[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 149 (Thursday, October 30, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H9781]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             SCHOOL CHOICE

  (Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of weeks ago 
295 Members of this Congress voiced their support for local schools, 
for local school board members, for parents and for our children with 
respect to national testing. We decided, a majority of us in this body, 
that independent national testing, that parental measures of quality, 
that school board standards established locally are in fact the best 
measurements of how our children are succeeding in our schools and how 
our public education system is delivering quality service. The White 
House on the other hand persists in pushing forward their plan for 
government-run national testing defined by bureaucrats here in 
Washington, another effort by people here in the City of Washington, DC 
to consolidate education authority in the hands of powerful bureaucrats 
so far removed from the children in our districts and the schools that 
we represent here in Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to stick to our guns here in the House. The 295 
Members need to tell the White House that our schools need to continue 
to be governed locally.
  Mr. Speaker, Congress has a choice.
  It can ignore the findings of the 1983 report on education in 
America--A Nation at Risk--for yet another year.
  Or it can get serious and pass real reforms that have the benefit of 
a proven track record and common sense behind them.
  Previous Congresses have chosen to sell out to the special interests 
and protect the status quo.
  The results are there for all to see.
  The other side of the aisle is proposing to do exactly that for one 
more year.
  It's always the same story--more money into the very same wasteful 
bureaucracies with money that taxpayers already forked over the last 
time the Government asked for more money.
  More Federal programs, more bureaucracy, and more control from 
Washington, DC.
  This is the essence of how the other side thinks problems are solved.
  It's time to change course. Public schools can compete in a free 
market--they should be permitted to do so.
  It's time to change course.
  Competition works.
  Greater parental control and less intrusion from Washington means 
better decisions about how our children are educated.
  It's time to give parents school choice.

                          ____________________