[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].

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