Dead Calm for Federal Aid

The cry for new emphasis on education that followed the launching of the first Soviet Sputnik last year has been reduced to a whisper on Capitol Hill. As Congress began driving for adjournment last week, two National Defense Education Act bills were stuck tight in committee in both the House and.Senate.

At the outset, both bills bore genuine promise of a substantial long-term federal boost for education on a broad scale. The House bill would cost about $1 billion during the next seven years, and would provide:

P: 23,000 four-year $2,000 college scholarships to be awarded each year for four years, on the basis of ability, not financial need. Special consideration would be given students with high ability in science, mathematics or modern foreign languages.

P: Additional grants of $500 a year to scholarship students who are able to show financial need.

P: Funds for low-interest student loans, to be administered by colleges and universities. Institutions could receive up to $250,000 a year, would be required to match at least 25% of federal funds with their own money.

P: Grants of $240 million over the next four years for audio-visual aids, texts, etc., to be used by public elementary and secondary schools for science, mathematics and modern foreign-language instruction.

P: Up to $4,500,000 a year to establish courses in foreign languages not ordinarily taught in the U.S., and short-term institutes for the study of language-teaching methods, with stipends for students who attend.

P: A broad program of fellowships and grants to colleges intended to widen graduate education facilities.

P: $60 million over four years for testing and guidance of able students.

P: $8,000,000 for study of educational TV, radio and motion pictures.

The Senate bill would go somewhat further than the House version. It would cost an additional $500 million, would give scholarships and other aid for six years instead of four, and would encourage college students to enter teaching by deducting 20% from the balance owed on student loans for each year the borrower taught school after graduation.

Sponsors took great pains to counter objections that killed previous federal aid bills, notably the school-construction bill that died a slow death in past sessions of Congress. They pointedly reaffirmed that control of education must remain at the state and local levels; each bill stipulates that funds be given first to state boards of education, then routed to schools and scholarship winners. Although the reasoning behind the Powell amendment (which helped to doom the school-construction bill in past years by forbidding federal aid to segregated schools) would seem to apply to some sections of this year's federal aid bills, there is no sign that it will be offered.

Audible opposition to the bills dwindled to a few old congressional voices, e.g., New York's Republican Representative Ralph W. Gwinn, and a few organizations that have long opposed federal aid to education, e.g., the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce. Among this session's most emphatic backers of federal aid legislation have been Marion Folsom, outgoing Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare; Detlev Bronk, president of the National Academy of Sciences; Missileman Wernher von Braun; and the National Education Association (which, predictably, wants a vastly larger program than any that stands a chance of passing).

Because the Sputnik-inspired sense of urgency has waned, the fair weather for the school bills has now turned into dead calm. There were indications last week that Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson has erased the Senate bill from his "must" list. Odds for what seemed so likely in the heat of January seemed no better than even in the coolness of August.

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