[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 126 (Friday, September 19, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9720-S9721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            EDUCATION REFORM

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, we have spent the better part of the 
morning talking about our initiatives to begin to get at the core 
problems in elementary education in America. We have talked about 
creating an education savings account that allows every family the 
opportunity to save and build resources to deal with whatever 
deficiencies are troubling their children.
  We talked about the Presiding Officer's amendment which would move 
$11 billion or $12 billion to local school districts without the 
strings and encumbrances that Washington cannot ever seem to free 
itself of. Just put the resource at the local level.
  We have talked about a proposal to create scholarships in the 
District of Columbia to try to allow these families in certifiably 
troubled schools a way out.
  Three things, all of which are addressed where the real problem in 
American education is occurring: Elementary and high school.
  Now, what has been the opposition? What is the opposition? It began 
when the savings account was put in the tax relief proposal. The 
President told the Speaker that if it was left in the proposal, the 
savings account for families to help kids in elementary school, he 
would veto all of it, all the tax relief would be vetoed.
  So obviously it was removed. But we have not retreated. We have 
brought the proposals back. The Speaker introduced the education 
savings account on the House side, and myself and the majority leader 
on this side.
  Now, what is the reason? Why would the President go to such lengths 
to clamp down on an education savings account? Well, he and the 
Secretary of Education say it would undermine public education--remove 
resources from public education.
  Mr. President, I have to assume they are just misinformed by their 
own staffs. I can come to no other conclusion--that they just have 
become so accustomed to the status quo and to beating down any new idea 
that there is a knee-jerk reaction. They always try to infer that these 
ideas will somehow impair or undermine public education. Wrong, wrong, 
and wrong.
  In fact, it is the reverse, the exact reverse. The savings account 
will infuse public education with new money. The vast majority of 
students are in public schools and the vast majority of students will 
stay in public schools. The savings accounts that the parents of those 
children create will come to the aid of--there is not a single dime, 
Mr. President, not 10 cents, that will be removed from public schools.
  Conversely, billions--billions--of new dollars will come to the 
support of public schools. The child in a public school who needs a 
tutor, the child in public school--which, incidentally, will be a 
public schoolteacher. If I was a public schoolteacher I would be 
rushing in support of the education savings account because it will 
give them a vast, vast new opportunity to teach, which they love to do, 
and earn compensation, which will help them. Not one dime is removed.
  Every family that opens this savings account will continue to pay 
their property tax for the public school--every one. They will set up 
the savings account. They will hire tutors from the public school 
system. They will be tutoring children in the public school

[[Page S9721]]

system. They will be buying home computers for children in the public 
school. And if the President's proposal is adopted sometime for 
uniforms, they will be buying uniforms in the public school system. 
They will be transporting students to afterschool programs or whatever 
in the public school system.
  Now, Mr. President, it will also help private schools because those 
parents that have made that decision can also open up savings accounts, 
and all the things I have just said that would augment public education 
will augment private education.
  Now, I guess this is the rub for the President. There will be some 
families who will use the savings account to change schools. They might 
leave a troubled school and go to another one, and he doesn't think 
they should have that right. He can say that. He can say it is good 
sound public policy for us to order families where they must go to 
school, but he may not assert that it undermines public schools, 
because it just isn't true. It is the reverse. It augments and brings 
vast new resources to all elementary education, public and private.
  As I said when these remarks began, they are going to be the most 
intelligently spent dollars in all education because they are dollars 
being directed like a rifle shot to the exact problem the child has.
  Vast public moneys, which do great good, cannot do that; parents do 
it. And we are giving them the tools to do it. That is a fact, Mr. 
President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as I understand the situation we are now 
under a time control of the minority leader?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The Senator is correct.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair. I yield myself such time as I might 
use.

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