[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 27, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                IMPROVING AMERICA'S SCHOOLS ACT OF 1994

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd] is 
recognized.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise to express my support for the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the legislation which is 
presently before us.
  Before engaging in some formal remarks, Mr. President, let me, at the 
outset, commend the principal authors of this legislation and those who 
are principally responsible for bringing this bill to the floor today.
  The chairman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee, Senator 
Kennedy, has once again demonstrated with this legislation his deep 
commitment to the education of all children in this country, be they 
from rural communities or highly populated urban centers. He has been 
involved in these issues for several decades, and this piece of 
legislation is yet another example of that commitment.
  Claiborne Pell, our colleague from Rhode Island, of course, has been 
known for many accomplishments during his tenure in the Senate, but one 
of his principal achievements over the years has been his leadership in 
the area of education. In fact, for many years, our former colleague, 
Senator Stafford of Vermont, who was at various times either the 
ranking minority member or the chairman of the subcommittee, would 
often talk about the firm of Stafford and Pell, or Pell and Stafford. 
Together, they were responsible for many of the very innovative and 
thoughtful initiatives in the area of education.
  Senator Kassebaum has now become the ranking minority member, and her 
work with Senator Kennedy has enabled us to bring such a strong, 
balanced bill to the floor. It passed the Labor and Human Resources 
Committee by a vote of 16 to 1, demonstrating the kind of cooperation 
and bipartisanship we were able to achieve on legislation that has 
sometimes been the source of significant division.
  Last, but not least, credit must go to our colleague from Vermont, 
Senator Jeffords, who is the ranking member on education issues and is 
deeply committed to all aspects of the educational needs of children in 
this country. He has carried on the remarkably fine tradition of 
Senator Stafford. I do not know if it is the water of Vermont or the 
air, but our neighbors to the north of Connecticut have historically 
brought a tremendous commitment to education when they come to the U.S. 
Congress. Jim Jeffords is carrying on that tradition in its finest 
form, and I commend him as well. I have enjoyed working with him on the 
committee on a number of initiatives. I think both of us would agree 
that the one in which we take the greatest amount of pride, and on 
which we will continue to fight, is the issue of achieving a greater 
commitment to education in our Federal budget--a commitment to meeting 
the overall educational needs of our citizens, beginning with early 
childhood development, extending through elementary and secondary and 
on up to higher education.
  He and I, along with Senator Wellstone and Senator Simon of Illinois, 
have been trying over the last year or so, through a number of 
hearings, to build some support for the notion of increasing our 
commitment--that is, the Federal Government's commitment--to the 
education of Americans by 1 percent a year, to a grand total of 10 
percent of the budget.
  The high-water mark for the Federal Government's spending in 
education occurred in the administration of Richard Nixon, when 6 
percent of the Federal budget was committed to education. That number 
has dropped consistently over the last 20 years. We are now hovering at 
around 2 percent of the Federal budget, overall, as a commitment to 
education. I suspect that number startles people, who would assume that 
a far greater percentage of their Federal budget was committed to the 
education of Americans. Yet, it is, I think, a source of some 
embarrassment that such a small fraction of our budget is committed to 
that. We are determined to try to raise that by 8 percent over the next 
10 years, to 10 percent. We spent about 13 or 14 percent just on the 
interest payments on the Federal deficit, about 23 percent on the 
defense of our Nation, about 50 percent on entitlements, if you will, 
roughly. While 10 percent is hardly in the range of these figures, we 
believe it is critical and will continue to work together to move this 
initiative forward.

  But today, Mr. President, as I said, I want to extend my 
congratulations to these Members, both Republicans and Democrats, who 
have made it possible for us to arrive at this particular juncture with 
this critical bill.
  Obviously, there will be a lot of amendments, I suspect, being 
offered over the next day or so on this bill. We welcome those 
amendments. Some good ideas may be forthcoming. I assume those ideas 
would be incorporated in the bill. There may be some on which there 
will be a legitimate differences to debate, but this too is an 
important part of the process.
  Nevertheless, I am pleased to have arrived at this moment in the 
Senate. We are going to shortly engage in debate on health care and try 
to increase access and reduce costs to all Americans. That debate will 
attract a significant amount of attention, as it should, in this 
country.
  I suggest this afternoon, while this debate and this particular bill 
may not evoke the same degree of interest either from the media or 
others, that the education of Americans from their first up until their 
last days is something that all of us ought to recognize as critically 
important. In fact, I would argue, it is the single most important 
issue facing this country.
  So, for those reasons, Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the 
legislation before us this afternoon to reauthorize the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act.
  As I said, we debate many, many issues here in the U.S. Senate, but 
very few, in my view, touch the lives and futures of Americans as 
directly and as poignantly as education does. Few issues that we debate 
here are so intricately linked to who we are as a people.
  President Lyndon Johnson said three decades ago, and I quote him:

       At the desk where I sit, I have learned one great truth. 
     The answer for all of our national problems--the answer for 
     all the problems of the world--comes to a single word. That 
     word is ``education.''

  Mr. President, that was true 30 years ago, and it is certainly true 
today. To take just one example, there is no question that there is a 
connection between education and crime. I have recently focused a great 
deal of my time and effort on youth violence. And I have learned that 
there are no easy answers to that issue once kids become involved in 
violence and crime; it is very difficult to change course and 
direction. The solution to this, in my view, and to so many of our 
other problems, must come far earlier. Children must have parents who 
will love and nourish them, role models to respect, activities to fill 
hours of the day, and an education to provide them with the 
opportunities and hope for the future.
  The bill we are considering today--the Improving America's Schools 
Act--seeks to provide that opportunity and hope for millions of needy 
children all across this land.
  For too many of these children, the promise of access to a quality 
education has become little more than a cruel hoax. For thousands of 
American children, there are no books, there are no regular teachers, 
and there are no safe classrooms. Education is supposed to open doors 
for these young people, but for far too many of them those doors remain 
tightly barred.
  With this legislation, let us hope that we can begin to throw those 
doors open wide once again.
  Among all the important components of this bill, Mr. President, I am 
especially encouraged by its restructuring of the title I program to 
establish high standards for all children and to target resources 
toward the neediest communities and children in this land.
  We all know that Federal resources are quite limited. That is 
obviously something that everyone of us has to deal with every day, 
regardless of the bill before us. The Federal contribution, however, to 
elementary and secondary education last year was just over 6 percent 
with the balance coming from State and local sources.
  Mr. President, I will continue my efforts to increase our commitment 
to education at the Federal level. But while the Federal share of 
education expenses remains so small, it is especially critical that we 
target that money on those who need it most in our land. That is what 
this bill attempts to do.
  In the past, Federal title I dollars have flowed to 95 percent of our 
school districts, greatly restricting the program's impact. The obvious 
reason for that is, with every district receiving funding, political 
support for the title I program is stronger. But the fact of the matter 
is when you spread those resources out to some school districts which 
have very few needs financially you dilute the impact of those dollars 
into those communities that need the resources the most. This bill 
would better concentrate our limited dollars toward schools that, in 
fact, do need the resources the most.
  By supporting these schools, Mr. President, we also send, I think, a 
very important signal to States and school districts regarding 
educational spending. Last summer and fall, the Education Subcommittee 
held a series of hearings on the vexing issue of school finance and the 
inequities that plague so many of our States and schools.
  This is a very difficult issue. It has defied resolution, despite 
countless hours of hearings, discussion, debate, and the commitment of 
knowledgeable people to work on and think about this issue.
  Funding for our schools is mostly local, and it varies widely 
depending on the wealth of the local community. Widely varying levels 
of funding lead to widely varying levels of quality. That is an 
absolute given.
  This situation strikes many people as fundamentally unfair. It does 
not seem right that two children who live but a few blocks away from 
each other could receive greatly different educations, all because of 
variations in their respective communities' property tax bases.
  This is an issue, Mr. President, that is receiving, thankfully, more 
and more attention. All across the country, State legislatures, local 
communities, and the courts are struggling to develop finance systems 
that are more fair.
  While our hearings did not produce a magical silver bullet, it is 
clear from those hearings that the Federal Government can help States 
trying to find more educational equity, and this bill does just that, 
not to the fullest extent that I would like to see or that some of my 
colleagues here would like to see, but it clearly moves us in that 
direction. The formula for the distribution of title I dollars provides 
an incentive for States that are making a substantial investment in the 
education of their children and also for those States that have less 
variation in spending between school districts. In this way, Mr. 
President, we would reward those States that have responsibly addressed 
this critical issue, and that is as it should be.
  I was pleased to work with my colleagues on the Labor Committee to 
craft several other important initiatives in this bill. Allow me to 
mention a few of them.
  The committee adopted an amendment that I offered to include a 
successful and innovative new program in title I of the bill, and that 
is what we call the transition to success program. This program would 
encourage parental involvement and coordinated social services to help 
young children and their families make a smoother transition from 
preschool or home to kindergarten and beyond. These early years are 
absolutely critical for later success in school, and parental 
involvement needs to be expanded.
  Let me just cite, if I can, one statistic that I think makes the 
point very clearly. Parental involvement in Head Start programs and in 
pre-kindergarten programs is roughly 82 percent. That is 82 percent of 
children in these preschool programs have significant parental 
involvement in their program. That is parents coming to the school, 
parents participating in programs that these preschool programs 
provide, parents volunteering in classrooms.
  Yet once that child moves to a school-based kindergarten program, 
parental involvement drops to roughly 30 percent and then continues to 
decline as that child moves through the elementary school grades.
  So we have a significant involvement at the preschool level, and then 
it literally drops precipitately once that child moves into the 
traditional elementary school years.
  It seems to me that all of us appreciate the value of significant 
parental involvement. What this new program will do is support 
imaginative and creative ways of encouraging continued parental 
involvement. Where parents are involved in the education of their 
children, not just as homework, not just in encouragement around the 
dining room table, but actually going to and participating in the 
education of their children at these schools and helping to 
dramatically increase the success rate of these children.
  Mr. President, we also in this bill have refined the Safe and Drug 
Free Schools and Communities Act. It is very clear, in my view, that 
children are not going to learn and teachers cannot teach when they are 
afraid. Language that I have offered in this bill clarifies that all 
eligible schools can now be assured of support for proven violence 
prevention tools, such as conflict resolution, peer mediation and 
after-school activities.
  The committee also adopted an amendment that I offered providing new 
support for local schools' character education programs designed to get 
at the roots of violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and other discipline 
problems by teaching children about honesty, responsibility, respect, 
trustworthiness and civic virtues.
  Mr. President, let me add, that I do not believe, under the best of 
circumstances, that we would be asking schools to do this. These are 
things that parents ought to be doing with their children. These basic 
values ought not to necessarily become the responsibility of your 
teacher.
  And yet, tragically, we know in far too many cases these children are 
coming to school without the kinds of role models, the love, the 
nurturing, and the guidance that they should be getting at home. And so 
these character issues are critically important.
  I would mention here that my colleague from New Mexico, Senator 
Domenici, who has spent a great deal of time on these issues, and I 
have an amendment that we will offer that will strengthen the support 
this bill offers to encourage more of these ideas being incorporated in 
the seamless garment of a child's education.
  The one thing I know of that makes it hard for kids to learn and 
teachers to teach is violence. And it is becoming a daily reality in 
too many of our schools. It is estimated that some 130,000 children 
bring a gun to school every day in America, and that one out of five 
children are bringing a violent weapon to school every single day. Most 
of them are doing it not because they intend to cause violence, but 
because they are just gripped with fear.
  I have a sister who teaches at the largest inner-city elementary 
school in the State of Connecticut. She will tell you, even at the 
earliest stages, these children fear to come to school. The fear of 
violence and being harmed is significant, and does impact on their 
ability to learn.
  These teachers, who are asked to provide basic guidance, have to 
worry every day about whether going to school is going to bring them 
within the reach of violence. It is a tough job. But when you have to 
teach in an environment where you fear bodily harm, where your life may 
be in jeopardy, then we ought to be doing what we can to eliminate 
those problems.
  So the safe schools and drug-free schools part of this bill is also 
critically important.
  Mr. President, building upon the strong parental involvement 
initiative offered by the administration, I also added to this bill a 
provision to ensure that parents have a number of additional tools to 
increase their participation in their children's education, including 
opportunities to volunteer in their child's classroom. Improving the 
structure and system to encourage parental involvement is absolutely 
critical to our efforts to improve the achievement of America's 
students and I think everyone agrees with that. The language we have 
offered here I think will help us achieve that goal.
  The committee, Mr. President, also reported a number of other 
important provisions. Working with Senator Simon, we were able to 
restore the Foreign Language Assistance Program in this bill. Language 
is also included that restores authority for a National Center for 
Gifted and Talented Education in this country. We also clarify that 
consortia of local districts are eligible for funding under the Magnet 
Schools Program, where there are regional efforts to address 
segregation.
  Mr. President, there is much, I think, we can be proud of in this 
bill. It tackles head-on the No. 1 issue challenging our Nation--the 
need to adequately educate the next generation of Americans.
  No generation will be as challenged as the present one in our school 
systems. They will have to be better prepared and better educated than 
any other generation in America's history. It is our job here in this 
body and in the public sector to see to that they are ready to meet the 
challenges of the next century.
  It is not our exclusive responsibility, of course. Certainly, local 
school districts and States have to play a major role in fashioning the 
educational programs for these Americans, and the private sector, as 
well as average citizens, can play a critical role in helping us 
improve the educational system of this Nation.
  So all of us bear a responsibility to try to see to it that the 
educational system of our Nation meets the demands that this generation 
and future ones will face.
  For those reasons, Mr. President, I strongly support this 
legislation. It gives us a valuable blueprint for success. I urge all 
of our colleagues to read the bill, to focus on the major provisions, 
and to offer us their support so that we can collectively--in a 
bipartisan way, as we did coming out of our committee, as I mentioned 
earlier, by a vote of 16 to 1--make a strong bipartisan commitment to 
the elementary and secondary education needs of America's children.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am glad Senator Dodd is on the floor.
  Might I inquire of the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, I 
understand that he might have to be at another meeting shortly.
  Mr. DODD. I do. But I would be more than happy to stay here. Whether 
we get started in the meeting will not depend upon my presence. I am 
sure I can find out what happened there at the appropriate time.
  I think the chairman would like to start moving amendments. If that 
is the case, I am prepared to stay here and work with you.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, they are going to 
accept our amendment on trying to fund some centers for character 
education and local partnerships, and we are going to present it now.


                           Amendment No. 2414

       (Purpose: To establish a grant program for the design and 
            implementation of character education programs)

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, on behalf of myself, Senator Dodd, and 
Senator Mikulski, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici], for himself, 
     Mr. Dodd, and Ms. Mikulski, proposes an amendment numbered 
     2414.

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 1035, between lines 11 and 12, insert the 
     following:

      ``PART P--PARTNERSHIPS IN CHARACTER EDUCATION PILOT PROJECT

     ``SEC. 8901. PROGRAM AUTHORIZED.

       ``(a) In General.--The Secretary is authorized to make up 
     to a total of 10 grants annually to partnerships of State 
     educational agencies and local educational agencies for the 
     design and implementation of character education programs 
     that incorporate the elements of character listed in section 
     8904, as well as other character elements identified by 
     applicants.
       ``(b) Maximum Amount of Grant.--No State educational agency 
     shall receive more than a total of $1,000,000 in grants under 
     this part.
       ``(c) Duration.--Each grant under this part shall be 
     awarded for a period not to exceed 5 years, of which the 
     State educational agency shall not use more than 1 year for 
     planning and program design.
       ``(d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated for fiscal year 1995 $6,000,000, and such 
     sums as may be necessary for each fiscal year thereafter to 
     carry out this part.

     ``SEC. 8902. STATE EDUCATIONAL AGENCY APPLICATIONS.

       ``(a) Requirement.--Each State educational agency desiring 
     a grant under this part shall submit an application to the 
     Secretary at such time and in such manner as the Secretary 
     may require.
       ``(b) Partnerships.--Each State educational agency desiring 
     a grant under this part shall form a partnership with at 
     least one local educational agency to be eligible for 
     funding. The partnership shall--
       ``(1) pursue State and local initiatives to meet the 
     objectives of this part; and
       ``(2) establish a character education clearinghouse at the 
     State level to make information and materials available to 
     local educational agencies.
       ``(c) Application.--Each application under this part shall 
     include--
       ``(1) a list of the local educational agencies entering 
     into the partnership with the State educational agency;
       ``(2) a description of the goals of the partnership;
       ``(3) a description of activities that will be pursued by 
     the participating local educational agencies, including--
       ``(A) how parents, students, and other members of the 
     community, including members of private and nonprofit 
     organizations, will be involved in the design and 
     implementation of the program;
       ``(B) curriculum and instructional practices;
       ``(C) methods of teacher training and parent education that 
     will be used or developed; and
       ``(D) examples of activities that will be carried out under 
     this part;
       ``(4) a description of how the State educational agency 
     will provide technical and professional assistance to its 
     local educational agency partners in the development and 
     implementation of character education programs;
       ``(5) a description of how the State educational agency 
     will evaluate the success of local programs and how local 
     educational agencies will evaluate the progress of their own 
     programs;
       ``(6) a description of how the State educational agency 
     will assist other interested local educational agencies that 
     are not members of the original partnership in designing and 
     establishing programs;
       ``(7) a description of how the State educational agency 
     will establish a clearinghouse for information on model 
     programs, materials, and other information the State and 
     local educational agencies determine to be appropriate;
       ``(8) an assurance that the State educational agency will 
     annually provide to the Secretary such information as may be 
     required to determine the effectiveness of the program; and
       ``(9) any other information that the Secretary may require.
       ``(d) Non-Partner Local Educational Agencies.--Any local 
     educational agency that was not a partner with the State when 
     the application was submitted may become a partner by 
     submitting an application for partnership to the State 
     educational agency, containing such information that the 
     State educational agency may require.

     ``SEC. 8903. EVALUATION AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT.

       ``(a) Requirement.--Each State educational agency receiving 
     a grant under this part shall submit to the Secretary a 
     comprehensive evaluation of the program assisted under this 
     part, including the impact on students, teachers, 
     administrators, parents, and others--
       ``(1) by the mid-term of the program; and
       ``(2) not later than 1 year after completion of such 
     program.
       ``(b) Contracts for Evaluation.--Each State educational 
     agency receiving a grant under this part may contract with 
     outside sources, including institutions of higher education, 
     and private and nonprofit organizations, for purposes of 
     evaluating their program and measuring the success of the 
     program toward fostering in students the elements of 
     character listed in section 8904.
       ``(c) Factors.--Factors which may be considered in 
     evaluating the success of the program may include--
       ``(1) discipline problems;
       ``(2) students' grades;
       ``(3) participation in extracurricular activities;
       ``(4) parental and community involvement;
       ``(5) faculty and administration involvement; and
       ``(6) student and staff morale.
       ``(d) Materials and Program Development.--Local educational 
     agencies, after consulting with the State educational agency, 
     may contract with outside sources, including institutions of 
     higher education, and private and nonprofit organizations, 
     for assistance in developing curriculum, materials, teacher 
     training, and other activities related to character 
     education.

     ``SEC. 8904. ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER.

       ``(a) In General.--Applicants desiring funding under this 
     part shall develop character education programs that 
     incorporate the following elements of character:
       ``(1) Caring.
       ``(2) Civic virtue and citizenship.
       ``(3) Justice and fairness.
       ``(4) Respect.
       ``(5) Responsibility.
       ``(6) Trustworthiness.
       ``(7) Any other elements deemed appropriate by the members 
     of the partnership.
       ``(b) Additional Elements of Character.--A local 
     educational agency participating under this part may, after 
     consultation with schools and communities of such agency, 
     define additional elements of character that the agency 
     determines to be important to the schools and communities of 
     such agency.

     ``SEC. 8905. USE OF FUNDS.

       ``Of the total funds received by a State educational agency 
     in any fiscal year under this part--
       ``(1) not more than 30 percent of such funds may be 
     retained by the State educational agency, of which--
       ``(A) not more than 10 percent of such funds may be used 
     for administrative purposes; and
       ``(B) the remainder of such funds may be used for--
       ``(i) collaborative initiatives with local educational 
     agencies;
       ``(ii) the establishment of the clearinghouse, preparation 
     of materials, teacher training; and
       ``(iii) other appropriate activities; and
       ``(2) the remaining of such funds shall be used to award 
     subgrants to local educational agencies, of which--
       ``(A) not more than 10 percent of such funds may be 
     retained for administrative purposes; and
       ``(B) the remainder of such funds may be used to--
       ``(i) award subgrants to schools within the local 
     educational agency; and
       ``(ii) pursue collaborative efforts with the State 
     educational agency.

     ``SEC. 8906. SELECTION OF GRANTEES.

       ``(a) Criteria.--The Secretary shall select, through peer 
     review, partnerships to receive grants under this part on the 
     basis of the quality of the applications submitted under 
     section 8902, taking into consideration such factors as--
       ``(1) the quality of the activities proposed by local 
     educational agencies;
       ``(2) the extent to which the program fosters in students 
     the elements of character;
       ``(3) the extent of parental, student, and community 
     involvement;
       ``(4) the number of local educational agencies involved in 
     the effort;
       ``(5) the quality of the plan for measuring and assessing 
     success; and
       ``(6) the likelihood that the goals of the program will be 
     realistically achieved.
       ``(b) Diversity of Projects.--The Secretary shall approve 
     applications under this part in a manner that ensures, to the 
     extent practicable, that programs assisted under this part--
       ``(1) serve different areas of the Nation, including urban, 
     suburban, and rural areas; and
       ``(2) serve schools that serve minorities, Native 
     Americans, students of limited-English proficiency, and 
     disadvantaged students.

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, and fellow Senators, I rise today to 
introduce a measure which we choose to call Partnerships in Character 
Education Pilot Project.
  Mr. President, Theodore Roosevelt once noted that ``To educate a man 
in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.''
  Now, I am sure he was totally right, but the bill before us goes a 
long way toward ensuring that our students have the resources and the 
opportunities necessary to learn the essentials of math, science, 
reading, and writing. It makes good progress toward ensuring our 
schools are safer and more progressive relative to rapidly advancing 
technologies.
  As we educate our children in mind and ensure that they master modern 
technologies, we can also offer another element, the element of 
character education.
  So for those who say, ``Let's have reading, writing, and arithmetic 
emphasized,'' again, I suggest we have to add something to it now for 
the foreseeable future in America, and that is character education.
  The amendment which I sent to the desk on behalf of myself, Senator 
Dodd, and Senator Mikulski establishes a very small grant program so 
that State education agencies, in partnership with local education 
agencies, can develop character education programs.
  And I stress, none of this will be developed at the national level; 
none of it will be developed by the Secretary of Education; but, 
rather, in partnerships between State education agencies and local 
education agencies. Thus, it will involve the grassroots participants 
in educating our young people across the land.
  So I want to emphasize one more time that these programs are 
partnerships. If the grant is awarded, it will only be because there is 
a partnership between the local education agency--and they are 
authorized to consult and work with parents, school authorities, and 
community leaders to craft programs that best meet the community's 
concerns. These local agencies will be working at the community level 
and will work with the State education agencies to form partnerships 
for the purpose of developing, implementing, and evaluating character 
education programs.
  We do not believe Congress wants to be prescriptive as to what 
constitutes good character or character education, because we believe 
the States and local education agencies in conjunction with parent 
organizations and the community will develop what is best for their 
needs. Therefore, we allow these partnerships to identify the elements 
they believe meet their needs and to lend direction to the kinds of 
elements we support. And we have added the elements as identified in 
the 1992 Aspen declaration as accepted by the Senate, in Senate Joint 
Resolution 178, National Character Counts Week.
  These elements that we believe lend direction to character education 
are: caring, civic justice and citizenship, justice and fairness, 
respect, responsibility and trustworthiness. And we have added as a 
sixth: And any other element deemed appropriate by the members of the 
partnership.
  So it is not exclusively the Aspen-declared six, but rather any 
others related to it that in fact the partnership which I have just 
described, the local grassroots partnership, determines. We have 
included these because they provide uniformity of some elements for 
evaluation purposes and because they have national, wide-based 
acceptance by millions of Americans, scholars, educators, parents, 
communities, and national youth organizations. Therefore, under title 
VII, Programs of National Significance, a section which authorizes 
programs such as art education, civic education, blue ribbon schools--
we have included these new grant programs.
  This pilot program will allow up to 10 grants for these character 
education partnerships, I say to my friend from Connecticut, whose 
assistance I greatly appreciate and whose support, both on the 
committee and here on the floor--and there we did the joint resolution 
to call the attention of the nature of these--I deeply appreciate and 
acknowledge.
  I know many schools in America are already beginning to develop 
character education programs. This pilot program will give schools an 
opportunity to work with their local and State agencies to build upon 
their efforts and to pass on their experiences, materials, and training 
courses through the establishment of an information and materials 
clearinghouse at any State's level. I know these programs are working 
well even though they are in their infancy, and I know they will have 
problems as they move from infancy to adulthood. Nonetheless, I believe 
we should get started.
  Particularly, I might mention, in Albuquerque, NM, our Albuquerque 
school board adopted a resolution to begin the development of character 
education in some or all of its schools. There is a great school there 
called Bel-Air, and they have already successfully established an 
education program that involves these six elements of character. They 
believe, after less than 1 full year, that significant, positive 
changes have taken place as a result of the program.
  I said to my friend from Connecticut, we will bring evidence that 
after less than 1 year--almost a year--there is a noticeable change in 
this great school that took one element per month and inculcated it in 
the curriculum and talked about responsibility for 1 month, talked 
about caring for 1 month, et cetera.
  Teachers noted a marked improvement in discipline, saying there were 
fewer discipline referrals. They also thought that working 
relationships between students had improved, as student-teacher working 
relationships had improved, and even teacher-to-teacher relationships.
  I might indicate, I was privileged to attend the teachers' assembly 
early one morning before their full assembly, when they worked together 
to produce a 2\1/2\ hour program on these elements for an assembly. The 
teachers were excited. They felt much more a part of what was going on 
in the school as a whole. And the following were results: Standardized 
test scores went up among third and fifth graders. While the cause of 
this is not absolutely clear, many teachers attribute a better learning 
atmosphere as a factor. And 87 percent of the fourth and fifth graders 
thought that peer behavior had improved; 65 percent thought their own 
behavior had improved; and 98 percent of the parents thought the 
program was worthwhile.
  All of which was done as a result of this 1 year's effort at this one 
grade school; 72 percent of the parents said their children had 
discussed the issues at home, in answering a questionnaire. That is a 
rather remarkable percentage.
  All of this came from surveys sent home to all parents of students at 
the school, all of which was voluntary. Nobody ordered it and nobody 
said you must do it.
  There are many character education organizations which are 
successfully working with schools, with parents, and with communities 
to develop and implement character education programs. I have received 
materials from organizations and I am very impressed with their fine 
work. I would like to name just a few: the Character Education 
Institute; the Character Counts Coalition; the Jefferson Center for 
Character Formation; the Character Education Partnership; the Community 
of Caring, a project of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation.
  Character education is something we should support. It will not 
always be easy, but now is the time to lend a slight bit of support for 
some pilot programs so we might measure it better and engage those who 
want to do this with a little bit of resources here and there to 
encourage them and help them on the way.
  Since I was brought into this effort by the efforts of a Character 
Counts Coalition, one of those that I mentioned, that was cochaired by 
former Representative Barbara Jordan and conservative actor Tom 
Selleck, I close with a statement from Barbara Jordan, very brief but 
to the point. This is her statement about this issue.
       You are for responsibility, you are for caring, you are for 
     fairness, you are for good citizenry. So why do we need a 
     coalition to talk about something that everybody agrees on? 
     We need it because we have neglected our commonality. We have 
     neglected the things we share in common. There is no 
     partnership here, which makes it beautiful. There is no 
     ideological tension here, which makes it beautiful.
       Are we trying to replace the family? We're not crazy. The 
     family remains the first line of defense in teaching morals 
     and values. The church? Are we trying to preempt the church? 
     Of course not, we've got church people joining in this 
     coalition.
       What we are saying is that for too long there has been a 
     reluctance to talk about teaching values. You don't want to 
     teach values because you say ``No, no, no. That is 
     interfering with someone's conscience. That is interfering 
     with a system of beliefs. That is proselytizing.'' We're not 
     going to do that. The way that we can get on top of some of 
     the problems which plague us so is to decide that we are not 
     going to be reluctant about telling people what's right and 
     what's wrong and what's expected and what's civilized and 
     what's uncivilized.
       We are going to make character the number one call of young 
     people in this country. They are going to think before they 
     act because they will know there are consequences. We are 
     responsible for making sure that young people know what is 
     expected of them in the total civilized community of 
     humanity.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the quote from Barbara Jordan 
be printed in the Record.
  I yield the floor.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[Adapted from remarks made by Prof. Barbara Jordan on October 8, 1993, 
in Washington, DC, at a press conference announcing the kick-off of the 
                       Character Counts Campaign]

       Crisis is an overworked word, but I really do believe that 
     there is a crisis of values. A deficit in values. We are 
     plagued by young people who seem to have a disregard for 
     human life as evidenced by the number of drive by shootings. 
     If a person has respect for others, if a person values life, 
     then you don't have life being snuffed out as if it were 
     trivial. This character coalition is something that no one is 
     going to disagree about.
       You are for responsibility, you are for caring, you are for 
     fairness, you are for good citizenry. So why do we need a 
     coalition to talk about something that everybody agrees on? 
     We need it because we have neglected our commonality. We have 
     neglected the things we share in common. There is no 
     partisanship here, which makes it beautiful. There is no 
     ideological tension here, which makes it beautiful.
       Are we trying to replace the family? We're not crazy. The 
     family remains the first line of defense in teaching morals 
     and values. The church? Are are trying to preempt the church? 
     Of course not, we've got church people joining in this 
     coalition.
       What we are saying is that for too long there has been a 
     reluctance to talk about teaching values. You don't want to 
     teach values because you say ``No, no, no. That is 
     interfering with someone's conscience. That is interfering 
     with a system of beliefs. That is proselytizing.'' We're not 
     going to do that. The way that we can get on top of some of 
     the problems which plague us so is to decide that we are not 
     going to be reluctant about telling people what's right and 
     what's wrong and what's expected and what's civilized and 
     what's uncivilized.
       We are going to make character the number one call of young 
     people in this country. They are going to think before they 
     act because they will know there are consequences. We are 
     responsible for making sure that young people know what is 
     expected of them in the total civilized community of 
     humanity.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Mathews). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, first of all, let me at the outset commend 
my good friend and colleague from New Mexico for his leadership on this 
issue. I am very pleased and proud to be a principal cosponsor of this 
amendment.
  We have had an opportunity to meet and talk with a number of people 
who have been involved in this particular question. The bill itself, as 
I noted earlier, incorporates some of these ideas already, but I think 
this amendment significantly strengthens Federal support for character 
education. So I commend him for his efforts and, again, have enjoyed 
working with him immensely on this question. Our colleague from New 
Mexico, Senator Domenici, has very eloquently described the value of 
this amendment and why it is important. I think, the basic question 
that many ask is simply: Why character education?
  I suggested earlier that, I suppose, in an ideal world, the parents 
would be doing this before children even got to school and throughout 
the education of their children. Regretfully, that does not happen in 
as many places as it did only a few short years ago. This particular 
amendment, I think, makes a significant contribution to meeting this 
challenge.
  Fundamentally, this bill is about making America a better place by 
helping to ensure that all children learn and achieve at the highest 
levels. But it is not just about making better, more knowledgeable 
individuals, it is also about strengthening the fabric of our society. 
That is what is at the very core of the bill in front of us.
  The very premise, Mr. President, of our democracy--the people's 
ability to govern themselves--hinges on good education and good 
character. That is what our democracy depends upon. We cannot be 
ignorant of the knowledge of the world, nor can we be ignorant of the 
common values that bind us together as a people. This bill is about 
nurturing the character, as well as the mind.
  Character education itself--the word, the phrase--raises eyebrows. 
But if you believe that children should be taught trustworthiness, 
respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship, then you 
believe in character education. And that is what this amendment does.
  These are not revolutionary or controversial concepts, Mr. President. 
They transcend individual religions and philosophies. They are also 
almost universally accepted.
  A recent Phi Delta Kappa-Gallup poll asked adults whether certain 
principles should be taught in schools. Let me share, if I can, with 
our colleagues the results of that survey.
  I also ask unanimous consent to print in the Record an article which 
appeared in the Wall Street Journal that goes over these numbers.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [From the Wall Street Journal]

 Efforts to Promote Teaching of Values in Schools Are Sparking Heated 
                         Debate Among Lawmakers

                          (By Rochelle Sharpe)

       Washington.--When Rep. George Miller suggested adding 
     character education to the massive elementary and secondary 
     education bill, several of his colleagues on the House 
     Education and Labor Committee began to snicker.
       ``Are you serious about this?'' GOP Rep. Steve Gunderson of 
     Wisconsin whispered to the California Democrat. After a brief 
     but heated debate, the modest amendment--which called for a 
     national conference and demonstration grants to promote the 
     teaching of such values as honesty, responsibility and 
     caring--was soundly defeated, 23-6. That vote earlier this 
     year marked the seventh time that a character-education 
     amendment sponsored by Ohio Democratic Rep. Tony Hall had 
     failed to make it through Congress.
       Only in Washington could teaching children to refrain from 
     lying, cheating or stealing be an issue. Liberals fear the 
     character-education movement may be a backdoor effort to mix 
     religion with public education: Deputy Education Secretary 
     Madeleine Kunin has declined to even hear a briefing on the 
     subject from McDonnell Douglas Corp.'s former chairman, 
     Sanford McDonnell, now chairman of the Character Education 
     Partnership, a nonprofit organization that promotes the 
     concept. Conservatives, meanwhile, fear character education 
     as an attempt to spread political correctness and undermine 
     parental authority.
       ``I for one, would not tolerate anybody having the 
     presumption to dare to think they should define who my 
     children are, what their values are, what their ethics are 
     and who in the hell they will be in this world.'' Rep. 
     Richard Armey, a conservative Texas Republican, argued to the 
     Education and Labor Committee. ``The fact is these people 
     don't know my children and the fact is they don't love my 
     children. And the fact is they don't care about my children 
     and the further fact is they accept no responsibility for the 
     outcome * * * and they ought to, by God, leave my kids 
     alone.''
       Actually, character education has already spread into 
     thousands of classrooms nationwide, where teachers have begun 
     heralding it as a successful way to reduce discipline 
     problems. ``Politicians are the last ones to get the message 
     on this issue,'' say Rep. Hall, who says he's amazed at how 
     little his colleagues knew about the character-education 
     movement. ``The whole country is crying out for this.''

 Values Judgment--A poll last year asked 1,306 adults whether each of 
      the following values should be taught in the public schools:

                                                   Percentage who agree
Honesty..............................................................97
Democracy............................................................93
Acceptance of people of different races, ethnic backgrounds..........93
Caring for friends and family members................................91
Moral courage........................................................91
The golden rule......................................................90
Acceptance of people who hold different religious beliefs............87
Sexual abstinence outside of marriage................................66
Acceptance of right of women to choose abortion......................56
Acceptance of homosexuals and bisexuals..............................51

Source: Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of attitude toward public schools

       In Tyler, Texas, not far from Rep. Armey's district, 
     character education is so popular that the Chamber of 
     Commerce and the police department help reinforce the 
     schools' work. Many schools declare a value of the month, 
     which businesses advertise with signs in store windows or on 
     billboards along the highway. Police officers hand out 
     baseball-style cards featuring their pictures on the front 
     and their favorite value on the back.
       The officers give the cards to children when eating lunch 
     with them in school or when they see them on the street. 
     Sometimes, officers riding in squad cars will turn on their 
     sirens and stop children for doing a good deed, giving them a 
     certificate that allows them to enter a school raffle.
       Since the program began four years ago, the number of 
     school expulsions and fights have dropped, says Tyler's 
     police chief, Larry Robinson, who organized the project. No 
     parents have complained, adds the chief.
       In New York, meanwhile, teachers as well as parents are 
     delighted with the results of the character-education 
     program. ``There's a huge difference in school tone and 
     climate,'' says Linda Costagliola, who teaches sixth grade at 
     Brooklyn's P.S. 3. At nearby P.S. 11, the frequent brawls 
     have virtually disappeared, says Kisha Brown, the program's 
     coordinator. The school had been desperate to regain order in 
     the classrooms, she says, and teaching positive values like 
     respect rather than simply punishing negative behavior 
     appears to work. ``This seems perfect for us,'' she says.
       It may be hard to fathom that conservatives and liberals 
     could ever agree on anything that had to do with values. But 
     all over the nation, communities have figured out ways to 
     avoid controversy, mainly by focusing on what values to teach 
     rather than debating whose values are most appropriate.
       In the Pattonville School District in St. Louis County, 
     Mo., the committee choosing values decided that if anyone 
     disagreed with a character trait, it would be discarded. They 
     reached consensus on 20 traits, including assertiveness, 
     compassion and discretion. The nearby Parkway School 
     District, meanwhile, chose values by surveying 1,200 members 
     of the community twice. The district spent three years 
     choosing the character traits, defining them and deciding on 
     a character development policy.
       The controversy in Washington has much to do with the fact 
     that federal involvement in almost any aspect of education 
     virtually guarantees years of discord. It took Congress five 
     years to pass a bill allowing the creation of national 
     academic standards that will be voluntary. So it should come 
     as no surprise that many lawmakers would view the notion of 
     getting the government near values education as a 
     prescription for a political quagmire.
       Phyllis Schlafly, head of the conservative Eagle Forum, 
     argues that it is ``ridiculous'' for the federal government 
     to play any role in the movement. ``No good character-
     education program is going to be developed with taxpayers' 
     money,'' she says.
       But Mr. McDonnell argues that the federal Department of 
     Education could, and should, give the movement a boost. 
     ``Kids in schools are getting values transmitted to them one 
     way or another,'' he argues, and unless they are taught about 
     values, they get the message that values aren't really that 
     important--or may decide to model themselves on the negative 
     values they see glorified on television or on the streets.
       Yet government officials have responded to his arguments 
     mainly with kind words and little action. The department once 
     gave a $530,000 demonstration grant to schools in Mr. 
     McDonnell's hometown of St. Louis and in surrounding 
     counties; ironically, Mrs. Schlafly--who didn't know federal 
     money was involved--says she has no objections to these 
     character-education programs.
       But the Education Department has done little else. 
     Especially disheartening, Mr. McDonnell says, was the refusal 
     of Deputy Secretary Kunin to even listen to his presentation. 
     Ms. Kunin, the former governor of Vermont, says she finds 
     character education ``interesting work'' but possibly 
     ``inappropriate'' for federal involvement. ``Our approach is 
     that this is still the prerogative of the local community and 
     the family,'' she says. ``Our focus is on academics. That's 
     where we see our most urgent needs.''
       But Tyler's Mr. Robinson, who spent six months studying 
     character education before launching the Tyler program, seems 
     annoyed with Washington's attitude about the movement. ``I 
     wonder what the impact would be on congressmen if character-
     building had been done when they were young,'' the police 
     chief says.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, just listen to what American citizens said 
when asked the question about whether or not some of these character 
issues ought to be taught in school: 97 percent of the respondents 
supported teaching honesty; 93 percent supported teaching democracy; 93 
percent supported teaching acceptance of people of different races and 
ethnic backgrounds; 91 percent supported teaching caring for friends 
and family members; 91 percent supported teaching moral courage, and 
the list goes on.
  Indeed, what Senator Domenici and I are suggesting with this 
amendment is already being done by a number of school districts around 
the country that have designed and implemented programs of character 
education. It seems to be working. From Tyler, TX, to Brooklyn, NY, 
school districts that have implemented character education programs 
report marked drops in discipline problems, pregnancy, substance abuse, 
tardiness, and unexcused absences.
  The Hyde Leadership Public School in Hamden, CT, is one such effort. 
While this New Haven satellite school has just completed its first year 
and is still experiencing birthing pains, it is beginning to show 
promise with its focus on character education. Students report feeling 
closer to their parents and having far more confidence.
  Let me share, if I can, at this point a letter that I received from 
the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Foundation from Mrs. Eunice Kennedy 
Shriver; I received it just yesterday regarding the Kennedy 
Foundation's particular program. I ask unanimous consent that her 
letter and the supporting information be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                        The Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.


                                                   Foundation,

                                    Washington, DC, July 26, 1994.
     Hon. Christopher J. Dodd,
     444 Russell Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Dodd: I was inspired by our conversation 
     yesterday concerning Character Education. As promised, I am 
     sending you some materials about the Community of Caring, a 
     program which has focused my attention on Character Education 
     for the past decade.
       The Community of Caring was developed by the Kennedy 
     Foundation initially as a way to reduce teen pregnancy and, 
     thereby, reduce the incidence of mental retardation. The 
     Community of Caring is a values-education program for the 
     schools, grades K-12, focused on teen pregnancy prevention 
     and other destructive behaviors: violence, drugs and alcohol, 
     and dropping out of school. The program enables students to 
     see the relationship between the decisions they make in life 
     and their individual value systems. The students learn how to 
     make values an essential part of life in the home, school, 
     and the community.
       Unlike ``one-shot'' programs, the Community of Caring is 
     not a separate class or curriculum, but rather an integrated 
     part of the existing content in all the various classes 
     offered in the school. The values discussions in the 
     classroom are centered around five core values: respect, 
     responsibility, trust, caring and family, based on 
     universally accepted principles of personal and civic 
     responsibility and the foundation of our democracy.
       In addition to the classroom discussions, opportunities are 
     provided throughout the school environment and the community 
     for the students to practice leadership and decision-making 
     skills. The school program has five major components: 
     training for teachers, values discussions across the 
     curricula, teen forums, parent involvement, and community 
     service. Behavioral science research has long shown that 
     positive attitudes and positive reinforcement lead to 
     improved self-concept, and academic and job performance. The 
     Community of Caring is a positive values education approach, 
     giving students something to strive for, rather than 
     something to run away from.
       In summary, the Community of Caring is a tested character 
     education program, and provides opportunities for out of 
     class activities, unifies the school and faculty, involves 
     the parents and community, and provides a sharper focus into 
     the needs of young people. By using the systematic, 
     inclusive positive values approach inherent in the 
     Community of Caring's approach, Community of Caring 
     schools have been successful in reducing destructive 
     behaviors in teenagers, and preventing some of the causes 
     of mental retardation.
       The Community of Caring operates in 145 schools nationwide, 
     impacting on 75,000 students. A fact sheet from a nearby 
     school, Armstrong High School in Richmond, Virginia, 
     illustrates typical outcomes for the Community of Caring. 
     Armstrong is an inner-city school where many of the students 
     live in public housing with a single parent heading the 
     household.
       To be successful, public and private health and human 
     service agencies, Churches, schools, civic and service 
     organizations and community leaders must all come together to 
     instill a sense of belonging to young people who are at risk 
     of becoming disenfranchised. The Community of Caring has 
     shown a reduction in violence and drug abuse everywhere it is 
     in use. Side benefits, from increased student attendance to 
     reduced teacher absenteeism are also reported. We are 
     constantly told by teachers that teaching is meaningful 
     again, now that they can address character education.
       When the community is actively involved in working with 
     schools, other benefits, such as support for schools, 
     recognizing the value of young people, etc. are crucial side 
     benefits.
       I am also enclosing the following:
       (1) The textbook which is used by schools;
       (2) The Teacher's guide for the text;
       (3) The ``How To Create a Community of Caring School'' 
     notebook, used by participating middle and high schools;
       (4) The ``How to Create a Community of Caring Elementary 
     School'', a recently developed program for schools, grades K-
     6.
       I hope that during the creation of the legislative history 
     on Character Education you can reference programs like the 
     Community of Caring which use proven methods to assist young 
     people to grow up in a positive environment, with a reduction 
     in violence and drug abuse.
       Thank you for your support of this important program for 
     America's children. Please let me know if I can provide you 
     with any further information.
           Sincerely,
                                           Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I will not read the entire letter at this 
particular point, but let me share with you a little bit about this 
program. Its program, the Community of Caring, operates in 145 schools 
nationwide and has an impact on 75,000 students.
  To give an example of what one school has been able to do, Mrs. 
Shriver gave me some data from the Armstrong High School program in 
nearby Virginia. It is a success story at a glance.
  Pregnancies among ninth graders dropped from 12 in the 1987-88 school 
year to 1 in 1991-92.
  Students promoted to the next grade in 1987, 77 percent, and yet 
after this character education program, they achieved almost 90 
percent, a 13 percent increase in just a few years.
  The dropout rate from that school went from 15 percent in 1989 down 
to a little more than 10 percent in the following year.
  Students caught with drugs, alcohol, or weapon at school went to zero 
in most recent surveys.
  Teacher attendance: 5 teachers had perfect attendance rates in 1987-
88; 24 teachers had perfect attendance rates in 1991-92.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print the remainder of this 
data in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

   Armstrong High School's Community of Caring: A Success Story at a 
                                 Glance

     Pregnancies among 9th graders:
       12 in 1987-88
       1 in 1991-92
     Pregnancies among all students:
       36 in 1987-88
       19 in 1991-92
     Increases in test scores (percentiles) for same students in 
     9th grade in 1989, 10th grade in 1990, 11th grade in 1991:
       Mathematics--33rd in 1989, 37th in 1990, 39th in 1991
       Reading comprehension--30th in 1989, 38th in 1990, 39th in 
         1991
       Science--58th in 1989, 60th in 1990, 61st in 1991
       Social studies--32nd in 1989, 34th in 1990, 42nd in 1991 '
       Written expression--48th in 1989, 56th in 1990, 59th in 
         1991
     Students promoted to next grade:
       77.7 percent in 1987-88
       83.9 percent in 1991-92
       Goal of 87.0 percent in 1992-93
       Goal of 90.0 percent in 1993-94
     Students going on to 2-year and 4-year colleges:
       47.2 percent of Class of 1989
       48.3 percent of Class of 1990
       56.1 percent of Class of 1991
       59.3 percent of Class of 1992
     Drop-out rate:
       14.9 percent in 1988-89
       10.3 percent in 1991-92
     Students caught with drugs, alcohol or weapon at school:
       0 from 1988 to present
     Student attendance:
       83.6 percent in 1987-88
       85.9 percent in 1991-92
     Teacher attendance:
       5 teachers with perfect attendance in 1987-88
       24 teachers with perfect attendance in 1991-92
     Prominent graduates:
       Governor L. Douglas Wilder
       Richmond Mayor Walter Kenney
       Richmond School Supt. Lucille Brown
       Max Robinson, first black anchor for network TV U.S. 
         Circuit Judge Spottswood Robinson, III
       Admiral S. L. Gravely, Jr.
     School Address:
       1611 N. 31st Street, Richmond, VA 23223
     School Principal:
       George W. Bowser

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, this is just one example of a small school, 
a neighborhood school, that as a result of having a program like this 
has improved. These programs affect the lives of children and teach 
them how to make a difference. Kids want to learn these things. They 
sense the importance of character, how it can enrich their lives and 
make them happier, better people.
  So while some may snicker a bit at this, it works. It works. What we 
are simply asking for here is just a few new resources to support a few 
pilot programs and bring these ideas to districts that may not have the 
resources. And the Domenici amendment offers this limited federal 
support and this chance to communities across the states.
  Character education may not be--and I think the Senator from New 
Mexico would agree--the magical answer to all of our problems out 
there. It is not. But we believe very firmly and very deeply that by 
developing good character in our young people, we can make a real 
difference in the lives of every one of them and their families. The 
data and statistics that we received just in a few programs around the 
country indicates that.
  So this may not be a large amount, and it is not. We do not think it 
takes a great deal of resources to get it underway, but the value of it 
speaks for itself.
  I think this amendment will make this a better bill. Again, I commend 
my colleague from New Mexico and our colleague from Maryland, Senator 
Mikulski, who also joined us as a cosponsor of this amendment. We thank 
the leadership on the floor for allowing us to bring this up. 
Hopefully, our colleagues will support this and make an already strong 
bill, even better, by including these provisions.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate? The Senator from New 
Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I talked with the two managers. It is my 
understanding that they are going to accept this amendment. For that, I 
am grateful. I hope nobody thinks we are reinventing anything. The 
truth of the matter is that I believe most Americans--young, old, 
middle-aged--all know something has gone wrong in our country, and 
nobody has the answer. We do not either. But we believe part of the 
answer is that our society is losing its character.
  Way back in Plato's day, he said a country without character is lost. 
The only way for a country to have character is for its people to have 
character. That is a truism. That does not have anything to do with 
America today; it has to do with humans living together in a civilized 
manner.
  I think most would say we know that we ought to have more respect, 
more responsibility, more trustworthiness, more fairness.
  These are the kinds of characteristics or elements of character we 
are talking about. There are lots of Americans working on it, and we 
want to lend our hand to trying to be part of understanding it, to 
spread it more rapidly, to put it into some understandable form and 
measurable. And to have just 10 pilot programs, if such be the will of 
the partnerships around our country, to lend a little impetus to this 
we believe, and I am sure the Senate believes, is very, very necessary 
in our country.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am personally grateful for the kind 
comments of the Senators from New Mexico and Connecticut about the 
Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation program that has been involved in 
this area and has been for some period of time. I therefore sort of 
necessarily recuse myself from expressing an opinion on this particular 
amendment.
  I yield to the ranking member to make a judgment in terms of the 
committee's position on this.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, as stated by the Senator from New 
Mexico, there is no objection on either side of the aisle, and I think 
it is a worthy effort. And by example, it is my understanding in 
Massachusetts this is being used in the public schools and private 
schools as well, and it has served well.
  I think it is a fine approach for us to take at this time, and there 
is no objection.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, Senator Pell would like to be added as a 
cosponsor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, while Senator Dodd is in the Chamber, I 
would like to address one aspect of this that we have both confronted. 
Frankly, there is a lot of cynicism in America. There is cynicism about 
almost anything that politicians try to do.
  Frankly, I have been asked questions in my home State that seem to 
say: Why would the Senate--and then they will add whatever they think 
about the Senate--be involved in this?
  I would just like to say from this Senator's standpoint I choose not 
to be cynical. For whatever time I serve the public, I do not want to 
be a cynic of our future or our childrens' future. And that is why I 
approach this with great confidence, not because of what I am saying 
but because we expect those people down at the grassroots, people of 
America in our cities and in our school districts, in our families to 
find that we are interested and maybe they will be more interested, to 
find that we are concerned and maybe they will feel more confident.
  So that is why we are here. We do not have a monopoly. We do not even 
begin to be here preaching that we know exactly how to behave and how 
character should be motivated, but we do believe we have a 
responsibility to accept the future with optimism and do what we can to 
help those who are trying.
  With that, I have nothing further and I assume we will adopt the 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate? If there is no 
further debate, the question is on agreeing to the amendment of the 
Senator from New Mexico.
  So the amendment (No. 2414) was agreed to.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment 
was agreed to.
  Mr. DODD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 2415

    (Purpose: To impose a fine on persons who violate a court order 
    regarding interference with rights to prayer in public schools)

  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment and 
ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2415.

  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 1165, between liens 21 and 22, insert the following

     ``SEC. 10607. SCHOOL PRAYER

       ``Any State or local education agency that is adjudged by a 
     Federal court of competent jurisdiction to have willfully 
     violated a Federal court order mandating that such local 
     educational agency remedy a violation of the constitutional 
     right of any student with respect to prayer in public 
     schools, in addition to any other judicial remedies, shall be 
     ineligible to receive Federal funds until such time as the 
     local educational agency complies with such order. Funds that 
     are withheld under this section shall not be reimbursed for 
     the period during which the local educational agency was in 
     willful noncompliance.

  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment which I 
believe to be a thoughtful solution to the potentially volatile and 
divisive issue of school prayer. This amendment will protect 
``constitutionally protected prayer''--just as Senator Helms' amendment 
does--without placing unfair and unreasonable burdens on school 
administrators.
  During the debate of Goals 2000 last February, the Senate found 
itself tied up in a complicated and fractious debate regarding the 
issue of prayer in our public schools. Indeed, the final version of the 
legislation that the Senate sent to the conference contained three 
different amendments relating to this one point. The amendment that I 
am now introducing is designed to avoid a repeat of that scenario.
  In crafting this amendment, I have worked hard to meld the spirit of 
the Goals 2000 amendments while avoiding heavy-handed and unreasonable 
penalties on the students of our country.
  All of the concerns raised on the Senate floor during the debate were 
valid ones. No one would argue against protecting constitutionally 
protected prayer. I commend all of my colleagues who expressed a 
sincere interest in maintaining this basic right for the public school 
students of our country.
  But unfortunately, Mr. President, the issue of what is 
constitutionally protected is not as simple as it may first sound. Even 
the courts are split on what is allowed. The law surrounding this issue 
is unquestionably murky.
  For example, in June 1993, a Federal court judge in Boise, ID, upheld 
students' rights to have a prayer at graduation. That same summer a 
Federal judge in Virginia ruled that a planned graduation prayer was 
unconstitutional, stating that the Constitution does not permit 
``students by majority vote to impose prayer on a minority.''
  In short, the same issue produced two very different interpretations 
of the Constitution.
  Mr. President, this does not mean that all aspects of religion and 
prayer in public schools are currently in question. Students and 
parents have contended that some actions which school administrators at 
first determined impermissible were in fact ensured by our first 
amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. The courts have ruled that 
students have the right to read religious materials during individual 
study time; that a school district which permits civic and social 
groups to use its facilities must allow similar use for religious 
groups, and that school libraries are allowed to contain copies of the 
Bible. Certainly these are things that I think we would all feel were 
enormously important, Mr. President.
  In each of these instances, the rights guaranteed by the first 
amendment were determined in their proper venue--the courts. School 
administrators had made good-faith efforts to determine what actions 
were constitutionally protected. But school administrators are not 
constitutional scholars, and it has placed them in an enormously 
difficult role. Therefore, in each of these cases, the courts ruled 
that the actions were permitted and the schools acted accordingly.
  That, Mr. President, is how it should be. This amendment avoids 
putting school administrators in the position of determining how the 
first amendment should be interpreted.
  This amendment will protect the rights of students. If a school 
administrator fails to correct a policy that the Court has deemed to 
infringe upon a student's first amendment rights, that school district 
will be faced with a monetary penalty. If school administrators 
willfully violate a student's constitutional rights regarding school 
prayer, they should be punished. But I think the phrase to emphasize is 
``willfully violate a student's constitutional rights.''
  Mr. President, the first amendment to the Constitution guarantees us 
religious freedom. That is something that everyone in this country 
cherishes and values. It is important to note that the Supreme Court 
has never attempted to forbid students from participating in voluntary, 
personal, undisruptive prayer on school property during school hours. I 
wholeheartedly believe in the importance of prayer in our daily lives. 
One can pray anywhere, at any time.
  However, the first amendment also ensures that our Government refrain 
from endorsing one particular religion over another. The text reads:

       Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
     religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

  The Supreme Court has consistently interpreted this to mean that 
Government must be neutral regarding religion in the public schools.
  Mr. President, our Constitution is not about, and has never been 
about, inhibiting religion, but ensuring that our Government stays 
neutral towards it. Reconciling these two fundamental intentions of the 
first amendment remains a challenge to us all--here in the Congress and 
out among the schools. It is unreasonable to expect our school 
administrators and teachers to be constitutional scholars.
  The courts will ensure that protected prayer is permitted in our 
schools. This amendment further strengthens that power, without 
unfairly placing on our school officials the burden of determining what 
is protected.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I will vote for the Kassebaum amendment, 
because it represents a fair and balanced approach to protecting the 
constitutional rights of all Americans with regard to prayer in the 
public schools.
  The Kassebaum amendment would require that Federal funds be withheld 
from any State or local educational agency that is found to have 
willfully violated a court order requiring the school district to stop 
violating the constitutional rights of any student with respect to 
prayer in the schools. A school district cannot be reimbursed for funds 
that are withheld during any period when the district is in willful 
noncompliance of the court's order.
  The approach taken by the Kassebaum amendment is far superior to that 
taken by the amendment offered by the Senator from North Carolina to 
the Goals 2000 bill, an amendment that has been offered to this bill as 
well.
  The Helms amendment provides that all Federal education funds must be 
cut off when a State or local educational agency ``has a policy of 
denying, or which effectively prevents participation in, 
constitution[ally] protected prayer in public schools by individuals on 
a voluntary basis.''
  When the Goals 2000 bill was before the Senate I supported the Helms 
amendment after he modified it to limit its application to 
constitutionally protected voluntary prayer. There are narrow 
situations in my view where the free exercise clause guarantees a 
student the right of pray privately and quietly to himself or herself, 
without disrupting class or avoiding his studies.
  On reflection, however, I believe that in the form offered by the 
Senator from North Carolina, the provision could be misused by some to 
scare school board officials into allowing religious rituals in 
situations where they are not constitutionally protected. That point 
was made in a June 3, 1994, joint letter by a broad coalition of 
educational, religious and civil liberties organizations. I would like 
to read a portion of that letter.

       As educational organizations, religious and faith 
     communities, and organizations devoted to religious and civil 
     liberty, we write to urge that you oppose the Helms school 
     prayer amendment which will be offered when the Senate 
     considers S. 1513, the Elementary and Secondary Education 
     Authorization Act. The Helms amendment would terminate all 
     Department of Education funding to any state or local 
     educational agency which ``has a policy of denying or which 
     effectively prevents participation in, constitutionally 
     protected prayer in public schools by individuals on a 
     voluntary basis.''
       Together, we serve millions of students and parents, 
     thousands of school administrators and school boards, 
     teachers and child advocates, as well as millions of 
     Americans of many religious faiths. We are firmly convinced * 
     * * that the Helms amendment would undermine local control of 
     education, would needlessly interfere with the task of 
     running our public schools, would undermine religious 
     liberty, and should be rejected by the Senate:
       The amendment places an unfair burden on school authorities 
     by forcing them to navigate an exceedingly complex and 
     sometimes contradictory area of constitutional law under 
     penalty of forfeiting all federal funding.
       The amendment is draconian, withholding precious 
     educational resources even for actions which unintentionally, 
     indirectly or unforeseeably interfere with prayer in schools.
       The amendment would significantly expand federal 
     bureaucratic intrusion into decisions by state and local 
     educational officials.
       The amendment would invite widespread threats and 
     litigation against school officials by activists seeking to 
     force group prayer into the public schools.
       Although seemingly phrased in constitutionally neutral 
     language, the amendment would actually encourage widespread 
     violations of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, and 
     would thereby foster even more litigation against our 
     schools.
       Finally, the Helms amendment is wholly unnecessary in light 
     of the availability of ordinary legal remedies for violations 
     of the constitutional right to pray and the very sparse 
     record of judicial decisions finding violations of students' 
     constitutional rights to pray in school.
       For the sake of our schools, local control of education, 
     and our Constitution, we urge you to reject the Helms 
     amendment to ESEA.

  I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the letter be printed 
in the Record.
  In short, the right protected by the Helms amendment is a profoundly 
important one, but the harsh remedy it would prescribe would tip the 
delicate balance required to protect the constitutional rights of those 
who wish to engage in prayer in schools, and of those who do not wish 
to participate. Local school boards faced with the risk of a complete 
cutoff of Federal funds would have every reason to sacrifice the 
constitutional rights of religious minorities to accommodate the 
religious preferences of the majority.
  And where school boards erred in good faith and unintentionally 
violated the Constitution, under the Helms amendment all Federal funds 
would be cut off and innocent children would be deprived of educational 
opportunities.
  Congress has previously recognized that a complete fund cutoff is 
unfair in these circumstances. The Equal Access Act which Congress 
passed in 1984 assures that religious groups will be given an equal 
right to use school facilities for after-school meetings.
  When that law was first introduced, it contained a fund cutoff 
provision similar to that contained in the Helms amendment. Congress 
rejected that approach in the version that finally was enacted; it 
expressly prohibits the Federal Government from withholding school aid 
for violations of the act.
  The Kassebaum amendment avoids the deficiencies of the Helms 
amendment. It applies evenhandedly to protect the constitutional rights 
of those who seek to pray, and of those who seek to avoid the 
unconstitutional establishment of religion. Because the Kassebaum 
amendment would authorize the withholding of Federal funds only when a 
school district willfully disobeyed a court order, it would not 
pressure school boards to tilt in favor of one group at the expense of 
others. And it would not punish innocent school children for good faith 
errors committed by local school boards.
  The Kassebaum amendment is similar to Federal laws banning race, 
gender, and disability discrimination in federally funded programs. 
These laws do not permit, let alone require, a complete cutoff of 
Federal funds to institutions that are found to discriminate.
  Under those laws, fund terminations may occur only after a hearing on 
the record, judicial review, and persistent refusal by the institution 
to comply with the requirement; even in those situations, fund 
terminations are required to be limited to the particular program found 
to have discriminated.
  Similarly, the Kassebaum amendment requires that a court determine 
whether there has been a constitutional violation before the 
withholding of Federal funds can be ordered. This is appropriate, since 
the law in this area is often vague, and the Federal courts are best 
situated to determine whether a violation has occurred.
  In sum, the Kassebaum amendment fairly protects the religious rights 
of all Americans, while the Helms amendment would jeopardize 
educational opportunities for innocent children and coerce school 
officials to observe the religious rights of some students and to deny 
the rights of others.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Kassebaum amendment and to reject 
the Helms amendment.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                     June 3, 1994.
       Dear Senator: As educational organizations, religious and 
     faith communities, and organizations devoted to religious and 
     civil liberty, we write to urge that you oppose the Helms 
     school prayer amendment which will be offered when the Senate 
     considers S. 1513, the Elementary & Secondary Education 
     Authorization Act. The Helms amendment would terminate all 
     Department of Education funding to any state or local 
     educational agency which ``has a policy of denying or which 
     effectively prevents participation in constitutionally 
     protected prayer in public schools by individuals on a 
     voluntary basis.''
       Together, we serve millions of students and parents, 
     thousands of school administrators and school boards, 
     teachers and child advocates, as well as millions of 
     Americans of many religious faiths. We are firmly convinced, 
     for the many reasons outlined below and explained more fully 
     in the attached memorandum, that the Helms amendment would 
     undermine local control of education would needlessly 
     interfere with the task of running our public schools, would 
     undermine religious liberty, and should be rejected by the 
     Senate:
       The amendment places an unfair burden on school authorities 
     by forcing them to navigate an exceedingly complex and 
     sometimes contradictory area of constitutional law under 
     penalty of forfeiting all federal funding.
       The amendment is draconian, withholding precious 
     educational resources even for actions which unintentionally, 
     indirectly or unforeseeably interfere with prayer in schools.
       The amendment would significantly expand federal 
     bureaucratic intrusion into decisions by state and local 
     educational officials.
       The amendment would invite widespread threats and 
     litigation against school officials by activists seeking to 
     force group prayer into the public schools.
       Although seemingly phrased in constitutionally neutral 
     language, the amendment would actually encourage widespread 
     violations of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, and 
     would thereby foster even more litigation against our 
     schools.
       Finally, the Helms amendment is wholly unnecessary in light 
     of the availability of ordinary legal remedies for violations 
     of the constitutional right to pray and the very sparse 
     record of judicial decisions finding violations of students' 
     constitutional rights to pray in school.
       For the sake of our schools, local control of education, 
     and our Constitution, we urge you to reject the Helms 
     amendment to ESEA.
       American Federation of School Administrators, AFL-CIO.
       American Jewish Committee.
       American Jewish Congress.
       Americans for Religious Liberty.
       Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
       Anti-Defamation League.
       Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.
       Central Conference of American Rabbis.
       Church of the Brethren, Washington Office.
       Council of Chief State School Officers.
       Council of the Great City Schools.
       The Episcopal Church.
       Friends Committee on National Legislation.
       General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
       National Coalition for Public Education & Religious 
     Liberty.
       National Council of Churches.
       National Council of Jewish Women.
       National Education Association.
       National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council.
       National Jewish Democratic Council.
       National P.T.A.
       National School Boards Association.
       People For The American Way Action Fund.
       Presbyterian Church (USA), Washington Office.
       Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
       Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
       United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism.

  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of S. 
1513, the Improving America's Schools Act of 1993. I commend Senator 
Kassebaum for the fine job she has done on this bill. While I intend to 
support the legislation before us today, amendments may be offered to 
this legislation that I also support. However, I caution my colleagues 
that amendments regarding opportunity-to-learn standards or outcome-
based education will force me to reconsider my support of this 
legislation.
  Mr. President, last year we passed S. 1150, the Goals 2000: Educate 
America Act. I supported that legislation during its initial passage in 
the Senate. However, I felt that I could not support the Senate version 
which would further involve the Federal Government in education. 
Subsequently, I did not support the legislation reported by the 
conference committee. I hope this does not happen with the legislation 
before us today.
  The Elementary and Secondary Education Act primarily addresses the 
special educational needs of disadvantaged students. It encourages the 
development and implementation of innovative instructional techniques. 
It also encourages instructional improvement in key subject areas such 
as math and science.
  S. 1513 contains a number of worthy programs, several of which I 
would like to highlight. First, the largest Federal elementary and 
secondary education program, chapter I, is a formula grant program that 
provides supplemental educational and related services through State 
and local organizations to improve the achievement of educationally 
deprived children from preschool through high school.
  Second, the Early Childhood Transition and Even Start Programs will 
help children under 8 years of age to be better prepared when entering 
elementary school. The Early Childhood Transition Program provides 
transition services for children who have participated in Head Start or 
other early childhood programs. This is vital to ensure that the gains 
made by early childhood programs are not lost as these children enter 
elementary school. The Even Start Program combines early and adult 
education to families with parents without a high school diploma or 
GED. This helps build partnerships within families so that family 
members reinforce and encourage each other to learn.
  Third, S. 1513 will continue to improve educational programs for 
migrant children and to improve interstate and intrastate coordination 
and transfer of student records.
  Fourth, this legislation includes grants which will foster the use of 
technology applications in our schools, professional development in 
educational technology, and technology-related services in public 
libraries and literacy programs. The Star Schools Program provides 
access to telecommunications systems for rural schools to improve 
access to educational instruction through the development and 
acquisition of telecommunications equipment and instructional 
programming. The use of technology in education will help America 
remain globally competitive, and I am very supportive of this program.

  Fifth, the Inexpensive Book Distribution Program will be contained 
under this legislation. This program is operated by Reading is 
Fundamental [RIF], which is associated with the Smithsonian 
Institution. It is estimated that in 1995, approximately 6 million 
books will be distributed to nearly 2 million children. This program 
inspires children to read and motivates parents to be involved in the 
achievements of their children.
  Finally, in order for our children to be successful in education they 
must live in a safe and drug-free environment. The Improving America's 
Schools Act provides assistance to help prevent the illegal use of 
alcohol and other drugs and to prevent violence in and around schools. 
It expands the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1986 to include 
violence prevention. This is a worthy program that deserves our 
support.
  These programs are among the many worthy programs authorized by this 
legislation.
  Mr. President, as you know, I have concerns with the role of the 
Federal Government in our educational system. I am particularly 
concerned about the establishment of a Federal curriculum and 
limitations on the flexibility that is critical in allowing States to 
address local needs.
  However, on balance, I believe this legislation seeks to provide a 
high-quality education for all Americans. It provides critical 
resources to help economically disadvantaged children achieve their 
educational goals. It also encourages innovation in addressing the 
diverse educational needs our children face.
  I am a strong supporter of education reform. I believe the education 
we provide to our children and future generations of children is one of 
the most important gifts we can give them.
  Again, I intend to support S. 1513 in its current form. However, I 
must again caution my colleagues against amendments that call for 
excessive Federal regulatory requirements, as well as Federal mandates 
not funded by the Federal Government.


                    school prayer amendments to esea

  Mr. DURENBERGER. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Kassebaum 
school prayer amendment and in opposition to the Helms amendment.
  Mr. President I commend both my colleagues, Senator Helms and Senator 
Kassebaum for working on the critical issue of school prayer. Like my 
colleagues I have been concerned about the abuse of the Constitution 
that has resulted in attempts to forbid any religious expression in 
public schools. In am heartened by the Court's recent attempts to 
restore the appropriate balance between the free expression of religion 
and the establishment clause.
  Today I vote my preference for the Kassebaum approach because I think 
it very creatively deals with the problem found in the Helms amendment.
  The only problem with the Helms amendment, in my mind, was that it 
forced school administrators to reach difficult constitutional 
conclusions with an enormous stake riding on their ability to guess 
correctly. I support the goal of the amendment to condition Federal 
support on an appropriate respect for the constitutional rights of 
students who want to pray in school. But I was troubled, in the final 
analysis, by the possibility that a school administrator, who tried in 
good faith and to the best of his or her ability to discern the 
constitutionality of any given proposal, could lose Federal funds 
because he or she did not accurately predict the outcome of a 
constitutional issue.
  The Kassebaum amendment cures this defect. It gives the school 
administrator a way to make decisions in good faith when there is no 
specific guidance on the constitutionality of a proposal without 
placing their Federal funding on the line. But, like the Helms 
amendment, it gives real teeth to the requirement that schools not 
interfere with constitutionality protected prayer.
  Mr. President, I applaud the efforts of the Senator from North 
Carolina to keep this issue before the Senate. And I applaud the 
Senator from Kansas for her creative solution to the dilemma that 
school administrators might have faced under the Helms amendment.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Kassebaum approach to this 
important issue.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina, [Mr. Helms], 
is recognized.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I have just come from the White House, where I was 
witness to an inspiring event. As I told Senators in the policy 
luncheon today, I was going down to join in welcoming the number one 
girls' basketball team in America--the Lady Tarheels from the 
University of North Carolina. I have heard it mentioned that last year, 
the men's basketball team was number one in the NCAA. They were not 
number one this year, because Arkansas beat them.
  But there were those young ladies, and most of them tower over the 
President and me. I think I shall never forget the picture--and it may 
be in the papers tomorrow morning--of the President looking up at a 
lovely young woman, one of whom won the game back in March, in the last 
seven-tenths of a second. She made a three-pointer and won the game and 
the championship for the ladies of the University of North Carolina's 
basketball team.
  In talking with these young ladies and with the coach, we began 
wandering off the subject of basketball and wandering onto the state of 
the Nation, if you will. I found that each one of these ladies is 
dedicated in terms of moral and spiritual values. A couple of them 
said, ``Senator, are you going to offer your prayer amendment again any 
time this year?'' I said, ``I am.'' They said, ``We hope it passes.'' 
Well, I share that hope, because that is what I intend to do right now.
  But first, Mr. President, may I ask if the pending business is the 
amendment of the Senator from Kansas?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. HELMS. It is necessary to set that aside temporarily. Can I do 
that by second-degreeing her amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Kassebaum amendment is open to further 
amendment in the second degree.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
  I ask for the yeas and nays on the Kassebaum amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.


                Amendment No. 2416 to amendment No. 2415

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms], for himself, 
     Mr. Lott, Mr. Nickles, and Mr. Smith, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 2416 to amendment No. 2415.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the appropriate place, add the following:

     SEC.  . PROHIBITION AGAINST FUNDS FOR PROTECTED PRAYER

       Notwithstanding any provision of law, no funds made 
     available through the Department of Education under this Act, 
     or any other Act, shall be available to any State or local 
     education agency which has a policy of denying or which 
     effectively prevents participation in, constitutionally 
     protected prayer in public schools by individuals on a 
     voluntary basis. Neither the Untied States nor any State nor 
     any local educational agency shall require any person to 
     participate in prayer or influence the form or content of any 
     constitutionally protected prayer in such public schools.

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, as we were discussing at the White House 
with those young people today, America is in the midst of a historic 
struggle between those who see this Nation as having been rooted in 
Judeo-Christian morality, people who yearn for a restoration of the 
traditional values passed down by the Founding Fathers on one side; and 
on the other side, those who intentionally, or unintentionally, or by 
benign neglect, would discard the moral and spiritual values in favor 
of something called ``moral relativism,'' and that is really a 
struggle, I think, for the soul of America.
  Jenkin Lloyd Jones, of the Tulsa Tribune, many years ago wrote an 
editorial which must have been reprinted a million times, entitled 
``What Has Happened to the Soul of America?''
  That question is relevant today, even more so. How this struggle is 
resolved will--many of us are convinced--determine whether America will 
succeed and prosper, or whether America will disappear into the dustbin 
of history.
  I am gratified, for one, that the American people, in poll after 
poll, confirm that they recognize what is at stake. And by a wide 
margin--anywhere from 75 to 80 percent--they want school prayer 
restored. I might add that since the first time that the Senate passed 
this amendment, 75-22, if I am correct in the figures, we must have 
received 10,000 pieces of mail, and almost that many telephone calls, 
from people wanting to know if I wanted to try it again and on what 
legislation. And, of course, I told them on this piece of legislation--
the elementary and secondary education bill.
  I was encouraged back in February when the Senate voted 75-22 to 
approve an amendment to prevent public schools from prohibiting 
constitutionally protected, voluntary, student-initiated school prayer.
  Despite this vote and a 367 to 45 vote in the House of 
Representatives to instruct its conferees to support the Senate school 
prayer amendment that had been approved by the Senate, as I said 75 to 
22, despite all of that, a little hanky-panky occurred in conference, 
and the amendment was dropped. I had plenty to say about that, and so 
did several other Senators, just before Easter when the conference 
report on that bill came back.
  I was dismayed, frankly, as author of that amendment, as was Senator 
Lott, who was the principal cosponsor of the amendment, that our 
amendment was dropped in the closing seconds of the conference between 
the House and the Senate. There was no debate. There was no discussion. 
There was no vote. Just a wink and a nod, between the Senator from 
Massachusetts and his counterpart on the House side who by obvious 
prearrangement dropped the amendment and substituted in its stead do-
nothing language. In other words, they gutted the provision.
  The House as a whole rejected the do-nothing amendment that the 
Senator from Massachusetts and his House counterpart put in that 
conference report earlier this year.
  Now, when that do-nothing text, that precise amendment, I might 
emphasize, was offered to the House version of this bill, the 
underlying bill, H.R. 6, the House rejected it overwhelmingly 179 to 
239.
  So what do we have here the second time around? The will of the 
overwhelming majority of both the Senate and the House was deliberately 
overturned and the wishes of the American people--75 to 80 percent of 
them in every poll I have seen support voluntary prayer in school--were 
cast aside. What they thought, what they wanted, what they desired did 
not matter. A wink and a nod and away the amendment went.
  We ought to see if that happens again. Many Senators on that Friday 
night--just before Easter when the Senate was in session until after 
midnight--stood on this floor and were highly critical of the arrogance 
of the Senator from Massachusetts and his cohort in the House of 
Representatives when the conference report was brought up in the Senate 
immediately prior to that Easter recess.
  As I recall, one of the Nation's large, liberal newspapers lamented 
the fact that the Senate was being delayed in beginning its recess 
because, as the newspaper put it, something ``so trivial" --so 
trivial--as school prayer was taking up the time of the Senate.
  Mr. President, let me emphasize the way I feel about it. If we care 
about restoring America's principles and traditional values, the very 
foundation of this country from the beginning, if we care about the 
long-term survival of this country of ours, how could there be anything 
more important than for the Senate to spend a little time on the 
subject of protecting the right of America's children to participate in 
voluntary, constitutionally protected prayer in their school?
  And that is why, Mr. President, I have offered the pending amendment.
  So that there may be no misunderstanding about it, no 
misinterpretation of it, let me read the amendment into the Record 
again. The clerk has already read it very clearly, but you are going to 
hear a lot of ``who struck John'' about how my amendment is terrible. 
Well, it is not terrible at all.
  The amendment pending says:

       Notwithstanding any provision of law, no funds made 
     available through the Department of Education under this Act, 
     or any other Act, shall be available to any State or local 
     educational agency which has a policy of denying or which 
     effectively prevents participation in, constitutionally 
     protected prayer in public schools by individuals on a 
     voluntary basis. Neither the United States nor any State nor 
     any local educational agency shall require any person to 
     participate in prayer or influence the form or content of any 
     constitutionally protected prayer in such public schools.

  That is the amendment. It includes a modification suggested by the 
Senator from Massachusetts last February who then voted for it when it 
passed the Senate, and then when it got into conference the hanky-panky 
began.
  This is the precise language which the Senate approved 75 to 22 on 
February 3 of this year. I repeat that for emphasis.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the rollcall vote on 
school prayer on February 3, to which I allude, be printed in the 
Record immediately before the vote on the pending amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
  Now, then, Mr. President, I reiterate that this exact language was 
approved by the House of Representatives 345 to 64 as an amendment to 
their version of the elementary and secondary education bill, H.R. 6, 
meaning that if the Helms-Lott-Dole-Nickles-Smith amendment is approved 
today, surely no conferee on the underlying bill will again be brazen 
enough to attempt to drop the amendment in conference.
  So that there will be no misunderstanding as to the implications of 
this amendment, I will remind Senators what it does not do.
  It does not mandate school prayer. It does not require schools to 
write any particular prayer. It does not compel any student in any 
school to participate in any prayer against his or her wishes. It does 
not prohibit school districts from establishing appropriate time, 
place, and manner restrictions on voluntary prayer--the same kind of 
restrictions that are placed on other forms of free speech in the 
schools.
  What the amendment does do is prevent school districts from 
establishing official policies or procedures with the intent of 
prohibiting students from exercising their constitutionally protected 
right to lead or participate in voluntary prayer in school.
  I will tell you why this amendment is essential: All over this 
country school administrators either are confused or claim to be 
confused about what students' rights are in terms of this issue. The 
Helms-Dole-Lott-Nickles-Smith amendment, which is pending, will make it 
perfectly clear, because this amendment will tell them you better not 
prevent individuals from praying without studying the law, not popular 
myths, about what is and is not constitutional. The amendment will make 
it really clear to school officials who claim to be--but are truly--
confused. A lot of them may be legitimately confused because there are 
conflicting signals coming out of Washington, DC, mainly because of a 
lot of things that are said on this floor that simply are not true.
  What the amendment does do--I reiterate--is prevent school districts 
from establishing official policies or official procedures with the 
intent of prohibiting students from exercising their constitutionally 
protected right to lead or participate in voluntary prayer in the 
school.
  That, Mr. President, will be its immediate impact because, as I said, 
this exact language is already in the House version.
  In the long-term, the amendment's impact will be to help reverse the 
breakdown in our Nation of traditional morality and respect for human 
life and love for our fellow man.
  I was gratified, as I know other Senators were, to note in the media 
the activities of a great many young people in Washington who are 
turning back toward moral and spiritual values, and I want to take my 
hat off, if I had one on, to the black ministers of Washington, DC, who 
have also been pushing for school prayer. They are not being fooled 
about the cause of violence, the cause of immorality, or the cause of 
the breakdown in traditional values. They know what has happened, and 
they are doing something about it. And I am proud of them and I want 
them to know it.

  Looking back in time for just a moment, I, for one, believe it is 
possible, Mr. President, to pinpoint the precise time when the decline 
of America began. It began with the Supreme Court's 1962 decision 
banning school prayer. That is when America reached the slippery slope 
and looked down and then continued, and the importance of moral and 
spiritual values faded into the background.
   Those of us who are in roughly my age bracket remember a woman named 
Madalyn Murray. She is now Madalyn Murray O'Hair. She is the lady who 
invited known Communists into her home, who then assisted her with the 
lawsuit that ended up in the Supreme Court and resulted in the banning 
of voluntary prayer from the schools.
  Madalyn Murray. She had a little boy who was used as the pawn in this 
rolling of the dice. His name is Bill Murray.
  Along about 1980, Mr. President, I went with the candidate for 
President that year to Dallas for an appearance. After the appearance 
was over, I went to a hotel restaurant to see if I could get a sandwich 
before going to bed. A nice-looking young man came up and shook hands 
with me as I was standing in line.
  He said, ``I just want to introduce myself and thank you for what you 
are trying to do. My name is Bill Murray.''
  We had an athletic director at Duke University named Bill Murray. I 
said, ``Is your dad the athletic director at Duke?''
  He said, ``No, sir. My mother is Madalyn Murray O'Hair.''
  I said, ``Well, you are--``
  He said, ``That's right. I'm the little boy who was made the focal 
point. She did not want me to be exposed to prayer in school.''
  We sat and talked that evening and shared a sandwich together. I 
found out that Bill Murray was conducting a ministry. He was going 
around the country saying, ``I love my mother, but I apologize for what 
she did.'' He said, ``You know, it is interesting to watch the news 
media.'' He elaborated, ``When I get down to the business of how this 
effort was contrived in my mother's home and by whom, the television 
lights go off and the notebooks are snapped shut, and you never hear 
anything about it.''
  I still correspond with Bill, and I think his ministry is doing well.
  But I think it is quite interesting that the focal point of the 1962 
decision--and there was more than one of them--is now going around 
apologizing for what his mother did. He still loves his mother, but he 
regrets what she did and he regrets that she used him.
  In the publication entitled ``The Index of Leading Cultural 
Indicators,'' a publication prepared by Bill Bennett, former Secretary 
of Education, Bill documents the cultural breakdown of our society over 
the past 20 years or so. Senators who review this publication will see, 
for example, that between 1972 and 1990, teenage pregnancy almost 
doubled, from 49.4 per thousand to 99.2 per thousand. Teenage abortions 
increased from 19.9 to 43.8 per thousand in the same period.
  So is there any real wonder that we see such trends when our schools 
actively prohibit prayer and reading from the Bible, and then turn 
around and distribute condoms to students? What kind of signal are we 
sending to the young people of this Nation when our Government forbids 
their prayers, but pays for their condoms?
  Back to Bill Bennett's publication. He pointed out how at one time 
not too long ago school teachers were worried about their students 
``chewing gum, making noise'' or ``running down the halls.'' Today, 
teachers worry about their students abusing drugs, getting pregnant, 
being raped, assaulted, or shot in school or on the streets; or 
students bringing guns to school.
  I recall a 1993 survey of school superintendents in New York State. 
This survey was published by Time Magazine. Time Magazine listed the 
following instances of violence in the New York public schools in 1993. 
It might be worthwhile to read them into the Record.
  Disorderly conduct, 24,066; harassment, 19,535--now, these are acts 
committed in the schools--assault, 8,879; vandalism, 6,886; larceny, 
5,587; menacing, 5,445; weapon possession, 3,142; reckless 
endangerment, 3,119; robbery, 1,804; and sex offenses, 348.
  With all that going on, I think the ministers in the District of 
Columbia are properly saying to me and others, ``Why do we still hear 
voices saying, `Oh, no; prayer in the schools must not be permitted'?''
  Now, these voices insist that school children must not be allowed to 
begin their school day--just as we do in the U.S. Senate and as they do 
over in the House of Representatives--with a prayer. That is what the 
ACLU and the ACLU's allies here in the Senate see as the great threat 
to students--school prayer.
  Have we, as a society, learned nothing from the rising rates of crime 
and illegitimate birth, abortion, incest, poverty, teenage suicides, 
AIDS, and the tragic erosion of American citizens' traditional love and 
concern for their fellowman?
  All of these, I am absolutely persuaded, have a common thread: A 
collapse of moral and spiritual values in America. But I believe it is 
encouraging to know that 75 to 80 percent of the American people in 
every poll now strongly support the restoration of school prayer. They 
took the poll on the Helms-Lott-Nickles-Dole amendment, and there the 
support stood at 75 to 80 percent.
  Mr. President, 207 years ago--and I am going to wind up with this--a 
group of patriots, whom we now call our Founding Fathers, met in 
Philadelphia to try to work out an agreement on what was to become the 
Constitution of the United States. The story is a familiar one.
  I often say that every school board knows it, but I am not too sure 
of that now. I hope they are still teaching it.
  But, in any case, of those patriots, who met in Philadelphia 207 
years ago, few had any notion whatsoever about the importance of the 
task that they had undertaken and for which they had assembled. And, 
being human, everyone tried to get an advantage over all the others for 
their home States.
  You see some of that in the U.S. Senate in the year 1994--one-
upmanship. And that rubs on the nerves a little bit after awhile.
  Tempers began to flare; some of the delegates were beginning to get 
fed up and were making plans to get on their horses and get back to 
their homes.
  And it was then that a 81-year-old gentleman named Benjamin 
Franklin--he listened and shook his head--got up and said to his 
brethren, and I am quoting,

       In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were 
     sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for 
     Divine Protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard and they were 
     graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the 
     struggle must have observed frequent instances of a 
     superintending Providence in our favor.
       Have we now forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we now 
     imagine that we no longer need His assistance?

  And here is where he got down to brass tacks.

       I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the 
     more convincing proofs I see of this truth: That God governs 
     in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the 
     ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can 
     rise without His aid?
       We have been assured Sir, in the Sacred Writings that 
     except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build 
     it. I firmly believe this.

  Ben, wherever you are, I believe it, too.
  And then came Ben Franklin's final counsel and admonition to those 
assembled representatives:

       I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers 
     imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our 
     deliberation, be held in this assembly every morning.

  And they were held.
  Do you know something? It was not long before they worked out their 
little differences, these Founding Fathers of ours. And this Nation was 
born. The Constitution was completed, and signed. The delegates, you 
see, had gotten the message. They closed the doors and the windows, 
fell to their knees inprayer--and, of course, that was the beginning of 
the Miracle of America.
  After the delegates had finished their work, Dr. Franklin stepped 
outside where a great crowd had been milling. A lady rushed forward, 
tugged at the great statesman's jacket, and asked: ``What do we have, 
Dr. Franklin--a monarchy or a republic?''
  Dr. Franklin gazed into her eyes and replied: ``My dear lady, you 
have a republic--if you can keep it.''
  And that is the challenge to us today. We are trying desperately to 
keep a Republic. For more than 200 years, generation after generation 
knew about that and understood the precept. They met the challenge, I 
would point out, including individuals from a multitude of faiths, 
whether they were Protestant or Catholic, Moslem or Jew, Hindu or 
Buddhist, or countless others. But that was the day, you see, before 
the American Civil Liberties Union. Now, as we work our way through 
America's third century, we face this question: Can this great Nation, 
created with the assistance of Almighty providence, long survive if we 
as a nation turn our backs on God by allowing a small elite to prohibit 
voluntary prayer in schools--the very place where we try to educate and 
nurture future generations?
  Statistic after statistic shows that we cannot. And the betting is 
that we will not. That is why I urge Senators to change the tragic 
course we have taken by adopting the pending amendment. America's 
future is at stake.
  Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, before the Senator from North Carolina 
leaves the floor, I would just like to ask a couple of questions. The 
amendment of the Senator from North Carolina and my amendment are 
similar in one respect, we both protect the rights of students to 
engage in constitutional protected prayer. The Senator would agree with 
that?
  Mr. HELMS. That is correct. And that is why earlier today I suggested 
everybody vote for the amendment of Senator Kassebaum and also vote for 
the amendment of Jesse Helms.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Could I suggest to my good friend from North 
Carolina, that there is a major difference in our amendments. I would 
like to make sure everyone recognizes this. Much of what the Senator 
from North Carolina has spoken to--about the need to reinvigorate our 
educational system with a sense of responsibility and a respect for 
prayer, his thoughts on respect and tolerance for the views of others--
I certainly would agree with.
  But there is one very important difference in our amendments. In the 
Helms amendment, the children served by chapter 1 moneys, who are the 
lowest income and most disadvantaged of our students, would be deprived 
of moneys in cases where an arbitrary judgment is made by a specified 
party that school officials have prevented legal prayer.
  In my amendment that can only happen where there has been willful 
violation of the law. I suggest to the Senator from North Carolina that 
it troubles me a great deal that he proposes we can cut these funds--
which I think both of us would agree are important funds and which have 
helped the schools in North Carolina as well as Kansas--because of an 
inadvertent decision made by an individual teacher. And while we both 
support constitutionally protected prayer, it has become difficult to 
determine what is constitutionally protected.
  I believe it is absolutely essential that when it is determined that 
certain rights are protected and those rights have been violated, there 
should be a penalty. But when there is uncertainty, I think we do a 
real injustice to the students to deprive them of chapter 1 moneys, 
which are targeted to the poorest of our school districts. That is 
where there is a major difference between these two amendments. It is 
imperative that this difference be recognized because it is my 
understanding that a vote for Senator Helm's second-degree amendment 
could nullify mine as the first-degree amendment. I do not think they 
are compatible enough.
  Mr. HELMS. You are not correct about that. Mine is an add-on. The 
Senator's amendment will stand.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Feinstein). The Senator from North 
Carolina will----
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Madam President, I ask that I have a dialog with the 
Senator from North Carolina and get his response. I would be happy to 
get a response.
  Mr. HELMS. I will explain to the Senator the problem I find with her 
amendment. I think the lady knows I respect her. However, your 
amendment drags in Federal judges to make any initial decisions in 
favor of school prayer, but not for decisions against school prayer. I 
think the Congress of the United States ought to make such decisions.
  The amendment of the Senator says, ``Any State or local agency that 
is adjudged by a Federal court of competent jurisdiction to have 
willfully violated a Federal court order.'' We already have too many of 
our decisions being made by judges who ought not be on the bench in the 
first place. So, I have trouble with the Senator's amendment. But I 
have no objection to Senators voting for both of them if they wish.
  But I cannot say I look with great excitement on the Senator dragging 
in Federal judges to make decisions that should be made by the Congress 
of the United States. That is what we are paid to do.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Madam President, I thank the Senator from North 
Carolina. I suppose that we all could, at one time or another, make the 
argument that we do not agree with the Court.
  But I think that the language of the Senator from North Carolina puts 
at great risk turmoil within our school districts when it forces school 
administrators to determine what should be allowed, and cuts off 
Federal funds even if school administrators make good faith efforts to 
follow the law.
  So while it is very difficult to determine what is and what is not 
constitutional, it is not Congress' responsibility. It is the 
responsibility of those in school districts to make good-faith efforts 
and then it is the responsibility of the courts to acknowledge whether, 
indeed, it is constitutional.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. HELMS. Madam President, let me respond to what the Senator said 
about my amendment, please.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized. We 
are going from one side of the aisle to the other.
  Mr. SIMON. Madam President, I would be pleased to yield to the 
Senator from North Carolina for the sole purpose of responding.
  Mr. HELMS. Madam President, we are going to get down to brass tacks 
on this, and I say this with great affection and respect. Under the 
Senator's amendment, the enforcement of a child's right voluntarily to 
pray in school could very well not be vindicated until years after that 
child has graduated from high school.
  As I have said, the Kassebaum amendment will not diminish the impact 
of my amendment, so I will not be upset if both are adopted.
  But there are significant differences in how the two amendments 
approach the issue of school prayer and, thus, in the help they will 
actually provide students who have had their constitutional rights 
violated. I say again, under the Kassebaum amendment, the enforcement 
of a child's right to pray voluntarily in the schools might not be 
vindicated until years after the child has graduated from high school. 
And even then, the Kassebaum amendment does not penalize the school 
district for all those years of violating the child's constitutional 
rights.
  Mr. President, under the civil rights laws, damages are given for 
violations of such rights both before and after the Federal courts 
render their judgment that indeed an individual's rights have been 
violated. Yet, the Kassebaum amendment--on the issue of violating 
rights to pray in school--would penalize schools only for violations 
that occur after a judgment is rendered against a school district. The 
violations which are the very basis for the court's judgment would go 
unpunished.
  In other words, a school district can go merrily along prohibiting 
children's rights for years, but will never pay a financial penalty for 
all those violations if the school complies with the court's final 
judgment. Even then, the school district can still violate the judge's 
order as long as they can show that they didn't violate the order 
``willfully.'' The bottom line is that there is no incentive to do the 
right thing before the court decree is issued--much less to do the 
right thing without having to be taken to court.
  And that has been the whole point of my amendment. Currently, the 
ACLU and their legal allies are exerting unbalanced pressure on school 
boards. They are in the legal driver's seat. They swoop down on any 
offending school district and threaten its officials with a lawsuit if 
any kind of voluntary student-initiated prayer or religious activity is 
even rumored.
  The Helms amendment--unlike the Kassebaum amendment--would provide a 
counterbalance to this pressure. Schools would have to consider an 
alternative consequence of any unconstitutional decision to disallow 
voluntary, constitutionally protected school prayer. The amendment 
creates a complete system of checks and balances to ensure that school 
districts do not shortchange their students one way or the other.
  Finally, Mr. President, after what occurred in the last conference on 
school prayer, it is almost guaranteed that no language dealing with 
school prayer will survive the conference on this bill either--unless 
the Senate adopts verbatim the same language the House passed on the 
bill. And that is why the pending amendment is verbatim the same 
language the House has already attached to their version of the bill--
H.R. 6--by a vote of 345 to 64.
  That is why those who oppose school prayer want the Senate to pass 
almost anything on the issue of school prayer--as long as it is 
different than the language of my pending amendment.
  A vote against my amendment on school prayer is a vote to kill school 
prayer in the upcoming conference on the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Reauthorization Act. Senators can vote for or against the 
Kassebaum amendment, but if they truly want school prayer to be 
restored in the schools, they must vote of the Helms amendment.
  Let us take on our responsibility as a U.S. Senate. Let us not say 
some Federal judge way out there somewhere in America who exercises one 
man's or woman's judgment is going to decide something we have the 
responsibility to decide.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Madam President, just if I may respond, it is not at 
all clear that Senator Helms' amendment would provide a faster remedy.
  Mr. HELMS. Just a minute. Who has the floor?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized and 
had yielded. The Senator from Illinois now has the floor.
  Mr. SIMON. Madam President, I respect the sincerity of my colleague 
from North Carolina and those who advocate this. My colleague from 
North Carolina happens to have his office right next to mine and, among 
many other virtues he has, he is just good to people, whether they come 
from Illinois or North Carolina or California, or where they are. I 
appreciate it.
  I remember when I served in the House, we had a House Member who was 
mean to elevator operators and other people, and pages and others. One 
day, he came to me and said he needed help on something and I said, 
``I'm going to tell you real candidly why I'm not going to help you.'' 
It is because he was not good to people.
  My colleague from North Carolina is good to people, and I genuinely 
respect him for that. But I also believe he is wrong on this amendment.
  What he is saying is that we should have mandated voluntary prayer. 
There is some inconsistency in having mandated voluntary prayer. From 
the people who are always against Federal mandates, all of a sudden we 
are going to have a Federal mandate that affects all the schools.
  I think this is unwise. Senator Helms says the Federal judges are 
going to be making the decision on the Kassebaum amendment. His 
amendment has this phrase in it that it would require school districts 
to have constitutionally protected prayer. Who makes the decision as to 
what is constitutionally protected prayer? Well, it would be the 
Federal judges who would make that decision.
  I respect those who want to see a greater spiritual life in our 
country. My father was a Lutheran minister. My brother is a Lutheran 
minister. But we should not expect our schools to do what our homes and 
our churches and our synagogues and our mosques are doing. That is 
something we ought to be doing individually. I do believe that this 
amendment, even if it were to be adopted, violates the criteria that 
has been set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court.
  When we ask the schools to get into this business of religion, I 
think we have to remind ourselves, believe it or not, in Nazi Germany, 
they had required religion in the schools. Somehow something did not 
click because that is not where we are going to acquire religion.
  And then finally, Madam President, when we get down to this business 
of prayer, we have to ask, whose prayer is it? Is it Roman Catholic, is 
it Presbyterian, is it Jewish? We now have, for example, in this 
country, believe it or not, according to the last census, more Moslems 
than we do Presbyterians. We have more Buddhists than we have 
Episcopalians. Whose prayer are we going to use?
  I think we get into a very, very delicate area when we mandate 
voluntary prayer. I think there is an inconsistency in the very phrase 
``mandated voluntary prayer.'' But that is what this amendment calls 
for.
  I think, with all due respect for my friend from North Carolina, this 
amendment should be defeated.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  The Senator from Kansas.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Madam President, I know that Senator Hatfield --and 
there have been others--has been waiting. If I can get the attention of 
the Senator from Oregon for a moment, he has been in the middle of some 
appropriations meetings. Perhaps he can speak next for a few moments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
  Mr. HATFIELD. Madam President, I will be very brief, and I appreciate 
my colleague from Rhode Island permitting me to inject a few remarks at 
this time.
  We are dealing with, of course, a very personal issue in matter of 
prayer. We are dealing with the issue of protecting religion and 
religious convictions.
  I must say very frankly that I oppose all prescriptive prayer of any 
kind in public schools. Does that mean I am against prayer? No, it does 
not mean that at all. I am very strong in my belief in the efficacy of 
prayer. But I must say that there is no way this body or the 
Constitution or the President or the courts could ever abolish prayer 
in the public schools. That is an impossibility. I often use, somewhat 
facetiously, the example and experience of having prayed my way through 
every math course examination I ever took. I was not praying to the 
teacher. I was not praying to my fellow students. I was engaging in 
silent prayer to God, who I thought was more powerful than I and all 
the students put together.
  All I am saying is that this can be very personal, and silent prayer 
is happening all the time. I am not sure that I know of anything in any 
of the great religions that requires audible prayer to validate the 
efficacy or the importance of prayer. I can pray silently, or I can 
pray verbally and audibly.
  So I think we get ourselves into a great thicket of trying to 
prescribe parameters surrounding prayer in public schools. The Senator 
from Illinois asked the question: Whose prayers? I have also sometimes 
said facetiously, I do not have the time to write the prayers for the 
schools and I do not trust anybody else to write them. That is my 
religious heritage, always questioning ecclesiastical authority as well 
as political authority.
  So I would like to say that prayer is being given everyday in public 
schools throughout this country--silent prayer, personal prayer that in 
no way could we ever abolish even if we wanted to.
  So I do not see any great crises about the right of prayer in public 
schools.
  I also feel very strongly, Madam President, that when we begin to 
talk about personal prayer again, we should remember that it is a 
matter of free speech as well as freedom of religion. I happened to 
coauthor here on the Senate side the Equal Access Act legislation, 
coming from the Widmar case of the University of Missouri, where the 
university had provided access to facilities on the campus for students 
to voluntarily congregate in pursuing a common interest. But, when they 
wanted to get together for a Bible study, the university ruled against 
that; that was religion.
  The Supreme Court very quickly handled that case by saying wherever 
the institution of learning gives a right to forum, they have no right 
to dictate the subject of the forum, and upheld the right of students 
to voluntarily gather themselves together for Bible study on that 
campus.
  We took the same principle of the Widmar case, and we applied it to 
the secondary school system of this country under the Equal Access Act. 
If the school before or after hours provides an opportunity for 
students to voluntarily gather themselves using facilities of the 
school for a particular interest, for a camera club, music club or 
whatever it might be, those students should have the same right to 
gather themselves together for prayer or Bible study.
  Now, that is a free speech issue, but like many of our freedoms it 
also correlates to the freedom of religion. I would like to see us move 
beyond and outside of this particular debate because I do not see the 
necessity for this Senate to take any action--any action--on the 
subject of school prayer. If there are those schools that are 
unfriendly to religious practices or free speech, then let that be 
handled through the individual communities and through the legal 
authorities in each of those communities with injunctions or whatever 
remedy may be issued by the court. We do not have to cut off funds to 
enforce court actions.
  So I believe that the simplest and best way to deal with this subject 
is to take no action relating to school prayer. Let students continue 
to pray as they do now, silently as a undeniable personal right.
  Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Madam President, I commend the Senator from Oregon for 
his remarks. I completely agree with him. I do not think this is an 
area in which the Senate of the United States ought to be involved.
  What I would like to do is just take a quick look, if I might, Madam 
President, at what this amendment does. This is really a draconian 
amendment. What it says is that notwithstanding any provision of the 
law, no funds from the U.S. Department of Education--no funds for Head 
Start, no funds for chapter one, no funds for literacy, no funds for 
anything that comes through the Department of Education--shall be 
available to any State or local educational agency which has a policy 
of effectively preventing participation in constitutionally protected 
prayer.
  Now, the problem arises, Madam President, in determining exactly what 
constitutionally protected prayer is. It is a fuzzy area that is very 
difficult to define. Yet what this amendment will do is to put a 
tremendous burden on every local school department and every local 
school committee to try to figure out what that definition is.
  In our State, we have 39 cities and towns and each one of them has a 
school committee, although in some instances, two towns combine to have 
one common high school, for example. But basically, I believe we have 
some 36 different school entities in our State. And under this 
amendment administrators at each one would have to try to figure out 
what is constitutionally protected prayer.
  Now, we had a case come up on this, Madam President, in our State. At 
the Nathan Bishop Middle School--actually, that is the middle school 
that I went to--graduation a few years ago they had a benediction, and 
it was objected to. The matter was taken to the courts because nobody 
could figure out whether that graduation prayer was all right. Was it 
constitutional or was it not constitutional? Did it violate the first 
amendment or not?
  The case was filed in June 1989. In January 1990, the district court, 
our district court in the State of Rhode Island, said that benediction 
violated the U.S. Constitution. So one court spoke. But then the case 
was appealed.
  Six months later, in July 1991, it went to the First Circuit Court of 
Appeals up in Boston. Three judges sat on the case, and in the decision 
they split two to one, which is not a very clear signal. And there they 
said they agreed that, yes, the benediction was a violation. But with 
dogged determination the school board appealed to the U.S. Supreme 
Court. Now, this is getting fairly expensive by this stage. And in June 
1992, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision. After 4 years of 
litigation and three court rulings, they decided in a close 5 to 4 
decision that, yes, that benediction did violate the Constitution of 
the United States.
  The total cost to the city of Providence, which like many others is a 
community that is having difficulty properly funding its schools, was 
$110,000. And actually I think they probably must have gotten some kind 
of break on legal fees to go all the way to the Supreme Court for 
$110,000. That was money which could well have been better spent not on 
lawyers, but on children's school books and school equipment.
  So after all of this, the decision came down from the U.S. Supreme 
Court that the Nathan Bishop benediction was in violation of the 
Constitution. Now, what is my point? My point here, Madam President, is 
if the courts themselves have such trouble with defining 
constitutionally protected prayer, how is a school administrator to 
tell what is a constitutionally protected prayer in his or her public 
school? It is very, very difficult to tell. It is a murky area with no 
clear definition. Indeed, I would point out that we have a very 
prestigious First Circuit Court of Appeals, and yet even they divided 
on the subject.
  Just to make it even more confusing, 6 months after this decision 
from the U.S. Supreme Court on the Nathan Bishop case, the fifth 
circuit came out with what seems to be a contradictory ruling. Now, 
obviously they do not think it is a contradiction. They probably think 
they are following the Supreme Court of the United States as they are 
duty bound to do. But nonetheless their decision only added to the 
confusion out there as to what is permissible under the Constitution 
and what is not.
  Madam President, I think this is really going too far, to say that 
school administrators must now act as constitutional experts. They are 
meant to be running schools and educating children. And thank goodness 
that that is what they are meant to be doing. I hate to see them having 
to divert their time and energy into making calls on whether this one 
is a constitutionally protected prayer and that one is not, always 
knowing that if they make a call one way or the other, it is probably 
going to be appealed or taken to the courts--as happened at the Nathan 
Bishop Middle School.
  So, Madam President, I think this is an amendment we should not have. 
I know it passed here earlier this year, and this amendment is 
substantially the same amendment as the one we voted on earlier. I can 
say I voted against it, and I am glad I did. However, it passed very 
substantially, and I think that was unfortunate. I hope everybody who 
voted for this amendment back in February of this year would think of 
the confusion that it will bring to our schools. Our public schools 
already are dealing with every kind of problem known to man. Why, they 
have guns in the corridors. They have children with drug problems. They 
have teenage pregnancy. All of these problems the administrators are 
trying to tackle while at the same time providing a good education for 
the youngsters in their charge.
  On top of all these problems comes the question of constitutional 
school prayer. Under this amendment not 1 cent from the Department of 
Education would be available to any school committee if it denies--even 
inadvertently--participation in constitutionally protected prayer.
  In my State of Rhode Island, a small State with a total population of 
1 million, we could lose a good amount of money. The total federal 
funds for the State are $60 million. I suspect that the city of 
Providence could be risking millions of dollars. That is very, very 
important money to that school system.
  So, Madam President, I urge that my colleagues vote against this 
amendment. Frankly, I think we ought to stay out of this whole business 
of this body trying to dictate what takes place in school prayer in the 
various schools throughout our Nation.
  I want to thank the Chair.
  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Lott], is 
recognized.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I rise to support the Helms amendment. I 
would like to begin by doing a couple of things; that is, by reading 
what we are actually talking about here.
  First, I want to read the Helms amendment. Maybe it has already been 
read. It is worth listening to again. I want to emphasize that this is 
the same amendment we voted on earlier this year.

       Notwithstanding any provision of law, no funds made 
     available through the Department of Education under this act, 
     or any other act, shall be available to any State or local 
     educational agency which has a policy of denying, or which 
     effectively prevents participation in, constitutionally 
     protected prayer in public schools by individuals on a 
     voluntary basis. Neither the United States nor any State nor 
     any local educational agency shall require any person to 
     participate in prayer or influence the form or content of any 
     constitutionally protected prayer in such public schools.

  I do not understand what is the great fear of that language. In that 
regard, I thought maybe we should read the Constitution, particularly 
the first amendment. We have different interpretations of it. But it is 
pretty clear:

       Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
     religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

  We seem to have forgotten the second part of that phrase, ``. . . or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof.''
  I know that there is disagreement. Any time you get two lawyers in a 
room, you have disagreement. So you have Constitution scholars, 
lawyers, and educators who will always get into great detail about what 
cannot be done and how it must be done. But the people out there in the 
real world just feel as if the opportunity for voluntary prayer is 
something they ought to have.
  We are up here arguing all of the constitutional niceties. But those 
people in the real world read the Constitution. They have heard what 
the Constitution says. They do not understand why we should not be able 
to have voluntary prayer in our schools.
  The speeches you have heard from the Senator from Rhode Island and 
the Senator from Missouri are excellent, eloquent speeches. And others 
are going to speak.
  I want to emphasize that everyone who has spoken against this 
amendment voted against it last time. I have the list. Every speaker 
opposed to the amendment was among the 22 who voted against it earlier 
this year; 75 U.S. Senators voted for this identical language the last 
time we voted on it.
  Let me run through a little of the chronology of what has happened on 
this amendment. On February 3, 1994, the Senate voted 75 to 22 in favor 
of this language as a part of H.R. 1804, the Goals 2000 bill. On 
February 23, 1994, the House voted 367 to 55 to instruct the House 
conferees on the Goals 2000 bill to accept the school prayer amendment 
which had been approved in the Senate. On March 17, 1994, the House and 
Senate Goals 2000 conferees dropped this language and substituted 
really do-nothing language.
  On March 21, 1994, the House voted 345 to 64 to add the language as 
an amendment to H.R. 6, the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Reauthorization Act. On March 23, the House voted 232 to 195 not to 
recommit the Goals 2000 bill and insist that it include the school 
prayer amendment. On March 25, the Senate voted 62 to 23, right before 
Easter, in a cloture vote to cut off the efforts by Senator Helms to 
restore the original language.
  So there is an interesting chronology. There are overwhelming votes 
repeatedly in the House and an overwhelming vote here in the Senate on 
this issue.
  I want to go back and read something that I read last year. We are 
arguing over the niceties of what may be allowable or not; let me just 
read this to you.

       Almighty God, we ask that you bless our parents, teachers, 
     and country throughout this day. In your name, we pray. Amen.

  Who does that horrify? Is there something wrong with that? That 
prayer was prayed by a young lady at Wingfield High School in Jackson, 
MS, last year on a voluntary basis by a vote of the students. They 
devised this language. She delivered it over the PA system. The 
principal, an African-American named Bishop Knox, was fired from his 
job because he allowed that prayer to be voluntarily developed by the 
students and presented over the PA system by a lady who I believe was 
president of the student body. And the principal was fired because he 
allowed it to happen.
  That was clearly a mistake. Here you had a principal that was willing 
to stand up for principle, for the students' rights, and he was fired 
in the process. As it turns out, after being out of work for about 6 
months or so, a judge has now ordered that he be reinstated, and I 
presume he will be reinstated with back pay.
  The argument was, ``Well, you know, we are not certain what the law 
might provide. You just should not have allowed that to occur.'' Where 
have we come? What have we wrought in this country? We pray every day 
here in the Senate--every day. We do not prescribe the prayer. It might 
be a Greek Orthodox priest or a Baptist preacher or Jewish rabbi. But 
we have it every day.
  Yet, our students in Wingfield High School in Jackson, MS, are told 
they cannot say that harmless prayer for their parents, their teachers, 
and their country. What are we doing here?
  We say, ``Oh, it is perfectly okay to have sex education.'' That goes 
way beyond anything I would ever approve of. It is all right to 
advocate condoms in the high schools. It is all right to have kids 
running up and down the halls carrying guns. It is not all right to try 
to get order and discipline in the schools.
  The headlines in Mississippi newspapers earlier this year:

       Seventh grader arrested after roaming halls with loaded 
     pistol.
       Philadelphia, MS, Central High School ninth grader shot a 
     classmate moments after the two were told to stop arguing and 
     go to class.

  I am saying this is something not only in Washington or New York or 
California. It is right in my home. I am not saying there is a direct 
parallel between prayer in schools and these other events. But there is 
a curious coincidence of how things have changed since I was in high 
school in the late fifties, when we had prayer every day at the 
beginning of the school day over the PA system. It was a part of 
getting everybody to sit down and be still and get order, and get in 
the proper frame of mind.
  I feel that from that moment to this, the quality of education, the 
discipline of education, the type of education, has all been going 
downhill.
  So I think constitutional scholars can make great arguments about 
what can be allowed and what cannot be allowed. All I know is because 
of some court decisions that we had in the sixties, and occasionally 
since then, it is uncertain when you can have a prayer, what you can 
say in the prayer, or who can say it. The net result is that there is 
less of it. The schools basically cannot have it. And 4,000 students, 
on their own, demonstrated after that principal at Wingfield High was 
fired because he stood up for the students.
  Do you know why it is important that we cut off funds? Because it is 
a violation of the Constitution when people are told that, in effect, 
they cannot pray. If a school violates the Constitution and prohibits a 
prayer like the one I just read, then I do think serious action should 
be taken.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Madam President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. LOTT. Yes.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I supported the Helms amendment before. I may do so 
again, or I may not. It depends on the answers. I hope that I do not 
stop learning.
  Who makes the decision as to whether or not the school board is 
prohibiting constitutionally protected prayer; the school district or 
the school principal?
  Mr. LOTT. I presume that could be done when it is requested, when a 
matter is of concern and people raise questions with Federal officials, 
through the administration. If that is not satisfactory, I presume it 
would go to court like the current efforts to try to block prayer.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. OK. Here is my question: A student, teacher, whatever, 
thinks they have a right to do a constitutionally protected prayer. It 
is an honest debated issue as to whether it is constitutionally 
protected or not. You are the principal. Do you say, ``That is 
constitutionally protected, go ahead''? Is that the end of it? Or does 
somebody say, ``The principal does not know what he is talking about, I 
am going to sue''? I want to know at what stage are funds cut off, when 
is a decision made, and does that decision become a decision upon which 
the funds can be cut off?
  Mr. LOTT. I presume if that suit is filed and it goes to court and a 
ruling is made, it would be cut off. Or if an investigation is made by 
the administration, and a determination is made, then the funds would 
likely be cut off.
  But think about it the other way around. Here is a principal that 
allowed a prayer to be offered, and he lost his job. That is when the 
decision was made.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I understand that. I agree that that was wrong. I am 
trying to find out who is going to make the decision. There was a 
famous cartoon in the New Yorker 10 or 15 years ago where there were 
two guys sitting in a bar, and the first says, ``We ought to line them 
up against the wall and shoot them.''
  Mr. LOTT. Who makes the decision now?
  Mr. PACKWOOD. The second person says ``Who?'' The third person says, 
``Commies, pinkos, radical libs.'' The second person says, ``No, who 
ought to line them up and shoot them?''
  I want to know who is going to make the decision that the prayer is 
not constitutionally protected? Are we going to have somebody in the 
Department of Education do it?
  Mr. LOTT. We very well could have. I do not feel particularly 
comfortable with the courts making that decision, but they may.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. They may. I am wondering. I do not know if I feel more 
comfortable with the Department of Education making that decision.
  Mr. LOTT. Somebody has to make that decision. I will tell you who I 
prefer make that decision: The students and the parents and the 
administrators at the local level are the ones who should make the 
decision.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. As to whether it is constitutional.
  Mr. LOTT. No, as to whether or not they want a prayer, or whether it 
is a voluntary prayer, or what goes into the prayer.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I have no quarrel with that. But you would not want 
them making the decision as to whether it was constitutional?
  Mr. LOTT. Unfortunately, that would have to be made by the courts, or 
by the Department of Education, or some lawyer in the Department of 
Education. Again, that does not make me very comfortable, but there 
must be some process.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I agree. If the process is a court process--and for 
better or worse I would rather settle it there--should the money be cut 
off before the finality of the court process?
  Mr. LOTT. I presume not. The determination has to be made.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Is that the distinction between the Helms amendment and 
the Kassebaum amendment?
  Mr. LOTT. I emphasize this, too. I understand what the Senator from 
Kansas is trying to do, and I plan to vote for her amendment. I think 
we need to have the clarification she is trying to get in her 
amendment. But I do not think that prohibits the second-degree 
amendment from being offered and accepted at the same time. I think 
they basically support each other.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Madam President, I hesitate to interrupt, but I have 
a question.
  Mr. LOTT. I will conclude, and I will yield the floor. I am sure we 
are going to have a lot more discussion, as we should, about exactly 
how this would work and who would make the determination. The 
determination has to be made at some point.
  I reiterate what I said in the beginning. What we are talking about 
here is whether or not a prayer like the one I read can be offered:

       Almighty God, we ask that You bless our parents, teachers, 
     and country throughout the day. In Your name we pray. Amen.

  That is all I am trying to accomplish. Do you have a better way to 
accomplish that and make sure it is allowed, without having the 
principal fired? I want to hear it. This amendment would allow it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Madam President, I ask the Senator from North Carolina 
a question in all seriousness. I am opposing the amendment of the 
Senator from Mississippi. The Senator knows I supported his amendment 
before. Who makes the decision?
  Mr. HELMS. Who makes it now?
  Mr. PACKWOOD. The courts.
  Mr. HELMS. They would make it in this case if it ever came up. You 
might say: What are you going to do if 40 skunks go running through the 
Chamber? Who is going to stop them? What are you going to do about this 
or that?
  The truth is that it is never going to come up because the principal 
will be freed of any reluctance to permit voluntary, constitutionally 
protected prayer.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. If she knows what it is.
  Mr. HELMS. He or she does not have to know what it is. If somebody 
does not like it, they challenge it. We put the shoe on the other foot.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I am curious. If a principal runs the risk and thinks 
to herself: I am not sure if this is constitutionally protected prayer, 
so I better allow it because my funds are going to be cut off. And she 
has to make the decision herself, as to whether funds are going to be 
cut off, and whether it is a constitutionally correct decision or not, 
she has to make it.
  Mr. HELMS. So what? Is it the end of the world if you have some 
children pray?
  Mr. PACKWOOD. No.
  Mr. NICKLES. Regular order, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon has the floor.
  Mr. NICKLES. The rule of the Senate is that Senators will speak 
through the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is correct.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I ask unanimous consent to speak to the Senator from 
North Carolina.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I want to make sure that the school principal is not 
put in a real Hobson's choice position.
  Mr. HELMS. Do not lose any sleep over it, Senator. It is not going to 
happen.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I am not sure.
  Mr. HELMS. Please worry about the Senator from Mississippi who is 
inspired for permitting it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senators to address the 
Chair rather than each other.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I asked unanimous consent to address him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct, you did. However, you should 
address it through the Chair.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I realize that is the rule.
  I ask unanimous consent that I might have a little colloquy with the 
Senator from North Carolina.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Thank you. You are the school principal, or I am the 
school principal. A student comes in, and they want to do a prayer. You 
are not sure if it is constitutional or not; you are not a 
constitutional expert. You are worried about arguing with the school 
board about money all the time. And you are afraid your money might be 
cut off if you prohibit a constitutionally protected prayer. Normally, 
that kind of a decision would not face a school administrator until a 
court had made a decision as to whether it is constitutional or not. It 
is unusual to put a school administrator in the position of losing his 
or her money ab initio, at the start, right now, if he makes the wrong 
decision. Unless you are saying that there really is no court review of 
this, you are going to lose your money now, and it does not matter what 
the court is saying later. This is confusing.
  Mr. HELMS. Please be not confused. The amendment does not even imply 
that. I am saying to you that we put the shoe on the other foot and 
give the advantage to the principals who want to permit the school 
prayer but who are intimidated and do not permit it now under the 
present situation.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. And we want to put the shoe on the other foot then, 
Madam President, by saying that they do not need to be intimidated. If 
they allow constitutionally impermissible prayer, the impermissible 
prayer will be allowed and the funding will continue until a court says 
no--if I understand it correctly.
  Mr. HELMS. Is the Senator asking me a question?
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Yes, because I am confused.
  Mr. HELMS. Please note that there is a question mark there.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Yes.
  Mr. HELMS. All right. The answer, of course, is that if you want to 
make legislative history, this thing will, of course, be decided--if 
such a farfetched scenario should occur--by the proper authorities, a 
judge, a Federal judge.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. The money would not be cut off until the judge makes 
that decision.
  Mr. HELMS. Of course not. It would be adjudicated.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. That is important history. As I read the amendment, it 
is going to be cut off before the adjudication.
  Mr. HELMS. How do you get that impression?
  Mr. PACKWOOD. It says:

       ``* * * no funds made available through the Department of 
     Education under this Act, or any other Act, shall be 
     available to any State or local educational agency which has 
     a policy of denying, or which effectively prevents 
     participation in, constitutionally protected prayer * * *.''

  If you are saying that the student wants to pray, the administrator 
says no. No. The principal says, no, you cannot do that. That is 
constitutionally impermissible. The student says it is permissible. And 
the principal says it is not permissible. That money is not cut off 
until that is adjudicated by a court.
  Mr. HELMS. How many times does the Senator think that case will 
happen?
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I do not know.
  Mr. HELMS. It will never happen. It will never happen.
  May I answer his question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
  The school principal is in the position now that if he makes the 
wrong decision, there comes the American Civil Liberties Union with the 
threat to take him to court and the principal will lose hundreds of 
thousands of dollars in school funds defending against the lawsuit.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. But he will lose----
  Mr. HELMS. I say it is a matter of the shoe being on the other foot. 
Now, the ACLU's threat of thousands of dollars in litigation expenses 
means that school principals almost always say no to school prayer even 
if it might be constitutionally permissible. My amendment balances the 
ACLU's threats by saying if the school principal automatically decides 
against constitutionally permitted prayer, the school could lose 
thousands of dollars in Federal funds. That is the intent of my 
amendment, to make school officials stop automatically capitulating to 
the ACLU's threats.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, will the Senator yield?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon has the floor.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Mississippi, 
yes.
  Mr. LOTT. He also runs the risk of losing his job. This is the point 
I am trying to make. Again, we are trying to shift the burden. Now all 
the pressure is not on allowing prayer.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Yes.
  Mr. LOTT. We would like the emphasis to be the other way where the 
principal would think: ``Look, the students want this prayer. I am 
going to allow it to go forward. And if someone does bring legal 
action, then so be it.''
  But now all the pressure is the other way. The pressure is against 
allowing prayer.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Here is what I want to make sure.
  Mr. LOTT. It is possible for permission to go the other way.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I want to make sure that no funds are going to be cut 
off until this is adjudicated. The fact that the principal says go 
ahead with the prayer and a lawsuit is brought, or a Department of 
Education person makes a decision you made a wrong decision, ``We are 
cutting off your funds,'' that will not happen. The principal can opt 
on the side of the prayer in school. In the long run it may be found to 
be unconstitutional, but the principal opts on the side of the prayer. 
They do not lose any money.
  Mr. LOTT. Right.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Kansas yield?
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I yield the floor.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I would just like to ask the Senator from Oregon a 
question. Did he not just make the case for my amendment, because under 
my amendment funds will be cut off only when a willful violation is 
found?
  Mr. PACKWOOD. That is what I thought.
  I did not know whether I was making the case for the Senator's 
amendment or not, because I thought initially, as I understood the 
amendment of the Senator from North Carolina, that the funds could be 
cut off before there is any judicial determination.
  The Senator's amendment says, in essence, you are reaching the same 
substance as he is on permissible prayer. You are in favor of 
permissible prayer. You do not want the school to run the risk of 
losing any money until the court says it is permissible or not 
permissible. It sounds like they are saying the same thing, but I am 
not sure.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I thank the Senator from Oregon.
  I do think he makes a point that there is a difference, because my 
language requires that funds be cut off only if there is a willful 
violation. Schools would not lose money if the schools followed the 
court's ruling and corrected the situation.
  So I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. DANFORTH. Madam President, I think that the answer to the point 
that was made by Senator Packwood is clear. The answer is that under 
our Constitution courts only can adjudicate real cases in 
controversies. Courts cannot, under our Constitution, give advice or 
opinions about some future state of affairs. They adjudicate cases. 
Cases are brought under sets of circumstances under complaints that are 
filed, stating certain facts that have already occurred, not asking for 
advice as to the future.
  So the only way that the Helms amendment can be read, is that a set 
of facts would occur and that the principal would have to guess as to 
whether those facts are constitutional or not constitutional.
  The way that this would come up in the real world is that students 
would ask to participate in some sort of prayer event. And the concern 
of the principal or the superintendent of that school district would 
be, ``Am I going to lose money?'' Any close call would be resolved in 
favor of letting the prayer go forward because otherwise the fear would 
be, ``I am going to lose my money.'' And maybe the principal would not 
want to do that.
  The Senator from Mississippi said he thought that this should be 
decided in the individual school districts. The fact of the matter is 
that this amendment is a Federal mandate. It is absolutely the typical 
Federal mandate. It says:

       ``Do things our way or you lose your money, not after a 
     court decides at some later event. You lose your money now.''

  That is the way a principal would have to decide it. Let us say that 
the principal is in a school district which is poor. In fact, the 
principal in question would be in a poor school district because poor 
school districts are the ones that get Government money, not the rich 
school districts. These are poor school districts. They probably do not 
have a wealth of legal talent to draw on. They probably cannot pick up 
the phone and call the leading law firm.
  So the principal or the superintendent is going to have to make a 
decision, not based perhaps on great constitutional analysis.
  The principal might decide, ``Well, if I had my own call, I would not 
want to have prayer going on in my school.''
  Let us say that this is not only a poor school district, which it 
almost certainly would be, but let us say that this happens to be a 
school where all hell has broken loose. Let us say that this is a 
school where there are gangs. Let us say that exactly the set of 
circumstances postulated by the Senator from Mississippi is the case in 
this school district. Kids hate each other. They carry guns to school, 
if they can get into school with guns. This is a violent type of 
situation. And let us say that there are some Protestant kids and some 
Catholic kids or some Christian kids and some Jewish kids, and they do 
not like each other. And the principal says, ``I would just as soon not 
have religion break out in this fashion in my school.''
  Some of the kids will say, ``Well, we want to have a classroom,'' or 
``We want to use the PA system to have our prayers. And the principal 
says: I really do not want that to happen. But I know what I cannot do. 
I cannot make a decision that risks losing my money, not in this poor 
school district. I cannot risk having my money turned off.''
  So the answer is: Go right ahead. Go right ahead and do it, not 
because I think it is a great idea, but because word has come down from 
on high that I must do it this way.
  Word from on high. Not, Madam President, from the heavens, but from 
the next level of on-highness, Washington, DC. The Congress of the 
United States has conditioned your Federal funds yet again on doing 
things our way.
  We have made the decision. We have heard it on the floor of the 
Senate. What is wrong with school prayer, we say? We are Senators. We 
have the answers. Oh, do not bother us, Madam Principal in Joplin, MO, 
or in Greenville, Ms. Please do not bother us with your opinion on 
this. We have made the decision, and the decision is, ``Why, prayer is 
good.''
  Madam President, obviously I believe that prayer is good. But I also 
believe that the very root for the word religion is the same root for 
the word ligament--it is what binds things together. But, 
unfortunately, in practice, religion is not necessarily what binds 
things together. Religion is often the cause of driving things apart. 
And it is true all over the world. We had the King of Jordan and the 
Prime Minister of Israel here in the Capitol yesterday. What is all 
that about?
  Or how about Northern Ireland, where Protestants and Catholics kill 
each other and people bomb school buses?
  Religion, unfortunately, can be that which drives people apart. And 
the great challenge in this diverse country is not to figure out new 
ways to drive people apart. It is to figure out how to hold people 
together.
  There are religious schools and they are wonderful schools. They are 
all over the country. People know what they are getting when they go to 
religious schools. But if it is not a religious school, the insertion 
of religion can drive people apart and create a lot of damage.
  The Senator from Mississippi read a prayer that was read in 
Mississippi. Was that a bad prayer?
  Quite frankly, it was not much of anything. It was kind of bland and 
innocuous. So what is so great about it? Are we saying, ``Well, what's 
wrong with religion, because, hey, here is a prayer that is bland and 
innocuous? We like innocuous prayers. Innocuous prayers are good. They 
cannot do any harm. They are bland. Who can take offense at something 
bland?''
  A lot of religious people would say, ``Well, that is not much of a 
prayer.''
  But when I think about this debate, I think about something that was 
not very bland. I did not think about it at the time, but when I was 
growing up I went to a private school in St. Louis. It was not a church 
school. It was just a private school. We had what we call chapel, but 
it was not really chapel. It was just sort of announcements and 
somebody would make a speech or something.
  But we would always start chapel with a hymn and a prayer. And the 
most popular hymn that we sang in that chapel was ``Holy, Holy, Holy.'' 
``Holy, Holy, Holy'' is a great Christian hymn. ``Holy, holy, holy, 
Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee,'' 
and so on.
  And there is a line in it, ``God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity.'' 
``God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity.'' Seemed OK to me.
  But there were Jewish kids in that school. There were Jewish kids in 
that school. And I think about that after the fact, and I think, What 
were we doing? What were we up to? Were we so insensitive about those 
kids that we sang that hymn?
  Religion is supposed to draw people together but, in the real world, 
it can drive people apart. And in the real world, things are falling 
apart as it is. In the real world, we have Farrakhan. In the real 
world, we have people who paint swastikas on synagogues. In the real 
world, we have racism. In the real world, we have people going every 
which way.
  And the great genius and the great challenge of this country is to 
keep that world from fracturing beyond all recognition. We are not 
going to do that if we have people uttering prayers in public schools.
  Senator Chafee asked, ``What is the definition of constitutionally 
protected prayer?'' Those are the words used in this amendment--
``constitutionally protected prayer.'' What does it mean?
  There is no manual on this. A principal cannot turn to a manual and 
say, ``Oh, constitutionally protected prayer. Well, I've looked it up. 
That is not permissible.'' Principals cannot do that. It is a very, 
very fuzzy situation.
  Try to figure it out. Call the finest law firm and try to figure it 
out, much less ask a principal what is constitutionally protected 
prayer.
  How is the principal supposed to know the answer to that question--is 
this constitutionally protected or is it not constitutionally 
protected?
  So a student comes into the principal's door and says, ``I want to 
use the PA system.'' Is that constitutionally protected?
  We have had votes in the Senate about whether Jewish soldiers can 
wear yarmulkes. I did not think they should, because I think that there 
has to be a degree of uniformity in the armed services.
  But is it constitutionally protected to wear a yarmulke?
  Would it be constitutionally protected if somebody said, ``My 
religion requires public testimonials. In exercising my religion, I 
believe in public testimonials. I have a constitutional right to do 
it.'' Is that constitutionally protected?
  ``You decide, Madam Principal or Mr. Superintendent, but you better 
decide in favor of constitutionality, because if you decided wrong and 
it is later adjudicated, too bad. You are in the poorhouse. You have 
guessed wrong. Close your doors.''
  This is not simply a matter of making things even in this question. 
This is a Government mandate--``Do it our way or lose money.''
  Government mandates do not make things even. Government mandates are 
designed to require some actions. And this particular Government 
mandate is designed to open up school prayer, particularly in poor 
school districts. This is not innocuous. It is not an innocuous 
amendment. It is a bad amendment. It is a pernicious amendment. It is a 
harmful amendment.
  Please, let no Senator come to the floor and say, ``This is 
innocuous. What's wrong with a little prayer?''
  It is a Government mandate. It is a Government mandate that will be 
obeyed. It is a Government mandate that will take decision making out 
of the hands of the local public school officials. And it is a 
Government mandate that may well cause more fracturing, more 
divisiveness, more problems, not less in our public schools.
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Simon). The Senator from Pennsylvania is 
recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri for 
that extraordinary presentation. Regretfully, Senator Danforth will not 
be with us next year and it may be that an amendment like this one will 
be offered again next year. It will be a surprise if it were not. And 
we will miss Senator Danforth for many reasons, but none more important 
than for the kind of presentation he has just made.
  I came early in the debate this afternoon and decided to stay and 
hear the arguments presented. There will soon be a time agreement, so I 
sought recognition now to make a few comments. But there is not a great 
deal more to be said on the basic approach and the importance of not 
having a government engaged in the establishment of religion than what 
Senator Danforth has already said.
  It is the very first line of the very first amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution, ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment 
of religion. * * *'' That now applies to the States as well. And 
Senator Danforth has outlined the reasons why it is important that 
there not be religion in the schools, which makes arguments just as it 
has made wars, as the references which the Senator from Missouri made 
to the enormously impressive ceremony in the Capitol yesterday when 
Israel's Prime Minister Rabin was present with Jordan's King Hussein to 
make peace. And the purpose of eliminating religion in our schools, 
eliminating the establishment of religion by the Federal or State 
government, is to promote tolerance, to recognize diversity in America, 
and to respect that diversity.
  The Statistical Abstract of the United States, based on the U.S. 
census, reports that 19 percent of the people in America are not 
Christian. There are some who talk about America being a Christian 
nation, but that just does not bear up under the statistics. Americans 
belong to other religions, or they do not subscribe to any of the 
Christian religions, so that about 50 million people in this country do 
not subscribe to the proposition that there is a Christian nation here.
  When Senator Danforth talked about prayers in the private school that 
he went to, which were insensitive to minorities, it reminded me of 
when I went to school in Wichita, KS, and heard school prayers when I 
was in the first grade, as I was on the other end of the line from what 
Senator Danforth describes.
  We have fought the issue of a constitutional amendment for school 
prayer, and it has been defeated in the U.S. Senate. I recall, in 1983, 
having that discussion with President Reagan, about what went on in 
schools in Illinois when he was in public schools and I was a youngster 
in public schools in Wichita, KS. We have moved to the point where the 
constitutional principle is firmly established, that there are severe 
limits as to school prayer.
  I think the discussion this afternoon has been of a very high level, 
almost uniformly. There has been a recognition by all of those who have 
spoken that there is a constitutional doctrine of separation of church 
and State. I think it is important that be recognized, as it has been 
recognized on the Senate floor today, because there are some in America 
who say that there is no constitutional doctrine of separation of 
church and State. There are some who say that it is a lie that there is 
a constitutional doctrine of the separation of church and State, that 
it is a lie of the left that there is a separation of church and State 
in America.
  There is no doubt about the constitutional doctrine of separation of 
church and State, and the Supreme Court's having made that clear by 
upholding Jefferson's statement that a wall of separation exists 
between church and State. It is a matter we often inquire into in some 
detail as, for example, during the confirmation hearings of Judge 
Breyer.
  It may be that there is not a great deal of difference between the 
amendment by the Senator from Kansas and the second-degree amendment by 
the Senator from North Carolina, as the conversation, as the dialog has 
evolved where there have been statements by a number of Senators--the 
Senator from Mississippi, the Senator from North Carolina--that it 
would take a judicial determination to know what is constitutionally 
permissible. But who knows what the Supreme Court across the green will 
do if they do not look to legislative intent and do not pay any 
attention to what the Congressional Record says for July 27, 1994? That 
is why I think the amendment offered by the Senator from Kansas is by 
far the more preferable.
  I voted against the amendment offered by the Senator from North 
Carolina back on February 3 of this year, and I did so because of my 
judgment that it was just not possible to tell what was 
constitutionally protected prayer. That is why I came over this 
afternoon, to comment about it in terms of a number of the cases which 
have been decided by the Federal courts after the Supreme Court handed 
down Lee versus Weisman, which left some latitude, perhaps, for prayer 
in school.
  There was a case in the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which 
upheld a school board resolution which provided that:

       The use of an invocation and/or benediction at high school 
     graduation exercise shall rest within the discretion of the 
     graduating senior class, with the advice and counsel of the 
     senior class principal; the invocation or benediction, if 
     used, shall be given by a student volunteer; and consistent 
     with the principle of equal liberty of conscience, the 
     invocation and benediction shall be nonsectarian and 
     nonproselytizing in nature.

  There was an opposite decision reached by the Court of Appeals for 
the Third Circuit.
  The fifth circuit decision is Jones versus Clear Creek Independent 
School District. An opposite decision was reached by the Court of 
Appeals for the Third Circuit in ACLU versus Blackhorse Pike Regional 
Board of Education.
  Similarly, opposite decisions have been reached by the U.S. District 
Court for the District of Idaho in a case captioned Harris versus Joint 
School District, in which that Federal court said that it was 
permissible to have a prayer where the senior students themselves, not 
the principal, determined every element of their graduation including 
whether or not a prayer would be a part of the ceremony, and if so who 
will say it. About the same kind of situation was turned down by the 
U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia in a case 
captioned Gearon versus Loudoun County School Board, where the court 
said that it was not sufficient to pass constitutional muster to have 
the prayer delivered by students, when they were student initiated, 
student written, and student delivered.
  So there is no easy definition as to what is constitutionally 
protected prayer. That is so because the Supreme Court of the United 
States said, in Lee versus Weisman, ``Our establishment clause 
jurisprudence remains a delicate and fact-sensitive one,'' which 
depends upon what the facts are in order to make a determination 
because of the delicacy of the judgment under the establishment clause.
  So it seems to me that it is important for the Senate to recognize 
the constitutional doctrine of separation of church and State. I think 
that has been done either explicitly or implicitly by every Senator who 
has spoken here this afternoon. And if we are to have a cutoff of 
public funds, it ought to be in accordance with our customary way of 
deciding disputes, when there is a judicial decision. That is the way 
we operate in the United States. That is why it is my view the 
amendment by the Senator from Kansas is preferable to the amendment by 
the Senator from North Carolina.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, as has been the case with the Senator from 
Pennsylvania, I think it appropriate to begin remarks in this 
connection with a reading of the first part of the first amendment to 
the Constitution. It says:

       ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
     religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof * * *.''

  In other words, in the Constitution there are two balanced provisions 
on religion in public life or with respect to laws which we pass: One 
on establishment, prohibiting such an establishment; and one on any 
kind of law which prohibits the free exercise of religion.
  It has been my conclusion over a number of years that the Supreme 
Court of the United States has not adequately or properly balanced 
these two considerations; that it has been so fierce in enforcing the 
establishment clause that it, for all practical purposes, at least 
within a school context and, to a certain extent, within a broader set 
of public context, has read out of the Constitution the free exercise 
clause itself.

  It is so exalted and expanded in its reading of the free exercise 
clause that we have reached the point at which religious speech of any 
kind is almost totally prohibited in a school context.
  Many of the recent decisions of the courts have not involved prayer. 
It has for so long been accepted that the Constitution of the United 
States prohibits any formal school-sponsored prayer that we move well 
beyond that to the context of speeches by students at school events, 
graduation ceremonies, prayers led by the members of a football team 
before a football game, that most schools now, in attempting to follow 
the Constitution, will say that the rights of free speech simply do not 
exist in schools in a religious context.
  Most schools, encouraged by some courts, will not allow a student 
valedictory address which speaks to the religious faith of the 
individual student making that address. They question whether or not in 
a speech class, in a class in a school at which students are required 
to speak about themselves and the factors that motivated their lives, 
whether they can speak to religion. They can speak to their political 
opinions, to their opinions on a wide range of social questions and 
issues, but in many schools, they would be prohibited from reading a 
paper on the influence of organized or other religion in their own 
lives.
  This I find troubling. This I criticize in the direction and the 
impact of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. But 
in this respect, I recognize that they, not I, not we collectively, are 
the final readers, the final authority on what the Constitution means.
  Beginning with that context, I get to my listening to the debate 
here, and we have listened to a parade of horribles. We have listened 
to the proposition that a school district threatened potentially with 
the loss of funds will not be able to deny the student the right to 
grab the student microphone and give a sermon in the morning to all the 
other students whether they like it or not.
  Mr. President, does the other part of the first amendment, the free 
speech part of the first amendment, guarantee to the student the right 
to grab that microphone in the morning at school and read a speech as 
to why he wants students and the teachers to vote for Republican 
candidates in the next election? Or make any other speech? Well, of 
course, it does not. That is not a right guaranteed by the first 
amendment's freedom of speech, and it clearly is not a constitutionally 
protected right under this amendment, as awkwardly or as clearly as it 
may be drawn.
  If this amendment, guaranteeing the right to engage in 
constitutionally protected religious activities, is unclear and fraught 
with danger in the schools, so equally is the balance of the first 
amendment with respect to anything else a student or teacher wishes to 
say.
  The practical answer is that school authorities do not have to guess 
in this connection, and in 99 cases out of 100, the answer will be 
extremely clear.
  It is highly doubtful that in this or any other administration funds 
will be cut off except with respect to obvious bad faith in decisions 
that are made in this connection.
  This Senator, though he is speaking on this subject, must say that he 
does not believe that prayer, whether institutionally formulated or as 
a result of a volunteer statement by an individual student, is likely 
to do much for the character and development of other students. Nor 
does he think that it is likely, when it is completely a spontaneous 
student activity, to be any more controversial with other students than 
our statements on politics or about sex or about next Saturday night or 
a social event in the schools. The danger that individualized activity 
of this sort is going to be overwhelmingly divisive seems to this 
Senator not to be seriously subject to consideration, except perhaps in 
debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
  So I do not know that even if the practice of schools were to be 
changed by the adoption of the Helms amendment that it would have much 
impact on the schools, and I do not think practices in the schools are 
likely to be very much changed by this amendment, aimed as it is at 
prayer rather than at speech in general.
  But I must say, with all respect for my usual seatmate and friend, 
the distinguished junior Senator from Kansas, I think that her 
amendment is, for all practical purposes, totally meaningless because 
her amendment deals with the subject of school prayer only after a 
court has already ordered that it is constitutional and must be 
permitted. Under those circumstances, every school district subject to 
such an order is going to permit whatever that activity is. I do not 
know why we have to take their money away from them under those 
circumstances. They are not going to be violating the law after a 
district court orders them to permit a certain kind of activity.
  So either the amendment of the Senator from Kansas is meaningless 
because it is not going to change activities anywhere, or it is 
actually destructive because it will take money away from schools, 
perhaps retroactively, when they will obviously abide by the decision 
of the court in any event.
  What is the answer to this question? I think the answer to this 
question is that schools inhibited by many of these Supreme Court 
decisions are much more likely to deny the constitutional right of 
individuals to freely exercise their religion, however that may be 
defined by the courts, than they are to establish a religion in their 
schools. They are far more likely to err on the side of saying you 
cannot say this, you cannot do this and thus to violate the free 
exercise clause than they are to say, ``Oh, go ahead, we'll sponsor 
something which will ultimately be found to be a violation of the 
establishment clause.''
  So I guess I reach this conclusion: Even though I do not think that 
the Helms amendment will change very much in its present form, and even 
though I have serious questions about whether or not the Kassebaum 
amendment is positively negative, destructive, I intend to vote for 
both of them, with the hope that, unlike the situation in the 
conference committee on Goals 2000 where this subject was summarily 
dismissed without even really being discussed in the conference 
committee itself, that the adoption of both of these will motivate both 
the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from Kansas to come up 
with a proposal that is meaningful with respect to the free-exercise 
clause and which gives some guidance to schools that they ought to 
promote the free-exercise to exactly the same extent that they should 
prevent the establishment and perhaps go beyond the narrow word 
``prayer'' to what, in a pluralistic society, even school kids ought to 
be allowed to discuss and to speak about their own attitudes toward it 
as a constructive part of their education.
  I have not written such an amendment. I am not exactly sure how such 
an amendment should be cast. But I do think if we simply reject the 
Helms amendment, we have just for another year said this does not 
matter, this does not matter at all. And I believe it does matter. I 
believe this body ought to be seriously considering the relationship in 
a school context of the establishment clause and of the free exercise 
clause, and I think we ought to be encouraging school districts to give 
equal attention to both probably without the kind of penalties that are 
included in both of these amendments. But if we defeat either or both 
of them, this issue is just going to go away. If we pass both of them, 
this is an issue that they are going to have to seriously consider, get 
good constitutional advice about--and they can get that if they are in 
a poor school district--and come up with something that actually helps 
the situation rather than destroys it.
  Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I compliment my friend and colleague, 
Senator Gorton, for an excellent speech. I just wish that our 
colleagues had listened to that speech. I think he was right on target.
  He talked about the Supreme Court, and he has a great deal of 
knowledge and legal wisdom in dealing with the Court. But he talked 
about the emphasis on the first amendment and I would say the 
overemphasis on the first amendment of the Supreme Court in past cases 
dealing with the establishment clause.
  The first amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting the 
establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. 
Senator Gorton just very plainly said they have had all of their 
decisions weighted toward the establishment of religion and basically 
ignored the free exercise clause of the first amendment.
  I find that to be very regrettable. We have heard a couple of 
colleagues mention the Lee versus Weisman case.
  Mr. President, I did something kind of unusual--I do it once or twice 
a year. I visit the Supreme Court when there is a case of real 
interest--I sat in on the arguments on Lee versus Weisman. I found it 
to be very interesting. I also was kind of optimistic. Some people talk 
about this conservative Court appointed, some of the members, by 
President Reagan and President Bush, that maybe they are going to make 
for a different result than what we have had in some of these other 
prayer-in-school cases, and I was hopeful that they would. I thought 
they weighted all their decisions on the establishment clause. Now 
maybe they would have a little attention towards free exercise.
  The Lee versus Weisman case, if my memory serves me correctly, was 
about a rabbi in a school district in Rhode Island who gave a prayer at 
a commencement exercise. Just for the purposes of making everyone 
familiar with his prayer--he basically gave two prayers, Rabbi 
Gutterman--I will read his prayer.

       God of the free, hope of the brave, for the legacy of 
     America where diversity is celebrated and the rights of 
     minorities are protected, we thank you. May these young men 
     and women grow up to enrich it. For the liberty of America we 
     thank you. May these new graduates grow up to guard it. For 
     the political process of America in which all citizens may 
     participate before its court systems, where all can seek 
     justice, we thank you. May those we honor this morning always 
     turn to it in trust. For the destiny of America we thank you. 
     May the graduates of Nathan Bishop Middle School so live that 
     they might help to share it. May our aspirations for our 
     country and for these young people who are our hope of the 
     future be richly fulfilled. Amen.

  He also gave the benediction that was very similar. I read this 
prayer, and I read the benediction, and I fail to see how that injures 
anyone in this country, regardless of their religious affiliation, 
regardless if they have religious affiliation. I just have a hard time 
seeing how this prayer could be declared unconstitutional. How have we 
offended the young people? How have we hurt them? Have we established 
religion by allowing a rabbi to give a prayer at a commencement 
exercise? I do not think so. Do we hurt or hinder kids by saying we are 
going to prohibit prayer? I think there is a real danger there. We are 
basically telling them in a public institution we think that it is 
wrong for you to pray.
  That is the signal that is being sent. I would venture to say that 
all of our colleagues have made commencement addresses. I wonder at how 
many of those commencement exercises there was a prayer. I know when I 
used to give them years ago they always did. And now more and more 
schools--and not just high schools, but also colleges and universities, 
more and more now schools will avoid a prayer.
  You ask them why. They say, well, we are afraid we might be involved 
in litigation. Or we received a letter from the American Civil 
Liberties Union that advised us that if we had a prayer, be ready to go 
to court. And although we wanted to have one and although we have had 
prayer for the last 40 years, we decided we really could not afford the 
potential litigation, and therefore the board decided we better pass. 
And we did not want to offend anybody. We did not want any trouble. And 
we said what good does it do any way because prayers are pretty 
secular? We try to make the prayer, we ask whoever is giving the prayer 
to make sure they do not offend anybody, so they probably do not do 
much good any way. So we decided maybe we should not say it. And they 
decided maybe we should expand that because--I will tell you, in my 
State, where we have a lot of football games, and Illinois and Kansas 
basketball games, we always had a prayer before the high school games. 
A lot of the high schools are now saying we cannot have a prayer. Why? 
Because they are afraid of litigation. Usually, those prayers would 
say, ``Hey, God bless''--they would not say ``Hey.'' They would say, 
``God bless these athletes. We want them to be safe. We want to have a 
good energetic encounter. We want to be friends. We want to be 
sports.'' But now those prayers in a lot of places are not given.
  I might mention the Lee versus Weisman decision dealt with a 
commencement exercise of a middle school, not of a high school, not of 
a university, and not at an athletic event. These are clearly voluntary 
enterprises and, in my opinion, in no way is it prohibited by the Lee 
versus Weisman decision. That is an overinterpretation or an expansion 
of the decision that, in my opinion, is a serious mistake.
  I might also mention the Lee versus Weisman decision was decided on a 
5-to-4 basis. It was a close decision as the Court interpreted it--I 
think an incorrect one.
  Now, maybe I am wrong. But I think again a little too much attention 
on the focus of the establishment clause and still ignoring or not 
paying enough attention to the free exercise clause, as Senator Gorton 
alluded to. So I compliment Senator Gorton for his statement. I would 
just encourage people not to overinterpret what the Court has said.
  I think a lot of people, when they say, well, the Supreme Court has 
allowed prayer in school, are even making a mistake when they say that. 
Senator Helms alluded to the Supreme Court case, 1962 case, where one 
Madalyn O'Hair said we do not want to have prayer in school. And if my 
memory serves me correctly, I think it was in New York, and I think 
that was a State-prescribed prayer. Some people are alluding to the 
Helms amendment as this is a State-prescribed prayer, and that is not 
the case. They ought to read the amendment because the amendment does 
not say that there will be a state-prescribed prayer.
  It does not say that there would be one by any legislative body. It 
says it be on a voluntary basis and neither the United States nor any 
State nor any local education agency shall require any person to 
participate in prayer or influence the form or content of any 
constitutionally protected prayer in public schools.
  We do not want bureaucrats writing prayers. I believe that is very 
important. It also says it is voluntary. I heard my good friend, and I 
compliment him. And I would certainly concur with Senator Specter's 
statement, Senator Danforth made an excellent speech. I do not agree 
with his conclusion, but I very much appreciate his input and certainly 
he will be missed in this body.
  My friend and colleague, Senator Danforth, said that this is a 
mandate. And if this language is passed, we are going to be mandating 
that the States will do this.
  I do not agree with his conclusion. If you want to look at a mandate, 
let us look at the bill. There are 900-some pages, and for the most 
part we are telling schools how to run. We are telling schools how 
money should be spent. We are telling the schools all kinds of things 
in the bill that is about 900 new pages of language. There are a lot of 
things in here where we are telling schools what to do. But what we 
would like to do is at least allow or change the burden where school 
districts right now are saying, well, we are so afraid of litigation, 
we are telling our kids that they just cannot utter the name of God in 
school unless maybe it is made in vain, and maybe that is protected 
speech.
  We have in our schools now a deplorable situation.
  Senator Gorton is going to have an amendment later dealing with 
school violence. I think maybe it would help to try to solve some of 
that problem. But schools have no question deteriorated substantially 
in the last two or three decades. There is a lot more violence. There 
are a lot more problems that our young people are dealing with today in 
schools than anyone in this body ever dealt with. I know a lot of the 
parents are wrestling with some of those problems. There are a lot more 
drugs. There is a lot more violence. Would allowing voluntary prayer in 
school hurt?
  There are other things going on in school that this Government, and 
some people in this administration particularly, are pushing, dealing 
with sex education, dealing with condom distribution, and so on. A lot 
of us think that is the wrong direction. And, yet, will we not at the 
least allow the schools or the kids to have voluntary prayer in school? 
Maybe the penalties are too harsh. They will cut off all funds. Maybe. 
But I might mention, I know Senator Kennedy is going to be taking this 
bill to conference, and I know he is going to drop this amendment. He 
dropped it last year. He is going to drop it again, no matter by how 
large a vote it passes, if it passes. I do not know whether it will or 
not, whether it be the Helms amendment or the Kassebaum amendment.
  But I expect that this is the last time we are going to see it. This 
amendment will probably be dropped off on the way through the Rotunda.
  But I think it is an important issue. Maybe the penalties are 
correct. Maybe we should come up with a different penalty. Maybe we 
should just pass a law that reinterprets the first amendment saying to 
school districts: Do not prohibit the free exercise of religion; 
Federal Government, do not prohibit the free exercise of religion. Are 
we erring more on the other side?
  Right now, schools and public facilities are so afraid they might be 
taken to court or have some potential litigation that they are afraid 
to utter the name of God unless it is in vain. I think that is a 
serious problem. When you have the Supreme Court of the United States 
saying that Rabbi Gutterman's prayer is unconstitutional, there is 
something wrong. There is something seriously, seriously wrong.
  So I want to compliment the Senator from North Carolina for his 
attempt to try to send a signal. I also compliment the Senator from 
Kansas. I think her amendment, while not as good as Senator Helms' 
amendment, is better than nothing. I hope that we will send some 
signal. I hope the courts, I hope Congress, will look at protecting the 
free exercise of religion.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, it is with some reluctance that I enter 
into this debate. But it appears very clear to me that we need to try 
to clarify just what we are talking about here, and what the big 
distinctions are between the Kassebaum approach and the Helms approach.
  We are talking about two different groups, and the question is who 
should be protected, how should they be protected, and under what 
circumstances? You have on the one hand that person or group of persons 
who desire to utilize the schools for prayer. Certainly, that is a 
noble cause. Then, on the other hand, you have those who are concerned 
about their children being exposed to religious beliefs that are not 
their own; who have enough problems with adjustment to their own peers 
by having these different views.
  We have a structure set up now which tries to balance the interests 
of all of those parties. In this case, if we look at what we are trying 
to do with these amendments, it is oriented toward protecting those who 
desire to have prayer in the school. That may get you into several 
different circumstances. Certainly, if the prayer is to be one which is 
reflective of a majority of religious beliefs, it may well be easy to 
have it done. However, if it is not, if it expresses the views of a 
religion followed by a small minority in the community, then it likely 
would be difficult.
  If you take a look at the Kassebaum amendment, it is rather the 
traditional, structured approach. It says that if you are abridged of 
your rights to make a constitutionally protected prayer in the schools, 
you can go to court. The court can come back, and if they agree with 
you, they will order the school authorities to cease and desist from 
allowing you to engage in that prayer. In addition to the other 
remedies available, probably to ensure better compliance, it states 
that they may--and I emphasize may--also deny the offending school 
district the use of all Federal funds derived through the Department of 
Education.
  The Helms amendment takes a quite different approach, and loads the 
deck very much against the individual who desires to have their child 
protected from having a religion forced upon them in school. Let us 
take the realistic kinds of situations we will be talking about here.
  You take a small town. They have a school board. It is 90 percent, or 
99 percent, Protestant. They have one Catholic or one Jew, or one other 
religion there. So the parents decide among themselves, ``Let us go and 
get the prayer in the school. We have a law now which says that, in the 
event the school board denies us the opportunity to make a 
constitutionally protected prayer, they are going to lose all their 
Federal funds.''
  ``Shall'' is the word in the Helms amendment. They ``shall'' lose all 
of their Federal funds--not just the ones under this bill, but all of 
their Federal funds.
  So what is the school board faced with there, whether they are for or 
against prayer as a matter of policy? Under the Helms amendment, most 
likely, the school board says, ``Hey, this is a heads we win, tails you 
lose situation. We will just sit back and let things go, if they want 
prayer, let them pray. If nobody opposes this, fine, we are in the 
clear and the Federal funds will continue to flow.''
  Well, who is going to oppose it? Some individual in the school and in 
the community who feels that the prayer activity will abridge their 
rights. What are they faced with? Well, if they persuade the school 
board not to allow the prayer, the board is placed at risk of losing 
all their funds--shall lose them is what the amendment says. You can 
well imagine that the voices of dissent, those who are perhaps a 
minority in number, will be hard pressed to rise up against that kind 
of pressure. And it is unlikely that many would have the desire to do 
so.
  So if they go to court and they win, they will be run out of town on 
a rail because they have caused the school to lose all of their funds. 
If they lose, they have lost all of the pressures--and the money--of 
trying to do it. But on the other side, those that are desirous of 
putting school prayer in have a huge weapon to protect them from 
lawsuits.
  It raises not only the question of whether or not there is 
constitutionally protected prayer denied, but there is also the 
question of who makes the decision. I suppose you can battle that in 
the courts. Was it a reasonable decision, whether by the school board, 
or by the State agency, or by the Federal agencies? Who is it that 
decides whether or not it was a constitutionally protected prayer? So 
you have to go through administrative proceedings first, and then to 
the courts. What do you do?
  But it seems to me that the purpose here is obviously to load the 
scales so much in favor of those who desire to do so--which is contrary 
to the Constitution, which is primarily there to protect the rights of 
the minority--that you cast an incredible burden upon anybody that 
wants to protest the law to be made by this amendment in order to 
protect themselves. What it will mean is that the odds of people being 
able to protect themselves from the abuse of the establishment of 
religion will end up with really no effective remedy at all as to what 
they feel they could possibly do without huge detriment to their own 
situation.
  So I think it is clear that the Kassebaum amendment, which we 
understand relies on traditional procedures of judicial resolution of 
the critical question, adds an additional remedy of the loss of funds, 
which is an appropriate and proper one, to protect those who desire to 
make constitutionally protected prayer in schools; whereas the Helms 
amendment really provides almost a sham, or almost a veil of protection 
to those who want to abuse the rights of the minority, and to be able 
to hide behind the threat of the loss of all their school funds and to 
argue against those who would like to protect the right.
  So I urge my colleagues to vote against the Helms amendment and to 
support the Kassebaum amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise today to support the amendment 
offered by my good friend and colleague, Senator Helms. I commend 
Senators Lott, Gorton, and Nickles for their fine statements of 
support. This amendment requires that no funds from the Department of 
Education go to a State education agency or a local education agency 
which has a policy against constitutionally protected prayer.
  Senator Helms offered this amendment to S. 1150, the ``Goals 2000, 
Educate America Act''. This amendment was adopted in the Senate by a 
vote of 75 to 22. However, the House-Senate conference on ``Goals 
2000'', in a hasty manner, adopted so-called compromise language on the 
Helms amendment which completely missed the mark of the original Senate 
position. Hopefully, this action will not stand and the Senate now has 
an opportunity to reiterate its position on voluntary prayer in public 
schools. This amendment has received strong support from our colleagues 
on both sides of the aisle and is important to our Nation.
  Until the Supreme Court ruled in the Engel and Abington school 
district decisions, the establishment clause of the first amendment was 
generally understood to prohibit the Federal Government from officially 
approving, or holding in special favor, any particular faith or 
denomination. In crafting that clause, our Founding Fathers sought to 
prevent what had originally caused many colonial Americans to emigrate 
to this country--an official, State religion. At the same time, they 
sought, through the free exercise clause, to guarantee to all Americans 
the freedom to worship God without Government interference or 
restraint. In their wisdom, they recognized that true religious liberty 
precluded the Government from forcing or preventing worship.
  As Supreme Court Justice William Douglas once stated: ``We are a 
religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.'' 
Nearly every President since George Washington has proclaimed a day of 
public prayer. Moreover, we, as a Nation, continue to recognize the 
Deity in our Pledge of Allegiance by affirming that we are a Nation 
``under God.'' Our currency is inscribed with the motto, ``In God We 
Trust.''
  Every morning we open the Senate and begin our work day with the 
comfort and stimulus of voluntary prayer--such a practice has been 
recently upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. It is absurd 
that the opportunity for the same beneficial experience is denied to 
the boys and girls who attend public schools.
  Mr. President, there is much discussion across this Nation on the 
breakdown of values and morality. There are concerns of violence in 
schools threatening the safety of teachers and students alike and 
undermining a sound learning environment. Of course, school prayer is 
not the panacea to end all problems, but I am confident that it will 
considerably add to the well-being and character development of 
America's children.
  This amendment enjoys the support of an overwhelming number of 
Americans, and I strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, it has been an interesting debate this 
afternoon, if you had the opportunity to sit in your office and listen 
to it. I would like to offer a couple of comments and go right to the 
bottom line. We can all sit around here and use fancy words to justify 
the stand that we take. So call me just one of those old-fashioned 
people who thinks kids should have an opportunity, if they choose--if 
they choose--to pray, to take a moment during the school day for prayer 
or reflection, if they choose. We should protect their right to choose.
  Neither of these amendments would force any certain kind of a prayer 
on any certain student. Neither of these amendments would even require 
students to participate. That is the bottom line. It is very simple. 
Let us not flock around the Bill of Rights, let us not turn it on its 
head, turn it upside down. Let us honor the Constitution. That is what 
we are saying here.
  Maybe in school one day an individual student wants to meet with 2 or 
3 of his colleagues and pray; that should be protected. We are not 
saying they have to. We are saying they have the right to. That is the 
bottom line. Use all of the arguments and all of the logic that you 
want to try to turn it on its head; it does not work. That is what we 
are talking about. What we are hearing here is a lot of legalese that 
what we are supposed to be doing is taking a look at the Constitution 
and protecting those rights.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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