[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 101 (Thursday, July 28, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      UNANIMOUS-CONSENT AGREEMENT

  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask 
unanimous consent that at 9 a.m. on Friday, July 29, the Senate proceed 
to executive session to consider the nomination of Stephen Breyer to be 
an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; that there be 6 hours for 
debate to be equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of 
the Judiciary Committee or their designees; that following the using or 
yielding back of time, the Senate vote, without any intervening action, 
on the nomination; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be 
tabled, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's 
action; and the Senate return to legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Reserving the right to object, I just say it has been 
cleared on our side of the aisle and we have no objection to the 
request.
  I withdraw the reservation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, although not included in the agreement, 
I wish to state my intention that when the Senate votes on the Breyer 
nomination tomorrow, it will be the last vote of the day.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would just like to indicate that I hope 
the Senate will accept the Byrd amendments. The first amendment 
requires, as the Senator has pointed out, the collection of data on 
school violence in elementary and secondary schools and submitting a 
report to Congress by January 1998.
  The second one requires the LEA's to refer to criminal justice or 
juvenile authority any student who brings a gun to school.
  Let me just mention, I hope both amendments will be accepted.
  I will take 1 minute of time.
  We have in my own State in Lawrence, MA, an enormously interesting 
program that has been stimulated by the district attorney where they 
work with the school officials, the youth service, the educators and 
the social service agencies and have prioritized and ranked the 
juveniles who are the most threatening and have been the repeaters in 
terms of violence.
  They have accelerated the attention for those who have been the most 
violent and also have worked with those to free some of them from 
various gangs and gang activities.
  It has had a profound effect and impact on stability in the school 
and also in terms of incidence of violence within the community.
  So this kind of amendment will, one, give information, so if others 
want to develop not just community policing, this is really a community 
sort of prosecution, and it has been well accepted and appreciated by 
all the different community leaders there.
  I think the kind of amendment that the Senator has offered can help 
and assist in getting that kind of information and that kind of 
awareness for other communities across the country.
  So, Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendments have not yet been sent to the 
desk.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I also would like to join in commending 
the senior Senator from West Virginia for not only the excellent 
amendment but the excellent discussion on the problem of education. I 
agree with him wholeheartedly that before we act we must have the 
information and data necessary to do that. This will help us in that 
quest.


                           Amendment No. 2426

   (Purpose: To direct the Secretary to collect data on violence in 
                   elementary and secondary schools)


                           Amendment No. 2427

 (Purpose: To provide that no funds shall be made available under the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to any local educational 
   agency unless such agency has a policy requiring referral to the 
  criminal justice or juvenile delinquency system of any student who 
     brings a firearm or weapon to a school served by such agency)

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank both managers. Inasmuch as they have 
expressed a willingness to accept the amendments, I send the amendments 
to the desk. I ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc, 
agreed to en bloc, and that the motions to reconsider be laid on the 
table en bloc.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the unanimous consent 
request?
  The clerk will report the amendments.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Byrd] proposes 
     amendments numbered 2426 and 2427.

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


                           amendment no. 2426

       On page 874, line 9, strike ``The State'' and insert ``(1) 
     Biennial evaluation.--The Secretary'', and indent 
     appropriately.
       On page 874, line 14, insert after ``subpart'' the 
     following: ``and of other recent and new initiatives to 
     combat violence in schools''.
       On page 874, between lines 16 and 17, insert the following:
       ``(A) Collection.--The Secretary shall collect data to 
     determine the frequency, seriousness, and incidence of 
     violence in elementary and secondary schools in the States. 
     The Secretary shall collect the data using, wherever 
     appropriate data submitted by the States pursuant to 
     subsection (b)(2)(B).
       ``(B) Report.--Not later than January 1, 1998, the 
     Secretary shall submit to the Congress a report on the data 
     collected under this subsection, together with such 
     recommendations as the Secretary determines appropriate, 
     including estimated costs for implementing any 
     recommendation.
                                  ____



                           amendment no. 2427

       On page 1165, between lines 21 and 22, insert the 
     following:

     ``SEC. 10607. POLICY REGARDING CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM 
                   REFERRAL.

       ``(a) In General.--No funds shall be made available under 
     this Act to any local educational agency unless such agency 
     has a policy requiring referral to the criminal justice or 
     juvenile delinquency system of any student who brings a 
     firearm or weapon to a school served by such agency.
       ``(b) Definitions.--For the purpose of this section, the 
     terms `firearm' and `school' have the same meaning given to 
     such terms by section 921(a) of title 18, United States Code.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendments are agreed 
to pursuant to the unanimous consent request.
  So the amendments (No. 2426 and 2427) were agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 2428

                (Purpose: To amend the title I formula)

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the unanimous-consent agreement, the 
Senator from Arkansas is now recognized. Under the unanimous-consent 
agreement, each side will have approximately 51 minutes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous-consent that the 
unanimous consent agreement as to the time on this amendment be 
vitiated and that the time of the vote be set at 9:30.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. KENNEDY. With the understanding the time be evenly divided.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Evenly divided.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right--
  Mr. BUMPERS. The unanimous consent agreement was 9:15.
  Mr. KENNEDY. If the Senator would start. As I understand it, we are 
checking this with the majority leader. I will not object to it, but 
why not start in.
  I am informed that it is agreeable.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Hearing no objection, that is the order. The 
vote on this matter will occur at 9:30. The time remaining will be 
divided in the usual form between the Senator from Arkansas and the 
managers of the bill.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Cochran and myself, 
I send an amendment to the desk and also announce as cosponsors 
Senators Kempthorne, Pryor, Wallop, Shelby, Craig, Gramm, Lott, 
Bingaman, Thurmond, Burns, and Hutchison.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers], for himself, Mr. 
     Cochran, Mr. Kempthorne, Mr. Pryor, Mr. Wallop, Mr. Shelby, 
     Mr. Craig, Mr. Gramm, Mr. Lott, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Burns, Mr. 
     Thurmond, and Mrs. Hutchison, proposes an amendment numbered 
     2428.

  Mr. BUMPERS. 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 553, line 10, strike ``(i)''.
       On page 553, line 15, beginning with ``effort factor'' 
     strike all through the period on page 553, line 17, and 
     insert ``relative income per child factor described in 
     subparagraph (B).''.
       On page 554, beginning with line 4, strike all through page 
     556, line 15.
       On page 556, line 23, strike ``product of the effort'' and 
     insert ``income per school-age child''.
       On page 556, beginning with line 24, strike ``under'' and 
     all that follows through ``year'' on page 557, line 2.
       On page 557, between lines 9 and 10, insert the following:
       ``(C)(i) Except as provided in subparagraph (D), the 
     relative income per child factor shall be determined in 
     accordance with the following formula:
  
                           c
           R=1.0-0.4 <3-ln (> ---- <3-ln )>
                           n
  
       ``(ii) For the purpose of the formula described in clause 
     (i), the term `c' shall be a fraction, the numerator of which 
     is the 3-year average of total personal income as reported by 
     the Bureau of Economic Analysis for a county, and the 
     denominator of which is the amount determined under the 
     second sentence of subparagraph (A) for the county multiplied 
     by the number of children aged 5 through 17 in the county.
       ``(iii) For the purpose of the formula described in clause 
     (i), the term `n' shall be a fraction, the numerator of which 
     is the sum of the 3-year averages of total personal income as 
     reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for all counties 
     in all States, and the denominator of which is the sum of the 
     products of the amount determined under the second sentence 
     of subparagraph (A) for each county in each State multiplied 
     by the number of children aged 5 through 17 in such county.
       ``(iv) For the purpose of the formula described in clause 
     (i), the term `R' shall be not more than 0.8 and not less 
     than 0.2.
       ``(D) The relative income per child factor for the 
     Commonwealth of Puerto Rico shall be 0.6.
       ``(E) The Secretary shall use the most recent data 
     available to the Secretary to calculate relative income per 
     child factors under this paragraph.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, yesterday, Senator Cochran and I sent out 
a ``Dear Colleague'' letter, which quoted the committee report on this 
bill. The committee said:

       S. 1513 admits ``the most urgent need for education 
     improvement is in schools with high concentrations of 
     children from low-income families.''

  And yet the committee formula on a program initiated during the 
Lyndon Johnson administration about 30 years ago to bring children who 
live below the poverty line up to mainstream standards in our public 
schools achieves almost the opposite result. It is one of the most 
perverse formulas I have ever seen. I have been a devoted fan of title 
I since I served on the school board in Charleston, AR. And, while I 
was Governor of Arkansas, I depended heavily on money we received from 
the Federal Government under title I, that was allocated to the States 
to help educate poor children.
  And now, Mr. President, the committee proposes a formula to 
distribute over $7 billion to the States of this Nation. Let me give 
you an illustration of what it does. Remember, poverty is in the poor 
States. I invite my colleagues to look at the map behind my 
distinguished colleague from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran. Everything black 
on that map is where the deepest poverty in the Nation is. That is 
where the most poor children live.
  I have a parochial interest because my State is one of the poorest 
States in the Nation. But, Mr. President, the chart lists the 10 
poorest States in America.
  Look at it. Alabama, 23 percent poverty, and under the committee bill 
they receive $710 per poor child. Senator Cochran and I would give them 
$63 more per child. Compare poor Alabama with Delaware, which has 11 
percent poverty, less than half of Alabama, and they get $1,185--40 
percent more than Alabama--per child.
  Here is my beloved Arkansas, and 24 percent of the children in my 
State live below the poverty line. They receive, under the committee 
bill, $704 per child. But Maine, for example, with 13 percent poverty, 
gets $972 per child--$268 per child more than our poor State with 24 
percent of our children living in poverty.
  Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, South 
Carolina, Texas, and the only State among the 10 poorest States of 
America that even makes it out of the $700 category in the committee 
proposal is West Virginia. Compare that with the home State of the 
chairman of the committee, our good friend, the manager of this bill, 
Massachusetts, which has 13 percent poverty, and they get $1,023 per 
poor child.
  I live in one of the wealthiest counties in the State of Maryland, 
and Maryland has 11 percent poor children, and they get $1,033 per 
child, well over $300 per child more than my State receives, more than 
Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia and all those States, where these 
deep pockets of poor children reside.
  Wisconsin, 14 percent poor children. They get $1,023. I could go on 
with all these States that are affluent.
  Mr. President, this amendment is not something I just conjured up in 
the middle of the night. This amendment tracks precisely what the 
General Accounting Office said was wrong with this bill.
  Let me repeat that. This is not just a brainstorm that Senator 
Cochran and I had. This is what the General Accounting Office said, in 
analyzing the committee bill, was wrong with the bill.
  We put a lot of stock around here in what the General Accounting 
Office says. Senator Cochran and Senator Bingaman wrote to the General 
Accounting Office and asked for their analysis. This is not one of 
those full-blown investigative reports. This is just an analysis.
  Do you want me to tell you how this happened? These formulas are 
immensely complicated, and I am not going to try to boggle anybody's 
mind with them. But I will tell you what happened in the committee 
formula. The committee formula penalizes the poorest States in America 
who will never, under this formula, significantly improve their plight. 
But I will tell you how it happened; how the most affluent States in 
America make out like bandits, and the poorest States in America, where 
all the poor children are, get what is left.
  The committee came up with two new factors. One is called the 
``effort factor,'' and one is called the ``equity factor.''
  Mr. BUMPERS. The effort factor takes the average per-pupil 
expenditure in your State, divide it by the average per pupil 
expenditure of the Nation as a whole, and if you come out above 100 
percent you get a bonus. They set a floor of 95 percent, and a ceiling 
of 105 percent.
  What does that mean? That means, if Arkansas only spends 75 percent 
of the national per-pupil expenditure, we have to get to 95 percent 
before we get consideration in the formula for effort.
  This may not happen in my lifetime. Not only is this formula 
discriminatory in the extreme, but it remains that way as long as it 
stands because the poor States simply can never reach the floor, no 
matter how hard we try and how much effort we expend. We cannot reach 
it.
  But, if you are one of the more affluent States, and you are spending 
140 percent of the national average on your children, you can let up, 
relax, and cut spending. As long as you do not go below 105 percent of 
the national average, you are in the clover. No matter how hard we 
work, there is no gain. No matter how lax the more affluent States 
become, as long as they do not get below the 105 percent national per-
pupil expenditure, they lose nothing.
  The second factor is ``equity.'' Equity deals with the disparity of 
expenditures within a State. Disparity means that the more affluent 
counties in a State are spending more on education than the poorer 
counties in a State. But that has very little to do with a State 
formula. That is because most schools are funded primarily on a 
property tax, and some counties have a higher property tax than others.
  So we do have a disparity between the Mississippi Delta where the 
most pervasive poverty in America exists in Louisiana, Mississippi, and 
Arkansas, parts of Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, and the 
northwest part of the State, which is one of our most affluent areas.
  So they say to the States in order to encourage them to equalize 
expenditures on children, we ought to take some money away from you if 
the disparity between northwest Arkansas and southeast Arkansas is too 
great no matter how poor southwest Arkansas is.
  And they put another floor and ceiling on this equity factor. The 
floor is 95 percent, and the ceiling is 105 percent.
  Do you know what that means, Mr. President? That means that as long 
as the disparity in our districts is under 95 percent, they can never 
get consideration for equity payments. And I will not live long enough 
for that to happen. It is a double whammy to the poorer States. They do 
not have the means to achieve equity or effort consideration so they 
cannot increase their share under the formula.
  On the other hand, in the more affluent States, if they do not have a 
disparity problem, they can relax.
  Let me tell you again. If this were just Dale Bumpers talking about 
this formula, I would expect you to say, ``Well, he is upset because 
Arkansas does not fare well.'' You would be right. I am upset because 
it is a pervasive, discriminatory formula.
  But here is what the General Accounting Office said about the equity 
and disparity factors:

       This represents a new policy direction for the program to 
     one of providing an incentive for States to equalize per-
     pupil educational spending. While a laudable goal, this 
     measure may not be the best way to go about accomplishing 
     this objective, and may be contrary to the purposes of the 
     chapter 1 program.

  The General Accounting Office goes on to say:

       The equity bonus factor provides greater per-pupil funding 
     in States with the smallest sub-State spending disparities, 
     and these States tend to have fewer educationally-
     disadvantaged students.

  Translated, what that means is it is the most affluent States that 
are likely to have the least disparity because they have fewer poor 
students. The reason we have great disparity is because we have 
counties with unbelievable poverty, and then we have some prosperous 
counties. So we do indeed have big disparities. But this equity bonus 
factor locks in a formula which says to the people of my State that you 
will never get an extra dime under this formula.
  The General Accounting Office goes on to say--and I want everybody to 
pay special attention to what the General Accounting Office said:

       If the Federal Government is going to have a policy of 
     encouraging States to equalize local school spending 
     disparities within their boundaries, then it should also have 
     a policy of reducing cross-State spending disparities. It 
     makes little policy sense to tell the States to do something 
     if the Federal Government is not willing to do it itself. 
     Reducing cross-State disparities requires that differences in 
     States' or counties' financing capabilities should also be 
     included in the formula. Yet, this was not done.

  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, what does the General Accounting Office 
say about the effort bonus factor, the per pupil expenditures of the 
States as a percentage of national per-pupil expenditure?

       By including per-pupil expenditures in the formula twice, 
     effort is incorrectly measured, and its effect is improperly 
     magnified. No State school aid program that rewards effort, 
     does so in this fashion.

  They go on to say:

       If a measure of per-pupil expenditures is to be used as an 
     effort of rewarding formula, the formula should also contain 
     a Federal percentage factor to properly take into account the 
     capacity of LEA's to fund local education spending.

  In summary, the General Accounting Office says the formula under 
which this terribly perverse result occurred is fatally flawed because 
it is the more affluent districts who get all the money under this 
formula. It is those States that are the most affluent, where there are 
the least number of poor children and, therefore, the least number of 
disparities between school districts and spending on our poor children. 
And they will continue to get more of title 1 money, and my State will 
continue to get less because we cannot make any greater effort than we 
are making.
  I daresay, based on our per capita income, we are making a lot bigger 
effort than a lot of the more affluent States who have a much higher 
per capita income than we have.
  So, Mr. President, the reason I am shouting is because I feel so 
passionately about what this does to my State and other poverty-
stricken States. President Clinton and I spent virtually 4 years doing 
nothing but trying to help an area known as the Mississippi Delta, the 
10 poorest congressional districts in the State. We have done 
everything in the world and, incidentally, we are making some progress. 
Those people are beginning to see a little light at the end of the 
tunnel.
  I can tell you that this formula provides little help. It says no 
matter what we do, it is not going to make much difference. There is no 
way we can ever climb out of the hole that this inequity puts us under.
  I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield such time as I might use.
  Mr. President, I have listened with great interest to the Senator 
from Arkansas describe his understanding of this formula and what its 
implications are with regard to Arkansas. His State was provided under 
this fiscal year 1994 allocation some 69.9 million. Under the current 
law in fiscal year 1995, 76.7 million. Under our Committee formula, it 
would be 76.5 million. I listened to him talk about the impact of this 
program, about the poor and poor children.
  I think, obviously, all of us would like to do a great deal more in 
terms of poor children, and I think it is always regrettable when we 
find ourselves in a situation where we are depriving some poor children 
to advantage other poor children. That is, I think, one of the more 
unfortunate aspects of any of these formula debates.
  I can remember that in our own Committee on Labor and Human 
Resources, where we were trying to divide up a limited amount of funds 
and decide whether to have Meals on Wheels at congregate sites or 
delivered at home. You can feed three times as many people at 
congregate sites than at home. But, nonetheless, many people at home 
need that food. So you end up with needy, poor people fighting over 
very scarce resources. That has certainly been the case in terms of the 
title I programs, Head Start programs, the WIC Program, and many of the 
programs, including the Pell grant program, that have tried to be a 
lifeline for many of the neediest children and students in our country. 
So it is always a regrettable situation when we get into those kinds of 
debates and discussions.
  I have to say that the administration has attempted to provide 
additional funding. They have in Head Start, and they have tried in the 
Chapter 1 Program, and in the other school reform programs. Hopefully, 
we will have a time in the not-too-distant future where we are moving 
seriously to increase help and assistance to poor children all over 
this country.
  I have to take serious exception with the good Senator from Arkansas 
about which formula is going to benefit the poor children, however. As 
a result of the Senator's formula, in States such as Florida with 
350,000 poor children, New York with 600,000 poor children, California 
with 970,000 poor children, the effect of the Senator's amendment is to 
reduce Florida by $37 million, New York by $48 million, and California 
by $49 million compared to what the Committee recommended.
  So before we start getting so worked up about how unjust this formula 
is for poor children, look at what is going to happen to the poor 
children--if this is accepted--in these various States. There are tens 
of thousands, hundreds of thousands of children in those areas. As a 
result of the amendment of the Senator from Arkansas, we are going to 
see those children deprived; those children will be deprived.
  As the Senator pointed out, these are balances in terms of how we are 
going to try and make some kind of adjustment. I daresay in the States 
that he talked about--Louisiana and Mississippi--we see a significant 
increase, under the Committee formula, over existing law. So he is not 
going to get any argument from this Senator about trying to do more for 
Mississippi and more for Louisiana. He would like to do more and so 
would I, but not at the expense of poor children in these other States.
  So, Mr. President, what have we tried to do? We looked at the old 
formula which had concentration grants. To receive these grants, you 
had to have 6,500 poor children in your particular district, or have at 
least 15 percent of your children be poor. Some communities had 14, 
some 13, some 12 percent, and some had 6,000 poor children; they were 
left out. We saw inequities in those areas. In the basic grant program, 
we said if you have 10 poor children, you get some funding, and that 
went to some of the most affluent districts in this country; and we are 
gradually phasing those districts out of the program.
  What have we replaced those with? We have provided a weighted 
formula, and that means giving high poverty districts a higher per 
pupil grant than low-poverty districts. Why? For the reasons the 
Senator pointed out, and the GAO points out: that the areas of greatest 
need are where you have the high concentrations of children in poverty. 
These are the areas that have the most need. These are places like 
Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, and Washington, 
which are among the ten poorest cities in the Nation, and many others; 
those places have high concentrations of poverty. The GAO said they are 
the areas that need the greatest help and assistance. So we used the 
weighted formula to take that into account.
  Then we have the cost factor, which varies from State to State 
according to the State per pupil spending. This tells us the cost of 
providing an education in each State. This exists in the current 
formula, but we made adjustments somewhat to benefit States such as 
Mississippi and Louisiana.
  Then we included in the formula an effort factor that gives the 
States a bonus for high fiscal effort; that is, if they spend a lot on 
education relative to their ability to spend. That is an incentive for 
those areas that are going to provide more for education.
  Then we added an equity factor that gives States a bonus for 
equalized spending among school districts. This provides assistance to 
States that are trying to reduce the disparity in spending. Well, in my 
State, we are attempting to reduce the disparity, but in a different 
way; we say to school districts, ``If you want to tax your people and 
spend a little more, we will not hold that against you.'' We lose out 
under that because you continue with the disparity. But some States 
benefit from some factors, and some benefit from others; it's a 
balance. We have also included a 100 percent State level hold-harmless 
for this fiscal year so no State will see an actual reduction in funds 
when the new formula takes effect.
  Now, you can draw all kinds of formulas here. Mr. President, we have, 
I know, 8 or 10 different formulas. I have been around here long enough 
to know that you can offer a formula that benefits 26, 28, or 30 States 
and try and roll the Senate on this.
  And I daresay I have an amendment that I can put out there that would 
benefit my State even more and benefit 30 States at the cost of other 
States. But I am reminded of a distinguished statesman in 1982, one of 
our colleagues here, who pointed out the purpose of title I is to 
provide supplemental education programs for poor children so they will 
have an opportunity to learn to the same high standards as other 
children. It was not created to be an income redistribution program 
which equalizes the difference in per capita income.
  The committee formula as well as the current formula is the result of 
a delicate political compromise.
  During the litigation of the chapter I formula in 1982, 50 Senators 
in Congress filed an amicus brief on behalf of the State contesting the 
use of 1980 census data. That brief was led by then-Senator Denton and 
included Senator Bumpers and it stated the following:

       In constructing the compromise in 1978, Congress acted 
     deliberately and carefully to build a balanced package. 
     Congress tried to include something for each geographic 
     region, something for urban areas, something for rural areas, 
     something for rich States, something for poor States, 
     something for large States, something for small States, and 
     thus shifting even a single building block of the formula 
     will unbalance the entire structure.

  Mr. President, those are words of wisdom indeed. They apply to the 
formula then and they apply equally to the formula approved by the 
committee now contained in S. 1513.
  I daresay, Mr. President, there are States where this whole process 
and this formula has not worked fairly, and that has been true, I 
think, in particular in California and also in the State of Texas.
  We have tried to talk with those Senators about trying to provide 
additional kinds of help and assistance. We have migratory legislation 
that helps and assists the migrants that move through those States and 
one or two other programs where these States are substantial 
beneficiaries. There are other impacted States. The State of Georgia 
does not do well under this formula but in terms of the impact aid 
assistance that it gets, Georgia does do well and can assist many of 
the similar kinds of children.
  We have tried to look at the total range of different Federal aid, 
whether in the areas of Indian education, which benefits States like 
New Mexico, or other programs that affect poor children and benefit 
other States that do not do quite as well in this formula.
  So, Mr. President, in any of these various considerations, whatever 
we do, there are areas which we know--all of us--that there are needy 
and poor children that still are not having the kind of attention and 
assistance that any of us would like.
  Under the Bumpers amendment, however, we have States that have some 
of the lowest State child poverty rates in the country, 10.7 percent 
statewide child poverty rate in one State. And under the Bumpers 
amendment, that State gets the same kind of per pupil allocation as the 
high-poverty States that he's listed out here.
  How do you figure that? How do you think of that?
  Mr. President, as I started off, I regret this debate because I have 
too much respect and affection for all those who are sponsors and 
leaders on the other side. They are all talking about people that I 
care very deeply about and that we would like to help and to assist, 
and those are the neediest children in our country.
  I take no satisfaction in this debate and discussion, and we always 
find that these are difficult and complex issues. Maybe those are not 
the best ways. Obviously, there is a balance. There are many 
considerations.
  You can vary and change each of those ingredients in just a very 
small or minor way, just by a few percentage points, and you will see 
the swings of millions of dollars away from poor children in one place 
to another.
  So as I mentioned, I regret that we are in the situation where we are 
struggling for the allocations of resources.
  I know my friends and colleagues from Arkansas and from Mississippi 
and from other States that are out here, the people that are making 
this case, are the ones that care the deepest about those children, and 
those that are debating on the other side I think are among those that 
have the deepest commitment.
  So I appreciate and I respect and admire the arguments which are 
made, but I do think that there is sufficient justification for the 
existing formula that it should be retained.
  Mr. President, how much time remains on each side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Feingold). The Senator from Massachusetts 
has 45 and \1/2\ minutes; the Senator from Arkansas has 39 and \1/2\ 
minutes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, does the Senator from Rhode Island wish 
to speak?
  Mr. PELL. I request 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I am afraid that some of us must oppose the 
amendment offered by Senator Cochran and Senator Bumpers. It has the 
effect of producing dramatic swings in funding largely to accommodate 
regional demographics. Such a shift could threaten the widespread 
support for title I funding that exists today regardless of the region 
of the country from which one of us comes. Actually, it could result in 
States ending up with a larger piece of the pie and others with a 
smaller piece. But it should be borne in mind that no State loses under 
a hold harmless provision.
  By contrast the committee formula is well balanced and fair. Those 
who benefit come from the North, South, East and West. The committee 
worked pretty hard with the formula to acknowledge that State spending 
on education should be linked to both the cost of education and to the 
State's fiscal capacity. The adjustments already in the committee-
reported formula add several Southern States, some of which are not 
wealthy but do make a major investment in education and deserve to be 
rewarded.
  The pending amendment also includes a second fiscal capacity effort 
in which need is measured without sufficient consideration of the 
differences in the cost of living in different areas of our Nation. 
Several large States with very large concentrations of poverty 
experience significant losses of funding, something I believe we should 
avoid.
  Also, the amendment--and here I am talking about the amendment--
strikes the incentives in the committee formula that help States that 
spend heavily on education relative to their overall fiscal capacity, 
and it helps those States that have brought a substantial level of 
equity to their State education finance programs. I fear that removing 
both the effort and equity incentives would send a wrong message to the 
States. It would create a situation where States that do not devote a 
large portion of their resources to the education of children would, in 
the end, receive the most title I funds. This obviously is not fair and 
I know we all would wish to avoid it.
  I urge, therefore, that our colleagues join me in opposing the 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who controls time?
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Mississippi 
20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, let me start off my remarks by inviting 
attention to this chart that is displayed behind my desk here.
  It shows in yellow those States which will do better under the 
Bumpers-Cochran amendment than they do under the committee bill. They 
will get more money under the chapter I program.
  The States in white will get less under the Bumpers-Cochran amendment 
than they will under the committee bill, but this does not mean that 
they do not get a lot of money. Some of those States already get very 
high percentages of funds in relation to the number of poor students in 
those States.
  There are 30 States in yellow which do better under the Bumpers-
Cochran amendment. There are 20 States in white.
  The other thing that is shown on this map is the location of the 
students throughout the country who suffer from the highest poverty 
rates. Those are the poorest students in America, and you can see by 
looking at this map where they are located.
  The purpose of bringing that to the attention of the Senate is to 
confirm what the distinguished Senator from Arkansas said when he 
talked about where the money goes under the amendment we are proposing 
as compared to where the money goes under the committee proposal.
  Mr. President, children who live in poverty are the most vulnerable 
children. They are the ones who are the most likely to do poorly in 
school. They are the ones who are most likely to drop out. They are the 
most likely to end up with low-wage jobs or with no job at all. They 
are the most likely to go to prison. They are the most likely to end up 
on welfare.
  In testimony before the Labor Committee, Secretary Riley pointed out 
that 82 percent of those in prison in America today are school 
dropouts.
  Poor students in high-poverty schools perform worse than poor 
students in low-poverty schools.
  As a matter of fact, the performance of all students in a school, 
regardless of their economic circumstance, suffers because of a high 
concentration of poverty. This achievement gap between the students in 
the high- and low-poverty schools widens as the children move through 
elementary grades into junior high school.
  In 1965, the Congress passed legislation to allocate Federal funds to 
help provide remedial education instruction to the poorest school 
districts in America.
  Congress recognized the impact that concentrations of low-income 
families have on student achievement and the ability of school 
districts to support adequate educational programs.
  The chapter 1 program has evolved from that beginning, and it has 
made a tremendous difference in the lives of millions of children over 
the past three decades.
  In another statement to the committee, Secretary Riley, said earlier 
this year:

       When you have a flood that threatens a levee, you give most 
     of your attention over to sandbagging the weakest part of the 
     levee. You don't spread your sandbags around. You 
     concentrate. Well, that has to be true with education as 
     well, and we have a flood of problems in our high poverty 
     schools.

  But under the committee bill, chapter 1 is insufficiently targeted to 
high-poverty communities and schools. The scarce resources are spread 
very thin, and will dilute our efforts to make a real difference.
  The ineffectual targeting of these funds will leave the poorest 
districts with insufficient funds to serve all of their high-poverty 
schools and low-achieving children.
  While I commend very sincerely the committee and its membership for 
the hard work they put into this bill and the commitment the chairman 
and ranking member have shown to the children of America, I do not 
believe the Improving America's Schools Act as proposed, fulfills the 
original promise of title 1. It does not adequately concentrate the 
funds where they are needed most, in the poorest schools. Our resources 
must be focused in those areas that have a particularly high number of 
educationally disadvantaged and low-income students.
  Included in the statement of purpose of the committee bill is the 
following declaration;

       The most urgent need for educational improvement is in 
     schools with high concentrations of children from low-income 
     families and achieving the National Education Goals will not 
     be possible without substantial improvement in such schools.

  In order to fulfill the purpose, the bill calls for distributing 
resources, in amounts sufficient to make a difference, to areas where 
needs are greatest.
  But does the bill accomplish its stated purpose? Do these funds get 
to the children who need them most?
  The answer, I am afraid, is ``no.''
  The bill provides a generous funding effort bonus, which was 
described very well by the distinguished Senator from Arkansas. It goes 
to those States that spend the most on their students from State 
resources. This so-called effort factor is also used in the cost factor 
elsewhere in the bill and has the effect of rewarding wealthy States 
because they have the resources to spend more on their students.
  Now, in my State of Mississippi, as in other States where the tax 
base is relatively low compared to the more wealthy States, you may be 
surprised to find that we spend a much higher percentage of tax 
revenues on education than most other States do. I think Mississippi is 
in the top 10.
  And do they get anything for that effort, that effort to allocate the 
highest percentage age of their tax revenues to education? No, under 
this bill they do not get anything for that. That is not counted as 
effort.
  You only get rewarded for effort if you are rich to start with. That 
is what this committee formula does. Not only does that penalize the 
poorest States, it does not take into account the number of school-aged 
children a State is responsible for educating. That is contrary to the 
very purpose of the act.
  The bill also creates a new equity bonus. This factor uses a 
coefficient of variation among school districts--which is the average 
difference in district spending per pupil from mean or overall average 
district per pupil expenditure in an individual State. If this sounds 
confusing--it is.
  Try to figure out how to measure that and what it measures. I will be 
surprised if any 2 of the 100 Senators would come out with the same 
answer.
  Mr. President, this equity bonus is bad policy. The bonus purports to 
promote State-wide equalization of funding by the States with floor and 
ceiling limits that keep it from having any real leverage.
  The only real effect the equity bonus has is to increase the funding 
that will be allocated to the State of Iowa.
  Now I know that is not the intent. I did not say that was the intent. 
I said it was the only real effect.
  The Bumpers-Cochran amendment has been developed from an analysis 
done by the Government Accounting Office. It is consistent with the 
purpose of the chapter 1 program, and it conforms to the policy of 
helping those who need the help most.
  This amendment redirects chapter 1 funds to those States with the 
greatest percentage of school-aged children living in poverty. That is 
what it does. It ensures that each State continues to receive 
sufficient resources to continue and operate its programs. It does not 
penalize these States in white. They still get a lot of money out of 
this program.
  The amendment does not affect the within State targeting formula, 
either, which will provide better targeting to the poorest schools 
within a State.
  I want you to look at this bar graph and what it shows. It shifts 
very little, really, from the States that derive funds under this bill 
that are so-called wealthier States to those that are poorer.
  Here is a general depiction of what current law gives those States. 
That is what the committee bill would do. It leaves them relatively 
unchanged as far as their positions with each other is concerned.
  But what the Bumpers-Cochran amendment does, it lifts poorer States 
more nearly to the level of the amount that larger States and wealthier 
States are getting per student in poverty. And that is the difference 
between Bumpers-Cochran and the committee formula.
  The changes made by the Bumpers-Cochran, let me just give you one 
example.
  A poor student in the State of Mississippi would receive $817 in 
chapter 1 funds in remedial instruction assistance. Under current law, 
that same student would receive $711. In contrast, a poor student in 
Connecticut would receive $927 instead of the $998 he or she would 
receive under current law. The committee bill, however would increase 
the Connecticut student's share to over $1,000.

  So the Bumpers-Cochran formula replaces the committee ``effort'' and 
``equity'' factors with a more accurate measurement of children in 
poverty to be served. The Bumpers-Cochran amendment uses a ``relative 
income per school-aged child factor'' which is calculated simply by 
dividing adjusted county income by the number of school-aged children. 
And we can all figure that out. It is not mysterious or convoluted as 
the committee bill's equity formula is.
  Ours is the only formula under consideration that fulfills the 
promise of the chapter 1 program by targeting our resources to high-
poverty areas. The chapter 1 program is not a general-aid-to-schools 
program. It was and is intended to meet the needs of children in 
poverty and to improve their educational opportunities and give them 
the chance--to give them the chance--that children in wealthier schools 
have.
  Under our formula, 28 states do better in the first year than they do 
under the Pell-Kennedy formula and 3 stay the same. In the third year, 
when the hold harmless is reduced to 85 percent, 30 states do better 
than under the Committee formula. The ten states with highest 
concentrations of poverty receive increases; the ten states with the 
smallest percentages of poor children receive reductions.
  I urge Senators to help us provide better opportunities for the most 
disadvantaged students in America and vote for this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield the Senator from New Mexico 8 
minutes.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty-seven minutes.
  The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the time being yielded by 
the Senator from Arkansas. I congratulate the Senator from Arkansas and 
the Senator from Mississippi for the amendment, which I support. This 
amendment does seek to improve the formula which the committee has 
proposed for the distribution of title I funds from the Federal level 
to the States. It improves it by making the formula more related to 
poverty, and it eliminates two very highly questionable elements that 
are included in the committee's proposed formula; that is, the elements 
of effort and equity, which the Senator from Arkansas and the Senator 
from Mississippi both discussed.
  Before describing the deficiencies in the committee's formula, I want 
to just refer to the charts that have been referred to by my colleagues 
and point out how this issue affects my own State of New Mexico.
  If you look at the chart that the Senator from Arkansas has put by 
his chair, you can see that the child poverty, the percent of children 
living in poverty in my State of New Mexico is among the highest of any 
States listed on that chart. There are two others higher, Mississippi 
and Louisiana. Mississippi is at 33 percent, Louisiana is at 30 
percent, and then New Mexico is at 26 percent.
  The map which the Senator from Mississippi has put up I think makes 
the point very dramatically. I have a small copy of that here. He has 
here a map that shows in black the distressed counties, which are 
defined as ``twice the U.S. poverty rate, low-income, or 3 years of 
unemployment.'' That is how they determine that. When you look at where 
the black on that map occurs, an awful lot of it occurs in the State of 
New Mexico. Clearly, the children in my State are significantly 
impacted by how this debate is resolved tonight.
  I have been very disturbed by the formula which has been incorporated 
in the committee substitute--disturbed because, at the Federal-to-State 
level, the formula, in my view, does not achieve the targeting which we 
are trying to accomplish: to poor students, especially those students 
who attend schools with high concentrations of poverty, which we have 
been saying throughout the more general debate are so important in this 
bill.
  The formula does work for the goal of targeting within-State 
allocations. However, it does not do so in the portion of the formula 
that deals with the allocation from the Federal Government to the 
States, and that is what Senator Bumpers and Senator Cochran are trying 
to correct. The reason it does not do this is because, though it does 
include a weighting factor which looks to numbers and percentages of 
children in poverty, it also includes these other two factors which are 
unrelated to poverty or to the targeting to poverty. The two factors, 
again, are the effort factor and the equity factor.
  The equity factor penalizes States which are not very equalized, as 
measured by the measurement set out in the formula as the coefficient 
of variation. This gets fairly arcane, to try to describe all the 
detail of this. But, suffice it to say that, clearly, there is a great 
weight put on this equity factor, which, as I said before, does not 
target poor children, which is the main purpose of the overall title I 
legislation that we are trying to pass here.
  We have very limited Federal resources to help our poor children, 
and, clearly, to direct those resources to States which may or may not 
have a need for them solely on the basis of an equalization factor does 
not make sense. We need to target that funding on the basis of income 
in those States and on the basis of their ability to help their 
children.
  On the issue about resources, I had a group of principals in my 
office today from my home State. They repeatedly expressed concern 
about the fact that less than 2 percent of our Federal budget goes to 
education. Clearly, when we have a very, very small amount of the 
Federal budget going to education, we need to do everything in our 
power to see that those funds go where they are most needed.
  The other factor used by the committee, and eliminated by the 
Bumpers-Cochran amendment, is the effort factor. That factor simply, 
again, does not belong in a title I formula because it invariably 
results in penalties for poor States, and this is, after all, intended 
to help poor States. If we want to measure effort, why do we not 
measure a State's total resources and compare it to a State's total 
expenditures on education? Use that measure of effort, and my State of 
New Mexico comes out in the top 10 States. Or look at how much a State 
taxes itself compared to its own tax base. If you use that measure, 
Mississippi gets a very substantial boost.
  But if you use the committee's measure, which compares per capita 
income to per pupil spending, then every single one of the States with 
the highest child poverty rates in the Nation, with the exception of 
West Virginia--all of those States do worse. Why is this so? States 
with low per capita incomes can simply not afford to dedicate as high a 
proportion of their spending to education as richer States do. They 
have to take care of sewers and roads and public safety as well as 
education. They just do not have as much to spend. Furthermore, their 
citizens have lower incomes and are unable to be taxed at the level 
that States with wealthier citizens are able to tax.
  I would be very pleased to see this amendment adopted and see the 
emphasis on effort and equity eliminated from the formula.
  I am also happy to see the income factor brought into this formula, 
as the Bumpers-Cochran amendment would. That factor brings into the 
formula a recognition that it is low-income areas that have the most 
difficulty in supplying remedial services to their poor children. By 
and large, these are the same areas that have the most profound 
problems--the most profound problems--of dropouts and teen pregnancies 
and low-birthweight babies and poor academic achievement. It is clearly 
true that big cities with high per capital incomes, such as New York 
and Boston, have their problems as well. But the fact is that rural 
America--the States with the highest child poverty rates are in rural 
America, and generally they do not have the resources.
  A recent report by the Department of Education on the condition of 
education in rural schools states that rural schools have limited 
fiscal resources to address rising education costs and that increases 
in poverty have disproportionately impacted rural children.
  Thus, the formula which looks to income, and not to things like 
effort and equity, is much more logical as a way of providing funds for 
poverty.
  I understand the interest of the committee in school equity. It has 
been a long time interest of mine. Last year, I proposed a bill to 
establish a Commission on School Financing to study this issue and how 
more equitable school financing could be promoted not only within 
States but across the country. Although my proposed legislation did not 
find support from the committee at that time, the committee did hold 
hearings on school finance equity. We heard from several withesses--all 
of whom were quite eloquent with respect to the vast disparities in 
school funding and the resulting disparities in educational opportunity 
for students.
  However, those witnesses could not describe for us a single measure 
of school equity--it was clear from that hearing and from the research 
I have done that different conditions in different areas could require 
different levels of spending. One dollar spent in a homogeneous suburb 
would not equal $1 spent on a remote school serving children from an 
Indian reservation or $1 on children in the inner city.
  Recognizing the complexity of this issue, I have asked the General 
Accounting Office to study the issue of school finance equity, how it 
can be measured and achieved, and methods of encouraging it at the 
State and local level. That work will take many months and will 
encompass many tasks. It is a complicated issue.
  But the committee has made it a simple issue--it has adopted the 
coefficient of various approach to school equity. While it may be the 
only objective measure we have of equity at the moment, it is certainly 
not a very good one. Let me quote from the Congressional Research 
Service memorandum of July 26, 1993, on Variations in Expenditures Per 
Pupil Among Local Educational Agencies with the States which describe 
the limitations and disadvantages of using Census Bureau expenditure 
data for calculating expenditure disparities--that is, the COV--among 
State LEA's

       These calculations do not adjust for differences among 
     LEA's in pupil needs, which in many cases are recognized by 
     categorical State and Federal aid programs which provide 
     additional funds to LEA's with high proportions of special 
     needs pupils. For example, expenditures per pupil might be 
     relatively high in an LEA because it has a high number of 
     disabled, limited English-proficient, or poor children, such 
     that the States' school finance program provides additional 
     sums on behalf of such pupils. There might also be additional 
     costs associated with population sparsity or density, for 
     which these calculations also do not account * * *.
       There are significant differences among LEA's in a State in 
     the costs of providing educational services. In particular, 
     salaries for teachers and other staff vary widely among LEA's 
     in many States. While salary variations might partially 
     reflect differences in teacher ``quality,'' they are also 
     influenced by such factors as overall labor supply and demand 
     conditions in each area, average experience of the LEA's 
     teacher, general living costs, or the extent and 
     effectiveness of teacher unions * * *.

  These reasons, plus problems with the data collection process 
itself--that is, that data are often stale and reported inconsistently 
within States--make this COV disparity test a rough and often 
misleading measurement of a State's equalization.
  Yet, based on this very rough measure of equity, the committee moves 
millions of dollars away from States which may or may not be meeting 
pupil's needs in an equitable fashion to the handful of States which 
have successfully equalized--by reason of either a rigorous 
equalization scheme, or by virtue of small size or homogeneity as CRS 
notes is the case with Rhode Island and Delaware, or by virtue of 
having predominantly broad-based, county-level LEA's which is noted by 
CRS with respect to the relatively low equalization coefficient of 
North and South Carolina, Florida, and West Virginia. States that have 
large county wide LEA's will encompass disparity within the LEA and the 
differences between LEA's will be considerably less--thus the COV which 
is the basis for the equity factor, will be considerably lessened.
  To reiterate, we have very limited Federal resources to help our poor 
children--why should we direct those resources to States which may or 
may not have a need for them--solely on the basis of an equalization 
factor that may be more the result of geography or LEA size than 
deliberate equalization efforts?
  For these and a host of other reasons the equity factor as applied by 
the committee is simply not the way we should go if we want to do 
something about school equity. And I most certainly do.
  The other factor used by the committee and eliminated by the Bumpers-
Cochran formula is the ``effort'' factor. That factor simply does not 
belong in a title 1 formula because it invariably results in penalties 
for poor States and this is, after all, a poverty program.
  If we want to measure effort--why don't we measure a States total 
resources and compare it to a State's total expenditure on K-12 
education? Use that measure of effort and New Mexico comes out in the 
top 10 States. Or look at how much a State taxes itself compared to its 
tax base. Use that and Mississippi gets a big boost. But use the 
committee's measure--which compares per capita income to per pupil 
spending and every single one of the States with the highest child 
poverty rates in the Nation--all save West Virginia--does worse. Look 
at Feinstein formula--those States all improved considerably when this 
element removed. Why is this so? States with low per capita incomes can 
simply not afford to dedicate as high a proportion of their spending to 
education as richer States--they have to take care of sewers and roads 
and public safety along with education--they just don't have as much to 
spend. Furthermore, their citizens having lower income, they are unable 
to tax at the levels that States with wealthier citizens are able to 
tax.
  So I am very happy to see effort and equity go. And I am happy to see 
the income factor brought in. That factor brings into this formula a 
recognition that it is low-income areas that have the most difficulty 
in supplying remedial services to their poor children. By and large 
those are the areas that have the most profound problems of dropouts, 
teen pregnancy, low birth weight babies, and poor academic achievement.

  It is true that big cities with high per-capita incomes such as New 
York and Boston have these problems too--but those cities frequently 
have more resources to try to deal with those problems than do the poor 
areas. The fact is that rural America--and States with the highest 
child poverty rates are rural States--generally does not have those 
resources. The recent report by the U.S. Department of Education on the 
condition of education in rural schools states that rural schools have 
limited fiscal resources to address rising education costs and that 
increases in poverty have disproportionately impacted rural children. 
Thus a formula which looks to income and not to things like effort and 
equity is much more logical approach to providing funds under a poverty 
program. And that is what this is supposed to be--a poverty program--
although it is difficult to tell that when the committee propounds a 
formula which gives a bigger percentage increase to title I funding to 
Connecticut with 10.2 percent child poverty rate, than to Alabama with 
a 23.3 percent rate.
  We have serious problems in this country--our educational system is 
failing to help our most vulnerable citizens--poor children. If we 
seriously intend to help those children we have to recognize that our 
precious Federal resources have to go where the need is greatest--and 
that might not be our own particular State. In the committee I proposed 
and voted for a formula which would have provided New Mexico with less 
money than the committee formula--but I did it because I thought it was 
the right thing to do--because my formula got more money to more poor 
kids. The Bumpers-Cochran formula shifts title I resources away from 
States with high income counties and lower concentrations of child 
poverty and to the poorer States. We all know of hideously poor areas 
in our States and all want as much help for those areas as we can get--
but we cannot ignore the kind of evidence of need which Senators 
Bumpers  and Cochran have brought to us today.
  In my State over 1 in 4 children lives in poverty; in Senator 
Cochran's almost 1 in 3 children is poor. It is time to finally send 
our money where the children living in concentrations of poverty live 
and to send that money in amounts sufficient to make a difference in 
their educations.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  As we mentioned before, in this formula we have tried to consider a 
variety of factors. But this is not a redistribution of income program. 
That has never been the purpose of this program. The purpose of this 
program is to try to positively impact the lives of children who are 
particularly disadvantaged. That has been the spirit of the program, 
and that is what we have tried to do in our formula.
  In fact, we have considered a variety of factors: the weighted 
formula factor to aid areas with high concentrations and high numbers 
of students in poverty; the cost factor; the State effort factor; and 
the equity factor.
  The fact of the matter is, New Mexico receives a 14 percent boost in 
our formula over current law. New Mexico also receives $8.3 million 
under title I of the Bureau of Indian Affairs set- aside. That also 
represents money for poor children. In effect, New Mexico's poor 
children are counted once under Title I, and if they are children of 
Indians, they are counted again. They do not do that in other States, 
but they do in New Mexico. And we still increased their funding 14 
percent in our formula. That is not even to mention the $34.5 million 
that New Mexico receives in impact aid. We did not say, ``Well, because 
they get the impact aid, we will give them less Title I money.''
  While people are getting so worked up about the inequities of our 
formula, we might pause to ask what the logic and rationale of counting 
poor children twice in New Mexico is. Understand, I am not opposed to 
how it works. I think the challenges for Native Americans are some of 
the most difficult, compelling challenges children anywhere face. 
However, when we are coming out and talking about justifying all of our 
positions on this, I find it somewhat difficult to agree with my 
colleague from New Mexico. I certainly agree that impact aid is 
important; we receive about $5 million in my State too, and we are glad 
to get every dollar of it. And I think we should be careful to keep the 
whole picture in mind during this debate: Title I, impact aid, and 
other programs as well.
  I think, Mr. President, that the effect of this amendment would be to 
significantly reduce the kind of assistance to children delivered in 
major poverty areas. Under this amendment, California will receive $50 
less for every poor child. That figure reaches $100 per pupil in New 
York, and over $100 per poor child in the State of Florida. Puerto Rico 
loses $12 million under this formula and has a child poverty rate of 66 
percent, twice the poverty rate of any State in the Union.
  We may not have it perfectly right, but I daresay, even the 
Washington Post wrote approvingly that:

       The Clinton administration has been pushing hard for a 
     better formula. . .. The Senate Labor and Human Resources 
     Committee last week produced a compromise that would phase 
     out some of the misdirection in two years, partly by changing 
     the formulas by which states can reduce a school's allocation 
     one year to the next (currently, it's very slow), and partly 
     by cutting a few steps out of the elaborate State-to-county-
     to-district-to-school process by which the funds reach their 
     ultimate direction.

  As I said, it is difficult to argue with the concept of getting 
additional funds into areas where there are poor children. I made that 
argument before, and I am not going to state it again.
  If I could yield to the Senator from Illinois and then the Senator 
from Iowa. How much time remains, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty-eight and a half minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Illinois, and 10 
minutes to the Senator from Iowa.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized for 10 
minutes.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I know it is easy when you are on this 
floor and you put a formula together and you get the numbers, to get 50 
votes. But I have from time to time voted for formulas where the State 
of Illinois was not a beneficiary because I believed it benefited the 
Nation. And that is the kind of situation we are in right now.
  Take a look at that map behind Senator Cochran. It is very 
impressive. There is only one minor thing that is wrong with that, it 
ignores the poverty numbers. In the city of Chicago, there are 313,000 
poor kids in the public schools. If you look at this map, it does not 
even get a dot on there. I look down at my State, and I see three small 
rural counties and they are on the map. Something is wrong. The Robert 
Taylor Homes in Chicago probably has more population than any one of 
these three counties. It is just totally ignoring the numbers.
  I heard the distinguished Senator from Arkansas say this is the worst 
formula he has ever seen. Let me tell you how we have improved the 
current law. Under the current law, in my State of Illinois, the North 
Brook/Glenview District, which has 1 percent of students in poverty, 
gets $12,309 per student in poverty. The city of Chicago, which has 
313,000 poor students, gets $453 per pupil. Lake County, the Lake 
Forest School District, a very wealthy school district, gets $3,900 per 
pupil. The Waukegan School District with 5,714 poor students gets $165.
  I could go on.
  This really is a fair formula. I do not see our friend from Arkansas 
on the floor, but the cosponsor is the Senator from Mississippi. I 
would be interested, if he can respond, the current law gives 43 
percent of these funds to the highest poverty districts. The Senate 
bill, the formula we have, makes it 54 percent. What is the percent 
under the Bumpers-Cochran amendment, if my colleague can give me the 
answer?
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, the percentage 
the Senator is asking for is what percentage of what?
  Mr. SIMON. Is what?
  Mr. COCHRAN. What is the percentage referred to? I heard your 
percentages. You said current law is 43 percent, the committee bill is 
60 percent, or something like that.
  Mr. SIMON. Twenty-five percent of school districts with the highest 
poverty rates. This focuses on them.
  Mr. COCHRAN. What our bill does is target the money to those with the 
highest percentage of poverty within their districts.
  Mr. SIMON. What I am trying to get at is the flaw in the Senator's 
amendment. He is focusing on percentages rather than numbers. The map 
shows that. The city of Peoria--I do not remember the numbers in 
poverty there, but it is a very high percentage. It does not even make 
it. Milwaukee, WI, has some poor people, poor students in Milwaukee, 
WI. Sorry, it does not make it on this map. I think we have to 
recognize a deficiency there.
  Second, I would underscore to my colleague from New Mexico, for whom 
I have great respect, if we are going to do just what benefits our 
State, each one of us, then I am not going to vote for American Indian 
education. Now the reality is I support it because I think it is 
important. But Illinois does not get a penny from that. If each of us 
is going to be so provincial that we say if this does not benefit my 
State another $10 I am not going to vote for it, we are not going to 
benefit the Nation.
  I cannot tell you how, when there is a poor child in Milwaukee, WI, 
and that poor child does not get help, that it is going to hurt 
Illinois. But I know, intuitively, that is the case. And so we put a 
formula together that ignores the numbers.
  Yes, we may pick up 51 votes here, and I suppose the odds are that we 
will, but we do not serve the Nation well. I hope we have the courage 
to do the right thing.
  This formula may not be perfect; no formula is. It is always a lot of 
compromise. But this formula really concentrates on helping poor 
children, and that is what we ought to be about in this body.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Illinois 
will yield.
  Mr. SIMON. Very briefly for a question.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I was in the Cloakroom, and I heard the Senator ask me 
and Senator Cochran how our formula works.
  Mr. SIMON. Yes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. It is weighted like yours except for two things: equity 
bonus factor and the effort bonus factor, both of which the GAO says 
will take us in the opposite direction of what we are trying to 
accomplish.
  Mr. SIMON. I have not read the GAO report, but let me talk about the 
equity factor. If there is anything in here I criticize, it is that we 
did not put enough for the equity factor. The disparity that we have 
between rich and poor school districts in our States is something we 
ought to be addressing and we are not addressing. We address it just 
slightly here, and we ought to be addressing it more.
  The second is the effort factor, and I would make a correction to my 
friend from New Mexico on this. This is State spending on education 
relative to States' fiscal capacity. It is not that you are spending a 
flat amount per pupil. I think these are both very properly in this 
formula. I think we have put together here something that makes sense 
for the Nation.
  Real candidly, it may not make sense temporarily for your State, 
whatever State you are from. But it really makes sense for the Nation. 
I am sensitive to the people of the State of Illinois, and I try to 
fight for the people of the State of Illinois, and, yes, my State does 
benefit slightly from this. But my title is not Illinois Senator; it is 
United States Senator. We have to look at the national interest as we 
cast this vote.
  I yield my time.
  Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Iowa is recognized for 10 minutes.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we have a lot of formula fights around 
here, and none of them are ever perfect. However, I believe the Pell-
Kennedy formula is fair and it is balanced. I think any effort to 
change it ought to be rejected. It is more fair and more balanced, I 
believe, than the one being proffered by the Senator from Arkansas and 
the Senator from Mississippi.
  I was listening to what the Senator from Illinois was saying. I 
noticed Iowa here. We have some counties down here in southern Iowa 
with poverty rates exceeding 20 and 25 percent. They are not depicted 
on there.
  I see Florida. Florida has a lot of intense areas of distressed 
counties, yet they lose money. They lose money under Bumpers and 
Cochran. So does Colorado, and they have a lot of these little black 
dots, if that is what you are looking at there. They lose money under 
Bumpers and Cochran.
  I heard my friend from Mississippi say a little while ago that the 
Pell-Kennedy formula only helped rich States. Well, I am sorry. Go back 
and look at it. Our formula helps West Virginia, helps it quite well, 
and that is certainly not a rich State.
  I think the alternative formula misses the mark. Let me try to 
explain what the Pell-Kennedy formula does again. The Federal-to-State 
allocation includes a weighting provision to provide additional funds 
to areas of high numbers or percentages of low-income children. That is 
in the Pell-Kennedy formula.
  However, there is an additional part of the formula that includes 
incentive payments for State effort and equity. With the addition of 
these incentives, this formula breaks new ground.
  Some say they are unnecessary. I disagree. I think we have to 
recognize a few simple realities. First, the underlying premise of 
title 1 programs is that it will provide supplemental services for the 
education of economically disadvantaged students. Unfortunately, in far 
too many schools the resources are insufficient and title 1 is not 
providing the supplemental services that were envisioned.
  Second, the Federal Government right now provides about 6 percent of 
the revenues for elementary and secondary schools--small but very 
important. In 1980, it was 11 percent, and that has fallen to 6 
percent, and with the budget constraints, it is probably not going to 
go up very much more than now.
  Some States have placed a high priority on education and providing 
State resources for K through 12. Schools in all these States are 
heavily financed by local property taxes, and so what happens, Mr. 
President? We know what happens. If you have high property values, you 
have good schools. If you have poor areas, you have bad schools.
  Now, some States have taken very aggressive action to equalize 
funding so that all children will have an equal opportunity to succeed. 
However, other States have not addressed these huge financing 
differences.
  So what we have built into the Pell-Kennedy formula is a carrot, a 
reward to say to States: Look, if you will do a better job at 
equalizing your formulas, you will get better help. That is what the 
effort and equity provisions are for, to reward and encourage these 
States.
  Read Jonathan Kozol's book ``Savage Inequities.'' He portrays the 
differences that exist in our Nation's schools.
  In our country, property taxes fund local schools. So if you have a 
wealthy district, you have good schools; poor districts, you have poor 
schools.
  Now, in my State of Iowa--and I am very proud of it--in the 1970's, 
our State legislature passed very aggressive laws to equalize this, to 
say that if you have a rich district, you are going to get less of the 
State aid for schools than if you have a poor district. That started in 
the 1970's. I think it is one of the reasons why our Iowa students K 
through 12 always place in the highest in all of the tests--math and 
science and everything else. Iowa students always place highest because 
we have equalized it to the greatest extent possible. There are other 
States that have not done that.
  I ask the proponents of this amendment, the Senator from Arkansas and 
the Senator from Mississippi, how have your States done in equalizing 
their benefits to these poor school districts? Take a look at it. That 
is what we are saying here. If your State has made a good effort, you 
will get a little bit more. We are trying to provide that incentive. I 
say it to the Senator from Arkansas, too. That is all we are trying to 
do. We do not have enough money to spend in every rich district in the 
country, so we are trying to get the States to make a little bit more 
of an effort.
  That is all the Pell-Kennedy formula does. You can talk about how 
many States win and how many States lose, but the Pell-Kennedy formula 
is fair. It may not be perfect. Obviously, if each of us could draft a 
formula, we would draft it to benefit our States. But that is not the 
case here. We drafted a careful formula to do two things: provide money 
for concentrations where that is necessary, to meet the needs of those 
kids in highly concentrated areas, and, second, to try to give some 
incentive to States to do better on their own in equalizing their 
formulas. That is why I would urge my colleagues to support the Pell-
Kennedy formula and to reject the proposed change in that formula.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eighteen minutes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. And how much time does the----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty-four minutes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, Senator Cochran and I are not trying to 
punish the more affluent States, but if you look at the map, you can 
see where the poverty is. You see those black areas? That is where 
twice as many people live below the national poverty rate. That, 
friends, is poverty. And what does this formula do to redress that? It 
gives more money to the more affluent States. It is true that poor 
States get a little bit more, under the committee formula.
  While most States get a little bit more under the committee's 
proposed formula, it is because there is a $7 billion-plus 
authorization. But please do not do us any more favors like this. We 
cannot stand it. I am reminded, in looking at that map of Willie 
Sutton. Someone asked him, ``Why do you rob banks?'' He said, ``Because 
that is where the money is.''
  This program is intended to help poor children and the money ought to 
be going where the poor people are, and it is not. Take the State of 
Massachusetts--and I am not picking on the floor manager's State--but 
take the State of Massachusetts with 6 million people, and Arkansas 
with 2\1/2\ million people; 24 percent of our children are in poverty, 
and 13 percent of the children in Massachusetts live in poverty. We get 
$704 under the committee bill. Massachusetts gets $1,023, 40 percent 
more than we get per child. They get between $40 million and $50 
million more even though they have only slightly more poor children 
than we have.
  Do not do me any more favors like this.
  In Arkansas, we are at 70 percent of the per-pupil expenditure of the 
national average, which is a little over $5,000 per pupil. Thirty-one 
States are below the national average. But if you, like Arkansas, are 
at 70 percent, and you are about third or fourth from the bottom in per 
capita income, I promise you my children will be dead before they match 
the 95 percent level for effort the committee bill has demanded. The 
committee says that until you reach 95 percent of the national per-
pupil expenditure average, you cannot get another penny under this 
formula.
  You think about that. And when you are trying to reach such massive 
figures as the difference between 70 percent and 95 percent of the 
national average, the children in my State will be dead before they get 
another nickel under this formula.
  What did the General Accounting Office say about the so-called equity 
bonus on disparities? In my State we have a property tax which pays 
about 50 percent of our education expenditures. You might not like it, 
but that is the way it is. We have a property tax. The more affluent 
counties spend more money on schools, but not because of a State 
requirement. The State actually sends more money to the poor counties 
than they do to the more affluent counties. But if the counties that 
have a little more money and want to spend a little more on education 
and increase their property tax a little bit more, why should they not? 
They should. But they should not ever plan on getting any more money 
under this formula because they will never reach the 95-percent level 
in the equity bonus set out by the committee, or the so-called ``equity 
bonus per person'' expenditures per child.
  Here is what the General Accounting Office said. I want you to listen 
to this. This is what the General Accounting Office said about the 
equity bonus factor:

       The equity bonus factor has a floor on it that eliminates 
     the incentive for improvement in States with the greatest 
     spending disparities.

  The Senator from Illinois made much of the fact that the committee is 
trying to get the States to eliminate the disparities in spending on 
students, and that is a very laudable goal. But the formula in effect 
says, don't worry about it, you will never reach it.
  The General Accounting Office says there is no incentive to improve--
and there is not--especially for those poor States. Then why have such 
a factor?
  I will tell you exactly why it is in there. It is in there to make 
sure that the wealthiest States in America--New York, Maine, 
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio--get the money. 
They get the money, and they will continue to get more. I thought the 
Civil War was over. However, the States on that map with all those 
black dots will never benefit from this formula.
  Mr. President, somebody had to come early and stay late to think up 
this formula. How in the world can you justify the most affluent States 
of America, which I just named, getting anywhere from $1,000 to $1,200 
per poor child, and the State of Arkansas getting $704, the State of 
Alabama getting $710, and the State of Mississippi getting $742? How do 
you justify that? Answer: you cannot.
  We probably will not prevail on this vote. A few in this body have 
gone to dinner, will walk in not having heard the debate, and will walk 
down to the floor managers, and, say, ``How should we vote?''
  It is so discouraging, Mr. President. You do not see any little black 
dots in Massachusetts. You do not see any little black dots in New 
York. You do not see any in Iowa. You do not see any in Indiana. Look 
where they are. Why do you think I have worked as hard as I have on 
this amendment? Because this is a demonstration of a significantly 
inequitable formula.
  There is one thing I want to say about this that is good. The 
committee said if you do not have 5 percent of children in poverty in 
your school district, you get nothing. That is a step in the right 
direction.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and reserve the remainder of my 
time.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the Senator from 
Arkansas. I draw his attention to the fact, for example, under his 
formula the State of Utah--which has the third or fourth fewest poor 
children in the country, third or fourth lowest number of poor children 
in the country--and under the Bumpers formula, they have one of the 
highest increases; one of the highest increases. They go up 9.8 
percent, and they have 10.9 percent poor children.
  So, with all respect, I would have the facts, and tell those to the 
mothers of children in California or New York or Florida where you have 
hundreds of thousands; 350,000 poor children in Florida; 600,000, 
970,000, and every one of those poor children under the Senator's 
formula goes down. You wonder why we work so hard at the formula.
  We might not have it perfect, Mr. President. But if you start 
balancing these various factors out--this is just looking over the 
list. I was beginning to become convinced, until I started looking over 
the facts of this: 10.9 percent; three other States have lower numbers; 
9.8 percent increase, and one of the fewest numbers.
  Mr. President, we have tried. All right. Go back to the percent of 
income--Utah is 15,000; Arkansas, 15,006; and, Utah 15,007--and we find 
that the income is virtually the same, one of the lowest numbers of 
poor children in Utah, one of the highest increases under the Bumpers 
formula.
  Yet, we see the dramatic reduction in the coverage of where the 
concentration of poor children are. As we have said, and as the Senator 
from Arkansas said, this is not a redistribution formula, this is not a 
redistribution; it is a program that should be targeted on the 
children, targeted on the cost of education, targeted on the efforts 
that are being made in those States to provide funding for the 
education, and targeted on the efforts of the State to reduce the 
disparity. Those are the factors that we have included in there. You 
can vary those to some extent. You can say ``just poor children'' and 
come out one way. It does seem to me that this is a balanced formula.
  As I say, I regret the fact, and I wish we had additional kinds of 
resources to be able to deal with all of those. But, quite frankly, 
when you look at how the formula works in those particular instances--
and I did not have the chance to go through others, but I think there 
are others--look at how it even works on Puerto Rico. Under this 
formula, Puerto Rico loses $12 million, and they have a child poverty 
rate of 66 percent, which is twice the rate of any State in the Union. 
I do not know how they fell through the cracks when you are talking 
about the number of poor children. But that is the effect. There are 
going to be more poor children that are going to be adversely affected 
under this program.
  How much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 19 minutes remaining.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Iowa [Mr. Harkin].
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the chairman. There is one State the chairman 
left out. If this formula is so all-fired perfect, I say to my friend 
from Arkansas, here is New Hampshire with one of the lowest poverty 
rates--7 percent--and they get an increase. If it is all-fired perfect, 
how come that happens?
  To follow up with what the chairman said, the Senator from Arkansas 
leaves the implication out there that somehow the formula we came up 
with does not help poor States. Well, tell that to Mississippi. 
Mississippi, under the Pell-Kennedy formula, is better than current 
law--not as good, obviously, as what the Senator from Mississippi 
wants, but it is better than current law; Louisiana, better than 
current law; West Virginia, better than current law; South Carolina, 
better than current law. These are all poor States. We just did not 
give as much as what the Senator from Arkansas wants.
  Second, let us turn to this chart. I have been looking at this, and I 
was quite intrigued by it. I saw the big chart on the other side. I 
looked at the little one here with all these little black dots on it. I 
could not quite figure it out at first, but now I have it figured out. 
It is a very ingenious little chart, all these little black dots, with 
a lot in Arkansas and a lot in Mississippi. I looked down here at New 
Mexico and Arizona, and I saw big counties with these big black dots 
out there. I read what those black dots mean. It says ``a distressed 
county with twice the U.S. poverty rate, low income and/or 3-year 
unemployment.''
  So what could happen is you could have a county out here in West 
Virginia--it is colored black there--with twice the U.S. poverty rate--
I will take the extreme--which might have two people living in the 
county. But you could have a county up here in Massachusetts, or in 
Chicago, and it could have 5,000 kids, maybe not twice the poverty rate 
but may be one-and-a-half times the poverty rate. It does not show up 
here. This chart is as phony as a $3 bill. It does not give you an 
indication of where the real need is, because you might have just a few 
people in one of those counties out there and, yet, you have high 
concentrations in New York, or Chicago, or Miami, or even, yes, Los 
Angeles, south Los Angeles. This chart really does not tell it all.
  I believe the Pell-Kennedy formula is fair. It does not provide for 
these big swings in States, which this amendment will do. What the 
effect of this amendment, I fear, will be is that it will start to pit 
States against one another, with poor kids in one State against poor 
kids in another State. Hopefully, that is what we tried to fight 
against in the formula we came up with.
  Last, the Senator from Arkansas is a good pleader. If I ever have to 
go to court, I want him as my attorney. He makes a great argument. But 
if you look behind the argument, you have to ask yourself in these 
States: What is the State doing in its effort to equalize, to make sure 
that those areas of the State where they have high property taxes, 
high-income areas, where the State is saying you have a responsibility 
to fund other parts of the States, where we have low property taxes and 
poor people and low incomes? That is part of the formula we build in 
here, and I believe it is vital that we send that strong message to the 
States.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BUMPERS. How much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 9 minutes remaining.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Does the Senator from California wish to speak?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I do. If there is time, I might speak at this time, 
or I will speak later.
  Mr. BUMPERS. You are opposed to the amendment, are you not?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. That is correct.
  Mr. KENNEDY. How much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 15\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I understand the emotion and the 
passion behind the comments of the Senator from Arkansas, and I must 
say I feel some emotion and some passion about this subject, too. As a 
matter of fact, I had my staff pull the text of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 
III, which says there is a point in time for everything, and a time for 
every affair under the Heavens. It goes on to say that there is a time 
to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot the 
plant.
  I think that tonight is the time really to join the fight on chapter 
I, because I am one of those that joins Senator Bumpers in a 
dissatisfaction over chapter I. I would like to, hopefully, without too 
much passion and emotion, make the case, because the way I look at it, 
it comes down to one basic elemental truth: a poor child is a poor 
child. You can have redundant factors, and you can have hold-harmless 
formulas, but if the money does not follow the poor children of the 
Nation, an enormous disservice is done. And the money does not follow 
the poor children of the Nation under the Kennedy-Pell formula.
  As Senator Kennedy pointed out, my State has the largest number of 
poor children in the Nation--969,762 poor children. Yet, we are a high-
cost State, not a poor State. And there are pockets of poverty all over 
the State. A poor child in California, under the Pell-Kennedy formula, 
would get $783. A poor child in Connecticut--and a poor child is a poor 
child--would get $1,025. A poor child in Massachusetts, $1,024. A poor 
child in New York, $1,082. A poor child is a poor child. A poor child 
in Rhode Island, $1,064. In Connecticut, there are 53,000 poor 
children. In Massachusetts, there are 120,570. In New York, there are 
597,134. In Rhode Island, there are 20,539.
  My point is that the money does not follow the poor children, and 
that is the flaw with whatever formula any committee comes up with. The 
time has come to change the formula. In Texas, it is $729 a poor child, 
not $1,000, with 803,000 poor children.

  So my State loses $21 million, a State that has a deficit of $5 
billion, that cannot raise local taxes because of proposition 13, that 
has a budget deficit that is $5 billion in debt, and that spends 40 
percent of its budget on the education of children.
  So the more children you have that are poor, the more you are 
disadvantaged under this formula. It is just fact. It happens that way. 
You can add cost, you can add effort, you can put redundancy on 
redundancy, and all it does is keep money from where the poor children 
are in the Nation and where they are moving. The fact is poor children 
move.
  That is what appeared to me last year when Senator Kennedy and I 
entered into a colloquy, and this year the proposal is going to be 
worse. Only 2 percent of chapter 1 funds go to school districts in 
which more than 75 percent of students are poor. Less than half of 
chapter 1 funds goes to schools considered to be high poverty areas.
  We will receive 11 percent of all chapter 1 grants, $667 million out 
of $6.3 billion. While the number of poor children in my State grew by 
almost 250,000 children, almost 40 percent between 1980 and 1990, there 
was no adjustment in California's allocation for 13 years or any other 
States. For California the failure to use updated data cost $126 
million in 1993 and cost growth States a total of over $400 million in 
that year alone.
  The money does not follow the child. A poor child is a poor child. 
The money should be directed on an absolute formula grant as to where 
the poor children really are in this Nation, and they should follow 
those children. It should be updated periodically. It should not have 
to wait 10 years or 13 years. If we follow this same rationale, by the 
year 2000 there is going to be enormous discrepancy--if we follow this 
same formula.
  So, I would like to just point out a couple of things in my State 
that are going to happen. This is a projected increase between 1990 and 
2005. We will have a greater than 40 percent increase in poor children 
in these areas; San Diego, San Bernadino, Riverside, the Los Angeles 
area, in the entire central valley, Fresno. More and more by then, 
California will be dominantly people of color, poor--which already is 
happening--more and more immigrants, more and more illegal immigrants.
  In the areas that are slashed diagonally, there will be a 25 percent 
to 40 percent increase, and in the areas this way a 25 percent increase 
in poor children.
  So the situation is only going to compound dramatically under 
Kennedy-Pell in terms of numbers.
  The difference in per-pupil resources is created by something in the 
chapter 1 formula called the cost factor, and that raises or lowers 
State allocations by up to 20 percent. As an example of one of the 
school districts getting the less funding----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Robb). The time yielded to the Senator 
from California has expired.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Is it possible to have yielded a few more minutes?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I had thought the Senator was going to speak in 
opposition to the Bumpers amendment, mistakenly. I have others who want 
to address that.
  I think in fairness to those, particularly since those States are 
going to be affected, maybe the Senator from Arkansas will yield time.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. That is fine. I have all night. I can wait.
  I thank the Senator very much.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BUMPERS. How much time do I have?
  Does the Senator have someone who wishes to speak?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Senator Jeffords wished to speak. I yield 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized for up 
to 5 minutes, with the time charged to the time of the Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I rise in support of the title 1 
formula.
  Vermont really does not have anything to gain or lose by either 
formula. We are going to get the same amount under the Bumpers-Cochran 
as we did under the Kennedy formula, the committee formula.
  But I believe that it is important for those of us on the committee 
to take a look at the problems and priorities of the Nation on a more 
global scale and put regional differences aside.
  The formula we are considering today is a result of 2 years of 
investigation on the part of the committee, 2 years of crafting a 
formula which incorporates and combines suggestions from policy 
experts, children advocates, the administration, the General Accounting 
Office, and others, and represents a constructive new direction for 
Federal chapter 1 funding.
  Most importantly, the committee formula represents an intricate 
balance between several interrelated factors; State poverty, the cost 
of providing educational services, State tax efforts for education, and 
the degree to which a State has equalized funding across State lines. 
This last factor I consider particularly important.
  I urge my colleagues not to tinker with one part of the formula, for 
it will affect the delicate balance that has been created.
  The formula recognizes that it costs more to educate poor children 
when they attend schools which have high numbers of concentration of 
poor students and provides grants up to 40 percent higher to serve 
students in those types of schools. It recognizes that the cost of 
providing educational services to children also varies from State to 
State on account of cost-of-living differences between those States and 
the cost-of-education difference between those States.
  Furthermore, for the first time, the formula provides rewards and 
incentives to those States which carry a high tax burden for education, 
and to those states which have achieved a sufficient degree of equity 
in funding for public schools across the State. And that has been a 
very severe national problem. We should reward those States that have 
tried to do something about the equalization of funding among the 
States.
  No formula will account for the needs of every State. I think the 
chairman did an excellent job crafting a formula that puts policy 
before politics, and in doing so sets a bold and positive new policy 
for Federal education funding.
  Let me just make a few points about the competing formula which has 
been advocated here by Senators Bumpers and Cochran. This formula 
ignores the effort and equity factors put forward by the committee. As 
I said, these are very important factors for a new formula, factors 
which I believe represent a constructive new Federal policy.
  In the committee formula, States are rewarded when they show a high 
fiscal effort to support education, regardless of their wealth. States 
are rewarded when they have made progress towards equalizing funding 
across district lines.
  My State and many States will tell you it is incredibly difficult, 
and we failed this year in our effort to make our system better. The 
formula we are debating now will eliminate the factors and, in my mind, 
will be a significant step backward in developing a formula for the 
future.
  While no formula is perfect, this one would reward those who spend 
the least on education for their children in those States where the 
Federal Government already picks up more than their fair share of the 
tab.
  Many of these same States have significant amounts of federal money 
coming from various programs across the spectrum. Vermont, I know from 
my own analysis of our situation, has less Federal money coming in from 
other Federal programs, education and otherwise, than many of the 
States who would benefit under this formula.
  In addition, while the formula would benefit my own State only 
slightly, it would destroy the chapter 1 program in several States 
where the problems of poverty are severe. That is why I would be 
against it and recommend a vote against it.
  For instance, California with nearly one-eighth of the poor children 
in the country, would lose nearly $50 million under the competing 
formula.
  Mr. President, I again want to echo that I feel it is critically 
important that we establish new Federal policy, and the formula this 
committee has worked on has done an excellent job to bring new factors 
in that will provide a much more equitable situation for our 
schoolchildren, especially those in poverty.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and yield back my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, how much time do I control?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas controls 8 minutes 
and 40 seconds. The Senator from Massachusetts controls 2 minutes and 3 
seconds.
  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, my friend from Iowa, one of the dearest 
friends I have in the U.S. Senate, called the map which sits behind 
Senator Cochran, phony. You think about that. I know that he is a well-
intentioned person. I know that he cares about poor people. I know his 
heart is in the right place.
  But how can he call those black dots, where the poverty rate is twice 
the national average, phony? I would like to take the Senator from Iowa 
over into the Delta of eastern Arkansas and take him to about 10 or 15 
counties where those black dots are. It is not two poor people, as he 
suggested. It is thousands and thousands of poor children, mostly 
black.
  The Senator from Iowa said, if we stay like this, we are just going 
to pit States against each other. You could not have fired on Fort 
Sumter and come up with a worst case of pitting States against States 
than the committee formula.
  I have pointed out at least twice, and maybe three times, in the 
course of the evening that the big bucks, $900 to $1,200 per poor 
child, are going to New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, 
Rhode Island, Indiana. No black dots in those States. They have poor 
children, but they do not have the concentrated poverty that I am 
talking about. It is not just the concentration of poverty, it is the 
concentration of poor children.
  I do not begrudge New York, Massachusetts, or any of those States the 
amount of money they get under this formula. I want them to educate 
their poor children as well.
  Why is a poor child in New York or Pennsylvania or even Vermont worth 
$1,200 each and a poor child in my State only worth $700? Talk about 
pitting State against State.
  And the Senator from Massachusetts said, ``Well, look at Senator 
Bumpers' and Senator Cochran's formula. My goodness gracious, look at 
Utah. Poor little old Utah, with about a million people and an 11 
percent poverty rate, 2 percent less than the State of Massachusetts, 
and they are getting just about the same amount of money Massachusetts 
is getting.''
  Well, look at Utah.
  Our formula is not perfect. It is designed on what the GAO said was 
the best you could do.
  I was practicing law one time and another lawyer told me a story 
about a guy that had just been charged with murder. And he told the 
cop, he said, ``Why are you looking at me? Look at that jaywalker. Why 
don't you arrest him? The guy committed murder and he says, ``Get that 
jaywalker.''
  And here we have, ``Look at Utah. Why don't you look at Utah? Don't 
look at New York and Connecticut and Rhode Island and Massachusetts and 
all the other States that make off like bandits. Look at Utah.''
  Mr. President, there is one unassailable fact: the wealthy get 
wealthier under this formula.
  If this were just a Senator from Arkansas speaking, pay no attention. 
It is the investigative arm of Congress on whom we rely for almost 
everything, the General Accounting Office. What do they say? They say 
that this formula to disburse $7 billion-plus, to try to help poor 
students in the schools of America, has the very opposite effect. Not 
me, the General Accounting Office.
  They say the equity bonus factor inserted in the committee's formula, 
under the guise of saying we want disparities eliminated will have the 
very opposite effect. It will not eliminate the disparities.
  And in light of that, they said, ``Why is this even in the formula?'' 
And with regard to the so-called effort bonus factor, where you take 
the average per pupil expenditure in your State and compare it with the 
per pupil expenditure as a national average, 31 States are below the 
national average.
  My State is at 70 percent. The committee bill says, ``Until you get 
up to 95 percent, you are stuck at $704.''
  Do you know what that would require in a State like mine? It would 
require something like a 20-percent property tax increase; a 2-cent 
sales tax increase. We cannot do it. We are a poor State. That is the 
reason I am pleading.
  But the committee says this is the fairest formula they could come up 
with. And what they are saying is, ``Senator, your children will lie in 
their graves before the State of Arkansas will ever get to 95 percent 
of the effort. And, therefore, as long as this formula is in effect you 
will never get another penny under the so-called effort equity bonus.''
  What did the General Accounting Office say about that? There is no 
incentive for the poor States, where most of the poverty children are, 
to try to reach it, because they cannot. It is not an incentive. 
Neither the effort to eliminate disparities within States has an 
incentive in this, nor does the incentive to get people to spend more 
per pupil in this bill. On the contrary, both of them are 
disincentives.
  And so let me just say, in closing, to my colleagues, if you are from 
Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, or 
Connecticut, you would be an idiot to vote against this. It is what we 
call in Arkansas ``a bird nest on the ground.''
  And if it passes and it becomes law, to all the States that we are 
talking about, you are locked in. It would take a mammoth effort to 
ever get another nickel under this formula.
  Mr. President, do I have any time remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 21 seconds remaining.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I yield to the Senator from Mississippi the remainder of 
my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi is recognized for 
up to 15 seconds.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I thank the Senator for yielding.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
a letter from the GAO addressed to me and the Senator from New Mexico 
[Mr. Bingaman], on an evaluation of the formula alternatives before the 
Senate now.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

         General Accounting Office, Health, Education and Human 
           Services Division,
                                     Washington, DC, June 7, 1994.
     B-257503
     Hon. Thad Cochran,
     U.S. Senate.
     Hon. Jeff Bingaman,
     U.S. Senate.
       The Senate is considering a new formula for distributing 
     federal assistance for the educationally disadvantaged under 
     title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
     amendments of 1994. The new formula, described in Senate bill 
     S. 1513, would distribute federal aid for the educationally 
     disadvantaged on the basis of four factors. In response to 
     your request, this letter provides our views of these four 
     factors in light of the program's objective to target funds 
     to children with the greatest need.
       Under S. 1513, funds would be allocated under one formula, 
     which contains four factors:
       The first is a weighted measure of poor children that 
     serves as a proxy for the number of educationally 
     disadvantaged children. The weighting scheme provides a 
     higher per child allocation to school districts in counties 
     with high poverty rates and high numbers of children in 
     poverty.
       The second is a state average per pupil expenditure factor, 
     a measure of total state and local spending on education per 
     pupil, that serves as a proxy for state costs of providing 
     chapter 1 services.\1\ Under current law, this factor cannot 
     exceed 120 percent or fall below 80 percent of the U.S. 
     average. Under S. 1513, this factor would range between 115 
     and 85 percent of the average per pupil expenditure in the 
     United States.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Footnotes at end of letter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The third is an effort bonus based on state per pupil 
     spending expressed as a percentage of state income, which is 
     a proxy for the level of ``effort'' the state makes in 
     funding elementary and secondary education in the state. 
     However, this factor must range between 95 and 105 percent of 
     the nation's average effort, rewarding those states with the 
     greatest effort with a bonus in their chapter 1 per pupil 
     funding.
       Fourth, an equity bonus generally based on the coefficient 
     of variation in per pupil education spending in the state\2\ 
     serves to reward states that have low disparities in per 
     pupil spending in the state; states with great disparities 
     will be penalized. This factor must also range between 95 and 
     105 percent; states with the lowest disparities are weighted 
     105 percent, giving them a bonus in their chapter 1 per pupil 
     funding.
       In summary, while the goals of S. 1513 are laudable, the 
     new grant allocation formula may not be appropriately 
     designed to increase targeting to high poverty areas and to 
     reward states that reduce inequities in per pupil spending. 
     An unintended consequence of adopting the new formula may be 
     to produce less--rather than more--targeting to educationally 
     disadvantaged children.


 extra weighting for areas with high poverty levels could be increased

       The bill's proposed formula provides extra weighting, which 
     results in somewhat higher funding per child, to target 
     additional funds to serve children in areas with high 
     concentrations of poverty. In a 1992 report, GAO recommended 
     that counts of children receive greater weight in high 
     poverty areas to better reflect the greater number of 
     educationally disadvantaged children in these areas.\3\ 
     However, the weighting scheme adopted in S. 1513 may not 
     provide high enough weight to sufficiently target dollars to 
     counties with high concentrations of educationally 
     disadvantaged children. For example, the need for chapter 1 
     funding in high poverty counties may be as high as 150 
     percent of the need in low poverty counties, but the 
     weighting scheme in S. 1513 is insufficient to provide 
     allocations that will compensate for this 150 percent 
     difference in need.


state average per pupil expenditure is a poor proxy for cost of chapter 
                               1 services

       Our earlier report also criticized the current cost factor 
     because it overstated cost differences and unfairly 
     benefitted wealthier states that can afford to spend more on 
     education. S. 1513 tries to correct this bias to some extent 
     by reducing the range of this factor from between 80 and 120 
     percent of the U.S. average to between 85 and 115 percent. 
     However, we believe that the current measure of per pupil 
     expenditure is a poor proxy for the cost of providing chapter 
     1 services.


          effort bonus factor may not target high need states

       The effort bonus may target more aid to states with lower 
     concentrations of children in poverty and less to states with 
     the highest concentrations of such children. Such targeting 
     would be contrary to the objective of the program, which is 
     to target more money to those places with greater 
     concentrations of poverty and, hence, more educationally 
     disadvantaged children.
       The rationale for using an effort factor is to introduce a 
     financial incentive into the formula for low spending states 
     to increase their effort to adequately fund their educational 
     systems. However, placing a floor on this factor of 5 percent 
     less than the national average substantially reduces the 
     impact of this incentive. Because of the 95-percent floor, a 
     low spending state that increases its effort may get little 
     additional benefit in the form of a larger chapter 1 grant. 
     Similarly, by placing a 105-percent ceiling on this factor, a 
     high spending state that decreases its effort may not have 
     its chapter 1 grant reduced substantially.


equity bonus factor may not provide incentives for state reductions in 
                          spending disparities

       Finally, the equity bonus factor, while well intended, is 
     not likely to serve its intended purpose--as an incentive for 
     a state to decrease in-state per pupil spending disparities--
     for three reasons:
       (1) Chapter 1 funding is such a small portion of total 
     school spending that it is unlikely that it will cause states 
     to change their school aid formulas to produce smaller 
     spending disparities.
       (2) The floor placed on the factor so that it cannot be 
     less than 95 percent substantially weakens the incentive for 
     states to reduce per pupil spending disparities for precisely 
     those states with the largest inequities.
       (3) The restriction that the factor can be no more than 105 
     percent significantly reduces the penalty for states with the 
     smallest variation in per pupil spending whose performance 
     deteriorates.
       The equity bonus may tend to target less aid to some states 
     with larger spending disparities in per pupil funding and 
     generally higher rates of child poverty and educationally 
     disadvantaged children while targeting more assistance to 
     some states with the smaller spending disparities and 
     generally lower concentrations of child poverty and 
     educationally disadvantaged children. This would happen 
     because some states with smaller spending disparities also 
     generally have smaller economic disparities and, hence, fewer 
     poor children.


         adding a funding capacity factor would improve formula

       One way of both targeting high poverty areas and promoting 
     greater equalization is to include a measure of county or 
     state funding capacity in the allocation formula. For 
     example, in our 1992 report, we recommended the inclusion of 
     an income factor that would target localities with limited 
     capacity to fund remedial services. Such a factor would 
     target more--rather than less--assistance to areas with the 
     highest concentrations of educationally disadvantaged 
     students.
       Copies of this correspondence will be provided to 
     interested parties upon request. If we can be of any further 
     assistance please call me on (202) 512-8403 or Jerry Fastrup 
     on (202) 512-7211.
           Sincerely,

                                       Cornelia M. Blanchette,

                                               Associate Director,
                                  Education and Employment Issues.


                               footnotes

     \1\Under S. 1513, chapter 1 is redesignated as title I.
     \2\The coefficient of variation in per pupil spending is a 
     statistical measure of the degree to which per pupil spending 
     varies in a given state.
     \3\``Remedial Education: Modifying Chapter 1 Formula Would 
     Target More Funds to Those Most in Need'' (GAO/HRD-92-16, 
     July 28, 1992).
                                  ____


    Targeting Chapter 1 Funds--an Evaluation of Formula Alternatives


                               background

       The goal for funding Compensatory Education Services was 
     established at 40 percent of state per pupil spending when 
     Chapter 1 was authorized in 1965. This need standard is 
     reflected in the current Chapter 1 formula which allocates 
     federal funds in proportion to 40% of state per pupil 
     spending.
       Appropriations for Chapter 1 amount to only 35% of remedial 
     education spending needs, leaving 65% either unfunded or at 
     the discretion of states and local school districts to make 
     up the funding gap.
       Low-income school districts are at a funding disadvantage 
     due to their relatively weak local tax bases. They must 
     undertake substantially larger tax burden to meet the 40% 
     funding goal for remedial education.


    chapter 1 reauthorization issues related to the school finance 
                           equalization issue

       S. 1513 brings federal policy into the school finance 
     equalization issue by including an ``equity'' factor that 
     rewards states that have low spending disparities among local 
     school districts.
       The S. 1513 equity factor is a flawed indicator of states' 
     success in achieving equalization and should not be used 
     because it directs limited federal resources to low-need 
     states.
       Chapter 1 funds should be allocated from the Federal 
     government to the States using an equalizing formula that 
     offsets the funding disadvantage of low-income schools. This 
     can be accomplished by introducing an income factor that 
     targets Chapter 1 funds to low-income areas.
       The income factor proposed in the Bumpers/Cochran Amendment 
     is the same type of factor most states use in allocating 
     their school aid funding, including, for example, 
     Massachusetts, Kansas, New York, Mississippi, and Utah.


   Comparison of Various Formula Alternatives in Terms of Targeting 
                 Additional Aid to High Poverty States

       Formulas Compared:
       (1) Current Law
       (2) S. 1513 (Committee)
       (3) S. 1513: no effort (Feinstein)
       (4) S. 1513: no effort or equity factor
       (5) S. 1513: no bands on equity factor (Hatch)
       (6) Current Law with income factor (Bumper/Cochran)

                 TABLE 1.--FUNDING PER CHILD IN POVERTY                 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        13 High   13 Low
                        Formula                         poverty  poverty
                                                         States   States
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poverty rate (percent)................................     23.6     11.2
Current law...........................................     $736     $902
Percent difference from current law:                                    
  S. 1513.............................................     +0.1     +0.6
  No effort or equity factor..........................     +2.6     -2.2
  Feinstein...........................................     +3.2     -0.4
  Hatch...............................................     +3.9     +2.3
  Bumpers/Cochran.....................................    +10.2     -6.1
------------------------------------------------------------------------

       Conclusions: In terms of targeting increased aid to high 
     poverty states,
       The committee formula is virtually no different from 
     current law. Current law provides $736 per poor child to the 
     high-poverty states and $902 per child to the low-poverty 
     states. S. 1513 provides slightly more to both groups and, by 
     implication, less to the states in the middle group.
       The Bumpers/Cochran option is the only formula under 
     consideration that substantially increases targeting to high-
     poverty areas, increasing aid to high poverty states by 10% 
     while reducing aid to low-poverty states by 6%.
       Eliminating the tax effort and equity factors from S. 1513 
     provides a modest increase in targeting to high poverty 
     states (an additional 2.6%) and reduces aid the low-poverty 
     states a modest 2.1%.
       The Feinstein and Hatch proposals provide additional 
     assistance to the high poverty states but this is 
     accomplished by reallocating aid from the middle group of 
     states. The Feinstein proposal reduces aid to low poverty 
     states by only 0.4% while the Hatch proposal reallocates aid 
     from the middle group to both high- and low-poverty states.


        equalization achieved under various formula alternatives

       The tax burden local school districts would have to 
     undertake to reach the 40% funding goal for Chapter 1 is much 
     greater in low-income school districts. Their greater tax 
     burden reflects the economic disadvantage they face in 
     funding remedial services.
       Under the current law formula, low-income states would have 
     to tax themselves at rates 35% above the national average. In 
     contrast, the low-poverty states could meet the spending goal 
     with tax rates nearly half the national average (see table 
     2).

  TABLE 2.--LOCAL TAX BURDENS REQUIRED TO FULLY FUND REMEDIAL SERVICES  
                   UNDER THE CURRENT CHAPTER 1 FORMULA                  
                           [U.S. average=100]                           
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                           Percent--    
                                                     -------------------
                                                       Poverty     Tax  
                                                        rate     burden 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
13 High poverty States..............................      23.6       136
13 Low poverty States...............................      11.2        52
------------------------------------------------------------------------

       The goal of school finance equalization is to distribute 
     grant funds so that all school districts are able to makeup 
     the funding shortfall with equal tax burdens.
       How equalizing a particular formula is can be determined by 
     comparing the extent to which they offset disparities in tax 
     burdens required to fully fund remedial education 
     expenditures needs.

   Table 3: Reduction in financing disparities under various formula 
                  alternatives compared to current law

                                                    Disparity reduction
Formula alternative:                                          (percent)
  S. 1513...........................................................4.0
  Feinstein (no tax effort).........................................6.4
  S. 1513 no effort or equity factors...............................5.6
  No floor or ceiling on equity favor...............................5.6
  Bumpers/Cochran..................................................15.5
       These results lead to the following conclusions:
       All the formula options make only modest improvements in 
     offsetting the financing disadvantage of high poverty states.
       The committee formula (S. 1513) makes the smallest 
     improvement in equalizing the allocation of chapter 1 funds, 
     reducing tax burden disparities by just 4%.
       The Bumpers/Cochran alternative makes a significant 
     improvement, equalizing tax burden disparities 15.5%.
       The G formula reduces financing disparities the most, 
     19.3%.
       The Feinstein, LA1 (the Committee formula without the tax 
     effort and equity factors), and the Hatch formula 
     alternatives provide only slightly more equalization than the 
     committee formula but considerably less than the Bumpers/
     Cochran alternative or the G formula.
       The attached table provides information on the tax burden 
     disparities of all 50 states.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time under the control of the Senator from 
Arkansas has expired.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator controls 1 minute and 40 seconds.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield the remaining time to the Senator from 
Pennsylvania.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized 
for up to 1 minute and 40 seconds.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I oppose the amendment offered by Senator 
Bumpers and Senator Cochran because the committee amendment is an 
equitable formula. It rewards the States which have made a greater 
effort to fund education and it also accommodates the States with 
concentrations of poor people.
  Frankly, I prefer the existing law to the new committee amendment 
because my State, Pennsylvania, does a little better under existing 
law.
  But I oppose the Bumpers-Cochran amendment, candidly, because my 
State does substantially worse under the Bumpers-Cochran amendment.
  Under the committee formula, contrary to what the Senator from 
Arkansas said, there are many of the States which are not affluent that 
do better under the committee amendment than under current law--
Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, West Virginia.
  The committee amendment has been worked out after consideration, 
after hearings, after a great deal of thought.
  There are other formulas in the wings to be offered by other 
Senators. These formula changes have been calculated so that their own 
individual States will receive more funds. If we start to remanufacture 
the formulas based on what does best for each of our States, we are 
going to end up with 50 different suggestions.
  My strong recommendation to this body is to accept the committee 
amendment and reject the pending amendment.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor the Cochran/
Bumpers amendment regarding chapter 1 funding. The Chapter 1 Program is 
currently our largest education program we have to serve our 
disadvantaged students. When Lyndon Johnson created this program back 
in 1965, he probably never imagined it would be this large or serve as 
many students as it does today.
  But part of the problem with the Chapter 1 Program is that it does 
serve so many students. And some of the students served under this 
program would hardly be classified as poor or disadvantaged students. 
Under the current formula, chapter 1 funds are going to 93 percent of 
all school districts, and 66 percent of all public schools.
  According to a July 18, 1994 article in U.S. News and World Report, 
only 2 percent of the $6.2 billion we currently spend on this program 
go to school districts in which more than 75 percent of the students 
are poor. Less than half go to high-poverty areas. More alarming, the 
article continues, $310 million goes to school districts in which fewer 
than 5 percent of the students are poor.
  With this in mind, I am pleased we are now taking the opportunity to 
ensure that we do a better job sending increasingly scarce Federal 
resources to the school districts that need them most--the very poor. 
Students who are poor are disadvantaged in more than just a financial 
sense. They often lag behind their peers in academic as well as social 
skills. Chapter 1 programs have given many students the assistance they 
need to achieve on a more level playing field.
  The formula we have in the committee substitute does make some 
significant steps toward targeting chapter 1 funds toward needy 
students. I am pleased with some of the innovative changes in the 
formula, such as assigning students weights according to percentages 
and numbers of children in poverty, and using a cost factor--which 
factors into the formula a State's average per pupil expenditure--makes 
a good start toward ensuring funds get where they are needed most.
  However, I do not believe the effort and equity factors--both of 
which are new elements in the formula--are accurate indicators of 
children in poverty to be served. That's why I am pleased to support 
this amendment, which uses a relative income per school age child 
factor. This factor is calculated by taking into consideration the 
county's income per child and comparing it with the national standard. 
Injecting this element into the formula results in Federal resources 
going where they are most needed by targeting those areas with higher 
numbers of children and lower incomes.
  Mr. President, while my home State of New Mexico will receive 
additional funds under this alteration in the formula, I want to point 
out that New Mexico stands to gain under almost any change in the 
formula including the one in the committee substitute. Unfortunately, 
when funding formulas are based on poverty, as is the chapter 1 
formula, New Mexico will almost always do very well. However, 
regardless of the amount New Mexico would receive under this formula, I 
feel this formula is the most equitable and fairest of any of the 
changes in the formula we will see before us.
  I thank the Senator from Mississippi and the Senator from Arkansas 
for their diligence in this matter, and I am pleased to lend my support 
to this amendment.


                          the title i formula

  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I believe that the formula for title I 
allocations that is included in S. 1513 is fair. Title I provides funds 
to local school districts to help them to meet the educational needs of 
low-achieving students in poor neighborhoods. Until now, the funds were 
allocated, through States to the local level, based on a formula that 
considers the State-wide average expenditure per pupil, the number of 
children below the Federal poverty line, and the number of children 
whose families are receiving AFDC.
  Under the formula proposed by S. 1513, the allocation to the States 
would be based on the number of poor children multiplied by the State 
expenditure per pupil, except that each child is assigned a weight 
based on county poverty rates or numbers of poor children. In other 
words, the higher the poverty rate, the higher the average child grant 
a State would receive. The new formula also considers effort and 
equity. These factors reward States that spend heavily on education in 
relation to their fiscal capacity. The title I formula is extremely 
complicated, but one thing is clear. The proposed formula will send a 
message to States that those who make education a high priority will be 
rewarded for doing so.
  The formula in S. 1513 provides each State with at least as much as 
they received this year, through a hold harmless provision. So, there 
are no losers with this approach. As I understand it, the amendment 
before us would result in dramatic swings in funding that are linked 
entirely to regional demographics.
  This afternoon, I met with three elementary school principals from my 
State. Each of them reported receiving substantially less funding this 
year then they did in years past. Under the proposed amendment, these 
schools would experience even greater reductions. The Bumpers-Cochran 
amendment would result in a loss of $1.5 million for Rhode Island's 
neediest children.
  I oppose this amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I support the Bumpers-Cochran amendment to 
the title I formula in S. 1513.
  The use of county income data as a factor to determine a State's 
allocation would help a lot of States in need.
  I believe my colleagues have presented a commendable proposal. 
However, this is not the only meritorious approach to the difficult 
issue of school finance reform.
  As my colleagues are aware, I have prepared my own amendment to the 
title I formula which I believe has merit as well.
  Senator Feinstein has circulated a proposal that is sound.
  Mr. President, I believe as well that the formula in S. 1513 is a 
credible and valid formula.
  I don't think there is only one way to go on this. The one sure way 
to have a formula fight is to get locked in on a specific theory or 
factor.
  I support the Bumpers-Cochran formula because it meets my criteria 
for measures such as school funding formulas.
  My criteria is quite simple, Mr. President.
  First, the formula must be supported by sound policy that can be 
argued compellingly and substantively. The Bumpers-Cochran formula 
accomplishes this. I certainly believe my amendment achieves this and 
so does the formula included in S. 1513. There are legitimate points in 
favor of each of these ideas.
  Second, the formula must be good for my state of Utah.
  When the policy is solid--and I have not yet seen an amendment to 
this formula where the policy is not solid--then the question becomes 
one of how Utah fares under the formula in question.
  As my colleagues will see, the Bumpers-Cochran formula does benefit 
Utah relative to the formula in S. 1513.
  Therefore, I plan to support it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  Under the previous order, the hour of 9:30 having arrived, the 
question occurs on amendment 2428.
  Mr. COCHRAN. 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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. 
The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 54, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 241 Leg.]

                                YEAS--46

     Baucus
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boren
     Breaux
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Danforth
     Daschle
     DeConcini
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Gramm
     Hatch
     Heflin
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Johnston
     Kempthorne
     Kerrey
     Levin
     Lott
     Mathews
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Packwood
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Rockefeller
     Sasser
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Thurmond
     Wallop

                                NAYS--54

     Akaka
     Biden
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Brown
     Bryan
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     D'Amato
     Dodd
     Durenberger
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatfield
     Helms
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Mack
     Metzenbaum
     Mikulski
     Mitchell
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Pell
     Reid
     Riegle
     Robb
     Roth
     Sarbanes
     Simon
     Smith
     Specter
     Stevens
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wofford
  So the amendment (No. 2428) was rejected.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I appreciate the cooperation that we have 
had during the afternoon and the early evening. It is my understanding 
there are two more formula amendments, Senator Hatch from Utah and 
Senator Feinstein from California. It would be my preference, and I 
think Senator Jeffords', since we have been talking about these 
matters, and I think the Members are familiar with it, that we would 
deal with those issues this evening. Senator Gregg had an amendment 
just to strike existing programs which would take a short time, and 
then there is one further amendment that I am familiar with. That is 
Senator Danforth's amendment.
  So we would like to try to accommodate the schedule of the leaders to 
move ahead. Obviously, the schedule is going to be decided by the 
leadership. But we are prepared to move ahead on those matters, and we 
would like to be able to do so with the idea of getting some 
resolution--I see Senator Feinstein here. She was prepared to vote this 
evening.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Yes. I want a rollcall vote.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Could we do that in an hour?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Yes. Probably, yes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Senator Feinstein is prepared to agree to a time 
limitation and to a vote.
  Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the majority leader, 
Senator Mitchell.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Feinstein now be 
recognized to offer her amendment; that there be a 1-hour time 
limitation on the amendment equally divided in the usual form; that no 
amendments be in order either to her amendment or to any language that 
may be stricken, and that upon the conclusion or yielding back of time 
the Senate vote on or in relation to the Feinstein amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Several Senators. I object.
  Mr. HATCH. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah reserves the right to 
object.
  Mr. HATCH. It was my understanding that the Hatch amendment would go 
next, and I think it might resolve the matter if we do it. I am hopeful 
it would.
  Mr. MITCHELL. How much time would the Senator like?
  Mr. HATCH. I would say we can certainly do it in an hour, maybe even 
less.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I put the same request except that I 
propose that it be the Hatch amendment as opposed to the Feinstein 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. WALLOP. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming reserves the right to 
object.
  Mr. WALLOP. Mr. President, it may not occur to either the Senator 
from Massachusetts or Maine, but the hour is 10 o'clock, and therefore 
I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Chair recognizes the majority leader, Senator Mitchell.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Yesterday morning, the Senate spent nearly 3 hours in 
what was an unnecessary delay on the matter, and I predicted at the 
time that either last evening or this evening we would get to a point 
where we were making progress on the bill and people would say, well, 
it is too late to proceed. If we had been able to devote those 3 hours 
yesterday morning to the bill instead of the pointless delay which 
occurred, we might not be in this position.
  Mr. President, Senators can, of course, object to any proposed 
agreement and can prevent votes on amendments from occurring. The only 
recourse which the majority leader has is to compel votes on procedural 
matters. I have done so only sparingly and with great reluctance and 
will not do so this evening.
  But I will simply say to my colleagues that more than a month ago I 
wrote a letter to every Senator. I read the letter in this Chamber. I 
placed the letter in the Congressional Record. I advised Senators well 
in advance that we have a certain amount of business which we have to 
complete. If we continue to encounter delays during the day, then we 
have no alternative but to conduct our business in the evening.
  What simply cannot be accepted is the circumstance where we have 
delays during the day and then we cannot act in the evening.
  Mr. President, I will modify my request. Senator Hatch was of the 
impression his amendment was going to be next. So I will ask unanimous 
consent that Senator Hatch be recognized to offer his amendment; that 
there be a 1-hour time limitation on the amendment equally divided in 
the usual form; that no amendments be in order either to his amendment 
or to any language that may be stricken, and that the vote on the Hatch 
amendment occur at 10 a.m. on Monday.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the unanimous consent 
request?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Reserving the right to object, then would I have an 
opportunity for my amendment?
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I further request that following 
disposition of the Hatch amendment, on Monday, Senator Feinstein be 
recognized to offer her amendment under a comparable 1-hour time 
limitation and that upon the use or yielding back of that time the 
Senate vote on or in relation to the Feinstein amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the unanimous consent 
request, as modified? The Chair hears none, and it is so ordered.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I thank my colleagues. The next vote will be on the 
Breyer nomination tomorrow, upon the completion of the time. The Hatch 
amendment will be debated this evening. The vote will occur at 10 a.m. 
Monday. Then there will be 1 hour of debate on the Feinstein amendment, 
and then a vote on the Feinstein amendment. I thank my colleagues.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order----
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, may I address the leader?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Utah will be recognized to offer an amendment.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, ordinarily Senator Jake Garn would have 
had this obligation, but I am not quite clear on the majority leader's 
statement relative to what time the vote would occur tomorrow.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Under the agreement entered, debate would begin at 9 
a.m. There will be 6 hours for debate equally divided. If all time is 
used, the vote will occur at 3 p.m. If time is yielded back, the vote 
will occur prior to 3 p.m. in direct proportion to the amount yielded 
back.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, so it is the majority leader's 
intention then to have the last vote tomorrow no later than 3 p.m.?
  Mr. MITCHELL. Well, under the order, unless unanimous consent is 
granted to extend the time, the vote will occur at 3 p.m., if all time 
is used. If all time is not used, it will occur prior to that.
  So the answer is, yes, it will occur no later than 3 p.m. I hope and 
expect that it will occur before then. I do not believe all the time 
need be used, but that is up to individual Senators.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the Senator from Alaska would object if 
the unanimous consent were asked beyond 3 p.m.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I do not intend to ask it.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I understand.
  Mr. MITCHELL. It is a very regular practice for Senators to come in 
the Chamber and ask unanimous consent for more time, so I suggest the 
Senator be here and diligent during the day.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. The Senator from Alaska will be here at 3 o'clock. I 
thank the chair.
  Mr. MITCHELL. No. No, I suggest the Senator be here at 9 a.m..
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I will be here for the vote.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Biden].
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, with regard to the Breyer vote at 3 p.m., I 
do not know what my friend, the ranking member of the committee, 
Senator Hatch, has determined, but to the best of my knowledge there is 
not the necessity of using all 6 hours. So I just want to let people 
know that the managers of the bill will not be offended if people do 
not use all 6 hours because at least two dozen of you asked me whether 
or not I am going to ``Keep that going 'til 3 o'clock.''
  I am ready to vote at 9:30, and we go in at 9 a.m. So I just want you 
to know that anyone wishes to vote earlier, encourage your friends to 
just show up earlier to vote. You may all be able to leave, and we may 
be able to move this much more quickly.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, this week we have begun consideration of 
the Improving America's Schools Act, and I am pleased to be an original 
cosponsor. This bill provides more than $12 billion in Federal 
assistance to State and local educational agencies, primarily to assist 
children at risk--including children in poverty and children with 
limited proficiency in English--to attain the high academic standards 
being developed as a result of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, 
which was approved earlier this year.
  I am particularly pleased with the reauthorization of the Even Start 
Family Literacy Act, which I authored in 1987 and which was enacted 
into law as part of the 1988 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 
This began as a very modest program, first authorized at $50 million. 
In 1992, the program was reauthorized at $100 million, and this year, 
we go even further by authorizing Even Start at $120 million.
  Even Start provides services to children, from infants to 7-years-
olds, and their families. One of our Nation's gravest challenges is the 
persistence of illiteracy. I introduced the Even Start Program because 
illiteracy tends to be passed from one generation to the next. 
Tragically, even parents with the best intentions tend to pass their 
illiteracy on to their children. Study after study indicates that 
children who are read to during their preschool years, learn to read 
more easily than children who are not read to. Children of nonreaders 
too often grow up to be nonreaders, and these children begin school at 
a distinct disadvantage.
  Even Start strives to break this cycle of illiteracy by funding 
literacy programs directed specifically at nonreading parents and their 
preschool children. We all agree that parents are their children's 
first teachers, and that children, whose parents are involved in their 
education, flourish. Even Start helps parents to develop the skills 
needed to participate, in a meaningful fashion, in the education of 
their children.
  The Even Start Program includes core services, such as adult literacy 
training, training for parents to prepare them to assist in their 
children's education, and early childhood education. Additional 
services may include child care services, testing and counseling, 
education of parents and their children in their own homes, and 
transportation. Even Start helps in our efforts to achieve three of our 
Nation's educational goals: Goal one ``all children will start school 
ready to learn,'' goal six ``every adult American will be literate * * 
*,'' goal eight ``every school will promote partnerships that will 
increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the 
social, emotional and academic growth of children.''
  Even Start tackles the dilemma of parents who are unable to help 
their children succeed in school because of their own literacy 
problems. Imagine the anguish of parents who know they should be 
reading to their children, but cannot; who cannot interpret or response 
to notes from teachers or bulletins; and who must stand by helplessly 
while their children struggle to handle the challenges of school all 
alone. Imagine the despair of the child who gets no reinforcement at 
home for what he or she learns at school. Even Start attacks this 
problem from both sides, by assisting the child and the parent.
  Funds authorized by S. 1513 for Even Start will be targeted toward 
teenage parents, 78 percent of whom are likely to live in poverty. 
Teenage parents and their children are of special concern, because too 
often these teen parents have no alternative but to drop out of school. 
Without a program like Even Start, the children of these parents would 
be likely to fall into the cycle of illiteracy.
  In addition to the Even Start Family Literacy Program, S. 1513 
reauthorizes a number of worthwhile programs that I wholeheartedly 
support, including the national writing project, which helps teachers 
to improve their writing skills and the teaching of writing skills; the 
Star Schools Program, which provides grants for telecommunications 
partnerships for distance education services in math, science, and 
foreign languages; the Magnet Schools Program, which has been 
successful in discouraging segregation; The Dropout Prevention 
Demonstration Program that I introduced with Senators Stafford and 
Pell, to identify likely dropouts and to encourage children who have 
failed to complete high school to return to school; The Blue Ribbon 
Schools Program, which authorizes the Secretary of Education to 
identify and reward individual schools for achieving excellence; and 
the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Program, which assists schools in 
providing special programs for our most talented students.
  I am pleased that the Safe and Drug Free Schools Act has been 
reauthorized. The role of our schools has changed drastically in the 
past three decades, and schools have taken on extraordinary new 
burdens. Children of all ages, in every State across the Nation, have 
access to guns. When I was Governor in my State, the worst one might 
hear of at the schools was a fistfight. A gun incident, or shooting, 
was unheard of. Rhode Island is not a major urban area. Yet this year 
we have seen a dozen gun incidents in our schools.
  What is the only route for school administrators to take? To ensure 
the safety of all who are in the school, administrators are forced to 
divert scarce funds from books to $4,000 metal detectors. In July 1992, 
25 percent of the 45 largest school districts were using metal 
detectors; today, 69 percent are using them.
  The Safe Schools Act authorizes Federal grants to school districts to 
fight violence in their schools. The presence of guns in schools 
diminishes the work of educators across the country. This bill takes 
steps to ensure that our heavily burdened schools are free of guns and 
the violence that results.
  S. 1513 also encourages professional development. We have asked our 
Nation's schools to reach for the stars, to encourage our children to 
achieve high standards in every core academic area. Our teachers must 
be prepared to meet this challenge. The bill assists teachers in doing 
so by providing funds for ongoing training and teacher development.
  I am particularly pleased that the committee included the Library 
Media and Technology Act, which I cosponsored. The technology at work 
in the automatic teller machines of most banks exceeds the technology 
present in most of our Nation's schools. This is an unacceptable 
situation. Our Nation is paving the way for the Information Highway and 
our schools must be ready to bring our students down this road.
  S. 1513 encourages our schools to continue their efforts to achieve 
excellence and to prepare our children for the challenges of the 21st 
century by emphasizing programs that we know work. This bill encourages 
and assists local schools to develop the reforms and high standards 
called for in Goals 2000. So, Mr. President, I want to express my 
strong support for S. 1513 and urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, off reservation boarding schools 
represent the last hope for many of the at-risk native American youth 
who live there. Whether emotional young people strive to succeed or 
fall into the path of destruction can depend directly upon the quality 
of individual experiences with the teachers and counselors who hold the 
power to shape their lives.
  Many of the problems these schools face are very familiar: Alcohol 
and drug abuse, parental neglect, emotional suffering, and patterns of 
delinquency. As in any school system, without programs that meet their 
specific needs, at-risk youth are not adequately educated and are 
destined to failure. Total opening enrollment at off-reservation 
schools was over 2,600 students last year. But, closing enrollment was 
only slightly over 1,500 students. Some of the schools have dropout 
rates near 50 percent.
  Reports analyzing these schools around the country raise many 
questions regarding their administration and funding. The amount spent 
per student at off-reservation boarding schools, such as the Chemawa 
Indian School in Salem, OR, varies from $10,000 to $15,000 per year. By 
comparison, the Oregon Department of Corrections estimates their per-
inmate cost in youth institutions at $47,450 per year.
  The issues here are complex and the budgets are extremely tight. But, 
I believe that we can not afford to overlook a 50 percent dropout 
rate--the social and economic costs are too high to ignore. Also, we 
must not forget that around 15 percent of the children in these schools 
are classified as gifted and talented students. How are the missions of 
the schools addressing their high potential for achievement?
  In a recent hearing in the Indian Affairs Committee, we took a closer 
look at these schools. At that time, there was widespread support from 
administration officials and others to move toward a therapeutic school 
model that would be better tailored to meet the needs of these children 
by restructuring the residential and academic programs and enhancing 
the social and mental health focus of the schools.
  Because some of these schools are struggling to move this direction 
already, I support this amendment to encourage the administration to 
set up demonstration programs in those schools. While I remain 
concerned about the lack of resources that all of these schools face, I 
believe that this amendment can be a step in the right direction toward 
ensuring that limited funds are used in the best manner possible for 
the well-being of these children.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Utah is recognized to offer an amendment.
  Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. MITCHELL. If the Senator will permit me to obtain an agreement--
--
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

                          ____________________