Overcrowding, Underpaying.

The shortage of teachers and classrooms was acute throughout the decade. In President Kennedy's "Special Message on Education" on 6 February 1963, he stressed the seriousness of the problem. One and one-half million students were housed in overcrowded classrooms, and approximately two million were studying amid "grossly substandard health and safety conditions." Salaries were too low to retain the ablest teachers, with some poorer districts offering starting annual wages as low as $3,000. Moreover, of the teachers in the classrooms, 7.2 percent held substandard certificates, affecting the quality of education for one pupil in thirteen, according to the U.S. Office of Education. Although the colleges were equally crowded, there were not enough students in teacher-training programs to ease the shortages in certain locales. In Nebraska, for example, fewer than 50 percent of qualified graduates remained to teach in the overcrowded Nebraska schools. In California...