[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 12, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H515-H518]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this evening I want to spend some time 
discussing the topic of education in the 105th Congress. I just heard 
my colleague from Texas and the emphasis he put on education, and 
obviously the President has stressed it as his No. 1 priority. He did 
so in the State of the Union Address just last week. The Democrats, of 
course, as part of their families first agenda that they put forth in 
the last Congress have continued to prioritize education as an issue 
that the Congress must address that in particular should be addressed 
as soon as possible.
  The President and congressional Democrats have basically developed a 
very sweeping plan to make investments in every level of the Nation's 
education. And in so doing, Democrats have also filled the void that I 
think has existed since the opening days of this session.
  I should say by contrast that so far we have seen very little in 
terms of specifics from the Republican side of the aisle. We really 
have no indication of whether they are going to be receptive to the 
President's or the Democrats' education agenda. I was certainly 
disappointed today when, rather than spend time on a substantive issue 
such as education, the Republican leadership brought forward votes on 
the term limits. We spent the entire day arguing over term limits.
  I would say that there are many people in Congress that think term 
limits are important and certainly it deserves to be debated on the 
House floor. But I think it borders on irresponsibility to waste time 
examining term limits when there are issues of true importance awaiting 
consideration such as

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the President's education agenda. Term limits do not teach children to 
read. They are not going to help repair our decaying schools or meet 
the rising cost of college.
  I would also point out that hopefully we are beyond the situation 
that we faced in the last Congress where the Republicans were attacking 
Federal education with unprecedented vehemence upon assuming the 
majority for the first time in 40 years. Two years ago, the Speaker 
proposed the largest education cuts in history and voted to slash, 
basically put forward an agenda to slash education programs by 15 
percent or $3.6 billion. Local school districts across the country 
braced for and eventually suffered the worst pursuant to that GOP 
agenda in the last Congress. They actually forced Government shutdowns 
that delayed the ability of school boards to plan for the coming 
academic year. Among the billions of dollars that the Republicans 
wanted to cut from longstanding and successful Federal programs in the 
last Congress was a $1.2 billion cut in title I, basic grants.
  They of course started to receive a lot of objection from the public 
about those cuts. Eventually they were restored after, I think, they 
realized that the American people did not want, did not want to see the 
kinds of cuts in the title I basic grants program. I thought it was 
rather interesting that just recently Chairman Kasich's Committee on 
the Budget praised the very program it advocated gutting in 1996, 
noting that title I is, quote, ``One of the most important Federal 
programs for local schools.''
  I guess we have to say at least we are happy that now we see the 
Republican leadership saying that these education programs are 
important, and hopefully the kind of cuts and the shutdowns that we saw 
in the last Congress are behind us.
  Let me just say that the President's budget puts forth or the 
President puts forth a 10-point plan to invest in education, the one 
that he detailed in his State of the Union Address. It really looks at 
every aspect of education, whether it is preschool, whether it is 
secondary school education or college education and the cost of college 
education.
  The new education plan essentially addresses most of the, or many of 
the pressing problems that face the country today in terms of our 
educational system. Because some 40 percent of the Nation's fourth 
graders are reading below the basic level, the President has proposed 
the America reads challenge to ensure every child can read 
independently by third grade. Because some 60 percent of the Nation's 
schools are in need of major repair or outright replacement, the 
President has proposed a school construction initiative. And because 
the cost of college continues to outpace the rate of inflation, 
Democrats have proposed tax breaks to help parents and students pay 
college tuition.
  So if we look at this 10-point plan, which I will develop a little 
more as we go on this evening, we can see that it is an effort really 
to address education needs at every level.
  Again, I hope that we see the Republican side of the aisle recognize 
that these initiatives are important, that they can make a difference 
and that we move forward with this education agenda. Instead, as you 
know, last, in the last session of Congress, we saw the GOP leadership 
going so far as to actually not only talk about massive cuts in 
education and voted for them but even talk about dismantling the 
Department of Education. Again, I hope that the effort to say that we 
do not need a Federal Department of Education goes the way of all these 
massive cuts that they were proposing in the last term. Instead we see 
some real progress in trying to move on some of these education 
initiatives.
  I would like now, if I could, to yield to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts, one of the new Members from Massachusetts. I know he is 
very concerned about the education issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
McGovern].
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from New 
Jersey for his leadership and for his passion on this issue of 
education and for arranging this special order today. There is no issue 
more important facing this country than the issue of education.

  I believe, as I know the gentleman from New Jersey believes, and I 
hope every Member of this House believes that every child in America 
deserves to have access to a quality education, an education that must 
be affordable.
  Every child in America deserves to go to school in buildings that are 
regularly maintained and every family needs to know that when their 
child graduates from the third grade, he or she will be able to read. I 
commend the President for setting that national standard.
  Every family needs to know that when their child graduates from the 
8th grade, he or she will be able to do advanced math like algebra. In 
today's world, every child deserves to go to a school that is hooked up 
to the internet and has access to electronic information resources.
  We are in a global economy. There is no way we are going to be the 
economic superpower of the 21st century unless we have a well-trained 
work force. That requires that we have a work force that is literate in 
computer technology.
  Every family needs to know that when their son or daughter graduates 
from high school, they will be able to afford the rising costs 
associated with the next stage of their education.
  Our President proposed real solutions to each of these challenges in 
his State of the Union address last week. I strongly support the 
President's education agenda, and I will fight, along with the 
gentleman from New Jersey and so many others on our side of the aisle, 
we will fight tooth and nail to ensure that this Congress makes that 
agenda its number one priority.
  I want to share with you this evening why I feel so passionately 
about these education priorities. Education is an issue that touches me 
on a very personal level. My two sisters are teachers in the Worcester 
public school system. Through them, I have come to understand the 
selfless dedication that our Nation's teachers demonstrate every day of 
the week. I know from watching my sisters how extraordinarily hard our 
teachers work to keep students engaged and interested in complex 
subjects and how utterly devoted they are to making sure their students 
make the grade.
  But from traveling throughout my district, I also understand that 
teaches and students are working against tremendous odds. I have seen 
teachers working to bring their students into the information age under 
conditions that are much closer to the stone age.
  One morning I asked a teacher in my district what he could do with 20 
computers in his classroom. He raised his eyebrows and turned around 
and looked at me and quietly pointed to the fact that he only had one 
electric socket in his entire classroom. Buildings in my district and 
buildings throughout this Nation need significant rehabilitation and in 
some cases complete rebuilding before our students can hope to be 
launched into the information superhighway.
  This is one of the reasons I was so pleased to hear President Clinton 
announce his proposal for $5 billion in subsidies to leverage $20 
billion in school construction. Every Member of this Congress knows 
firsthand how badly our local school districts need help in bringing 
our public school buildings up to power.
  We cannot ask great things from our students without providing them a 
safe, stable environment in which to learn and grow. I want you to know 
that the third district of Massachusetts is blessed with many fine 
institutions of higher learning. We have some of the finest colleges 
and universities in the world located in my district. They are the 
greatest natural resource for both educational and economic renewal 
that I can imagine.
  The key is to make these institutions accessible and affordable to 
every hard-working family in central and southern Massachusetts and 
throughout the country. As I have spent time talking to families 
throughout my district, I have come to realize the rich diversity of 
our area. Families of all backgrounds and all incomes, young people 
with every interest and talent each face a similar challenge, how do I 
pay for college.
  Some families seek to send their kids to a four-year university, 
others a community college, still others a vocational or technical 
school. Every family I meet is gravely concerned about

[[Page H517]]

the skyrocketing cost of college tuition, the shrinking amount of funds 
available for student aid and the intense pressure to balance the need 
for a college education with a host of other pressing economic needs.
  I am proud to say that our President, President Clinton, must have 
listened to the families across this Nation because his call for action 
on education speaks directly to the needs I hear from the residents of 
Worcester and Fall River and Attleboro and Medway and Franklin and so 
many towns throughout my district. As I talk to Members in this 
Chamber, they are hearing the same message from their districts.
  The President has asked Congress to increase both the number and the 
level of Pell grant funds and to provide tax relief to families with 
kids in college, either through a tax credit or a tax deduction.
  Mr. Speaker, education is a very personal issue for me. It is a 
critically important issue in my district, and it is now a national 
priority of the highest order. For our children's future and for the 
future economic well-being of our Nation, I hope that every Member of 
this House, regardless of party affiliation, will support the 
President's call to action on education. We owe it to ourselves, we owe 
it to our country, and most important, we owe it to our children.
  I thank the gentleman from New Jersey again for his leadership on 
this issue.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just want to commend the gentleman for 
particularly making reference to the higher education initiative that 
the President has put forward. Because as much as I think that all 
parts of his 10-point plan are significant, the higher education 
initiative I think is particularly important because all we hear 
constantly or at least I do, and I am sure you do, from our 
constituents is how difficult it is to afford to send their children to 
college, whether it is public or private school or whether it is two 
years or four years or a graduate or professional school.
  Basically what the President is proposing here is building on 
existing programs like the Pell Grant Program, like the Work Study 
Program, like the Direct Student Loan Program, and trying to make those 
programs more accessible to more people, but at the same time coming up 
with new initiatives in terms of the tax deductions and the Hope 
Scholarship Program so that there are even more, if you will, 
opportunities, expanded opportunities to pay for higher education.

                              {time}  1915

  I know that certainly in his first term, in his first 4 years as 
President, and obviously with the cooperation of the Congress, he was 
already able to make some expanded opportunities available with the 
AmeriCorps program, basically allowing students to work to pay back 
their student loans. And even with that, we constantly hear the need 
for more expanded opportunities for higher education.
  Right now that is the education issue that I hear the most about, 
even though the others, I am sure, are just as important.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I could not 
agree with him more. The reality of the economy that we are faced with 
now is it is a global economy. We are going to need to have a work 
force that is well educated, that is able to take advantage of higher 
education, and in that spirit we must make it affordable to families 
and to young people and to adults who want to further their education.
  I was particularly excited about the President's State of the Union 
Address because he said education is his No. 1 priority. Well, it is my 
No. 1 priority, and should be the No. 1 priority of everyone in this 
Congress. We will not be the economic superpower in the 21st century 
unless we have a well educated work force. We will not effectively 
combat problems like crime, we will not effectively deal with issues 
like welfare reform, unless we deal more effectively with the issue of 
education.
  I think if this President's legacy is that he goes down in history as 
the education President, truly the education President, where he 
expands educational opportunities for our young people, where he 
improves the quality of schools at our elementary and secondary level, 
I think he will go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents we 
have had. So I am excited about his agenda.
  I agree with the gentleman especially on higher education. I have 
talked to countless families who say to me that they have a couple of 
kids of college age who are looking at various colleges, and they are 
looking at the costs of tuition and the cost of board and the cost of 
books, and they cannot figure how they are going to finance it.
  The gentleman knows know as well as I do there are a lot of families 
out there now that are just basically surviving, people working two or 
three jobs just to make ends meet, who do not have much of a savings, 
and they welcome this kind of tax relief, the grants the President has 
proposed. They welcome it because it will open up opportunities for 
their kids.
  I think every parent wants the very best for their children. I think 
if we enact the President's agenda here, we will help a lot of families 
realize that dream for their kids.
  Mr. PALLONE. The other two issues that I hear so much about, again 
from constituents, one is with regard to school construction and 
modernization, because there are so many schools now that really do not 
have the funds or they have to raise property taxes or whatever in 
order to pay for new construction or modernization.
  We know that it is very difficult to learn if one is in a building 
where the infrastructure is such that the ceiling is leaking or it is 
not properly ventilated or whatever it happens to be. I think that the 
President brought forward the need for that in ways that maybe a lot of 
us on the Federal level have not really been aware.
  Essentially what he is proposing, from what I understand, is sort of 
a Federal-State-local partnership so more of that modernization can be 
done. But I know even in my district, which is pretty much a suburban 
district, there are a lot of schools that have the need for upgrading 
and modernization and the school boards simply do not have the funds to 
pay for it.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Absolutely. I agree with the gentleman. The fact of the 
matter is that when I go around talking to schools, they welcome any 
Federal assistance to help them recognize some of their goals, whether 
it be bettering the quality of the classrooms or trying to hook the 
schools up to the information superhighway.
  I gave an example in my opening remarks of talking to a teacher who, 
when I asked, ``Would you like 20 computers? What would you do with 
them?'' he said, ``I could not use them. I do not have enough electric 
sockets in my classroom to be able to utilize them.''
  Part of the problem is making sure we have the computer technology 
available so that our young people can take advantage of it, but the 
other part of the problem is making sure that the school building, the 
infrastructure, can handle it. Computers without plugs do not make much 
sense.
  So, again, I agree with the gentleman. I think the President is doing 
the right thing here and, again, I do not know of a single school 
district in this country who would not welcome that kind of Federal 
assistance. It is a wise investment.
  I hear a lot of people say, about investing in education, that we are 
trying to balance the budget; we cannot invest any more in education. 
Well, I say every time we have invested in education this country has 
been better off. Look at history. Go back to the GI Bill of Rights. It 
cost us a little up front to launch that program, but I do not know of 
a single person today who would say, well, the GI Bill of Rights was a 
bad idea; we should not have invested in the education of a whole 
generation of young people.
  Likewise, I think the investments we make today, 10, 20 years from 
now we will look back and people will say that was a wise thing to do, 
that our country is going to be stronger and better off as a result of 
it.
  Mr. PALLONE. The other thing that surprises me is we have already 
received some criticisms to the President's suggestion of national 
standards. One of the 10 points, in fact, I think it is the first of 
his 10 points, that we set rigorous national standards, with national 
tests in 4th grade reading and 8th grade math to make

[[Page H518]]

sure our children master the basics, this has been criticized already, 
that it is a bad thing to establish Federal standards.

  I think the President made it clear he was not mandating these 
standards. He was basically saying the Federal Government can establish 
these standards and create incentives, if you will, to have the schools 
meet those standards. Again, that is the way I see the Federal role. 
The Federal role can well be, let us establish the standards and then 
the various school districts in the States on a voluntary basis try to 
meet them.
  I was kind of shocked to see some of our colleagues on the other side 
suggest that somehow that that was interference and that was a bad way 
to go. I really believe that, as much as the decisions about education 
will continue to be made and should continue to be made by the local 
school boards, there is nothing wrong with the Federal Government 
trying to help out and provide some kind of a basic standard.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I agree with the gentleman. The fact of the matter is 
the President is not advocating the Federal Government take over the 
role that has historically been a local role with regard to education. 
He is not saying that by any means, but he is utilizing the bully 
pulpit, he is utilizing his position to challenge school districts, 
schools all across this country, to meet certain minimum standards.
  I do not know how anybody could object to a national standard that by 
third grade every young boy and every young girl has to be able to read 
and write. That is certainly not a controversial goal, I think, to be 
set. I think it is something that we should applaud.
  It should shock us all that so many of our young kids at that age 
cannot read or write. The President has set that goal out there, he has 
challenged us to meet it, and we need to find ways to meet it.
  Part of his call to voluntarism is that to the extent that people 
can, that they volunteer to help tutor young kids so they can read or 
write by the time they are in third grade. This is a part of the 
solution, again, and I applaud that.
  It is important that we do set some sort of national standards and 
some sort of national goals, again, not to interfere with local 
jurisdictions or State jurisdictions, but as a Nation we should want 
these things. So I applaud the President on those things.
  Mr. PALLONE. If we look again at every one of the initiatives in his 
10-point plan, every one of them basically is organized so that the 
Federal Government is basically providing an incentive to local school 
boards.
  It is not only the national standards we talked about, but the idea 
of a talented and dedicated teacher in every classroom, the 100,000 
master teachers through some sort of national certification, a teacher 
for every student to read independently and well by the end of the 
third grade, expand Head Start.
  Head Start, I hope, has gotten to the point now where everybody on 
both sides of the aisle recognizes its value, but I guess like 
everything else it is a question of how much we will provide for it. In 
my district--again, I have been to many of the Head Start programs--
most of them have waiting lists. Most of them have a lot of kids that 
really cannot take advantage of the program, and it works very well. We 
need to expand it.
  What he is basically saying is that his budget would expand Head 
Start to cover one million children by 2002 so that essentially every 
child who is eligible would have the opportunity to participate in Head 
Start.
  Mr. McGOVERN. And I would just add that these proposals, while I 
welcome them and applaud them, one could argue they are modest in some 
respects. Some of us wish they would go farther.
  On the Pell grants, the President, to his credit, advocates 
increasing the maximum award to $3,000. I think they should be 
increased to $5,000 to reflect inflation over the years since the Pell 
grants were first initiated. We must make sure there are opportunities 
for those who are from lower income families so that they can take 
advantage of a college education as well. These are reasonable, modest 
proposals.
  I want to tell you, what the President has outlined is going to test 
whether this Congress is truly committed to making education its No. 1 
priority or whether this Congress is not. It is that simple.
  I hope, anyway, that we can have some bipartisan cooperation here. 
The President said that education should be a nonpartisan issue. I 
agree with him. I hope that all of us here can join together and enact 
all of these proposals. Maybe we can make them a little bolder, because 
I think that is what is needed.
  If we truly want to see this country be the economic superpower into 
the next century, if we truly want to make sure we are dealing with all 
these other social and economic problems that we debate here on this 
floor every single day, then education has to be a priority and we are 
going to have to invest in education.
  So, again, I am going to do what I can to try to advance his agenda 
forward. I know the gentleman from New Jersey is going to do the same 
thing. Clearly, education is the number one priority, and the President 
deserves a great deal of credit for drawing the lines in his State of 
the Union address.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, and I also 
want to say that obviously, for both of us, this is the beginning of 
our effort to try to continue to bring our colleagues' attention to the 
fact that the President's education program needs to be enacted, and 
that we need to move on it as quickly as possible.
  Obviously, we feel very strongly that that is the case. Most of what 
is in the President's program was basically put forward with the 
Democrats' family first agenda last year. I think it is really crucial 
that we keep making the point that we need to move on it; that we 
cannot waste any time, because it really can make a difference in terms 
of investing in our future and that bridge that we keep talking about 
to the next century.
  So I thank the gentleman again and yield back the balance of my time.

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