[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 30, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2060-H2067]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION AGENDA
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, tonight I want to talk about the Democrats'
education agenda. Before I get into some of the details, however, I
wanted to briefly touch on the evolution of our plan to expand and
improve the Nation's education system. I think it is particularly
important to keep the history behind our plan in mind as negotiations
over the budget continue the next few days or the next few weeks.
The Democratic Party has historically been the champion and defender
of education in this country. The 104th Congress, in fact, illustrated
this observation in very stark terms. Upon taking the majority for the
first time in some 40 years, Republican leaders immediately set out to
dismantle Federal education programs. Led by Speaker Gingrich and
primarily the freshman Republicans who were elected for the first time
in the 104th Congress, the GOP proposed the largest education cuts in
history.
A look at the record shows that on August 4, 1995, the Gingrich
Congress christened its attack on education when 213 House Republicans
voted for the largest education cuts in history, voting to slash
education programs by 15 percent, or $3.6 billion. These cuts across
the full spectrum of education were particularly heavy on student loan
programs. But the proposed cuts left no stone unturned. They targeted
Title I, Safe and Drug-Free Schools, Goals 2000, Head Start, vocational
and adult education, as well as student
[[Page H2061]]
loans. Two times the GOP shut down the Federal Government because the
President and congressional Democrats refused to allow the extremist
Republican agenda to move forward. As we all know now in the face of
mounting pressure from the American public, Republicans eventually
relented and restored most of the billions of dollars that they were
trying to cut in education programs.
Democrats on the other hand did not just fight to prevent Republicans
from gutting education programs, we developed positive plans to improve
and expand Federal education. That is basically where we are today,
trying to convince the Republican majority to incorporate our education
agenda in their budget plans.
One of the most important aspects of the Democrats' education program
which I would like to dwell on for a few minutes is higher education,
and particularly expanding access to college by making it more
affordable for middle-class and lower income Americans to attend
college. We are essentially trying to accomplish this goal through a
combination of scholarships, grants and tax breaks. The President in
his State of the Union Address talked about the HOPE scholarship
program which has probably received the most attention in terms of
higher education programs. This is based on a plan in Georgia and
basically what the HOPE scholarship program offers is refundable tax
credits of up to $1,500 to students in their first 2 years of college
who maintain B averages and stay off drugs. Our agenda also includes a
$10,000 tax deduction for families with college expenses for every year
that they have such expenses. All told, taking the tax credits and the
tax deductions for postsecondary tuition and the fees, it would provide
$36 billion of tax relief for working families and students over the
next 5 years.
Another component of this higher education agenda that is extremely
important is the proposed increase in the Pell grant program. Mr.
Speaker, I have to say that the Pell grant program is really the
cornerstone, or has been the cornerstone, for a number of years of the
Federal student aid program. It provides a means for students who would
otherwise be unable to pay for college to get a college education. The
plan that the President proposed in his State of the Union address and
that he is now pushing in his budget is in fact the largest increase
ever in the Pell grant program which would provide $40 billion of
assistance to needy students over the next 5 years.
I just wanted to stress the importance of Pell grants and just bring
it back to my home State of New Jersey if I could for a minute. At
Rutgers University, which is in my home district and is the largest
State university in New Jersey, approximately 20,000 students at
Rutgers received Federal assistance in the 1996-97 academic year. Of
that 20,000 students, 8,498 received Pell grants. In other words, close
to half of all students who receive Federal aid at Rutgers to help pay
their tuition costs are getting it through the Pell grant program.
As we can see, Mr. Speaker, tax breaks and increases in the current
programs are the foundations of our higher education agenda, but I want
to stress that they are not the only elements. We are also proposing
cuts in student loan origination fees that would save $2.6 billion over
the next 5 years. We would continue our programming of injecting
competition by expanding the direct lending program. In other words,
rather than have the student loan industry, the banks and financial
institutions, provide the loans, or as an alternative through
competition, we would let the colleges and universities provide the
loans directly. Our plan also includes a proposal to provide tax
incentives to employers who provide tuition assistance to their
employees, to expand those opportunities for higher education as well.
I have to stress that most of these higher education proposals were
developed by Democrats in the spring and summer of last year. The
American public, I think, has essentially sent a very unequivocal
message about education and even about these proposals. They have
indicated that we need assistance in meeting the runaway costs of a
college education, and I think people in general are eager to see these
Democratic proposals become law. I know that in my own district when I
talk to my constituents about what they would like to see us do on the
Federal level, education and particularly higher education is one of
the major priorities. It is my hope that the Republican leadership
learns from its mistakes during last year's budget battle and includes
some of these Democratic proposals in this year's plan.
Working families, students and average Americans, I think, are
counting on Congress to help. We are simply waiting for the Republicans
to agree to help us make life a little easier and a little better for
the average American.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New
Jersey [Mr. Pallone] for organizing this special order on education. I
believe it is one of the most important issues that we will cover in
this session of the 105th Congress. Having spent a number of years at
the State level as a legislator and the last 8 as superintendent of
schools for the State of North Carolina, I know a lot about what we
should do and a number of the things we should not do.
{time} 1645
I happen to, as I said to some of my colleagues the other day, being
the first member of my family to have had the opportunity to graduate
from college, I happen to believe that everyone should have that
opportunity, and today we see that college is becoming more and more
difficult for more and more people as the cost of higher education
continues to rise and the opportunity tends to be farther and farther
away for those young people who have the greatest needs.
I guess I might say that one of the reasons I got into politics and
really into education, and I think both of them have some of the same
things, was an opportunity to help people and really to help young
people. I have had the opportunity to work, in the few short months I
have been a Member of this Congress, with some outstanding members of
the Democratic caucus, working on education, talking about those things
that I think are important, and I think it is an issue that people on
both sides of the aisle this year can come together on.
Secretary Riley will be speaking with us and has spoken with us on a
number of occasions, and I think the President deserves a great deal of
credit for putting education at the top of his agenda in 1997. It is
one of those issues that everyone can rally behind.
Mr. Speaker, it is the issue that businesses are talking about,
parents are talking about, everyone in the State and national level is
beginning to focus on. We are talking about raising and having higher
standards, that students do need to work harder and be responsible.
Earlier this year my home State of North Carolina earned the
distinction which I am quite proud of, and I have called it to the
attention of my colleagues before, and I want to do it again today
because the National Assessment of Education Progress released the
data, and it is called NAEP and it is probably one of the more reliable
standards in which students are measured across the country. And our
fourth graders in mathematics gained three times the national average
of growth in their mathematics scores, and our eighth graders doubled
it, and North Carolina was ranked as one of only three States in the
Nation to receive exemplary status by the Secretary of Education.
Mr. Speaker, these are the kinds of things we are going to have to do
for all children all across this country, set high standards, work with
them, provide the resources, help our teachers, help our parents so
that they can reach those standards.
As we look to the new century technology is changing the way we work,
we learn and the way we live. Here in this body we vote electronically.
In our offices we have TVs and electronic machinery and computers.
Every modern business office has a computer on their desk, and many are
hooked into the Internet, and as we approach the 21st century it is a
shame that we have classrooms that have no computers, let alone access
to the Internet, and too few schools even have telephones that are
accessible by the teachers.
[[Page H2062]]
I have said many times as we talk about high technology there are
many teachers who just like to have a telephone where they call a
parent when they need them, when they have a problem in the classroom,
and they have to go down to the office or stand in line for another
phone. That is not acceptable in a nation that has the resources that
we have, and we are asking our children to meet those standards. We can
do better, and I trust that this Congress will do it.
My district has high-technology firms because of the Research
Triangle, an area that we are proud of in North Carolina, and it
reaches all the way out to the heartland of our State, where we
literally have high-technology firms in a field right next to tobacco.
Now, that is a tremendous contrast in the Nation and in the State, but
we must win in both those areas. We must win with our agricultural
interests, and we certainly must win with our high-technology
interests.
High technology in North Carolina is now the second leading industry
in our State. It is bigger than furniture, it is bigger than
agriculture in terms of the number of people directly employed, with
over 100,000 people, and in 1995 the average wage base for people
working in technology in North Carolina was $42,166. Those are the best
jobs around, the best paying jobs, and people must have the skills to
fill those jobs, and just because a new industry moves in and provides
that technology and those job opportunities, you do not automatically
gain those skills. Those skills are required over a time, and they are
acquired with education, and it starts long before a child shows up at
the public schoolhouse door.
We have to start earlier providing opportunities for enrichment for
our children so that when they come to school they are ready to learn.
We must invest in our children, get them ready to learn. According to a
recent Rutgers University study, every dollar, every single dollar that
we invest in early childhood education returns us $7, $7. What a
tremendous return. That is a great investment, and yet we hear people
talking about the expense of this and the expense of that. That is an
investment with tremendous dividends for all of us.
And then we have the standards of excellence, as I talked about a few
moments ago, in math and reading, the basic foundations that we build
everything else on, in my opinion, in public education. We have to have
those standards of excellence so parents can know that their children
are learning. They know after we adopt those rigorous standards, as we
have done in North Carolina, we also need to do the same thing at the
national level for every single child in this country so that we know
the standards are there and the children are meeting them.
But, more importantly, we no longer deal in an economy that is within
the borders of the United States. We do not compete even with just the
people at our borders to the north and south. We have an international
economy, and money moves, and so do jobs, and we must have an educated
citizenry if we are going to have access to the jobs of the 21st
century. And as we do that, my colleagues, we must rebuild the
crumbling infrastructure of our schools.
Mr. Speaker, it is appalling to me that we will build prisons nicer
than the schools we send our children to every day. I have seen
multimillion-dollar prisons next door to crummy, crumbling, decaying
public schools, and then we have the gall to tell our children that
education is important. They can see the difference in where we put our
money. Certainly, we need places to put people who need to be
incarcerated. I am all for that.
Last year in North Carolina I used that speech so many times, Mr.
Speaker, that we put a $1.8 billion bond issue on the ballot in our
State, the largest bond issue in the history of our State, and to the
credit of the business community in our State, the parents, and
everyone else, it was on the ballot from November of last year, and it
passed by the largest margin that any bond issue has ever passed in our
State. The people said enough is enough. We had roughly almost 6,000
trailers where children were going to every day, and even with those
trailers they were working toward excellence in academics. So we have
to get our infrastructure in order not only in our State but across
this country. And I commend the President for proposing resources in
this budget to help provide for the process of beginning to deal with
that crumbling infrastructure. Certainly it is not enough money, but at
least the $5 billion investment, if we turn it into bonds, will provide
about $20 billion in this country to help with it.
Let me turn to one other issue that, as we talk about education, we
cannot talk about it just in education without talking in other areas,
and it is an area in a number of States we need to look at. It
certainly may be right outside some of our purview, but I read an
article recently that there are 63,000 geriatric inmates in our
Nation's prisons. Those are inmates that are there because they
committed a heinous crime, but they are so old we do not have them
anywhere else, and they cost on average; according to the National
Criminal Justice Commission, these elderly prisoners cost on average
$69,000 per inmate to incarcerate: $69,000. We need to find a better
way to deal with those elderly inmates than to spend $69,000 a year
when our children have tremendous needs. We are spending it in the
wrong place. We need to spend it in preschool, and we need to spend it
in our educational system.
Some reports estimate it costs taxpayers seven times as much to
incarcerate as it does to educate. Now granted we have got people we
need to lock up and keep there, but we need to look at where we are
putting our priorities.
Let me touch on one other issue, if I may, in this whole area of
education because all of it is important, and when we talk about
investment I happen to believe education is an investment. It is an
investment in our future, it is an investment in this country's future,
and it is really not an expenditure because it pays rich dividends. We
do need to spend money on technology, but we need to make sure as we
spend those dollars, and this is true in every State, and this becomes
as much a State responsibility, I guess, Mr. Speaker, as anything else.
Our teachers need to understand technology and be able to use it
because, if we put it in the classrooms without them understanding it,
it will not be used the way it should be used.
I have said that time and time again. I recommended in our State
several years ago that we give every teacher a laptop and let her take
it home--him or her--and they learn to use it. Now some have done it,
and it works because then it becomes integrated with their lessons and
it gets used. No question that young people can adapt to technology
much quicker than some of us 35 years of age. We have a little bit of a
difficult time dealing with it. We do not want folks to see that we
really do not understand it that well. But it is important and
imperative, I think, that we provide Internet to our schools. It would
be great if it were in every classroom, but certainly will not have
that access in schools so that that information is readily available to
the children who live in some of the poorest areas of this country, as
well as those who live in the more affluent areas, because we are all
part of one Nation, the United States of America, as we are of our
individual States, and any child deprived of that opportunity, in my
opinion all of us lose when that happens.
And we need to help families who are struggling to pay for college.
Today we have so many young people who are bright, who want to go to
school, and if they borrow the money that is required for them to get
through college, they come out with such a debt, and we are working on
something, we have introduced a bill. As a matter of fact, the
gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Price] and I introduced House bill
553 called the Education Affordability Act which will provide for some
student--allows the interest on the student loans to be deducted just
like we do on the home loans. It seems to me that if we can allow the
deductibility on a second home at the beach, at a minimum we can allow
for that investment in a young person and their family makes in their
children's education; and I want to again commend the President for his
proposal to help those struggling families who are really reaching out
and trying to help their children get an education because they
realize, and there are many young people today who will be the first in
their families to graduate from college, and there are
[[Page H2063]]
many who may be the second generation that because of the level of
income of their families are going to have a difficult time. The
President has proposed the HOPE scholarship for those who work hard and
do well academically. They ought to have that opportunity and a $1,500
tax credit expansion of the Pell grants.
I talked today, Mr. Speaker, with a college president of a university
where he said if there is one thing I could do for these young people
and others we are recruiting, give us Pell grant moneys, raise that
level because the cost has gone up and we have not kept up with
inflation over the years.
{time} 1700
Also, we ought to allow parents who have saved and been frugal to
reach into their IRA's without penalty and apply those dollars to their
children's educational opportunities. They saved that money for an
investment. What better investment can you make than an investment in
your child's future, in their education that will allow them to provide
for their families in the years to come?
We have to remember, and I remember growing up, people talked about
education as if it were a destination: ``I received a high school
diploma,'' or ``I graduated from X college with a degree,'' or ``I have
a Masters or a Ph.D.'' Today, we cannot talk in terms of education as a
destination. It is a journey that lasts all of our lives. It is
lifelong learning, and it starts when a child is born and it is never-
ending until we cease to draw our last breath.
If we are going to be involved in the economy of the 21st century,
and it really does not matter whether we work for a high-tech firm in
Silicon Valley or the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, or if
we work in the tobacco fields of eastern North Carolina or the wheat
fields in the Midwest, the technology of the jobs that we do, whether
it be in textiles or wherever, requires education, education,
education, and business firms in this country understand it. They have
been investing for a long time.
We all need to get together and make it an effort where we do not
just talk about it. Preschool education, K through 12 education,
university education, education on the job, it is an education of
lifelong learning, and we need to work together so that we can make it
happen. It is a journey, it is not a destination.
I thank the gentleman for these moments, and let me thank the
gentleman for organizing this time.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from North
Carolina [Mr. Etheridge] for participating in this special order.
The gentleman mentioned a number of things that I thought were really
important. I just want to reiterate, if I could, two things that the
gentleman mentioned, because I think they are so true.
One is the juxtaposition, if you will, of the amount of money that we
spend on prisons versus education. Of course, we all know we have to
have prisons and the Federal Government, of course, has been providing
funding to build more prisons. But the bottom line is that I think that
our whole reason why we think education is such a priority is because
it builds a foundation for the future and is essentially preventive.
People that are well educated, it is less likely that they are going
to have to be committing crime or going to prison. If we leverage the
amount of money that we would spend, for example, on school
construction and compare that to what would have to be spent on prison
construction down the road, clearly there is no comparison. That is why
it makes sense to spend Federal dollars on school construction and
renovation.
I yield to the gentleman again.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I think the point the gentleman is
making, talking about an expenditure versus an investment, is a good
one. Any good businessman wants to invest, any person does. Certainly
when we invest in our children, the point the gentleman made about as
young people get an education, we break a lot of cycles when the
educational opportunity is there, because what we have done is enriched
the next generation, allowing them to earn more money, obviously. They
are better able to look after their children and the members of their
family. They are less likely to follow a life of crime, and they are
able to move up in society into the middle class.
As we move people into the middle class, all of us benefit. So the
gentleman is absolutely right. As we enrich and broaden that base, that
is how we become a richer and a fuller Nation. We have done that over
generations as a result of education.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, the other thing the gentleman mentions is
the emphasis on early childhood education. I guess in the last couple
of weeks we have heard a lot about that in the media. I think the
President, and Mrs. Clinton in particular, have been going around the
country talking about the need for early childhood education. The First
Lady was actually at Princeton University in my State, I believe just a
couple of days ago.
Reading some of this material that has been coming out over the last
few weeks, it is just amazing to me. I have two small children, one is
2 and the other is 3\1/2\, and I have listened to what some of the
educators are saying and I can just see how true it is, that we need to
spend more time. A lot of it of course is just the family, that the
family spends time reading to their children or spending time with
their kids, but also in terms of resources as well, on very early
childhood education, because so much happens in those formative years.
That is why I think programs like Head Start, which really do not
even start that early, but start fairly early, and that has been a very
successful program. One of the things that we have been talking about
as part of the Democratic agenda is expanding Head Start and early
childhood education, because it is so crucial.
I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. The gentleman's point is well made. They are now
talking about that more has been learned in the development of the
brain in the last 5 years than in the last 30, 35 years, and we are
beginning to realize that zero to age 3 is such an important period for
our children. But even with that, if we look at Head Start and the
young people who need to be there, we are still serving less than half
of the young people that need to be served in that area.
I was in Durham just 2 weeks ago, and they served somewhere in the
neighborhood of over 700 children in an old abandoned school that they
moved out of several years ago, but they have moved into it and done a
lot of work. Certainly they need new facilities. But if one meets with
those children and sees what is happening in their lives, and I visited
twice in the last 10 days and met with the children, the bright eyes
and the flow of enthusiasm.
I have often said to folks, if you really want to see where we are
headed in this country, go into a classroom of little folks, 5-, 6-, 7-
year-olds, and ask them if they can dance and ask them to raise their
hand, they will all raise their hands. If you ask them if they can
sing, they will all raise their hands. Ask them anything, they will
agree, they can do it.
Then wait as they get older, into high school, and ask that same
question, and they have qualifiers. I only slow dance, I can only sing
this, et cetera.
What I am saying is that we have the opportunity I think in 1997 in
this Congress to link up all of these folks who are reaching out there,
the business community and others, with the President's leadership, and
make a difference as we move to the 21st century like we have never
made in this country before, and provide a springboard for democracy to
be here for our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, if we do the
right things in providing educational opportunities for our children.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield now to the
gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], who I know has been involved
again with these education issues and promoting the need for the
Federal Government to do more on education.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New
Jersey [Mr. Pallone] for his leadership and raising the importance of
this issue; and I thank the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr.
Etheridge], my colleague and friend, who made some very valid points.
It was interesting to hear him speak about his visits to his
respective
[[Page H2064]]
schools in his district. I too can attest to the fact that if you want
to see America's promise, as has been discussed over these last couple
of days, then you need to be in your schools throughout this Nation.
How sad, in contrast to my visits. This past week I visited Turner
Elementary, Cullin Middle School, and Pole Middle School, and will be
visiting some others in my return to the district in the next couple of
days. But there certainly was an excitement and a brightness in those
children's eyes.
We happen to have been visiting them and presenting them trees to
plant. This month, of course, is the month that we celebrate Earth Day.
It is a time to emphasize our environment. It happens to be beautiful
outside today, at least in Washington, DC, and it is important to
instill in children the reality of education, the real necessity of a
tree and how you plant a tree. So I was very delighted to be able to go
and meet with my students in my district and present to them in fact
seedlings from Martin Luther King trees in Selma, AL.
But I say that to point out that that joyous occasion was in sharp
contrast to our Nation's Capital and the announcement of the closing of
some 5 to 10 schools in Washington, DC.
This is not to say or to have someone who might hear my voice,
``Well, that is Washington, DC.'' No, that is a statement on education,
that here we have in America in 1997 schools being closed because there
are not sufficient enough dollars for their upkeep and the teachers and
the educational programs.
If I might just diverge for a moment, because I think all of this is
intertwined, and the gentleman has been a leader on the issues dealing
with Medicare and Medicaid. Many times we think that these are not
issues that sort of impact on each other, and in particular, the women
and infant children program that we have just discovered Republicans
voted to eliminate some 130,000 women and children. That is a nutrition
program. That is the early beginning of giving children the support
basis that they need to begin the learning process.
On the WIC program, as related to us by Robert Greenstein, executive
director of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the WIC
program is currently regarded by researchers as the single most
successful social program the Federal Government runs, with an
impressive array of medical evidence showing the program reduces low
birth rate, infant mortality, and child anemia, all leading to the kind
of healthy child we would like to have, taking them toward the
educational system. I just wanted to add that because then that mounts,
if you will, that creates additional problems.
If we are to be serious about education, we must begin at the early
stages. So I think it is extremely important that we look at WIC,
because WIC ultimately impacts Head Start. We must, as the President
enunciated in his State of the Union, we must come up to the bar, if
you will, ante up and recognize that in fact Head Start, a healthy
child coming into Head Start really sets the tone for the kind of
vehicle, what that child will be, what you can put into that child,
giving that child the kind of educational start that he needs. I hope
that we will not overlook the value of Head Start.
So I wanted to sort of take education from the very stage of birth,
bring it to Head Start and then begin a very brief discussion on some
crises that I see, and how it is important for this to be bipartisan
and for Republicans to join us in emphasizing that this not be an
education President or education Congress, but an education Nation that
reinforces our commitment.
We talk about tax cuts. I think I heard someone discuss the other day
on the floor of the House, it was a Republican colleague, the
percentage of increase in college tuition is unbelievable, unbelievable
for the working family in terms of that cost that we have seen occur in
our college increases, and not just our private institutions at the top
level of rating but across the board.
Therefore, bringing it to our attention that the HOPE scholarship is
an important part of what we should be looking at to allow people to
get their first step in the door, the first 2 years of college, help
those working families counter some of these increases in college
tuition. Pell Grants, that have been over the years a mainstay for many
of our young people who are today now leaders in the Nation's Capital,
leaders in industry, they should be on the front of our burner in terms
of continuing.
As I went to our different schools, I do not think there is one of us
that cannot find an aging school in our district. Now we have talked
and talked about school repair and school construction. I tell my
colleagues, we have a problem. Schools are crumbling across the Nation.
It is extremely important that we get down to the business of
addressing school infrastructure.
The President announced a program in his State of the Union. I am
sorry that we are still, now April going into May, have not really
attacked this problem head on. Would it not be shameful for our
children and teachers to return in the fall to crumbling schools? This
is something that we need to address almost immediately.
I have heard the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] raise this
question and this issue about school infrastructure. I am told that
over 60 percent of U.S. public elementary and secondary school
facilities need major repairs. The gentleman from North Carolina [Mr.
Etheridge] started citing different regions. That means in Alaska, in
the Silicon Valley, that means in Houston, TX; in parts of New Jersey,
it means in parts of Pennsylvania; it means down in the deep South,
Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia; it means in the Midwest. Wherever we
go, there is not a you problem, your problem, not my problem; it is an
us problem.
{time} 1715
The average school nationwide needs $1.7 million to repair and
upgrade its facilities to an acceptable overall condition. Last fall I
had one of my schools collapse, so the children had to be dispersed.
One of the ceilings collapsed. They had to be dispersed through other
schools.
Do we understand what it means to have a neighborhood school, and the
feeling of community; even in times when our children have been bussed
there is a sense of community and familiarity with the school you go
to. How distracting to have you dispersed throughout other schools when
your school is not functioning.
I think we need to put at the top of our responsibility educational
infrastructure. Then we need to be assured that our teachers have the
right kind of training, that our reading teachers have the right kind
of training for them, so we need to provide dollars for programs that
would enhance the Opportunity to Learn Program, to enhance those
standards.
I think it is likewise important, coming from the community that I
have, to not taint bilingual education in a negative fashion. We have
been successful with bilingual education. What that simply means is to
allow those students who come in speaking only their language to be
able to be taught while they are learning the English language.
Can we simply understand what bilingual education is? It has worked
in Texas, and I think it is extremely important that we not abandon
that because of misconstruing and characterizing bilingual education in
the context of English only. That is a tragedy and a shame and a sham
on what it actually is.
Let me also say that we have seen such progress with our work with
individuals with disabilities, from President Bush signing, and the
Democratic Congress then, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the
work that has transpired with helping those with disabilities reach
their full promise. Let us not, in this educational effort, abandon
those individuals and not provide them with the resources that they
need to in fact become independent, to transition from dependence into
independence.
We have a crisis in education. There are a myriad of things that we
need to confront. I believe that we will get nowhere by holding hostage
the budget, by refusing to recognize that there will have to be some
major sacrifices. The defense spending has to be closely looked at,
because we will not have a Nation, in essence, to defend. We will not
have the kind of qualified men and women rising up to join the Armed
Forces, with their intellect, without
[[Page H2065]]
providing the basic necessities of education.
Then I would like to say that out of education comes training for
dislocated workers, and most of all our young people. How do we get
young people to see the advantage of staying in school? We fully fund
the summer youth program, the jobs program that I have heard some of my
Republican colleagues call a babysitting job. It is not. It translates
academics, education, to our young high school students to
understanding what work is all about, going on these summer jobs and
being able to get the gratification of translating book knowledge into
work knowledge.
The summer jobs program has been an eye-opener. It has been a divine
intervention, if you will, for those individuals that want to give up,
that come from neighborhoods that might not encourage perseverance. The
summer jobs program has changed lives.
I tell this story frequently, when I was in local government
participating in the summer youth program, hiring one of those students
and having them call me to say that they did not have the proper
clothing to wear downtown to an office building; and telling that
youngster, regardless of what you wear, come down to this office, let
us work with you; and seeing that youngster go on to greater and bigger
things because they were able to be exposed in an office setting and
develop the confidence and the appreciation for work.
I would simply say to the gentleman who has organized this very vital
special order that hopefully that will be the lightning rod to get us
moving on supporting education for our Nation, and in fact in restoring
the WIC funding to not deprive 180,000 women and children from that
first start, and then of course making it so very, very crucial and
such a very, very strong commitment to educating our youngsters.
I might inquire of the gentleman from New Jersey, we make a good
pair, because he is on the East Coast, far to the east of me, and I am
here in Texas, and it would be certainly presumptuous to suggest that
all my problems are the gentleman's problems. I tend to think they are
the Nation's problems.
Must we not confront this infrastructure crisis in our country that
so many preceding the gentleman, and I remember the gentleman from
Illinois, Mr. Dick Durbin, I remember Senator Carol Moseley-Braun on
the other side has been a leader on this issue, Cleo Fields, who used
to be in this body, so many have spoken about this issue.
When will we address this question of infrastructure, for our
children to be in safe and secure places of learning? Is that a problem
in New Jersey, or is that a problem that is a national problem?
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentlewoman, there is no
question that it is a national problem. I know in my district in New
Jersey we have a variety of schools, inner-city older schools, growing
communities that are operating with portable classrooms because they
cannot find the funding to build new schools. In the last few years in
many of the communities in New Jersey there has been an expansion, a
huge expansion in school enrollment. I guess there is sort of a new
baby boom that is coming along now. The school districts simply cannot
afford to spend the money on renovations or new construction.
I do not know that we actually brought it out tonight, but the
gentlewoman and I are certainly aware, as well as the gentleman from
Massachusetts, that the President has called for this $5 billion to be
spent over the next 4 years to help pay for up to half the interest
that local school districts incur on school construction bonds, or for
other forms of assistance that will spur new State and local
infrastructure investment. Basically this financing assistance, this $5
billion, can help to spur $20 billion in new resources for school
modernization, a 25 percent increase above current levels over the next
4 years.
What we are saying basically is that we want the Federal Government
to get involved with the school infrastructure, which they have really
not been in a significant way, and even though $5 billion may not sound
like a lot over 5 years, it can really be leveraged with what the State
and local governments can do to make a difference to address some of
these needs. But it is clearly national, it is not just in New Jersey
or Texas, it is all over, and there is plenty of information from the
General Accounting Office to verify that.
Mr. Speaker, I notice the gentleman came on the floor, and I would
like to yield some time to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to. That
would certainly be a sparkplug for getting the infrastructure built. I
think the President is certainly on track on these leadership issues. I
am delighted to see the gentleman from Massachusetts has joined us on
this issue.
Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentlewoman for being here.
I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. McGovern].
Mr. McGovern. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from
Massachusetts for organizing this special order on education. As the
gentleman knows, no other issue before this country, in my opinion, is
as important as the education of our children.
Like a number of my colleagues, a couple of weeks ago I attended the
conference at the White House on early childhood development. As the
gentleman knows, this conference focused on new scientific research
that confirms what many parents have suspected for a long time, that
those very first few years of a child's life are critical to that
child's social and intellectual and emotional development. I think the
President and the First Lady deserve enormous credit for taking a lead
on this issue, and raising awareness on this issue.
I have taken to this well many times to speak of my support for
improving the scope and quality of American education. But we must
never forget, as I said, that a child starts learning long before they
enter the first classroom. If one believes, as I do, that education is
truly the key to this Nation's economic future, we must begin early.
I would just like to highlight the fact that I have joined with the
gentlewoman from Connecticut, Ms. Rosa DeLauro, and the gentleman from
Maryland, Mr. Steny Hoyer, in introducing a bill that kind of addresses
some of the concerns that were raised at that White House Conference on
Early Childhood Development. The bill specifically would increase
funding for Head Start and the Early Start Programs. It would also
expand the Family and Medical Leave Act, and it would provide
competitive State grants for child care and family support services.
I think it is vital and it is crucial that this Congress address this
issue of early childhood development. Again, anybody who attended that
conference at the White House could not help but be moved by the
testimony from scientists and academics and parents who talk
specifically about how important some of these programs are.
Earlier today I joined with a number of my colleagues at a gathering
that was entitled a ``Head Start Day Hearing'' in the U.S. Congress. I
sat down and had lunch with a bunch of Head Start kids. I am convinced
more than ever that this is a very important program and deserves the
support of this institution. But supporting those kinds of programs I
think is vital if we truly are serious about education.
Mr. Speaker, I might add one more issue that I think is very
important for this Congress to address. That is the issue of expanding
the amount that we grant currently for Pell grants and the eligibility.
The cost of higher education continues to go up, and yet State and
Federal grants continue to go down. The way people right now tend to
finance their education is almost exclusively on loans. The idea of
providing more money for Pell grants, I think this is the time to do
it. I think parents would appreciate that kind of movement. Certainly
college presidents and those associated with various universities and
colleges would appreciate it.
I get concerned when it appears that many people who would like to go
to college do not go to college simply because they cannot afford to go
to college. I think anybody in this country who wants a college
education should be able to get one, regardless of where they are in
terms of economic status.
If we are truly serious about building that bridge into the 21st
century that the President talks so eloquently
[[Page H2066]]
about, if we truly want this Nation to continue to be the economic
superpower in the next century, then education is the key. Education
really is the key to almost everything: Economic stability, economic
development, as well as dealing with so many of the social and economic
problems that we talk about often on this floor.
I want to commend the gentleman from New Jersey for organizing this
special order, and I will certainly join with him and the President in
the initiatives that he has outlined here today.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I
just wanted to mention, if I could, and develop a couple of things the
gentleman has mentioned. When he talked about the Pell grants, one of
the things we need to stress, and the gentleman did so, is that the
Democratic education initiative does put a lot of emphasis on the need
to expand the Pell grants, as does the President's.
I think a lot of the media focus or attention has been on the HOPE
scholarships and the tuition tax credits, but I think we all understand
that if we do not expand Pell grants then the neediest, if you will, of
students that really depend on Pell grants in order to finance their
college education will not be able to continue.
Throughout this debate about whether to provide tax credits versus
scholarships or Pell grants, we just need to continue to focus on the
fact that if we do not expand these Pell grant programs, then the
needier students will not be able to go to college, because I know that
the cost of tuitions and fees has gone up so much, and that Pell grants
basically have not kept up with it, even though the Democrats have
continued to stress the need to expand those Pell grant programs.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I
would just point out that the bill that I have introduced would
actually increase the maximum Pell grant award to $5,000 from a current
level of $2,700, bringing the award to the level at which it was
created, adjusted for inflation. I think this is the kind of bold
measure the American people would appreciate.
I applaud the President for adding or increasing the amount of Pell
grants in his proposal. I think we could even do better, quite frankly.
I think Pell grants, from when I talk to parents, when I travel
throughout my district, grant money is something they would very much
appreciate. I would also say it is a wise investment of our Federal
resources.
After World War II we had something called the G.I. bill of rights,
which educated a whole generation of veterans coming back from World
War II. I do not think anybody today would argue that that program was
misguided or not a proper use of Federal resources. One of the reasons
why this country is as powerful as it is today, and continues to be an
economic superpower, is because of the fact that we made a commitment
to education. We need to make a similar commitment now to education for
this new generation, and I think Pell grants is one way to do that.
Mr. PALLONE. I agree, and I thank the gentleman for his comments and
for the legislation he has introduced.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens].
Mr. OWENS. I, too, want to commend the gentleman for this special
order on education, Mr. Speaker. I have been listening and heard us
cover a lot of territory, as is the case with the President's
comprehensive program, this little booklet that came out, ``A Call to
Action for American Education,'' which ranges all the way from early
childhood education to higher education and lifelong learning.
That is as it should be. I have served on the Committee on Education,
and the name has changed lately, but it has been the education
committee, basically, for the 15 years that I have been here.
{time} 1730
This is a time for great rejoicing among people who care about
education, and that includes the overwhelming majority of Americans.
Most Americans care about education. Most Americans, every adult
American, thinks he or she is an expert on education, too. That is part
of the problem and also part of the strength of trying to bring about
improvement in our schools. Everybody cares, and I think we ought to
hunker down and understand that we have a President that is ready to
take a comprehensive approach, he is ready to cover the whole spectrum,
and that in covering that spectrum, he has made a quite a number of
commitments.
I think when we add up the commitments over the next 5 years, we are
talking about $50 billion at a time when everybody is afraid of being
accused of being a tax-and-spend liberal. The commitment is there for
education because it is absolutely necessary.
I commend the President and I commend everybody involved. I am very
optimistic about the bipartisan spirit that is available to help push
this education agenda. I think it is real. I think that both
Republicans and Democrats want to see education improved in some
significant way as we go into the 21st century.
I just want to take this opportunity to talk about one piece of this
comprehensive approach. It is a piece that is bound to generate a
considerable amount of controversy. It is a large amount of money. It
involves expenditure for public works. And already I fear that we have
some divisiveness setting in, even among Democrats, and disagreement on
the construction part of the package.
Construction a lot of people feel should be left up to the States and
the local areas and the Federal Government should not even get
involved. But I am here to tell you, we have a real emergency. In our
big cities, we have a great emergency with respect to the basics of
providing a safe place, a conducive place for young people to study, a
safe and conducive environment for study. That ought to be the first
and most basic thing that we are concerned with, just to have them have
a place to sit with decent lighting, with enough comfort to be able to
concentrate on their studies, with no fear of asbestos contamination,
no fear of lead poisoning.
It is amazing how old some of our schools are in the big cities. This
is a plea for the construction component. It is a plea for us to be
very broad-minded and understand that a proposal for $5 billion at the
Federal level, with the hope that it will stimulate additional money at
the State and the local level, is not an extreme proposal at all.
Let me just give an example of New York City, which many people will
say, well, New York City should take care of its own needs. But that
has not been the case. And why penalize children. We had a bond
initiative that passed, I am happy to report, on the environment. And
in that initiative it talked about providing money to rehabilitate some
schools' boilers in New York, boilers that were still using coal, were
still burning coal in a city that has one of the highest asthma rates
in the country.
The asthma rate, number of children with asthma, is a scandal. Coal
burning in schools is not the only contributor. There are other
factors. But that is one we should eliminate. Now I am a public
official in New York, and I thought, great, this bond issue talks about
putting gas burning boilers in 39 schools to eliminate the coal burning
boilers; and I thought, well, that is wonderful and that solved the
problem.
In a little more digging, I found we do not have 39 schools that have
coal burners, we have 200 and some schools, almost 300 schools that
still have coal burners. I know when we start throwing statistics,
people outside of New York get dizzy. We have approximately 1,000
schools. One-third of those schools are still burning coal, one-third.
That is a shock to me. So I am sure it is hard to understand when you
get outside of New York that New York City has one-third of its schools
still burning coal. We have schools that have asbestos problems to the
point where we cannot wire the schools. If you start boring holes, the
costs go up astronomically because when asbestos is present, you have
to have a certified contractor, you have to have a place for that
contractor to store the asbestos, and it is very costly to transport it
and store it and we run into all kinds of problems with our net day
because of the physical condition of the schools.
We need a massive program to renovate churches and schools to make
[[Page H2067]]
them safe. We need a program just to build new schools because some are
so old that you cannot do anything with them. It is more efficient to
just tear the schools down and build new schools.
Now this is the big city of New York that has this problem. I am here
to talk about it. I assure you it does not take much imagination to
know that Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, the problem exists in most
of our big city districts. Large numbers of young people, we have a
million students in New York City, and as of last September, 91,000 of
those students did not have a place to sit.
So I thank the gentleman and I just wanted to highlight, we are
moving into the process now where we are going to talk in detail about
this comprehensive agenda of the President. Construction is on the
agenda. I understand certain proposals have been made that a certain
percentage of the money go to inner city districts. Some people are
worried about too much going into inner city districts. It cannot be
too much. The problem is grave. The problem is an emergency.
If we are going to do anything about young children, the first thing
we should do is think about safe places that are conducive to learning.
Physical facilities are basic, and I hope they get a lot of support
from the President's construction program in his comprehensive
education program.
Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens],
and I again assure him that what he is talking about in New York City
is throughout the country. We had some statistics about the General
Accounting Office that says one-third of the Nation's schools needs
major repair, outright replacement, 60 percent need work on major
building features, sagging roof, cracked foundation, 46 percent lack
even the basic electrical wiring to support computers, modems and
modern communication technology.
My colleague talked about the magnitude in New York, but it is true
throughout the country. I think that is why the school construction
program the President is talking about has so much appeal because it
really affects every district, every congressional district in this
country, as do so many of these proposals the Democrats have put
forward on education.
So I am just hopeful that our colleagues on the other side, the
Republican leaders, who are in the majority, take heed of this because
I think there is no question that education is a priority and that
there is a lot more that can be done on the Federal level, and we as
Democrats have put forward those proposals and we would like to have
our Republican colleagues join us in passing those in this Congress
before we adjourn. So thank you again, I appreciate the gentleman's
comments.
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