[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 130 (Thursday, September 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9925-S9940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1998

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                   Modification to Amendment No. 1249

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, there has been either a printing error or 
technical omission in the current pending amendment--the line 22 on 
page 34 was omitted, as well as line 23. It simply is a section 
reference describing the language that follows in the section, plus the 
line ``Notwithstanding any other provision of law.'' Everything else is 
as submitted. And it is a technical change to offset a printing error.
  I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified to reflect 
this change.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The modification is as follows:

       On page 34, strike lines 7 through 16, and insert in lieu:

     SEC.   13. EFFECTIVE DATE.

       This title shall be effective for the period beginning on 
     the day after the date of enactment of this Act and ending on 
     September 30, 2002.

     SEC.   14. OFFSET.

       Notwithstanding any other provision of law--
       (1) the total amount of funds made available under this Act 
     under the heading ``Federal Contribution to the Operations of 
     the Nation's Capital'' to repay the accumulated general fund 
     deficit shall be $23,000,000; and
       (2) $7,000,000 of the funds made available under this Act 
     under the heading ``Federal Contribution to the Operations of 
     the Nation's Capital'' shall be used to carry out the 
     District of Columbia Student Opportunity Scholarship Act of 
     1997''.

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the last item, which has already been 
approved, apparently has not been checked by staff. What was the last 
unanimous consent, if you would not mind? You already have gotten it 
approved, but out of courtesy. Apparently, the Democrats have not had a 
chance to look at it.
  Mr. COATS. I thought it was cleared. It is a printing error, a 
descriptive--I tell you what. We will talk to them about it. If there 
is any problem, we will reset that.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. That will be fine.
  Mr. President, I first of all want to start out with some praise for 
my colleague, Senator Coats, from Indiana and for that matter, Senator 
Lieberman. I think they speak with a great deal of conviction and 
eloquence on this matter. I think both of them are very committed to 
the idea of equal opportunity for every child in America. There is no 
question about that in my mind.
  Mr. President, I too think that there has to be a way that we 
reinvigorate or renew our national vow of equal opportunity for every 
child. And I think that education is key to that.
  But, Mr. President, let me just say at the beginning that there are a 
whole lot of things that we can and should be doing that we are not 
doing if we are serious about it. And that is sort of the context that 
I look at this proposal for the District of Columbia, which I will get 
to in a few minutes. But let me start out, if you will, with a kind of 
nationwide focus.
  First of all, Mr. President, I have been traveling the country and I 
have been spending time in communities where people are struggling 
economically. I spent time with quite a few poor people around our 
country.
  I am struck by the fact--and I have said this on the floor of the 
Senate before--that in all too many cases you walk into schools and the 
ceilings are caving in and the toilets do not work, the buildings are 
dilapidated, the lab facilities are not up to par, there are not enough 
textbooks. And with all due respect, quite frankly, until we make the 
investment in this area, just in infrastructure so schools are inviting 
places for children, we are not doing that much for kids. A voucher 
plan, be it a demonstration project in the District of Columbia for $7 
million or anything else is just a great leap sideways or backward.

[[Page S9926]]

  Mr. President, Senators and Representatives have had the opportunity 
to put some investment in rebuilding crumbling schools in America, and 
we voted against it. If we are serious about equal opportunity for 
every child--my colleague from Connecticut spoke about this with a 
great deal of eloquence--then we ought to just follow the direction of 
all of the studies that are coming out about early childhood 
development. It is not surprising that kids are not doing well in these 
different tests, in the way in which we measure how children are doing 
in our schools.
  I try to be in a school every 2 weeks in Minnesota. There are so many 
children that come to schools that have never been read to. There are 
so many children that come to school that don't know the alphabet, 
don't know how to spell their name, don't know colors, shapes, and 
sizes, and we are doing precious little by way of investing in early 
childhood development.
  Now, I don't know how in the world my colleagues believe that the 
children we say we care a great deal about, and they do, are going to 
do well unless we make a commitment here. The answer to the problem is 
not a voucher plan. The answer is to make the commitment to early 
childhood development.
  Deborah Meyer, a great urban educator from New York, said, ``We can 
have a debate about tests, we can have a debate about standards, we can 
have a debate about how we measure this, but there is no debate about 
the need for you all to get busy investing in the dilapidated 
schools.'' We tell children we care next to nothing about them when the 
schools look the way they are.
  The judge's court order in Washington, DC, which dealt with getting 
the asbestos out of our schools, there could be judges issuing these 
orders in just about every major city in the United States of America, 
and we haven't invested the resources in this, and we are now saying 
that the answer is vouchers?
  Mr. President, if we are going to talk about equal opportunity for 
every child, maybe we ought to take a look at what happens to children 
before they go to school and what happens to them when they go home. 
Some of the cuts we have made in nutrition programs--and we have made 
rather deep cuts in nutrition programs; we are going to cut the major 
food safety program, the major safety net, which is the Food Stamp 
Program, by 20 percent by the year 2002 all in the name of welfare 
reform.
  Or, Mr. President, the cuts we have made in affordable housing. Has 
anybody looked at some of the homes, some of the apartments, some of 
the housing that these young children live in? And we are cutting 
funding for affordable housing. We have a lot of kids that are living 
in shacks. We have a lot of kids that are living in rat-infested 
apartments. We have a lot of children that go cold during the winter.
  My colleagues are trying to make the argument that the voucher plan 
is the way we are going to make sure that these children do well. We do 
hardly anything to change the concerns and circumstances of their lives 
outside of the schools. We do hardly anything by way of early childhood 
development. We do next to nothing when it comes to rebuilding these 
crumbling schools. And then we turn around and say what we want to do 
is have a voucher plan.
  Mr. President, my colleague from Connecticut said that he had been in 
some schools. I have been in some of the schools. I know Senator Coats 
has. I don't know anybody that has done more travel around the country 
than Jonathan Kozol who wrote ``Savage Inequalities: Children in 
America's schools.''
  I read from page 83: ``In a country where there is no distinction of 
class,'' written of the United States 130 years ago, ``a child is not 
born to the station of his parents but with an infinite claim to all of 
the prizes that could be won by thought and labor. It is in conformity 
with the theory of equality as near as possible to give to every youth 
an equal state of life. Americans are unwilling that any be deprived in 
childhood the means of competition.''
  It is hard to read these words today without a sense of irony and 
sadness, denial. Means of competition is perhaps the single most 
consistent outcome of the education offered to poor children in the 
schools of our large cities, and nowhere is this pattern of denial more 
explicit or more absolute than public schools in New York City. Average 
expenditures per pupil in the city of New York were under $5,500, and 
in the suburbs you have funding levels that are above $11,000 a year, 
and some cases up to $15,000 a year.
  All across the country, too much of the education the children get by 
way of teacher recruitment and teacher salaries, by way of facilities, 
by way of teacher training, by way of support services, is dependent on 
the property tax--huge inequalities--and we think that the voucher plan 
is the way to deal with this problem?
  My good friend Jonathan Kozol wrote another book called ``Amazing 
Grace,'' poor children and the conscience of America. It is a difficult 
book to read. It is devastating. It is about children in New York City 
in the Bronx. Mr. President, the thesis of the book is that no country 
that really loved children would ever let any group of children grow up 
under these conditions.

  Looking at the housing in the neighborhoods, the rat-infested 
housing, looking at the pollution, looking at the number of children 
suffering from asthma, looking at the lead content still in the paints 
in the apartments, looking at families without jobs, without jobs that 
pay a decent wage, looking at children that are malnourished, looking 
at a school that doesn't get its fair shake of resources, why don't we 
make those commitments if we want to make sure that every child has the 
same chance? The voucher plan nationally and this voucher plan in the 
District of Columbia is not the answer. It is not a step forward. It is 
a great leap backward from the kind of commitment we ought to make to 
children in our country.
  Mr. President, I said to my colleague from Indiana and I meant it 
sincerely, we don't need to be starting to put public money into 
private schools. We have some of the best public schools in the world. 
We have some of the best public schools in the world. Go out to some of 
our suburbs and look at those schools. They are great schools with 
great teachers with great facilities. What we should be doing is making 
all the public schools that good. That is the commitment we ought to 
make.
  One-third of America's schools, serving 14 million of America's 52 
million students, are considered deteriorating, according to the 
Department of Education. Ten million students don't have access to 
computers; 50 percent of the teachers have no experience with 
technology in the classroom; 50,000 teachers enter school annually on 
emergency basis, without a proper teaching license; and within the next 
decade, thanks to a retirement in the baby boom, we will need 2 million 
new teachers, and we are now on the floor of the Senate discussing an 
amendment that would provide resources to private schools.
  Mr. President, Horace Mann said it best in 1830, 170 years ago:

       Choice is not a new idea . . . the newness is who pays for 
     it. As a nation, we are rightly absorbed with improving 
     education. We cannot do it by isolating its problems, and 
     pretending to leave those problems behind to be dealt with by 
     those least able to solve them. The problems of our public 
     schools lie deep in the American experience--poverty, racism, 
     decades of public apathy, drugs, and growing inability of the 
     family, the church, and the neighborhood to nurture many of 
     our children. These problems--and not the attractively 
     sounding solution of private school choice--need to be 
     addressed.

  Mr. President, that is exactly the argument that I just made. Horace 
Mann just happens to be someone of quite a bit more stature. He was 
right in 1830 and the same argument applies today, nearly 170 years 
later.
  You can't take public funds, you can't take public funds, and my 
colleague Eleanor Holmes Norton informs me that indeed this $7 million 
comes out of the D.C. budget, you can't take public funds, precious 
funds, and funnel them to private schools. You have fewer dollars 
helping kids in math and science, you have fewer dollars in terms of 
raising the standards of achievement, you have fewer dollars for 
teacher training, and you have less prevention of drugs and violence in 
the schools. This is not the time to be making such a decision.
  Mr. President, I want to also point out that there is a Senator from 
the District of Columbia, a shadow Senator, Paul Strauss, and it is a 
shame

[[Page S9927]]

that he doesn't get a chance to be more directly involved in this 
debate. He has been by my office a lot. He cares about this. I think 
this has some problem to do with the whole question of lack of 
representation.
  I think we ought to remember that people in D.C, and my colleague 
from Connecticut said it was 1981, but by a ratio of 8 to 1 vote 
against the voucher initiative. If you want to argue that was a long 
time ago, take a look at the D.C. Board of Education which unanimously 
opposes the provision. ``Private school vouchers is not where the 
voters of this city want to put their money,'' D.C. School Board member 
Karen Shook reminds us. ``To have Congress impose this on us after we 
soundly voted against it runs counter to democracy.''
  These are elected members to the school board. They voted unanimously 
one way, and we come to the floor of the Senate and impose a whole 
different other view. I thought we were interested in local initiative. 
I thought we wanted local communities to have more decisionmaking power 
over their children's lives and what happened in their communities.
  Mr. President, I think that if we are going to be talking about 
improving education, the answer is right before us. We have great 
schools in our suburbs. We have some great schools in some of our 
cities. Make all the public schools that way. Make sure that we have a 
system of financing of schools so that not one school in America, not 
one school in America, is dilapidated, not one school in America has a 
roof that is caving in, not one school in America is ladened with 
asbestos, not one school in America has teachers that have to take 
money out of their pockets and buy textbooks for their students because 
there isn't enough resource to do so, not one school in America is a 
school without heat or without air-conditioning during the hot summers. 
Let's make that commitment. Let's make the commitment to early 
childhood development. Let's make the commitment to support services 
for students. Those are the kind of commitments we make, and then we 
can have all of the public schools being great schools. The voucher 
doesn't do that.

  Karen Shook, the vice president of the D.C. Board of Education and 
former Chair of the D.C. Finance Committee said, ``Students in the 
District of Columbia go to school in 100-year-old buildings that have 
never been renovated.'' Why don't we renovate the buildings? The city 
has a $600 million need to repair schools, yet it has no capital 
budget. As for social services for troubled youth, ``only one counselor 
is available for every 400 students'' in the D.C. public schools.
  As D.C. parent and PTA leader Alieze Stallworth points out: ``The 
majority of children are going to remain in the public school system. 
What happens to them?''
  Mr. President, I could go on and on. There are other colleagues who 
want to speak. But let me be clear about this, take the $7 million, and 
for $7 million we could establish ``Success for All,'' a proven 
research-based reading program for disadvantaged students, for every 
elementary school in the District of Columbia. Put the $7 million into 
that.
  We could link 116 public schools in the District of Columbia to 
improve reform efforts such as New American Schools. Put the $7 million 
in that.
  We could put in place 140 after-school programs based in public 
schools to help 14,000 children otherwise home alone after schooldays, 
after school ends each day. Put the $7 million into that.
  We could provide brandnew textbooks for every elementary and 
secondary school student in every single the District of Columbia 
school. Put the $7 million into that.
  We could buy 66,000 new hardcover books for the District of 
Columbia's public libraries, or we could buy 368 new boilers for D.C. 
schools and protect all the students who go cold during the winter. Put 
the $7 million into that.
  I am going to be very clear about it. I will try to end on another 
note. I think that my colleagues are onto something important. I think 
this amendment is a huge mistake. I think it actually represents a 
retreat from living up to our national vow of equal opportunity for 
every child. I think the focus ought to be on all of our schools and 
all of our children. We ought to make sure that every school in this 
country, including the schools in the District of Columbia and a lot of 
other cities in the country, and rural areas as well, are as good as 
the very best school in some of our wealthy suburbs that have all the 
resources and teachers that they can hire and all the teachers they can 
retain and all of the support services and all of the rest. That is the 
direction we ought to be going in.
  The voucher plan represents a retreat from that. But I want to say to 
my colleagues on the floor of the Senate, these Senators, with this 
amendment, are operating in good faith. They are not operating in bad 
faith. I probably should not end this way because I am so strongly 
opposed to the amendment. But I really do want to sort of talk about 
two points that I think they are making that are important. One of them 
is that, although, again, the per pupil expenditure in the District of 
Columbia, as I look at these figures, which has been declining now, is 
now down to $5,923 for fiscal year 1998, that is not nearly as much as 
the surrounding suburbs. So I don't think we should go overboard on 
these figures, given the concerns and circumstances of children's lives 
and, in many ways, a bigger challenge to educate some of the children 
in the D.C. school system. Nevertheless, I think it is quite 
appropriate to say, when are we going to cut through this bureaucracy 
and when are we going to make sure that these dollars that are out 
there really connect to the education of children?
  I think what my colleagues are trying to say is that they have grown 
very impatient, they are getting tired of waiting. I share that 
impatience. I just would do it a whole different way. I would put a lot 
more investment than I think they want to in what happens to kids in 
the early years, investment in good programs for kids when they get out 
of school in the middle of the day when not such good things happen. I 
would put a whole lot more investment in teacher training and a whole 
lot more investment in making sure that the best facilities and 
resources and the schools are inviting places. That is where I would 
go. I would figure out ways--and I think the District of Columbia is 
starting to do it--of really making this bureaucracy accountable. I 
would not be condemning the public school teachers--and they are not 
doing that. I get angry because I think some of the harshest critics of 
the public school teachers could not last 1 hour in the classrooms they 
condemn.
  I spoke the other night at Howard University. In the audience was a 
public school teacher, and she said it is really hard to go on. They 
feel so beaten down from all of the bashing. I think these public 
school teachers do a marvelous job. I understand my colleagues' 
impatience.
  Second, I think it is true that some of the private schools, and some 
of the Catholic schools in particular, in some of our innercity 
communities are schools where, when children come to school every day, 
they know they are loved and some very important things are happening. 
They are doing some things in their schools that we are not doing 
nearly as well as we should do in some of our public schools. It can't 
be said that children in our public schools, or in near enough public 
schools, feel as if every day they are loved and they are supported. 
There are some important things going on in the Catholic schools. There 
are important things going on in some of these other schools that I 
think make a huge difference.
  But, Mr. President, this voucher plan, in the context of what is 
happening nationally, and even in the context of what is happening in 
the District of Columbia, however well-intentioned it is, I think does 
not represent a step forward. I think it represents a great leap 
backward from equity. It represents a great leap backward from the idea 
of truly equal opportunity for every child, and it represents the 
beginning of a great leap backward from a commitment to public schools, 
where all of the schools and all of the children represent the best of 
America, which is opportunity, which is good education, education that 
fires up young people, that gives them hope that they can do well in 
their lives. That is the direction we ought to go. This voucher 
proposal, in the District of Columbia or anywhere else, doesn't take us 
in that direction.

[[Page S9928]]

  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I would like to yield myself 3 minutes to 
briefly respond to the Senator. I know the Senator from Rhode Island 
has been waiting patiently. I don't want to take away from his 
opportunity. We have speakers on our side, too. The Senator from Rhode 
Island is next in line.
  I want to respond to some comments made by the Senator from 
Minnesota, to whom I want to return the compliment. The Senator from 
Minnesota has been passionate in his efforts to reach out to the 
disadvantaged in this country and address many of their concerns. I 
know he comes at this issue--even though it is different from where I 
come in terms of the solution, I think the goals are the same for both 
of us. I know he comes at it from a different perspective, but with 
great sincerity, and he matches his sincerity and his rhetoric with his 
actions. I noted that the Senator came and paid rapt attention to 
particularly the comments by the Senator from Connecticut, Senator 
Lieberman. Senator Wellstone and I have discussed this and have 
exchanged our views. I just appreciate the Senator's commitment to this 
and his sincerity about that commitment.
  I would like to comment on a couple of things briefly. There have 
been different figures thrown around here about per pupil spending in 
the District of Columbia. We have tried mightily to find out the exact 
figures. Estimates range from $10,000 to $5,000, as the Senator has 
mentioned. It is probably somewhere in between. One of the sad things 
about the D.C. Public School System is that they can't tell us. The 
accounting is so bad in the District of Columbia--whether it is on 
roads, housing, police salaries, or public schools--they can't tell us 
how much they spend per pupil. They can't even tell us the number of 
pupils. We said, ``We know how much we give you; tell us the number of 
pupils you are educating, and we will divide that into how much we give 
you.'' They say, ``We don't know exactly. We can't tell you the number 
of pupils.'' That is kind of a sorry comment on the inefficiency and 
really incompetence of the D.C. Public School System as it currently 
exists.
  Just two other things, real quickly. I want to make sure my 
colleagues know that the money--the $7 million for this program --does 
not take one penny out of the money allocated to the D.C. public 
schools for education. In fact, it will increase the money per pupil 
because they will have 2,000 less students to divide the pot of money 
they get to educate those students. The money comes from an extra 
appropriation over and above the President's request, and that money is 
specifically designated for debt reduction and doesn't go to any 
operating expenses. So Delegate Norton is wrong when she says this 
comes out of textbooks, teacher salaries, and operating expenses. It 
doesn't come out of operating expenses; not one penny less will go to 
D.C. schools.
  Finally, let me just say the Senator seems to imply that if we can't 
fix it all, we should not fix anything. We acknowledge that there are a 
lot of things that need to be fixed in the District of Columbia and 
around this country. Housing is in deplorable shape, roads are in 
deplorable shape, early childhood education probably could use funds, 
food stamps and, as he said, fix the buildings, and so forth. Well, we 
are not able to do everything, but we are able to do something, 
something that is focused not on fixing roofs, not on collateral 
problems--and they are problems that need to be addressed--but we are 
able to funnel funds directly to parents and students who can improve 
their educational opportunities. As important as it is to fix roofs, 
buildings, infrastructure, and so forth, more important and the highest 
priority ought to be to provide education to those children so that 
they then can become part of the solution.

  Maybe this 3 percent will become part of the 100 percent solution, if 
they can get an education that would allow them to participate in this. 
If we were talking about public housing, which is in a disastrous state 
in this country, particularly in this city, and someone came along with 
an alternative that was tried elsewhere and would really improve the 
housing situation, and we said, can we test it here to see if it works 
here and it will improve housing for those 2,000 people? would you say, 
no, if we can't do the whole thing, we are not going to do it for 
anybody?
  All we are asking for is a test that will help 2,000 kids get a 
better education, but will prove, right or wrong, whether or not school 
choice is a viable opportunity and viable program to do two things: 
First, give kids a chance and, second, put pressure on the public 
school system to reform and change. They have had decades to do this. 
We keep talking about these alternate solutions, but it doesn't happen. 
In the meantime, generations of children are being condemned to an 
inadequate education.
  Mr. President, how much time is available on each side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana has 64 minutes. The 
opposition has 74 minutes.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, we had said Senator Reed, who was waiting, 
is next. We are not exactly alternating because we didn't have people 
available on both sides. If we can get back to the alternating system, 
we would be happy to do that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. REED. I yield myself such time, under the control of Senator 
Kennedy, as I may consume.
  I rise this afternoon in opposition to the Coats-Lieberman amendment. 
I have sensed from the comments of the Senator from Indiana and the 
Senator from Connecticut that they, too, share our mutual frustration 
with the status of public schools in the United States and particularly 
in the District of Columbia. That frustration is forcing us to look at 
ways in which we can improve education because we believe it is so 
vitally important to the future of the young people of America and 
indeed to the very success of America in the future.
  I don't think this frustration should cloud our vision as to what we 
are doing if we would adopt an amendment such as is proposed today. I 
believe it would represent an abandonment of public education, not a 
reform of public education. I feel very strongly that our first 
commitment should be to a strong system of public education throughout 
this Nation, that we should be seeking to make school reform and 
excellent schools the right of every child and not just those who may 
be fortunate enough to receive some type of voucher to leave the 
system.
  Indeed, we can ask ourselves, even if this measure should pass and 
2,000 children would leave the public education system in the District 
of Columbia, what about the thousands of children remaining? What have 
we done to make their lives better and their education better? I don't 
think we can save a few and sacrifice the many. I think what we have to 
do is sit down, conscientiously and cooperatively, and reform public 
education, not abandon it.
  Now, the District of Columbia, as we all know, has stark educational 
needs. Their class year was delayed for days and days and days, not 
because of anything more complicated than the fact that the buildings 
were in disrepair. Yet, rather than investing in roofs or boilers or 
those items that would actually put children literally into the 
classroom, we are now debating a voucher bill that would take some of 
those resources that could be available for these activities and 
disburse them to private education. Indeed, I believe we have a special 
obligation here in the Nation's Capital to ensure that the schools are 
the best in the country. However, we are not talking about that today. 
Instead, we are talking about allowing 2,000 students to leave that 
system, rather than talking about how we can make every school in the 
District of Columbia the best in this country and in the world, and how 
we can give every child in the District of Columbia the chance to 
succeed educationally so that they can succeed in life.
  The amendment offered by Senators Coats and Lieberman brings the 
issue of the quality of education, particularly education in many of 
our urban areas, clearly into focus. For that, we thank them. It is a 
crisis we must address, but a crisis that I believe is not solved by 
vouchers. Vouchers would take the limited resources necessary to 
improve, reform, and reinvigorate public education and, instead, allow 
some students to leave the system.

[[Page S9929]]

  Indeed, as part of this amendment which is being debated today there 
is absolutely no requirement that schools accepting the vouchers would 
also have to accept the great task of public education, which is to 
educate all students regardless of their abilities, regardless of their 
proficiency in the English language, regardless of discipline problems 
or troubles they may have. This is the task we set for public 
education. That is not the task that is frequently embraced or 
supported by private education.
  In Cleveland, which has a voucher program, no students with 
disabilities are served. 1,460 students, nearly half of those that were 
given the vouchers, could not even find a private school that would 
accept them. The essence of a private school very clearly is they get 
to reject students, and they get to reject them on very subjective 
grounds. That is the nature of private education. That does not apply, 
obviously, to public education. Public education not only must accept 
every child but has a moral and legal requirement to serve those 
children as best they can. And that is a significant difference.
  Private education works very, very well. It has provided good 
education to many Americans. I was a student in parochial schools in 
Rhode Island. But one thing that was true then and is true now when I 
talk to parents is that, if your child has a particular difficulty or 
disability, if your child needs enhanced care, specialized attention, 
the first choice is specifically the public schools because the public 
school not only has the obligation but will make available those 
resources as best they can. And, once again, in the arena of private 
schools it is not because of any ill-will but simply because of the 
fact that they just do not have to do that.
  So we are talking about a system in which there is not equality, not 
equality admission, and in many cases not equality of resources either.
  We have to support the mission of public education in the United 
States, and it is not just about training workers for the world 
economy. It is not just preparing young people to engage in the 
technologically challenging world of the next century. It is also about 
Americans, because one of the hallmarks of our country has always been 
that we have a system of public education that is a common ground for 
the American people--that children of all races, children of different 
national heritage, children of different religious convictions can come 
and be educated in a place that emphasizes not their differences but 
their common status as citizens of this great Republic.
  We are in danger perhaps of losing that. We are in danger because 
there is a great deal of skepticism about the effectiveness of public 
education in the United States. And, looking at the record, one should 
be skeptical. But we should not respond to that skepticism and that 
frustration today by turning our back on public education. Rather, we 
should look at the way we can make public education better for all 
students. What we should be thinking about and talking about and 
enacting is tough academic standards in public education.
  How do we involve parents and the community more deeply and more 
intimately in the lives and schools in the neighborhood? How do we make 
schools safe and drug free? How do we bring technology into every 
classroom? And how do we ensure that every classroom is a place that is 
structurally sound, clean, and creates an environment where young 
people want to learn and want to strive to get ahead?
  The notion of school choice in the public education system is a good 
one. Parents should have some flexibility within the public system to 
pick out charter schools, magnet schools, or special schools. Those 
types of schools help stimulate innovation and improvement in the 
public system.
  In my home State of Rhode Island we are fortunate to have several 
different schools, particularly at the secondary level which draw on 
the special talents and special skills of the students and which give 
parents and students a choice. But when we start moving away from that 
system of public education into funded private education, funded now by 
these vouchers, we are stepping across a boundary which I think we will 
regret because inevitably we will be pulling resources away from the 
needed improvements and reforms in public education, and we will see 
our schools deteriorate even further.

  There is a better way to reform education.
  If you look at schools which have the same basic demographic 
characteristics, one of the most persuasive comments that I have seen 
is that the difference in performance between a good school and a bad 
school is most accounted for by the qualifications of their teachers. 
We are not talking about dealing with that issue of teacher preparation 
here today. We are skirting it, where, in fact, I think if we have 
scarce Federal dollars, and, indeed, we do have scarce Federal dollars 
in every category of expenditures, we have to look at where we can get 
our best value. And it is not balanced. It would be better spent, I 
feel, in improving the quality of teaching in our public schools.
  I introduced legislation--the Teacher Excellence in America Challenge 
Act, the TEACH Act--which would turn around the model of professional 
development and training in the United States to provide for better 
teachers. This legislation is based upon an extensive study by the 
National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, which contains 
some disheartening statistics about the quality and preparation of 
teachers in America.
  Over 12 percent of newly hired teachers have no training; 23 percent 
of all secondary teachers do not have even a minor in their main 
teaching field; and in schools with the highest minority enrollment, 
students have less than a 50 percent chance of getting a science or 
mathematics teacher who holds a license and degree in his or her field 
of teaching.
  These are the real problems of public education. These problems have 
to be addressed. And we can address them, and we must address them. If 
we do that we will be on much firmer ground in improving public 
education.
  What is the price tag, as estimated by the National Commission on 
Teaching and America's Future, for improving the quality of teachers 
throughout this country? It is over $4 billion. It may seem 
inconsequential today. We are debating a very small program with 
respect to the District of Columbia.
  But we need all the resources we can to meet the greater challenge of 
preparing our teachers and the greater challenge of simply ensuring 
that school buildings are suitable and safe for children.
  To turn away from these challenges and to adopt this amendment is, I 
believe, the wrong approach.
  I believe we have a lot to do to improve public education. We have 
the necessary task ahead of us to improve teaching, to improve the 
school environment, and to challenge schools with demanding standards.
  I also hope that this body will adopt a national evaluation system so 
that schools know where they stand, and so that when we talk about how 
well a school is doing it is not just anecdotal, but we will actually 
know how well they are doing.
  In fact, I hope that the national evaluations would be participated 
in by both public and private schools so we can make a judgment about 
how well the public schools are doing versus private schools. I think 
we would be a bit surprised. I think we would find despite the 
disparagement, despite the criticism, despite the constant bombardment 
against public education, that it would stand up very well. But we all 
can do better, and we all must do better.
  The dollars that we are talking about today are important. They 
should be applied to provide every student in the District of Columbia 
with a chance--not 2,000 lucky students--but every student in the 
District of Columbia. They should be focused not on retreating from our 
commitment to public education but to reaffirming it by assuring every 
child in this District, and we hope in this country, will have a good, 
safe school building; they will have well-prepared and motivated 
teachers; they will have textbooks that are current; and, they will 
have the chance to use all their talents not only for their own success 
but ultimately for the great success of this Nation.

  I yield my time.
  Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the 
Senator from Missouri.

[[Page S9930]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Indiana for his 
having made it possible for me to stand and speak in favor of this very 
important opportunity to demonstrate what can happen when we offer 
individuals the chance to have competition, or the chance to have an 
influence on where our children are educated.
  It is one of the agreed upon successes of the United States of 
America that our university and college system is second to none. 
Students from all over the world stream into American colleges and 
universities, and they come here in spite of the fact that they test 
very, very well in elementary and secondary systems in their own lands. 
They come here because there is something special about the collegiate 
and university level in the United States.
  If I were asked why our collegiate system is tops, I would say, in my 
judgment, that it is because it is a pluralistic system; that it is 
diverse. There is no singularity with it. No one is scheduled to go to 
one school or another. Rather, people have an opportunity to make a 
selection. And students compete to get into the best schools and the 
best schools compete for faculty. There is lots of competition in the 
system. It drives the system forward. It provides a basis for not only 
education and learning on the part of students but it really develops 
the energy which provides the basis for research which is expanding the 
frontiers of knowledge all the time.
  This concept of diversity, this concept of pluralism, this concept of 
not being forced to be in one setting, this concept of the energy and 
creativity, spontaneity and quality that comes when an institution 
knows it has to do its best for its students because those students 
aren't forced to go there. They are not locked in. They have the 
opportunity to be involved in educational experiences elsewhere. That 
is what drives quality. It is what has carried American higher 
education to the very top of the educational mountain. There is no 
dispute. There is no challenger. Second place isn't even close. The 
United States of America is the clear dominant force in higher 
education because we are pluralistic, because we are diverse, and no 
one has a monopoly.
  On the contrary, if you are a student and you have one choice and one 
choice alone, the word ``one'' and the word ``choice'' Is an oxymoron; 
that phrase together. One choice isn't a choice. It is a direction. 
Students that are locked into a single school don't have the capacity 
to say I am going to do better, I will go elsewhere. They don't have 
the capacity to say if you do not shape this place up, I will go 
elsewhere. They don't have the capacity to energize the system. A 
parent doesn't have the ability to go into the school and say you must 
do better. The school says we are the only school. You have one choice. 
One choice is no choice.
  What we are really offering to individuals who have been locked into 
a school system which has failed--I think it is time for us to confess, 
the school system in Washington, DC, is a failure--is a plan to help 
energize this school system. It will help the public sector. It will 
help the private sector. But, most importantly, it will help students 
and parents.
  When I had the privilege of being the Governor of my State, I was 
chairman of the Education Commission of the States. I followed in that 
responsibility one William Jefferson Clinton, who presided over the 
Education Commission of the States 1 year; I the next. And one of the 
things that became apparent in studies conducted from sea to shining 
sea in this country is that the single most important thing about a 
student's performance is whether the parents are involved in the 
education process. How do you get parents involved? You make them 
meaningful. How can you make parents meaningful in Washington, DC? You 
can give them the opportunity together with the student to make a 
choice to go to a school where their needs can be met instead of 
locking them into a situation where their needs aren't being met and 
have not been met. And it is a demonstrated fact--the studies tell it, 
the audits tell it, the school facilities tell it--that the needs 
aren't being met.

  Unfortunately, our Secretary of Education has come out to oppose this 
program providing scholarships so that students could move from one 
school to another and get good training somewhere if they are not 
getting it where they are. And he indicated he was opposing it because 
he felt like it was reducing the funding.
  Let me just repeat. This particular measure reduces funding not 1 
cent. It adds funding to just introduce the concept of scholarships and 
to put into the hands of parents and students the ability to say we 
will go where our needs are met. Will this help the District of 
Columbia schools? It definitely will because they will understand they 
are no longer the exclusive provider of whatever it is they want to 
provide. They will have to start becoming the creative supplier of what 
it is that students need. Will it help the students? Obviously, it will 
help the students. It will get their parents involved. It will get them 
involved. It will meet their needs. And we will establish a model here 
in the District of Columbia, in the Nation's Capital, which in my 
judgment would well serve the entire country.
  It is true that pluralism and diversity are the strength of this 
great land. They have carried our collegiate system and our research 
universities to the very top in education around the globe. It would be 
no accident if we were to allow this to happen at the elementary and 
secondary level. And it could happen if we were to simply embrace the 
opportunity of letting parents make meaningful choices. One choice is 
an oxymoron. One choice is no choice at all. It is a trap. It is time 
to free students and parents to have an opportunity to select schools 
that can meet their needs and do so without impairing the financial 
viability and capacity of the District of Columbia school system in the 
process.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself such time as I may need.
  Mr. President, I oppose the voucher amendment to the District of 
Columbia appropriations bill. Although we all want to help the 
District's children get a good education, this is not the way to do it. 
Public funds should be used for public schools, not to pay for students 
to attend private and religious schools.
  The current debate involves the schools in the District of Columbia. 
The use of Federal funds for private schools is a national issue that 
Congress has addressed and rejected many times before, and so have many 
States. Now the voucher proponents are attempting to make the D.C. 
public schools a guinea pig for a scheme that voters in the District of 
Columbia have soundly rejected, and so have voters across the country.
  The recent voucher proposals in the States of Washington and Colorado 
and California lost by over 2 to 1 margins, and in 1981 voters defeated 
a voucher initiative by a ratio of 8 to 1 here in the District. The 
concept has never been brought up on the ballot again because it has so 
little support. So clearly Congress should not impose on the District 
of Columbia what the people of the District of Columbia and voters 
across the country reject.
  D.C. parents and ministers and local leaders have made it clear that 
they do not want vouchers. Last week, a group of ministers from the 
District of Columbia publicly announced their opposition to vouchers. 
Rev. Eart Trent, Jr., of the Florida Avenue Baptist Church, said, ``We 
want nothing to do with vouchers. It is going to harm a majority of our 
schools.'' Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton opposes vouchers for 
the District.
  The question is, who wants these vouchers? The Republicans in 
Congress cannot get to first base with this issue in their own States 
and want to impose it on the people of the District of Columbia.
  Vouchers would erode local control in the District of Columbia and 
undermine D.C. school reforms already underway. Last year, Congress 
created a control board and all but eliminated the locally elected 
school board.
  This bill would create another bureaucracy in the form of a federally 
appointed corporation to use Federal funds to run the voucher program. 
Six out of the seven corporation members would be nominated by the 
Federal

[[Page S9931]]

Government, and those nominations are controlled by the Republican 
leaders of Congress. Only one representative of D.C. would serve on the 
corporation.
  I understand Senator Boxer did an excellent job earlier in the debate 
of going through the administrative process and machinery that would be 
set up and the weaknesses of that particular recommendation or 
inclusion in the amendment.
  Congress created the D.C. control board less than a year ago. The 
board appointed as chief executive officer of the schools Gen. Julius 
Becton, Jr., with Congress' endorsement. His mission is to improve the 
public schools. Now this bill would pull the rug out from under him.
  I noted, Mr. President, that in an earlier debate one of our 
colleagues who is supporting the amendment was talking about the $500 
million that is coming from taxpayers all over the country. That money 
is coming from the taxpayers here in the District of Columbia.
  I haven't looked at the D.C. population recently, but generally it is 
larger than six or seven of our States. They pay in taxes, but they do 
not have representation in the House, with all respect to Eleanor 
Holmes Norton. They are not reflected in the Senate of the United 
States. They are not given the full representation that they should 
have even in the District.
  So General Becton, Mr. President, local leaders and D.C. parents are 
working hard to improve all D.C. public schools for all children. We 
should support them, not undermine them. The public funds should not go 
to private schools when D.C. public schools have such urgent needs. The 
opening of D.C. public schools for the 1997-1998 academic year was 
delayed because in 67 percent of the schools the roofs were crumbling. 
They were able to repair the most severe problems and open up the 
schools this week, but much more needs to be done.

  In addition to completing the roof repairs, 65 percent of them have 
faulty plumbing; 41 percent of the schools do not have enough power 
outlets and electric wiring to accommodate computers and other needed 
technology; and 66 percent of the schools have inadequate heating, 
ventilation and air conditioning. Funding these repairs should be our 
top priority, not conducting a foolish ideological experiment on school 
vouchers.
  Another serious problem with the private school voucher is the 
exclusionary policy of the private schools. Scarce Federal dollars 
should not go to schools that can exclude children. There is no 
requirement in the bill that schools receiving vouchers accept students 
with limited English proficiency, students with disabilities, homeless 
students or students with disciplinary problems.
  Scarce funds should be targeted to public schools which do not have 
the luxury of closing their doors to students who pose such challenges. 
As District of Columbia parent Alieze Stallworth says, ``A lot of 
people think the poor kids will be able to go to the best private 
schools. They are fooling themselves.''
  The voucher proponents argue that vouchers increase the choice for 
parents. But parental choice is a mirage. Private schools apply 
different rules than public schools, and unlike the public schools, 
which must accept all children, the private schools decide whether to 
accept a child or not. The real choice goes to the schools, not the 
parents. The better the private school, the more parents and students 
are turned away. In Cleveland, nearly half of the public school 
students who received the vouchers could not find a private school that 
would accept them.
  Vouchers will not help most children who need help. This voucher 
scheme will send 2,000 children to private and parochial schools, but 
of the 78,000 children who attend D.C. public schools, 50,000 of the 
children, or 65 percent, come from low-income families. Thus, this 
proposal would provide vouchers for 3 percent of D.C.'s children and do 
nothing for the other 97 percent.
  Again, a point that has been well made by my friend and colleague 
from California, Senator Boxer.
  This is no way to spend Federal dollars. We should invest in 
strategies that help all children, not just a few.
  Another serious objection to this voucher scheme is its 
unconstitutionality. A vast majority of private schools that charge 
tuition below $3,200 are religious schools. Providing vouchers to 
religious schools is unconstitutional. It violates the establishment 
clause of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution by providing a 
Federal subsidy for sectarian schools. In many States, the voucher 
schemes would violate the State constitution, too.
  In January 1997, a Wisconsin trial court held that the expansion of 
the Milwaukee voucher program to include religious schools was 
unconstitutional and violated the Wisconsin constitution. The court 
stated, ``We do not object to the existence of parochial schools or 
that they attempt to spread their beliefs through the schools. They 
just cannot do it with State dollars.''
  On August 22, the Wisconsin State Court of Appeals affirmed by a 2 to 
1 vote that the expansion of the State voucher program to include 
religious schools was unconstitutional under the Wisconsin 
constitution.
  On May 1, 1997, the Ohio Tenth Appellate Court unanimously reversed 
the trial court's decision to allow public money to be paid to 
religious schools. The appellate court held that the voucher program 
violated the separation of church and state under both the United 
States and Ohio Constitutions. And the court ruled that the voucher 
program ``steers aid to sectarian schools, resulting in what amounts to 
a direct Government subsidy.''

  On June 27, 1997, a Vermont State superior court held that the use of 
vouchers to pay tuition at private religious schools violates both the 
U.S. and Vermont constitutions. The courts are clear on the 
unconstitutionality of vouchers for religious schools, and Congress 
should abide by their rules, too.
  These are all judgments that have been made within the last year 
under State constitutions and the Federal Constitution in terms of how 
this particular proposal would be unconstitutional.
  Instead of subsidizing private schools, we need to support ways to 
improve and reform the public schools. That is the basic point, Mr. 
President. Instead of subsidizing private schools, we need to support 
ways to improve and reform the public schools--not in a few schools but 
in all schools, not for a few students but for all students. That is 
the challenge.
  Supporting a few children at the expense of the many divides 
communities. The Federal Government should help rebuild communities, 
not undermine them. We should make investments that help all children 
in all the neighborhood schools to get a good, safe education. I think 
that is the heart of the argument against this amendment.
  So far, Mr. President, in this debate, we have been focusing on this 
particular chart. Hopefully, we as a body could agree that we do not 
want to abandon our public schools; we do not want to undermine the 
communities. As we mentioned, this particular proposal only funds a few 
at the expense of many--about 3 percent of the total students. It gives 
scarce Federal dollars to schools that can exclude children. Unlike the 
public school system, private schools can exclude children. The choice 
is not made by the parents or the children; it is made by the schools. 
And we have given examples of how that is being done. We ignore the 
voter will. When vouchers were put to a vote here in the District of 
Columbia, they were rejected 8 to 1. The issue has not come up on the 
ballot again since then. All the public commentary by religious and 
other elected officials reflects that same position even today. And 
vouchers raise the constitutional problems which have been addressed, 
Mr. President, not just academically but in several States which have 
tried to adopt similar kinds of programs.
  Many of us feel that the use of vouchers to subsidize parents who 
send their children to private schools is a serious mistake because it 
is a statement that encourages parents to abandon the public schools, 
not to work to improve them.
  Vouchers are a bad idea for school reform, but they are far from the 
only idea, and what I want to do, Mr. President, is review briefly a 
number of the ideas that have been working here in the District of 
Columbia to improve the academic achievement of many

[[Page S9932]]

students. These ideas serve as an alternative to the unwise proposal to 
provide vouchers.
  There are many worthwhile ideas for reform that deserve broad support 
in Congress. I have listened to the debate, and people are just 
throwing up their hands and saying, ``We have problems in these 
schools. Let's just try vouchers,'' rather than being serious and 
looking at what is being attempted in many of these schools and what 
results they are achieving, evaluating where this additional money 
could go to benefit the most children. That is the test, I would think, 
that this voucher amendment fails.
  So we know what works, Mr. President, in school reform. We know what 
teachers need to do to do their jobs well. We need higher standards, 
better trained teachers, up-to-date classrooms, safe facilities. These 
are commonsense, doable solutions, and we ought to be doing much more 
to implement them.
  For example, Milwaukee taxpayers have spent $7 million on the voucher 
program. The program shows no academic gains for the 1,600 students 
involved. But for that same amount they could have put what they call a 
Success For All Program in place, which has a solid track record of 
helping poor children learn more. And it would have benefited every 
elementary school in that city.
  Instead of spending $7 million in the District of Columbia on a 
private school subsidy that has no proven track record of improving 
academic achievement and could help at most 2,000 children, we should 
investigate the strategies that work for all children. The conclusion 
is obvious. We should choose the 100-percent solution, not the 3-
percent solution.
  Some D.C. schools have already restructured their facilities, 
improved teacher training, extended the school day, and enhanced 
family-centered learning. And they are getting results. We should make 
sure that every school and community has the resources to put into 
practice what works, so that no child is left out or left behind.
  There are serious problems in the Nation's public schools--especially 
in urban areas. We can do much more to turn troubled schools around, 
and undertake a wide range of proven reforms to create and sustain safe 
and high-performing schools. There are no panaceas to improve schools 
and improve student learning. There is no blank check. That is why we 
need to use our limited resources wisely, to get the most benefit for 
our tax dollars.
  Improving student performance starts with a focus on the basics--
safety, discipline, high standards, and parent involvement. Sustained 
improvement must be based on what works, and what is supported by 
parents, educators, and the larger community. Research shows that 
student achievement can best be improved by supporting a comprehensive 
set of district-level and school-level reforms. General Becton's plan 
supports these reforms, and we should too.
  I refer up here to restructuring the whole school. Let me just 
develop that.
  Greater school autonomy, when coupled with performance 
accountability, can contribute to conditions that make better learning 
possible. School leaders and teachers can exercise greater control over 
their school and have a greater sense of personal responsibility for 
its success. If teachers are to act as professionals and not as robots, 
they need to be given responsibility for making professional decisions 
regarding classroom practice and school policy. Holding students to 
higher standards requires that adults accept higher responsibility for 
improving student performance.
  The Walker Jones Elementary School in northwest Washington is working 
with the Laboratory for Student Success using Community for Learning, a 
research-based reform model--and it's working. The concept is called 
whole school reform. With increased and more intensive teacher training 
in proven methods and materials geared toward better student learning, 
student test scores have improved. After 6 months in the program, the 
school raised its ranking in the District on reading scores from 99th 
in 1996, to 36th in 1997. In math, the school climbed from 81st in the 
District to 18th--dramatic, significant academic achievement and 
performance.
  Another result of this reform will be increased accountability 
throughout the D.C. school system, with better performance measures and 
clear incentives and consequences for administrators, teachers, and 
students. Evaluations of teachers and principals will be tied to 
achievement, and schools that fail to demonstrate improvement will be 
put on probation.
  The principles of Success for All have now been introduced into 475 
schools in 31 States. Evaluations show that students in this program 
tend to perform about 3 months ahead of control students by the end of 
first grade and by more than a year ahead by the end of fifth grade.
  What we are finding out in 475 schools across the country is that the 
impact that this approach is having in improving academic performance 
is not just on one or two children in a class, but on all the children. 
This is the kind of thing we should give attention to and give support 
to.
  A second basic principle of school reform involves organizing schools 
around a clearer focus on educational excellence for all students, and 
an academic orientation that challenges all students to master basic 
and advanced skills in reading, math, and other core subjects.
  The voucher program flunks this test. Five years of evaluations by 
Prof. John F. Witte of the University of Wisconsin-Madison show no 
achievement difference between voucher students and comparable 
Milwaukee public school students.
  By contrast, in the D.C. public schools, under a new promotion policy 
beginning this school year, students in grades three and eight must 
have at least basic reading skills before advancing to a higher grade. 
This requirement reflects a new commitment by the District to ensure 
that all children master their basic studies. The District has mandated 
a 90 minute literacy period for direct instruction each day and 
suggested additional silent reading times each day. That is giving 
emphasis, giving priority in local schools to the area that is basic to 
learning any other possible subject matter, and that is reading. With 
all respect to computer--reading.
  In addition to mastering basic skills, children need to be challenged 
with a rigorous curriculum. One of the most effective choices that 
parents and students can make is to choose to take more challenging 
academic courses.
  It works. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that public school 
reform efforts that include high standards and rigorous courses can 
improve achievement for the majority of students in the public schools. 
States and local communities that have set more challenging standards 
are seeing substantial gains in student achievement.
  New York City's College preparatory initiative, mandating more 
rigorous science and mathematics courses, has resulted in the best-
prepared class to enter the City University of New York since 1970. 
Elementary schools in the city are showing a 4-year rise in test 
scores. The number of Hispanic and black students who pass the science 
test more than doubled between 1993 and 1994. There are the result. The 
whole class is moving up. The whole entry class for the City College of 
New York is moving up in academic achievement, based on this particular 
New York College preparatory initiative.
  A great deal of attention has been paid this fall to the problem of 
roof repairs in the D.C. public schools. Far less attention has been 
paid to the fact that beginning this fall all public schools in the 
District will have new content and higher performance standards to 
define what every child in expected to learn and do. D.C. public 
schools are committed to helping all children meet these standards.
  The second point is foster world-class instruction. In addition, in 
order for students' performance to improve, teachers must be able to 
teach to higher standards. They must know the content of the curriculum 
and the best teaching methods for helping students to learn in 
genuinely challenging courses.
  Teachers today, however, are not getting the training they need. One 
of the best programs we have, the Eisenhower Math-Science Training 
Program--a hands-on program to upgrade the skills of teachers in our 
high schools--has

[[Page S9933]]

just been block granted under the Gorton amendment, just been wiped off 
the books. We don't know what they are going to do with that money when 
it is distributed all over the country, but we know what a difference 
that funding makes to every one of those math and science teachers in 
every one of those communities that have benefited from this valuable 
teacher training program.
  Math and science students in inner-city schools have only a 50-
percent chance of being taught by a teacher qualified to teach these 
subjects.
  Seven years ago, 53 percent of D.C. teachers were not certified. By 
last year, the number had dropped to 33 percent. In 1997, all new 
teachers are certified, and existing teachers must be certified by 
January 1998 or risk dismissal.
  Extending the school day can also be effective. In addition to 
helping in education, it can also help to create safe havens for 
students in unsafe neighborhoods.
  A recent report by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 
Prevention shows that while violent youth crime is rising rapidly, 
children are safer in schools than anywhere else. To create a safer, 
more disciplined, and drug-free environment for children, we need to 
place more emphasis on hours spent outside school. After school 
programs that keep children off the street are a powerful and 
constructive answer to the serious problems of delinquency that plague 
so many communities. I would say even with regard to unwanted teenage 
pregnancies, the Centers for Disease Control's study shows that about 
65 or 70 percent of these incidents take place in the after-school 
hours.
  This step can work effectively even in individual schools. At the 
Spingarn School in northeast Washington, the principal made student 
safety the first priority. Mr. President, 740 students attend the 
after-school day program and 500 students attend the night program. The 
school was a safe haven for students.
  Drug and violence prevention programs also keep students focused on 
learning. Students who break school rules are not dumped on the street 
where they are likely to become perpetrators or victims of violence. 
Instead, they are placed in separate programs in the school where their 
education is not interrupted.
  We also know that the more time children spend learning, the more 
they will learn. Programs that extend the school day or the school week 
can enhance academic achievement. The District of Columbia has created 
so-called Saturday academies for students who read below grade level. 
The Saturday curriculum reinforces the weekday instruction, and 
benefits from a reduced student-teacher ratio.
  I can remember when those Saturday programs were first suggested and 
the uniform impression was: Why bother with it? People won't show up. 
Parents won't bother. They would rather take the children, if they are 
not working, to do something else.
  That is just hogwash. When those classrooms opened, on Saturday 
especially, parents made sure their children took advantage of it. And 
that has been the case overwhelmingly.
  In the programs that developed with the Saturday curriculum, we have 
seen a much better student-teacher ratio and we have seen extremely 
important progress made.
  Schools in Massachusetts are benefiting from these ideas. The Timilty 
Middle School in Roxbury, MA was long known for its low test scores and 
high rates for suspending students. Project Promise was established, 
including an extended school day program to increase the amount of time 
that students spend in class. School attendance rose, math and reading 
skills improved, and suspension rates dropped significantly. As a 
result, the Timilty Middle School was recently cited as an exemplary 
school by the U.S. Department of Education. It was a dramatic change in 
the turning around of that school.
  Finally, school reform must include greater family involvement. 
Thirty years of research shows that family involvement in children's 
learning is a critical link in achieving a high quality education and 
safe, disciplined learning for every student. Schools can reach out to 
parents and community members. Together they can develop a shared 
commitment to excellence for all students, and work in partnership to 
reach their goals. Family-centered services can be provided that 
include literacy training for parents, and teaching parents how to help 
their children with their homework. When teachers and parents work 
closely together, children can learn more effectively.
  The Nalle School in the District of Columbia and the Freddie Mack 
Foundation are working together to create the District's first full 
service community school to address the wide range of family needs. 
Working with service organizations, parents and educators, and 
community leaders, the school is becoming a major hub of community 
activity, bringing the parents in, finding out what needs the parents 
have, and providing them with the instruments to help and assist the 
children move to higher academic achievement and accomplishment. And it 
is working. It is working if schools and communities have the 
resources.
  Can we have a chance to go through each of these different proposals 
at greater length at another time?
  I know others want to speak to this, and we have limited time this 
afternoon, but we will have a chance to go through this in greater 
detail, I am sure, at some time, Mr. President.
  If schools and communities have the resources to choose effective 
ways, such as these, to ensure all children have an opportunity to 
reach higher academic standards, schools will be able to offer real 
alternatives to students and parents while maintaining the kind of 
accountability that is fundamental to ensure a good education.
  Congress can be part of these efforts, too. Instead of debating 
divisive ideological schemes like vouchers, that undermine the public 
schools and ignore 97 percent of the children, we can invest in what 
works and make school reform work for 100 percent of the children in 
the District of Columbia and in every community.
  Good education begins with decent places to learn. Yet, too many of 
our public schools across the Nation are falling apart, and that is 
wrong.
  I have a chart that reflects exactly what the situation is for the 
District of Columbia. D.C. schools have more hazardous conditions than 
the national average. This chart shows that District of Columbia 
schools' exterior walls and windows fail to meet the minimum standards 
in terms of safety and quality.
  Roof conditions are also much worse than the national average, 
although this number has improved somewhat because of the action that 
has taken place in the past 2 to 3 weeks.
  Heating and ventilation systems in D.C. schools have twice the 
problems that we have for the national average.
  Plumbing, twice the problems.
  Electric lighting, twice the problems that they have.
  Life-safety codes, two and a half, three times the problems that they 
have.
  Power for technology, again, well behind the curve, Mr. President.
  So these problems are severe in the District schools. Sixty-seven 
percent of the public schools have crumbling roofs--although as I 
mentioned, there has been some change in the recent weeks--but only 27 
percent of the schools across the country suffer from the problem.
  I daresay, if you want to look at the national standards, they are 
not all that great. In Boston, there are a number of schools in the 
wintertime, anywhere from 15 to 18 schools, that do not open because of 
various heating problems every day.
  The situation in Boston has improved somewhat under Mayor Menino and 
Tom Payzant. But go to the older towns of New Bedford, Fall River, 
Lowell, Lawrence, Holyoke, Springfield, North Adams, and many of the 
other smaller communities also on the north shore, and you find 
problems similar to those of the D.C. schools.
  So the national average is not a very positive test. Senator Moseley-
Braun has been the leader in the U.S. Senate in recognizing that unless 
facilities are suitable for learning purposes, we disadvantage children 
to such an extraordinary degree. Not just because there are no 
textbooks available or because it is colder in the wintertime, but the 
point that she has made, and I think so powerfully and effectively, is 
what it does to a child who goes into a classroom that is in such a 
state of deterioration. We say education is important.

[[Page S9934]]

 People in the communities say education is important. The children 
every single day go into these dilapidated conditions where they are 
not able to get the school books they need, where the roofs are 
leaking, windows won't close, where they don't have adequate heating, 
where they don't have the electrical outlets for computers. Mr. 
President, what kind of message is it sending to those children when we 
are out there putting increasing demands on those children? That is 
something for which I think we as a society pay a very heavy price. But 
that is another issue for another time.
  The point is, we tried to mention the places the $7 million could be 
used that would enhance the academic achievement and accomplishments of 
a great number of the students.
  The school facilities, as I mentioned, across the country are in poor 
condition. It is a national problem. Water damage from an old boiler 
has caused so much wall deterioration in one D.C. junior high school 
that the entire wing has been condemned. Leaking roofs have been 
causing ceilings to crumble on teachers' and students' desks. Fire 
doors are warped shut. Some schools are sweltering in hot weather 
because they lack air-conditioning. Others are so poorly insulated that 
students must wear coats indoors in the winter.
  According to D.C. public schools, $87 million was needed to make the 
critical repairs necessary to ensure all schools would be ready to open 
for the 1997-98 period. Yet, only $50 million was appropriated to 
repair the schools. Requests for additional funding were initially 
denied by Congress and only made available at the last minute. So 
Congress deserves part of the responsibility for the crisis that was 
caused by the recent 3-week delay in the opening of the schools.
  Isn't that wonderful? Here we are trying to tell the District of 
Columbia what they ought to do with scarce resources, and we were late 
in putting the money up so they could open in the first place, 
disadvantaging all of those children. Mr. President, we do not have a 
good enough record to dictate to the District of Columbia on education 
or on most other items.
  D.C. schools need much more repair. Any funding that we invest should 
be spent on improving the public schools for students. We should not be 
diverting the Federal dollars to pay subsidies for the private schools 
when public schools have such pressing, urgent needs. It is 
preposterous to pretend that we can prepare for the 21st century in 
dilapidated 19th century classrooms.
  Improving educational opportunities for all children deserves the 
highest priority at every level of Government and in every community 
across the Nation. Educating our youth is one of our Nation's most 
important responsibilities. If we fail to make sound investments in 
education, few other investments will make much difference for our 
country and its role in the world in the years ahead.
  In meeting the educational needs of children, we must allocate scarce 
resources wisely. We know what works. We must make sure that every 
child has access to it. We should not give public funds to schools that 
can exclude children. We should invest in public schools so that all 
children have the opportunity for a good education. We should rebuild 
communities, not divide them. Communities across the country are 
working hard to improve their public schools, and Congress should help 
them to do more as well, not make their current troubles worse. We 
should create improved conditions in all schools for all children, and 
we should start with safe buildings, decent roofs, good plumbing, and 
classrooms equipped for the 21st century of learning.
  Mr. President, what could we do with the $7 million? We can improve 
the infrastructure with that $7 million. It could buy 368 new boilers 
for D.C. schools. There are 157 schools, and at least with regard to 
trying to make sure that they have hot water and heating systems, we 
could do much for the D.C. schools.
  We could rewire 65 schools that don't have the capacity to 
accommodate computers and multimedia equipment. We have in the budget 
about $300 million a year for new technology, technology grants to try 
to help assist local communities with new computers. Why don't we go 
ahead and wire some of the schools so at least they will be able to 
participate in these new kinds of technologies? Why don't we train the 
teachers to be able to use those technologies in a way that can 
integrate computers into the curriculum and give these children an 
opportunity so that they are going to be able to compete in the future? 
We could rewire 65 schools.
  We could upgrade the plumbing in 102 schools with substandard 
facilities. We see the problem here, the challenge. We have double the 
problems in just basic fundamental plumbing in the schools. We could 
upgrade the plumbing in over 100 of those schools so that we can make 
some difference, again in terms of infrastructure. That $7 million can 
do a lot for infrastructure.

  What could $7 million do to support other programs that are 
demonstrating enhanced academic achievement? The few that I mentioned--
and at another opportunity, I will go into more detail on some others--
$1 million would buy 66,000 new hard-cover books for the D.C. school 
libraries. That is very important. If you look at what is available in 
those D.C. libraries and compare them to libraries in schools all over 
the country, you will find them dramatically shortchanged. We have a 
real opportunity to make a difference in the libraries of schools all 
over the District, and we could have an important impact in making sure 
that each student is going to have the textbooks which they require in 
the classroom. They don't have those today.
  Here we are talking about spending $7 million to give vouchers to 
2,000 students when the other students who are left back in the 
classroom don't even have the textbooks to be able to follow what is 
going on in the classroom. Maybe we will hear other testimony, I am 
sure we will, about the miracles of vouchers in improving academic 
achievement for students, but I haven't heard any convincing arguments 
made in the course of this debate. To the contrary; we can take 
additional time and demonstrate where the various reviews have failed.
  Mr. President, $1 million would fully fund after-school programs in 
25 schools; $7 million would fund after-school programs in every one of 
the District of Columbia schools and benefit every child--every child--
not just 3 percent; every child.
  In any fair evaluation about what is happening in these after-school 
programs, we must note what a difference these programs have meant, 
when we tie them in to academic help and assistance, in advancing 
students' academic achievements and accomplishments and in improving 
interest in school and attendance rates. The programs are reducing 
absenteeism and keeping children safe and secure and beginning to 
challenge and open up new opportunities of learning for children. You 
would be able to do this with the $7 million for every school in the 
District of Columbia. But, no, we are going to take 3 percent of those 
children and give them a voucher with which they may or may not be able 
to get into some school, not which their parents are going to be able 
to get them into, or not that the child is going to be able to get 
into, but the school is going to make that judgment and decision.
  Mr. President, $3.5 million would link 58 more schools to research, 
improving designs and improving day-to-day instructions. Those are the 
other kinds of programs that I referred to earlier in my comments.
  I certainly hope that this amendment will not be accepted. We too 
often around here look for easy answers to tough, complicated problems. 
Recently, if we find out we have a problem, more often than not we 
propose a constitutional amendment to deal with it. We have more 
constitutional amendments pending in the Judiciary Committee in this 
Congress than in the history of the country. We have gotten to where we 
think if we just pass a constitutional amendment, all of these problems 
are going to be resolved.
  We are not going to be able to deal with all of the problems that all 
of us understand are out there in the public school system on the 
cheap. It is going to be tough, difficult work. Money in and of itself 
is not the only answer. In many instances, you can probably get a much 
better and higher grade education with the amount of resources

[[Page S9935]]

that are being expended. We understand that. We know that. But, 
nonetheless, what we are talking about here with this particular 
amendment is a reflection of our priorities--of our priorities.

  How are we going to spend that $7 million? Are we going to prioritize 
3 percent of those children with a program that I believe is 
unconstitutional? And perhaps those that defend it are going to be able 
to make a case to respond to what is happening up in Wisconsin and what 
has happened in Vermont and other States that have struck down vouchers 
over the last year--maybe they will be able to sustain it. Perhaps they 
will be able to make the case with those 3 percent of children going to 
these private schools, that they are demonstrating what a breakthrough 
kind of academic brilliance that they are able to achieve and 
accomplish, and we are going to find the whole country is going to be 
shaken by this experience and we are going to do something dramatic 
about it.
  The fact is, Mr. President, those that have demonstrated over the 
course of their lives--some with more success than others--know that 
this is hard, tough work, that it is a combination of elements.
  Children are not going to learn if there is disruption in those 
classrooms, if the classrooms are not safe. Children are not going to 
learn if they go to school hungry during the course of the day. 
Children are not going to learn if they do not have the textbooks. 
Children are not going to learn if they have an inadequately trained 
teacher. Children are not going to learn if they know that their walls 
are crumbling down and they do not have light.
  Just like the children are not going to learn if they have hearing 
problems or if they have vision problems or if they have some asthmatic 
problems--they are sick.
  One of the benefits that we have taken care of, hopefully, in the 
recent action here, is to try and make sure that children are going to 
get the preventative health care so that when they go in there at least 
they are going to be healthy children when they go to those classrooms.
  We know some of the things that inhibit children from learning. We do 
not know all the things that enhance their academic achievement, but we 
know some. And we know some of the ones that have a proven record, 
demonstrable record, with solid results.
  The question that the Senate is going to have to ask is, are we going 
to try this kind of a program here for $7 million when we can invest 
that $7 million in some of the programs here in the District, 
replicating the ones here in the districts that the parents want, that 
the teachers know have been successful, that have been carefully 
evaluated, that will benefit the greatest number of children? Or are we 
going to reach down from Olympus and say, ``OK, we here in the Senate 
are deciding for you, even though you don't want it. We're going to 
experiment here. We can't pass this kind of legislation back in our own 
States where it's been defeated at times that it has gone before the 
electorate, but we're going to try it on you here. We have $7 million. 
And in spite of the fact that your religious leaders, your business 
leaders, your elected leaders do not want that, and want it invested in 
these other programs, that's too bad. That's too bad on this. We're 
just going to say, `You're going to have to have it because we want to 
experiment with it.' We want to try and find some silver bullet to 
solve this problem''?
  I hope, Mr. President, that this amendment is not accepted.
  Mr. President, how much time is left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts controls 14 
minutes, the Senator from Indiana 57 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I very much want to respond--and so does 
Senator Lieberman--to some of Senator Kennedy's remarks. But our 
colleague, Senator Craig, has been very patiently waiting. I yield to 
him up to 7 minutes or as much time as he consumes short of that.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized for 7 
minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me, first of all, thank my colleague 
from Indiana for yielding.
  I have been sitting here for the last 35 or 40 minutes listening to 
what is a truly sincere statement by the Senator from Massachusetts as 
it relates to the state and the condition of the D.C. school system.
  He has left up a chart that recognizes seven categories of 
dilapidation that have resulted in the D.C. schools not opening on time 
this year. If you were to look at that chart, and all of the statistics 
of the D.C. school system separate from the rest of the country, you 
would say, ``My goodness, what happened? Why didn't we give them the 
money to fix the doors, the windows, the electrical, the plumbing, the 
physical structures of the school system? What happened?''
  Mr. President, they had the money. They were given the money. I do 
not know what happened other than to say, they blew the money, they 
failed. By every measurement, the D.C. public school system is at the 
bottom. And that is a tragedy.
  You can defend the status quo and argue you have to pour more money 
in. But even the Senator from Massachusetts agrees, it isn't 
necessarily a money issue.
  Well, then for goodness sakes, what is it? Is it a new program, a 
special program, a great idea, an infusion of a new concept that will 
turn this public school system around?
  Many examples have been cited in one school system or another across 
this country by the Senator from Massachusetts over the last 40 
minutes; and yet he condemns a program or an idea that is embodied in 
this amendment. It tries to do something very important to a failed 
system--inject it with a competitive idea that forces a new thinking 
that must be allowed to happen.
  I must tell you, if the schools of Idaho had the kind of money that 
the schools of the District of Columbia have, because we provide--and I 
do not say this with any pride--nearly $2,500 less per student than the 
District schools get here, and if we had the measurement of the 
standards and the failures of this school system, the Idaho system 
would have been changed dramatically years ago. You have heard the 
comparisons I am referencing.
  Last year, 72 percent of D.C.'s eighth graders in public school 
scored below the basic proficiencies in math, and 29 percent failed to 
meet basic proficiencies in reading; and yet they got $2,500 more per 
student than the Idaho students, and our scores are among the top in 
the country.
  I do not mean to be pounding my chest about Idaho schools. I want to 
see our educators get more money and I want to see more money put into 
Idaho schools. But it is fair and it is important that we compare a 
failed system with a performing system and the dollars and cents 
involved, and to argue, as we must, that it is not a money issue. And 
it isn't. And we know that.
  And this voucher amendment isn't to do with money. It is to do with 
the ability of parents to be able to decide what is best for their 
children and to have the flexibility to move on that decision.
  Why has education, Mr. President, been nearly every person in this 
country's No. 1 choice in the public polling of our country over the 
last decade when asked, ``What's the most important issue on your 
mind?'' Not because it is so good--we are oftentimes reminded of quite 
the opposite. It is because the public school systems of our country 
are in trouble. Parents are concerned about the quality of education 
our children get, their children get and their futures.
  When you can't guarantee safety--and the District schools can't; when 
you can't guarantee discipline--and the District schools can't; when 
you can't guarantee high standards--and the District schools can't; you 
fail. If there were an opportunity for the children of the District to 
go somewhere else, there would be one of the greatest educational 
exoduses in the history of this country. That is not going to happen.

  But what this voucher amendment offers is some reasonable 
understanding that we ought to try to make a difference. It isn't some 
grand experiment, not at all. It is, without question, an idea whose 
time has come, an

[[Page S9936]]

idea to inject a competitive environment into a monopolistic system 
that at the very best creates the lowest common denominator. That is 
not good enough for the young people of this District, and it is not 
good enough for any young person anywhere in this country.
  The good side about the District schools not opening happened in my 
office over the last 3 weeks. A young lady who is a junior at Eastern 
High School here in the District came to intern in my office, Kimberly, 
a delightful young lady. We learned a lot from her; and I think she 
learned a lot from us.
  But she did say this to me as she left to go back to school. 
``Senator Craig, I think I've learned more here in 3 weeks than I'll 
learn in a full semester in my school.'' She was being kind, but the 
problem is, I look at the statistics of the school she attends and 
she's right, she's accurate. This young lady deserves every opportunity 
possible that the public school system should offer her and yet it does 
not.
  She said, ``Can I come back to your office? Can I be a part of your 
office, because I know that I can learn a great deal? And I'll do extra 
time so I can do that.'' And we are going to see if we can make that 
happen.
  School choice--that is what we are talking about today--transfers 
power over basic education away from the bureaucrat and to the parent. 
I suggest that the failures of the District system are a clear 
reflection of the bureaucrats having had that opportunity.
  Nobody dare defend a school system where 40 percent of ninth graders 
drop out or leave before graduation or where only 50 percent of 
education expenditures go toward instruction, compared to 62 percent 
nationally.
  Mr. President, we wouldn't tolerate failures such as this in my 
State, and we shouldn't except them in the Nation's capital.
  Allowing for school choice is a viable solution to the woes of the 
District's schools. This amendment is a reasonable and appropriate 
answer to this crisis. This measure would provide scholarships to over 
2,000 public school students, the poorest of the city's poor. These 
scholarships could be spent to attend any private or public school in 
the District or the neighboring counties of Maryland and Virginia. Most 
importantly, scholarships would be targeted to the poorest students, 
those living below or near the poverty line.
  Opponents of the measure make one argument: school choice diverts 
money away from public schools for the benefit of a few students. 
However, nothing could be further from the truth.
  This measure would not cost the public school system anything--not $1 
would leave the public school system. The funding is entirely new 
money--taken from an increase in the Federal Government's contribution 
to the city's debt.
  Mr. President, today the Senate is being asked to make a choice 
between the status quo and real reform. I thank Senator Coats, Senator 
Lieberman, Senator Brownback, Senator Landrieu for offering us this 
opportunity to debate school choice.
  This is not a partisan issue. This is all about kids and a failing 
system and the responsibility of this country and its policymakers to 
make the difference, because it is a public educational school system. 
We are not going to worry about the private system. It competes. It has 
to be good or it will not get the kids.
  But the public school system does not have to be good because the 
kids that cannot afford to get out of it have to go to it. We should 
not sit here and pound our chests and talk about all the good things 
because we need to correct the bad things. And that way a very 
important public education system will be better. It is good in a lot 
of places around the country. It is bad here in the District of 
Columbia, and we ought not hold anybody prisoner to that idea.

  Let's give parents and students a fighting chance--let's give them a 
choice and a future.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. COATS. I yield such time as she may consume to the Senator from 
Texas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized,
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words. I will be brief 
because I know a number of people have opinions on this subject. But, 
Mr. President, I think we are talking about the future of public 
education. I have heard people say, why not just improve public 
education? That is what we are trying to do. That is the bottom line of 
what this amendment is trying to do--introduce some new idea, introduce 
a new way of trying to improve public education by having competition 
in our system.
  Mr. President, what makes America America, what makes America 
different from other countries in the world has always been our 
commitment to quality public education so that every child in our 
country would have the opportunity, with a full range of public 
education, to fulfill his or her potential.
  I am a product of public education. I think it is important that we 
have the quality so that a person like me can stand on the floor with a 
person like Senator Kennedy who has had quality private education. In 
order to do that, I think it is important that we have new ideas 
because, as they say in my home State, ``If it ain't broke, don't fix 
it.''
  This is broken. The District of Columbia schools spend more money per 
student than any school in America, and yet steadily we have seen the 
decline of the quality of education as judged by the scores on tests.
  So more money is clearly not the answer. Maybe some competition, 
maybe letting the mother of a 10-year-old boy who is going to a school 
that may or may not be open because of fire codes, that may not be able 
to educate this child because he is being offered drugs on the school 
grounds, give that mother a chance to do something different for her 
child, and that is to give her child a chance with a voucher to go 
somewhere else for competition. And then perhaps, if this works as a 
test, it might be something that we can do in low- and moderate-income 
areas all over our country. Maybe that is a new idea that might work.

  Mr. President, this is an amendment that is a field test for another 
way to try to improve our public education system, which I think 
everyone in the U.S. Senate wants to do. But why are we not open to a 
new idea? Why wouldn't we say if any place deserves a try, it is this 
community, the District of Columbia, where we see the test scores go 
down in relation to the Federal money that has gone in. Let's try 
something new. This is the perfect place to do it.
  I commend the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from Connecticut, and 
all those who are cosponsoring this innovative idea so we can have a 
test market to give every child a chance to have a great public 
education by introducing a choice. With that competition, encouraging 
every public school to come up in standards to attract those vouchers 
that would provide that quality public education that we have 
guaranteed to our people for the last 221 years in this country, and 
which if we are going to remain the greatest country on Earth, must be 
the hallmark of our freedom--a quality public education.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I will just take one moment to ask 
Senator Hutchison--I understand this issue about vouchers was actually 
considered by the Texas legislature this year and was actually 
rejected. That is part of the problem that many of us have.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I say perhaps, for once, maybe Washington could teach 
us a lesson.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Touche.
  I mention to my friend from Idaho before he leaves, we acknowledge 
the previous failure that he had outlined here very eloquently this 
afternoon when we established the control board. The D.C. school chief 
executive officer, General Becton, has had 10 months to enact changes. 
In that short time, they have consolidated and closed 12 school 
buildings, hired only certified teachers, established annual testing 
for all students, and set standards for teachers and principals.
  They have only been in effect for 10 months and here we already are 
changing and interfering with their priority. I think for the reasons 
that the Senator has pointed out--there has been this dramatic change 
in terms of the leadership, those that are trying to

[[Page S9937]]

provide new leadership, and here we are in the Congress trying to 
second-guess.
  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield.
  Mr. CRAIG. I appreciate what the Senator from Massachusetts said. I 
think all of us are extremely excited about what we hope will happen 
here in the District. And, of course, you and I have both used the 
figures that demonstrate the failure of this system.
  What I think we offer today is an enhancement and an accelerated 
opportunity to assist in what is underway. I appreciate what the 
Senator is saying.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield the remaining time to the Senator from Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Illinois is 
recognized.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I want to commend the Senator from 
Massachusetts for his leadership, for his consistency, and for his 
outstanding advocacy on behalf of children in this country. I think it 
is fair to say, and everyone who hears my voice will recognize, there 
is no one that Ted Kennedy takes second place to when it comes to 
fighting for children. He has been a leader and continues to be.
  I am so pleased to have this opportunity to join him in strong 
opposition to this voucher proposal. Let me touch for a moment on what 
I see as the central flaw with this voucher proposal--whether it is for 
the District of Columbia or any other school system. Voucher programs 
for elementary and secondary education presume that a market-based 
solution will solve problems that exist within our public education 
system.
  We have heard a lot about competition in the system. That suggests 
that there will be a meeting in the marketplace and that quality will 
rise out of that competition, out of that meeting of forces in the 
marketplace. I point out to anyone listening, if you think about it for 
a moment, markets by definition have winners and losers. The question 
then becomes whether or not we can afford to impose a market-based 
solution where the welfare of all of our children is involved. We 
cannot afford in this country any losers in a game of educational 
roulette, or, as much to the point, in an approach to what for all 
intents and purposes is an educational triage in which only those 
youngsters who have the family structure, who have the ability, can 
retreat from the public school system, leaving whatever else is behind.
  It is very interesting, by the way, that a lot of the discussion goes 
to providing poor children with options. The fact of the matter is that 
public education in this country excelled precisely because it wasn't 
just about poor children. It was about providing quality education to 
any child of whatever wealth, from whatever communities, whether their 
parents were engaged with their education or whether their parents were 
found lying in a gutter somewhere. A child who had more talents than 
means could access quality education because our system supported 
quality public education.
  Education is about more than an individual's ability to get trained 
for a good job, although certainly that is one of the benefits of it. 
We are very clear, without education individuals are handicapped when 
it comes to the job market.
  The point has to be made, and made over and over again, that it is 
more than about just individuals. Education is a public good as well. 
It is a private benefit, to be sure, but it is also a public good. It 
is something that affects our entire community. It affects the quality 
of life in our community. It affects everything from health status to 
voter behavior, to whether or not individuals, or whether or not 
communities, will support our democracy and appreciate the higher 
values of our community.
  Quality public education has shaped our democracy. It created a 
strong middle class. It propelled our country to the top of the world's 
economic pyramid. The rungs of the ladder of opportunity in our country 
have historically been crafted in the classroom. I think our generation 
has an obligation to see to it that the legacy of quality public 
education is not abandoned and, as much to the point, is not diluted by 
efforts, such as this one, to divert resources and divert support away 
from the public education system.
  The reason that we have compulsory education in this country is not 
so that every child can access the best education that his or her 
parents can afford or find, but so that every child can receive a 
quality education. If our public schools are not meeting that 
challenge, then it is our responsibility to fix those schools. A 
federally funded voucher program would not fix a single public 
school. In fact, if anything, this effort represents a retreat from the 
challenge of making our schools work for every child, making our 
schools rise to the level of excellence that as a community we have 
every right to expect.

  Vouchers represent putting individuals over the interests of the 
whole community. Vouchers necessarily will benefit only a small 
percentage, a small number of students. Consider for a moment there are 
roughly 46 million public school students and 6 million private school 
students. Any large-scale voucher program would obviously overwhelm the 
private schools. Advocates claim that entrepreneurs would start up 
high-quality schools to meet the demand. Just look at the potential for 
abuse and ask yourself the question, what do we do when we look up and 
discover a whole slew of less-than-quality school facilities in which 
people's only objective is to make money? There is no reason to think 
that by providing this spinoff of resources from public education that 
we would wind up with a system that was any better.
  Supporters of the voucher proposals claim they would help the 
neediest children the most. I submit that both research, experience, 
and common sense suggest otherwise. Researchers have concluded that 
academically and socially disadvantaged students are less likely to 
benefit from school voucher programs. It is amazing to me that the 
academic research on this subject has not gotten more attention. 
Voucher programs in other countries where they have had such programs 
confirm this research, that, indeed, the voucher approach, spinning off 
from the public school system, has led to economic as well as social 
segregation of students. Instead of narrowing the gap between wealthy 
and poor, instead of narrowing the gap between communities of students, 
the voucher proposals when implemented had the effect of widening the 
gap. I don't think we want in our time to be responsible for widening 
the inequalities among students. If anything, we should be endeavoring 
to narrow that.
  As a matter of fact, in one study that took place in Chile, 
performance actually declined for low-income students. That is not 
surprising because any use of public funds for private schools requires 
that fewer resources be devoted to the public schools. Since the vast 
majority of low-income students will remain in the public schools and 
the worst of the schools are, for the most part, already sorely 
underfunded, it is just evident that private school vouchers would 
further weaken public education.
  Right now, the Federal Government--it is ironic that we are having 
this debate--the Federal Government right now currently only meets 
about 6 percent of the costs of elementary and secondary public 
education in this country. We don't even provide the funding--and I 
know the Presiding Officer will recognize this issue--we don't even 
cover the costs of unfunded mandates in education. To further divert 
resources from what we are already not doing makes absolutely no sense 
at all.
  Transferring funds from public schools to private schools will not 
buy new textbooks for public school students or encourage better 
teachers to move to the public schools nor fix a single leaking roof on 
a public school. All it does is divert resources, precious resources to 
begin with, away from the system that is already underfunded and that 
needs it the most.
  Supporters of private school vouchers claim that those schools are 
better managed, they perform better, and cost less than public schools. 
Again, the facts suggest otherwise.
  It is absolutely true that some public schools are inefficient. 
Again, vouchers don't solve those inefficiencies. What solves those 
problems are good managers. In Chicago, in my hometown of Chicago, IL, 
innovative leadership and a ``no excuses'' attitude totally reshaped 
the system there in the space of about 2 years. Under the leadership 
that is now in place, our school system is improving itself to the 
benefit of all

[[Page S9938]]

of the 425,000 students in that system, not just the select few who 
might have been spun off with a voucher plan.
  Every school system calls upon the people, the leadership of that 
community, to focus in on management issues, to address the 
longstanding issues of neglect and of finance that have hamstrung our 
ability to provide quality public education to all children.

  The evidence also disproves the claims that vouchers improve student 
achievement. Annual evaluations of the program in the city of Milwaukee 
concluded that vouchers have not done so. Again, I call my colleagues' 
attention to all of the research that has been done in this area. There 
is no scientific evidence to support the notion that somehow by taking 
away from public education you improve it.
  As for cost, again, the private schools can cost less in some 
instances because only 17 percent of them provide special education, 
which, of course, is a high ticket item. It costs twice as much to 
educate disabled children. Again, the point ought to be made that the 
public schools take everyone. They are schools in which all 
consistencies, all kinds of students, whether they are rich, disabled, 
poor or whether their parents have problems, or whether they are 
troubled, all students come. With compulsory education they have to. By 
setting up a system that spins off a part of the student body, all we 
are doing, again, is creating a situation in which those who are the 
most able and the most capable and have the most family support will 
leave the school system and leave behind those who are least capable of 
doing well for themselves.
  Here in the District of Columbia--and, again, this is once again the 
District of Columbia being made into a guinea pig, for all intents and 
purposes, for ideas that are floating around without addressing the 
real challenges of the District of Columbia--I, too, had interns in my 
office, students from the District of Columbia, who interned in my 
office precisely because the schools were closed here.
  Why were they closed? Because the court had decreed that the school 
environment, the facilities were crumbling so badly that it was unsafe 
and hazardous for children to go to school there. It would be more 
appropriate for us to devote the money being proposed to be taken out 
here to rebuilding the crumbling schools in the District of Columbia, 
to making sure the roofs don't leak and the windows aren't broken and 
the electrical systems work, to fix the schools that we have, to meet 
the challenge of supporting public education instead of coming up with 
yet another excuse not to support the schools we have in place already.
  This approach, in my opinion, represents, in the final analysis, a 
retreat, a pessimistic capitulation to a winnable challenge. We can fix 
these schools. We can do at least as much as the previous generation 
did, our parents. The generation before us left us a legacy of a system 
of quality public education in which every child, no matter what the 
circumstances, can get an education consistent with their talent 
without regard to their means. We have an obligation to do no less for 
the next generation of Americans. Coming up with an approach that will 
spend away resources from our system of public education does not keep 
faith with that legacy of support for quality public education as an 
integral and central part of the American dream.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Arkansas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I rise in the strongest support of the 
District of Columbia student opportunity scholarship amendment offered 
by Senators Coats and Lieberman to the D.C. appropriations bill. I have 
long been convinced of the value of school choice programs. I think the 
debate this afternoon has been very healthy for our country.
  Earlier this year, the Washington Post ran a five-part series on the 
D.C. schools, detailing the mounting problems of the physical 
deterioration of its school buildings, violence in the classrooms, and 
the falling academic success among students. Eighty-five percent of 
D.C. public school students who go on to college at the University of 
the District of Columbia [UDC] need 2 years of remedial education 
before beginning course work toward a degree at all. While this 
statistic is alarming and should not be tolerated, it is a prime 
example of how the D.C. public schools are failing the very children 
that they are supposed to be serving. It is the children who are the 
losers.
  Some argue, as my colleague just argued, that if only more money were 
available to mend the crumbling school buildings, or to better train 
the teachers or to hire more teachers, then everything would be fine. 
Mr. President, more money is not really the answer. Despite spending 
more than $7,300 per student in 1996, which is among the Nation's 
highest spending rates, 65 percent of all D.C. public schoolchildren, 
two-thirds of them, test below their grade levels; 72 percent of fourth 
graders in the D.C. public schools tested below basic proficiency on 
the NAEP test--worse than any other school system in the Nation.
  More money is not the answer. What about the increased violence? The 
National Education Goals Panel reported last year that both students 
and teachers in D.C. schools are subjected to levels of violence that 
are twice the national average.
  So I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, isn't this bill 
the perfect place to give us the opportunity to show what vouchers can 
do? They do help real families. Some of my staff members are privileged 
to work with one D.C. family who was fortunate to have received $4,000 
of scholarship money this fall to enroll six of their children in Our 
Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School here in the District of 
Columbia. I had the honor of meeting one of those children, Shannon, 
when she visited my office in the spring to interview me as part of a 
school project on Arkansas. It was little Shannon who, 1 year ago, told 
her tutor that she wanted to go to a Catholic school. When asked why, 
she emphatically answered, ``because I want to learn much.''
  Mr. President, even though Shannon had never been to a Catholic 
school, nor did she know anybody enrolled in a Catholic school, she 
knew that if she went to a Catholic school, she would learn. She wanted 
to learn much. Shannon's mother knew that, for her children to progress 
in their studies and graduate from high school, she desperately needed 
to get them out of the failing D.C. schools and into a place where the 
teachers would spend time with her children and teach them.
  Under this amendment, nearly 2,000 of the District of Columbia's 
poorest children--not the wealthy kids, those from the rich side of 
town whose parents can afford to send them to elite schools--but the 
poorest children would receive scholarships for tuition costs at a 
private school in the District of Columbia, or in adjacent counties in 
Maryland and Virginia. Mothers like Shannon's are eyewitnesses to their 
children's improvement when their children are enrolled in a safe, 
stable, and thriving school environment.
  The Coats-Lieberman plan is a lifeline of hope for thousands of D.C. 
parents, like Shannon's mom, who have waited and are still waiting for 
an opportunity to give their children a solid education and a chance to 
succeed.

  This amendment makes so much common sense. The question is, will 
vouchers work? Let's give vouchers a chance right here in one of the 
worst school districts in the Nation. Let's not continue to put good 
money after bad by simply pouring it into a system that is broken. 
Let's give the children of this city hope. Let's give the parents of 
the poorest children in this city an opportunity to give their children 
the best educational opportunity.
  I commend the Senator from Indiana, Senator Coats, and Senator 
Lieberman for their leadership and for the opportunity to conduct this 
debate and to cast this important vote.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the patient Senator 
from Oklahoma, who has been waiting a long time to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I was in the chair when I heard the very 
eloquent speech, of course, as always, by Senator Lieberman. One thing 
he said at the very last surprised me a little bit. I think kind of out 
of desperation he said, ``We are only talking about $7 million. We try 
a lot of things that cost a lot more than that.''

[[Page S9939]]

  I am here to inform Senator Lieberman--and I believe he knows it 
already--that it has been tried. I started with our mutual friend, Tony 
Coelho, in 1993, who established an organization called the Washington 
Scholarship Fund. There were many Democrats and Republicans involved. 
Senator Kerrey, at that time, was an honorary chairman, and Bill 
Bennett was one of the honorary chairmen, also. Directors and advisors 
included Boyden Gray and Doreen Gentzler, a local Channel 4 TV news 
anchor.
  Our goal was to help needy or low-income families send their children 
to private school--the very thing we are talking about here. We were 
trying it through the private sector to see if it would work. What we 
did was not pay the entire scholarship, as we are talking about here, 
for a number of students, but to pay half of it. I think the average 
tuition is around $3,000 a year. Now, what we did was, we would offer a 
scholarship of $1,500 a year, so that the parents would have to pay 
half of it, so they would have to have an interest in that. To be 
eligible, they had to be residents of the District of Columbia. Ours 
was K through 8, as opposed to K through 12. I think K through 12 is 
probably better. They must be low-income by Federal standards.
  Anyway, we went ahead with this program on the half tuition. We had 
people lined up in the school year of 1993 and 1994, and we had 57 
students. That is about $75,000 that we raised privately for these one-
half scholarships. Last year, we were up to 250 students that we 
helped. That is a substantial increase. But the interesting thing is 
that we have over 800 now on a waiting list. I am sure that there are 
probably more out there waiting that are not familiar with the program. 
But it is overwhelmingly successful. In the schools, they concentrate 
on strong values, basic reading and writing and math skills, and we 
have a lot of parental involvement.
  A lot of people are not aware that in Washington, DC, there are at 
least 25 private schools with tuitions less than $2,500 a school year. 
They average about $3,000. Most of the private schools in the District 
of Columbia operate way below capacity, or their average tuition 
probably could come down, they would estimate.
  The Washington Scholarship Fund is one of 32 private school 
scholarship programs nationwide in cities like Milwaukee, Los Angeles, 
New York, and, in fact, there is one in the home State of Senator 
Coats, in Indianapolis. They are currently helping approximately 12,000 
needy children, and they have 40,000 on a waiting list.
  Well, when I heard the Senator from Connecticut say he didn't know 
exactly how much it was costing the public school system in Washington, 
DC, I think he is right because the accounting system, as he points 
out, is very poor. However, I have heard the range to be somewhere 
between $7,700 and $10,000. So here we are talking about being able to 
give a better education at approximately one-third of the cost--in 
other words, for the same cost, reaching three times the number of 
children.

  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. INHOFE. Not on my time. On your time, I will.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. There is no time left.
  Mr. INHOFE. I am sorry, I have to use my time. The dropout rate is a 
problem. I will read a couple of things that I think are significant.
  One of the mothers, named Voni Eason, said:

       My son loves the school. He even likes the uniform. He 
     feels like he's a grown man. Without an education--and a 
     good, strong education--he's not going to have a job. Without 
     the Washington Scholarship Fund, he wouldn't be able to go to 
     his school.

  That is a mother making a testimonial.
  Tanya Odemns' son actually tried the public schools system in 
Washington, DC. She said:

       My son wasn't learning anything. He didn't know his ABCs, 
     didn't know how to spell his name . . . public school didn't 
     give him any homework. I know my son is very intelligent and 
     wants to learn. When I heard about the Washington Scholarship 
     Fund, I just hopped on it real quick. [Now] he's excited when 
     he comes home, wants to do homework.

  Mr. President, it has been tried and it is successful. It works.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Under the previous order, at 4:30, the Senate is to proceed to debate 
on the defense appropriations bill.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I promised the Senator from New York he 
could get a statement in.
  I yield to the Senator from New York.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for 
the Senate to consider the defense appropriations bill be extended for 
3 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. D'AMATO. I thank the managers of the bill. Mr. President, let me 
say this. I strongly, strongly support this amendment. I want to 
commend Senator Lieberman and Senator Coats for fighting to give the 
families, the parents, the youngsters in the Washington, DC, public 
school system a chance. Too many are trapped. We are talking about 
working families who don't have the ability to move to areas with 
better schools. They don't have the financial wherewithal to send their 
children to better schools, including private schools, that are safer 
and may give a stronger educational opportunity. Al Smith, a great 
Governor from our State, used to say, ``Let's look at the record.'' 
Well, look at the record. How can we be defending the status quo of an 
education system in the District of Columbia that has been a failure--a 
failure. Forty percent of these youngsters never graduate from high 
school; 40% of D.C. public school students leave the school system 
between ninth grade and graduation.
  In terms of scores, it's incredible: during the 1996-97 school year, 
72 percent of the eighth graders score below basic in math--72 percent; 
78 percent of the D.C. public school fourth graders rank below basic 
reading achievement levels in 1994; 80 percent of the D.C. fourth 
graders in 1996 achieved below the basic math achievement levels.
  Do we want to save these youngsters? Or are we so interested in 
protecting the status of the unions, because that is what this is 
about. We are talking about the status quo, where you have a system 
that cares more about tenure for teachers that can't teach, more about 
seeing that the perks and privileges of the unions are protected--as 
opposed to providing students and their parents an opportunity to have 
a choice for real opportunity and to break out of this mediocrity.
  The fact is, we once had great and vibrant public educational 
institutions. That was before the days when the union perks and 
prerequisites came first.
  I support merit pay for good teachers. Let's reward them and get rid 
of the tenure system that is guaranteed to provide mediocrity and less 
for students. Let's have renewable tenure.
  Parents should be empowered to make choices, letting them have the 
opportunity to send their kids to the best schools.
  Who is trapped in the sea of mediocrity? I will tell you. The poorest 
of the poor; the working families; the families that can't move to 
another area to give their kids a good educational opportunity.
  I have to tell you something. I look to Congressman Floyd Flake. The 
Reverend Flake is resigning his position. He is elected with 90-some-
odd-plus percent when he runs. He truly is the servant of the people. 
This is not intended to be a testimonial to him. I will give that 
before October 15 when he retires. But let me tell you about one of the 
things that the Congressman is going to do. He is going to go back and 
fight in New York to empower parents and to give children and their 
parents choice and an educational opportunity that now is all but put 
aside.
  We can make a difference. I don't care if it is 1,000 students that 
it helps, or 1,500 students. That is 1,500 more youngsters who will get 
a chance to flourish in an oasis of educational opportunity as opposed 
to a swamp and a sea of mediocrity that are tearing down educational 
opportunities for kids.
  We have got to try to do something better. And it isn't putting more 
of this money into a system that is broken down.
  Mr. President, I say this is the least we can do. This is an 
innovative opportunity to take one of the worst school systems in 
America and to begin to

[[Page S9940]]

empower parents on behalf of their children to give them real 
educational opportunity.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________