for the education of handicapped children. We are pleased to give our support to these important measures. The AFL-CIO has played an active part in improving opportunities for the handicapped. We have partici

pated energetically in the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped. We have made the resources of our collection of vocational films available to the captioned pictures for the deaf program. We played a leading role in the conference on vocational problems of the deaf which paved the way for the legislation establishing the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

The regional centers, proposed in the bill, which would diagnose the educational needs of handicapped children and which would assist schools in meeting those needs could do much to help parents find appropriate schooling for handicapped children, a problem which is frustrating in many communities.

The severe shortage of special teachers trained in the special needs of physically and mentally handicapped children lends particular importance to the provision in the bill for the recruitment of personnel for this work.

And the rapid development of new educational tools and methods makes it especially timely to encourage emphasis upon developing educational media for handicapped children.

In most school systems today there are significant gaps. The schools simply cannot meet the needs of certain children because there are no facilities or teachers to deal with their special handicaps. This problem is especially true of children with multiple handicaps. H.R. 6230 promises new hope for those children.

Although H.R. 6230, in its present form, does not provide for the outright extension of Public Law 874 and Public Law 815, the impacted aid programs, Public Law 815 will expire on June 30, 1967, and we understand that this committee will be turning its attention to this matter. We urge the committee to propose extension of these laws which have contributed greatly to the improvement of education in many communities. We hope also that this Congress will extend the impacted aid program for a sufficient number of years to enable communities to make long-range plans. We would further urge that Public Law 874 and Public Law 815 be adjusted so that these two closely related laws have a common expiration date.

We understand also that the committee is not considering at this time the amendments to the Vocational Education Act of 1963 contained in title II of H.R. 6320. When you do turn to this section of the bill, we will want to share our thinking with you on these matters. We believe that H.R. 6230 continues and extends the important gains which have been made in elementary and secondary education. At its recent meeting on February 23, 1967, the AFL-CIO executive council declared in a statement on "Education and the Federal Government":

The laws which have by now been enacted have contributed significantly to improving educational opportunity and toward achieving the goal of providing quality education for every child, wherever he may live and whatever his family background. From prekindergarten programs through graduate schools and adult education programs, the Federal Government has assumed responsibility for sharing in the costs of education.

For the vital role which this committee has played in bringing these things to pass, we express our deepest gratitude.

Thank you.

Chairman PERKINS. Again let me compliment you, Mr. Biemiller. I have several questions but I feel I should refrain until we hear from

the other witnesses who accompany you here today. Mr. Megel, do you want to proceed with your statement?

STATEMENT OF CARL J. MEGEL, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

Mr. MEGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are delighted to be here and to have the opportunity to testify in supplementation of the excellent statement already made by the chairman of the legislative committee of the AFL-CIO.

I have with me Mr. Herrick S. Roth, vice president of the American Federation of Teachers and the president of the Colorado Labor Council. Mr. Chairman, my name for the record is Carl J. Megel. I am the Washington representative of the American Federation of Teachers, a national, professional teacher's union of more than 130,000 classroom teachers, affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

Our organization embraces 660 teacher locals, including locals in Hawaii, Alaska, the Canal Zone, the Department of Defense Overseas Dependents Schools, and in the Department of Interior Indian Schools. Representing the American Federation of Teachers, I am privileged to appear before this committee in support of H.R. 6230, a bill to strengthen and improve programs of assistance for elementary and secondary education by extending authority for allocation of funds in various areas.

Principally, these include:

1. Extending and amending the National Teacher Corps;

2. Providing assistance for comprehensive educational planning; 3. Improving programs of education for the handicapped; and 4. Improving programs of vocational education.

By the end of this semester the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 will have been in existence for 2 full years. Because of misunderstandings, local prejudicial resistance, and unfamiliarity with procedural requirement, the implementation of the original act lacked immediate full-scale adoption. Today, the reverse is true. According to reports which we have received from our locals, enthusiastic, nationwide support is everywhere in evidence for extension, improvement, and increased revenue allocations. These reports confirm President Johnson's statement, when he said, "I believe that future historians, when they point to the extraordinary changes which have marked the 1960's will identify a major movement forward in American education."

Much credit, Mr. Chairman, belongs to the members of the Education and Labor Committee, but with special commendation to you personally for the leadership which you have exercised and for the years of effort which you have given to advancing our Nation's educational opportunities.

Representing the American Federation of Teachers in support of the passage of H.R. 6230, I do so with the approval of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Teachers and with a general mandate from the national convention of our organization. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm for this legislation is diminished because of its limitations, even though we support the general intent.

Following the passage of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we confidently expected that amendments proposed by the 90th Congress would not only provide for extension of the act, but at the same time would include substantial increases to complement our Nation's advancing educational needs.

We are distressed by the failure to provide for the increasing need for vocational education, school construction, or teacher salaries. We accept the proposed extension and expansion of the National Teacher Corps program because of the urgency of its need.

The American Federation of Teachers has supported a National Teacher Corps in princpile from the very inception of the idea. We did so because it represented the first effort of the U.S. Government to assist in recruiting and encouraging high school graduates to enter the teaching profession.

There are now slightly more than 1,200 Teacher Corps members, gamely proving the value of the Teacher Corps concept. They portray living evidence for the continuation and expansion of this

program.

Not only will proposed extension and expansion of the Teacher Corps fulfill neglected educational needs of millions of impoverished children, but, it will additionally stimulate teacher morale and bring dignity to the teaching profession in every segment of our school sys

tem.

General teacher shortages are increasing. Most recent figures show that the number of teachers in the United States who do not meet minimum requirements established for certification in their State is actually increasing. In 1965, 81,800 such unqualified teachers were teaching in our schools. However, in September 1966, this number had increased to 8,700 so that 90,500 such teachers are now found in our schools.

Nationwide, this shows that 4.8 percent of the entire teaching staff did not meet State requirements in 1965. Yet, this figure increased to 5.1 percent in the fall of 1966.

During this space and atomic age, America's children deserve competent, highly qualified teachers. We are convinced that extension of the National Teacher Corps as outlined in H.R. 6230 will contribute to this stimulation.

The Teacher Corps embodies two ideals:

First, to encourage high school graduates to consider teaching as a

career.

Second, to encourage competent, well-qualified, experienced teachers to enlist in the Teacher Corps.

Much of the success of the Teacher Corps program depends upon the latter. Yet, section 154, article 1, regarding Teacher Corps compensation specifies that:

An experienced teacher who is not leading a teaching team shall be compensated at a rate which is equal to the rate paid by such agency for a teacher with similar training and experience who has been assigned similar teaching duties. This article mitigates against an experienced teacher moving into a low-paying school district from a district which pays higher sal

aries.

We propose that the article be amended by including the following phrase:

Except that no teacher shall be paid less than the teacher would have received for similar services by the original school agency.

We have always been complimentary of legislation that specified that employment of personnel shall be at the prevailing wage. In all of our previous testimony we called specific attention to the fact that one of the unfortunate omissions in each of these legislative proposals was the failure to provide direct funds or incentives for increased teacher salaries.

As in the past, we sincerely urge that a professional teacher's salary beginning at an amount of no less than $7,000 and increasing to at least $14,000 in no more than 10 steps be established as a national norm and that funds and incentives be incorporated to make such a salary schedule possible.

It is a known fact that many teachers shun assignment to disadvantaged schools. To attract teachers to these areas, some officials have proposed "combat pay," aggregating $1,000 to teachers who would accept such transfers. We oppose such devices as demeaning to the students and as besmirching the dignity of a teacher.

Instead, we strongly urge the adoption of the AFT more effective schools program, now in highly successful operation in some 35 New York City slum area schools and recently approved for introduction into the Baltimore schools; and I have a copy of this report which I should like to file with my testimony.

The American Federation of Teachers' more effective schools program is based on an overall plan devised to meet the needs of the disadvantaged school of today. It makes recommendations as to housing, class size, staffing, and instruction.

The very fact that requests by teachers for transfer to the more effective schools exceeds the number of vacancies attests to the effectiveness of the program.

Housing is an important element of the more effective schools program. Yet H.R. 6230 makes no provision for school construction, generally. Available data shows that we are now short 104,000 classrooms throughout the Nation. This means that between 2 and 3 million students are crowded into already overcrowded classrooms, thereby depriving 5 to 6 million students from functional educational opportunities.

The inadequacy of the vocational education allocation and incentives constitutes an equally serious omission. At a time in our history when automation and technology are rapidly changing job demands, our Nation sorely needs skilled craftsmen and technicians. Anyone who recently has tried to get his automobile repaired will painfully learn of the shortage of auto mechanics. Try to repair minor malfunctions in your your home and you will soon learn of the shortage of plumbers. These are but two examples of our need for expanded vocational training opportunities. Many other equally obvious presentations could be made in support of increased vocational education needs. We urge inclusion of additional revenue for this purpose.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we extend our appreciation for the opportunity we have had to present our point of view.