[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 5, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H1687-H1688]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROMOTING GREATER EDUCATIONAL CHOICE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to focus on a very serious
debate that has been going on back here in Washington over the last
several weeks. In fact, it is a debate that reminds me, the longer I
serve in Congress, the more convinced I become that Washington just
does not get it.
Mr. Speaker, I am referring to the fact that the District of Columbia
appropriations spending bill is now held up in the other body under the
threat of a filibuster, and for one simple reason. That is because
Senate Democrats are opposed to the notion of giving low-income
students, those students who come from low-income families here in the
District of Columbia, educational choice.
The House version of the District of Columbia appropriations bill
contains language that appropriates funds for a
[[Page H1688]]
demonstration program, the idea being to grant scholarships or
educational vouchers to these particular students.
Bear in mind a couple of facts: One, the District of Columbia schools
have the worst performance record of any inner-city school district in
the country in terms of test scores and graduation rate. Only 56
percent of the students in the District of Columbia public schools
graduate from those particular schools. Yet, our political opponents
here in the Congress remain vehemently opposed to the notion of even
trying or experimenting with school choice right here in our backyard
in the District of Columbia public schools through the partnership that
we are trying to create between the Congress and the District of
Columbia public schools.
Despite their adamant opposition, we have a message, those of us who
believe in real educational reform, we have a message for those in the
other body and here in the House who have been fighting our plans to
try to reform and improve the District of Columbia public schools, and
for that matter, public education across the lands.
That is that voucher programs, the idea of promoting educational
competition through a greater choice and the idea of giving parents the
full range of choice across all competing institutions, that is an idea
whose time has come. Voucher programs are moving ahead around the
country, certainly in Wisconsin, where Milwaukee public schools have
now expanded their particular educational choice or voucher program to
include 15,000 inner-city students, and in my home State of California,
which will have a statewide initiative on the November ballot providing
for educational choice through a voucher system.
This is a terribly important debate going on back here in Washington.
Let me tell the Members what is at stake here is nothing less than the
success of the U.S. economy. According to a James Glassman article in
last Tuesdays Washington Post, languishing wages, which is obviously an
issue that keeps cropping up in the Republican Presidential primary,
languishing wages, this idea of income stagnation in America, can be
linked directly to a poor education and training system.
That deficiency begins in our primary and secondary schools,
especially in our high schools, where high school test scores and a
high school diploma have been watered down to the point of almost
becoming meaningless in terms of predicting a student's ability to go
on to a higher education institution, or to obtain a good-paying job in
the workplace.
Therefore, we are trying to promote greater educational choice. We
realize private schools cannot replace public schools, but we believe
that the model for U.S. secondary education should be the U.S. higher
education system, which is the best in the world. One of the reasons it
is the best in the world is because we have robust competition between
private and public universities, and that has raised the quality of
both. How ironic that we have educational choice in preschool and in
higher education. The only place we do not have it is in our primary
and secondary schools.
Why is that? Really, U.S. News & World Report last week, I think,
points up the reason why we do not have greater educational choice in
this country. That is the militant opposition of the teachers unions,
which have become the campaign arm of the national Democratic Party,
and which are still operating based on an old-fashioned 1940's and
1950's industrial union model.
The largest union is the National Education Association, the NEA. The
other union is the American Federation of Teachers. Both of these
unions, according to U.S. News & World Report, are ``driving out good
teachers, coddling bad ones, and putting bureaucracy in the way of
quality education.'' Both of these unions are fiercely opposed to the
idea of educational choice and promoting greater competition in
education.
They also, of course, donate millions of dollars to the Democratic
Party and their candidates. In fact, a second article in the Washington
Post last week pointed out that the NEA, the National Education
Association, is the largest union in the country, with 2.2 million
members. They are the richest, with a nearly $800 million budget. They
are also intertwined in Democratic politics, really the campaign arm of
the National Democratic Party.
I will conclude, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk more about this in later
special orders. I just want to conclude by quoting Stephen Jobs, the
founder of Apple Computers, who said he has probably spearheaded giving
away more computer equipment to the schools than anybody on the planet,
but he has come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not
one technology can solve, it is a political problem. The problems are
unions. You plot the growth of the NEA and the dropping of test scores,
and they are inversely proportional. He concludes: ``I am one of those
people who believe the best thing we could ever do is go to the full
voucher system.''
____________________