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The funds may not be used for such general purposes as raising teachers' salaries or building classrooms, but otherwise the only limitation is the extent of local imagination. A Senate report lists 50 possibilities, ranging from hiring additional teachers in order to reduce the size of classes, to providing clothing and shoes for the needy, to assigning social workers to work with parents of the poor. Georgia expects to finance kindergartens, which have proved invaluable in easing the transition from a bad home environment; only half of U.S. public-school districts now maintain them. Cleveland plans to extend its school day past 3:30 p.m. to permit an array of remedial reading and arithmetic classes, individual tutoring, personal and vocational counseling. Atlanta hopes to set up workshops for the teachers who will teach the poor, since most are from middle-class backgrounds and may be out of touch with such children.
Public schools holding special classes for children with special environmental problems will be required to accept similar students from private schools on a "shared-time" basis—already a longstanding practice in some communities, where parochial-school students attend certain classes in public schools. Since Title I is pegged to state levels of school support, it is expected to have a bootstrap effect as states realize that each dollar they add to their own support will bring more federal funds. Beginning in 1966, districts that increase their own spending by at least 105% per pupil can apply for a matching amount from Washington for each pupil; this program is expected to cost some $400 million next year.
Libraries & Far-Out Projects
TITLE II provides an even $100 million to buy textbooks and expand school libraries, including the purchase of books, periodicals, phonograph records. The money will go directly to state agencies, will be handled entirely by the states, but distribution of the materials must be made equitably to private-as well as public-school students "to the extent consistent with" state law. To avoid legal complications, ownership of the materials will be retained by the public agency. The program is not tied to the poor; funds will be split among the states according to their percentage of all the nation's elementary-and secondary-school pupils.
This money will be eagerly snapped up: only about onethird of U.S. lower schools now have libraries. Boston's 55,000 public-elementary-school pupils have no library at all, nor do some 100 elementary schools in Philadelphia. Says U.S. Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel: "A school without a library is a crippled school."
TITLE III has brought most enthusiasm from educators, since it involves no strings at all, aims at uplifting educational services to all students in public or private schools, in any way a local district sees fit. The first-year authorization of $100 million is certain to set off a keen competition for approval of local projects. Under this section of the bill, local districts will deal directly with Washington: Commissioner Keppel's office will select the projects it considers most worthy. Of the available funds, $200,000 must be set aside for each state, and the rest, roughly $90 million, will be split among the states in two ways: half on the basis of their school-age population, half on the basis of their total population.