[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 26 (Thursday, March 10, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                IMPROVING AMERICA'S SCHOOLS ACT OF 1994

                                 ______


                               speech of

                           HON. PATSY T. MINK

                               of hawaii

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 9, 1994

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 6) to extend 
     for 6 years the authorizations of appropriations for the 
     programs under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 
     1965, and for certain other purposes:

  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to rise in support of the Kildee and Owens 
amendments. We have had considerable debate about the efficacy of the 
use of funds under the Governors' set-aside, and we also have been 
lobbied very strenuously by Members who want to defend the DARE Program 
and enumerate the successes that that program has enjoyed.
  I think the chairman of the subcommittee has quite rightly recognized 
the support that the DARE Program has in the Chamber and has agreed to 
set aside funds especially for the DARE Program, without specifically 
allocating a certain percentage of the funds in this program for the 
Governors' particular uses at their discretion.
  We are attempting here to save a program that has been defended by 
Members of this body by setting aside a certain percentage for the DARE 
Program. The Owens amendment, I believe, is especially worthy because 
what it recognizes is that we need additional moneys in this program. 
So his effort is to add $100 million.
  This fight is not about Governors or whether they are able or capable 
of administering a program at the local level. This argument is over 
the lack of sufficient funds for a program that we feel is vitally 
needed in the schools. If this was a situation where we had adequate 
funds, sure, set aside moneys for the Governors to decide how they 
wanted to spend the money. But in a time of austere fiscal restraints 
on the kinds of moneys that we are being allocated, I think the Owens 
substitute hits it right on the head.
  I am a member of the House Committee on the Budget, and in our 
deliberations we are making a recommendation that $100 million be cut 
away from this program, because somehow, in deciding how much actually 
was being spent by the President's budget, it overspent by $3 billion. 
It was necessary for the Committee on the Budget to come in with 
recommended cuts.
  One of the recommended cuts is $100 million in this drug program. And 
so in recognizing the fact that we have here a very legitimate program 
that needs to be saved for the schools of this country, the gentleman 
from New York [Mr. Owens] has added $100 million in order to have a 
separate program which the Governors can have a discretion on what to 
do with.

  So I think that we are all really talking about the same thing, but 
confined in this situation of not having additional moneys.
  I would like to say to the Members on the other side that so often we 
make the debate about local control. Let us have the local people make 
these decisions as to how the moneys are to be spent. That is what the 
whole school reform is all about. That is what school-based management 
is all about, bringing the decisionmaking down to the schools, because 
these are the people with the teachers and the administrators and the 
parents who know best what the problems are at the school level. So if 
we carve away at the top for the Governors' funds that are already 
short for the schools, we are only shortchanging the people at the 
local level who really need the money.
  I urge this House to vote for the Kildee amendment, because it 
recognizes the validity of the DARE Program, and also vote for the 
Owens substitute because it allocates an additional $100 million, 
leaves the funding alone for the schools for their drug program and for 
the violence program.
  I want to also say, before I conclude, that what the committee did 
was to add another element to this program. That is school violence. 
How many of us have heard about the problems in our schools with 
reference to guns and the violence that we see, where students ought to 
be able to go to school feeling that confidence that they have a safe 
environment. Many of them do not. So for the first time the committee 
is adding funds to try to help the schools deal with this situation, 
and we have the same pot of money that we have to deal with.
  Let us try to understand that first we want the local schools to make 
the decision. Second, we want to have an amount of money safe there for 
the violence and the drug problems in the school district, separate out 
the DARE Program, since it is so popular among the Members of this 
body, and allocate a separate $100 million for the purpose of this.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I just want to compliment the gentlewoman 
for saying that they know best at the local level, because I was 
becoming disillusioned here during this debate. I was thinking that 
maybe the only people that knew anything were in Washington, DC.
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Chairman, no. No, I am a strong defender of 
local control.

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