[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 144 (Thursday, October 23, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2071]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       CUT RED TAPE ON EDUCATION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB SCHAFFER

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 23, 1997

  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, about the importance of 
education, Thomas Jefferson said, ``Enlighten the people generally, and 
tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits 
at the dawn of day.''
  There is no more critical issue in Northern Colorado than education. 
The strength of our community and the republic rely squarely upon the 
mature and cultural literacy of the citizenry.
  Jefferson observed, ``Every government degenerates when trusted to 
the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its 
safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be 
improved to a certain degree.''
  My years of work on the state Senate Education Committee and my 
current position in the U.S. Congress on the House Committee on 
Education have persuaded me to stick to the vision of the school 
children as the first priority, and parents as the most essential 
partners in education reform.
  However, volunteering for several years on parent boards at my 
children's elementary schools in Fort Collins has persuaded me that the 
best policies established for children are devised at the most local 
level involving real parents.
  But our local traditions of parental involvement, unfortunately, are 
constantly under attack in Washington by those who favor a stronger 
federal presence in our classrooms. The track record is clear. As more 
education authority is usurped by the federal government, and stripped 
from local professionals, there has been a corresponding decline in 
national, education performance.
  In Colorado, education leaders often feel hamstrung to fully address 
some alarming trends. About one-quarter of Colorado high school 
students will drop out before they graduate. The average high school 
dropout costs society an estimated $563,000 over his lifetime in public 
subsidies and income support.
  A total of 68,135 suspensions occurred in the 1994-95 school year, 
involving 47,072 elementary and secondary students in Colorado. The 
Colorado graduation rate for the class of 1995 decreased 1.4 percentage 
points from the 1994 graduation rate. Statewide, 40 percent of Hispanic 
students scheduled to graduate in 1996 did not.
  In spite of mammoth growth in the federal education bureaucracy's 
budget, Washington's agents have produced little in the way of positive 
results. Consequently, my colleagues and I have moved forward with 
plans to empower local communities by cutting the red tape and 
administrative costs associated with large federal programs. For 
example, we've repealed 87 outdated federal programs over the last two 
years and consolidated 26 more into four, giving states broader 
latitude to target funding where they know it's most needed.
  We've successfully beaten back the U.S. Department of Education's 
attempt to take over independent national testing, and we've resisted 
the federalization of curriculum by transferring hundreds of millions 
of dollars away from centralized programs toward at-risk kids, 
vocational education and the disabled.
  Our objective in Washington must be to continue shrinking the federal 
administrative bureaucracy and liberating classrooms, to unleash states 
and communities and honor our traditions of local, parental authority.
  By focusing on the liberty to learn and the freedom to teach, a less 
intrusive federal government can inspire local communities to pursue 
their inclinations toward promising, bottom-up innovations, like school 
choice, charter schools, post-secondary enrollment options and other 
alternatives, in addition to conventional approaches. Together we can 
create an education marketplace improving opportunity equally for all 
students by once again treating teachers like real professionals, and 
parents like real customers, realizing Jefferson's vision ``at the dawn 
of the day.''

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