Mrs. RYAN. Well, thank you, sir. I am very glad to have done so. Chairman PERKINS. We appreciate your appearance here today, Mrs. Ryan. You have been very helpful.

Mrs. RYAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman PERKINS. We appreciate the endorsement of the legislation of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. Thank you very much.

The committee will recess until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning.

We will wind up the hearings tomorrow.

(Whereupon, at 5:03 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., Saturday, March 18, 1967.)

75-492-67-pt. 2-41

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

AMENDMENTS OF 1967

SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1967

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met at 9:30 a.m., pursuant to recess in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Carl D. Perkins (chairman of the committee) presiding,

Present: Representatives Perkins, Scheuer, Dellenback, and Steiger.

Staff members present: Robert E. McCord, senior specialist; H. D. Reed, Jr., general counsel; William D. Gaul, associate general counsel; Benjamin F. Reeves, editor; Louise M. Dargans, research assistant; and Charles W. Radcliffe, special education counsel for minority.

Chairman PERKINS. The committee will be in order. A quorum is present. We have Mr. Russell Goble from the Martin County schools of Kentucky. We would be delighted to hear from you at this time, Mr. Goble, and we are interested in knowing how the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is working out in your county.

STATEMENT OF RUSSELL GOBLE, MARTIN COUNTY SCHOOLS,

KENTUCKY

Mr. GOBLE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I wish to congratulate the committee for its efforts in making funds available through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to local school districts especially those districts with low per capital income, a high rate of unemployment, and a large number of culturally and economically deprived children.

The programs are being well coordinated by the U.S. Office of Education, the State departments of education, and the local school districts. The guidelines, as a whole, are flexible enough to permit the local school districts to provide many of the needed services and facilities that they have been deprived of in the past due to a lack of funds. Martin County has a low per capital income with little local revenue with which to provide an educational program that is comparable to the programs in the districts having the taxable wealth.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act funds are helping to bridge the gap and the impact of Federal aid, too, is producing desirable results.

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Elementary and Secondary Education Act funds have made it possible for Martin County to initiate a remedial reading program in which the services of teacher aids and remedial reading teachers have been provided to implement the regular classroom activities,

Elementary school library services, lunches for indigent children, and a summer program for high school students from the low-income families with special emphasis on reading have been made possible. Elementary library rooms and remedial reading laboratory rooms have been established in Martin County's seven consolidated elementary centers. Books, instructional supplies, and modern equipment have been provided for the use of the librarians, remedial reading teachers, and regular classroom teachers.

Some of the desirable results of the program are as follows:

1. Dropout rate has been reduced.

2. Overall increase in academic level of the students.

3. Higher percentage of attendance.

4. Improved attitude of low-income parents and children toward school.

5. Increased participation on the part of parents in community activities as well as educational activities.

6. Improvement in health and nutrition with elimination of many physical handicaps such as eye defects, hearing defects, and nutritional deficiencies. Dental problems have been reduced by providing a mobile dental clinic for children from low-income families.

7. Additional training for specialized personnel in supervision, remedial reading, and library science.

Plans are underway for the development of an improved program in mathematics, science, art, music, and physical fitness.

The programs provided by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act should be continued because of the valuable services being rendered to children from low-income families and increased potential for the construction of new buildings.

I recommend that provision be made in the law whereby the poorer districts with heavier concentration of poverty could be permitted to secure grants and low-interest long-term loans in order for them to provide the buildings necessary to carry out a successful educational program. Most of the school districts in Eastern Kentucky have antiquated high schools with inadequate heating, lighting, laboratories, libraries, and other facilities necessary for a program to meet the needs of the students. Without some form of construction aid the school districts can not meet the increased building needs.

All Federal aid money should be channeled through State departments of education and prorated to the districts on the basis of need, taking into consideration local effort, in accordance with a well-developed educational plan approved by the State department of education and the U.S. Office of Education.

There is considerable confusion and discontent concerning the operation of Headstart programs under the direction of the Office of Economic Opportunity, and under the present setup OEO, through community action, is dominating the Headstart programs on the basis that Headstart is not an educational activity, that it is an antipoverty

activity. They advocate total involvement of the children from the low-income families and total involvement of the parents from the low-income families to the exclusion of all other segments of society. The programs now being approved under OEO quidelines for a year around Headstart program in Martin County do not provide Headstart training for more than 25 percent of the children eligible to participate and do not provide employment for more than 5 percent of the parents.

The remaining 95 percent of the parents are expected to participate in the program on a voluntary basis. The summer Headstart program would provide training for approximately 50 percent of the eligible children in Martin County. It is a hypothetical assumption that this plan is providing child development services for all of the children or employment for all of the parents.

The arbitrary guidelines of the Office of Economic Opportunity are in a constant process of change with considerable indecision in the Office of Economic Opportunity about the application of the guidelines in the local districts. In addition to the guidelines certain special grant conditions are imposed upon the boards of education that are not provided in the guidelines and are not in accordance with the guidelines.

The question should be resolved as to whether Headstart is an educational activity and should be carried out by the boards of education working with community organizations or an antipovery program and should be carried out by community action organizations or other civic groups.

If the local boards of education are to assume fiscal responsibility it is mandatory that they have fiscal control. It will never work successfully to have two agencies attempting to operate the same program with community action agencies selecting the personnel by which the boards of education are to perform services in accordance with the intents and purposes of Headstart programs.

Boards of education select personnel to perform certain services on the basis of qualifications. Community action attempts to impose on the boards of education the selection of personnel on the basis of poverty without regard to qualifications, presumably because of the fear that boards of education will use nepotism or politics.

At the same time the boards of education are held responsible for the success or failure of the Headstart program. This can only result in the children being deprived of the benefits for which Headstart was originally organized.

The program should either be operated by the board of education or should be completely taken out of the hands of the board of education in eastern Kentucky. If it is the intent to perform services for the parents of the low-income families, then a special training program should be set up for them in which they are paid for so many days of systematic instruction and work experience in connection with the Headstart program.

In this way boards of education could employ competent people who could perform the services in the Headstart program and at the same time provide services for the parents.

While the intents and purposes of Office of Economic Opportunity may be good and the OEO legislation enacted by Congress is valuable