[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 56 (Tuesday, May 10, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


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

 
RELEASE OF REPORT BY NATIONAL EDUCATION COMMISSION ON TIME AND LEARNING

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I see I have just a few more minutes. 
Last week, the National Education Commission on Time and Learning 
released its report to the public. That report, entitled ``Prisoners of 
Time'' outlines a critical problem for our school reform efforts: We 
have dealt with many, many issues relevant to the education of our 
children except one crucial element: time. In all of our consideration 
of new, high standards for all children we have not yet grappled with 
the implications that those standards have for the time we ask our 
children to spend in school or for the time we require them to spend 
studying the core academic subjects which those standards address.
  When national legislation to set goals and standards was first 
proposed in the Senate several years ago, I expressed my concern that 
we could not really ask our students to meet higher standards if we did 
not also consider the element of time. I wondered whether we really 
knew what the implications of time for learning were. Were we using 
time in best way in school? Were students spending enough time on the 
tasks they needed to learn? Did teachers have enough time to teach? Was 
it fair to ask students to achieve to higher standards in the 
traditional school day and school year?
  I knew that we did not have the answers to these and similar 
questions but I also knew that our efforts to have students meet higher 
academic standards would fail if we could not deal with the time issue 
intelligently. Therefore, I introduced a bill in the 102d Congress to 
establish the National Education Commission on Time and Learning. That 
bill became law.
  That nine member Commission started its work in 1992. The Commission 
was led by Milton Goldberg, the Executive Director of this Commission 
and the former Director of the National Commission on Excellence in 
Education, which produced the landmark report, ``A Nation At Risk.'' 
The Commission held eight hearings at locations around the country and 
commissioned the preparation of several reports on various aspects of 
its study. It visited 22 schools across the Nation and traveled to 
Germany and Japan to visit schools in those Nations.
  The report which the Commission has released today should be read by 
every person concerned about our Nation's education system. It 
identifies the essential design flaw in that system which must be fixed 
before we can make any true progress: That flaw is expecting all 
children to learn a fixed body of knowledge at a uniform minimum level 
of competency in a rigidly defined schedule of days and hours. We know 
that children learn at different rates; we know that our society has 
changed and is changing so that children bring different problems to 
schools; we know that what children are expected to know in an 
increasingly competitive world is changing--yet we continue to insist 
that all children learn on a schedule which is rooted in work schedules 
of generations ago.
  Furthermore, the report notes the compounding of that flaw in that 
the fixed days and hours of instruction which we have set for our 
children are frequently not even used for academic instruction. We do 
not require of our students even half the academic study that other 
countries require of their students. It appears that we take a limited 
number of instructional hours and spend them on a variety of things not 
related to proficiency in core academic subjects.
  This chart, which is the only chart appearing in the report, shows 
how little we expect of our high school students as compared to the 
requirements set in other countries. In America, States set the minimum 
requirements for graduation--we do not have a central ministry of 
education as many other countries do--and our States vary in their 
requirements for high school graduation.
  This chart depicts the average hours required by the States in the 
core academic subjects identified in our Goals 2000 legislation and 
compares that number to the requirements set for Japan, France, and 
Germany for their students in their last 4 years of secondary school. 
You can see that the American States require less than half of these 
countries--about 2 hours a day of academic instruction--assuming a 180-
day year.
  While the data is not quite so clear with respect to the amount of 
time which students actually spend on core academic subjects, as those 
subjects are defined in Goals 2000--as opposed to the amount of time 
required by the States--it appears from the data we do have that 
students do not spend any more than 3 hours a day on core academic 
subjects--still far short of the German, Japanese, and French students. 
Is it any wonder that American students do so poorly on international 
comparisons?
  In ``A Nation at Risk,'' released 11 years ago last week, it was 
recommended that States adopt a core curriculum of requirements for all 
high schools: 4 years of English, 3 years of math, 3 of science, 3 of 
social studies, and 1\1/2\ years of computer science. In 1990, fewer 
than half the high school graduates had completed that core set of 
requirements. It is clear that even within the time we have alloted our 
schools, that time is not being used enough for the kind of instruction 
that students must have in order to compete with their counterparts in 
other countries.
  The simple fact is, in many of our schools, student have been 
permitted and in fact in some cases encouraged to take course work 
which does not have a core academic basis. We had one of the members of 
the Commission speak very eloquently last week at a press conference 
where the report was released, saying it is not unusual for a high 
school senior in this country to have his or her school day made up of 
one or at the most 2 hours of academic instruction while the rest of 
the time would be spent on weight lifting and crafts and lunch and 
study hall. We are not doing right by our students in permitting this 
kind of instruction.
  We seem mired in old notions of a school day and a school year and in 
old notions of how students should spend their time. Now, as we 
undertake major efforts at school reform through Goals 2000 and the 
reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we need to revisit 
those old notions and rethink our commitment to a school day and school 
year that no longer reflect the modern work schedule or modern 
educational demands in a global economy.
  The report makes eight recommendations. Some can be achieved only by 
local communities and schools. But others can be acted on at all levels 
of government. The eight recommendations are:
  Reinvent school around learning, not time;
  Fix the design flaw: Use time in new and better ways;
  Establish an academic day;
  Keep schools open longer to meet the needs of children and 
communities;
  Give teachers the time they need;
  Invest in technology;
  Develop local action plans to transform schools;
  Share the responsibility: Fingerpointing and evasion must 
end.
  We in the Congress can do quite a bit to help implement the 
recommendation about reinventing the school around learning, not time. 
Goals 2000 is a first step in that direction and ESEA will provide more 
help for schools that wish to reinvent themselves. We can also help 
schools stay open longer to meet the needs of children and families.
  There are various proposals in the ESEA and elsewhere to support 
schools in their efforts to stay open longer hours so that community 
services can be provided on the school site, although not necessarily 
at the school's expense. The professional development title in the 
proposed ESEA bill provides significant new moneys for professional 
development, including moneys to give teachers time for that 
development. And, of course, the Technology for Education Act, S. 1040, 
which I introduced last spring with Senators Kennedy, Harkin, and 
Cochran, will provide important investment in technology in the schools 
so that learning time can be more efficient and more effective.
  Yet, for all these efforts, there still remains much more that we in 
Congress can do to help schools free themselves from the shackles of 
time. I will be proposing an amendment to ESEA to provide grants to 
schools to support efforts to implement the report's recommendations.

  Last week, at the press conference announcing the release of the 
report, we heard from the principal of an elementary school in New 
Stanley, KS, which, with the help of a grant from RJR Nabisco, 
developed an innovative blueprint for learning that extended the school 
day and year, combined with other innovations in teaching and 
curriculum. When the Nabisco grant ran out after 3 years, the New 
Stanley school community was so pleased with these innovations, 
including the extended year and day, that the community supported the 
increased spending which was required to maintain those changes once 
the grant money was gone.
  The Federal Government can help schools in a similar way, by 
providing seed money to spur change, which local communities can then 
support themselves once those innovations are shown to meet local 
needs.
  We are not suggesting the Federal Government should legislate a 
school year of a certain number of days. But we are saying that in 
order to reach the high goals and standards for education that we have 
set as a Nation, we have to recognize more time is required in actual 
instruction.
  There are doubtless other kinds of support which we can give schools 
to help them implement the recommendations of this report. I hope that 
the report itself together with the forums and other outreach 
activities which the Commission will be undertaking over the next 
several months will provide further support to efforts all over the 
country to rethink and revise time for schools.
  I hope that we will give serious thought to the recommendations of 
this report. It is a fine piece of work and a very important 
contribution to the debate about school reform. I commend Dr. Goldberg 
and the Commission on their efforts in bringing this to the Congress 
and thank them for fulfilling so well the charge Congress gave them. I 
just hope that we do not lose sight of the importance of these issues 
and the urgency of these recommendations, because I do not think that 
we can realize the promise of Goals 2000 or of the reauthorized ESEA if 
do not release our children and their schools from the prison of time.
  I will be working with the members of the Time and Learning 
Commission to see the results of their report and their recommendations 
are as widely publicized as possible throughout the country.
  Mr. President, at this point I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The absence of a quorum having been 
suggested, the clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call the rescinded.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, has leader's time been reserved?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is correct. The Senator wishes 
to be recognized under leader time. The Republican leader is so 
recognized for not to exceed 10 minutes.

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