Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks on the Proposed Teaching Professions Bill.

July 17, 1965

MAN'S most noble enterprise is the work of education. In our Nation's classrooms, our future is being built. I believe that the chief architects of that future are the teachers of America.

Today I have completed work upon a legislative proposal which is a testament to those beliefs: the Teaching Professions Act of 1965. It is now on its way to the Congress.

Today in the United States there are nearly 2 million teachers in elementary and secondary schools. By this fall we will need almost 200,000 new teachers merely to accommodate growing enrollments and to replace teachers who retire and leave the profession. We will need nearly 2 million new teachers in the next 10 years alone.

Yet our needs cannot be expressed just in numbers. Tomorrow's teachers must not merely be plentiful enough, they must be good enough. They must possess not only the old virtues of energy and dedication, but they must possess new knowledge and new skill for the 20th century. If we are to have the best available teachers we must now attract to teaching the best available students in this country.

Today almost 5 percent of our teachers--85,000--lack adequate qualifications. Almost 10 percent have less than a bachelor's degree. Only 25 percent of all of our teachers even have a master's degree.

Our Nation, whose needs are so immense and whose wealth is so great, really can do much better, and we must do better. This act offers us a way to do better.

The Teaching Professions Act of 1965 will establish, first, a National Teachers Corps. Members of the Corps--experienced teachers and students who plan to make teaching a career--will go together to the city slums and to the rural areas of our country, to poverty, to offer what these troubled regions need most light and learning, help and hope.

Second, the act will create a program of fellowships to prepare superior students for teaching careers in elementary and secondary schools, and to help teachers renew their knowledge and skills. The Federal Government already assists men and women making their careers in college teaching, and now is the time to do the same for those who serve at the elementary and the secondary school levels.

Finally, this act will provide direct assistance to institutions--financial aid to institutions of higher learning so that they may develop better programs for teacher education.

The Teaching Professions Act of 1965 is a composite of hard thinking about educational problems in the Congress, in the executive branch, and in the teaching profession. We have with us this morning a number of the bright young men who have made material contributions to the formulation of this legislation. This legislation also owes much to the proposals of leaders in our country, like Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts for a National Teachers Corps; to Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, and to Senator Clifford Case of New Jersey, and to Representative Carl Perkins of Kentucky, and Congressman John Brademas of Indiana for the work that they have done on a program of fellowships for teachers; and to Representative Patsy Mink for her contributions in connection with a program of Federal grants to teachers for sabbatical leaves.

So, I am calling upon the Congress to make this beginning now--now--even though it is well along already in its present session. The problems confronting us in education will not diminish and do not diminish with the passage of time. Neither should our zeal for solving those problems diminish. This act will be just a beginning, but now is the time to begin.

Henry Adams said: "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." This act, I believe, will have an eternal influence on this Nation that we all love.

Note: The President spoke at 1:27 p.m. in the White House Theater. An advance copy of the President's remarks, entitled "Statement by the President," was also released.

See also Item 368.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks on the Proposed Teaching Professions Bill. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241498

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