[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 137 (Monday, October 6, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H8423-H8430]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EDUCATION REFORMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Redmond). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. 
Etheridge] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman 
from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone], for joining me this evening. I have a 
few opening remarks and then I will ask him, if he would like, to join 
me. I want to thank him for being here this evening and for helping to 
organize this special opportunity to talk about a very important issue 
involved in the Democratic effort to reform, to improve and to 
strengthen public schools in this country.
  We have held this series of after hours speeches to engage the 
American people in a dialogue about the policy choices that are being 
made that will have a profound impact on the way our children are 
educated in every community all across this great country. We simply 
must put the maximum effort we can into improving of our public schools 
for our children. By that, I mean all the children of this country, not 
just a select few that we can give vouchers or something else and give 
a lot of lip service, but I am talking about every child, no matter 
where they live in this country.
  We have a lot of work to do. Some of these things certainly are local 
responsibilities, no question about that. But we at the Federal level 
cannot walk away from our responsibility to help every child in this 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, before I became a Member of the people's House, I spent 
8 years as the superintendent of public schools in the State of North 
Carolina. I am proud of the record that we have established in our 
State in improving education. I had the privilege during those years to 
spend a good deal of my time in the classrooms, on the front line in 
the struggle of our schools in the battle against ignorance.
  I am here this evening to talk about those North Carolina values that 
I think have made a difference in our State and certainly can make a 
difference across this country.
  In all the time that I spent in those classrooms, and I still go in 
them now at least once a week since I have been elected to Congress, no 
student has ever asked me who paid for the textbooks, who built the 
building, who paid the power bill, who paid the electrical bill or who 
bought the school buses they rode to school on. The child does not care 
who provides them the opportunity to learn. A child only knows what 
that opportunity is, whether or not they have been provided one and, in 
many cases, unfortunately an opportunity denied. And once you deny an 
opportunity for an education, you deny a child an opportunity to have a 
level playing field to compete and develop their God-given ability.
  I think sometimes those of us in public office get too carried away 
by whose responsibility it is and forget that it is all of our 
responsibility. It is not just the responsibility of the Federal 
Government or the State government or local government or parents and 
children. All of us share a responsibility. That is why public schools 
in this country are asking parents to be engaged, asking the business 
communities to be engaged, because all of us share a responsibility for 
our children.
  One issue that we must make a top priority is the issue of school 
facilities and school construction and, yes, the repairing of those 
buildings in many cases. All across this country we have crumbling 
schools, some in our inner cities as well as in rural areas of this 
country. And we have major overcrowding in schools where areas are 
growing and growing very rapidly. And in some cases they are adjacent 
to urban centers where those areas are poor and do not have the 
resources to match it. I know because my district contains areas, 
directs spending and faces all of these problems.
  My State just passed last November the largest bond issue in the 
history of our State, $1.9 billion for school construction, by the 
largest majority of any bond issue in the history of our State. That 
tells me people care about children. They care about them having 
quality facilities, and people want action on this important issue. We 
have to get beyond the dialogue and the rhetoric of whose 
responsibility it is and just say it is our responsibility, it is our 
country, and these are our children. We have to deal with all of them.
  There are some communities that cannot do it without help, without 
some leveraging. I think that is an issue that we have to grapple with, 
and we have to grapple with it at the Federal level. There was a time 
when it was not our responsibility at the Federal level to determine 
whether or not people had electric power. But in the 1930's we decided 
we ought to do that and we put a policy in place that every citizen of 
this country would have electric power and we put in the REA. We also 
made the same decision as related to telephones and, shock of all 
things, we decided that water and sewer was important. It was not a 
national priority before that.

  And I happen to believe if there is anything important to this 
country beyond the defense of our borders, it is education for the 
young children of this country, making sure that they have the minds to 
be able to compete in the 21st century. And, yes, education is all of 
our responsibilities so that children can develop their God-given 
ability.
  The President made a very sound school construction proposal during 
the budget talks but, unfortunately, the Republican leadership refused 
to allow it to be included in the final budget package. That was very 
disappointing. It was a very disappointing decision by the Republican 
leadership because the American people need some help to repair their 
local schools, and this Congress should do more to provide that help. 
Sure, we have balanced the budget. I am proud of that. And now that we 
have balanced the budget, we should not shirk our responsibilities to 
help our children.
  While Washington often bickers over what role the Federal Government 
should and should not take on these issues, our focus should really be 
on the needs of our local communities and making sure that our children 
have the best opportunity.
  You can walk into a school in any community in America and 
immediately know where education ranks in that community. As a matter 
of fact, you do not have to walk into a school. You can drive into a 
community and find out where the nicest buildings are and you will know 
what the priority is in that community. We have to change attitudes and 
support public schools and public education.
  Many poor communities do not have the resources to build the quality 
facilities that they need. We should help them. We must help them. Many 
growing communities cannot keep up with the pace of expansion that they 
have to meet the needs of all the children in the school system. We 
should help them.
  I speak to many chambers of commerce, as I know other Members of this 
Congress do, to business leaders, community leaders and other groups. 
Sometimes someone will say to me that the quality of buildings really 
does not make a difference. I have a ready answer for those folks. I 
say, when you go out and recruit new business and bring jobs to your 
community, why do you not take them down to the side of town where you 
have the old run-down warehouses or old run-

[[Page H8424]]

down buildings and say the quality of the building really does not make 
any difference? Why do you not put your business in that old building? 
It is the quality of the people you put in it that makes the 
difference.
  And yes, it is important, the quality of people you put in it, but 
the quality of that facility says a lot about what you care about. It 
also says to your employees that you care about their environment. It 
also says to children that you care about education when you improve 
the quality of the facility.
  The town fathers always wanted to show off the shiny new facilities 
that attracted those new buildings. That is why today we are seeing 
communities all across America and parents and others raise the issue 
of school facilities and the quality of education, because that is what 
business interests are asking about. It is their pride and joy. And the 
quality of the opportunities for our children will be the thing that 
will make a difference in the 21st century.
  I say our schools should be our pride and joy also, because it is 
important that children see the quality and that we do care about their 
schools and that we do have the quality of facility they need, because 
it does have a significant impact. I know. I have seen it. I have been 
there, as the gentleman has.
  It makes all the difference in the world. It has an impact on their 
attitudes, and it certainly translates into a better learning 
environment and we see the difference. It also has an impact on 
discipline, and we see a drop in the number of problems that children 
have. If you have a nice facility, it is amazing what happens to your 
attendance rate. It goes up. Children want to be in a nice environment. 
That should be our top priority. There are a lot of other things we can 
be doing.
  I am working on legislation that will be drafted to help rebuild our 
schools in our run-down areas and build new schools in areas that are 
growing. This bill will help direct resources to areas where they are 
needed most, where school populations are projected to explode in the 
next several years, and we know what is happening.
  We have the largest enrollment in our public schools today that we 
have ever had in our history. It is projected to increase dramatically 
over the next 10 years. We have areas of the country that are growing 
by 10, 15, 20 and some as much as 35 and 40 percent. Those areas can 
absolutely not meet the needs that they have.
  I am very pleased to have my colleague from New Jersey join me this 
evening, and other colleagues will be joining us later. I know, to the 
gentleman from New Jersey, this is an an issue of interest to him. I 
see we have another colleague joining us to talk about this issue of 
not only facility that is important but the quality of the academic 
offering and how important it is to have accountability.

                              {time}  2145

  And, hopefully, before we finish, we will have time to talk about the 
proposal the President has made for us to deal with this issue, of how 
to have accountability in our schools and assure the American public 
that the schools in North Carolina, in every corner of our State, and 
in New Jersey and in Texas, as people are mobile and move about, that 
their children have a quality education.
  I yield to my colleague from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from North 
Carolina for initiating this special order tonight. I know he is 
probably the most knowledgeable person in the House of Representatives 
on education issues, primarily because he has lived through it and he 
knows what he is talking about. He is dealing with these situations 
firsthand, which is what we really need when we are dealing with 
education and other issues here in the House of Representatives.
  A couple of things the gentleman mentioned here this evening I want 
to sort of reiterate or go into a little more. First of all, I did 
listen to some of our Republican colleagues a little earlier when they 
were talking about the budget and taking credit for achieving or at 
least trying to achieve a balanced budget.
  It is certainly good we did pass the balanced budget proposal, and I 
do believe that it will achieve a balanced budget, but I would mention 
that the Democrats fought very hard not only to achieve a balanced 
budget but also to make sure that there was funding in that budget bill 
for education priorities. And we made a point, as did the President, 
that we were not going to go along with the bill unless the Republicans 
changed their policies and provided a significant amount of funding for 
education priorities.
  A lot of the money that was targeted by the Democrats in that bill 
went to higher education, because, as the gentleman knows, the cost of 
higher education has skyrocketed in recent years, in the last decade, 
or even the last 20 years. And what we were trying to do was to provide 
programs, tax credits, ways to provide additional funding to students 
through their parents or through their own families so that they would 
have access to quality higher education.
  I think we succeeded. I am not saying we totally succeeded, because 
costs are still going up, but we have at least provided some tax 
credits and some deductions and some scholarship and some expansion 
that makes more money available for those who do not have it; primarily 
middle-class students. But what we need to turn our attention to now, 
and what the gentleman from North Carolina described, is primarily 
before a person goes to college, secondary schools, grammar school, 
kindergarten, even preschool. That is where the Democrats now are 
prioritizing what we think this Congress should do.
  I know the gentleman in particular has cochaired the Democratic Task 
Force on Education, which has come up with a number of basic principles 
that I think really set the standard for what kind of legislation and 
what priorities we should have in this Congress on education issues. 
The gentleman mentioned a couple of those, but I wanted to zero in on 
two.
  One is, of course, the main purpose of our debate this evening, and 
that is the need to basically provide for the education infrastructure. 
We know that schools are overcrowded. We know that a lot of them need 
repair. We know a lot of local school districts need to build new 
schools because there is so much of an increase in enrollment.
  The gentleman also mentioned the fact that the Federal role here 
should be primarily to support public education and not take dollars 
away from public education through a voucher system that primarily 
supports private education.
  One of the things that I think needs to be stressed, and I know the 
gentleman mentioned it but I am going to stress it again, is that 
throughout this debate that will be occurring in the next few weeks, 
actually beginning this week with the D.C. appropriations bill, what 
needs to be stressed is not so much that many of us, including myself, 
are opposed to vouchers, but that we feel that vouchers take money away 
from public schools.
  In other words, if we had all the money in the world, we had money 
growing on trees, so to speak, around here, and we were able to say, 
OK, let us try a little experiment where we send a few thousand kids in 
the District of Columbia or in the State of New Jersey or North 
Carolina to try on an experimental basis a voucher system, I might say, 
OK, why not. That is a small experiment. A few thousand kids here or 
there. We will try it and see what the result is. But the problem here 
is that our public schools are strapped for funds. We know when we talk 
about the infrastructure problems how strapped for funds they are.
  So for us to talk in the context of that and say we are going to take 
resources away from these public schools, where it could be spent on 
good programs in these public schools, whether it is infrastructure or 
it is academic excellence or it is training teachers, whatever it 
happens to be, and we are going to take those dollars and we are going 
to spend them on voucher systems for private or parochial schools, I do 
not think that is fair. I think that is counter to the interests of the 
public school education that the overwhelming majority, I think it is 
better than 90 percent of the students are educated in public schools.
  So we need to stress to our constituents, and I explain this all the 
time, that the voucher system is not without cost and impact on the 
public schools, and that is the problem that I have with it.

[[Page H8425]]

  Mr. ETHERIDGE. I thank the gentleman, because he is absolutely right. 
We are not talking about putting additional dollars into the system. If 
we go down that road, then all those who are currently out there who 
are not in the public schools, who are either in private schools or 
parochial schools or wherever they may be, they are going to be 
standing in line for their dollars once we cross that threshold.
  What we would be talking about doing is in every public school in 
America, in the inner city, in the suburbs, and in rural America, we 
will be taking dollars out of those schools and reducing that 
opportunity for every single child. And the child that gets hurt the 
most is the child who is most vulnerable, in most cases, but all of 
them suffer.
  The last time I checked, as our three children went through the 
public schools, and we still have one in it, the PTA, in almost every 
school that I am aware of, certainly in our State and I assume it is 
true in the gentleman's, they do not have enough money. Otherwise, why 
would they be having candy sales and hot dog sales and book sales and 
all these other things they do to raise money? They are raising money 
to supplement the resources in the schools that are not now available.
  So if we are to go in and take additional dollars out, we will do one 
of two things, should it happen: We will increase the sales by the PTA 
in other areas or we will deprive them of more opportunities than they 
are now being deprived. And I think that would be a shame and a 
disgrace at a time when education in America, in my opinion, is at a 
premium.

  I agree with the gentleman. I think he is absolutely right, and I 
would yield back.
  Mr. PALLONE. I will not go on too long, because I know my colleague 
from Texas would like to speak as well, but what I see the Republican 
leadership trying to do is to sort of give the impression that the 
public school system has failed and we need to look for alternatives 
now.
  And that is not what I am getting from my constituents. They believe 
that the public school system is generally doing OK. It needs 
improvement, but they do not want to sacrifice it at the expense of or 
in order to fund a voucher program that primarily sends resources to 
private schools. They have a sense of community. They like their public 
school. They want to see it improved. So let us not just throw it to 
the wind and say, look, it cannot be repaired.
  The bottom line is that if we spend some money and spend some Federal 
dollars the way the Democrats and the way the gentleman's task force 
has proposed on emphasizing academic excellence, better training of 
teachers, and there are a whole slew of things, we have not even talked 
tonight about the safe and well-equipped schools as well, if we spend 
money on those things and we improve the public schools, then I think 
that is money well spent. And that is where our constituents are saying 
they would like to see the dollars spent.
  I wanted to briefly say, and I know we have talked about this, but 
again when we talk about the magnitude of the problem in terms of 
school overcrowding and the needs because of dilapidated schools, it is 
really overwhelming. Just some general statistics here. The General 
Accounting Office has said that approximately one-third of all schools 
serving 14,000,000 students are in need of substantial repair or 
outright replacement. School enrollment, 1996-97 school year. 
Elementary and secondary school enrollment was a record 51.7 million. 
That has been broken by this year's high enrollment of 52.2 million.
  So the number of kids entering the system is increasing rapidly and 
the demand for more schools is there. And it is not even repairing the 
infrastructure, but it is also the high-technology needs. As we move 
into the high-technology era, the computers, the ability to access the 
Internet. Very few schools have the ability, have the needed 
infrastructure to access the Internet. They do not have the money to 
buy the computers.
  All we are really saying, I think, is that if the Federal Government 
was able to spend a small amount of money and leverage, most of the 
time, in terms of infrastructure need, the gentleman mentioned it 
before, local school districts bond for infrastructure needs. But what 
the President has talked about and, unfortunately, as the gentleman 
mentioned, was not included in this budget, was the fact that we should 
use Federal dollars to leverage and pay the interest costs on a lot 
bonding, it allows more school construction and repairs to take place, 
and it allows the local school districts to make those kinds of 
investments at less of a cost over the long term.
  So that is what we are talking about. We are not talking about 
anything that is going to violate the basic concept that funding and 
control is still local with regard to our education system. Because 
that is what America has always been about: Local education. But there 
is no reason, just like we do with sewage infrastructure or roads or 
everything else, why not have some Federal dollars to help the local 
municipality pay some of these costs.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. It is easy. If we do not want to do something, we can 
find a thousand reasons. If we want to do it, it is not hard to find a 
reason.
  Last time I checked, I have not heard anyone get up on this floor and 
say we should not send water and sewer money to our municipalities to 
clean them up because we might take control of it. They will find 
another way if they do not want to spend the dollars. But the truth is, 
if we want to do it, we can find a way to do it.
  The gentleman talked about the schools. And the truth is what we 
really are about in the whole litany of things is reforming, repairing, 
and renewing. The three R's. We have to reform and certainly go on 
about doing things.
  I really get frustrated, and I was out there 2 years ago when this 
Congress talked about doing away with the Department of Education and 
education was under assault, and both of the gentleman here were 
fighting to make sure we saved it, and we did. But my colleagues cannot 
imagine what that did for the morale of teachers and principals and 
people on the frontlines educating children.
  They just sort of tuned it out and kept working. They work hard every 
day. They are some of the hardest working people in our society today. 
And I think what we need to do is raise up the tremendous job they do 
and give them an uplift rather than beating them down.
  I know my good friend, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Green], his wife 
is a teacher, and she is an outstanding one, and I yield to the 
gentleman because I know he has something he would like to contribute 
to this dialog.
  Mr. GREEN. I want to thank my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, for allowing 
for this special order tonight, particularly on education.
  While I was in my office returning some phone calls and listening to 
my colleagues from the Republican side for the first hour, the fear 
they have is Federal control of our schools. Well, I think the three of 
us would agree we do not want Federal control of our schools. We have 
fought against that. In fact, in 1994 we reauthorized elementary, 
secondary education funding, and it was a Democratic Congress and a 
Democratic President who signed that.
  We actually freed a lot of the schools from the paperwork and the 
requirements that we built up, both Republican and Democratic 
Presidential administrations. Goals 2000 was a great program, and is 
still a great program for schools to benefit and States to adopt 
without Federal controls. Just Federal assistance without the Federal 
Government saying this is what they have to do. They can do it for 
literacy, they can pay for lots of different programs with it, but this 
is our effort to help local schools and States to provide for 
educational opportunities.
  I know the gentleman talked about vouchers, and again this week we 
will talk about experimenting with the District of Columbia. And Lord 
knows the District of Columbia needs help for their public school 
system, but I really do not know if we need to use them as an 
experiment, because those children need an education. We do not need to 
lose a generation of children by experimenting with some program that 
may work in the District of Columbia so then we can export it to the 
States.
  I know the gentleman also talked about national standards. And, 
again, as long as they are voluntary, I think most folks agree with 
that.

[[Page H8426]]

  Like the gentleman, I have two children that went through public 
schools and are now a junior and senior in college, by the way in 
public institutions in Texas, because we also have some low-tuition 
rates in our public colleges in Texas. And, sure, they could have 
gotten a better education, but they also got an adequate education. It 
is an urban school district, literally a microcosm of our country, 
probably 70 percent minority students today. And when they were in 
school it was probably 65 percent minority students.
  But they went to public schools and they got an education. Of course, 
my wife teaches in those schools so she also made sure they had that 
motivation, not just in school but at home.
  One of the concerns I have, and in serving a lot of years in the 
legislature, was the facilities situation we have. We talked about that 
in special orders a number of times, our deteriorating schools 
facilities around the country, whether it be in New York, or 
Washington, DC, or Houston, TX, or a lot of our districts. Providing 
opportunity for quality education is one of the most important things 
we do in Congress.

                              {time}  2200

  I always believed that the key to the future of our country was a 
quality education. Now, we all know we want to make sure we have a 
strong military. We want to have a strong economic base. But it does 
not take too far to go. We can go just across the river in Virginia and 
talk to the folks in the Pentagon, and they will tell us that to have a 
strong military, we have to have an educated force there, people who 
can think, people who can respond to different circumstances.
  And that is what public education is supposed to do. Granted, does it 
do it 100 percent of the time? No. That is why we are here. That is why 
we have teachers every day and legislators across the country and 
school board members and superintendents trying to make it work.
  As the gentleman mentioned, my wife is an algebra teacher. I have to 
admit, I took algebra and barely struggled through, even college 
calculus. And if somebody gave me the quadratic formula tonight, I 
could not solve it without the best tutor I ever had in college, who is 
my wife.
  But that also taught me a way of thinking. So whether it was managing 
a business or practicing law or serving here in an elected office, we 
have a way that we can make decisions. And that is what we are trying 
to teach children.
  Sure, we want them to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. We want 
them to know the history of our great country. We want them to know 
English. We want them to know lots of things. We want them to know 
science, although some of us, I have to admit, are not science 
oriented. That is why I am not on the Committee on Appropriations.
  But we also want them to have a way to think and be able to change 
with the times. So that is why I think public education, the investment 
we put into it, lots of things, is helping those local districts and 
the States where most of the funding is raised.
  Just as we help our children to read, we must also give them schools 
that are safe places to learn. Today, our Nation's schools are 
increasingly run down, overcrowded, and technologically ill-equipped. 
Too many of our school buildings and classrooms are deteriorating, 
again, not just in Washington, D.C., that we hear about, as a Nation we 
hear about all the time, but all across our country, whether it be in 
an urban area like I represent or rural area.
  According to a GAO report, one-third of our schools need major repair 
or outright replacement. Sixty percent need work on major building 
features, such as a sagging roof or cracked foundation. Forty-six 
percent lack even the basic electrical wiring to support computers and 
modems and modern communications technology that we want our children 
to be able to respond to not only this decade but the next century, and 
we cannot do it with the facilities we have today.
  These are problems, again, not just in my own district in Houston but 
also across our country. A number of studies have shown that many 
school systems, particularly those in urban and high-poverty areas, are 
plagued by decaying buildings that threaten the health and safety and 
the learning opportunities of our children. Good school facilities are 
an important precondition for school learning.
  Now, we know that if you have a great teacher, a great teacher can 
teach you under a tree. But that teacher cannot teach you under that 
tree if it is snowing or raining outside. So we have to have a facility 
that is adequate not only for those good days that that teacher may be 
there, but also for the whole school year.
  Numerous studies have linked student achievement and behavior to good 
physical building conditions. Not only are our schools in a state of 
disrepair, but we also need to see the accommodating growths in 
enrollment. And I heard my colleagues talking about that earlier.
  In Houston, our school enrollment is skyrocketing. The Texas school 
population increased by 7.9 percent in 1 year. In the Houston 
Independent School District, we experienced an increase of 3,700 
students just from last year.
  We have a solution to that, or at least a down payment, or a start. 
The Senate Labor-HHS-Education appropriations includes $100 million for 
provision for school facility infrastructure, and it is a good starting 
point.
  In fact, I think it is ironic when my colleague, the gentleman from 
New Jersey [Mr. Pallone], asked me today about doing a special order on 
education, I am always willing to do it, one of my school 
superintendents from Aldine School District, Sonny Donaldson, whom I 
work with on a number of occasions, just happened to send me a letter 
talking about how important that $100 million provision is for school 
facility infrastructure in the Senate appropriations bill. Our House 
bill did not include that $100 million.
  I have to admit, $100 million, we can spend that in the State of 
Texas alone. But it is a help from the Federal Government to leverage, 
as the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] talked about, to show 
that we will provide a dollar for maybe what a local district may 
provide $10 or $100, but to provide that assistance, that we recognize 
that that child is also our responsibility on the floor of the House. 
We cannot just put it off on school board members, we cannot put it off 
on State legislators or school superintendents; we have to take the 
responsibility on ourselves.
  As we help our communities build and maintain their schools, we must 
ensure that every school and classroom is connected to the information 
superhighway. And the President has proposed a 5-year, $2 billion fund 
that will support grass-roots efforts and again put the fingertips of 
every child by the year 2000 on modern computers, high-quality 
educational software, trained teachers in connection with the 
superhighway.
  Again, I appreciate the opportunity to join my colleagues tonight.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Pallone], because I think he has something he wants to add to 
that.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I was listening to what the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Green] said, in particular with regard to the effects of 
overcrowded classrooms or decaying schools. There is no question that 
it affects the quality of education provided to students.
  It is much more difficult, and I know my colleague from North 
Carolina [Mr. Etheridge] mentioned, as well, it is much more difficult 
to learn in an environment where the building is crumbling around you 
or the situation where there are too many students in the classroom.
  Of course it is true, as my colleague said, that some teachers can 
teach in the worst situation in the world and some students can learn 
in the worst situation. But, unfortunately, those are often exceptions, 
and the reality is, we have to see how the average student is impacted.
  The one thing that the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Green] mentioned, 
though, that I particularly want to draw attention to is, it is really 
ironic that this week, I think it is either Wednesday or Thursday of 
this week on this floor, we are going to be considering this Republican 
amendment that would adopt a voucher system in the District of 
Columbia.

  I do not know if it was the last time, but certainly in early 
September, when the gentleman from North Carolina

[[Page H8427]]

[Mr. Etheridge] and I, and I think the gentleman from Texas [Mr. 
Green], we were all here and we were talking about how the schools in 
the District of Columbia were closed, I believe, for at least 3 weeks, 
in some cases maybe even more, because the Federal judge in the 
District of Columbia had ruled that the conditions in the schools were 
so bad, that the infrastructure conditions were so bad that she, I 
think it was a woman judge, insisted that the schools be closed until 
the money was spent to repair the schools.
  Now, we have been talking about infrastructure and we have been 
talking about vouchers all night. But here we have a situation where 
probably the infrastructure problem in the District of Columbia is one 
of the worst in the Nation, to the point where they could not even open 
the schools.
  I am sure the judge was motivated by the fact that it was going to be 
a bad learning experience for these kids and it was going to be hard 
for them to learn, given these buildings and the shape they were in. 
And here, where there is such a great need for money to repair schools, 
we are proposing a voucher system, which I do not know how many, I 
think there are a few thousand kids that are going to be impacted by 
it. Why not spend that money on the infrastructure needs when the court 
has actually had to step in and close the schools for that reason?
  Again, it points at directly how the need is there and yet we are 
wasting the resources. In fact, in some cases, I understand these kids 
might not even be in the District, they might actually be going to 
Virginia or Maryland or some other places for their education.
  I am not here to defend the District of Columbia and its school 
system. I am sure there are bad conditions and there are problems, and 
they have been documented. But it does not make any sense to me to say, 
okay, forget about that; Let it continue to deteriorate, and we will 
just set up this voucher system.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, if we take that 
another step and we look at industry, and one of the first things I 
remember in the D.C. situation that my colleague mentioned was, they 
went in to put the roofs on the buildings because the buildings were 
leaking.
  It is one thing to have poor lighting. It is another thing to have 
trash cans in the building catching the water when it rains. And that 
leads to a multitude of problems of safety and additional deterioration 
and on and on. There is no question that the quality of the environment 
makes a difference. There are enough studies.
  The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Green] mentioned growth. Let me just 
share a few of the States, if I may, that are growing so rapidly. Over 
the next 10 years, it is projected, this is just high school 
enrollment, because it goes back to the point he made about those 
youngsters showing up at elementary school. I have often said, some 
people want to know why communities are growing so and schools are 
growing. I said, well, you know, people move into communities, and when 
they move there, they tend to want to bring the children with them if 
they have children. That is normally what happens. And when they bring 
them there, normally they want to go to school.
  And in growing communities, we understand that. And for some 
communities, they can pretty well determine how large their first-grade 
class will be by the number of live births that happened 5 or 6 years 
earlier. The problem most schools have are in those fast-growing 
communities where you have in-migration; people move in and bring the 
children.
  As an example, in California, over the next 10 years, it is projected 
that there will be a 35-percent increase in the high school enrollment 
in the State of California, a State right now that is a large State, a 
State that most of us think of as being a State that is fairly 
affluent.
  But when we have that kind of growth continue in a State that is 
right now already struggling to meet the needs, we wind up with major 
overcrowding. And overcrowding leads to all those problems that we talk 
about of discipline, lack of academic achievement.
  There is no question of the studies, and there will be more studies 
that will continue to come out, beyond having quality teachers in the 
classroom and a good curriculum, the next best thing we can do for 
children to provide for them learning opportunities where they excel is 
smaller class sizes.
  We can talk to any teacher in this country, in urban or rural 
systems, in elementary grades or high school, and what they will say 
is, ``Let me have a small class.'' It gets back to the point the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Green] made earlier about the teacher 
teaching under the tree. If we have got a small enough class, you can 
teach most anywhere. The problem we have is, as those classes grow, we 
really do need space in the larger classes so that children have places 
to move around, or students, for that matter, who happen to be in high 
school.
  But let me give my colleagues a couple of other States. For the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Green], your State is one that is proposed to 
grow very rapidly over the next 10 years. High school enrollment will 
increase by 19 percent. They can take their high school enrollment 
right now and figure out how many more schools they are going to need 
across the State and classrooms.
  My home State, which happens to be the ninth or tenth largest State 
in terms of public schools, depending how you measure it, but I think 
we are about ninth, is going to grow 27 percent at the high school 
level in the next 10 years. We are building buildings as fast as we 
can. We will not keep up.
  And the list goes. Nevada, 24; Georgia, the tenth or eleventh largest 
State, depending on how you look at it in terms of numbers, they are 
always right close to North Carolina, they will grow by 20 percent in 
population at the high school level. So we are seeing a tremendous 
need. Virginia, 20 percent.
  All across this country, we are going to see the most rapid, the 
largest growth at the high school level over the next 10 years we have 
seen at any period since the end of World War II. It is what some are 
calling the baby boom echo. We had the baby boomers. Now the baby 
boomers are echoing, and we are having children, and it is growing 
very, very rapidly.
  These numbers in no way reflect the tremendous need that my 
colleagues have talked about that is out there for repairs, for 
renovations, for making sure that buildings are wired to take care of 
the access to the Internet and computers to deal with all the 
information that is now bombarding society and certainly children and 
teachers and students have to deal with.
  It does not say anything about all the other needs outside those 
school buildings just in the learning environment, because if we are 
going to have a large number of students together, we have got all 
those auxiliary needs at the high school level, for the athletic 
program, for the extracurricular activities that are absolutely needed. 
When we get that many young people together, we had better have 
something for them to do beyond academics. We all know that that is 
awfully important.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Green].
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. When we talk about, again, buildings, thank 
goodness we are going to have those kids in high school, because the 
other problem we talk about a lot of times is the dropout.
  We do not want to see those children start in the elementary grades 
and go on to middle school and then drop out before they get to high 
school. We want to see them complete high school, because that is just 
another step on the road to their success, but also on the road to our 
country's success, because our country, as great as it is, is not any 
good at all if we have an uneducated work force or uneducated people 
that are defending our Nation.
  And we can defend our country not just by carrying a gun or manning a 
missile; we defend our country every day by being as aggressive in our 
business. That is what our school system is all about.

                              {time}  2215

  That is why the United States is the greatest country in the world 
for lots of reasons. One, the free enterprise system; but also, because 
we educate everyone. We are a diverse country and we want everyone to 
be educated. We want to give them the opportunity, and granted, some 
people are harder to educate.

[[Page H8428]]

  In fact, I had some high school teachers who said I was probably one 
of those harder to educate students. But I am glad that they persevered 
because they were preparing me to serve in Congress. And that is why we 
need to encourage and do better today for those teachers that are out 
there today doing that, just like the gentleman said. They are hard-
working. They not only work their 7 hours a day, but they spend hours 
and hours in the evening grading those tests, grading those papers that 
they cannot do during the day.
  Also, conferences. I cannot remember, when I was in school, a teacher 
calling my parents. One, I did not want them to. But today, because 
most of the schools have it built into the responsibilities, teachers 
have to contact those parents, not just sending a note home but calling 
those parents to make sure they bring them in as part of the education 
system, because we just cannot educate children with teachers and 
students; it is all of us involved in it, parents, the community, and 
that is where we see the success in the school districts.
  Let me say that the problem in some facilities, some districts have 
success with their local taxpayers who approve the bond elections. We 
had some great successes in the districts I am honored to represent. We 
have a school, Cheneby High School, a small school district on the 
outskirts of Houston that has a new high school, Cheneby High School 
that has state-of-the-art computers. There is a hookup in every 
classroom. We do not have that in most of our districts, because some 
districts, the voters voted against bonds, so they are having to do 
creative financing to do it. Galena Park High School in a neighboring 
district is building a new high school, doing the same thing, because 
their voters approved it. But we need to help on a national basis 
because it is a national concern, because we need to make sure that 
those young people are prepared to take our places here on the floor.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman says, it is part of our 
national security, and I think it is just as important or certainly 
measures in importance with defending our borders, because if our young 
people cannot compete in the economic environment we find ourselves in 
in the world economy, we are going to be in trouble in the 21st 
century.
  I yield to my friend from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to follow up on some of the 
things that my colleague from Texas said about the way that we are 
talking about proceeding with this school construction Federal funding. 
I know the gentleman from North Carolina mentioned basically the 
legislative proposal.
  There have been various proposals, but essentially what we are 
talking about is to provide these intra subsidies, if you will, for new 
construction and renovation. When we were talking about the President's 
budget, the program that was actually negated, if you will, by the 
Republicans, that was a $5 billion Federal jump start that had a goal 
of increasing school construction by 25 percent over the next 4 years. 
But what the gentleman from Texas mentioned, and I think is so 
important, is that generally, my understanding, it is certainly true in 
New Jersey, I think in almost every State, is that in order to finance 
school construction through bonding, one usually has to go to a local 
referendum to do that.
  Part of the reason why local school districts have turned down the 
bond proposals is because of the exorbitant costs. They cannot 
necessarily get a good package or get financing at a low interest rate 
because of maybe the nature of the district, or I do not know how much 
State funding they get, or whatever.
  So we are not forcing anybody to do anything here. What we are saying 
is if there is a district that needs some help in terms of their 
putting together a package and doing the financing, the Federal 
Government is out there to help to provide an intra subsidy, and the 
idea would be then that the local school district and the voters would 
still have to approve the bond issue, but it would be more attractive 
to them because it would be at a lower interest rate and they would 
have some subsidy, if you will, coming from the Federal Government.
  So it is more likely that this is going to help those districts that 
are having problems getting the financing, because it will make it more 
attractive to the voters and make it easier to pass these bond issues, 
is my understanding. But again, it is strictly voluntary. Nobody is 
stepping in from the Federal Government telling them what to do. If one 
is willing to spend the money, and the school districts are still going 
to have to spend the majority of the money on this, it just makes it a 
lot easier for them to do that.
  To me, that is exactly what the role of the Federal Government should 
be doing, trying to help the school districts that want to help 
themselves. They have the need, they are having difficulty obtaining 
the financing, and we step in and we make it a lot easier to do so. But 
that can go very far in my understanding, just from my own experience 
in New Jersey, that kind of subsidy can go very far towards achieving 
the goal of having a lot more renovation, a lot of new schools 
constructed, just that little bit of Federal help, so to speak.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman is absolutely 
correct. What the gentleman was talking about is, the gentleman said we 
are setting a national priority and he is saying that is important.
  I know in my home State in North Carolina we passed a bond issue this 
year, $1.9 billion, and it may seem like a lot of money, and it is a 
large sum of money in our State, but we were looking at school facility 
needs 2 years ago in excess of $5 billion. So the State was going to 
assist the locals; they had to pass their own referendums on a match, 
on a sliding scale, for assistance.
  Well, now we are growing so fast that a lot of those communities are 
going to still see themselves with tremendous needs over the next 
several years. But that is really what the gentleman is talking about, 
those that show the initiative locally, that draw from a pool, and this 
money would be used to draw down, to make the interest rates lower. So 
in effect one is able to have a larger bond issue for less money, is 
really what the bottom line is.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield again, this 
proposal, the one that the Republicans knocked down, was very flexible 
in how the money could be used. I know the gentleman from Texas talked 
about computers or technology infrastructure, whatever. I just have a 
list here. It can be used just for basic building purposes, but it also 
can be used for health and safety problems, with plumbing, heating and 
lighting; it can be used to improve energy efficiency; it can be used 
for all kinds of educational technologies, such as communications, 
closets, electrical systems, power outlets, all of that goes to the 
computers; and also for after school learning centers, community 
projects that are linked to the schools.

  I know the gentleman from North Carolina has mentioned in the past in 
different special orders how increasingly schools are learning centers 
for all kinds of activities, not only during the school day but after 
school, for extracurricular programs, sports, adult education. So this 
is a very flexible proposal that can be used for all of those different 
things.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely correct. We 
have schools across this country, and I know in my State, before-school 
programs for children, before school opens they actually open the 
school and provide a morning day care, provide breakfast for them, and 
it is on a sliding scale and the schools actually make money on it. For 
those who cannot afford to pay and those that can, they put together 
different programs to work.
  I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, let me talk about some innovative things that 
schools have done. For example, in some of the districts I am familiar 
with, we have always heard of night school students, but they are using 
their buildings, because why build new buildings if they are not 
utilizing them? So they are using them for night students. Those 
students who may be more motivated by going out and working during the 
day and coming in and getting their high school diploma during the 
night in an abbreviated program, schools are doing that. So even

[[Page H8429]]

in those opportunities, we are seeing overcrowding on the high school 
level.
  So there are other activities, and the gentleman mentioned other 
activities. We have great ROTC programs, great band programs; obviously 
athletics, if one is coming from Texas or North Carolina, I guess. But 
every way we can reach that child to keep them in school, to encourage 
them to be in school, again, no matter what we do, any of the 
extracurricular programs and use it as a motivator.
  I just happened to like to play football when I was in high school 
and that was a motivator. In fact, those coaches could motivate me much 
better than any English teacher could. But that worked. The same way 
with ROTC now is so successful, and it is a growing program in our 
districts, at least in Texas and I think nationwide.
  So that is why the infrastructure funding is so important. What my 
colleague from New Jersey mentioned, we have title I funding that is 
available for computers. We can go buy the computers now. But to wire 
the school, we cannot use title I funding. That is why an 
infrastructure, to bring that school up to grade level for wiring for 
the public schools for the computers, but also for the health and 
safety of those children, so not only does the roof not fall in, but 
the fire safety is there, and I know that is the D.C. problem. The 
judge said those schools are just not safe for those children. Frankly, 
if I had a child in the D.C. schools, I would be glad that the judge 
said that and said, OK, we need to fix them before we put those 
children in those schools.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the following letter from the Aldine 
Independent School District, Houston, TX, for the Record:

                                                Aldine Independent


                                              School District,

                                  Houston, TX, September 30, 1997.
     Hon. Gene Green,
     Rayburn Bldg.,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Congressman Green: Enrollment is rising in the 
     nation's public schools and federal incentives are needed to 
     fund critical construction to meet growth. The $100 million 
     provision for school facility infrastructure in the Senate's 
     appropriations bill is a starting point. The House bill, 
     however, does not include school infrastructure funding.
       I urge you to contact House conferees who will meet to 
     resolve differences between the House and Senate bills and 
     ask them to accept the $100 million for school infrastructure 
     included in the Senate version. For your convenience, I have 
     included a list of the House conferees from the subcommittee.
       For urban school districts such as Aldine, which has 
     experienced 2-3 percent annual growth over the last three 
     years, federal funding is vital. Your assistance in retaining 
     the $100 million appropriations for the Rebuild America's 
     Schools initiative is greatly appreciated by our children, 
     taxpayers, and educators.
            Sincerely,
                                                   M.B. Donaldson,
                                        Superintendent of Schools.

  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Let me thank the gentleman. He is absolutely correct.
  We have talked about after hours, and I just wanted to make a point 
of that, because I have been in a number of schools where they actually 
have an after hours program for a number of students who have 
difficulty at home. They drop out of school. They decide they want to 
come back to the public schools, they do not want to go to the 
community college and get a GED. They want to get their high school 
diploma.
  And I know it is happening in North Carolina, where they actually can 
come to school at night, have a full-time job during the day because 
they have to earn a living. They may have already gotten married early, 
but they want to get their degree, and this happens.
  The public schools are changing. We can put together another special 
order very shortly, hopefully before this week is out, and actually 
talk about some of these things, but more importantly talk about the 
strengths of our public schools, the academic things that are 
happening. Our schools certainly have a lot of challenges today, but 
they are meeting those challenges in a way they have never met them, 
because as both of my friends have said this evening, they are working 
harder, our teachers are working hard, they are committed, and we have 
some of the best qualified people in those classrooms we have ever had 
and the leadership, the principalship.
  I think we need to talk about it. I know we are seeing student 
achievement go up, as we talk about the National Assessment of 
Education Progress, which I happen to believe is a better measure than 
the SAT that we use on an intermittent basis, because NAEP tends to do 
it by sampling, and that is where we can absolutely sample and they 
come back with a statistical number and it is accurate. We have seen 
some dramatic growth in our State and really across the country since 
1990 in math and reading, and those are two of the core areas, and we 
have to see that continue and escalate across this country for all 
children.
  That is one of the things I hope we will be able to talk about and 
have some data on over the next several days, and that gets back to the 
issue the President proposed and that others are saying we ought not to 
do.
  Well, that is silly. That is absolutely silly. It is voluntary. We 
are now giving it to 43 States in this country. Forty-three States are 
taking the NAEP right now, and they are doing it on a voluntary basis. 
When I was a superintendent and we met all 50 chiefs, we absolutely 
said there will not be a national curriculum; we will not support it, 
we will not have any part of it, but we will participate and want to 
participate in a voluntary testing program.
  Why? Because the people who live in North Carolina today very well 
may live in Texas next week or New Jersey the year after that, and they 
have a right to know that their children, as they move from place to 
place, that it is measured and they are getting the kind of education 
they want.
  I think that is why we are seeing the American public on almost 
everything we read say they are willing to make sure that their 
children have a good education, and they want that assessment and they 
want it on a voluntary basis.
  I hope we can talk about that and erase that myth that our schools 
are not doing better than we are doing, because they really are, 
because we are doing it with children, as my friend from Texas said, 
that are coming to school with a lot of baggage these days. They are 
coming to school when they have not had a chance to sleep the night 
before; many come when the first meal they have had since they left 
lunch the day before is the breakfast they get when they show up in the 
morning.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think we 
are running out of time, but I just wanted to, if I could, follow up on 
what the gentleman from North Carolina said.
  The gentleman from Texas mentioned earlier about Goals 2000, and we 
know that the Republicans have many times opposed Goals 2000 and asked 
that it not be funded. But in my home State of New Jersey we have 
received funding from Goals 2000. And one of the things that we have 
done with that funding, and it has been very successful, is not only do 
testing statewide, but also use the results of that testing to develop 
core curriculum.
  One of the goals of the Democratic education task force that the 
gentleman cochairs is to emphasize academic excellence in the basics. I 
think that across the country people understand that we need to have 
excellence in the basics.

                              {time}  2230

  Obviously, curricula will vary from one school district to the next, 
or one State to the next. That is the way it should be. That is the 
American way. But the basics, students need to learn how to read and 
write. They need basic science courses. These are the kinds of things 
they need if they are going to be successful.
  There is absolutely no reason why the Federal Government cannot 
provide money to the States to help develop core curriculum, in some 
cases do testing, to do what the States think needs to be done on a 
voluntary basis to improve basic skills. I do not think anybody is 
against that. If they are, I do not care, because I think they are 
wrong. We need basic skills.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. The gentleman is absolutely correct. I was there when 
we got the Goals 2000 money. Of all the money the Federal Government 
sent to our State, that was the most flexible money; very few strings 
attached, other than fill out about a 2-page form and send to it to the 
Department of Education on what you were going to do with the money, 
how you were going

[[Page H8430]]

to use it, what results you were going to get. That is the money that 
has been used in North Carolina, and I would assume in the other 49 
States and territories, to allow for the reform, the change that is now 
taking place all across this country.
  I thank the gentleman, and I hope we can get back and spend a whole 
evening on this whole issue of academic reform and accountability in 
these areas, and talk about assessment, because I feel very strongly 
about it and I think the American people do. I thank the gentleman for 
joining me.

                          ____________________