Congressional Record, Volume 141 Issue 76 (Tuesday, May 9, 1995)

[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 76 (Tuesday, May 9, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4604-H4609]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

KEEP EDUCATION IN THE BUDGET

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 4, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr.
Owens] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.
Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we are about to move into the most important
phase of the legislative process, and that is the budget. The Committee
on the Budget I understand will be deliberating this week and by this
time next week we will have on the floor of the House the budget for
fiscal year 1996, the proposed budget of the House committee.
The announcement is that one of the proposals in that budget coming
to the floor will be a recommendation, a proposal to eliminate the
Department of Education.
The attack on education is one of the most baffling elements of the
approach by the present majority of the House of Representatives to the
Federal Government and its priorities. The attack on education comes at
a time when we are in a global competition with other industrialized
nations for the markets of the world, and that competition is likely to
get worse. Everybody has conceded that education is a vital component
of whatever effort this Nation puts forward in order to be economically
competitive, now and in the future.
We have had a continuum of concern expressed about education since
President Reagan appointed a commission, and that commission came back
with a report entitled ``A Nation at Risk.'' ``A Nation at Risk'' was a
report that alarmed many leaders in America. President Reagan never
appropriated any money of any kind to follow through on the
recommendations of the report, but he did endorse the findings of the
report and called to the attention of the American people the fact that
it was a very serious problem, we had a very serious problem.
President Bush came along and began to try to take steps to implement
some Federal policies with respect to education which would provide
greater guidance to the localities and the States. Education is
primarily a state function. The Federal Government provides leadership
and guidance that is very vital and important, but when it comes to
expenditures for education, it is the States and the localities that
provide most of the funds for education.
I think about 7 to 8 percent of the total education budget may be
federally financed. Out of more than $360 billion spent on education
from kindergarten to postgraduate, only about 7 or 8 percent of that
was Federal funding. It went down during the Reagan administration to
as low as 6 percent, and began to come back up under the Clinton
administration, moving toward 8 percent. So although we provide only a
small amount of the funding, the Federal guidance, the Federal sense of
direction, has been considered very important, since the report ``A
Nation at Risk'' was released.
``A Nation at Risk'' showed the industrialized nations have some kind
of centralized guidance with respect to their education systems. Many
of the industrialized nations, of course, go much further than we would
ever want to go in terms of they not only guide education, they
administer it and set the policies and dominate education.
In France, Great Britain, you have most of Europe with centralized
education policymaking. Traditionally, in this country it has always
been education is a state and local matter, and the freedom of local
school boards to operate has always been a cherished one. Nobody wants
to change that.
{time} 1930

But there are extremes. I think the European model of centralized,
highly centralized education or the Japanese model of highly
centralized ministers of education dictating to all parts of the
country what happens in schools is one extreme. The other extreme is
for the Federal Government to take no meaningful role at all. At one
time our Government had no meaningful role. There was a long, long
debate as to how much our Government should become involved in
education. We became involved in high education, universities and
college education long before the Federal Government ever became
involved in public education, elementary and secondary education. There
was a long, long debate.
It was during the Great Society years that President Lyndon Johnson
moved us into support for elementary and secondary education, and that
came in the form of attempting to come to the aid of the poorest school
districts in America. The poorest districts needed help. And the
original elementary and secondary education legislation was targeted to
the poorest districts, and to a great degree that is still the case.
Most of our aid is theoretically targeted to the poorest school
districts and the poorest children in America.
There was a long debate before the Federal Government took this step.
The creation of the Department of Education took a long, long time
also, a great deal of discussion and debate. And finally, the
Department of Education was created by President Jimmy Carter. After
the Department of Education was created by Jimmy Carter, of course, he
lost the election and Ronald Reagan became the President. And he was
ambivalent about the Department of Education. Some days he wanted to
eliminate it; some days he was willing to support it.
There were always these forces at work which because they were
schizophrenic did nothing to enhance the work of the Department of
Education. The Department fell into some extremist patterns on the one
hand and was not very useful during those years when it existed under a
cloud.
It survived, however. And it existed for the 4 years of the Bush
administration and it still exists. Now we are told that for budgetary
reasons, in order to streamline the Government, downsize the
Government, save money, meet the requirements of this artificially
created emergency, the emergency is the need to have a balanced budget
by the year 2002, that emergency is an artificial one created primarily
to have an excuse, rationale, rationalization for eliminating social
programs.
The safety net programs are going to be eliminated and we are going
to do that under the rubric of having to do it in order to balance the
budget. And the Department of Education now falls into that category.
It is one of those programs that has been labeled expendable. We have
labeled the whole Department, the whole function as being expendable.
We can eliminate it.
I think this is another example of what I have called before a
barbaric act. It is a barbaric act. It is like sacking a segment of our
civilization. It is like Attila the Hun with torches going through a
civilized city and destroying everything that he does not understand or
does not want to exist because he has the power to do it. Because the
majority of Republicans have the power to do it, they are going to move
through the budget to wipe out a department which exists as a result of
a long series of discussions and debates.
In 2 years, we are going to wipe out what took 20 years; it took 20
years to finally get to this point. In a 2-year period, while they are
in the majority, the Republicans in the House are proposing to just
wipe out this Department of Education in an era and a time when
education is recognized as being critical to our competitiveness in the
global marketplace. No other nation in the world would dare contemplate
eliminating its Department of Education or its governmental, Federal
Government function of education.
Japan would never contemplate that. Germany would never contemplate
that. Great Britain, France, they would consider us to be quite foolish
indeed, and they would consider it quite a serious matter to watch the
[[Page H4605]] United States Congress wiping out the Department of
Education at a time like this. A Department of Education which is
already the weakest, the most feeble Federal department among the
industrialized nations. It does not command a great segment of the
Federal budget already. It is one of the smallest department in the
Federal Government.
When you take away the large amount of the budget that goes toward
higher education loans, then it is a very tiny department in budgetary
terms. It is the department that has suffered the greatest number of
cuts in personnel over the last 10, 12 years. It has always been kept
on a very tight leash and not been able to perform properly. Now we are
going to eliminate it, wipe it out altogether.
It is a barbaric act. It is an act committed by people who do not
feel that the Federal Government should be involved in providing
education guidance and coordination for the whole Nation. There are
some people who feel that the primary and maybe only role of the
Federal Government is defense and everything else is not the proper
role for the Federal Government. That is nonsense. That has nothing to
do with the oath that we take when we are sworn in to Congress.
The Constitution of the United States starts with the Preamble. It
talks about promoting the general welfare; promoting the general
welfare is as important as defense. How do you define defense? It
really does not talk so much about defense as security. The security of
the country is of great concern and should be a priority concern of the
Nation. But how do we define security in 1995?
Does security mean military preparedness only? That all we need is a
powerful Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, et cetera? All we need is
fantastic superweapons? Is that going to guarantee the security of the
United States in the world to come, the year 2000 and the next century?
Is that the definition of what we need for security? Or is it more
complicated than that?
In addition to military strength, do we need also to be strong in
terms of our brainpower? Is brainpower probably the most important
element of security? It is brainpower that produced these fantastic
modern weapons. It is brainpower that allowed us to outwit our foes in
World War Ii on every front. Brainpower cracked the Japanese code and
brainpower cracked the German code, in addition to the creation of
weapons to counteract the tremendous superweapons that were developed
by the German military machine.
In the final analysis, we cannot predict the nature of warfare in
terms of strictly violent and military terms in the future. Whatever
they are, we know they are going to be different, and whatever weapons
are going to be required will be developed by
people who have a tremendous amount of brainpower. Brainpower does not
mean individuals. It means teams of people; it means a whole culture, a
culture of people who understand how to apply science and technology
where they want to apply it.

It may be that there will not be any hot wars in the future, no
violent wars of any significance challenging the security of the United
States. It is very likely that we will not have any violent wars which
are a threat to the security of the United States in the next 100
years, very likely. What we do know, as a fact, is that the challenge
to the security of the United States is there already and will increase
in terms of the challenge to our economy, whether we can hold our own
in the world in terms of economic competition as an industrialized
nation, which depends on exports and high technology in order to keep
its high standard of living. Will we be able to compete with our good
friends the Germans and the Japanese and the British and the French? We
will not be able to compete if we throw overboard any Federal
involvement in education.
It is a barbaric act. It is a dangerous act. It is an act contrary to
the Constitution that we have sworn to uphold. We are not promoting the
general welfare. We are not helping this country at all when we do such
reckless and barbaric things as destroy the Department of Education.
I think it is important to talk in some detail about what is in this
Department of Education and what we are about to throw overboard. What
Attila the Hun, the spirit of Attila the Hun that rides through the
budget proposals, what that spirit is ready to burn down, what they are
ready to destroy with the scorched earth policy and the blitzkrieg that
is sweeping over the Washington scene in terms of what is not
considered to be good for the American people and what is considered
good.
I hope that, I know that most Republicans and Democrats are
responding and aware of the same public opinion polls. I know both
Republicans and Democrats are aware of the same focus groups and what
the focus groups are showing. The American people, again, in the public
opinion polls that we get and in the focus groups, they are again
showing that they are collectively far wiser than the people in
Washington. They are collectively far wiser than the leadership of both
parties. Whereas I am accusing the Republicans of behaving in a
barbaric way toward education, the Democrats, on the other hand, have
certainly not made a forceful statement in support of education.
We have done some great things with education in the past year. The
first year, the first 2 years of the Clinton administration, President
Clinton moved in a continuum from the work that had been done by
President Bush. It was a good example, although there were
disagreements and things that were not supported by the new
administration, they took much of the Bush program on education as
reflected in America 2000. President Bush had had a conference of
Governors, and President Clinton was one of the Governors who was in
attendance at that conference that was held in Virginia where they came
up with the six goals for American education. All that was endorsed by
President Clinton. All of that was taken forward by the Clinton
administration from the Bush administration.
So you had a kind of continuum, even though there were disagreements
from Reagan to Bush to Clinton. Now all that is going to be thrown
aside, all that agreement means nothing.
In the rescissions that the Republicans have made
on education already, the rescission bill that was passed in the
House which cut $17.4 billion--I am not sure whether it was point 4 or
point 5--more than $17 billion was cut out of this year's budget. In
those rescissions, education was a primary target.

The first target, of course, the most devastating cuts were aimed at
the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Low-income housing,
low-income housing, we have not solved the problem of homelessness. We
have not solved the problem of providing decent low-income housing for
poor people. Nevertheless in that rescission package more than 7
billion of the 17 billion was taken away from low-income housing,
programs in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The second biggest budget hit, the cuts were at the Department of
Education. Almost $2 billion was taken out of the Department of
Education. So it was a preview of coming attractions. What we are
hearing now and seeing now developing in the budget that is going to be
prepared for a whole year, the budget year 1996, is reflective of what
was started, of course, in the rescission budget.
I wanted to just read from a very well-written letter by Secretary
Riley. I will not read the whole letter, but I would like to enter it
into the Record.
I will enter into the Record a letter by Secretary Riley regarding
the proposed rescissions to investments in education. On February 23,
1995, Mr. Riley sent this letter out. I just think it summarizes what
we are up against here. I would like the American people to follow
along carefully.
As I said before, what the polls and the focus groups have shown is
that the American people are wiser than the leadership here. They have
indicated education is one of their highest priorities. Education, in
terms of the American public at this point in history wanting to see
Federal support, education is still one of those high priorities. They
do not want to see the budget cuts that are being proposed by the
Republicans. The Republican majority knows this as well as I do.
The fact that they have gone ahead and they are proceeding to do it
means that they have contempt for the wisdom of the American people.
They
[[Page H4606]] think you can put a spin, you can interpret the will of
the people in a way which confuses them and you can get away with it.
{time} 1945

I think they are wrong. I think there is a basic, deep-seated
fundamental desire of the American people to see that as much
opportunity is provided as possible in the area of education for as
many people as possible. I think that the middle class, which the
majority always pretends to be concerned with, the middle class is
hardest hit when you make cuts in education.
We are talking specifically, these days, about the proposed
Republican cuts with respect to student loans, the fact that they want
to take away the Federal subsidy for the loans so that the interest
that the loans accumulate during the time that students are at school
is not paid anymore by the Federal Government, but attached onto the
bill that the student has to pay when they come out, which means that
the education of each student goes up a great deal, because 4 years of
interest will be added to that bill. That is being discussed a great
deal, and there is a great reaction from the middle class as to having
them bear an unnecessary burden that they do not really--should not
have to bear.
The public knows that education ought to be a higher priority. My
plea is that the public will become more vocal, and that the public,
the students, the parents, the middle class out there will talk more
and contact their Congressmen or take delegations, and let it be known
that you are wiser than the people you have elected, and you do not
want the nonsense of the destruction of education as a priority in the
coming budget, you will not tolerate it.
Let them know now, before they do a great deal of harm. Before Attila
the Hun and the spirit of destruction rides across the Department of
Education, let us intervene. Let the public come forward.
Listen to the words of Secretary Reilly, and I quote:

I am deeply concerned about the severe and shortsighted
cuts imposed by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on
Labor, HHS, and Education yesterday. The magnitude of these
kinds of cuts, at precisely the time that our Nation needs to
invest in our future, represents a grave misunderstanding of
the direction Americans want for their children and
grandchildren. Coming on the heels of the attack on the
school lunch program, these actions break faith with
America's children.
At a time when every poll shows that crime and school
safety are a number one concern of Americans, the committee's
actions to eliminate funding for programs for safety and drug
prevention programs in schools represent a rejection of what
the American public wants. Polls also show that an
overwhelming majority of citizens favor increased investment
in quality education. The committee's actions to slash
bipartisan initiatives to support States and local
communities in their work to raise academic standards and
improve their local schools is a dismissal of the public
interest.

I am continuing to read from the letter of Secretary Reilly on
February 23, 1995.

And the sharp reduction in funding for education technology
programs will enable fewer local communities to put state-of-
the-art tools of learning in classrooms where they are most
needed to prepare our students for the future. This certainly
cannot be what the Speaker of the House had in mind when he
said ``We must bring technology into the classroom, and
radically rethink our education system.''

Continuing with Secretary Reilly's letter:

The Republican administration changed the name of the
former House Committee on Education and Labor and added the
word ``opportunity,'' but the measure of the Congress's
commitment to students must be evaluated not by titles, but
by actions. Yesterday's actions mean less opportunity for
America's students.

The Secretary goes on to list each one of the programs that are being
cut by the rescission bill, and those programs, the details become
important for the American people. I said before that Goals 2000, Goals
2000 was legislation we passed with the support of Republican Members
of the Committee on Education and Labor and of the Congress. It passed
overwhelmingly. It got more than 300 votes. Nevertheless, Goals 2000 is
now being threatened, not only by the rescission cuts that are being
discussed in this letter of Secretary Reilly, but in the new budget
they will try to wipe out Goals 2000 completely, and I am told that the
committee that I serve on, the Committee on Economic and Educational
Opportunities, a bill is being prepared there to repeal Goals 2000.
Remember what I said before: Goals 2000 was a result that flowed from
America 2000, which was President Bush's education program, and America
2000 flowed from President Roosevelt's report called ``A
Nation at Risk,'' so a continuum of three Presidents, a continuum of
12, 14 years went into the preparation of Goals 2000.

Now Secretary Reilly states that:

With respect to Goals 2000, a 38 percent reduction in funds
for State and local educational improvement would severely
curtail the efforts nationwide to develop and implement
comprehensive strategies for systematic educational reform.
An estimated 4,000 fewer schools would receive the seed money
they need to implement reforms based on challenging academic
standards. Moreover, the rescission would eliminate all funds
for Goals 2000 national programs. This action would end
targeted support for educational reform activities in poor
communities. Thus it would deprive the Federal Government of
the means for evaluating the impact of educational reforms on
student achievement, and it would end other national
leadership and technical assistance activities.

Let me just talk for a minute about what Goals 2000 does. In simple
terms, the heart of Goals 2000 is three sets of standards it
establishes. It establishes curriculum standards, a process for
developing curriculum standards. Before I go any further, let me just
stress that the curriculum standards that are to be established under
Goals 2000 are voluntary standards. It is only a model, only examples
of how, in each one of the six major areas that are laid out in the six
education goals, mathematics, science, history, geography, in all of
those areas the standards would be established so that with the
collective participation of scholars and teachers and students across
the country, you would come up with an idea, a model of some of the
things that ought to be taught in that area in order for us to better
relate to the world of 1995 and the world of the year 2000.
What is it in this new global economy, what is it in this new global
world that we need to know? When I was a kid my mother used to have us
reciting the capitals of all the States. That was cute. I learned the
capitals of the States. Any knowledge may be useful, but I suspect in
this time and age, it will be far better if you teach your kids how to
use the encyclopedia and the library and various books to learn the
capitals of the States and the capitals of all the countries in the
United Nations, and what they do in these various countries for a
living, the
economics of it, the trade patterns.

If you want to export business in the future, how far is it from
South Africa to Washington, or how far is it from China to New York?
What is the cost of producing products and then paying for the
transportation?
There are a number of things that are known, that need to be known in
the year 2000 by our youngsters, or this year, in order for them to
survive and understand a world that is far different from the old world
that would be covered by a collective set of scholars, teachers, and
students trying to prepare those standards. That is one important thing
that Goals 2000 is seeking to do, to develop standards so that
everybody across the country will get some idea of what is important to
be taught in history, what is important to be taught in geography, what
things are most important to teach in mathematics.
The world has an exploding amount of information, information that is
increasing geometrically. There is twice as much information available
this year as was available last year. With all that information about
so many different things, what do you single out to teach the children
in the schools? Do you put a great stress on learning facts--and those
facts are exploding, more and more of them all the time--or do you put
a greater stress on learning skills and principles, so they will know
how to approach getting the information they want? Computers, the use
of libraries, the use of cable television, and a number of new kinds of
instruments that can be utilized for education, where do they come into
this whole process? So that is one of
[[Page H4607]] the achievements of Goals 2000. That is one of the goals
of Goals 2000, objectives of Goals 2000, was to establish these
standards.
The second objective was to establish a set of assessments, tests and
other means of assessing what do the students know, a national set of
standards and assessments, voluntary, again, strictly voluntary. If
your school board did not want to get involved, would not want to use
them, they would not have to do it. Any State did not have to do it if
they did not want to, but they would have available to them a set of
assessments, tests based on the standards that have been developed, so
from one State to another, among those States and school systems that
choose to participate, you could compare relatively how are they
doing in this curriculum that has been developed to meet the needs of
the modern world; all of it, again, voluntary.

Those are two of the simple goals and objectives of Goals 2000 that
they are preparing to wipe out now. One is to develop standards for
curriculum, the other, to develop assessment standards, standards for
tests and assessments that are going to be made of those standard
curricula.
The third ingredient was the most controversial one, because there
are many of us who felt if you have a set of national standards for
curricula, if you have a set of national assessments for curricula, you
also should have a requirement that there be some understanding that
there are standards in opportunities to learn; that is, what do you do,
what should schools be doing, what should they have available in terms
of resources, equipment, books, in order to guarantee that the
youngsters, the students, have an opportunity to learn the standard
curriculum?
When they learn the standard curriculum and they are going to be
tested on the standard curriculum, is it fair to have a national test
when you do not have some standards as to what is it that you ought to
have available in order for youngsters to learn what is necessary to
pass these tests? Should there not be standards which say that if you
are going to teach science, you have to have a certain amount of
scientific equipment: you have to have laboratories and equipment? You
cannot have youngsters competing on tests which are national tests, and
some have never stepped inside of a science laboratory. If they go to a
science laboratory, there is no equipment in the laboratory.
You cannot have youngsters competing on tests if their library books
are as old as some of the library books in my district in New York
City. Some of the books go back to 1925 and 1930. They are useless. You
cannot have encyclopedias which do not have the countries that have
become independent in the last 10 years. You cannot teach geography
from those kinds of tools.
The third simple ingredient of Goals 2000 was opportunity to learn
standards. That upset more people than any other part of it, because
Governors complained that this may mean that ``Somebody is going to
judge us and say we are inadequate because we are not providing
laboratories, we are not providing
enough books. We do not want to have a situation where we will have to
spend some money in order to meet these standards.''

We stressed in every way possible, again, that the standards are
voluntary. Nobody is required to do anything unless they want to in all
three of these sets of standards: curriculum standards, assessment
standards, or opportunity to learn standards. With all of that
guarantee and reassurance that it is all voluntary, the Goals 2000 has
been attacked by certain very vocal Members of the Republican majority
as being what it is not, a mandatory set of standards, imposing
curriculum standards on school boards across the country. Some people
have called it the National Board of Education, which is a deliberate
distortion of its purpose and its mission.
All of this, all of this has led to a frenzy which results in an
attempt that is being mounted now to repeal Goals 2000. If you do not
repeal it by discussing the authorization, it can be wiped out by just
taking the money out of the budget. You eliminate the funding in the
budget for Goals 2000. That is one thing that the Secretary objected
to.
Another item that he objected to was school-to-work opportunities,
$25 million cut, $12.5 million each from the Department of Education
and the Department of Labor. School-to-work opportunities was divided
between the Department of Labor and the Department of Education. $12.5
million went to the Department of Education, and $12.5 million went to
the Department of Labor.
What would it do? It would do what numerous educators, community
leaders, and Congressmen have been calling for all the time, make
school more relevant to youngsters who are not going to go to college,
make school more relevant for those who will have to make the
transition from high school into work. The industries, the private
sector has complained about the fact that the graduates they get have
to be trained. The graduates do not fit in. This was an attempt to meet
a requirement and a complaint that industry has had for a long time.
{time} 2000

It is a small program. A $25 million cut is a cut of a program which
to begin with was very small. Of course this is one of those they are
proposing now to eliminate directly. The biggest program in the
Department of Education which the Secretary also talks about is the
Elementary and Secondary Education Title I. Title I has existed for 30
years now.
Title I was the primary thrust of the Lyndon Johnson Great Society
entry into education in the public school sector. We moved from
assistance to higher education to a program to assist elementary and
secondary education under President Johnson, and Title I was the basic
thrust, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which goes to
schools on the basis of the poverty population of the school. The
number of poor children in a particular school decides the amount of
funds that that school will get.
In the deliberations about Title I of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act last year, both sides, Republicans and Democrats,
supported the refunding, the reauthorization of title I. Both sides
fought for every penny they could get for their States. We finally had
a $7 billion program which flows to every school district almost in the
country.
There are some school districts that are wealthy and should not be
getting money but they have been getting funding through various
loopholes that were established, and we tried to eliminate that in the
last legislation. So there will be fewer schools that are not deserving
getting the money, but the targeting to its original purpose, to help
schools with the largest number of poor students, that targeting is
still left for a program of almost $7 billion.
That was cut, also, in the rescission which is a preview of coming
attractions. If the rescission bill cut it, we are afraid there will be
more cuts in the budget that is being prepared now for the fiscal year
1996.
The Eisenhower Professional Development Grants: Everybody agreed that
one of the best things the Federal Government could do was provide
training, ways in which teachers could get more training. In the local
education budgets and State education budgets, they are hard pressed to
keep enough money in there just for operations, to keep things going
from day to day. So the training money, the equipment money, a lot of
other things that are needed, they felt should come from the Federal
Government, and there was great agreement that the emphasis would be
placed on training and the Federal Government would support training.
Now we have cut the Eisenhower Professional Development Grants.
Safe and drug-free schools: Safe schools, an initiative that we also
agreed upon by the Republicans and Democrats, overwhelmingly voted on
on the floor, more than 300 people voted for it last year, now that is
being wiped out completely.
The original rescission bill of the Republican Majority was to zero
out the whole program, about $600 million. Zero it out completely. Then
they put back, I think, $10 million on the floor as a result of some
sentimental appeal for one little program called DARE. But basically
the safe and drug-free schools and communities programs would be wiped
out if the rescission bill
[[Page H4608]] that was passed by the Majority Republicans here in the
House were to become law.
Of course we know on all these matters, the deliberations are now
moving into a conference committee between the Senate and the House.
The Senate does not take the same approach on many of these items that
the House has taken.
But the Secretary of Education was trying to point out some of the
serious harm caused by these cuts. Education for homeless children and
youth, a special program that was put in there in response to local
education departments with a large amount of homeless children, that
program was wiped out completely, zero. Bilingual education was cut
drastically. Vocational education, adult education, State and post-
secondary review program, the State student incentive grants, the TRIO
programs were cut.
TRIO is one of the most successful programs ever developed by the
Government. $11.2 million was reduced from that program, which provides
for college preparation for youngsters in poor communities through its
Upward Bound programs and its talent search programs on college
campuses. They provide for special counseling.
There are a number of things that they have been doing which have
been highly successful, and both Republicans and Democrats in the
Congress have come to the point where they support these programs. TRIO
has gotten increased funding over the years as a result of the approval
of both parties. Now suddenly the barbarians are arriving, and TRIO is
under the axe also and they have to be cut. The Secretary calls that to
our attention.
International education exchange programs. Telecommunications
demonstration for mathematics. Telecommunications used for education is
one of the high priority items that ought to be on everybody's agenda.
You might be able to greatly bring down the cost of education by using
distance learning, by using more educational television, more cable
television, and projecting the instruction over the airwaves for
students to pick up in their own homes. You could greatly reduce the
cost of education at the higher education level, you could greatly
reduce the cost certainly at the high school level, and you could
probably provide a much better quality of education at the same time.
What we discovered in a survey that was done of junior high schools
in New York City 2 years ago was that in the junior high schools of
two-thirds of the city, two-thirds which serve primarily Hispanic and
African-American students, in those two-thirds of the junior high
schools none of the teachers who were teaching math and science had
majored in math and science in college. None of the teachers who were
teaching math and science had majored in it. They could not get
qualified math and science teachers which meant that those youngsters
in junior high school were certainly greatly handicapped.
If you had that kind of shortage of teachers and you had a well-
developed hookup for distance learning, you could have top-quality
teachers teaching via videos and via cable television and broadcast
educational television, and they could make up for the deficit that you
have in terms of qualified teachers. They could do it better, they
could do it cheaper.
So telecommunications and education technology were high priorities.
We did not appropriate very much money to begin with because they are
new, but we did have them in the budget, and we did emphasize in the
reauthorization legislation for education that these are very important
frontiers. This is the way American education should be going.
Star schools was one of those programs where we provided money for
telecommunications in situations where rural schools were spread out
and students not able to get to quality schools. You could provide top-
flight instruction and, using various television hookups, beam it into
those various schools and into
the homes of those students, and the Star schools made up for what you
could not have been able to acquire even if you spent millions of
dollars on the new transportation system.

So what you have is everything that is going to take us into the next
century, the 21st century, everything that moves us in a more
progressive way toward the year 2000 in education is being cut. The
national diffusion network, ready to learn television, educational
television, as I just said before.
Then, finally, library construction, library research and
demonstrations, everything related to libraries is cut, even though it
is only a tiny amount in the budget to begin with. We only have tiny
amounts of money in our budget. We have never supported libraries at
the Federal Government level in any significant way.
If you add up all the money that has been appropriated in terms of
Federal aid to libraries over the history of the Federal Government's
aid to libraries, it would not equal the cost of one-half of one
nuclear aircraft carrier. It would not equal the cost of one-half of
one nuclear aircraft carrier, which costs about $3 billion. If you
added up everything that we have ever done for libraries, it would not
equal the cost of one-half of an aircraft carrier.
The library community was here on the Hill today. The American
Library Association program is presented. They are begging to just keep
what they have, the relative pennies that they receive for libraries.
Every community that considers itself a civilized community in
America has a library. A library is probably the cheapest form of
education. The best value you get for your money comes through public
libraries. You get the most education made possible, you get the best
resources made possible to the community for the cheapest amount of
money. Not to fund libraries and not to support libraries even in a
small way is another barbaric act. It is barbarism to not want to fund
libraries.
We have said a lot about going into the 21st century and updating our
technology for education. We talk a lot about the information
superhighway, and we make statements about wanting to make the
information superhighway available to all Americans. We do not make it
available to all Americans unless we find ways to let the access it.
Most American homes do not have any computers. Most American homes
can never get on the Internet if they have to use their own equipment.
One way to guarantee that Americans have access is to have public
places where you can make use of the best of modern information
technology, and one of those public places should be the public
library.
In addition to our schools, which need more equipment and should be
funded with the help of the Federal Government to acquire that
equipment, our libraries are an access point for everybody. You do not
have to be a student enrolled in a school. All you have to be is a
member of the public, and if you made the technology available to
public libraries, it would guarantee that poverty is not a barrier to
being able to enter the information age. Poverty is not a barrier to
being able to learn what is necessary to be able to qualify for various
employment opportunities that are dependent on some knowledge of how to
use modern technology to access information.
So the American Library Association is proposing that we support what
they call the Library Services. and Technology Act to supplement the
Library Services
and Construction Act. When you put all the library programs that they
are proposing to fund together, they are talking about spending $1 per
person to support these various programs, $1 per person in America.
When you have more than 225 million Americans, it would be a very small
amount of money to spend for education via libraries, and libraries are
available to every citizen.

They are asking that Congress pass the Library Services and
Technology Act quickly because it is proposed to consolidate, simplify
and update all the other components of the Library Services and
Construction Act. It will reduce eight titles to two priorities for
libraries. Those two priorities are information access through
technology and information empowerment through special services. It
would increase the flexibility and accountability in the program. It
would emphasize libraries as change agents. Libraries would be enhanced
as change agents and self-help institutions through these kinds of
Federal-State partnerships.
We have examples in my hometown of Brooklyn of libraries that are
being
[[Page H4609]] overwhelmed by the number of young people who want to
come in. In poor communities where they stayed away from the library in
the past, one or two computers established in the library has resulted
in long waiting list of youngsters who flood into the place every day
and they want to make use of the computers.
It is a whole new ball game in terms of libraries being overwhelmed
by students voluntarily coming after school and wanting to be a part of
what is going on. It is the computers and the new technology that
attracts them. They would never be able to get it anywhere else and,
therefore, it is an area where we certainly could guarantee that
everybody is a part of the new information age, everybody has access to
the information superhighway.
There is one representative of the library community on Vice
President Gore's committee to advise on the information superhighway
and we hope that they are listened to. We hope that there is more than
just rhetoric in terms of including libraries in the process of
developing this information superhighway and Federal support for the
information superhighway.
What we get from Brooklyn, my own hometown, is a statement from the
libraries that none of them are wired sufficiently to really receive
updated state of the art technology. They do not have the wiring. In
most of the big cities of America, the institutions like schools and
libraries do not have the wiring necessary to be hooked up properly.
They need a great amount of money to pay for the installation of new
wiring, or they need some legislation from the Federal level, because
only the Federal Government can do it, which requires
telecommunications companies to wire schools, to wire libraries and
educational institutions at a discount or maybe for free, as part of
their contribution for the benefits they are receiving from the overall
participation in the Federal Government's information superhighway
activities.
{time} 2015

Something has to be done to give priority to the general public and
to provide an opportunity for the general public. One of the concrete
steps that can be taken is to deal with the problem that most libraries
in most schools in the big cities, it is not the same as the suburbs
and the rural communities, they have problems too, rural communities
and big cities, it is easier to do it, to wire the rural communities,
less costly to wire a school. In the big cities to wire the library is
very, very costly.
The support began for libraries in the local communities at a time
when New York City was undergoing a great budget crisis. The citizens
made clear that they did not want their library services cut. In fact,
library service was cut drastically, and whereas libraries had been
opened 6 days a week, they were down to 4, and the citizens rose up and
said, no matter what the costs are, how dire our financial situation
is, we do not see great amounts of money being required to keep
libraries open. And in the last political campaign for mayor, both
candidates made pledges that libraries would remain a priority. That is
the same case throughout the Nation. Most citizens feel that they are
due decent public libraries. It may be more complicated to get first-
class schools and get the funding necessary, but it is a fairly simple
matter to provide enough support to help provide decent libraries and
have the Federal Government continue to participate in this process.
I hope that the coming budget debate will be conducted with the
majority party as well as the minority party having its ears to the
public. I hope we listen to the public. I hope we check the polls and
we follow the polls in many, many ways, and we follow the focus groups
in many, many ways. Let us not try to put a spin on and ignore and
distort the information that comes from the public. The American public
clearly wants support for education programs. The American public does
not want to see the Department of Education eliminated. The American
public does not want that kind of barbaric act to be taken in the name
of streamlining government.
There is a majority out there that is going to have to be reckoned
with, and that majority, whatever questions we may have about it, one
thing is clear, they think education is the key to their own individual
family's future, and they think education is the key to the future of
the Nation. They do not accept the argument that defense is only a
military matter, that security is only a military matter. Security they
understand is partially a matter of being prepared with the kind of
educated population that you need to have and brain power becomes a
major part of it. They do not think the Federal Government should only
be concerned about security. They think promoting the general welfare
as stated in the Constitution is as much a part of the duty and
responsibilities of the Federal Government as any other duty and
responsibility.
So let us promote the general welfare in 1995 terms. Let us go into
the 21st century promoting the general welfare in the most up-to-date,
state-of-the-art manner that it can be promoted. That is to provide for
a first-class educational effort.
We have spent a tremendous amount of money and resources to update
our defenses, our Department of Defense and our military installations.
We would never have dreamed 30 years ago or 50 years ago following the
end of World War II that we would ever be investing billions and
billions of dollars in certain kinds of weapons systems, but we saw it
as necessary. Modern technology demanded that we spend more money on
very complicated weapons systems. Now the modern challenge is we spend
more money on education. Instead of cutting education, we should be
doubling the budget for education. Instead of cutting education, we
should be looking at new ways to make certain that our whole
environment is saturated with funds for learning. Instead of cutting
the budget for education, we should be making it the No. 1 priority.
The American people have already stated that they consider it one of
our top priorities. Anyone who fails to listen to that will have to
reckon with the American people.
I hope that the caring majority out there, the people out there who
are the majority and want to see education as a priority, will have
their voices heard, and let it be soon. I hope they will become very
visible. I hope they will make it clear to every decisionmaker here in
Washington, both in the Congress and the executive branch, that
education is a priority of the American people. We would like to see
our representatives represent the people and not their own agenda, not
their own distorted agenda.

____________________