In regard to boys not finishing the 12 grades of school the statistics show that there are as many as a couple of years ago. Fifty-one percent of the dropouts in high school were girls, and 49 percent were boys. I think the statistics today are very similar. The highest unemployment rate in the Nation is among nonwhite girls between 16 and 21.

I do not want to argue today whether or not women should or should not be working. But the facts are that one out of every three employed in the country is a woman. Therefore, in 1967, I can't quite buy the defense that the boys need the program more than the girls.

May I turn to the vocational education recommendations by the Office of Education? I consider this probably the most important part of the 1967 amendments. I would like to first direct the question to the superintendent from Albuquerque, if I may, and then ask others

to comment.

I am well aware of the controversy and newspaper articles in the Albuquerque press over the Job Corps center for girls in Albuquerque. The question, that I would like to address to you revolves around an allegation that has been made. That the girls in Albuquerque center have had 2 or 3 hours, in some cases 4 hours, of work during the entire day and not necessarily 5 days a week, but sometimes 2 days a week or 3 days a week; and further the allegation that they are not in any way being trained for remunerative employment while in the center.

The specific questions to any school superintendent are: What do you think you could do if we, as an alternative procedure, said to a large city school superintendent, or said to the State department of education, would you explore this? What kind of a program could you put together that would include on-the-job training, taking advantage of work-study, combining it with MDTA, with the residential center? You would have a residential environment for those youngsters who need a change of environment and you could concentrate effort on the youngsters who would stay at home but come there during the daytime.

What kind of a program could you design for your city for $8,000 per student?

Mr. STAPLETON. As you know, we have the Technical Vocational Institute, which was developed several years ago and recently was strongly endorsed by a number of community leaders.

Mrs. GREEN. Is that a residential school?

Mr. STAPLETON. No, it isn't. There have been some plans identified. They certainly have not been formalized. But they indicate that this could be the direction to go, in terms of a residential area.

The Technical Vocational Institute has been received with such enthusiasm, the nature of the program has been in such a short time made so comprehensive, as we see it, with a broad spectrum of courses involving some of the traditional basic courses and then some of the new courses, such as data processing, that we feel that if funds could be channeled in this direction, the district could expand much faster.

As it is now, it is a holding action, hoping that the program will get continued endorsement. There was a recent effort to receive some funding from the State legislature.

Our feeling is that in the Albuquerque district we certainly feel that through the Technical Vocational Institute, which we feel has had reasonable success during a short time, we could expand the program, we could make programs more comprehensive. We certainly could reach out and touch a larger population and we could explore the whole question of the residency which someone in the area has already indicated they would like to explore.

Mr. JOHNSON. I don't think I am the appropriate person, but when you speak of $8,000, I am very interested, and I am stimulated. I indicated to you earlier that we had handicapped children. I would want to start a residential center. I would improve our supervision. I would improve the recruitment of jobs.

I would have our supervisory staff working with this on-the-job training program, and have them move out into the businesses and industries to keep close tab on these youngsters.

I would do all of this within the scope of the comprehensive high school. I think there is an unfortunate move in this country away from the comprehensive high school in the direction of vocational education which segregates and moves aside youngsters of different abilities. and different interests, and so on. I think they have common interests which are greater than the different interests. I would like very much to see that.

If we had an on-the-job program for both boys and girls, clerical work, auto mechanics, in anything where we could get an employer to work with them, I would like to see it.

But our supervision is not as adequate as I would like it to be, because we have to do that with one man and one woman working with these people. The one man works with boys and girls and the woman works primarily with the girls in clerical and in sales work. But I would like very much to see it.

I would like to see some of us have the opportunity to develop such a program for the child who should be taken away from his family. The family is one of the reasons in many instances for the cultural deprivation of the youngster. When he comes to a good school and goes home, he goes to a very unfortunate circumstance, and unfortunate surrounding, which works in conflict fewer times than we would like to say, but sometimes.

Chairman PERKINS. Do you wish to comment, Dr. Holt?
First, let me call on Mr. Quie at this time.

Mr. QUIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Johnson, you have an excellent statement.

I like especially what you say about the need of administering education programs through State departments of education and how Headstart administered by local public schools would actually improve and strengthen it.

I am glad you mentioned the family-school relationship. This is one of the criticisms which has been leveled against the traditional education concept. I am glad you recognize it so well.

Rather than going over the parts of your statement that I agree so much with, I would like to inquire about your comments on the Teachers Corps. You seem quite enthused with the Teachers Corps and encourage that it be spread out to the rural areas and to migrant work

ers more than just the urban centers. There is a tendency to limit it to the urban centers since that is where the institutions of higher learning are located. You have to bring them to the institutions for their learning sessions.

You seem to have the concept, however, that the Teacher Corps is not only to bring people who previously had no interest in education, but developed one later, into the teaching profession, and also to bring them special training in the culturally and socially deprived children. Also you mention the help that they give to the children in the district. Since this is the case, and I find people tend to look at a Teachers Corps the way the blind man looks at the elephant, would you be willing to fund a portion of the stipend or the salary of these teacher interns to the extent of the benefit you receive in your school from their services?

Mr. JOHNSON. I personally would be willing to fund a part of it through the local funds. But one of the points that this committee and Congress has recognized is that there is a need to provide these programs over and beyond what is now being done.

If we were required to match the funds, which in essence is what the question you are asking is about, I might say yes, I would be willing to, but whether we would be able to is something else. In Westchester County, three of our larger cities are right up against the tax limitation, and what we can do and what we would like to do are sometimes different.

We would not, in my opinion, be able to go into such a program next year, or perhaps the year following that: Philosophically, I agree with you, sir, but matching funds sometimes if categorically applied drains away the general support of education.

If you were asking would I support this in legislation, no, sir, I would not.

Mr. QUIE. Then with the glowing remarks you made about the Teachers Corps, they are really not sufficient, however, to cause you to put some local funds into this program because it would even be superior and more necessary than some of the education activities are already engaged in with local funds.

you

Mr. JOHNSON. You see, this is comparable to the situation of when I go to my desk and take on the pressing jobs, but many times the less important jobs. I do the things which have to be done that day and not the long-range, important things.

That same thing would apply here. It seems to me it is an obligation of the State, more than of the local area, to provide this kind of educational program. It is the obligation of the country, since these people will be working in all kinds of areas, it is the obligation of the Congress and of the local State to provide this training in education of teachers, and not that of the local district which is concerned vitally with the day-to-day providing of reading, writing and arithmetic and those other things regarded as important by the local community.

Mr. QUIE. So the assistance provided by the teacher interns is not sufficient to lessen the load or improve the education of the young people in your schools where you would be willing to transfer some funds from another purpose to this one?

Mr. JOHNSON. I seem to be evasive on that and I don't intend to be. It is sufficient to provide that. But so are many of the other kinds of things that we can do, but we just don't have funds to provide. When it comes to a matter of providing funds for this supplementary program which we can do without, and providing the salaries, the necessary funds for the teachers, we might just not be permitted locally to provide this training program for the country at large, or for the State at large.

It is this that I am referring to. It is not that I would question the validity or value locally, but it is just that we in so many instances do not have this kind of funding available locally.

Chairman PERKINS. Mr. Dent?

Mr. DENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I notice throughout the hearings there is a tendency to arrive at a conclusion that the Headstart program ought to be transferred from the act under which it is now, and put into the public school system throughout the State departments of education.

Have any of you superintendents looked up your State laws to find out whether or not you could absorb the present type of a Headstart law without running contrary to your State provisions of law?

In the last decade, we have had many reforms in education in our State and others where we have set up pretty strict rules on teacher qualifications, classroom compositions, and other restrictions that are not inherent in the Federal participation in that program, and also the Teacher Corps program, and others.

If we suddenly dumped Headstart onto the State departments of education all over the country, how many States would have to have enabling acts immediately for them to absorb this program? I know that we would have to have it in my State. We could not absorb this program as it is now constituted.

First of all, we do not interfere with State regulatory bodies in the application of the State laws. I don't think you can absorb the Headstart program as it is now operating into your State systems entirely without Federal participation in the program, and with the overriding Federal hand on it. I don't think so.

Maybe you can answer that, Mr. Johnson. You were the first one who made the positive statement that Headstart should be transferred directly and bodily over to the State departments of education.

Mr. JOHNSON. Sir, I hedged a bit and said if those departments could take it, the proviso be made if they couldn't either through the Constitution or through legislation, that it could go somewhere else. Of course, we do speak from knowledge of our own State.

In spite of the desirability that we would like to know the laws of the other States, in many instances we don't. In our own State, for example, we could, legally and otherwise, accept this proviso.

I would feel unless there is provision against it, as was indicated when Mississippi was mentioned, I would make the proviso that I would want this program available since it is extremely valuable and some loophole might be made if the States and local districts were unable or unwilling to accept the program.

Mr. DENT. Of course, that would make it sort of a hydra-headed monster. We would be running a program in one State and across

the border the State department of education would be running it. It would be a peculiar thing. The State departments operate in the same fashion, you might think, as we operate in the Federal Gov

ernment.

But you cannot run your schools without doing exactly what the State tells you to, as to classroom sizes, teacher qualifications, and so on, because the State pays a certain amount of the expense of the local school district, and we are paying a certain amount.

If you have participating programs we would have to have some say as to which tune the children were going to dance to. Is that right or wrong?

Mr. JOHNSON. You are getting into a philosophical statement.

Mr. DENT. No, I am getting into the practical political situation of getting legislation through the Congress with the great sums of money attached. Mr. Quie indicated that there seems to be a tendency to move not only Headstart over to public education in the various States, but soon the Teacher Corps.

The reason we went into these programs on the Federal basis was because we had failed at the State level to take cognizance of the great problems facing our people, and we are, therefore, pumping Federal moneys into the local boards where it is needed. It is difficult for local school districts and State governments to provide necessary funds for the essentials in education, let alone these other needs.

You talk about vocational school training and a comprehensive high school. We have failed miserably in vocational training in the various States. There isn't a greater shortage in the United States than a shortage of vocational graduates to take their place in industry, in the construction trades.

We have completely gotten away from carpentry and cabinetmaking in our high school classes of manual arts. I know we don't have them in our schools. We have over 600 trade schools in Pennsylvania which have kept us pretty well abreast of the needs in that State, but some States have no schools whatsoever.

A comprehensive high school would be a responsibility of the local community. How many of your high schools have training courses in vocational classes that would graduate a kid from high school-at the time he finished high school-able and ready to step into a vocational training job?

Mr. BREIT. We have in business education, but not in the trades. Mr. DENT. That is because it is a soft-skirt job. You don't have the hard blue-collar jobs in any of your schools any more.

Chairman PERKINS. Mr. Bell?

Mr. BELL. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Quie.

Mr. QUIE. I would like to ask the gentleman from New Mexico about the title III program. I understood title III was to fund supplemental centers, supplemental programs which would strengthen and improve education throughout an area, and it would be widely beneficial to elementary and secondary education. I notice that you are talking of a space science center and one of the basic features is a planetarium.

Mr. Breit, do you think that secondary schools of the country really need a planetarium as much as they need a host of other improvements in order that the young people might have an adequate education?