The Price of Excellence

Despite all the greatly increased sums of money being spent on U.S. education, the richest nation on earth has plenty of educational shortcomings, some of which could be cured by money. And some school systems that need help the most can get no more from those they serve. On these two propositions, even those who hate paying more taxes or who fear federal intrusion in education are generally agreed. Last week President Kennedy sent to Congress a proposal for the Federal Government to take up the neglected responsibility. It was shrewdly designed to answer objections from all sides, but could nevertheless expect heavy weather.

U.S. education is an enterprise so vast that between students and teachers it occupies more than one-fourth of the population. It costs $27 billion a year. Costs have risen chiefly because of a spectacular 50% rise in school enrollments since World War II. Kennedy proposes to spend $5.6 billion on education over a period of five years.

Antiquated Tax. The hard core of unemployment these days is among the unskilled; and automation, besides eliminating jobs, puts more premium on skills in the jobs it provides. Yet one-third of the nation's brightest high school graduates do not go on to college; some 7,500,000 youths entering the labor force in the '60s will not have completed high school; 2,500,000 will not even have a full grade school education.

The school-finance headache comes from the antiquated local property tax, which provides more than half of all public school revenue (apart from loans and bond issues). In the past 55 years, its relative yield has declined 75% because it is the one tax that the tax-burdened citizen can vote to hold down. State taxes, which provide 40% of school revenue, need an overhaul, but many states hesitate to raise taxes for fear of scaring away industry. The Federal Government has so pre-empted the tax dollar--notably for defense, welfare and highways--that it spends 62% of all government funds.

Last year industry's conservative Committee for Economic Development estimated that school costs will rise by 47% in the '60s. At that rate, state and local governments would have to divert nearly all of their revenue to education alone. Yet 15 poor states are already making a greater financial effort than the U.S. average, and cannot meet national educational standards. For example, Mississippi spends 3.7% of personal income to raise $225.86 per pupil, while Delaware, by spending only 2.8%, raises $460.

Onetime Harvard President James B. Conant estimates the "deficit" between public school needs and resources as roughly $8 billion a year. The U.S. Office of Education reports that last fall public schools were short 142,160 classrooms. Of the nation's current 37.6 million pupils in public elementary and secondary schools, 1,868,000 are "in excess of normal capacity," and 685,000 are on half-day shifts. In the next decade, the schoolgoing population will rise by nearly 1,000,000 pupils a year, three-fourths of them concentrated in 200 large cities, and they will need 607,600 more classrooms. At college level, where enrollment will at least double by 1970, the expected "deficit" by then will be $5.2 billion.

At all levels, the biggest budget item is teachers' salaries. Though raises to teachers account for much of the constantly rising cost of education, public school teachers still average only $5,200 a year. The college professor's average is $8,600, little more than that of unionized truckdrivers. The result too often is overwhelming competition from other fields for their services, leaving the instruction of unwieldy classes to dedicated souls--or sometimes to incompetents.

Kennedy's Remedies. The Kennedy plan carefully takes into account, even if it may not fully satisfy, the many critics of federal aid. It provides "stimulatory measures" from elementary school through college. It would:

P: Grant states $2,298,000,000 over three years for public schools, leaving the states the option to use the money for building construction, for teachers' salaries or for both. The formula: an "equalization" plan giving poor states up to the maximum $29.67 (for Mississippi) per pupil in average daily attendance for the first year, and richer states, such as New York, a minimum $15 per pupil. One condition: 10% of each state's total share must go to "areas of special educational need," such as urban slums or newly integrated schools.

P: Grant states $577.5 million over five years to award 212,500 college scholarships on the basis of ability and need. The winners would get an average of $700 a year and up to $1,000 to attend the college of their choice. Since tuition does not cover the cost of education, the colleges themselves would get another $350 a year per scholarship student.

P: Expand the present federal loan program for college dormitories, from about $200 million a year now to $250 million a year over the next five years.

P: Start a new federal loan program of $1.5 billion over five years for new college classrooms and other academic buildings, which until now the Federal Government has never financed.

The package is considerably cheaper than the recommendations of Kennedy's task force on education, which proposed spending $9 billion over the next 4 1/2 years, including grants of $30-$50 per public school pupil. It goes well beyond the Committee for Economic Development's recommended $600 million a year. CED concluded that "where the decentralized system cannot provide good schools," there is a "clear and present need for federal financial assistance." But it envisioned equalization grants to only 11 poorer states.

A History of Aid. If Congress passes the bill, it will be a momentous landmark in a history of federal aid to education reaching back to the Land Ordinance of 1785, which gave national land for common schools, and to the Morrill Act of 1862, which treated land-grant colleges. The late Senator Robert Taft, so conservative in other matters, became converted to federal aid to education but could not get a bill through Congress in 1949, because of a hot fight over parochial schools. President Eisenhower, who became far more conservative than Taft on the issue, feared federal control and opposed direct aid for either teachers' salaries or construction. He even sought a cutback in the Government's longtime aid to "impacted areas" (communities jammed with federal workers and military personnel), which contain 25% of all U.S. schoolchildren.

Last year, for the first time in history, school aid bills passed both Houses of Congress. But the conservative-dominated House Rules Committee blocked any compromise between the Senate's bill (money for teachers' salaries as well as buildings) and the House (construction only) bill. Besides, Manhattan's Negro Congressman, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., made sure the bill would be opposed by Southerners by attaching a desegregation rider. The new Administration has presumably "reformed" the Rules Committee, and Powell--now chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee --says he will not cripple the new bill with a rider.

Hedges for Everyone. In theory, the bill has a good chance of passing. But it runs into objections from practically everyone--Roman Catholics, Southern conservatives, Northern liberals, proponents of massive aid, proponents of no aid. It is so hedged as to give something to all critics. Though the Catholic hierarchy is furious at the exclusion of the country's 5,000,000 parochial school students, the bill, through the grants to colleges taking federal scholars, clearly promises direct aid to Catholic colleges (which, as a precedent, already receive federal research grants). Though the bill would aid segregated schools, it would also ban college scholarship funds for any state that discriminated against Negro students. To mollify those who fear federal control, the bill leaves states complete power to administer college scholarships and decide whether to spend school funds on salaries or construction.

Where will the money come from? Unless the Administration closes the tax loopholes to boost revenue, as Candidate Kennedy promised, rich states will have to foot the federal aid bill for poor ones. Some 17 states will pay out more than they receive, e.g., New Yorkers would get only $128 million, in return for $767 million in federal taxes. This presumably is what Kennedy meant when he said he was going to demand sacrifices.

For all the large sums involved, the problems dwarf them. If all the first year money went to teachers' salaries, they would rise only $450 apiece; if all went to construction, only 15,600 new classrooms could be built. Only 25,000 federal scholarships will be available for 1,800,000 high school graduates. Such is the dimension of the problem, and it shows that faraway Washington alone cannot substitute for more and better effort by thousands of local communities.

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