[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 13, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H2202-H2209]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE REAL WORLD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION FUNDING
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May
12, 1995, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling] is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, now let us move from fantasy land to the
real world. I think that would be a good approach. I would have
thought, after what I heard, that somehow or other the Federal
Government was in charge of public education in this country, even
though we only spend 6 percent of all the money that is spent, 6
percent.
Under our plan, incidentally, we spend $340.8 billion over the next 7
years on education. Compare that with the former majority that was just
speaking. During their last 7 years, they spent $315.1 billion. All
those cuts you heard about does not quite add up, does it? Because ours
is an 8.1 percent increase.
Now, what is the problem? the problem is that we want to do something
differently. I agree with the former chairman that I sat beside who
would say to me on occasions, ``Bill, these programs are not working,''
and I would say, ``I know it, Mr. Chairman. Let's change them.''
The chairman would always say, ``We cannot do that because the money
might not get to the right place.'' And I would say, ``Well, if it
isn't doing any good getting there, what good does it do to get to it
the right place?''
But all those years I sat there saying there were different ways to
do this. We have to make changes. All the studies, I wish the last
group would have unveiled all of their studies showing all of the
accomplishments, because every study we have from the department, every
study we have from an outside group would indicate, as a matter of
fact, that we are doing more poorly today than we did 10 years ago,
after we poured all of this money into these programs.
Let me also point out that when we talk about spending on education,
spending on education in the States alone rose from $60 billion in 1983
to $115 billion in 1993. During the same period, local contributions to
education grew from $55 billion to $120 billion. State and local
governments have increased their spending over that 10-year period by
100 percent.
What results do we have from all of this spending? According to the
national assessment of education progress, reading, average reading
proficiency among 9-year-olds was about the same in 1992 as it was in
1971. Math average, mathematics proficiency among 9 to 13, was slightly
higher in 1992 than 1973, but for 17-year-olds the same. Science.
Science, we went backwards for 17-year-olds. It is lower.
So on and on you go, and all we are saying as a new majority is that
we have scarce dollars. We know that.
[[Page H2203]]
Therefore, we have to make sure they work well. For whom? Not the
people that are employed in the businesses out there, the programs they
are trying to protect, but for the children that we are trying to help.
{time} 1900
Now, here is a good example. We recently had a study done, and it
took a long time to do this, because when I became chairman, I said,
now, for once we are going to look at all the programs that are on the
books and see how many are duplicating each other, how many are doing
well, how many are doing poorly, how many should be eliminated.
The President said in his budget we should eliminate 41. We have
discovered that there are 760 education programs, spending $120 billion
spread out over 39 agencies downtown. You see, this was my argument
when we created the Department of Education. I said I could be
wholeheartedly in support of that if I thought all education and
training programs were going to come under one roof so we really could
get a handle on it and see what is being done and whether we are having
any successes. I know that would not be the case, and here is a good
example.
Now, some will tell you, oh, you have all sorts of programs in this.
Yes, but they all come back to education and training, in many
instances duplicating what somebody else is doing in another agency. We
cannot continue to do that, because now you are talking about 1,760
programs, $120 billion spent, you have 50 States, D.C., and territories
to spread it over. You have 14,000, almost 15,000 school districts, and
you have over 80,000 schools. We have to get a handle on this so that
we can provide quality education, and that is what it is all about.
We are not trying to attack public education. Most of us are products
of public education and proud of it. What we are saying is we play a
very small role on the Federal level and the local level, and the State
wants it to remain that way. They do not want us to be involved in
public education. But we play a small role, and in that small role we
have to guarantee quality.
Access will not get these young people anywhere. So we need studies
that are not individuals that benefited from chapter I or benefited
from this, we need concrete stories that can tell us the magnificent
successes I just heard about that we cannot find anyplace in any study
that exists today.
I yield to the gentleman from California, who I noticed was taking
prolific notes and will be tremendously educated by the fantasy land.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] says what we
are doing is barbaric. Everything we are talking about here in
Washington in this political year, Mr. Speaker, is about power. It is
the power to disburse money to get reelected, so you have got the power
and you need a bureaucracy to sustain that.
What we are doing is removing the bureaucracy, combining programs
that are efficient, and those that are not efficient, we are doing away
with them.
Let me give you a classic example. And first I would say, though,
that every nation scores above the United States in every category in
education. In many cases, the Brits and Japanese score twice of what
our students do in scores. We have less than 12 percent of our
classrooms that have a single phone jack when we are talking about Net
Day. This is 40 years of bureaucracy and Democratic-run House that has
destroyed education.
We have some of the best school programs. And I taught in Hinsdale,
we had Evanston and New Trere, you go right outside of Chicago, where
you have 7\1/2\ miles of Federal housing, and the kids have no hope.
What we are trying to do is take and fund down to the local level
where you have quality, where you have parental involvement, you have
teacher involvement, where we can pay teachers what they really deserve
and where we can upgrade the classrooms instead of dumping money into
these programs.
They talk about title I. They talk about Head Start. Well, every
study, including the Department of Education, little liberal, and the
President's own administration and every study says that title I is not
doing its job. It should take two students at the end, there is no
difference, and we are putting billions of dollars. Did we kill it? No,
we reduced it until we said, is there quality, is there a standard, and
is it effective? And I do not think that is too much to ask.
Look at Goals 2000. There are 45 instances in Goals 2000 that say
States will, one of those instances you have to set up a special board,
every school, that board reports to the principal. The principal
reports to the superintendent, the superintendent then has got to send
it to Sacramento in California. Think about all of those schools doing
that and the paperwork that has got to go through the State, and then
think about all the schools in the United States and generating all
that paperwork.
Guess what there is back here in Washington, DC? There is a big
bureaucracy here that receives all of that paper and all of that
information to see if they are in compliance.
What we are saying is let us send the money to the Governors and to
the departments of education if the State Constitution says, and do a
Goals 2000 on a State level. Do away with the rules and regulations. Do
away with the paper, and you be the masters of the destiny of your
education program in the State.
But I have heard the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] sit up here
and say we do not trust the States, we are the only people in the world
that can decide and make those decisions here in River City in
Washington, DC. Why? Because they want to keep the power here.
We are saying that the power belongs with the people, it belongs with
the students, it belongs with the teachers and the principals to master
the destiny that we think is right.
My wife writes grants for Goals 2000. She works 5 nights a week.
There are other schools that hire people to write grants for Goals
2000. Many of them never get a single grant, and in some cases I have
documented where you have got people that are hired to write a Goals
2000 grant that the grant that they get in does not even pay for the
grant writer. And in some cases, if it does, by the time you go through
the administrative fees, paperwork, and extra people you have to have
to force it, you get no money. Some of the big schools do not. We are
saying that that is a waste, and it is a system that, yes, Goals 2000,
on a State level, do it if it works in your State. Title I, if it works
in your State, do it. There are programs.
And drug-free schools, we have a whole block grant for drug-free
schools. I happen to think DARE works, and very, very effectively. That
is taken care of in that block grant. And if DARE works in your State,
do it. But we are not reducing education.
What is cutting education is the President's title I, for example,
costs a billion dollars more just in administrative fees, capped at 10
percent. He wants all the direct lending programs GAO said it would
cost $3 to $5 billion just to collect the dollars. We took those
savings, the gentleman from California [Mr. McKeon], his committee, and
spread it across and increased student loans by 50 percent, increased
Pell grants, IDEA, we level funded for special education and the other
programs. But, yes, we are consolidating some of those 760 programs,
doing away with the ones that do not work and focusing the dollars
down.
A vision, for 5 years I have been talking about let us get high-
technology and computers and fiber optics into the classrooms with only
12 percent, and the President jumps on the bandwagon. I am glad the
President jumped on the bandwagon. It took 40 years of
misrepresentation. Why? We have so many schools that are not up to
speed. If we really want to educate our kids, we need the Federal
Government to get involved in research and development, working with
telecommunications, get AT&T, the Baby Bells, get the folks that can
invest in our school systems an get our kids ready for the 21st
century. You listen in the hearings, we have a large portion of the
kids coming to our education programs do not even qualify for an entry-
level job because they cannot read, they cannot write, they cannot do
the math, or they cannot speak the English language. That is not a
legacy, Mr. Speaker, I want to leave with our kids.
I repute, and every single Member that spoke in the last hour is
among the most liberal left of this House in every case, they will
spend money on
[[Page H2204]]
everything and drive us further into debt and deficit except for one
area, and that is the field of the Department of Defense, and they will
cut. But in every instance they are the left of the left, and they want
to keep the power here in River City so they can get reelected and
scare children and scare students, and I am not going to stand for it.
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield to another subcommittee chairman
from California, the gentleman from California [Mr. McKeon].
Mr. McKEON. I appreciate the opportunity of being here with you
tonight and participating in this special order.
You know, sometimes the best intentions can do the worst harm. When
we attempt to help, we often simply burden. When we attempt to inspire,
we may only discourage. With all the helping that the Federal
Government has done in the last 30 to 40 years, you would think that
the previous majority should have admitted that something was not
working and that some of these programs maybe could have been
eliminated. Perhaps we needed to explore other methods of giving our
children the first-rate education that they really need and deserve.
You know, a few weeks ago Chairman Goodling held a hearing about what
was working in public education. A few months earlier Mr. Hoekstra held
a similar hearing in Chicago to highlight public and private schools in
low-income areas that were successfully educating their students.
I personally have visited several schools in my district and
elsewhere that are having a positive impact on children. The good news
is there are many good things that are happening in education, and they
are working quite well under the jurisdiction of local school boards
and administrators and teachers and parents that really care and want
to make things happen, and they are able to do that across this land.
They do not have to wait until someone from Washington decides what is
best for them and what program we decide they should participate in.
These hearings and site visits have all led to the same conclusions
about what factors are behind that success; namely, success is not a
matter of how many Federal programs the school participates in or how
much money a school spends per student. Rather, the picture that is
quickly developing from these hearings and site visits is that
committed parents, strong local leadership, and an emphasis on basics
is the recurring theme behind successful schooling.
The success stories that we have seen are about what local
administrators, parents, and teachers are able to do together to make
academic achievement a reality in their schools for their children.
This message, however, is not being heard in Washington. You know, we
held a press conference a few days ago, and we had a pile of paperwork,
you know, the chart there that you have of the 760 programs. This
paperwork was only what was required for about a third of those
programs. And yet it was a pile stacked this high.
The Clintons believe that it takes a village to raise a child. What
we have found is it really takes a village to fill out the paperwork.
Duplicative Federal programs begat State paperwork, State paperwork
begat local paperwork, and local paperwork takes teachers away from
their job of teaching our children.
I spent time on a school board, and I know how much work is done to
write grants, how much work is done to fill out reports to send
somewhere, and, hopefully, maybe somebody reads them. You never really
knew. You just knew that you had to fill out the paperwork. The out-of-
control paperwork load required for these programs too often leaves out
rural and poor school districts that do not have the sophisticated
grant writers, so they simply do not apply for the programs.
There has been such a severe focus on an investment in bureaucracy
surrounding education that we really have failed our children. It
should be an assault to our sensibilities, with the massive increase in
spending citizens have supported through their taxes over the years.
You know, it is interesting in this chart here, it shows, and I do
not know if we can focus in on that down in the corner, it shows the
taxpayers, and the money goes from the taxpayers to Washington, siphons
through those 760 programs and then eventually some of its reaches the
children.
When I first came here, I figured out that from California, just in
rough numbers, we send over $2 billion a year to Washington, more than
comes back to California, to benefit the children just by running it
through this siphon here in Washington.
We saw we still have a great deal of work to do in identifying the
breadth and depth of Federal intrusion here. This 760 that we have, I
would add, is we know is not complete. We know we have to do more, but
we are going to work on this until we complete this project.
You known, we do not currently know how much of each Federal dollar
gets down to the local classroom after the large amounts are siphoned
off here in Washington. We do know the cost is extremely high. Just one
example, the cost of Boston University. According to their provost, the
university spent 14 weeks and about 2,700 employees hours completing
the paperwork required to complete funding for title IV. They were
hampered by the use of separate definitions in 26 separate schedules
required to complete their application.
{time} 1915
They were slowed by repeated corrections and clarifications requested
by the department. In the end, after spending the equivalent of 1.5
personnel years compiling what turned out to be a 9-pound application,
the university delivered its final product, this despite the fact that
the form said this should take 3 hours to fill out. I do not know if
anybody in Washington determined that and ever spent the time to figure
it out.
Now, if you figure there are 6,500 institutions of higher education
that participate in title IV across the country, each one responsible
for their own 9-pound pile of paperwork, assuming similar burdens as
experienced by Boston University, it would take 9,750 full-time
employees to merely complete the applications submitted in title IV.
That makes one wonder how many employees it takes to read, review,
process, and file these forms here in Washington once they are
submitted.
We talked to the Department of Education. They did not know how many
employees they had.
Title IV is only the tip of the iceberg, only one of those 760
programs, compared with the enormity of the universe of Federal
education spending.
As we continue to pursue this aggressive review, we fully expect
those who benefit from the status quo to challenge us, as we see here
tonight, in an attempt to defend the current state of education. It is
inconceivable to me how anyone can defend this bureaucracy and say this
is what is best for the children of this country.
Mr. Speaker, we welcome the debate. We hope at least to have an
energetic dialogue that results in the best education system we can
give our children and grandchildren. I thank the gentleman again for
this opportunity to participate here tonight.
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from
Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra], our subcommittee chairman, who has been doing
a lot of oversight work, is here to participate also.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for giving us this
opportunity.
I have got good news, bad news, and some more good news. The good
news is there are a lot of people around the country that recognize we
have this difficulty, and on the chart up there we are focusing too
much on the dollars spent. We are focusing too much on the Washington
Bureaucracy and not spending enough time talking about students and
teachers.
Christy Todd Whitman, the Governor of New Jersey, in her State of the
State Address, identified the problem that my colleague from California
was talking about: We must stop chasing dollars and start creating
scholars.
We found that in the hearings that we have done in Chicago and
Milwaukee and around the country, one goes into a successful school and
says, ``What is making your school work? How come your kids are scoring
better than the national average?'' They don't come back and say, ``It
is this program, it is title I out of Washington that has
[[Page H2205]]
really made the difference.'' They said, ``We have got even parents
involved in the schools, and these are some of the toughest
neighborhoods in Chicago. We have parents involved in the school. We
have liberated teachers and principals to create special programs for
special needs.'' You started talking to them about Washington programs,
and they started talking about the bureaucracy.
Even Secretary of Labor Reich, I think one of the staunchest
defenders of the status quo here in Washington, said we must stop
throwing money at education and training programs that do not work.
There is a realization that focusing on the bureaucracy and dollars
is not where we should be, and we need to start talking about what is
going to help kids, parents, and help the kids become scholars.
In my role as chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations of the Committee on Economic and Educational
Opportunities, I get the opportunity to identify some of the ancedotal
things that we find. The gentleman from California [Mr. McKeon]
identified the 9-pound document for title IV. I was going to multiply 9
pounds times 6,500, and it is in the tons of documents. That is why we
need these big buildings.
Mr. Speaker, one of the other anecdotal things we found in the drug
free schools, somebody had spent $1,000 preparing all of the paperwork
and writing the applications and filling out the grant requests. By
golly, we went out and helped them. They got a grant for $13.
Now, it is kind of like somewhere in this process.
Another example, and this does not directly relate to education, but
this was in the Wall Street Journal today. A document roughly this
size, nine pages, two-sided, actually this one is one-sided, it is nine
pages, two-sided document, 1994, President's State of the Union speech.
This is how Washington defines an emergency. It was 4 or 5 o'clock in
the afternoon and the Labor Department said, ``We need to have these
available to hand out before or after the President's State of the
Union speech. It is so critical. We cannot do it in black and white. We
better do it in color.''
They avoided all the Government regulations we have put in place
about how to purchase and these things. We have a Government Printing
Office. They went to Kinko's. I don't know if I can give
advertisements, but it is in here, in the document. They went to
Kinko's and said, ``Can you print this for us?'' Being the
entrepreneurs they were, they said sure, but we are going to have two
people working overnight to create these documents.
So they said, ``This is an emergency. This 9-page document is an
emergency and has to be ready. It is called the Middle Class Bill of
Rights. It has to be ready tomorrow morning.'' The Government Printing
Office could have printed it in 24 hours. Kinko's could do it in 12.
Kinko's did it for the grand total of, 1,500 documents, they did it
for the price of $21.33 apiece, $32,000. The Government Printing Office
could have done it for $500.
Now, I am not sure who is educating who here, but when you take the
average family income for the American family today and you define a 9-
page document as being an emergency, and you are willing to spend one
family's entire income for the year to get that document out in 12
hours faster, I am not sure that we know best here in Washington.
The bottomline on this bill is we do have a great chairman of the
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the gentleman from
California [Mr. Thomas]. I am surrounded by Californians tonight. We
had to approve that bill. He came back, and I have got to give him
credit, he said, ``No, you went outside the rules. This does not meet
my definition for an emergency. We are not going to pay it.'' The
problem is right now Kinko's has not received their funding. But it was
$32,000, or $21 a document, versus 33 cents.
If I can have a couple of more minutes, because there was a lot of
discussion about a program that, if I do not say it, my three
colleagues will remind me very quickly that I voted for in 1993.
Mr. GOODLING. I will remind you.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. I am sure you will. I was warned about what might
happen with this program. Many of my colleagues were correct. The
reason I am bringing this up is because it returns $1.25 and $1.50, is
what the speakers before us talked about.
Here is what was said about AmeriCorp that maybe helped me decide I
should vote for it and give it a chance. In 1993, April 30, Bill
Clinton said, ``We are going to set up a National Service Corporation
that will run like a big venture capital outfit, not like a
bureaucracy.''
President Bill Clinton, April 30, 1996:
The National Service Corporation Act will establish an
innovative entrepreneurial Corporation for National Service
to offer Americans educational awards in return for vital
service to our country. The corporation is designed to cut
waste, promote excellence in government, encourage locally
driven initiatives, and create flexibility.
Here is what the new Chairman of the Corporation for National Service
said in his confirmation hearings in October of 1995. ``At our
corporation, we want to do what any business person would do, and that
is make our product the best it can be.''
Sometimes we get critiqued for actually going and taking a look at
these 760 programs. AmeriCorp is a good reason why we go and take a
look.
There was a press conference today and some reforms were announced on
AmeriCorp. But there was one reform not announced today that I am very,
very disappointed and upset about. Later on this week, we have gotten
some preliminary documents and the President of the Corporation for
National Service, Harris, sent us a letter telling us what this
document is going to be. It is a requirement the Corporation for
National Service, a $500 million corporation, which would put it into
the Fortune 500, it has to have its books audited. Fairly reasonable.
Buck, you are a business guy.
Mr. McKEON. Good idea.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Good idea, let's audit the books. I bet you had that
done, Mr. Goodling, when you were on the school board. You had your
books audited. But this a Fortune 500 company.
So I called my stockbroker today, and I was going through a scenario
with him, and I said, ``If you know of a Fortune 500 company traded on
the New York Stock Exchange that had the auditors come in for their
yearly audit,'' and, we are benchmarking against business excellence.
Actually it is the business minimum. ``And the auditors came back and
were going to announce publicly that the books and the financial
systems were in such disarray that the auditors could not audit the
books, what would happen?''
My stockbroker is trying to figure out what company this is. He says,
``Well, No. 1 is trading of that stock would be suspended immediately.
When trading opened on it, the price of the stock would plummet,
because shareholders, the brokers, the employees would have no idea of
what the financial stability of that company would be. The CFO would be
fired immediately. The rest of the executive team would be brought in
front of the board of directors to explain how they got to this point
and come up with a corrective action, not 60 days, not 90 days, but
what are you going to do now?''
Well, what we are going to find later on this week is that for our
$500 million corporation, the Corporation for National Service, the
books are unauditable for 1994, and we are going to find and discover
that for 1995 the auditing company has basically said, ``We do not
think it is appropriate to invest any money in even taking a look at
the books, because from what we have seen, they have not changed their
procedures and they are still running on the same outdated models of
what they are using in 1994.''
Think about it. Finally, when by broker said, ``Who is it,'' I said,
``It is the Corporation for National Service.'' His response was ``Oh.
That is government.''
It is expected. That is why we are going to go through those 760
programs. We have got a $500 million program where the books cannot be
audited. That is not Washington's money, that is the parents' money who
decided to send it or were told they had to send their money to
Washington, and not use it at home for their family and their own kids'
education. We are entrusted with that money, and we cannot even meet
the minimum standards
[[Page H2206]]
for what a corporation is. And this is Government at its best.
If this happened to a publicly held company, it would be the front
page of the Wall Street Journal. Because it is Government, it is going
to be a footnote on page 10, and it is going to be ``Oh, there they go
again. This is what we expect.''
We have got to set a higher standard. We are going to go through
those 760 programs, and we are going to see whether there are any more
like this, and we are going to see whether they are effective, whether
they are efficient, whether they are getting the kind of results we
want, and whether they are even the Federal Government's role.
We will still have the debate about whether AmeriCorps is appropriate
or not. When they are using $500 million like this, they should not get
one more dollar until they come back in front of us and convince us
they have put in place the changes that are necessary. I do not think
they have a chief financial officer right now that has an accounting or
finance background.
Mr. GOODLING. The tragedy is that when you talk about that system of
federally financed volunteer programs, contrast that with what happened
in my district recently, where the Brethren Nursing Home had a contract
with a local high school where the students would come in and volunteer
their time to give those seniors what the paid people would not give
them, because they do not have time to give them, and the Department of
Labor moved in and said, ``That is a $15,000 fine, and it is $13,000
back wages you must pay to these students who came to volunteer.''
So I called the secretary and said, ``Wait a minute. Your President
got the Congress to pass a program for volunteers that costs $20,000 to
$30,000 to $35,000 for every volunteer. Here you are going to zap this
nursing home because these kids volunteered to help seniors, read
stories to them, push them in a wheelchair?''
Oh, he did not like that. I said, ``I don't like it either. Because
on one hand it was stupid to pay volunteers, and then on the other
hand, you zapped those who volunteer their time. Not only that, have
are you going to determine then which was work and which was volunteer?
Was pushing the wheelchair work, or was that a volunteer? Was reading
the story to the senior citizen work, or was that a volunteer''
{time} 1930
It is just--well, I will refrain from saying what I really think it
was, but nevertheless these are the inconsistencies. The important
thing is to remember, when we talk about education, is that 6 percent,
that is what we are involved in. Why are we involved in that? We were
to deal with special population. Why were we to deal with special
population? We were supposed to try to give them an even start. We were
supposed to try to give them a quality program that would help them
compete with youngsters who were not from disadvantaged homes.
Our problem was, right from the beginning, that a lot of people then
decided, well, this is the most those students can do. In other words,
in many instances we dumbed down. In many instances we did not require
more. In many instances we did not demand enough.
The hearing we had recently where we were talking about good things
happening in public education, and there are wonderful things happening
all over this country in public education, but you noticed every
person's testimony, when they talked about why it is working and why it
is a good program, it all came back to: We demand excellence, and we
insist. The one program, if you will remember, the parent had to sign
up to participate daily in the classroom so that they were right there
helping those children and learning a lot what it is you do to help
children when you are at home.
I mean, these are the inconsistencies that we are faced with a
limited amount of money, and so we have to improve.
IDEA was mentioned by that group.
Where do the mandates come from? Federal Government.
What did we tell them we would send them? Forty percent of the money.
What did we end up sending them? Eight percent of the money.
So I am very proud that last week in the bill that we sent, which I
hope the President will sign, we increased funding for special
education. Why did we increase funding for special education? Because
we mandated the programs.
Second, why did we increase it? Because then the local government,
the local school district, can take their money and spend it on all of
the students rather than having to take their money to spend it on a
program that we mandated.
So I am proud that we made that change, and I know that the gentleman
from California [Mr. Cunningham], the chairman of the subcommittee, has
some other thoughts on tonight's discussion to bring us back into the
real world.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, this special order makes my heart soar
like an eagle because you know you are able to talk about that I know
the chairman was an educator, and I know the gentleman from California
[Mr. McKeon] owned a business, and I was a teacher, but not only in the
high school, but the college level, and the dean of a college. And I
have got children. And if the other side is trying to say that we are
barbaric, that we are trying to destroy education, and I have got
children in elementary and secondary education, and I want them to go
onto college education, the last thing I am going to do is to bleed the
public system that is going to help them. And the notice that they are
giving to the American public, that we are cutting those programs, is
upsetting to me.
And I would say that you mentioned we control only 6 percent of the
spending, but what does that 6 percent do? It represents over 50
percent of the rules and regulations on the States in the school
systems, over 75 percent of the paperwork, and it is inefficient. That
is not a legacy that we need to continue, and we are trying again to
get the dollars down to the local level so that we can have better
quality, we can have parental involvement to work with the teachers and
the administrators and let them make the decisions instead of someone
like Major Owens, or Mr. Miller, or Duke Cunningham, or anybody else
here in Washington, DC.
They talk about title I and Head Start and Goals 2000. Every study,
including HHS, the Department of Education, the inspector general; here
is the quotes: Over a 1-year period title I participants did not
improve the relative standings in reading or math. The progress of
title I participants on standardized tests, on criteria references
tests, was no better than a nonparticipant. Two students, both parallel
programs, one participating in Head Start or title I, no difference at
the end.
When you got 760 programs, we only have 6 percent of the funding to
spread those dollars so thinly, there is not enough money in the world
to function. And they said more generally the relative performance
of students in very high poverty schools, one with at least 75 percent
of poor children, actually declines from the earlier to later grades.
But yet I do not think it is too much to ask that a Head Start or a
title I program has standards, that we insist on quality, that we
insist on results.
Mr. GOODLING. See, this goes back to the idea that I used to hear,
year after year after year. They say, well, we need more money in the
program because we are only covering a small number of the children.
And I would say what are you covering them with because that is very,
very important.
So we had a 180 percent increase in Head Start funding which
translated into a 39 percent increase in participation. Now, if we have
to increase funding 180 percent every time to get a 30 percent
increase, there is not enough money in the world to ever get around to
full participation.
So, you know, it was just the idea: more money, more money, more
money. Nobody paid any attention about quality. Just more money.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is the liberals' and socialists' excuse to just
keep dumping more money into a program, regardless if it is effective
or not. And you know the other side would say that we are cutting.
First of all, for every dollar the government spends, it has got to
take it away from somebody in the first place. It is not free money. We
have the charge of making sure that those dollars are effectively
spent, and when
[[Page H2207]]
you look at our school systems, that where our systems across this
country are last in most--below all nations in math, and reading, and
writing, and science; I mean that is not a good system and we need to
change it, and to effectively do that instead of just continually
dumping money.
They say, well, you are cutting. We are not cutting. What we are
doing is focusing the dollars in the most effective means and letting
local districts control it, and what we are cutting, whether you are
talking about any other program outside of even education, is we are
cutting the precious bureaucracy that they can control, and that is
what their whole thing is about right now. You are cutting. What we are
doing is cutting their ability to spend money so that they can get
reelected. We are cutting their ability to spend money so they can get
reelected so they got the power here in Washington, DC. And that power
represents even a bigger bureaucracy, 760 programs all the way down the
line.
That is wrong. Forty years has brought us to that point.
Talk to anybody, Republican or Democrat in your district. They feel
something is wrong with the system. And what is wrong is we are not
managing the Government, whether it is the Department of Defense, the
Department of Education. Government is not and does not have the
ability to manage money and get effective results. People do that work
directly with the program, and I want to personally thank the chairman.
And all of this results in a $5 trillion debt. Think what we could do
with, you know, $365 billion. We pay nearly a billion dollars a day on
just the interest. What we could not do for education. And when we talk
about the deficit, every one of those Members I checked did not vote
for a balanced budget. Why? Because it takes their power to spend money
away.
Mr. GOODLING. I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. McKeon].
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, Mr. Cunningham just
made a good point on the debt. Our country is a little over 200 years
old, and the first 200 years, the debt increased very, very slowly,
until, at the end of 200 years, we had a debt in 1980 of about a
trillion dollars. And then it started accelerating because spending
accelerated, taxes were cut, revenue increased, but spending went up
even greater. And so from 1980 to 1982 that debt increased from $1
trillion to $4 trillion. And then in the last 2\1/2\ years, 3 years, it
has gone up even faster, now to $5 trillion. So it does not take a
rocket scientist to figure if the curve is like this, and then it goes
like this, what we can look forward to.
When we are talking about education, we are talking about children,
and I have 6 children, I have 11 grandchildren, and one more on the
way, that I know of. And you know I think that many times they, the
other side, paints us as not caring. Well, if I did not care, I would
not be here, and if I did not care about those children and
grandchildren and nieces and nephews that I have, I would not be here.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we get a handle on our
fiscal responsibility. Maybe these 760 programs would be good, and
maybe they should all be funded fully, and if we had the money, maybe
that is something that we should do.
I personally think that is probably not the case, and I think we are
on the right track in trying to look at these programs, especially when
we find out that they are also showing very poor fiscal responsibility.
But we do not have the kind of money. When we are in that kind of debt,
to pass that $187,000 onto that new granddaughter that I just had born
does not make very good sense to me, and that is what she is going to
have to pay in her lifetime just to serve interest on the debt, if we
do not get this taken care of.
You know, we used to spend--hardworking people, the people that
settled this country, the pioneers that moved across the plains to
establish this country, did not look to the Government to help them,
You know, if their wagon wheel broke, they did not send a telegram or a
Pony Express rider to Washington to ask somebody to come out and fix
their wagon wheel. You know, they took care of themselves.
And when the President said the other night in the State of the Union
something about the effect that people--it was terrible that they
should have to depend on themselves. You know, I think some way we
missed the boat.
Mr. Speaker, I think we should also mention tonight a little bit
about student loans. You know, there has been a lot of talk about how
we killed student loans, and I have some real concerns that there are
young people out there that maybe will not even go to school this year
because they will believe some of the rhetoric that they have heard
emanating from Washington, that when the other side says that we have
killed student loans they may think what is the use; you know, why even
try? I think that we ought to set the record straight, that, if
anything, we have increased student loans from $24 billion to $36
billion in the next 7 years, and every single student that goes to
postsecondary education, that applies for a loan, can get a loan.
Whether they are poor, whether they are wealthy, has nothing to do with
it. The money is there, it is available, we increased that money, and
every single student can get a student loan, and I think it is
important for us to clarify that.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman would yield, the Secretary of
Education has said that the forms are not available because the
Government shutdown. Is that correct?
Mr. GOODLING. I think it was rather humorous. It was rather humorous.
The forms are not available because they had 21 days of bad weather and
shutdown. The forms had to be printed long before the shutdown and long
before the bad weather if, as a matter of fact, they were going to meet
their deadline. So you have all of these students and parents and
schools up in arms because they did not have the free forms to fill out
in order to apply for the loans.
Now these are the same people, keep in mind, who are also now going
to manage direct lending. They could not seem to manage the lending
that would be taken care of by the private sector if they just get the
forms finished in time. But they are now also, and the President would
have his way, they will manage 100 percent of all of the loan.
So you know this excuse when summer comes, I hope they forget about
the bad weather as an excuse, and hopefully they will not have another
shutdown so they cannot use that as an excuse, and they will really
have to do the job.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will yield, the Federal family
education loans, I mean just printing the documents which were the
things that were late, why it is not available, printing documents is
not that tough. We talked a little bit about Americorps not meeting the
minimum requirements to be auditable. FFEL, the Federal Family
Education Loan Program where they cannot print the applications so
that----
Mr. GOODLING. In time.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. In time, also just happens to be the largest funded
program of those 760 programs. So for a program that is a half a
billion dollars, we cannot keep the books. Whey you get to a program,
the Federal family -- or Federal family education loans, $18 billion. I
am not--you know, I do not think we have to audit those books. I would
love to have an accounting firm take a look at those books.
{time} 1945
Mr. Speaker, if we cannot manage $500 million, these have to be a
disaster. We have a clue. The books are probably bad, because they
cannot even print the forms on time.
Mr. McKEON. That $18 billion, by the way, is just in 1 year.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will further yield, I
just want to add a couple of things.
We really are talking about focusing on how do we make kids scholars,
the quote from Christine Todd Whitman. You would think if we were
focusing on making kids scholars we would go through those 760 programs
and say, the problem is we just have too many programs focused on
science, or too many focused on reading and math, and we ought to
really just consolidate that. I will bet there are a lot of science
programs there, a lot of reading, and a lot of math. That is what we
want kids to excel in.
[[Page H2208]]
Seven hundred and sixty programs. The number of programs for arts
promotion and education, and arts are important, are 39. What I did not
know is that the arts are more important than science. We only have 28
programs promoting science. But it is good, science is twice as
important as reading, because for reading, we only have 14 programs.
We know that reading is more important than math, because for math,
out of 760 programs, we have all of 9 programs. So we have 28 for
science, 14 for reading, 9 for math, 39 for the arts.
There is one other little program in there that you ought to know. I
guess it is not Monday night, but for those who have the TV's that you
get the menu, and if you figure out how to use it, you can also put
closed captioning on. Out of those 760 programs, there is an option
that is provided to you by the Department of Education for closed
captioning of ``Baywatch.'' So when you turn on ``Baywatch'' on
whatever night it is on, you can go through your menu, and you push the
button that allows you to watch it with the closed captioning on. It
will say at the bottom, at the beginning of the program, ``Brought to
you by funding through the Department of Education.''
So the reading scores are not what they ought to be, math is not what
it ought to be, science is not what it ought to be. I am not even sure,
they may even classify that as a reading program. Tell your kid to go
watch ``Baywatch'' and turn on the captioning, and read the words going
along on the bottom of the page.
Mr. GOODLING. I want to point out how important the captioning is.
But what a foolish way to spend money for captioning, when you could
spend money to really help the people who need the captioning on
programs that are meaningful and important to them, as far as their
future life is concerned. I doubt whether ``Baywatch'' is one of those.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I would tend to agree with the gentleman.
Mr. GOODLING. I think what I would like to point out, Mr. Speaker, in
my closing remarks is that I want the parents and the students who are
high school seniors and college students to understand that there is a
program out there called disinformation, disinforming the public. They
are trying to scare you into the idea that somehow or other, because we
are in the leadership at the present time, we are going to destroy your
loans and we are going to destroy your grants. They know very well that
we increase both the Pell grants and the student loans.
To those who are not going on to a 4-year institution, they would
probably have you believe that somehow or other we are not concerned
about that 75 percent who never complete a 4-year education. The
opposite is true. That is why we worked so hard in the last couple of
years to get the careers bill through the House of Representatives,
through the Senate, so we can concentrate on that 75 percent who are
going to have to have the best skills, the highest skills, the best
work ethic, in order to have our country compete with the rest of the
world, or otherwise there are no jobs for anybody.
For those who are in high school, all we ask from our Federal
expenditures is quality. All we demand is excellence. To the
preschoolers, all of us want to make sure that those who are from
disadvantaged families, those who do not have the normal opportunities
that your children and my children had to become reading ready, that we
want to do what we can to make sure they are reading ready, but we do
not do that simply by throwing money.
We do that by insisting that they are quality programs, so we do not
find that, by the time the children get to third grade, they have lost
any head start that they ever had. They will have quality programs that
will help them compete with all students, no matter what background
they may come from.
So, Mr. Speaker, it is important that the American public understand
that there have been billions of dollars, I suppose, by this time spent
on advertising to disinform the American public. All we are telling you
is that we are here to make sure that all education programs are the
very best programs that anybody can provide, and that every child will
have an equal opportunity for those good programs.
It does not come just by simply throwing more money at 760 programs.
It comes from making sure that, first of all, sufficient money gets to
program that are working well, rather than spread it out all over these
programs. Second, its means that we have a limited amount of money, and
therefore must demand quality, must demand excellence. That is the only
way we are going to make it in a very competitive world.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. If the gentleman will continue to yield, I will make
my summation real quick, so I can give the time to my colleagues.
Mr. Speaker, I would say what is really cruel is to leave the system,
in view that we have some very good schools across the country, but
across the board, a system in which I think every American sees there
is a lot wrong with that system, and to where the majority of our
children who are applying for entry-level jobs do not even qualify for
that entry-level job, because they cannot read, write, do the math, or
speak English; that we have only been in the majority for 1 year. This
is after 40 years of letting the Government manage and control even the
94 percent from the rules and regulations and paperwork.
Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is asking too much that they give us a
chance to prove that we can ensure quality, we can ensure results, by
focusing more dollars down not to the Washington bureaucrat, but to the
teachers, the principals, the parents, and the children. And they
should make those decisions on a local level. I think that concept is
worth taking a look at. We are not killing education, but we are
focusing those dollars down the maximum to local control.
Mr. McKEON. The gentleman from Pennsylvania mentioned the careers
bill. I think it is important that people understand this is an effort
that you started in the last Congress and could not even get a hearing
on the bill. This year, with the change, we were able to take it and on
a bipartisan way, take 128 Federal programs, like we are looking here
tonight at 760. And while it is not into law yet and we are still
working on it with the Senate, we have taken those 128 programs down to
three block grants, made efficient use of the dollars, and we have.
We block grant that money out to the States and local communities
where it will really be efficient, instead of having several cross
programs working at odds with each other.
Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman for his leadership on
that, and for the continued effort. I think it is important that people
understand that we are doing some very positive things here that will
bear some great results as time goes on.
What we need now is a President that will sign some of the bills that
we have passed, so we can have true welfare reform, so we can have a
balanced budget, so we can really get this country moving forward to
get our fiscal house in order. I thank the gentleman very much.
Mr. GOODLING. We are here to support those teachers back there on the
firing line, and we want to help them as they try to produce the
quality that we need to order in be successful.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. My wife is one of them.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Just in closing, at the beginning of the year we got
together and talked about what our vision was for our committee, where
we wanted to drive the education agenda. We started out not with the
bureaucracy, not with the dollars, not with the number of programs. We
started out with the kids.
We said, we know what works in schools. We know what works in
educating kids. We need to empower kids. We need to empower parents to
get involved in their kids' education. We need to take a look at
whether the bureaucracy and the 40 Federal programs and the $120
billion, whether all that influence out of Washington is empowering
parents, enabling students, or whether it is getting in the way. Are
the programs getting in the way between parents and the local school
board, so the school board looks more to Washington than they do to
parents?
We are focused on kids. We are focused on good education. We have the
same goals in mind. We just have a different way of getting there.
[[Page H2209]]
Mr. GOODLING. Children is the name of the game as far as our program
is concerned. We are here to make sure that anything we do will not
hinder there getting a good education, but will enhance that
possibility.
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