Limited Boost

In its suggestions to President Eisenhower for beefing up U.S. education, the Department of Health. Education and Welfare obviously had its eye as much on the nation's pocketbooks as on its classrooms. The plan, pared to a minimum, would cost the U.S. Government about $224 million in federal money the first year and an estimated $1 billion by the time it terminates at the end of four. Its chief proposals:

P: Since one out of five students in the upper fourth of their class drops out of high school before graduation and only one out of three of those left goes to college. HEW suggested that the U.S. provide 1) grants to the states on a fifty-fifty matching basis to set up statewide testing programs to identify gifted students early, 2) matching grants to help the states train more student counselors and 3) enough money for 10,000 college and university scholarships for able students who preferably have "good preparation in science and mathematics."

P: HEW also suggested matching grants to help local schools recruit more mathematics science teachers, raise salaries and buy equipment, and finally to help the states strengthen the science and mathematics programs in their departments of education. Among the reasons for this request: "Studies indicate that only one out of three high school graduates has had a year of chemistry, only one out of four has taken a year of physics. There is a current shortage of more than 8,000 high school science teachers and yet--of the 5,000 graduates prepared to teach science last year--2,000 went into industrial jobs rather than the classroom...All the 48 states now promote the teaching of home economics, agriculture and distributive trades. Only eight states, however, had special directors or units last year to foster and improve the teaching of science and mathematics."

P: To reduce the shortage of college and university teachers, HEW wanted funds to provide 1,000 fellowships for graduate study the first year and 1,500 for each of the three years after that. Direct federal grants, matched by each institution, of up to $125,000 a year could go to campuses for salaries and equipment.

P: Since the percentage of high school students taking a foreign language dropped from 50% in 1928 to 20% in 1955. HEW suggested that the U.S. help the states set up language training centers, and also a series of summer institutes for language teachers.

At the end of his memorandum to the President, Secretary Marion Folsom suggested that a $79 million grant be given the National Science Foundation, which now carries on many of the kinds of programs HEW hopes to foster. Thus, HEW itself would be left with only $145 million the first year to give U.S. education the boost it so badly needs.

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