Double & Triple Shifts

Last week school officials of 42 States met in Washington, behind closed doors. They had been called together by Commissioner of Education John Ward Studebaker. Purpose: to speed up U. S. industrial training for defense.

John Studebaker, key man in this key job, is lean, spectacled, a wiry bundle of energy. Iowa-born, a star all-round high-school and college athlete who worked his way through Leander Clark College as a union bricklayer, he was national director of the Junior Red Cross in World War I. As an educator, he distinguished himself chiefly by organizing public forums where adults might discuss problems of democracy, first as Superintendent of Schools in Des Moines, since 1934 as U. S. Commissioner.

Last week a colossal job faced Mr. Studebaker and his fellow conferees. Industrially, the U. S. had been caught with its pants down, faced a shortage of skilled mechanics. Although the U. S. people have an aptitude for tinkering with machines, relatively few of them are technically trained for it. The nation has some 29.000 white-collar high schools, only 1,200 vocational schools.

Nevertheless, Commissioner Studebaker was confident that the nation's school system could handle the new load. Its technical schools (including 155 engineering colleges) are the world's best-equipped (outstanding: Milwaukee Vocational School). They have 35,000 highly trained teachers, a $1,250,000,000 plant. Normally they turn out 500,000 workmen a year who could be used in defense industries--machinists, lathe operators, sheet metal workers, auto mechanics, aircraft mechanics. Commissioner Studebaker's goal: to step the number up to 1.250.000.

At week's end Mr. Studebaker emerged from his conference with a plan to run the nation's vocational schools on double and triple shifts, starting this summer. Some 600 schools straightway prepared to give ten-week courses of training. 40 hours a week, to 150.000 youngsters and unemployed oldsters. To pay the cost ($100 a student), President Roosevelt signed a Deficiency Appropriation Bill appropriating $15,000,000.

Meanwhile, New York City's impatient Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia phoned Commissioner Studebaker, announced that the city's vocational schools were all ready to train 10,000 mechanics. "When," he demanded, "do we start?" Replied Studebaker: "It's going to start on July 1 or I'll know the reason why."

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