[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 4 (Tuesday, January 21, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S574-S576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 THE EDUCATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY ACT

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise today to thank Senator Daschle and 
all of my colleagues for the opportunity to discuss a topic frequently 
in

[[Page S575]]

the thoughts of most Americans, and that is education. There have been 
other opportunities in the past, and they will come again I know, but 
on this day, at the beginning of the 105th Congress of the United 
States, I want the Members of the Senate to recognize that education is 
one of those topics that is a day-to-day concern of most Americans.
  We spend a lot of our time here talking about many things that are 
far less important to the American people than education. When 
Americans vote, education is important to them. When they answer polls, 
education is always a top concern. When they face obstacles in their 
lives, they see education as a way around those obstacles. And when 
they search for ways to make life for their children better than they 
have had it themselves, education is often the single best answer they 
will find.
  Before us today a bill was introduced, the Education for the 21st 
Century Act. For much of my career in education and policymaking, I 
have seen bills and acts and programs with ``21st century'' in the 
title. Well, President Clinton was inaugurated this week, and 4 years 
from now there will be another inaugural ceremony and a new President 
will be sworn in, and he or she will become the first President who has 
a term in the 21st century. I trust that he or she will be gazing into 
a new millennium of American progress.
  The bill that was introduced today makes several concrete investments 
in the new American century beginning some 4 years from now. The first 
investment is in helping people pay for their education, and the bill 
does it in three ways. The Hope scholarship allows people a $1,500-per-
year refundable tax credit for the first 2 years of college, and allows 
half-time students a $750-per-year tax credit.
  Students can instead choose to take advantage of the tax deduction 
for school expenses, which allows them to deduct up to $10,000 a year 
for higher education expenses. No matter which option students choose, 
they can also take advantage of the restored deduction for interest 
paid on their student loans.
  These three opportunities aim to help good students of modest means 
attend that first day of class in their local community college. Based 
on everything we know about our economy, and with a look at where 
employment trends are heading, investing and getting people started in 
school is a prudent move on the part of our Nation. These incentives 
will help Americans take advantage of the connection between level of 
education and their employability in the next century.
  The second part of the investment found in this bill is designed to 
jump-start efforts to repair some of our Nation's worst crumbling 
schools. For an investment of $5 billion in school construction 
incentive funds, we expect to drive about $20 billion in renovation and 
construction across this Nation.
  This is important because of the actual bricks and roofing and wiring 
that it will provide, but it is also an important symbol. It says to 
all of us that American children deserve to go to school in buildings 
that are safe, healthy, well-lighted places where learning happens and 
community spirit abounds.
  I especially thank Senator Carol Moseley-Braun for her tireless 
efforts on this issue. People talk all the time about the role of 
Federal Government in local school policy. By championing this issue, 
Senator Moseley-Braun has pointed out that the Federal Government does 
have a role in K-12 education in this country. That role is not passing 
down curriculum or trying to tell teachers how to teach. The role is 
guaranteeing certain minimum standards for health and safety and 
equality, and that is what this proposal is all about.
  I also want to remind all of my colleagues that it is important to 
retain flexibility in this proposal so it helps both urban and rural 
schools. There are schools in places like the small town of Raymond, 
WA, which the General Accounting Office has previously identified as 
needing help with school construction funding due to local economic 
factors. We should not rule out rural schools as we fine-tune this 
proposal.
  The third investment in this bill is the reading ability of young 
children. America Reads will fund 30,000 reading specialists and 
volunteer coordinators, with the goal of getting children reading on 
their own by the third grade. It will establish a parents as first 
teachers challenge grant fund and will work with existing programs like 
AmeriCorps to maximize efforts.
  Efforts to build literacy, whether aimed at helping young children 
read or helping adults read to their children or find a job, acts like 
yeast in bread dough. They allow people's aspirations to rise, and they 
will pull this country up to meet the challenges we face. It does not 
matter what adversity our children face or what they are presented with 
in life. If they can read, they have a chance to overcome it. The 
ability to read, write, communicate, and function in the work world--
these things are a precious gift all children and all adults should 
have.
  But literacy problems are complicated, so we must make sure our 
solutions are designed to reflect the most effective techniques we can 
find. As we move ahead with America Reads, we must allow local 
flexibility. We must honor the knowledge of those Americans who have 
been teaching literacy in our communities--in colleges, in schools, in 
social agencies and in local community-based organizations. We have to 
recognize that the best indicator of success in reading for a child is 
the education level of the child's primary caregiver. We must allow the 
tutor programs under America Reads to work with families to get the 
best results for children.
  The act of reading is complicated, and I can tell you that as a 
former teacher. Reading is a multistep process. A reader has to 
recognize and decode parts of words, whole words and sentences of 
words, both through sight and sound, and figure out how the assembled 
parts relate to meaning.
  Dynamic research is underway right now by Dr. Reid Lyon at the 
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and by other 
researchers around the country in places like the University of 
Washington in Seattle. This research is unveiling just how complicated 
learning disabilities are. It is showing how the brain processes 
certain kinds of information in the reading process, and it is pointing 
to effective techniques for mitigating disabilities.
  America Reads has to capitalize on the current research and build as 
many connections as possible between reading tutors, a student's 
primary reading teacher and the work of literacy researchers.
  America Reads must also be seen as an unprecedented lens through 
which we can see literacy and education in general as seamless. Your 
age, your geographic location, your socio-economic status cannot be 
barriers to your ability to learn.
  We have to get K-12 education, higher education, community education, 
employment training, local family literacy projects and other 
organizations all working together. We have to look at education, and 
at literacy specifically, as the tools Americans need to help 
themselves and to help this country achieve progress.

  The fourth investment in this bill is technological literacy. This 
investment is ongoing, and it has already achieved some success. The 
bill will continue our efforts to improve learning across the country 
by increasing funds for the technology literacy challenge grants.
  Over the next 5 years, this bill puts $1.8 billion into these grants 
to our local school districts so that they can help train teachers to 
integrate technology into their methods and curriculum to create new 
resources and to work with leaders in their communities to get students 
access to computers, the Internet and other high technology resources.
  I want to especially thank Senator Bingaman for his vision on 
education technology and thank all who have supported this important 
issue.
  One key component of the technology section of this bill picks up on 
the work that I started last Congress, taking advantage of surplus 
technology where it is appropriate in schools' technology plans.
  In the last Congress, if you will remember, we passed the Murray 
amendment to the fiscal year 1997 Treasury Postal appropriations bill, 
which said that all Government agencies have to inventory their excess 
computer equipment and peripherals and then make

[[Page S576]]

them available to educational institutions through the GSA.
  We also passed the Murray amendment to the fiscal year 1997 
legislative branch appropriations bill which set up the same process 
for the Congress itself.
  I want you to know that progress so far is very good. The letters I 
sent to heads of Federal agencies have brought in some very good 
responses, and Government computers are now going to schools.
  The bill before us does, in a systemic fashion, what I have been 
setting up at the grassroots level in my State--education technology 
clearinghouses--a place where people can donate equipment and software, 
a place where schools can get this technology, and a place where a 
third party can reject technology that does not meet minimum 
requirements so it does not enter into our schools or libraries.
  Several issues have come up in recent months regarding surplus 
technology. Many are addressed in this bill. If we are using surplus 
equipment side by side with new equipment, we have to assure that the 
surplus equipment meets the needs of the school or library that is 
receiving it. To send them our castoffs with no value sends the wrong 
message, and we should not be doing it.
  Schools in my State are using surplus computers as file servers for 
networks of new computers, and they are using them for word processing 
and data processing. They have students doing the upgrades in some of 
our schools, and when the technology is still current generation, these 
uses are appropriate. When the technology is too old to be useful, we 
must recycle the components in other ways and not burden our schools 
and libraries with a gift that is going to cost much more than it is 
worth. Equity is another concern, and this bill addresses it. It 
requires clearinghouses to ensure equitable distribution of surplus 
technology.
  Technology, a concentrated effort to build reading skills, school 
construction funding, and tuition assistance--our investments are 
prudent. The goals are very clear. People from both parties will 
support these kinds of efforts. With this sort of plan in place, 
Americans can feel proud of their Government's efforts to help them 
improve education across the Nation.
  Let's look out ahead. In just 4 short years, people will be finishing 
up in the community college programs that they just picked up a 
brochure for today. They will be finishing the 4-year degree programs 
they started this fall. They will be graduating from high schools they 
are just entering this fall or next, depending on their grade, and they 
will be third graders in the elementary schools that they started on 
the first day of kindergarten this September.
  How will their lives be better off thanks to this bill? What will 
their parents say, hope or dream? What will they think to tell us, if 
they still remember our names 4 years from now? Will they hail this 
bill as a success, like the Pell grant or GI bill? Will they thank us 
for working together across party lines to show support for teaching 
and learning in this country? We simply have to do the work ahead of 
us, and we will deserve any praise for our efforts, and we will all be 
thankful that we took steps today to assure a brighter future for our 
country.

                          ____________________