Statement By Commissioner Of Education Earl McGrath

STATEMENT* I am happy to have the opportunity to appear before the Committee within the first few days of my experience in the Office of Education. Education in America today is faced with problems more serious than any it has had to cope with in the history of this Nation. Leadership is needed on a national level in working cooperatively with State and local agencies in solving these problems. In assuming this office I am eager to have an opportunity to develop the staff and services of the Office to the fullest and to give maximum service to the educational agencies of the Nation. To do this we need a restoration of the $74,200 removed from the budget of the Office by the House Committee. The original request 'was for $1,934,200. The cut of $74,200 will definitely impair the development` of the staff and services. The House Committee apparently assumed that we could absorb three-fourths of the pay advance in 1950 as we did in 1949, and at the same time maintain the average personnel strength as of 1949. But the Committee did not take the fact into account that a number of positions were not filled in 1949, but which will be filled in 1950, or should be if the functions of the Office are to be efficiently discharged. We hope very much therefore that the $74,200 will be restored. Since 1 have assumed office so recently I am not as informed about the details of this matter as I shall be in appearing before the Committee in the future. 1 have taken the privilege of bringing By Earl James McGrath, U.S. Commissioner of Education, Federal Security Agency, Washington, D.C. before Senate Appropriation Committee, Mar. 24, 1949.