Keppel Predicts Progress From Meeting on Education

Dean Keppel of the School of Education yesterday predicted favorable results for the first White House Conference on Education which begins this afternoon with an address from President Eisenhower.

Several University officials, including Keppel, will register in Washington this morning as part of the conference's planning committee. In this group are Overseers Neil H. McElroy '25, chairman of the committee, and Marion B. Folsom, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, and honorary vice-chairman of the committee.

Keppel said he based his optimism on the fact that it will focus national attention on the education problem, and that perhaps some policies which the meeting's 2000 delegates recommend will be adopted in the President's program to Congress.

The conference "comes at a time when there is no dispute that the personnel, building, and financial problems of education are in a very serious situation," Keppel added.

One of the most important of the six topics to be discussed at the conference will be the question of granting federal aid to Education.

Keppel Research Consultant

The opening topic for the conference Tuesday will be "What should our schools accomplish?" This section will be outlined by subcommittee head James R. Killian, President of M.I.T., and Keppel, who served as a consultant for research on this topic.

Other topics will include (1) more efficient and economical organization of school systems, (2) school building needs, (3) how to get enough good teachers, and (4) how to obtain a continuing public interest in Education.

There will be no voting at the conference. The delegates will meet at 180 discussion tables, decide on their own policies concerning each of the six agenda topics and then send their chairman to the 18 chairman discussion tables.

The decisions evolved from the chairmen's meetings will be recorded in the final report sent to the President.