[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 40 (Tuesday, April 8, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2863-S2864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             SCHOOL FUNDING

  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, a recent gathering of millionaires 
and billionaires at an economic conference in Switzerland underscored 
the importance of education in the global economy of the new 
millennium. In this information age, they concluded, the distinction 
between the haves and have nots will be the distinction between the 
knows and know nots. As it is with individuals, so it is with nations.
  We have documented the difference that education credentials make in 
the average earnings of American workers. High school graduates make 46 
percent more every year than those who do not graduate. College 
graduates earn 155 percent more every year than those who do not 
complete high school. Over the course of a lifetime, the most educated 
Americans will earn five times as much as the least educated.
  Access to quality public education has been the cornerstone of the 
American meritocracy, providing people with more talent than means with 
the opportunity for economic success in most fields of endeavor. The 
rungs on the ladder of opportunity are crafted in the classroom.
  To focus solely on the individual advantage of educational 
opportunity, however, is to miss the point of its importance to society 
as a whole. Education is a public good, not just a private benefit, and 
its relevance to the community transcends its importance to the person. 
It directly correlates to almost every indicia of societal well-being. 
Health status, support for the arts and cultural activities, and 
participation in our democratic institutions increase with educational 
attainment; while social instability, pathologies, and demand for 
transfer payments increase in its absence. We all have a direct and 
personal stake in the availability of educational opportunity for every 
child.
  The conference in Switzerland, however, touched on yet another aspect 
of the public value of education--its role in the development of a work 
force prepared for the external changes technology has created. It has 
been argued the United States was able to beat the global competition 
in the industrial age because of the high quality of our work force. It 
is an open question whether we will continue to enjoy such advantage in 
the information age. In this international competition, older 
industrial societies will find themselves in direct competition with 
the second-, third-, and even fourth-world societies that may have 
skipped industrialization altogether. We can choose either to compete 
with cheap labor worldwide and guarantee a decline in living standards 
here, or we can ensure that our work force has the high-skill, 
sophisticated productivity that will command a living wage in this 
global economy. It was very interesting to me that during the recent 
debate about immigration, some of the most influential voices against 
restricting legal immigration came from Silicon Valley and the high-
technology business community: They argued there was a shortage of 
American workers trained for their work, and they would be unable to 
maintain their competitive position if limited in the option of 
importing talent, so the need to educate our work force, as a society 
and a country, has never been more important.

  And so we are faced with a challenge of more monumental proportions 
than ever before. President Clinton recently referred to education as 
central to our national security. Yet, we still approach education 
generally, and education funding in particular, with the perspective of 
an age long past. Schools are still paid for primarily through the 
local property tax. Elementary and secondary education has long been 
almost the exclusive preserve of State and local government, and there 
has traditionally been a resistance to the National Government having 
anything to do with the circumstances in which Johnny learns to read.
  Such a view misses the changes that have transformed the world and 
brought us closer together. We have, now more than ever, a community 
interest that calls for cooperation among and between all of the 
instruments of our collective will. National, State,

[[Page S2864]]

and local governments all have a role to play in funding education. All 
must do so if we are to respond to the imperative of educational 
opportunity and excellence in our own enlightened self interest.
  Jonathan Kozol, in his important work ``Savage Inequalities,'' spoke 
to the effects of tying educational opportunity to property wealth. 
Disparities are created that fly in the face of America's promise of 
equality of opportunity. Moreover, the local property tax is a poor 
basis for educational funding: It is inelastic; it is not progressive; 
it has no relation to the function being supported; and it ties the 
fate of Johnny's schools to Grandma's fixed income. State governments 
have not corrected this funding anomaly. A recent report by the U.S. 
General Accounting Office [GAO] quantifies the inequities of the 
current mix of State and local tax support of schools and found not 
only the disparity based on wealth that Kozol exposed, but an even 
further perversity: Those communities which had the least in terms of 
property wealth tried the hardest to support their schools by devoting 
a greater portion of their income to education.

  When one considers, in addition, that there is--again, according to 
the GAO--at least $112 billion in deferred maintenance on the school 
buildings alone, the magnitude of our education funding challenge 
becomes clear. That $112 billion for infrastructure will simply address 
our crumbling school problem; it does not put the new technologies into 
the classroom or train teachers to use them or pay for the increased 
phone bills for computer use.
  What should be clear is that the answer is not either/or, but all. 
There are appropriate roles for all of our governments, at the 
national, State, and local levels. We should emphasize cooperation and 
collaboration between them, with each taking the responsibility most 
appropriate to resources and capacity. I have suggested the National 
Government take up the rebuilding of our crumbling schools, not only 
because the price tag is so huge, and the problem widespread and 
pervasive in city, suburban, and rural communities across the Nation, 
but because it is something the National Government can do without 
interfering with local decision making, such as which part of the 
school to fix first.
  In the meantime, we should all welcome the debate occurring at the 
State houses and city councils and boards of education all over 
America. We should be proud that our President made education the 
cornerstone of his State of the Union Address. We should be optimistic 
that our generation has the capacity to address and resolve the 
challenges of our time, and that we can translate all of the tension 
and concern about this issue into reality-based solutions.
  We must start, however, as the Earth Day slogan advises, by 
``Thinking Globally and Acting Locally.'' The answers will be plain and 
the balance apparent when we consider the implications of this 
challenge for our Nation's future. The chairman of the OECD, Jean-
Claude Paye, once said: ``Leaders worried about their economies need to 
focus on society's fraying fabric.''
  Our attention to education funding reform is a first step in grasping 
the challenge of our time, and as we restore our Nation's schools, the 
permanence of the American dream will become more secure.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

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