Education: The Price of Excellence

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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.