[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 27, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1321-S1339]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Chair now lays 
before the Senate the conference report to accompany H.R. 2546, the 
D.C. appropriations bill.
  The Senate resumed consideration of the conference report.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I believe that under the present order 
there are 2 hours allowed on the bill. I have 1 hour of that time, is 
that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is equally divided until 12:30. So, 
yes, you have 1 hour.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Steve 
Greene, a fellow serving on the Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 
be extended the privilege of the floor during the consideration of the 
conference report on H.R. 2546.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I rise to present this conference report 
to the Senate today, at long last. It has been some 90 days that we 
have been trying to reach agreement. I hope my colleagues will listen 
very closely to what I have to say, and I hope very strongly that we 
will be able to pass this conference report. I do so with the 
confidence that this is the best compromise we can achieve at this 
time. It is important that we enact this bill and provide the D.C. city 
government with a remainder of the Federal payment and bring to an end 
the uncertainty about fiscal year 1996 appropriations. We are already 
partially through the year, and we still have not met our commitment to 
the city.

  This bill contains some very important and long overdue educational 
reforms. However, it contains a couple of provisions that were very 
contentious. I will explain those briefly. I think we have reached an 
accommodation on one. There is an abortion provision in there that 
says, ``No funds, Federal or local, covered in this appropriations bill 
can be used for abortion, except to save the life of the mother or in 
cases of rape or incest.''
  Also, there is a provision which was not intended to be 
controversial--I want to clear that up--with respect to Davis-Bacon. 
There is no intention in this bill to waive the Davis-Bacon Act, except 
with respect to donated services to repair school facilities. I wanted 
to make it clear that they were not covered by the Davis-Bacon Act. It 
appears that in so doing, we perhaps created an interpretation that 
would say it also applied beyond what we intended. There is no 
intention to do that. So we will fix that at the appropriate time.
  The controversial provision I am referring to is the portion that 
permits the use of taxpayer dollars to pay tuition vouchers at private 
and religious-affiliated schools. I urge you to pay close attention to 
what we have done here. The conference agreement allows for two 
different types of vouchers--one to be used for tuition, which is the 
controversial part. The other is to be used for after-school enrichment 
programs. Keep this latter one in mind. There is no controversy over 
this at all. There are some 20,000 D.C. students right now who are in 
need of remedial help. We have a 28-percent dropout rate in the city 
right now. We need to do something about that.
  Also, as is true nationwide, about 50 percent of the kids who 
graduate from high school are functionally illiterate. I do not intend 
to allow that to continue. I do not think anybody in this body wants to 
do that. So we allow for the vouchers to be used--or scholarships, as 
some prefer to call them--to help the kids after school who are having 
remedial problems. However--and this is critical--in no case can any 
Federal funds be allocated for any voucher program until the D.C. 
Council approves of such expenditure. Schools participating in the 
voucher plan are required to comply with Federal civil rights laws. 
There is total local control here and no Federal mandate that they must 
be used.
  This agreement reinforces the fundamental principle of local control 
and allows the D.C. Council to determine if vouchers are appropriate 
for the District of Columbia public schools and to determine the 
appropriate split between tuition vouchers and the noncontroversial 
after-school vouchers.
  Mr. President, I do not want to let the voucher piece overshadow the 
other educational provisions that are contained in the bill. The 
conference agreement includes a number of education initiatives 
designed to improve the public education and help all the children in 
the public schools in the District of Columbia by making it possible 
for them to compete in the future 

[[Page S1322]]
work force. This is a critical problem in the District of Columbia and 
a critical problem in this Nation.

  The District of Columbia public schools have a proud academic 
tradition. They have produced prominent Americans and local leaders. 
Our former colleague, Senator Edward Brooke, graduated from Dunbar High 
School, as did Dr. Charles Drew, the founder of the blood bank; and 
current D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is also a graduate of the 
D.C. public schools. Space shuttle astronaut Col. Fred Gregory; former 
police chief Maurice Turner; former president of Howard University, 
Franklyn Jenifer; Gloria Steinem; and Austin Kiplinger, publisher of 
the Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, are all graduates of the 
D.C. public schools.
  I do not intend for our heritage to be the destruction of the public 
schools in the Nation's Capital, but rather to provide the framework 
for its return to a tradition of excellence.
  When this bill left the Senate, we had provided the most important 
components for that framework. We included a provision that would 
establish a Commission on Consensus Reform to review, comment, and 
advise District officials on the long-term education reform plan, 
public school budgets, and other activities of the board of education 
and the superintendent.
  The Consensus Commission is made up of local citizens and D.C. school 
officials. Its mandate is to ensure that the reform plan that is agreed 
upon and developed by the public schools and officials is implemented. 
The decline of the quality of the District of Columbia's public schools 
has been punctuated by study after study, reform plans, and good 
intentions, but none of these studies has been notable in any 
followthrough or have resulted in any significant improvement of the 
schools.
  The long-term reform plan provided for in this agreement will be 
implemented. The Consensus Commission will fulfill the necessary step 
of monitoring and oversight of school officials' actions. If city 
officials do not listen to its directives, the Commission will turn to 
the District control authority to implement the required action, and it 
will be implemented.
  There is an important relationship between the Consensus Commission 
and the city's financial recovery which must be understood. When we 
first started discussing control board legislation a year ago, we asked 
the General Accounting Office and Congressional Research Service to 
talk to those in other cities and States that have gone through 
financial crises. As part of the results of those findings, GAO and CRS 
reported that in each city those involved volunteered that one of the 
great impediments to economic recovery and community development 
efforts which would lead to financial health was the poor state of 
public education in the city school system of those cities. That is 
true of this city, and it is true of our Nation generally.
  The District must be no exception. If we do not improve the quality 
of education in this city, we cannot hope to attract people and 
businesses into the city. That means that the District will become a 
ward of the Federal Government. During the process of retrenchment at 
the Federal level, we cannot afford to allow the city to become more 
dependent upon us.
  Mr. President, the bill provides for the improvement of the overall 
D.C. educational system by requiring the superintendent of schools to 
create a District-wide reform plan. But broad plans are of little value 
if we fail individual children. The bill encourages a system to ensure 
that each child has a chance to succeed and no child is overlooked. To 
do this, we need to both help out teachers and hold them accountable 
for the achievement or deficiency of each student, and we need to hold 
the parents and students accountable so we can move forward to provide 
an education that is good for every child. We cannot do this unless we 
find a way to assess each student in his or her development.

  There are provisions in the bill to establish up-to-date performance-
based District-wide assessments that will identify every student in the 
District of Columbia public schools who does not meet minimum standards 
in reading, writing, and mathematics and will provide the kind of 
remedial help necessary in order to bring that student back into the 
position they ought to be in.
  Once we have that assessment, we can apply the resources in this bill 
to those in need to get help after school, on weekends, or during the 
summer. We can no longer be content with knowing that the average 
number of students are performing satisfactorily. We must know that 
each child is succeeding and that none is left to fall through the 
cracks.
  Also important is the creation of the public charter schools in the 
District that provides an alternative for parents as competition for 
the public school system. The expected result is a choice in public 
education and an improvement in the public schools by creating an 
incentive to change.
  In contrast to the tuition vouchers, these public charter schools 
will be available to every student in the District regardless of 
income, academic achievement, or behavior problems.
  The operators of charter schools must be nonsectarian, nonprofit and 
will receive the same per-pupil funding from the D.C. government as 
each D.C. public school receives.
  The conference agreement also includes a $2 million additional 
appropriation for Even Start programs in the District. Even Start is 
that program which allows us to work both with the parents and with the 
child, that are all illiterate, to bring them into literacy and into a 
better future.
  Also included are funds to begin planning for a residential school 
for the District. Other school districts are experimenting with the 
concept of a residential school, and the superintendent believes if you 
can remove the influences of the mean streets it would make it easier 
to reach some of these kids. These funds will allow the superintendent 
to begin the planning process towards the establishment of a 
residential school.
  The creation of a business partnership is designed to leverage 
private-sector funds to purchase state-of-the-art technology for the 
D.C. public schools. Face it, when our local grocery stores have more 
computer technology than our schools, we must make improvements. Our 
world is already dominated by technology, and that trend will only 
increase. If our children do not have access to technology, they will 
be hamstrung in functioning and competing successfully in the business 
and academic world after high school. Not only is technology essential 
to remain competitive now and in the next century, it also is the 
gateway to new experience and knowledge for school children.
  In closing, Mr. President, I want to acknowledge the hard work and 
dedication of the chairmen of the other side, Representative Jim Walsh 
of the D.C. subcommittee and Representative Bob Livingston of the full 
committee, for helping to bring this bill to this point. We have had 
many conversations and it has been a tough fight, but I believe we have 
a good bill. I also want to express special appreciation to 
Representative Steve Gunderson, whose hard work and dedication was 
instrumental in forming the House education reform package.
  On our side, our distinguished ranking member, the Senator from 
Wisconsin, has been supportive and helpful in each stage. At the full 
committee, I could ask for no more cooperation and support than I have 
received from the Appropriations Committee chairman. Senator Hatfield 
has convened and attended meetings with me in an attempt to reach an 
agreement. His help was indispensable. His counterpart on the minority 
side, the Senator from West Virginia, Senator Byrd, offered an 
amendment contained in this conference agreement and improves the bill 
in the important area of discipline.
  Mr. President, I am sure that some Senators can find things in this 
bill to oppose. However, we have spent 90 days in conference on this 
bill. I can assure my colleagues that unlike Vermont cheddar cheese, 
this agreement will not get better with age. It is time to move on, to 
give the District the remainder of the payment for the cash that they 
need in its strapped condition now and allow it to focus on 
implementing the meaningful education reform that the majority of the 
bill provides. I urge my colleagues to support this conference report.
  I yield the floor. I reserve the balance of my time.
  
[[Page S1323]]

  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, let me begin by commending Senator Jeffords 
for his leadership on this important piece of legislation. I greatly 
admire his enthusiasm and his skill in putting together this difficult 
bill--especially as it regards education. Senator Jeffords is a long-
time advocate of quality education for all our Nation's children, and 
in the Senate-passed D.C. appropriations bill, he brought some of his 
best ideas to the children of the Nation's Capital.
  For example, the chairman has created a consensus commission that 
will remove obstacles to much needed reform of the District's public 
school system. The agreement also includes funds for the expansion of 
Even Start programs for District schools, authorizes establishment of 
charter schools, and encourages partnerships with business, to 
facilitate technology assessment and job training initiatives.
  Unfortunately, the House conferees were adamant in their opposition 
to the inclusion of any education provisions in the conference 
agreement--and, for that matter, adamantly opposed to any conference 
agreement at all--unless a House-sponsored provision related to 
education vouchers was included in the bill. I did not support this 
action in conference, and I cannot now support an agreement that 
includes vouchers.
  As former chairman of the D.C. Appropriations Subcommittee, I take 
this step with great regret. Senator Jeffords is an able, effective and 
dedicated chairman. Under difficult circumstances, he has labored long 
and hard to craft a measure that will put the District on the road to 
recovery. I believe that by removing the voucher provision--and by 
amending the provisions regarding reproductive health and Davis-Bacon--
this report could be adopted by unanimous consent.
  In my opinion the concept of public funding for private schools is 
fundamentally flawed. Private schools have selective admissions 
policies, in some cases enrolling only those students of a particular 
religion or gender. Public schools do not discriminate: they are 
charged with educating all children. Our first priority must be to help 
public schools meet their goal. Unfortunately, this bill does not 
reflect that priority, and therefore, I will vote against cloture and I 
encourage my colleagues to do the same. I have a longer statement 
detailing my objections to the voucher provision that I will include in 
the Record. Mr. President, I hope that we can act quickly to resolve 
this matter and produce a report which will be acceptable to all 
Members of the Senate. The District is in dire financial straits and 
the situation is deteriorating rapidly. It is my understanding that the 
District will run out of cash within the next several weeks, if this 
matter is not resolved. Unless Congress releases the balance of the 
Federal payment, the city will be unable to meet payrolls, pay bills or 
provide basic services. I therefore urge my colleagues on the other 
side to stop holding the Nation's Capital hostage in order to debate a 
subject that would be better resolved on an education bill.
  Mr. President, it is my understanding that pursuant to the unanimous-
consent agreement governing this matter, time for debate has been 
equally divided between the majority and the minority. For purposes of 
addressing the issue of vouchers, I have agreed to yield to Senator 
Kennedy such time as he may consume. I yield the floor.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Danica 
Petroshius and Sam Wang, legislative fellows in my office, be granted 
privileges of the floor for the duration of the debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield such time as I might use.
  Mr. President, just some obvious facts that should be evident to all 
the Members as we come back to the legislative process and consider the 
D.C. appropriations conference report. First of all, I want to commend 
my friend and colleague, Senator Kohl, for his statement. He has, since 
the time of the conference report, visited with a number of us on this 
issue. He has taken great interest and great diligence during the 
period of the conference. He has a real grasp and understanding about 
the public issues and policy issues raised by this conference report.
  As a Member of the body and the Education Committee, I want to 
commend him for all of his good work and for raising these very, very 
important issues in a way which I think will gain broad support. I 
thank him for his attention and involvement in the issues.
  Second, Mr. President, I want to acknowledge the very strong 
dedication and commitment to education and adequate funding of 
education from the Senator from Vermont, my friend, Senator Jeffords. 
His words carry great weight in this body, as they should, on any 
issue, but particularly on education issues and on the issues involving 
education in the District of Columbia. He has not only been tireless in 
his commitment to enhancing educational opportunities in the District 
through public policy, but also he has committed himself personally in 
the Everybody Wins Program, a special program to provide literacy 
training to the students in the District of Columbia. Through his 
intervention, the Members of this body are much more familiar with that 
program. Because of Senator Jeffords' leadership, Members in this 
institution and the House of Representatives, in the various Cabinet 
offices, and many of the others in the community reach out and work 
with young people, in training and enhancing their literacy capability. 
So he brings a very considerable credibility to the positions that he 
takes.

  Even though he and I generally agree on most educational issues, on 
this conference report I reach a different conclusion, not only because 
of the position on vouchers, but for other reasons as well. I think the 
Senator from Wisconsin pointed out very clearly that if the amendments 
had not been included, those dealing with the issues of a woman's right 
to choose, those issues involving Davis-Bacon, as well as the issues on 
vouchers, this legislation would go through unanimously.
  What we are faced with here, with this conference report, is what we 
have been faced with in other types of appropriations, is riders that 
are not directly relevant to the appropriations matters at hand. Davis-
Bacon rider waives labor protections and denies workers on federally 
funded construction project the right to be paid locally prevailing 
wages. Consideration of these issues falls under the jurisdiction of 
the Labor and Human Resources Committee. We have had hearings on them. 
We have reviewed various proposals. To undermine the committee's 
ability to deal with this and to tag it onto the D.C. appropriations is 
quite unacceptable.
  I do not know what the majority has against workers with an average 
income of $26,000 a year--that is what the average worker receives 
under the provisions of Davis-Bacon. I just left a hearing of the 
Judiciary Committee. Because of an oversight in drafting, $4.6 billion 
are going to go to a handful of pharmaceutical companies--$4.6 billion. 
In this bill, we face a rider that will undermine the ability of 
construction workers to be paid the prevailing wage in the District. 
This undermines their ability to receive a fair compensation. It just 
once again reminds us, or should remind us and remind the American 
people, about who is on whose side.
  I must say, Senator Chafee is working with Senator Pryor to try to 
alter that oversight. Hopefully they will be successful.
  Nonetheless, we have the inappropriate rider on Davis-Bacon in this 
bill. We have the inappropriate rider on a woman's right to choose. 
Harris versus McRea asserts that the use of State funds to provide 
abortions for poor women is a State, not a Federal, decision. But not 
in this D.C. legislation. It decides how local funds will be used. We 
are not letting the people in the District of Columbia, as we permit in 
every other State, to make a judgment. The restrictive language in this 
bill will cause a very serious hardship, particularly among the poorest 
and most needy people in our society.
  The majority imposed a measure affecting protections for income 
levels for workers. The majority decided to superimpose their judgment 
on a woman's right to choose. And the majority has imposed a private 
school voucher program that was rejected a number of years ago by an 8-
to-1 majority in the District of Columbia.
  The Congress refuses to say on this issue that the local people know 
best. 

[[Page S1324]]
 How many times have we heard that rhetoric here on the floor of the 
U.S. Senate? Oh, no, not with regard to the District of Columbia, they 
do not know best. They do not know how they want to allocate their 
resources. But, we in the Congress, we know best what is in their local 
interests even though they have clearly rejected that proposal a number 
of years ago. Vouchers also have been rejected in a number of States on 
statewide ballots. 16 States have rejected it.
  While I support various kinds of public school choice, that is not 
what is at stake today. Today, the most important question is whether 
we are going to take scarce education funds away from children who 
attend the public schools to provide those resources to private 
schools. That is the core issue.
  So, I strongly subscribe to the position that was taken by the 
Senator from Wisconsin who said that without these riders that are not 
germane to the underlying core issue this would go through on a voice 
vote.
  Mr. President, having expressed my strong view about the commitment 
of the Senator from Vermont on this issue, I question the seriousness 
of this Congress on its commitment to supporting public schools. We saw 
a year ago the cutting back of some $28 million from D.C. public 
schools. This year, it is about $11 million. We know under the 
Republican proposals in the House of Representatives there will be a 
22-percent reduction in all support for elementary/secondary 
legislation on appropriations. Let us understand what we are looking at 
in a broader context. This Congress is pushing significant reductions 
in funding for public schools generally, and significant reductions in 
funding for D.C. public schools.
  During this debate and discussion, we find individuals who say, ``We 
have the answer. We do not have to provide the funding for public 
schools. We do not have to listen to what the Governors of this 
country, Republican and Democrat alike, recommended to the Nation when 
they met down in Charlottesville, VA.'' And that is that children, in 
order to be able to learn, have to go to school ready to learn. That 
means they need an adequate breakfast and to be able to come from a 
home atmosphere free from substance abuse, family violence. They must 
be free from being preyed upon by gangs in the schoolyard and a whole 
host of different kinds of challenges.
  We hear that the answer to all the problems in the school districts 
is vouchers. Proponents of the voucher program say that D.C. has the 
choice of whether or not to implement a private school voucher program. 
That decision really lies with a newly created Scholarship Corporation. 
The D.C. Council only has veto power over proposals submitted by the 
Corporation.
  Of course, if the council does not agree, do you think the local 
school district will be able to spend that $5 million for the benefit 
of all the children? Absolutely not. If they do not spend it on 
vouchers, they cannot spend it at all. You talk about intimidating or 
attempting to intimidate the local school. If they do not go along with 
this oversight body, they lose the $5 million. It is that kind of 
intimidation, it is that kind of wrongheaded policy, it is that kind of 
paternalistic attitude that ought to be rejected today. Again, we could 
pass D.C. appropriations in a matter of seconds if we freed ourselves 
from these riders.
  It is important to understand the number of children we are talking 
about. Even if we were able to provide the full range of funding, $5 
million, to children, we would fund only 2 percent of the D.C. school 
population. Vouchers take money away from what is available to children 
generally in the school system to try to provide some help and 
assistance, whether it is to enhance their math and science skills, 
whether it is to support reading and literacy, whether it is to make 
some minor repairs in school buildings that are 100 years old.
  And what will the fate be of that 2 percent? Many people think that 
these low-income students will be able to go to the private school of 
their choice because of the voucher provision in this bill. But the 
private schools can decide whether to accept a child or not. The real 
choice is given to private schools, not parents or students.
  Private schools choose a hand-picked group of students who are much 
more likely to have college educated parents and to come from high-
income families than their public school counterparts. Public schools 
can't be selective. They must take the children of the homeless and 
children of limited English proficiency. The public schools take 
children with disabilities. They must take all students and try to 
teach all students no matter how disadvantaged their background. They 
don't have the luxury of closing their doors to students who pose a 
challenge.
  Little Johnny wants to be able to go to private school. He is able to 
qualify for that voucher, but the school says no. That is the 
difference. This is not competition. This is not letting the parents or 
the children make the choice. This permits the school to make the 
choice. The school can turn him down. They have a limited number of 
positions and they take the children that will fit into those 
particular slots.
  Now, are we going to insist that they take all students? Are the 
proponents of the voucher system going to say, ``OK, if they do not 
take them, they should take them,'' so that we have an equal playing 
ground in public and private schools and have a real choice? Are they 
proposing that? Of course not. Nothing of the sort.
  Those who support the voucher system are not creating a level playing 
field. What they are doing is taking the money, scarce resources out of 
the public school system and giving it to children that may or may not 
gain entrance into the private school system. We should not take the 
money out of the public schools and put it into the private.
  There is no evidence that voucher programs work. In Milwaukee, which 
has had a voucher program for 5 years, test scores of voucher students 
did not rise. One third of parents and students who began participating 
in the voucher program there have opted out of it. In the last month, 2 
of the 17 schools that participate in the choice program have closed 
and 2 more are being audited because of serious financial difficulties.
  Mr. President, I see colleagues here on this issue, and I will yield 
at this time to permit them to speak and come back to this issue.
  In summary, this is the wrong answer for a central challenge. We must 
invest in children at the earliest possible age. That is why 2 years 
ago we changed the Head Start Program to include younger children and 
provide programs for parents to learn parenting skills for children to 
get them involved in school. The recent Carnegie Commission report 
suggests that we must be serious about investing in young children. We 
do not want to abandon public schools by taking scarce resources out of 
them and putting them into private schools. We are effectively turning 
thumbs down on the public school system. We are abandoning them. We are 
not giving them close enough attention.
  This voucher proposal will fund the few at the expense of the many. 
It gives scarce Federal dollars to the schools that can exclude 
children. It also ignores the fact that in 16 States and the District 
of Columbia this concept was rejected. And it raises the important 
constitutional issues which were raised in a Milwaukee case that now 
stands before the Supreme Court. It is unwise policy. It is 
unjustified. And if we really care about children we ought to be 
looking at what is necessary and essential as a nation to adequately 
invest in those children, in those teachers, in their classrooms, and 
in the latest technologies for them to have a more complete education 
system.
  Mr. President, I think Senator Simon was here first, and I yield to 
him such time as he may want.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, first I ask unanimous consent that Janette 
Benson, who is an American Psychological Association Congressional 
Science Fellow in my office, be permitted floor privileges for the 
duration of the debate on the D.C. appropriations conference report.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, we have a very fundamental policy decision 
here. Vouchers are being tried right now in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, 
and perhaps elsewhere. That is the advantage 

[[Page S1325]]
of the Federal system. I happen to think we have to be very careful as 
we approach this. Among other things, we have very limited resources 
the Federal Government is putting out, and we are talking now in this 
budget about cutting back. In fiscal year 1949, the Federal Government 
spent 9 percent of its budget on education. This year, as I have said 
in the Chamber, it is 2 percent, but my colleague from Vermont has 
corrected me and said we are down to 1.4 percent. And now we are 
talking about dissipating these resources. I do not think that is wise.
  Second, while technically we do not mandate the D.C. schools to do 
this, what we say is here is some money and if you spend it for this, 
you can have it. And if you do not spend it for this, you cannot have 
the money, for a strapped D.C. school system.
  Third, as Senator Kennedy pointed out, the participating schools do 
not have to take all students. So there is a creaming process that 
hurts the public schools. There is just no question about it. That is 
the difference between this and the student aid program that we have.
  Then what we do is we fail to address the real problems of the D.C. 
public schools. Real candidly, I have only visited one school, the 
school both Senator Jeffords and I get over to as frequently as we can 
to read to a student, and that school I visit is, it is my guess, above 
average for the schools in D.C.
  Last year, I visited schools in Chicago, on the west side, and the 
south side. I visited 18 schools. I did not take any reporters with me. 
I just tried to see what was going on. I saw some encouraging things; I 
saw some awfully discouraging things. We ought to be addressing the 
real problems of urban schools in America.
  This does not move in that direction. I hope we will restrain our 
desire to move in and, with the minutest detail, tell the D.C. schools 
what they ought to do. We ought to be helping urban schools. We ought 
to be helping schools in our country in general much more than we are. 
This is not the right way to do it.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may require.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the District of 
Columbia appropriations bill. I oppose this bill for the same reasons 
that Senator Simon and Senator Kennedy have already discussed, because 
it includes a provision that permits publicly funded ``scholarships,'' 
to low-income students to attend private and religious schools in the 
District. I believe this is just another attempt to fund private 
schools with already scarce Federal dollars, too scarce.
  I have consistently opposed attempts by Congress to encourage the use 
of Federal funds to support private schools whether in the form of 
tuition tax credits or vouchers. Including this provision would be the 
first step toward establishing a permanent voucher program for 
education in this country. Mr. President, if the public schools are not 
producing the product we want, we need to fix the system, not start 
siphoning additional money from its purposes and from what it is being 
used for now.
  The system of public education in this country is available to all 
children. Every young person has a right to expect to get a good 
education out of the school system in this country.
  If it is not producing the high level of achievement needed, we 
cannot abandon it, but rather we must find ways to make necessary 
improvements. Not only that, but this is a time when education programs 
are suffering from a disproportionate share of Federal budget cuts. 
Diverting Federal resources over to private schools rather than trying 
to strengthen the public school system of this country is just wrong.
  Mr. President, I think most people are surprised when they find out 
what a small percentage of support comes from the Federal Government 
for elementary and secondary education. The Federal Government plays a 
very major role in higher education--Pell grants, loans, things like 
that. That help is really an aftermath of the success of the GI bill 
for education after World War II.
  So the Federal Government has a very major role in higher education 
but plays a very minor role in elementary and secondary education; the 
highest we ever got up to was about 9 percent of the expenses for 
elementary and secondary. It gradually drifted down to 6 percent. If I 
heard Senator Simon correctly a moment ago, I believe the current 
figure is only 1.6 percent, something like that. I do not know whether 
it is that low or not. I thought it was still around 5 or 6 percent, 
which is too low to begin with.
  Elementary and secondary education is basically funded through State 
and local funding. It comes from an antiquated property tax we should 
have corrected many years ago. Go back to the early days of this 
country, and most of the wealth of this country was in property. We did 
not have NASDAQ and the big New York Stock Exchange and the 
international flow of funds and investments. We had property, and that 
was a fair measure of people's ability to support an educational 
system. So a property tax became the norm for supporting education in 
this country.
  Now we are over two-thirds a service economy, and yet we stick with 
the property tax. As Lester Thurow pointed out in his book a couple 
years ago, we run our educational system not on a national basis like 
every other major industrialized country in the world; in this country 
we elect 15,000 independent school boards who are getting elected on 
the basis of, ``We will not raise your taxes.'' That is how we take 
care of one of the most important functions of our whole society--how 
we educate our kids for the future, how we educate our young people to 
be competitive in an increasingly competitive world.

  I personally think we should be doing more on this at the Federal 
level. International competition is going to eat us up if we are not 
careful and do not get our kids the first-rate education that they 
deserve. I do not want to see money siphoned off from our system, 
supporting efforts to leave the public school system. So I will support 
the finest public school system in the world, in this country and vote 
to supply the money for that.
  There is another concern about this that was mentioned on the floor a 
few moments ago. That is, this proposal does not require private 
schools receiving vouchers to accept students with learning 
disabilities, behavioral problems, homeless students, or those with 
limited English proficiency. You can siphon off the kids you want and 
not take the kids in wheelchairs, the kids with learning disabilities, 
the kids with dyslexia that are treatable and should be treated and 
should be part of our system that helps young people get a start in 
this world. There is no requirement for private schools receiving 
vouchers to accept students with these problems.
  Public schools have the responsibility to educate all students. I 
certainly worry, with this legislation, that vouchers will skim the 
best students and leave public education with little Federal help and 
yet expect them to solve all the educational problems. That is just 
wrong.
  I believe that providing vouchers to religious schools also is 
unconstitutional. There is no Federal or State court, as I understand 
it, that has ever upheld using vouchers for private or religious 
schools. In fact, in August, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued an 
injunction against the expansion of Milwaukee's School Choice Program 
to include religious schools--an injunction against them.
  Vouchers undermine any serious attempts being made to reform our 
public education in this country. With this voucher provision included, 
I will vote against the District of Columbia appropriations bill.
  Mr. President, very briefly--I know other Senators are waiting--but 
while I have the opportunity, I want to mention my opposition to 
another provision in this conference agreement which was recently 
brought to my attention. That is section 2551(b)(6), which would waive 
Federal procurement laws for the GSA Administrator when he provides 
technical assistance and advisory services for the repair and 
improvement of D.C. schools.
  I am told the sole reason this provision exists is to speed up the 
process of getting D.C. schools in shape in conjunction with a 2-year 
flash program. 

[[Page S1326]]
 While that may be an admirable goal to get these things taken care of 
speedily, both GSA and the D.C. government have been plagued with their 
share of problems over the last few decades. The District in particular 
is ripe with examples where contracting was not carried out properly, 
and to just waive all the rules and regulations and let them go because 
we need speed in this particular area, I think takes too big a chance.
  We all know too well there is enormous potential for fraud and abuse 
in procurement. I am not willing to approve such broad authority 
without any assurances attached to it. There are reasons for these 
procurement laws, reasons throughout Government why GSA has a 
procedure. We just revised them. I was chairman of the Governmental 
Affairs Committee when we went through some of these procedures and 
changed the procurement laws for our whole Government to protect 
against fraud and abuse in these programs. To waive those things, 
particularly with the District of Columbia, that does not have a good 
track record in the area of contracting and fiduciary or financial 
responsibility, I think is just wrong.
  This legislation does not even include a reporting requirement on 
contracts awarded under this provision. There is no evidence that they 
considered using one of the exceptions to full and open competition 
under the Competition in Contracting Act [CICA], such as unusual and 
compelling urgency or in the public interest. While these procurements 
would still be protestable, it would have been a much more palatable 
solution than broad waivers.
  I have opposed blanket waivers of procurement laws in the past. Most 
recently I came to the floor to speak against the waiver of procurement 
laws with respect to the FAA. Although I continue to believe that the 
FAA waivers were a bad precedent to set, at least that legislation 
contained a very specific list of the laws to be waived. No such list 
exists in connection with this provision. A few laws, such as CICA and 
the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act have been named, but the 
phrase, ``* * * or any other law governing procurements or public 
contracts * * *,'' leaves the rest of the field wide open to include 
labor, civil rights, and financial management laws.
  The list in this bill, at the very least, should be as explicit in 
the D.C. appropriations bill as it is in the DOT appropriations law. 
This is a very dangerous precedent to set even for a limited period of 
time and for a limited purpose.
  If the conference report is defeated, I hope the committee will 
consider this view and redraft, if not delete, this provision from the 
bill.
  My basic objection, going back to where I started, is, to siphon off 
money from the public school system for private purposes is just flat 
wrong. If we have problems with our public school system, let us fix 
it. Let us vote the money for it, not siphon off what little money we 
have in it now.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield the Senator from Connecticut such time as he 
may want to use.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from 
Vermont.
  I rise to indicate my support for cloture on this D.C. appropriations 
bill. I do so because, as most Members in the Chamber, I would like to 
begin to see some money flow to the District generally for its 
operations, but I specifically want to speak to the reason why many of 
my colleagues will oppose the cloture motion, and that is their 
opposition to some of the education reform measures that have been 
attached to this appropriations bill. I strongly support those 
education reform provisions, including the scholarship program that has 
been referred to in this debate, which is a relatively small part of 
the overall District school reform proposals in this bill.
  I must say that I approach this debate in a very different spirit. We 
have been through a lot of gridlock, again, in this Congress. Ideas 
that are new have been talked about. Not too many have made it forward. 
But I feel a sense of joy, frankly, to have this package of progressive 
and genuinely important reforms for the District of Columbia school 
system on this floor for consideration today. It would be a shame if 
passage of these provisions, which could do so much to help children 
and families in this Capital city of ours achieve their full potential 
and escape the cycle of poverty, is stopped because of opposition to 
this modest program of scholarships for poor children. That is what we 
are talking about. The education reform provisions in this bill were 
not imposed by our friends in the House from up on high. In fact, they 
had their origin with a locally based education reform commission that 
was established in the District.
  While all of the attention and controversy in this debate and outside 
has been focused on these scholarship funds which will allow some 
children to leave the public school system and go to nonpublic schools, 
there are a wide variety of other provisions in this measure that 
deserve to be noted.
  The so-called D.C. School Reform Act, which is now part of the bill 
before us, would, in fact, direct approximately $302 million out of the 
$324 million in new funds over 5 years provided for in this bill to 
benefit public school students, public schools in the District of 
Columbia.
  Let me focus on two words. We are talking here about new money. We 
are not skimming money off that otherwise would go to the public 
schools. We are talking about new money and, in fact, all but $22 
million of that will go to the public schools. It is just $22 million 
of the $324 million that are part of this innovative scholarship 
program.
  What else does the reform act do? It permits charter schools, public 
charter schools, and encourages choice among public schools. It assists 
the D.C. public schools in establishing a strong core curriculum in 
basic academics, promotion standards based on a new curriculum and 
training for the over 5,000 teachers in the school system.
  It protects public school teachers from losing their jobs due to any 
restriction in the number of full-time employees contained in this 
appropriations legislation.
  It provides for a new per-pupil funding formula to be developed by 
the District that we think will establish the stability and 
predictability in the education budget as the District cuts its overall 
budget.
  This measure provides so-called Even Start family literacy education 
programs in public schools for over 7,000 families, including 28,000 
students and parents.
  It provides state-of-the-art security measures for over 3,700 
students and teachers at high-risk schools in the District.
  It provides work force transition assistance to 27,000 seniors and 
juniors through the nationally proven Jobs for America's Graduates 
Program.
  It establishes a high technology training and referral center in the 
District that will serve up to 4,000 18- to 25-year-olds.
  And it establishes a national partnership with business to put in 
place computers and high-technology infrastructure in the schools, 
leveraging at least $40 million in public and private resources.
  That is all that this measure does for public schools and students in 
public schools.
  So what is all the fuss about? The fuss is literally the tail on the 
dog here. I gather that my colleagues are opposed to providing tuition 
scholarships to between 1,000 and 1,500 low-income District students in 
the first year to attend private schools of their choice, religious or 
nonreligious, and those schools, incidentally, have to be located in 
the District. Over 5 years, as many as 11,000 annual tuition 
scholarships could be provided.
  Do my colleagues in the Senate really want to oppose legislation that 
will enable kids from families below the poverty line to receive full 
tuition scholarships of up to $3,000 a year to give them a better 
chance to develop their potential in safer schools? Do we really want 
to stop families that are between the poverty line and 185 percent of 
poverty who can qualify for half-tuition scholarships, up to $1,500 per 
year under this provision?
  Do we really want to oppose parts of this bill that would provide 
2,000 to 3,000 after-school scholarships in the 

[[Page S1327]]
first year, 22,000 over 5 years to low-income students after school 
programs, including academic tutoring, nonacademic enrichment programs, 
or vocational and technical training?
  Mr. President, I cannot believe that is really what the Senate wants 
to do and why we would block consideration of the overall D.C. 
appropriations bill.
  My colleagues in the Senate are probably not surprised that I am 
speaking in favor of cloture on this bill and support of the 
scholarship provisions, because I have fought for several years now, 
usually alongside, my friend and colleague from Indiana, Senator Coats, 
who I notice is on the floor, to create a similar national 
demonstration program to be available to kids in poverty areas around 
the country to, once and for all, test this idea.
  There is a lot of controversy about private school choice. There is 
no controversy about the fact that our public schools are just not 
working for millions of children in this country. There is no 
controversy about the fact that if you are not educated today, you are 
not going to be able to make it in the work force of today.
  We are all preoccupied with the Presidential campaign and brother 
Buchanan's statements about economic insecurity. What is the root of 
economic insecurity, and what is the road to economic security? A 
better education. The kids in our poorest school districts are simply 
not getting that education. Senator Coats and I have offered the Low 
Income School Choice Demonstration Act in an effort, once and for all, 
to make scholarships, such as those provided in this bill for District 
of Columbia students, or vouchers as we call them, available at between 
20 and 30 demonstration sites around the country.
  Can anyone honestly say that we are so confident about what our 
public school system is doing that we do not want to test another way 
to see what effect it will have on the kids who have this choice, who 
get these scholarships, to see what effect it will have on the public 
schools?
  Senator Coats and I are open to the results. In our bill, we have the 
Department of Education doing an evaluation which will help us 
understand the effect of this program. Are we so intent on protecting 
the educational status quo, the existing system, which we know is 
failing millions of our kids, that we are not even willing to test, as 
Senator Coats and I would do in 20 to 30 systems around the country, as 
this bill would do in the District, another way to see whether it will 
work, to see whether it teaches us anything about how we can improve 
our public schools?
  Mr. President, just take a look at the front page of the Washington 
Post today. Coincidental, I guess. It is a story of a principal, Learie 
Phillip, obviously a fine man, working hard to provide an education at 
Roosevelt High School here in this city. The description is given of 
just the time he spends trying to maintain basic order, getting kids to 
go to the classroom, keeping children from marauding the halls, 
terrorizing other kids and teachers. There are descriptions of one 
teacher who attempted to get some kids to leave the halls and go to 
their classes, getting beaten up brutally--a teacher beaten up. 
Children are trapped; good children, wanting to learn, are terrorized 
in this school system.
  Let me read a quote from the Washington Post from another story last 
fall about an emergency education summit Mayor Barry held at Dunbar 
Senior High School on October 8, 1995.

       It was a group of student leaders who came to dominate the 
     summit's main session--students describing life in the public 
     schools in the District as a world in which they constantly 
     go without--without books, without caring teachers and 
     principals, without the training they need to succeed in 
     life. ``Today the mayor has asked us here because there is a 
     crisis in our public schools,'' said Devon Williams, 15, a 
     sophomore at Banneker Senior High School. He adds, ``When 
     school first started in September, it dawned on me that many 
     public schools did not have teachers. I did not have a global 
     history teacher for 2 weeks. If I don't have a book, if I 
     don't have a teacher, what can I learn?''

  Here is a quote from another Washington Post editorial back on June 
28 of last year:

       According to the Washington Teacher Union's nonscientific 
     sampling of D.C. teachers, 45.2 percent of the teachers who 
     responded said they had been victims of acts of violence. 
     Almost 30 percent said threats of violence had kept them or 
     their coworkers home from work. ``Serious disciplinary 
     problems are causing teachers to lose 18.5 hours of teaching 
     time per year for each class taught,'' according to the union 
     president's written testimony. ``Disruptive students steal 
     time away from students who come to school to learn,'' Ms. 
     Bullock of the Washington Teacher's Union testified.

  Mr. President, if this level of fear and violence applies to 
teachers, we really have to wonder and ask what life is like for the 
students in the schools who are there to learn. In some schools it must 
take a great deal of courage just to show up to class every day, much 
less to stand out by excelling academically. It has been an American 
tradition that one of the great strengths of our country has been that, 
with an education, you can work your way up out of poverty. But now, 
more than ever, there seems to be a vicious cycle in operation that has 
resulted in a concentration of poor kids trapped in inadequate, unsafe 
inner-city schools, without hope and without opportunity.
  Families who have money around our country, who are faced with 
sending their kids to schools, such as the one I have described, would 
do just one thing: They would walk. They would use that money to 
exercise a choice and remove those kids to better schools. The sad 
reality is that families without money cannot do any of those things. 
Families that have the money have the ability to exercise a choice. 
Poor families are at the mercy of failing schools. I, for one, cannot, 
in good conscience, accept the continuation of that reality. I cannot 
accept what it means in terms of deepening the cycle of poverty and 
hopelessness for the children of our poorest areas of America.
  I know that some of the opponents of this kind of scholarship or 
voucher program are concerned that it will harm public education by 
allowing the best students--the so-called advantaged students--to 
escape from public schools. Mr. President, in the case of this 
proposal, that is just dead wrong. These scholarships will be 
distributed according to a system worked out along with the D.C. City 
Council. In a broader sense, it misses the whole point of what the 
program is intended to do. We are trying to recognize that schools in 
some parts of the country--in this case, the District of Columbia--are 
not working for our kids. They are not performing their basic mission 
of educating our children. And so we have to give some of the kids an 
opportunity to seek a better way, until we have the ability to reform 
and improve the public schools. And maybe from the lessons we learn at 
these nonpublic schools, our public schools will learn how to make 
themselves better.
  Opponents say we should work to improve the public schools. Of course 
we should. Senator Coats and I and Congressman Gunderson agree with 
that. We should devote more time and energy and resources to improving 
public schools everywhere. And that has been where most of our money 
and effort has gone. That is where most of it goes in this bill. In the 
meantime, the fact is that poor children, who are average, above 
average, and below average--it does not matter--will all have a shot at 
these scholarships in the District. They all deserve an equal 
opportunity at the American dream. Right now, trapped in these unsafe 
schools with inadequate resources, with teachers afraid to teach, they 
are not getting that opportunity.
  Others oppose the program because it would allow the use of tuition 
scholarships at religious schools. This is an old argument. I happen to 
believe--according to what I take to be the prevailing Supreme Court 
decision of Meuller versus Allen in 1983--that this program is 
absolutely constitutional.
  But what is the great fear? Does somebody fear that by giving a poor 
child a scholarship to go to a religious school, we are establishing a 
religion in this country? That is ridiculous. We are giving that child 
an opportunity to go to a school that his or her family wants him to go 
to, and that one of the reasons they want them to go there is that, in 
addition to a safe surrounding and a good education, they are also 
going to get some values. Maybe that is something we have to learn, as 
well, from this experiment.
  The Rand Corp. did an important and revealing study in 1990. It 
showed that the performance of African-American 

[[Page S1328]]
and Hispanic-American children at Catholic parochial schools was much 
better than that of a comparable group in public schools--not skimming, 
similar kids, similar backgrounds. It also showed that the gap in 
performance that exists between the minorities and other children 
dropped significantly in the parochial school system.
  The study identified several factors in the success of the parochial 
schools they examined. Teachers in the schools are able to provide 
students with more personal attention. Those schools had a more 
rigorous academic curriculum. They do not teach down to the students. 
They tell them that they can reach up. They set higher standards for 
all the kids and, in fact, one of the results is that the kids get 
either to those standards, over them, or close to them. It was less of 
a stifling bureaucratic presence.
  I must say that I have always felt that every time I visited a 
religious-based school, another key to the success of these schools is 
their sense of mission, sense of purpose and dedication to values that 
the teachers and the schools bring to the classroom and to their 
children. Maybe it is hard to measure that, but we see it.
  Let me report briefly to my colleagues on a visit that Senator Coats 
and I were able to take to a school in the Anacostia area, Dupont Park 
School, affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is a very 
impressive place. The principal is a devoted woman. We asked her about 
the educational administrative bureaucracy there--she is it. There is 
no top-heavy bureaucracy. She directs the school and takes care of all 
of it.

  The kids, the demeanor, the commitment, the attitude of the children 
was very impressive to Senator Coats and me. Their test scores are 
exceptionally high. Mr. President, 97 percent of the kids at that 
school--and they come from a wide range of groups within the 
neighborhood; some of them from poverty families--97 percent of the 
kids test above national average.
  We went into the classrooms. The first graders were talking Korean to 
one another. The school choir sang a song from Africa in the African 
dialect. Computers--second, third, fourth grade kids working on 
computers, studying global history, working with advanced math.
  The school's annual tuition, well below the $3,000 threshold of the 
program of the scholarship program in this bill. We were in one of the 
classrooms and we asked, ``Do you like going to this school?'' 
Everybody said yes. We said, ``Why do you like going to this school?'' 
A whole bunch raised their hands, and we called on one young man and he 
said, ``I like going to this school because our teachers love us.'' 
This was a third or fourth grader. I thought maybe he would say it is 
an old building but it is very nicely kept. I thought maybe he would 
talk about the computers or the excitement of learning about world 
cultures. I am not saying there are not a lot of teachers in the public 
schools who love their students, but he has a sense of worth because he 
has received that message from the school. In another class we said, 
``Why do you think your parents sent you here?'' One girl raised her 
hand and she said, ``My parents sent me here because my mom told me 
that here none of the students would be carrying guns or knives.'' That 
is the truth.
  As I indicated earlier, it seems to me there is something special to 
be learned from the schools. We ought not to cower from them in fear. 
We have nothing to fear from them. We have a lot to learn from them and 
their sense of purpose and dedication, and perhaps in the public 
schools we can build on some of that as well.
  The bottom line is this: Poor kids deserve the same access, the safe, 
secure, loving, encouraging environment as kids who have more money. 
That is what this scholarship program will test and offer to a small 
group of children in the District of Columbia school system.
  I thank the Senator from Vermont for his generous gift of time to me.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to 
take a moment to straighten out the Davis-Bacon problem so that Members 
will not, I think, be concerned about something that was inadvertently 
done in the bill, and I am not sure is even there at all. The basic law 
upon which all contracts are considered with respect to the Davis-Bacon 
and the District of Columbia, and that is the Davis-Bacon law says 
every contract in excess of $2,000 to which the United States or the 
District of Columbia is a party for construction, alteration, and or 
repair, et cetera, is included under Davis-Bacon.
  Now, some of you may remember that Congressman Cass Ballenger on the 
House side has this dream, and I hope it comes true, that thousands if 
not millions of dollars will come in from private business and 
corporations to assist in altering and helping schools.
  There is a provision with respect to the head of the GSA that says 
that in the event that he provides technical assistance to these 
private firms, that if that technical assistance exceeds $2,000 that 
should not trigger Davis-Bacon for those kinds of donated services.
  That is the intention. Some say it can be generalized. I do not see 
how. Because of that concern, we will take care of that when it comes 
to the final bill. I just want to let everybody know that really there 
is no Davis-Bacon argument in here.
  I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I want to tag on, I do not know if I can 
add to what was so articulately presented by my colleague, Senator 
Lieberman, from Connecticut, about the many reasons why we ought to go 
forward and support this demonstration effort to determine whether or 
not it is a valid idea to allow students and their parents to make a 
choice, or at least to have a choice, to attend a private school in 
lieu of the public school education they are receiving.
  Senator Lieberman and I obviously feel that it is. We have been 
trying to promote the idea of school choice for several years here in 
the U.S. Senate, albeit, unsuccessfully. The evidence is rolling in at 
a very rapid rate that at least in certain sectors of our country the 
public school system is badly failing our children. Now, many Americans 
can opt out of that. They can opt out of that because they have the 
financial wherewithal to select a different school for their child if 
they feel that child is not receiving a legitimate education or an 
education that will allow them, in many cases, to escape the poverty 
that they find themselves in. Probably most, if not all, of the 
Senators in this body had that choice.
  I think that it is important to stress what we are attempting to do 
here. We want to allow a test of the concept of making assistance 
available to families and to students who do not have the financial 
means to make a choice as to where their children will be educated. 
Many low-income families find themselves trapped in a failed education 
system or in a school that is not providing education to them in a 
sufficient way to allow them to escape some of the desperate situations 
that they live in. We find parents that are pleading for the 
opportunity to have the choice that most of the rest of us in this 
Chamber enjoy.
  This is an extraordinarily modest attempt, far less than what I would 
propose. Maybe it is the only thing that is achievable, but an 
extraordinarily modest attempt to give a few students and their 
families, in some of the poorest areas of this city, an opportunity to 
opt out of a failed system and into a school that they think can 
provide a better education and a better atmosphere for their children.
  I ask my colleagues, if you have any doubts about the value of such 
an opportunity, go and visit the school that Senator Lieberman and I 
visited a couple of weeks ago. This school is located in one of the 
poorest sections of this city, and the vast majority of its students, 
over 90 percent, are African-Americans, many of whom are from low-
income families. Their parents have made extraordinary sacrifices to 
pay the tuition, which is modest for the education they are receiving, 
so the children can go there. It is one of the most remarkable examples 
of the differences that exist today between private schools and public 
schools in many areas.
  I do not want to say all public schools are bad because they are not. 
I happen to send my children to public schools. That is a choice we 
have. If I were living in an area where the public 

[[Page S1329]]
schools were not, in my opinion, providing the learning experiences, 
providing the education, providing the atmosphere, the safety, that I 
felt was appropriate, I had the choice, the financial wherewithal to 
send them somewhere else. However, many low-income parents do not have 
that choice. They are condemned to the school in their neighborhood, 
the school to which they are assigned.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. COATS. I will be happy to yield at the end. If I had unlimited 
time I would be happy to yield to the Senator because I know of his 
experience in this issue and I respect that.
  There is a school in Indianapolis that exists in the near east side, 
one of the poorest neighborhoods of Indianapolis. It is a private 
parochial school. A wealthy individual in Indianapolis who was 
frustrated over the inability of low-income students to have the same 
choices as other students put $3 million of his own money into a fund 
that would pay for half of the scholarships at this school. The school, 
incidentally, charges a per pupil tuition which is one-third the per 
pupil expenditure in the public schools. This gentleman decided to pay 
half the tuition for low-income families living in the inner-city 
neighborhood of the school to ensure that those families would have a 
choice as to where their children would be educated. The demand for 
these scholarships was so overwhelming that the school could not begin 
to accommodate the numbers of students interested.
  This parochial school had the kind of streamlined bureaucracy that 
Senator Lieberman referred to earlier in discussing private schools. 
This school has one principal and I think one administrator who handled 
the book work and so forth. But the remarkable difference between this 
school and public schools concerned the experience of the students--the 
extent of their education, their achievements, their respect for the 
institution, and the involvement of many of the teachers, many of whom 
were making a great financial sacrifice to teach as part of a 
commitment and a mission that they felt--it was dramatic difference.

  So, really what is at issue here today is whether or not the U.S. 
Senate is going to continue to insist that the educational choice 
available to middle and upper income families not be allowed for 
essentially minority, low-income students. And whether or not we have 
an obligation to at least test the concept to see whether or not the 
benefits that we propose are in fact benefits that do inure to these 
students.
  If opponents of this proposal are correct, that this program will 
undermine the public schools and not be successful at better educating 
some low-income students, then we will know, will we not? If we allow 
the District to experiment with school choice, as other communities are 
beginning to do, we will be able to evaluate objective results. The 
measures that Senator Lieberman and I have offered over the years have 
provided a very stringent accountability and testing of the 
demonstration program so that this Congress is given a set of data with 
which to make an objective determination of whether it works or does 
not work.
  I am not sure that it takes some fancy studies to figure out that 
there are problems in our public school system today, particularly in 
many inner-city areas, and that there are parents who are desperate for 
educational options for their children because they believe that the 
current system condemns them to a lifetime of inadequate educational 
preparation. Many families are worried that they are condemned to a 
lifetime of living in the conditions they are living in because 
educationally they will not have the tools to allow them to achieve a 
better standard of living for themselves and for their children. So 
this bill represents an extraordinarily modest attempt to experiment 
with the concept of school choice. I hope that this is something that 
my colleagues would take the time to examine to determine whether or 
not we should pursue this type of education reform.
  I come from an area of Indiana--Fort Wayne, IN--that has 
successfully, for generations, operated parallel school systems. We 
have a vigorous public school system which we are proud of, we have a 
vigorous private Protestant system--it is a Lutheran school system--and 
we have a vigorous parochial, Catholic school system, all operating 
side by side. I contend, and I think the statistics prove, that all 
three of those systems are healthy and are vibrant and are successful 
because the competition among the three has caused all of them to try 
to do a better job. I do not know of anything in America, that provides 
better quality at a better price as a result of a monopoly, but I have 
thousands of examples of better quality products at a lower price 
because of competition. So many of our success stories have come about 
by people trying to do a little bit better than the person next door, 
or trying to do a little better than their competitor.
  This bill acknowledges this truth about success and says that it is 
possible, as a result of competition, to provide better quality 
education. If any Senators can stand and argue that the public school 
system does not need some shakeup, some change, I think they have not 
been examining what is going on in our public schools. All you need to 
do is ask the parents or ask the students or make a visit.
  I know the hold of the organized public school lobby is 
extraordinarily strong, but I think their arguments are becoming much 
harder to defend, and I hope we can at least provide this demonstration 
program. For that reason, I will be supporting the vote on cloture.
  I thank my colleague from Connecticut for his articulating the many, 
many reasons why we should go forward with this.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). The time of the Senator has 
expired.
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
South Carolina.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the reason the Catholic and the private 
school in Indiana next to that public school is vibrant and successful 
is that we are leaving it alone. The duty of the Government toward 
public education is to support and finance it. The duty of the 
Government with respect to private education is to leave it alone. That 
is the fundamental.
  When you say the question is, ``Is the United States going to insist 
that the minority student not be given a choice?'' That is not the 
question. The question is whether you and I, as Senators, are going to 
be able to choose public money for private endeavor. I never heard of 
such a thing. Is it a valid idea to allow children to attend private 
schools? That is a valid idea. They do it. I happen to come from public 
schools. I had a child in Woodrow Wilson public school and one at 
Cathedral private school. The validity is not a question. This crowd is 
wound up in pollster politics and new ideas. What nettles this 
particular Senator is why in the Lord's world we are not financing 
public education.
  Public education is working, generally. There are many examples of 
where it needs repair, but I can give you many examples of the private 
schools that are more in need of repair. I wish we had time to debate 
it. But the point is, having dealt with that debate we had around here 
for 10 years about tuition tax credits, they are now trying to sneak in 
a voucher program of financing private education. That is the same 
crowd that wants to do away with the Department of Education. And when 
my distinguished colleague from Connecticut says we are not taking any 
money from the schools--that is true about the effect of this 
particular provision on District schools. But, overall, you are taking 
$3 billion from public education and are about to try to give $42 
million to the private schools.
  I hope we do kill this measure until we take this voucher cancer out. 
If it worked--I do not think it has any idea of working, but if it 
worked, you have started a multi-multibillion dollar program. If it 
worked in the District, come down to Charleston. I have a lot of good 
private schools down there, too. They will want financing and 
everything else. If vouchers work for the private schools, why not 
vouchers for the public schools? That is the one for new ideas--
education reform. This is not education reform. Scholarship, 
progressive--saying it is so does not make it so. 

[[Page S1330]]

  I listen closely to the matter of the language and the persuasion 
used here. It was James Madison who said:

       But what is government itself the greatest of all 
     reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no 
     government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, 
     neither external nor internal controls on government would be 
     necessary.
       In framing a government which is to be administered by men 
     over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first 
     enable the government to control the governed; and in the 
     next place, oblige it to control itself.

  And we are totally out of control.
  We are talking about new ideas--anything--but throw money, start 
programs. We spent, for the last 15 years, $200 billion more than we 
have taken in. It is not a question of balancing the budget; it is a 
question of paying for what you get. Social Security is paid for. 
Medicare is paid for. Education is not paid for. Defense is not paid 
for.
  You do not want to pay the bills around here. You want to, willy-
nilly, start off on a multibillion dollar program on an idea that we 
are against new ideas--come on.
  Mr. President, today we vote on whether or not to create a new 
Federal program to pay for private school tuitions. I hope my 
colleagues will keep in mind our duty in the area of education. Our 
duty to the public is to support public schools and our duty to private 
schools is to leave them alone.
  So far, this Congress has abandoned public education. I refer to the 
Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill, in 
which the House cuts education by more than $3 billion. The cuts to 
federally assisted public schools in that bill average over $1,700 per 
classroom across this country.
  For example--and this is not the most extreme case--I have heard 
recently from a principal in Greenville, SC, at Sans Souci Elementary 
School. He has been principal at three other public schools that did 
not receive Federal chapter I money, and now he has taken on Sans 
Souci.
  ``Sans Souci'' means ``without care'' in French, but that is not the 
case with this school. Over 80 percent of his children qualify for free 
lunch and 60 percent of the parents did not graduate from high school.
  Mr. President, one-fifth of the budget at Sans Souci comes from the 
Federal chapter I program. We hear all the time that the Federal role 
is small--and it is on the average--but at the needier schools, 
particularly at the elementary level, the role is often much greater.
  Of course, the principal tells me that these funds are absolutely 
necessary and effective. Last semester he used these funds to hire 
reading specialists for children who began first grade with no literacy 
whatsoever. In 4 months, these children were reading 60 words and 
writing grammatical sentences in three-sentence groups. Furthermore, 
these funds have lowered average class size in his school and allowed 
him to boost the advanced training for his teachers. I would add that 
these are exactly the services this Congress would cut in Washington, 
D.C. We will lose basic reading and math services for an estimated 
3,000 children.
  But, while this Congress proposes cutting services for the majority 
of the children at public schools, the stance toward private education 
has been the opposite. The Speaker himself held up funding for our 
Nation's capitol for 4 months to get a new, fully funded Federal 
program for private schools in the Washington area. Not one Senate 
conferee of either party supported this House provision. Chairman 
Hatfield, Chairman Jeffords, Senator Campbell, Senator Kohl, and 
Senator Inouye were in opposition. But, through the direct intervention 
of the Speaker, the House would not budge until the Senate took the 
whole $42 million 5-year authorization, plus full funding of $5 million 
for the first year on the D.C. appropriations bill. Thus, while we are 
supported to cut schools like Sans Souci, in Greenville, SC, we are 
supposed to initiate funding for St. Albans and Sidwell Friends.
  I have admissions information for St. Albans, for those who are 
interested. The tuition is $13,322 for day students and $18,856 for 
boarding students, but the deadline has already passed to apply for 
next fall. The brochure notes that students are admitted ``on the basis 
of entrance tests, academic promise, previous record, and 
recommendations.''
  So if your child cannot yet show academic promise--maybe he or she 
will prove it at public school--keep your $13,000. If your child does 
not compete well with other children on standardized tests, find 
another school. If your child has a previous record with spots--maybe 
due to emotional stress from a divorce or to a learning disability--pay 
your tuition taxes, but take your child somewhere else. But if your 
child is uniformly bright, spotless, and promising the school may send 
a letter of invitation in mid-March.
  Mr. President, the duties and privileges of citizenship in this 
country do not require a letter of invitation. That is why, from Thomas 
Jefferson, to Horace Mann, to Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, we 
have developed a system that admits all children. So Sans Souci must 
let in all children, and St. Albans can pick and choose.
  Of course, not all private schools are as expensive as St. Albans. In 
fact, only 7 of the 51 private schools in Washington, DC have tuitions 
in the range of vouchers provided by this bill. And six of these seven 
schools are sectarian, religious schools. Mr. President, we can argue 
about what the current Supreme Court says about Federal entanglement 
with religion, but if six of the seven available schools are religious, 
there is going to be entanglement. Furthermore, there will be 
Government intervention in the independent schools.
  This is not a theoretical prediction--there is a track record. In 
1989, the Bush administration published a report on educational choice 
in Europe--it was a prochoice document, with an enthusiastic 
introduction by Secretary Lauro Cavasos. But when you get to page 210, 
in the conclusion, you will find the following:

       Finally, this survey brings confirming evidence to several 
     conflicting positions in the controversies over public 
     funding for nonpublic schools. For those who believe strongly 
     in religious schooling and fear that Government influence 
     will come with public funding, reason exists for their 
     concern. Catholic or Protestant schools in each of the 
     nations studied have increasingly been assimilated to the 
     assumptions and guiding values of public schooling.

  Mr. President, that is from the Bush administration. If you value the 
independence of the religious schools, if you do not want entanglement, 
the real-world experience with public funding says ``watch out.''
  Similarly, with respect to social division:

       For those who fear that public support for parent choice 
     will result in race and class segregation and unequal 
     opportunities, the survey provides confirming evidence.

  That is the studied review from a little more than 6 years ago.
  Since that time, we also have a program in Milwaukee, WI. We have two 
private schools that have just shut down there in the last month--one 
with the director apparently involved in drugs. He reported that he was 
teaching voucher children and nonvoucher children, but it turned out 
that all the children were on taxpayer vouchers. Representative Polly 
Williams, who wrote the Milwaukee voucher program, is calling for 
regulation of the private schools. But the program is moving in the 
other direction. It is expanding, and with less and less oversight or 
restriction. After 5 years of yearly evaluations showed no educational 
progress, the legislature has eliminated funding for further 
evaluation, reportedly due to political pressure. The legislature has 
eliminated the requirement that schools rely partly on privately paying 
students instead of only on Government vouchers. And, the courts are 
holding up the expansion due to the threat of religious entanglement.
  Mr. President, this is not the fate we want for public schools. We 
hear this cry for accountability, accountability, but in Milwaukee we 
have gone from worrying over student achievement to worrying over 
whether they will have a school.
  And, while these school closings get the most attention, the real 
story is that attention and support is drawn away from improving the 
public schools that educate the vast majority of America's children. 
This Senate should reconsider its proposals to cut public education and 
to start taxpayer funding of private schools. I urge my colleagues to 
start getting back on the right track by voting against cloture on this 
D.C. voucher program.

[[Page S1331]]

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
an article by Al Shanker, that recently appeared in the New York Times, 
``Risky Business.''
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             Risky Business

    (By Albert Shanker, President, American Federation of Teachers)

       How can we improve U.S. education? One answer that gets a 
     lot of applause is to introduce some form of private 
     enterprise. Some people call for vouchers--using public money 
     to pay for children to attend private, and largely 
     unregulated, schools. Others tout charter schools, which are 
     set up under state law to be independent of state and local 
     control though they are funded by public money. Either way, 
     supporters say, we would bypass the regulation that is 
     strangling education. And we'd create competition among 
     schools, causing excellent schools to flourish, good, new 
     schools to spring up, and bad schools to close--just the way 
     it happens in the business world.
       All this sounds good, but voucher programs are rare and 
     charter school legislation is relatively new. So we haven't 
     had a chance to test these confident assertions against real-
     life examples of how the market works. Now, though, we are 
     beginning to get some striking evidence about the down side 
     of market schools.
       In Los Angeles, a charter school for troubled teenagers was 
     closed last year by the district. According to stores in the 
     Los Angeles Times, district funds were used to lease a 
     $39,000 sports car for the principal and pay for his private 
     bodyguard. Expensive furniture was purchased for the 
     administrative floors, and a ``secret retreat'' was held to 
     the tune of $7,000. The district started investigating the 
     school's finances when an auditor found a discrepancy between 
     the number of students the school was claiming--and receiving 
     payment for--and the number that appeared on the rolls. By 
     the time the school closed, four teachers were left to reach 
     more than 200 students, and there was $1 million worth of 
     unpaid bills. The school had a board of directors, but its 
     members apparently did not pay much attention to how things 
     were going with the students--or how the school district's 
     money was being spent.
       In Milwaukee, two schools in its voucher program for low-
     income students recently shut their doors, and, as I write, 
     two more are in danger of closing. Competition? No, poor 
     financial management, according to stories in the Milwaukee 
     Journal-Sentinel. The principal at one of the failed schools 
     was charged with passing $47,000 worth of bad checks. The 
     other school ran out of funds and was reportedly unable to 
     pay its teachers for several weeks. The financial problems in 
     all four schools, three of which were new this year, arose 
     when they enrolled fewer students than they had counted on. 
     An official in the state education department said that 
     administrators of the new voucher schools could have used 
     training in financial procedures and school administration 
     but that legislation governing these schools did not permit 
     his department to offer it.
       No one should be surprised. These charter and voucher 
     schools are the educational equivalent of small businesses. 
     Many of them are new, and everybody knows that the failure 
     rate for small businesses over the first several years is 
     very high. (According to the Small Business Administration, 
     53 percent of small businesses fail within 5 years of 
     starting up, 79 percent by the end of 10 years.) Failure is 
     usually related to what has troubled these schools--financial 
     problems and, often, lack of experience in running a 
     business.
       The difference is that when a small business fails, it's 
     the owners who pick up the tab. When a voucher or charter 
     school goes out of business, it is the taxpayers' money that 
     is thrown away. But the chief victims are the students; they 
     are the ones who lose school time that cannot be replaced. 
     John Witte, the evaluator for the Milwaukee voucher project, 
     put it this way when a school closed during the first year of 
     the experiment:
       There are those who would argue that the failure of that 
     school is to be expected in a market system of education. 
     Whether one believes that that expectation outweighs the fact 
     that approximately 150 children essentially lost a year's 
     education is a value issue that we cannot resolve. Whatever 
     one's values are, the price was high for those families 
     involved.
       The costs and implications of charter and voucher school 
     failure do not stop here. Where do students go when their 
     school has shut its doors? Must taxpayers also spend money to 
     keep public school spaces for youngsters in voucher and 
     charter schools in case there are school closings? If not, 
     would we put them in classes that might already be filled to 
     overflowing? Or send them to a school with available space, 
     no matter where the school was located? Or should we make 
     them wait in line unit the following year--the way voucher 
     and charter schools would do?
       The people who want us to embrace vouchers and charter 
     schools pretend that doing so is as easy as saying ``free 
     enterprise.'' The failures in Los Angeles and Milwaukee 
     remind us that these ventures are risky--and that all the 
     risk falls on people who have no influence over the outcome.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Washington for yielding me the time, and I reserve the remainder of our 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Rhode Island 
5 minutes.
  Mr. PELL. I thank the Senator from Washington.
  Mr. President, I oppose the conference report on the District of 
Columbia appropriations Bill. I do so, however, with profound respect 
for Senator Jeffords, the chairman of the D.C. Appropriations 
Subcommittee, and the hard work he has devoted to this legislation. Far 
more often than not, Senator Jeffords and I are on the same side of the 
issue when it comes to education. Therefore, it is with deep regret 
that I find myself on the opposite side in this case.
  Philosophically, I am drawn to the concept of choice. It is one of 
the precepts upon which the Pel Grant Program is based. As I see it, 
however, the problem is not only when but also how we move toward 
greater choice in education. My difficulty with this provision is that 
it comes at the wrong time and does it in the wrong way.
  With current Federal education funding so much at risk and with 
Federal education programs suffering such a disproportionate share of 
cutbacks, I do not believe it is prudent that we move in this direction 
at this particular time. Given our scarce Federal resources, I am of 
the mind that they should continue to be directed primarily to the 
public schools that educate almost 90 percent of our Nation's 
elementary and secondary school children.
  Further, private schools today choose which students they want to 
educate. They are not required to accept students who are difficult to 
teach in terms of behavior or educational deficiencies. They operate in 
a manner that is wholly different from the rules under which the public 
schools are required to function. In the absence of Federal funding, 
this may be acceptable. However, if they are to become the 
beneficiaries of a federally supported scholarship or voucher program 
as proposed in this legislation, I believe we should expect more of our 
private schools.
  It is unforunate, indeed, that there is no guarantee in this bill 
that students with disabilities, students with discipline problems 
students with language deficiencies, or homeless students will have 
access to private school education. Private schools could continue to 
choose not to accept them. Thus, these students could well be left in 
the public schools, and the public schools, in turn, left with even 
less resources to devote to their education. It is a choice program 
that leaves public education in the lurch, and I fear it would set a 
very unfortunate precedent.
  At this particularly critical time, I believe it very important that 
we continue to devote our resources primarily to the public schools 
charged with the responsibility of eduating all children, regardless of 
their disadvantage, their deficiencies, or their disability. In that 
vein, I would urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this conference 
report.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. How much time remains on both sides?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 15 minutes and 55 seconds on the 
Senator's side and the opposition has 10 minutes.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I rise as a Senator who, as a teacher for 20 years, 
spends time about every 2\1/2\ or 3 weeks in a school in Minnesota. 
First my premise. I think education is the foundation of it all. I 
think it is the key to welfare reform. I think it is the key to 
reducing poverty. I think it is the key to a stable middle class. I 
think it is the key to helping us decrease violence in our communities. 
I think it is the key to successful economic performance of 

[[Page S1332]]
our country, and I think it is the key to a functioning democracy.
  The second point I wish to make. I heard my good friend from 
Indiana--and he is a good friend--talk about the need for shakeup. I 
think education needs to be shaken up as well, although I wish to start 
out with one point, and I am not talking about any of my colleagues 
here. I do not mean this personally. But I am absolutely convinced, 
having spent a lot of time in our schools, that some of the harshest 
critics of public education could not last 1 hour in the very 
classrooms they condemn.
  So now my point. You are right; education needs to be shaken up. We 
need to make sure that, first of all, children at birth have a chance, 
which means that every woman expecting a child has to have a diet rich 
in vitamins, minerals, and protein, and we cut nutrition programs, but 
somehow a voucher plan is going to help. Education needs to be shaken 
up. That is right. Children need to be ready to learn when they come to 
elementary school, but you know what. Some of the very folks who are 
talking about the voucher plan--not all--want to cut the Head Start 
Program. They do not want to fund adequate child care. We have children 
2 and 3 years of age, as I see with my own grandchildren, that every 15 
seconds are interested in something new; they are exploring all the 
unnamed magic of the world, but what we are doing, rather than igniting 
that spark of learning, we are pouring cold water on that spark of 
learning. We ought to make a commitment to these children when they are 
young, but we do not.
  That would be shaking up public education. It is hard to teach 38 
kids in elementary school. We need to have class sizes much less. But 
we have not dug into our pockets to make that commitment of resources. 
When kids go to school and the buildings are dilapidated, the toilets 
do not work, and the heating does not work, it is hard to believe that 
as a matter of fact the adults care very much about you, but we have 
not committed the resources to dealing with this dreary, dilapidated 
physical infrastructure.
  Education needs to be shaken up. There is no question about it. But 
the problem is the context of this plan. We had a continuing resolution 
in the Chamber a couple of months ago--we are going to come back to it 
again--outrageous, a 20-percent cut in title I money for kids with 
special problems and vocational education and Head Start, and at the 
same time we are talking about starting on a voucher plan.
  I said to my colleagues before, I say it again, if you can marshal 
the evidence that shows me that we have made a commitment to children 
in this country, we have made a commitment to doing something positive 
about the concerns and circumstances of their lives, we have made a 
commitment to public education, we have made the investment and then 
that does not work, I would be the first to come to the floor and say 
let us try something different.
  We have not made that commitment at all, in which case this makes 
absolutely no sense. There is going to be a further reduction of funds, 
and that means what this gets to be is a zero-sum game. I say this with 
sadness to my colleague. It is less money for education for 
mathematics, for history, for English, for language. It is less money 
for public education for support services for students. It is less 
money for public education to recruit and train teachers. It is less 
money for public education to reduce the violence in our schools so 
that we can move forward to safer schools, in which case this plan is 
not a step forward. It is a great leap sideways. As a matter of fact, 
it is a great leap backward.
  That is what this is all about. We say to D.C. we will put a rider on 
your appropriations bill, telling them this is the money and you have 
to spend it for private vouchers. That is unacceptable. It is 
unacceptable because--I do not care how many speeches are given in the 
Senate Chamber--we have not backed up the photo opportunities we all 
like to have with children. We have not backed up all of our discussion 
about how the children are the future with an investment in resources 
for public education so every child will have the same chance to reach 
his or her potential. We have not done that. So do not talk to me about 
how a voucher plan is the answer when we have not even made a 
commitment to the answer.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Rhode Island.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, the Senator from Virginia wanted 1 minute, 
and I would be glad to yield to him.
  Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield the Senator from Virginia 2 
minutes.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I first thank my distinguished colleague 
from Rhode Island and the manager.
  I wish to assure the manager that I am going to support him on the 
cloture motion, although I feel very strongly about an issue which I 
will address momentarily. I think it is imperative that the District of 
Columbia be given its budget. I support the various provisions of this 
measure.
  But, Mr. President, regrettably, certain elements of the government 
in the city, namely, the D.C. Taxicab Commission, voted on February 6 
of this year to terminate a longstanding taxicab reciprocity agreement 
between the District of Columbia and areas in northern Virginia and in 
Maryland.
  Mr. President, this affects the way we do business here because we, 
the Congress of the United States, are very dependent on the best 
means, safest means, most cost-efficient means of transportation for 
the many people who visit not only Capitol Hill, but come here as 
tourists and the like. This is an effort by the District of Columbia to 
disrupt an agreement that essentially has been operating and operating 
for the benefit of all for 50 years.
  Mr. President, I am going to fight unrelentlessly. I would seize this 
vehicle, if it were possible, this legislative vehicle to make sure we 
continue the practice that has served this greater metropolitan area 
for years.
  As I said, on February 6, 1996, the D.C. Taxicab Commission voted 
unanimously to terminate the longstanding taxicab reciprocity agreement 
between the District of Columbia and Arlington County, Fairfax County, 
the city of Alexandria, and Montgomery County, MD.
  The reciprocity agreement permits taxicabs properly registered in 
their home county to: Transport persons from their county of origin 
into the District and discharge passengers; to pick up passengers in 
the District and take them to their home county in response to a call 
to a dispatcher at the home county; to transport passengers in response 
to a prearranged trip, and immediately following the termination of a 
trip.
  The D.C. Taxicab Commission's action will prohibit all taxicabs not 
licensed in the District from providing taxicab and ground 
transportation service of any type which physically originates in the 
District.
  Mr. President, ending taxicab reciprocity is highly contradictory of 
the metropolitan area's long record of cooperation on transportation 
matters. The unilateral cancelation of reciprocity could well begin a 
chain of events that could lead to increased fares in every 
jurisdiction, and it could easily result in District taxicabs being 
unable to pick up fares throughout the rest of the metropolitan area.
  Passengers could find themselves unable to rely upon consistent, 
dependable service from carriers with whom they have grown accustomed. 
Instead, they could be passed like batons from carrier to carrier 
because of artificial and unnecessary barriers. This could have a 
particularly harsh effect on disabled and elderly citizens who rely on 
local taxi service to commute to work in the District, as well as 
contractual agreements by D.C. firms on behalf of their Virginia 
resident employees.
  I understand that the conference report on H.R. 2546 cannot be 
amended. Indeed, at this point, we do not know if cloture will succeed.
  My thoughts are that this is meant to be a strong advisory to the 
District 

[[Page S1333]]
government and the Taxicab Commission to closely reconsider their 
decision on revoking reciprocity.
  As I understand it, the commission decision must first be transmitted 
to the District corporation counsel for proposed rulemaking, and that 
action has not yet happened. There is still time to reconsider a 
decision which perhaps was made without fully considering what could be 
a strong negative impact on their own services.
  I fear the D.C. Taxicab Commission may have fired a shot, as they say 
in the Navy, without fully considering potential retaliation. If indeed 
Virginia taxicabs are prohibited from dropping off and picking up fares 
within the District, what is to prevent Virginia from prohibiting D.C. 
taxi service at such major hubs as the Pentagon and National and Dulles 
Airports.
  So, Mr. President, let this be a warning shot across the bow. While 
this conference report cannot be amended, we will have a continuing 
resolution in the near future which would be an appropriate vehicle for 
a funding prohibition on the enforcement of the reciprocity repeal.
  I would prefer not to take such action. I do not like to interfere 
with D.C. home rule. However, we are dealing with an ill-conceived 
policy which would have a detrimental effect on my constituents and 
metropolitan transportation services as a whole.
  I look forward to meeting with District officials in the near future 
as well as other Members of the local congressional delegation. Our 
goal should be the provision of the best transportation services 
available for each of our municipalities, but working together with a 
strong sense of cooperation for the common good.
  Mr. President, I thank the managers.
  Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, last fall the Senate approved a version of 
the D.C. appropriations bill with no trouble. We passed it here in the 
Senate with no difficulty. Later, the House passed its version, but in 
its version there was the creation of a new Federal spending program to 
provide private school vouchers to a select group of students. This 
conference report which we are dealing with today creates the first 
federally funded private school voucher program in the United States of 
America.
  The Senate conferees, Republicans and the Democrats from the Senate, 
were united in their opposition to the House private school voucher 
provision. The House would not yield, and for months an agreement could 
not be reached. The Senate bill did not include, as I say, anything to 
do with vouchers. We never had an opportunity to address it. There had 
been no hearings on this measure in the Senate. But the House has said, 
take this new Federal spending program with all its flaws or the 
District of Columbia will not receive its Federal payments.
  This appropriations bill, I submit, should not be used to force the 
Senate to endorse the creation of a new Federal spending program with 
dubious merit. It is no accident, it seems to me, Mr. President, that 
this new voucher program has been attached to the D.C. appropriations 
bill. None of us have a constituency. None of us are responsible to the 
District of Columbia voters. They cannot punish us or reward us in any 
fashion. We are unaccountable for our actions.
  Under this proposal, the parents do not choose the school that their 
children will attend. The private schools select the children who are 
going to attend those schools. This is not a luxury that our public 
schools have. Our public schools cannot pick and choose among the 
students. Public schools are committed to providing an education to all 
our children. They have to accept the child who comes to the school in 
the middle of the school year, the child who comes with disabilities, 
the child whose primary language is not English. They have to accept 
the child with disciplinary problems or the child with the low IQ.
  Private schools do not have to accept any of those children and can 
reject any child who falls into the above categories--does not speak 
good English, does not have the adequate IQ, and so forth. In short, 
private schools have the ability to select the smartest, the least 
difficult students with the fewest challenges to overcome, those 
students with the greatest family support.
  Jonathan Kozol, the Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar who is best known 
as a teacher, a civil rights worker, and the best-selling author of 
``Savage Inequalities,'' and more recently the good ``Amazing Grace: 
The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation,'' has been an 
outspoken critic of American education, particularly in our inner 
cities. Yet when asked about private school choice, this is what he had 
to say:

       Choice doesn't do anything for poor children. It simply 
     creates a system of triage that will enable the most 
     fortunate to opt out and leave the larger numbers of the 
     poorest and least sophisticated people in schools nobody 
     willingly would choose.

  There is a myth that poor schools somehow magically improve to meet 
the competition. Kozol says:

       Contrary to myths, the poor schools do not magically 
     improve to meet the competition, nor do they self-destruct. 
     They linger on as the depositories for children everybody has 
     fled.

  The role of our schools has changed dramatically in the past three 
decades. Schools have taken on extraordinary new burdens. Today we are 
seeing youngsters with learning disabilities, youngsters who do not get 
enough to eat, youngsters born with drug or fetal alcohol problems, 
youngsters from totally shattered families. As a society, we expect 
that our schools will take in these children and help make their lives 
better through education.
  I believe it is wrong to provide Federal dollars to private schools 
to enable them to skim the best students from the public schools and 
leave the public schools with the greatest challenges to deal with.
  It is curious, it seems to me, Mr. President, that under the House 
appropriations bill, the District of Columbia will lose its $13 million 
this year, $13 million in title I and so forth programs, yet at the 
same time this report authorizes $42 million over the next 5 years--$5 
million this year alone. So this is $42 million over the next 5 years 
that, it seems to me, could far better be spent on improving our public 
schools in the District of Columbia, renovating the shabby buildings, 
upgrading the facilities, purchasing new books, installing computers 
and Internet connections, rewarding excellent teachers. All of these 
things that money could go for.
  Mr. President, I would like to conclude by saying that in Milwaukee 
they have such an experiment. They have had it for 4 years.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. CHAFEE. The results of that have not shown an improvement in 
those students who come from the low-income schools as opposed to those 
students who remained in the low-income schools.
  This proposal permits taxpayer dollars to be used to pay for 
religious education. Even if this plan was approved by the House and 
Senate and signed by the President, it would be a long time before poor 
children in the District received these vouchers because this proposal 
would go straight to the courts.
  On December 14, 1995, I received a letter opposing the voucher 
proposal from a group of local D.C. religious leaders who believe that 
providing taxpayer dollars to religious schools would damage their 
religious autonomy, and they agree that it would violate the first 
amendment. They argue:

       Public funding will inevitably lead to regulation of 
     religious schools, harmfully entangling the government in 
     religious matters. Currently religious schools are free from 
     government intrusion and may enroll and hire those of their 
     own religion. This independence is important given that the 
     mission of a religious school is to promote its faith in its 
     pupils. The ``scholarships'' will threaten the schools' 
     ability to operate in a fully sectarian manner.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the 
letter be printed in the Record. I also ask unanimous consent that 
another letter in opposition to the voucher proposal from the Baptist 
Joint Committee be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. CHAFEE. Finally, Mr. President, on the issue of federally funded 
vouchers for religiously affiliated schools, I would like to quote Mr. 
Gunderson, the author of this proposal. On August 12, 1992, during a 
speech in the House 

[[Page S1334]]
Chamber in opposition to a voucher amendment by Mr. Armey, 
Representative Gunderson said, ``Choice which goes beyond public and 
private schools to include religious schools, I have to tell my 
colleagues, raises serious constitutional questions.''
  The underlying assumption of private school voucher plans is that 
public schools are doing a bad job and private schools are better. The 
advantage that private schools appear to have over public schools 
disappears when students of similar backgrounds are compared. Private 
school achievement measures at a much higher rate than public school 
achievement because private school students come from much more 
advantaged backgrounds with higher incomes and parents with higher 
levels of education.
  In a report entitled ``Fourth Year Milwaukee Parental Choice 
Program,'' researchers found that voucher students in private schools 
are not doing better in math and reading than low-income students who 
remained in the public schools. Another study by Bruce Fuller of the 
Harvard University graduate school of education called ``Who Gains, Who 
Loses From School Choice: A Research Summary'' reported that after the 
third year of the Milwaukee voucher experiment reading scores were 
essentially no different between choice students and similar low-income 
Milwaukee public school students.
  In 1993, many of those who support forcing this voucher program on 
the District of Columbia opposed Goals 2000: the Educate America Act 
because, they argued, it lessened local control over education. Well, 
Mr. President, if anything lessens local control over education in the 
District of Columbia, it is this conference report. It has not been 
asked for by the D.C. school board, but Congress set up a special board 
and a new program for the District of Columbia.
  Supporters of the voucher plan say the District of Columbia should 
provide choices to parents. They say the District of Columbia should 
have charter schools. They call for partnerships between city schools 
and the Smithsonian Institution. The truth is that the District of 
Columbia has all of these things. The District has public school 
choice. There is a charter school program at a school not six blocks 
from the Capitol. Down the street there is a middle school which has 
entered into a partnership with the Smithsonian. D.C. public schools 
are the only public schools in the area that provide an all-day 
kindergarten program, and every high school in the District is a magnet 
school.
  Is there room for improvement? Of course there is, and I suggest that 
if those who put forth this plan were truly interested in improving the 
education of D.C. students, they would provide sorely needed additional 
resources to the public schools here. They would encourage the District 
of Columbia to look at schools and programs that are succeeding here 
and try to emulate that success.
  I find it extraordinary that the 104th Congress, which is dedicated 
to local control and cutting spending, is seeking to enter into a 
brandnew spending program to micromanage a local school system.
  I will vote against cloture, and I urge my colleagues to do so.

                               Exhibit 1


               gunderson's ``scholarships'' hurt religion

       As clergy of the District of Columbia and those committed 
     to the principle of separation of church and state, we 
     strongly oppose the ``scholarships'' provision, advanced by 
     Congressman Steve Gunderson, in the D.C. Education Reform 
     Proposal. These ``scholarships'' will funnel public dollars 
     to parochial and other religious schools, thereby damaging 
     their religious autonomy and violating the First Amendment of 
     the U.S. Constitution.
       Public funding will inevitably lead to regulation of 
     religious schools, harmfully entangling the government in 
     religious matters. Currently, religious schools are free from 
     government intrusion and may enroll and hire only those of 
     their own religion. This independence is important given that 
     the mission of a religious school is to promote its faith in 
     its pupils. The ``scholarships'' will threaten the schools' 
     ability to operate in a fully sectarian manner.
       Furthermore, under the U.S. Constitution's church-state 
     separation provisions, government may not subsidize sectarian 
     education. If tax dollars are funneled to religious 
     denominations in the form of ``scholarships,'' all citizens 
     will be paying taxes to support religion. This intrinsically 
     breaches our nation's heritage of religious freedom. 
     Therefore, in the debate over the ``scholarships,'' do not 
     omit the principle of religious liberty from consideration.
           Sincerely,
     Rev. Charles Worthy,
       Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church.
     Rabbi Fred Reiner,
       Temple Sinai.
     Rev. Kenneth Burke,
       E. Washington Heights Baptist.
     Rev. Eliezer Valentin-Castanon,
       General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist 
     Church.
                                                                    ____



                                      Baptist Joint Committee,

                                Washington, DC, December 13, 1995.
       Dear Representative/Senator: The Baptist Joint Committee 
     serves the below-listed Baptist groups on matters related to 
     religious liberty and the separation of church and state. The 
     Committee has consistently opposed efforts on the part of 
     government to funnel tax dollars to teach religion, whether 
     couched in terms of direct grants, voucher tax credits or 
     ``scholarships.'' Accordingly, we urge you to vote against 
     any attempt to fund parochial schools in the District of 
     Columbia Appropriations Bill.
       Such funding mechanisms are unconstitutional. The Supreme 
     Court has struck down virtually every form or direct 
     financial aid to parochial schools at the elementary and 
     secondary levels. Government should not be permitted to do 
     indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly.
       It is also bad public policy. This kind of scheme is 
     unfair, engenders unhealthful governmental regulation of 
     religion, endangers public education, and may exacerbate 
     class divisions--creating welfare for the wealthy, while the 
     needy continue to go wanting.
       Finally, it violates core Baptist convictions that 
     authentic religion must be wholly voluntary. Religion should 
     be dependent for its support on the persuasive power of truth 
     that it proclaims and not on the coercive power of the state. 
     Utilizing the things of Caesar to finance the things of God 
     is contrary to true religion. These principles apply full 
     force to religious education.
       Thank you for considering our views on this very important 
     legislative initiative.
           Yours very truly,
                                                  J. Brent Walker.

  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I want to thank the manager of the bill.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has 5 minutes. The 
Senator from Vermont has 8 minutes 21 seconds.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I yield myself 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join us in 
assuring that we can go back to the table and pass an appropriate D.C. 
appropriations bill. There is inappropriate language in this bill on 
Davis-Bacon, there is inappropriate language in here that puts 
conditions on a woman's right to choose, and we have heard much over 
the last hour and a half about the inappropriate language on vouchers 
that is included in this bill.
  There have been many eloquent statements by my colleagues in 
opposition to the vouchers, but let us stop for a minute and ask, who 
wins under a voucher system? Do the parents? Do they really get a 
choice? Not really, Mr. President. The private school administrators 
will have more of a choice in students that they will be able to select 
for their private schools, but parents, unless they have the money that 
they will need, will truly not have a choice. And they will not have a 
choice if school administrators say ``no'' to their child.
  Will the students win under a voucher system? There is no evidence 
that students will win. In fact, in Milwaukee, which has had a voucher 
program for 5 years, test scores of voucher students did not rise. 
There is no evidence that students do better.
  Will the public schools win? Hardly. We have heard many arguments 
about the money that is currently out there that will be taken from our 
public school system that will not be used for every child in America 
to assure that we continue to make sure that every child has the 
opportunity to get a good education in this country. Public schools 
will clearly not be a winner.
  Will private schools be a winner under a voucher system? Hardly. 
Private schools will have taxpayer dollars coming into their schools. 
They will then have to respond to taxpayers as to how they spend their 
money. They will have oversight and they will have to respond to all of 
us who pay our taxes 

[[Page S1335]]
for vouchers if they decide to buy equipment or supplies. They will 
have to be responsive to taxpayers because it will be taxpayers' money 
that they are using. I hardly think that the private schools will win 
under this voucher system.
  Will the taxpayers win? No, they will not. It is merely moving money 
around.
  If we were to pass a voucher system today, we would have to write a 
check for every student who is currently in a private school, in terms 
of a voucher. That will amount to billions of dollars. If we do it in a 
small district like the District of Columbia, just take a look at the 
number of students who are currently in private schools. If a voucher 
system passes, do the students who are currently enrolled in private 
school get a check or do new students coming in get those checks?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 3 minutes has expired.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I yield myself 30 additional seconds.
  Under the voucher system, no one wins. I think that we need to step 
back and pass an appropriate D.C. bill and remove these riders.
  I retain the remainder of my time.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield myself 6 minutes and 21 seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. President. What has happened today is 
what I had hoped would not happen. It has taken us some 90 days to get 
here to bring forward a proposition to this body which would keep us 
out of the national debate over the use of the voucher system. This is 
not the time or place for that. We have a city which needs help, and we 
have to give it help.
  So what, in my mind, might have started out as a torpedo aimed at the 
midsection of public education in the District of Columbia or the 
country, now has turned into a small shot across the bow, and there is 
even an opportunity to divert all the powder resulting from firing that 
shot.
  That is where we are right now. So let us not make this into a big 
national issue. Let us wait for that some other day, but let us take 
care of the District of Columbia school system.
  Let me clarify some statements here that are confusing. First of all, 
there are no D.C. public school funds being used at all. This is a 
separately appropriated fund.
  Also, the District of Columbia sits in an unusual situation, so it is 
hard for us to do anything as a demonstration project in the District 
of Columbia without giving it some Federal implications. We have to 
keep that in mind.
  What I wanted to see done, and what we have done in this bill, is to 
make sure that this is a locally controlled option.
  There is a nonprofit corporation set up to receive the funds. There 
will be two different types of vouchers that will be allowed, or 
scholarships, if you want to call them that. One is for remedial help 
and one is for tuition scholarships. So we do not know how much is 
going to be spent on each. There is only $5 million, and there could be 
private funds to help even more.
  Also, the private board that is set up will be awarding each 
scholarship, and under the mandate of this bill, they must ensure, to 
the best they can, that there is a diversity of academic achievement 
levels represented among the students that receive the scholarships. So 
the scholarship board will have control over that.
  The other issue that was brought up is about the ability to 
discriminate. The schools cannot discriminate and, again, the board is 
required to make sure that does not happen. The bill specifically 
requires that the civil rights laws be carried out and that they will 
make sure, with respect to the handicapped, that section 504 of the 
Rehabilitation Act is not violated.
  Finally, I believe, and believe strongly, that when the final 
analysis is made, there will be vouchers, but the pressures will not be 
for the tuition vouchers--hopefully, there will be private funds to 
satisfy that demand--but there will be so much need for vouchers for 
remedial help for these kids. We have some 20,000 young people in this 
city who are in need of remedial help.
  My belief is there will be such a strong demand on the District 
Council to see that after-school vouchers are distributed to those in 
need, and, hopefully, there will be private funds for tuition 
scholarships so that almost all of the Federal funds will be used for 
remedial help.
  Let us not make this into something it is not. It is not an attempt 
to try and establish a mandated Federal program. This is a local option 
for the city. I have no problem with sending a message to the public 
school system that they better get going or else they may see a larger 
program.
  It has been 90 days. We have gone through option after option. We 
have had two agreements that fell apart, and we finally reached this 
one, which no one who is familiar with it is happy with, which is 
probably a pretty good solution. The scholarship program is not as far 
as some would like to go toward trying to establish a voucher system, 
and it is too far, obviously, some say, because it is a nose under the 
tent.
  So I urge my colleagues to take a look at this. Do not get swallowed 
up in trying to make this into an argument about a national mandate. 
Let us take care of the kids in Washington, DC. Let us worry about the 
school system here and the wonderful things that this bill will help us 
do to make sure we can change this city's educational system from one 
which is an embarrassment to one which we can be proud of again, proud 
as we were in the past. That is my goal, and I am sure the goal of all 
here.
  Let us not scuttle this bill, because if we do not pass it, then we 
have to start all over again in the process of trying to see what we 
can come up with as a compromise.
  I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture, and let us go on and take 
care of the city, which is in desperate need of funds right now. They 
are about ready to go bankrupt. I cannot see us taking another 30, 60, 
or 90 days trying to find an answer. Let us accept this one for what it 
is, not for what you fear it may be or for what you may want it to be.
  Mrs. MURRAY. How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair informs the Senator from Washington 
that 1 minute, 43 seconds remains on her side, and the Senator from 
Vermont controls 3 minutes.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to the 
private school voucher plan included in the conference report on the 
D.C. appropriations bill.
  At a time when our public education system is suffering under the 
weight of draconian cuts in Federal education programs, diverting 
precious resources to private and parochial schools is the wrong 
message to send to our Nation's children.
  This year alone, the Congress has already cut $3.1 billion from 
education programs--the largest cut in education funding in American 
history. This is money that would help children learn new skills, raise 
test scores, provide money for college education, and prevent violence 
and drug use in our schools.
  We should not be taking scarce Federal funds away from public school 
students. Instead we should take this opportunity to reaffirm our 
commitment to reforming our public education system, which educates 88 
percent of American students. But, this bill would tell our public 
schools and the vast majority of our Nation's children: ``We can't 
improve our public schools, so let's not even try.'' Well, I reject 
that argument.
  Our universal public education system is one of the very cornerstones 
of our Nation, our democracy, and our culture. And this voucher 
proposal would fundamentally undermine this ideal by spending Federal 
taxpayer dollars for students to attend private and religious schools 
that are unaccountable to the public.
  Instituting a voucher system in Washington, DC, would also seriously 
harm most of Washington's low- to moderate-income families, who depend 
on public schools for their children's education.
  Supporters claim that these vouchers will allow D.C. schoolchildren 
to attend better schools. But the fact of the matter is, the vast 
majority of children in Washington, particularly those who are the 
poorest and who need the most help, will remain in public schools.
  For thousands of students and their parents, Federal resources that 
are desperately needed to repair D.C.'s ailing schools, provide 
counselors to deal 

[[Page S1336]]
with the many social problems that face Washington's young people, and 
equip teachers with the tools they need to educate their students will 
be diverted to the few who are lucky to attend private and parochial 
schools.
  Supporters claim that this voucher proposal will give parents a 
choice on where their children go to school. But, in fact, these 
vouchers will not fully open the doors to private education, because 
private and parochial schools will be under no obligation to accept all 
applicants.

  Private schools will pick and choose the best students; and the ones 
with the lowest test scores, the ones with learning disabilities and 
discipline problems, and the ones for whom a $1,500 to $3,000 voucher 
will not begin to pay the, on average, $10,000 tuition for private 
schools in the District will be the ones left behind.
  In addition, these proposals raise serious constitutional questions 
about using Federal money to pay tuition at religious schools. No 
Federal or State court has ever upheld the use of vouchers for 
parochial schools, and I seriously doubt that this bill will be any 
different.
  Supporters claim that if this proposal passes, Washington DC, would 
serve as an important testing ground for the voucher program. But why 
test a program that doesn't work and that the American people don't 
want? Considering the fact that Federal resources are already strained, 
we shouldn't be using the District of Columbia appropriations bill to 
waste taxpayer money on bad ideas.
  Washington, DC, residents, like those in California, Colorado, and 
Oregon have voted down vouchers in various ballot initiatives. 
Electoral rejection of these programs may be due in large part to the 
fact that private school vouchers don't live up to their advanced 
billing. In Milwaukee, where the voucher program has been in place for 
5 years, test scores of students, who utilized vouchers, failed to 
improve.
  I understand the importance and relevance of private and parochial 
education. I am a product of St. Thomas the Apostle, a Jesuit boys 
school. And, I am very proud that my parents made the decision to send 
me there. But, I am also aware that when making that decision they 
weren't expecting to be subsidized by the Federal Government. They 
understood the importance of our public education system and that the 
Federal Government should do all it can to support our public schools.
  I have long believed that education should be made our No. 1 priority 
in Congress. A strong education is critical to forming productive, 
thoughtful, and tolerant citizens.
  I have fought to reform our public schools in the past, and I will 
continue to do so in the future. However, I strongly believe that 
sending taxpayer dollars to private and parochial institutions will 
drain already meager Federal resources and undermine serious 
educational reform efforts.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in opposing private school vouchers 
and work to support a bill that provides real school improvement for 
the District of Columbia's schools.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I yield 1 minute to the Senator from 
Hawaii.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for 
yielding to me.
   Mr. President, I rise to register my opposition to the school 
voucher provision included in the pending measure. The conference 
report to the fiscal year 1996 D.C. appropriations bill contains 
language that would establish a scholarship program for low-income 
students to attend private and religious schools or attend after-school 
programs in religious, private, or public institutions.
  As a former teacher and public school principal, my chief concern is 
that this measure would, for the first time, permit Federal tax dollars 
to be used to subsidize private or religious education. This provision 
represents the proverbial camel's nose under the tent of public 
funding, which could lead to the diversion of additional Federal moneys 
toward private instruction. Worse, it would encourage States and 
localities to follow the Federal example, with disastrous consequences 
for public education.
  There are no quick fixes for what ails our system of learning. It 
takes time, energy, and resources to construct and maintain school 
buildings, to develop appropriate curricula, to hire and train 
effective teachers, to encourage parental involvement, to make our 
schools safe from crime. And it takes time, energy, and resources to 
ensure that our schools provide our children with the skills and 
knowledge necessary to respond to the economic, scientific, and 
technological challenges that will confront them upon graduation. 
Nevertheless, speaking from my background as an educator, I know that 
given adequate attention and resources, public schools can and do work.
  I have no quarrel with private or religious schools. In many cases, 
they provide a quality education for thousands of young people; in 
fact, we have many fine private institutions of our own in Hawaii. But 
private schools are by nature highly selective. They may choose their 
students on virtually any basis one could care to name, including 
income, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, aptitude, behavior, even 
physical or emotional disability. This exclusiveness guarantees that 
only a small fraction of school-age children will be able to 
matriculate in private schools; as a consequence, the vast majority of 
children will continue to be served by public schools.
  Knowing this, is it our place to take away precious funds from the 
many who attend public schools in order to assist the few who attend 
private schools? Is this an appropriate, fair, or wise use of tax 
dollars? How many public schoolteachers could we hire for $42 million, 
the amount that this program will cost over the next 5 years? How many 
textbooks could we give to inner-city children? How many school lunches 
could we offer undernourished kids? How many personal computers could 
we purchase for classrooms? Most importantly, what would be the long-
term cost of this provision to public instruction, if this provision 
opens the door to additional raids on the Federal Treasury in the name 
of school choice?
  Mr. President, vouchers are the snake oil in the pharmacology of 
American education, a quick fix for an imagined ailment. They expose a 
lack of will and imagination in addressing the real education 
challenges facing our Nation, challenges which millions of teachers, 
students, and parents could overcome in public schools around the 
country, if only they had the support we and other policymakers could 
give them. I urge my colleagues to reject this approach, and instead 
work hard to improve what we already have, a democratic system of 
public education that is funded by all citizens for the benefit of all 
Americans.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against the motion to invoke cloture on 
this measure.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I would like to ask the Senator from Vermont 
about a provision in the conference report that concerns me. That is 
section 2353(c), which requires that $1.5 million of funds available to 
the board of education be used to develop new management and data 
systems. I am informed that the amount required to be used for such 
purpose exceeds the amount of the board's budget, which, as I 
understand it, would effectively shut down the District's board of 
education. Although minority conferees were not permitted to 
participate in the drafting of much of the conference agreement, I can 
only speculate that this was not the intent of the majority conferees. 
I would therefore ask the manager to explain this apparent discrepancy?
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, the Senator from Wisconsin has raised a 
problem that came to my attention only after the conference had 
concluded, and in fact after the House of Representatives had acted on 
the conference report.
  When this provision was agreed to, and it was included in the draft 
of the education title of the bill that was shared with conferees and 
others on December 14, 1995, the budget for the board of education was 
more than $1.8 million. However, I am now informed that at the end of 
December 1995 the board proposed reductions in its own budget and that 
the council reduced the budget and staffing of the board of education 
that will be recommended to the control board and then to the Congress. 
I did not know of these actions until February 1, 1996, the day after 
the House adopted.

[[Page S1337]]

  It is not this Senator's intention to shut down the board of 
education. It is my intention, and I believe of the other conferees, 
that the board ensure that the management and financial information 
systems of the public school system be modernized and upgraded so that 
the implementation of the reforms we propose can be monitored, both by 
the board and by others.
  If we do not have accurate and timely information we will not be able 
to achieve the results the kids need.
  Mr. President, I would suggest to the Senator that since this will 
become a part of the statute, that I will seek a legislative remedy at 
our earliest opportunity. Alternatively, I would suggest to city 
officials that, since it is not our intent that the board cease 
operation, a reprogramming from other sources could be effected so that 
the operations of the board can continue. Such reprogramming should be 
at levels approved by the council and control authority.
  I hope that this explanation clarifies that our conferees are intent 
on this matter.
  Mr. KOHL. I thank the Senator and yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the conference 
agreement accompanying H.R. 2546, the fiscal year 1996 District of 
Columbia appropriations bill.
  The conference agreement provides Federal payments to the District of 
Columbia totaling $727 million. The bill provides $660 million for the 
Federal payment, $52.1 million as the Federal contribution to certain 
retirement funds, and just under $15 million for a Federal contribution 
to a new education initiative.
  The bill is at the subcommittee's revised 602(b) allocation for both 
budget authority and outlays.
  I commend the distinguished subcommittee chairman and ranking member 
for their diligent work on this bill over these many months.
  I urge my colleagues to support the conference agreement.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the 
budget committee scoring of the final bill be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

          D.C. SUBCOMMITTEE, SPENDING TOTALS--CONFERENCE REPORT         
                 [Fiscal year 1996, dollars in millions]                
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                       Budget           
                      Category                       authority   Outlays
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nondefense discretionary:                                               
    Outlays from prior-year BA and other actions                        
     completed.....................................  .........  ........
    H.R. 2546, conference report...................       $727      $727
    Scorekeeping adjustment........................  .........  ........
                                                    --------------------
      Adjusted bill total..........................        727       727
                                                    ====================
Senate Subcommittee 602(b) allocation:                                  
    Nondefense discretionary.......................        727       727
Adjusted bill total compared to Senate Subcommittee                     
 602(b) allocation:                                                     
    Nondefense discretionary.......................  .........  ........
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Details may not add to totals due to rounding. Totals adjusted for
  consistency with current scorekeeping conventions.                    

  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, given the District of Columbia's 
financial problems, it is unconscionable that 5 months into the fiscal 
year, Congress has yet to approve a D.C. appropriations bill. It is 
equally unconscionable that months after an agreement was reached on 
the amount of money Congress would appropriate for the District, when 
the Senate is at long last scheduled to vote on the D.C. appropriations 
bill, that the bill contains controversial and seriously flawed public 
policy riders.
  The bill contains provisions that tie the hands of the D.C. 
government with regard to abortion services, and that trample the 
rights of workers. This bill also creates a federally funded, private-
school voucher program. This bill takes $5 million away from the D.C. 
public schools this year and gives it to private schools.
  Mr. President, this bill is an abrogation of our responsibility as 
public officials to support public education. It is public education 
that has, throughout history, made it possible for generations of 
Americans to blur class and wealth divisions. It is public education 
that has given women and minorities voices in our democracy, and it is 
public education that has created a strong middle class. It is on the 
foundation of quality public education that rests the hopes and 
opportunities embodied in the American Dream.
  The Washington Post has recently published articles describing 
textbook shortages, unsanitary bathrooms, and other problems with the 
D.C. public schools.
  The legislation before us today should address these problems. 
Congress should work to improve the quality of public education in this 
country and in the District. Instead, this bill calls on the Federal 
Government to walk away from public education.
  The House-passed Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill cuts Federal 
support for public education by more than $3 billion--the biggest cut 
in history. Under that bill, the District loses $8.5 million. Under the 
bill before us today, the D.C. public school system loses another $5 
million this year, and $42 million over 5 years.
  There are 80,000 students enrolled in the D.C. public schools. Fifty-
seven percent of them are classified as ``low-income.'' This bill buys 
tuition vouchers for 1,666 of these low-income students. This bill buys 
vouchers for 3.6 percent of low-income D.C. students--or 2 percent of 
the total number of students attending D.C. public schools.
  What about the other 98 percent?
  Mr. President, public schools receive Federal funds based on 
attendance. Under this bill, every child that accepts a tuition 
voucher, leaves the public school system, and attends a private school, 
drains funds out of the public school system. This bill essentially 
pays private schools to take money away from public schools.
  In addition, for every 100 students, D.C. schools get a resource 
teacher--like a reading or science specialist. Every child that leaves 
the public school system depletes the base of students that makes these 
specialists available.
  Under this bill, schools will have less resources for the 98 percent 
of children who will remain in the public schools; there will be fewer 
teachers; and the public school children will have less of a chance of 
receiving a quality education.
  Mr. President, I hope that the day will come when every one of our 
public schools is among the best in the world, and when we are 
therefore in a position to debate the merits of whether or not we 
should give Federal dollars to private schools.
  But we are not in that position. And Congress cannot take a position 
of siphoning funds out of public schools.
  If the authors of this bill would like to bring the issue of school 
vouchers before Congress, then I challenge them to do so. It is wrong 
to tack these unacceptable measures onto this spending bill.
  It is our responsibility to help the D.C. public schools educate our 
children, just as it is our responsibility to help the D.C. government 
deliver basic services to its residents. Regretfully, this bill backs 
away from the children, and as such, I am left with no choice but to 
vote against it.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the District 
of Columbia appropriations conference report for fiscal year 1996. I 
would like to recognize my colleague, Senator Jeffords, for all of his 
efforts to move this bill along. Under his chairmanship, Senator 
Jeffords has been given the task of managing the delicate balancing act 
between fiscal restraint and social responsibility, and as a result, he 
has been subject to pressure from all sides. As a member of the 
Appropriations Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, it has been 
difficult for me personally to keep the process moving and support what 
I believe is right in this legislation, in spite of what I think is 
fundamentally wrong with this legislation. That is why I supported the 
conference report when it was reported out of the appropriations 
subcommittee. In an effort to keep the process moving forward I will 
support the motion to invoke cloture, however my concern with several 
provisions that remain in this conference report will cause me to vote 
against final adoption of the conference report, even though it 
contains much needed funds for the District of Columbia.
  Mr. President, the conferees on the D.C. subcommittee worked 
diligently to craft a conference report that provided adequate funding 
for the District of Columbia. Notably, the funding issues were never a 
point of contention, rather there were several legislative provisions 
that have been the focal point of all of our discussions.
  First, the bill places clear restrictions on a women's right to 
choose. 

[[Page S1338]]
The final language in this bill specifically makes an exception for the 
life of the mother, and in cases of rape or incest, but I feel that 
even this language is too restrictive and dictates who can receive an 
abortion and when. This is a role I do not believe the Government 
should be playing.
  Second, and most importantly, I have had difficulty with the school 
voucher provision of this bill. While this conference report includes a 
compromise on the initial voucher proposal, it still provides $5 
million for the implementation of a voucher program. I have always been 
concerned that there may not be adequate accountability from private 
and parochial schools that they are, in fact, providing the best 
education for low income students.

  Vouchers are often looked at as a cure-all for the ills of public 
education. While I think it is unreasonable to claim that public 
education is failing our children, I do believe that our schools need 
reform. We need to infuse our public educational system with creative 
and innovative new ways to approach the rapidly changing demands of our 
society. Our public schools need to be empowered, not ignored, and I 
believe that vouchers would do just that: ignore the problems by 
providing an out--a choice to abandon the public schools.
  Our Nation must have a strong public education system, that provides 
opportunities for both excellence and equality. To that end, I urge my 
colleagues to join me in an effort to think of new ways the Federal 
Government can better serve the States and the school districts to 
combat the modern challenges of public education. It is only by 
directly addressing the problems, through which solutions can be found.
  In closing Mr. President, it was clear that the two Chambers came to 
the table with very divergent views on how to develop this conference 
report. The conference report before us represents many compromises 
that were made in order to move this bill forward. However, these 
compromises represent a conference report that I cannot support.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I commend the distinguished majority, Mr. 
Jeffords, and minority, Mr. Kohl, managers of the conference agreement 
on the Fiscal Year 1996 District of Columbia Appropriations Bill. I 
know, from 7 years of personal experience as Chairman of the District 
of Columbia Appropriations Subcommittee, how much effort is required 
and how much frustration is involved in dealing with the problems 
encountered in formulating this legislation. It is a thankless job.
  This conference agreement includes a limitation of $4.994 billion, 
which is $154,347,000 below the District's August 8, 1995, budget 
request. The reductions contemplated are to be allocated by city 
officials with the approval of the District of Columbia Financial 
Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority, also referred to as 
the Control Board, which was established last year.
  The Senate conferees have worked hard to bring a conference agreement 
to the floor which should significantly improve the education programs 
of the District, including a provision, which I authored, designed to 
improve discipline in the schools. I understand that the House 
conferees were adamant, in insisting on the inclusion of a 
controversial education voucher provision, in order to break an 
impasse. Despite this, the conference agreement includes a number of 
other education initiatives, which is a tribute to the hard work of the 
Chairman of the Subcommittee, Mr. Jeffords, who has spent so much time 
over the past year in an effort to draft legislation which would 
reinvigorate the D.C. public school system. I commend him and encourage 
him in those efforts, and especially those relating to increased 
discipline in the schools.
  I want to commend the staff of the Subcommittee. Tim Leeth on the 
majority and Terry Sauvain on the minority are two experienced 
Committee staffers. Mr. Leeth has worked for both the majority and 
minority and represents a proud tradition of non-partisanship on the 
Senate Appropriations Committee staff. Mr. Sauvain's first assignment 
on the Senate Appropriations Committee staff was to this bill in the 
early 1970's. He has held a number of important assignments since then, 
and for the last 7 years has served as my Deputy Staff Director of the 
Appropriations Committee, a position which he currently fills in 
addition to his work for the Subcommittee.
  Finally, I want to commend someone who has assisted the House and 
Senate District of Columbia Appropriations Subcommittees for the past 
35 years. Mrs. Mary Porter, an employee of the District of Columbia 
government, has been assigned on detail to the Appropriations 
Committees for at least a part of each of the past 35 years. Mrs. 
Porter is one of those quiet and competent civil servants who works 
behind the scenes. Her faithful and dedicated service are to be 
commended.
  Again, I thank the managers for their hard work in bringing this 
conference agreement to the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, in the last few seconds remaining on this 
side, let me just say the Senator from Vermont has done an admirable 
job of trying to get the D.C. appropriations bill through, and I 
commend him. But I do think, despite the fact that this bill needs to 
pass, that with the unnecessary riders and messages and political 
motivations, now is not the correct way to do it.
  If we defeat cloture today, we can go back and do what the Senate did 
before and pass a D.C. appropriations bill that is acceptable to all 
Members of the Senate.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from 
Connecticut.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, again, I thank my friend from Vermont. 
I associate myself with everything the Senator from Vermont has said, 
including particularly the sense of despair, even outrage, that we may 
defeat continued funding for the District of Columbia which desperately 
needs it because of opposition to a very small part of this proposal 
that calls for scholarships for kids in the D.C. school system.
  I want to suggest in closing that those who oppose the scholarship 
program are opposing a false choice. This is not an either/or. It is 
not if you are for the scholarship program, you are against the public 
schools. Obviously, we are all for the public schools. I am a proud 
graduate of the public school system. I have supported just about every 
funding proposal for public schools that has come here and opposed 
those that have proposed cuts for the public schools.
  The fact is that billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers' money 
are spent every year in our public school systems. There is almost 
nothing to give the kind of choice we are talking about testing in the 
District system.
  So what is the big deal? The choice to me is this: Is our 
responsibility to protect a system, which is to say the public schools, 
right or wrong--and we know they are failing millions of our kids 
today, doing a great job with millions of others--or is it to better 
educate our children?
  This is not just a question of money. If it were, the District school 
system would be in better shape than it is, than I described in the 
sentences I uttered earlier on. The District of Columbia public school 
system spends more per student than any other State, than any of the 40 
largest school systems in America, and still it has the problems it 
has.
  My friend from Washington asked, ``Who wins in the scholarship 
program?'' I will tell you who. It is 11,000 students in the District 
of Columbia--mostly poor kids, by definition--who, by this measure, 
will have the opportunity to have a choice to do what families with 
money do when their kids are in schools where they cannot have an 
opportunity to learn.
  Think about it from the point of view not of the school system or of 
the teachers, but of the parents of these kids. Maybe a single mother 
working hard to bring up a child can give that child values, hope, and 
a future, and this scholarship system is that hope.
  Are we going to frustrate those 11,000 kids and stop funding for the 
District of Columbia? Good God, I hope not. I am going to support 
cloture.

[[Page S1339]]


                                 RECESS

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The hour of 12:30 having arrived, the Senate 
will stand in recess until 2:15 p.m.
  Thereupon, the Senate, at 12:32 p.m., recessed until 2:15 p.m.; 
whereupon, the Senate reassembled when called to order by the Presiding 
Officer (Mr. Coats).

                          ____________________