[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 150 (Friday, October 31, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11512-S11513]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE EDUCATION OF OUR CHILDREN

  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise to speak again on an issue of, I 
think, paramount importance, and that is the education of our children. 
Mr. President, unless we bring about fundamental reform in education, 
we are just going to continue to nibble at the margins. We are going to 
have great intellectual discussions and not be able to help our 
children.
  The needs in our schools are great. We need better textbooks. We need 
to update computer facilities. We need to insist on teachers teaching 
the basics. And we need merit pay for good teachers.
  Our children deserve an oasis of calm in order to learn. We have to 
be able to get violent and disruptive juveniles out of the classroom, 
and ``fast track'' them out of the classroom. We hear about fast track 
for trade; what about fast tracking violent, disruptive students out of 
the classroom?
  Most importantly, we need to listen to parents in the local 
communities. This afternoon, I am going to touch on a few examples, 
horrendous examples, that all too often are being repeated in the 
educational systems throughout this country. Time after time, we see 
the education system supporting administrators, school principals and 
teachers at the expense of our children. We have to encourage parental 
involvement in education. When parents speak out, they have a right to 
be heard. They have a right to be listened to.
  One of the things that parents are clearly calling for is an end of a 
system of lifetime tenure, lifetime job protection regardless of 
whether the teacher or the school principals are doing the job. 
Eliminating tenure and reforming it is a desperately needed measure. 
The tenure system guarantees a lifetime job to teachers and school 
principals, regardless of their performance.
  Let me give you examples of how children suffer. These are real 
cases, these are our children. In junior high school 275 in Brooklyn, 
reading school scores have plummeted 21.5 points in the past 5 years. 
Sadly, this is a school that is failing our children, and they are 
getting hurt.
  So parents in the community, recognizing that problem, came together. 
The parents and the local school board

[[Page S11513]]

wanted to deny tenure to the junior high school 275 principal, 
Priscilla Williams. I think we ought to applaud those parents for 
coming together and becoming involved and speaking out, as well as the 
local school board.
  Instead of listening to the parents, instead of listening to the 
school board, the local superintendent granted permanent tenure to 
principal Williams. While those scores were plummeting, the school's 
principal was rewarded with a lifetime guarantee, a lifetime job. So 
instead of correcting the situation and bringing in a principal who 
would turn that around, we now have children being held captive. That 
means these children will continue to suffer, and the school's leaders 
cannot be held accountable. The scene is repeated throughout the 
system, unfortunately.
  Let's take a look at another district, Brooklyn's district 23. The 
school board pleaded--pleaded, and these are the elected 
representatives--to block tenure for five principals at failing 
elementary and junior high schools. What is their motivation? Their 
motivation is to give their kids a better educational opportunity. Mr. 
President, sadly, all five were granted tenure anyway. So what does 
that mean? That means thousands of children are going to be trapped in 
a system that is failing them.
  Parents know that the tenure system rewards failures. Why don't we 
listen to these parents who are crying out for reform, who are crying 
out to give their children a better education? They know that the 
business-as-usual tenure system is hurting their children. Instead of 
granting tenure to Principal Williams at junior high school 275 where 
the reading scores are dropping like a rock, she should have been 
fired, replaced, and they should have brought in somebody who had the 
educational experience and the ability to raise those scores.

  As tragic as the failing levels are at junior high school 275, there 
is something more devastating that took place more recently at another 
school. Again, these are real children involved. This was a school in 
the Bronx, PS 44, where two 9-year-old girls were brutally sexually 
assaulted by four boys----9-year-old children at school. The girls 
reported this incredibly horrendous assault to their teacher. The 
teacher, in turn, reported it to the school principal, Anthony Padilla. 
Now, what did Mr. Padilla do? Did he call the police when a teacher 
reports an assault on two 9-year-old children? No. Did he take any 
steps to assist the victim, to contact the parents? No. But he did send 
a letter. He sent a letter to the parents which stated, ``No 
inappropriate behavior took place.'' Imagine that--doesn't call the 
authorities but sends a letter to the parents saying, ``No 
inappropriate behavior took place.''
  Well, the police did investigate the case. Juveniles have been 
arrested and charged with this horrendous act. But what was done with 
or to the principal as a result of his failure to confront and deal 
with this situation in an orderly manner, a brutal attack against two 
9-year-old girls? I'll tell you what happened--he was reassigned to a 
different administrative position within the district.
  Now, let me point out something else. Padilla didn't even have 
tenure. He has previously been denied tenure. Why is he being 
protected? Why is he being kept in such a position of such 
responsibility where the lives of hundreds of youngsters are under his 
control? You have a system that protected him when he should have been 
fired. It is another example of a system supporting administrators and 
principals instead of parents and children.
  Now, Mr. President, parents know that a principal who doesn't respond 
to violence within a school should be fired and not just reassigned. He 
should have been fired. But he is reassigned. Why? Because we have a 
system that is more interested in protecting the rights and the perks 
and the privileges and has become a hiring hall. It is an employment 
center, as opposed to being a center of learning, of knowledge. 
Something is seriously wrong when they are more concerned with the 
perks and privileges of the union members, regardless of how they are 
performing.
  Mr. President, let's set the record straight. I believe the vast 
number of our teachers are good, are dedicated, are great 
professionals. We should reward them and we should pay them for that 
and we should recognize that. But the incompetent who are receiving 
lifetime job security are eroding this system both at the 
administrative level and, yes, in the classrooms. Something is 
seriously wrong when parents try to get involved in their children's 
education--in the examples I pointed out to you, where the school 
boards are begging for changes--and the system refuses to respond to 
them.
  That is exactly what has happened when school principals are granted 
lifetime tenure over the objections of parents and in spite of the 
record of the failing schools. The tenure system has kept some 
principals in schools for 25 years while the academic performance has 
continually declined. That is wrong and has to be stopped.
  I want to congratulate the parents for getting involved in their 
children's education. Nothing is more important. We have an obligation 
to reform our educational system. We have to get rid of today's system 
that ignores parents and rewards failing principals with lifetime 
tenure and replace it with a new system, a system that listens to 
parents and rewards their involvement and thinks about the education of 
the children first, not the perks and privileges of those who work in 
the system.
  I yield the floor, and I thank my colleagues for granting me this 
additional time.
  Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 10 minutes in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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