[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 22, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H8990-H8993]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REPUBLICAN LEGISLATION ATTACKS PUBLIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I expect to be joined in a few minutes by
one of my colleagues.
This evening I would like to talk about the efforts that have been
made by the Republican leadership to move various legislation which I
consider essentially an attack on public education in this country.
Democrats, for a long time, certainly throughout this Congress, have
stressed the need for this Congress to address education in various
ways. We started out during the debate on the Balanced Budget Act this
summer stressing the need for better access to higher education.
In fact, as a result of President Clinton's efforts and the efforts
of the Democrats joining with him, we were able to include in the
Balanced Budget Act, when it passed, some significant measures that
would provide more access to higher education for the average American
in terms of expanding student loan programs, providing tax deductions
or tax credits that make it easier for the average American, the
working American, to pay for college education or graduate education.
But now, after the Balanced Budget Act was passed, and certainly
starting this fall, we have talked increasingly about the need to
address the problems in our public schools, but in a very positive way.
Our feeling is that the public schools in America are in pretty good
shape but they certainly need improvement and that there are various
ways to go about improving them.
One of the areas that we have talked about the most is the need to
address the public school infrastructure. The fact of the matter is
there are many public schools that have great need for repairs or even
new construction because of expanded enrollment but do not have the
ability within their school district to pay for those school
construction or renovation needs.
In addition, there is the whole issue of basic skills; that more
needs to be done to improve learning with regard to basic skills in the
various public schools. And the Democrats have actually come up with a
whole series of ideas about ways to improve public education, which I
may get into this evening with some of my colleagues.
But before I do that, I wanted to talk about the fact that instead of
emphasizing the need to improve the public schools, where better than
90 percent of America's students are enrolled, the Republican
leadership, at least in the last few weeks, has instead embarked on an
effort to try to take away resources, taxpayer dollars, from the public
schools and use them, or credit them, to private or religious school
initiatives.
Now, the best example of that was 2 weeks ago, before we adjourned
for the district work period, the Speaker actually brought to the floor
as part of the D.C., District of Columbia, appropriation bill a private
school voucher program. It was a provision that would basically have
provided funding to a very limited number of students within the
District of Columbia, I think 2,000, approximately, which is really a
drop in the bucket in terms of the number of students in the D.C.
Public schools, and allowed them to take that voucher and use it for
private schools either in the District of Columbia or in surrounding
States.
This provision initially failed to pass the House, and the reason it
failed to pass was essentially because most Members, and I am one of
them, do not believe that it makes sense to take resources that could
be used for things like school construction in the District of
Columbia, which has a great need for school construction and
renovation, and instead use that money to pay for private education.
The Speaker did not have the votes, actually, for the D.C.
appropriation bill, in part because of the voucher provision, but what
he did was he held the vote open and he twisted some fellow Republican
arms to change their votes so he finally got a majority of one to pass
the bill.
Despite this near failure, and I say near failure, because the way it
was done it was clearly an indication that this was not a measure that
had the support of a majority within this House of Representatives, but
nonetheless, even with that, keeping that in mind, the Speaker is now
once again, and the Republican leadership is now once again taking
another step in this same direction, taking resources that could be
used for public education and using them to pour taxpayer dollars into
private and religious schools.
This was a provision that was originally proposed in the Senate by
Senator Coverdell. He has called it an education savings account but,
essentially, it primarily benefits wealthy families. It allows them to
basically provide tax-free funds that would be used to pay for private
education.
Now, Democrats, and I believe this is coming up tomorrow, Mr.
Speaker, but Democrats basically will put forth an alternative that
will use this money for school construction bonds to help public
schools that are in disrepair or in need of new construction. Without
getting into the specifics of this provision, which I oppose, I am
trying to make the point, and I think we as Democrats are making the
point, that we need to improve the public schools rather than siphon
Federal dollars for private schools.
We should not be giving up on the public schools. The public schools
are where most of our children are educated. We have had an historic
commitment to public schools in this country and, if anything, and I
feel very strongly, we should be moving a Democratic initiative, which
we have discussed and which our Democratic task force has put forward,
that would provide improvements for public education rather than
siphoning off this money for private and religious schools.
I see one of the cochairs of the Democratic education task force,
which has taken the initiative to put forward these principles for
America's public schools, my colleague from North Carolina, is here.
I was going to briefly, if I could, just outline some of the
principles that the gentleman and his task force have put together,
just to juxtapose those to what the Republican leadership has been
trying to do in the last couple of weeks, and if I could just mention
six very briefly.
These are the principles for America's public schools. First, an
emphasis on academic excellence in the basics; second, well-trained,
motivated teachers to help children achieve high standards; third,
using public dollars to improve public schools rather than private
school vouchers at public expense, which we have discussed; fourth, the
Federal role in education that supports local initiatives for strong
neighborhood public schools; fifth, empower parents to choose the best
public school for their children; and, sixth, every child should have
access to a safe, well-equipped public school.
Again, the task force does not take the position they are opposed to
choice, but the choice should be in the public schools. We do not want
to take taxpayer dollars and use them for private education.
I would like at this time to yield to my colleague, the gentleman
from North Carolina [Mr. Etheridge], who has taken the lead on this and
who has been so well-spoken because of his background and experience on
the issue of public education.
{time} 1815
Mr. ETHERIDGE. I appreciate the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr.
Pallone] yielding and I appreciate very much the gentleman putting
together this special order, because I think it is important to the
American people to understand. Let me set a little history, if I may
before we get to this because I think it is important.
I think of a great Congressman who represented the district that I
now represent many years ago, a gentleman by the name of Harold Cooley,
who at that time chaired the Committee on Agriculture in the U.S.
Congress. It was his task to chair the Agriculture Committee during and
right after World War II. Many of our young people who went
[[Page H8991]]
before the draft in World War II failed their physical. Congressman
Cooley felt so strongly that he attached an appropriation and an
authorization piece to a military authorization bill, defense bill, to
provide for school lunches for the children of this Nation. Prior to
that time, there had not been a hot lunch for children in our public
schools across this country.
I set that tone because there are many who today say this is not the
role of the Federal Government, or that is not the role of the Federal
Government. Well, until about 1945, 1946, it had not been the role of
the Federal Government to participate in the school lunch programs,
either. I know this Congress last session, the majority, tried to strip
that out, but when they heard from the American people, they changed
their minds.
I will say to the gentleman, having been a superintendent for 8 years
in the public schools of the State of North Carolina and having
responsibility for about 1.2 million children, and having gone in those
cafeterias, as a matter of fact, last week I was in 4 different
schools, had lunch with two different classrooms of students, and I can
tell the gentleman that instruction goes on in those schools all across
America whether they are having lunch or they are in recess.
One of the things I wanted to point out was that the teacher, it
happened to be International Day. Every day during the week they had a
different country. One of the schools I was in, in Wilson, it happened
to be the day for China. They had chop suey or they had egg rolls. What
was so significant I think about it was that it was a first grade class
that I was having lunch with and the teacher, and if you know first
graders and kindergartners, you use your finger to point to the first
letter as you start to read and they were reading to those children
each line of the menu so they could identify the menu, and then they
were allowed to stand in two different rows, depending on which menu
they chose. It was quite obvious to me that there were children in each
of those rows who had tried neither of those menus. But it was so
instructive in the teachers working with them and I sat at the table
with them, and we talked and of course as the gentleman can appreciate,
there was a lot of media there, but they had a delightful time. But
that is instruction.
I tell that little story to set the stage for what we are talking
about, because Democrats are working to improve public schools in
America. We have done that time and time again. We have set the tone.
Education, public education, in my opinion, is the key to the
foundation of our democracy. It is the one thing that helps bring
people together. It is the one thing that levels the playing field for
children no matter what their ethnic or economic background is, and it
gives them a chance in this highly competitive world, and without an
education they do not have it. I mean that when I say all children, not
just those from the privileged, not just those whose parents can afford
to send them to private schools or those who might get a few vouchers.
All children, because any that are left behind are the ones I think
that are deprived.
I want to talk just a minute, and I hope the gentleman will join me
as we get into this, about reading, because I believe reading is the
foundation, that is one of the pieces that we have talked about and the
President laid out in his State of the Union address so strongly.
Because reading is the gateway skill, let me repeat that again, reading
is the gateway skill. We talk about how important it is today in the
world we live in that is so technical, it is high tech. A report has
just come out in the last 10 days about how important it is to have
algebra, geometry and those higher skills in math, and I certainly
agree with that wholeheartedly because North Carolina required algebra
of all of our students back in 1991. We were one of the first States to
do that. But until a child learns to read, all the other things are off
the sheet, they are off the page. It is so important to do it early.
The President had requested in his program, America Reads Challenge,
to have 1 million tutors. Many of them are volunteers and we have a lot
of those in our State and across this country. But I thought it was a
great stroke when he said of the money we are sending to our
universities, we want to develop a partnership with the universities in
this country to not only just get them to go into schools but get young
people to understand it is important to volunteer again, and some of
them were to be paid out of the funds that are in the current budget
that is now hung up in conference, and I trust it will be broken loose
because unless we do it, I really believe that we will do the children
of this country a grave injustice and it will cost our country in the
productivity of these young people, in the productivity of our economy
a tremendous amount of money.
I would say to the gentleman that parents are the first teachers.
There is no question about that. They are the first teachers that a
child has in every family. I do not know of a parent that does not want
their child to succeed, but there are a lot of parents who are
nonreaders themselves, unfortunately, in a Nation as rich and as
plentiful as we have it in America. But they want their children to
read, and that is why we have a program for adults.
But I am going to talk about a school I was in last week, I went in a
school system. They had a tremendous program that they have been
involved in now for about 5 years, and it fits right into what the
President is talking about, this issue of getting 100,000 college work-
study students to serve as reading tutors. There are almost 800
colleges and universities, public and private, across this country who
have now signed up to be a part of this program, assuming the funds are
there. It is great to go out and teach, but what we have to have on the
backside of it is accountability. I want to talk about those together.
We have to challenge every parent, teacher, principal and community
member in each of our communities across this country to help get
children started to learn to read by the time they are in the third
grade. But to do that, we have to teach and we have to hold them
accountable. We have to measure what we have done. Otherwise, we will
not know how we get there. I think that is important.
It would be great if every parent would read to their child at least
30 minutes a day. Many do not. They do not have the time. But I think
it would be super. And schools need to be able to provide high quality
reading initiatives for all students, making sure that teachers know
how to teach children to read, identify those that need extra help, and
that is where the tutors come in. When you have 21 to 26 and in some
cases, unfortunately, as many as 30 students in a class, a teacher
cannot give the quality time that he or she wants to. They are
hardworking people, they care so deeply about their children. We have
to have the community members involved. America Reads Challenge, this
tutoring program, is a tremendous program that we have a chance to make
a difference. And businesses can be involved. The business community is
involved, I know in our State, but there are more that can get
involved, not only in tutoring but doing a lot of other things and
encouraging parents, giving parents time off to go in and work with
their children.
I would suggest they follow the lead of Johnston County schools, and
I want to talk about that for just a moment because I have some charts
here showing what happened when a school district says that we are
absolutely going to make a difference for all of our children, not just
a few, all children, and this is representative of the 100 percent of
children in that school system where in 1993, only 65.8 percent of
those children were what was called proficiency level. That means they
could read at or above grade level and move on to the next grade. We
see the next year there was a drop, and then we see progressive growth
up to 76.1 percent in 1997. I predict that will continue to rise.
When we see that kind of growth in reading, a lot of good things are
happening on the part of the teachers, on the part of the parents and
on the part of the total community. There is great pride, there is
tremendous work, and that is well above the national average as
reported on NAEP. Because if we look at the numbers, we will see that
in the 5-year period, they gained 11 points in their reading
proficiency. But more importantly, let me show you what those points
really translate into. Because what we are looking at here is a chart
showing the 8th grade students,
[[Page H8992]]
and this is cohort data in reading. What that really means, the same
group of students that were measured in 1993 were measured in 1997 in
their growth patterns to see how much they had grown. If we look at the
bottom cohort, which means level 1, they are not proficient, they are
not doing well, and they really would not be able to move to the next
grade and do the work. We see that number drop from 9.2 in 1993 down to
2.5 in 1997, almost a 7 percent drop. That represents a tremendous
number of children. What is so important about that is we look at the
numbers, we look at the cohort at the top, goes from 21 to 34. That is
well above grade level, because the 48.6 percent here versus the 44.4
percent is really at grade level.
So we see the Johnston County School System is really doing what we
want done in every school system all across our State and all across
America because we are pushing more and more students up into the top
two cohorts where we really need them to be proficient, to be able to
handle the other things they have to do and the more sophisticated
reading they need to do. Because we see in the second cohort in level
2, it drops from 25.4 down to 14.7.
If it were only in reading, it would be one thing, but let us look at
what happened in math for those very same students. So it tells us we
have got a system that is really doing some things because they are
getting help. In 1993, students who were proficient, and that is a bar
that is set. That is why when the President talks about standards it
makes sense. It makes sense to talk about standards and then you
measure to that standard because we have that. In 1993, it was 61.8
percent of the students in grades 3 through 8 were proficient in math.
But look at the difference that 5 years made when they really began to
focus, they realized what was expected. It was measured. It made a
difference on the part of the parents, on the part of the students,
because every student in this school system with their parent signs a
contract. This is a public school system where they signed a contract.
We see tremendous growth.
This is the kind of thing I think that we talk about when we talk
about America Reads and the President's program of providing students a
goal, providing resources, because, yes, it takes resources. But when
we do it, we must have accountability and measure. And people need to
know what we are doing and we get results. I think this is proof that
we can improve our children's reading through our public schools. But
we have to let them know what we want. Let me be the first to say, we
cannot do it from Washington. But what we can do and what I think we
should do and what we must do is say it is important, as the President
had, and when we have done that, then we have got to be willing to
stand behind it, because the job will get done at the local level.
Mr. PALLONE. What the gentleman has laid out there I think is very
impressive and it really shows what can be accomplished in just a few
years. I think that that is what we need to do. We need to emphasize
here on the floor of the House how certain school districts have been
very effective in improving basic skills and improving other aspects of
public education. Because my whole point is that there are some really
excellent examples of what can be done in the public schools and that I
think generally most people are satisfied with the public school system
but they would like to see some improvements.
Our point as Democrats has been throughout this debate, and it will
continue throughout this session of Congress, that you should not be
spending resources for private education when you can actually do
things with some Federal help, if necessary, that would improve
significantly education in the public schools. I think this is a very
good example of that. The gentleman was very much involved in putting
forward this Democratic agenda for first class public schools. I just
mentioned briefly some of those points that the task force brought
together.
{time} 1830
But just to provide a little more detail, and maybe we can go back
and forth and talk about some of these things, with regard to just the
two issues of early childhood development, Basics by Six, and well-
trained teachers, the task force, Democratic task force, mentioned a
couple of things.
First of all, they said there should be the opportunity for every
child to be ready to learn by the time he or she enters kindergarten,
invest in early intervention, community-based programs such as Early
Start, Head Start, engage parents and community stakeholders in the
needs of at-risk children, use schools all day as the center of the
communities for the services children need, including before and after
school.
Then for well-trained teachers, that was the second point, help
communities recruit and train well-qualified teachers who are certified
in the subjects they teach, hire enough qualified teachers to bring
down student-to-teacher ratios, incentives for qualified teachers to
teach in high-need areas and strengthen parents' rights to know about
teacher qualifications.
I think the point here is, because the last chart, and I think the
one before, this certainly was from grades three to eight in both
cases. That is eighth grade there, is that if you were able to get
these kids even before they get to the third grade ready to learn, so
to speak, it would make a big difference. But, again, the teachers, and
having qualified teachers is an important part of this, and
particularly bringing down that teacher-student ratio, because I would
assume it is very difficult to improve basic skills if you have huge
classrooms and because of the problems that result from having a very
high level of students versus the number of teachers.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. If the gentleman would yield, the number of studies
that put that out, Tennessee is a great example as a State that spent
the money, reduced class sizes and saw some tremendous results from it.
There is no question that it makes a significant difference in
kindergarten through third grade, because that is where children are
learning the basic skills, where there is so much need for personalized
attention.
If you have a large class, as you were indicating, it is very, very
difficult to be able to reach them. For some students, no problem, they
will sail through. But those marginal students or those who show up at
the public schools with all the number of problems they show up with
today makes it very, very difficult for them to be able to make it.
But if you give them the skills and give them the opportunity to
learn to read, to do the basic computations to get going, and you give
them the chance to find out they really can do it, it makes all the
difference in the world. And you cannot do all of that, as you have
indicated, without having good ongoing staff development for your
teachers, and then the rest of your staff, for that matter.
Certainly they are professionals. Certainly they work hard. But I do
not know of a corporation in America that pays their executives, in a
lot of cases far more than we are able to pay school teachers in our
public schools, that do not spend a substantial amount of money on
staff development and continue to upgrade and retrain those
professionals on the latest skills. Yet we say to a lot of our teachers
in America, you have to be recertified, depending on the State,
anywhere from five to six years. You have to have so many hours of
training, and you have got to pay for it out of your own pocket.
Industry would not dare do such a thing. We would not do it. They pay
for it, and yet we have to do it.
As you are well aware, the first money for that, some of that money
came out of the Eisenhower money that was put in the budget back in the
late fifties. That money is still important today. It is not enough.
States put it in, but I can tell you in a lot of States, when their
budgets got tight in the eighties and early nineties, the first dollars
pulled out of those budgets, and it was not true in just one State, it
was true all across America, because we know here on this floor the
Federal Government only puts in between 6 and 7 percent of the dollars
that flow down. The bulk of the money is State and local money.
Those were the first dollars pulled out, staff development, the very
dollar you need. Once you get it out, I can tell you from being a
superintendent, it is the hardest dollar to get back in.
[[Page H8993]]
Mr. PALLONE. One of the ironies, you are talking about Johnston
County, but when we had the debate two weeks ago on the D.C.
appropriations bill, and there was the proposal which actually passed
after some strong-arming here to include a voucher system within that
for about 2,000 D.C. school kids, and I just thought it was so ironic,
because if there is any school system that has greater needs in terms
of dollars, for example, for infrastructure, their schools were closed
down for three weeks in the beginning at September because the judge
ruled they were unsafe and wanted the schools to be fixed up or
renovated before they started the school year.
What we as Democrats were saying in that debate is, you know, spend
this voucher money, if you will, to better train the teachers, to fix
up the schools, to improve academic performance.
One of the things we did the day of the vote is a number of us went
down, we did a little march where we went from the Capitol, from the
House chamber here, down to a local public school, the one that was
very close to here called the Brent School. It was only a few blocks
away.
But talk about innovative ideas. Like Johnston County, they are out
there trying to improve the public school system in various ways. They
have started a very innovative tutoring program, an after-school
program that has again brought up not only the grades, but the
proficiency, if you will, of the students. So basically now Brent
School is a success story for the District of Columbia.
When we went there at the end of our march, we talked to some of the
teachers and students. It was amazing to me. First of all, the building
looked good. Secondly, I noticed a lot of students were wearing
uniforms. I was not able to find out if that was a requirement or
whatever, but that was something they were trying that was a little
different. Maybe not every school wants to have uniforms, but they were
trying it out. And it just sort of upset me to think that here is a
public school within the District of Columbia trying to make
improvements, having success in various ways. Let us encourage that.
Let us try to get more schools within the District to do that, with how
many millions of dollars is going to be made available for these school
vouchers?
The same thing is true around the country. Your principles that came
out of your Democrat Education Task Force, some of them involved
spending money, and there will be some Federal dollars available. We
know we do not have all the money in the world, and it is still
primarily locally controlled, what the schools do. But it just makes no
sense, it seems to me, when there are these innovative ideas, when you
show in Johnston County what can be done to siphon that money away in
the ways proposed two weeks ago, and in another way to be proposed
tomorrow by the Republican leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I would yield back my time, and ask that the balance be
given to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Etheridge].
____________________