[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 28, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H93-H98]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by bringing America's 
attention to the name of a young lady. No, it is not a young lady who 
was an intern in the White House. It is a young lady who is now dead as 
a result of negligence on the part of our system. Her name is Yanahan 
Zhao. She is a 16-year-old girl who was killed after bricks fell from a 
scaffolding at PS-131 in Brooklyn.
  I think it is very important that we note that Yanahan Zhao may not 
be the only student that has been killed in this kind of accident, but 
certainly this one we know about, it was reported. It has high 
visibility. Any time a child is killed in New York City, it gets high 
visibility. A city that often ignores the conditions under which 
students and children are laboring from day to day will focus a lot of 
attention on a child that is killed.
  So death was cruel, and our concerns and prayers we offer to the 
family of Yanahan Zhao. But I think we ought to understand that we 
should use her as an example of what we do not want to happen again. We 
do not want anywhere in America a student killed by bricks falling from 
the scaffolding of a school, or we do not want any one American student 
killed as a result of a building decaying or fixtures falling or any 
other matter. We do not want students killed and hurt.
  Yanahan Zhao becomes a motto for a school construction initiative 
that ought to spread all across America. We have to declare a state of 
emergency and assume that we have a state of emergency with respect to 
infrastructure, construction and everything related to infrastructure 
with schools. We have to listen to the General Accounting Office when 
they say that more than $100 billion is needed to deal with updating 
the infrastructure of public schools across the country. We have to 
listen.
  I have a few other examples of some outrageous things that have 
happened with respect to school construction or the lack of it. At East 
New York's Transit Technical High School, a wide swath of brick facade 
broke free from the building and came crashing down to the sidewalk. 
The only reason no one was injured is that it was Martin Luther King's 
birthday holiday, and the children were not in school. That is the only 
reason we did not have massive injuries. This wall, according to the 
report of the New York Times of January 23rd, this wall weighed 10 
tons. The bricks in that wall weighed 10 tons, measuring about 500 
square feet. That is the wall that fell from the school. Fortunately 
school was out and no one was hurt.
  According to the same article in the New York Times of January 23rd, 
the city construction officials had inspected that school and found it 
safe just 5 days before a wide swath of the brick facade fell. They 
said that the school, East New York Transit Technical School, had been 
inspected at least three times in the last 5 months, most recently last 
Friday. The last inspection was one of nearly 200 that had been 
conducted by the city's building department at schools throughout the 
city after debris, variously described as brick or cinder block, 
tumbled from a construction site atop of a Brooklyn elementary school, 
cracking the skull of 16-year-old Yanahan Zhao, who later died from 
that injury.
  I think it is important also to note that New York City has, of 
course, 1,100 schools, 1 million students. You expect things like that 
to happen, some people say, cynically dismissing the significance of 
this.
  But across the country, having these same accidents, that get less 
publicity.

[[Page H94]]

 At Phoenix, Arizona, at a Phoenix preparatory academy, a large piece 
of fireproofing material tore away from the metal decking of a second 
floor computer room, hitting the teacher.
  At Blake Elementary School in Lakeland, Florida, a student was struck 
on the head when loose mortar fell from over a doorway.
  A second grade teacher at Washington Elementary School in Spokane, 
Washington, was hit on the head and is still suffering nightmares after 
fluorescent lights peeled from the ceiling and crashed in her 
classroom. The thousand-pound metal fixture smashed onto her desk and 
across a small rug where students were gathered. Fortunately the 
students were not injured.
  At Grande Hills High School in Los Angeles, California, six students 
and two teachers were struck by boards that fell from the roof of their 
building.
  And I am sure it goes on and on, and I would like to invite other 
Members on both sides of the aisle to gather up these statistics, do a 
survey on what is happening with the buildings in their districts. This 
is not a pie-in-the-sky proposition that we should spend far more money 
than has been proposed on school construction.
  I want to sing my praises for the State of the Union address. It was 
a great address. It offered platforms and programs that I certainly 
agree with. The education initiatives, I think, that were proposed by 
the President are magnificent. Most of the initiatives are really 
needed. But I want to argue here today, and the reason I am here so 
early in the year, I want to make the case that we keep our eye on the 
core of the problem, that school construction and the infrastructure of 
schools is central to any effort to improve America's schools.
  There are a lot of other things that are proposed in the President's 
set of initiatives that can happen if you do not have first attention 
and most attention directed at school construction. You cannot have a 
reduction of teachers, a reduction of classroom size so that you have 
fewer students in the classroom, if you do not have the classrooms.
  It is wonderful that the President proposes that the Federal 
Government take the initiative and provide some of the funding to 
reduce class size, highly desirable objective, and we must all work 
toward that objective, but it will not be possible in situations where 
schools are overcrowded and there are no classrooms.
  In 1990, in the fall of 1996, in New York City on opening day they 
did not have room or places for 91,000 students, that with more than a 
million students. But even in a system with more than a million 
students, to not be able to give a desk to 91,000 students is still an 
outrageous situation.
  When schools opened in 1997, we were in the midst of an election 
year, and nobody would let us see the statistics. We do not know 
whether the situation improved dramatically between 1996 and 1997, but 
we do know from observation and from surveys that have been done by my 
education advisory committee that in my district there are large 
numbers of overcrowded schools.
  There are some schools where the principals insist that they are not 
overcrowded, but you can begin to knock that assertion down when you 
ask the second question. The second question is, how many lunch periods 
do you have? How many shifts for lunch do you have in your school? And 
when you find out that they start feeding children lunch at 10:00 in 
the morning, you know they have got a radical overcrowding problem. It 
is out of hand. You force a child to eat his lunch at 10:00, and you 
stop having lunch as late as 2:30, you force a child to wait that long, 
you have a situation where you have overcrowding and you are punishing 
the children. It is really a form of child abuse to make a child eat 
lunch at 10:00 in the morning.

  So we have a problem, and the problem is not limited to inner-city 
schools. It may be more acute and more obvious in inner-city schools 
across the country, but urban schools, suburban schools all need help 
in dealing with their infrastructure problems.
  We need money to build more schools. The President's proposal, the $5 
billion over a 5-year period, is a good one because it at least is 
better than nothing. It begins the process. But so much more is needed 
in order for us to generate the more than $100 billion that the General 
Accounting Office says we need to deal with school infrastructure.
  Now, the President should not be forced to bear the burden of 
providing all of the funds for school construction. The Federal 
Government should not be forced to bear the burden of providing all the 
funds for school construction. Traditionally, this has been left to the 
States and localities, and some of my friends on the other side of the 
aisle in particular argue that only the States and localities should be 
involved in school construction funding.
  I think we ought to share the burden, that the Federal Government 
should provide a stimulus and should get very much involved to more 
than just $5 billion over a 5-year period, but the States and 
localities should do their job, too.
  We have across the country many States that are reporting surpluses 
in their last year's budget, anticipating surpluses at the end of the 
fiscal year. New York State's fiscal year ends on March, the last day 
of March. The new fiscal year begins April 1st. They are predicting 
more than $2 billion in surplus, money that they have gained through 
revenue that they did not have to spend. New York City's budget, which 
begins on July 1st, ends on June 30th, they are projecting more than a 
billion dollars, too. $1.2 billion is presently being projected as the 
surplus in New York City budget.
  So I will agree with my friends on the other side of the aisle, 
Republicans who say that local government ought to be responsible but 
not totally responsible. I think the President should use the bully 
pulpit and challenge all of the States and all of the local governments 
who have surpluses to deal with the infrastructure problem, the 
crumbling schools and the overcrowded schools. Particularly in New York 
City, I think that the first use of the surplus should be addressed to 
the crumbling infrastructure. No more children should die in New York 
City. If you have a surplus of $1.2 billion, then certainly part of 
that ought to be addressed to school construction. The State has $2 
billion. Part of that ought to be addressed to school construction.
  I think that we do not want to be guilty of having a civilization 
which cannot protect its children in school. School is a very important 
function of every society, and if we cannot protect our children there, 
what kind of statement are we making about our concern with children?
  We know that dramatic situation that we encounter here in Washington, 
D.C. Washington, D.C. schools opened 3 weeks late last fall because of 
the fact that they had problems with roof repairs. People criticized 
the judge for ordering the schools to stay closed while the repairs 
were being conducted. It appears that that judge might have saved 
somebody's life because Yanahan Zhao was killed at a school where 
repairs were under way on the roof. And the bricks fell from the roof 
and struck her and a number of other students, and she was seriously 
injured and died. So we might have saved some lives by taking the bold 
step of refusing to let the Washington schools open while the roof 
repairs were being conducted.
  Of course, we had a situation also where once the Washington schools 
were opened and the roofs were repaired, the children had a problem 
because the boilers began to break down in the same schools or some 
other Washington schools. So you have teachers being forced to tell 
children to wear extra heavy clothes to come to school, and of course I 
think it is child abuse to make a child sit in a cold room at a school 
and depend on his extra clothes to keep him or her warm.
  So it is a challenge as to how urgent do we feel the situation is. It 
is a challenge as to how we really feel about children. Every public 
official makes speeches about our dedication to children. If you have a 
surplus, Mr. Mayor, if you have a surplus, Mr. Governor, then show us 
how dedicated you are to children by putting forth an initiative right 
away to let the Federal Government know that we may need help. After 
all, we have in New York, I said, 1,100 schools.

                              {time}  1645

  Three hundred of 1100 schools have coal burning furnaces. They are 
still burning coal. Many of them are more than 100 years old.

[[Page H95]]

  So we need a massive program, but certainly the Federal Government 
has a right to expect our city government and our State government to 
show some initiative and use their surplus in a constructive way for 
children.
  On July 28th, which is of course today, The New York Times article 
reports that Mayor Giuliani is expected to announce that the city will 
finish the 1998 fiscal year with a surplus of $1.2 billion, thanks in 
large part to a surging Wall Street. It will be the second year in a 
row of good fortune for the city, which was pummeled by the recession 
in the early 1990s. The city ended its last fiscal year with $1.4 
billion more than expected.
  So we are 2 years in a row where we had a surplus. The second 
paragraph I want to read from this article says the following: But in 
contrast to the election year budget that he presented at this time 
last year, which called for sharply increased spending on education, 
children's services and other programs, the Mayor is returning to the 
conservative fiscal stance he took early in his first term when he 
pushed through some of the largest spending cuts since the city's 
fiscal crisis of the 1970s.
  If children are not important, if schools are not important, if the 
surplus cannot be utilized for that purpose, than what is more 
important? Tell me, Mr. Mayor.
  We have, again, as I said before, and I have a list right here, 300 
schools out of 1100 schools in New York City that are still burning 
coal in their furnaces. Now, we might have somewhere in America, maybe 
many places, some efficient coal burning furnaces that do not spew 
pollutants in the air, but the likelihood that these old boilers are 
efficient and are not spilling large amounts of pollutants in the air 
is nil. They are polluting the air.
  Is it any wonder that we have a high asthma rate in the same 
neighborhoods where the coal burning schools are. Where we have the 
greatest number of coal burning schools we have the highest asthma 
rates among the youngsters. There is an obvious correlation there, and 
we are officially guilty of doing things that we would never sanction 
or allow the private sector to do. We are endangering the health of 
children in a very concrete dramatic way.
  So we had on the agenda on our ballot 3 years ago a State bond issue 
related to the environment, and in order to pass that bond issue it was 
clearly stated that part of the money for the environment bond issue 
would be used to convert the coal burning boilers in New York. It was 
clearly stated that part of the money would be used to convert some of 
the coal burning boilers in New York. That was 3 years ago. That was 3 
years ago almost. As of right now not a single school with a coal 
burning furnace has been converted using the money from the bond issue 
that we passed almost 3 years ago.
  The sense of urgency, emergency, is not there. The concern for 
children is not there. The concern for students and, in the final 
analysis, the concern for education is not there. We must think in 
terms of a state of emergency and we must understand that incremental 
steps will not solve the problem. Incremental steps will not, in time, 
save this generation of children. Incremental steps are not good 
enough.
  And the President, in proposing the initiative at the Federal level, 
has taken the first step. I hope we can increase that, but the call on 
every unit, every level of government must be made with the Federal 
Government's leadership stimulating that response.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Oregon.
  Ms. FURSE. Thank you so much. I come to the floor today because the 
most dreadful tragedy has occurred in the City of Portland.
  Yesterday a policewoman, Officer Colleen Waibel, was shot and killed 
by a man with an assault weapon. Another police officer was gravely 
injured by the same man with an assault weapon. These officers were 
wearing bulletproof vests but the bullets used by that man struck 
through those bulletproof vests and killed Officer Colleen Waibel.
  I am here to say that I am sick and I am tired of the tyranny of 
violence. I am sick and I am tired of the tyranny of guns. And I am 
here to say that I am really sick of the NRA.
  There are too many guns in the hands of violent, uncaring people, 
people who hide behind a constitutional amendment that they 
misinterpret. Why should our great police officers be in jeopardy every 
time they go out on the street to protect us because there are people 
out there with guns such as this man had?
  It is enough. We have had enough. We are not civilized if we cannot 
contain civil strife on our streets. I am here to pledge to the people 
of my district, whose lives are every day threatened by these same 
guns, that I will do everything in my power to see that assault weapons 
no longer threaten us all.
  We have allowed those who support this unlimited use of guns to 
threaten, to badger and to coerce us for too long. And I want to say 
today that, in my belief, every time a person is killed by an assault 
weapon, every time a police officer is threatened by a gun, an assault 
weapon, gun or by cop killing bullets, I want to say that I think the 
NRA has some guilt in that killing.
  Once there was a reason for people to arm themselves in order to 
protect themselves, and generally, then in those days gun ownership was 
responsible. But times have changed. Now everyone has guns. Kids have 
guns and criminals have guns and crazies have guns. And every time we 
try to pass sensible legislation regarding guns, the NRA brings out all 
its negative power to stop us. Enough.
  Our brave men and women in law enforcement are a well ordered 
militia. They must be the ones to preserve law and order to keep our 
streets safe. The Constitution guarantees life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. Those constitutional guarantees were taken away 
from Officer Waibel. Those were taken away from her.
  Enough. No more killing. It is time to get those weapons off the 
streets. It is time to end the killing for the sake of Officer Waibel 
and all the other brave law enforcement officers who every day, every 
day, face these unlimited guns.
  Mr. OWENS. I salute the gentlewoman's sense of urgency. I think the 
message is quite urgent and my appeal is that we stop the business as 
usual approach in life and death matters. Gun control certainly is a 
life and death matter far more immediate than school construction.
  In the long run we are talking about life and death of children, life 
and death of our society. I think the President started at the right 
place when he talked about Social Security and the concern of people 
and what happens to our Social Security. But I think we also understand 
that, and I am not one of those who thinks our Social Security is 
endangered, that we are facing the possible bankruptcy in 30 years, I 
think that is all propaganda, but the President certainly, by making 
Social Security the highest priority with the utilization of the 
surplus, has challenged those people and we can finally deal with it.

  If we really need the money, then the surplus should be directed in 
that direction. But Social Security is threatened if we do not have a 
work force, a work force that can keep our economy going. And I am 
going to talk in a few minutes about the work force for the Information 
Age, the information technology workers and the great crisis that 
exists right now and is likely to grow even worse.
  First, I want to talk about one of the President's initiatives. And 
again we must get behind the President and push these initiatives with 
a sense of urgency. There is a great need for the additional 100,000 
teachers that he proposed. And whereas he talked mainly about those 
teachers being utilized to train students to read, I think we ought to 
seriously consider that we need teachers also who are able to deal with 
training children and what they need at every step of their educational 
career to get ready for the world of information technology where the 
jobs are going to be in the future.
  I think we also should understand how this relates back to my concern 
with construction and infrastructure. If we pull in large numbers of 
idealistic students and they become teachers, do not subject those 
teachers to a problem of the boilers breaking down and they have to go 
into cold classrooms and instruct students who are shivering, or they 
have to participate in instructing students to wear heavy clothes to go 
to school in order to stay warm.

[[Page H96]]

  Do not subject teachers to a situation where they are teaching about 
the environment and they are teaching about health care and they are 
teaching about pollutants and we have coal burning furnaces right there 
at the school spewing pollutants into the air and children suffering 
from asthma at a greater rate. Do not subject teachers to that kind of 
situation.
  Do not subject teachers to a request that they teach youngsters and 
use the latest technology, use the Internet, get them prepared for what 
is coming in the future of these children and then do not have adequate 
computers for them. And if they have computers, they are not hooked up 
to the Internet because the school cannot be wired properly.
  They are old schools and the wiring does not lend itself, or they are 
afraid that asbestos, a problem I encountered in trying to wire 11 
schools. And we did on Net Day. Net Day, by the way, is the national 
day on October 25th where all across the country volunteers were called 
upon to wire their schools. It was a Saturday. And volunteers came in 
to wire the schools so they could be hooked up to the Internet.
  A school was considered appropriately wired and reaching the Net Day 
goals if 5 classrooms and the library was wired. So for 11 schools we 
got five classrooms and the libraries wired. It was not easy. And 
whereas I endorse the notion of using volunteers, and I know that there 
have been some very successful Net Days across the country using 
volunteers, we had to have some professional volunteers.
  If you do not have some people who really know a little bit about 
what they are doing, it can really bog down. So I want to thank the 
Bell Atlantic crews that came in, because we did have a partnership 
with the private sector, and the private sector hooked us up with Bell 
Atlantic crews that came in to help. And there were some other private 
sector groups that provided us with personnel that went to the schools 
ahead of time to help mark off the wirings.
  It was a beautiful operation bringing together the private sector and 
the school officials and the local community volunteers, but it was 
very difficult just to wire 11 of 1100 schools. In other parts of New 
York City, I understand there were other schools wired on that day, but 
the number of schools that have been wired to hook up to the Internet 
is, indeed, a very tiny number for New York City.
  In case my colleagues did not know it, effective this Friday the FCC 
has announced that the universal fund for libraries and schools 
application process will begin. If you want to apply for the more than 
$2 billion available to pay for telecommunication services, if you are 
qualified, the process of qualification for the funds will begin this 
Friday, and that process will continue for 75 days.
  And they are using the Internet. They are using the Internet as a way 
of getting the applications. So for the 75 days you can put your 
application in. It is a simplified application, with forms. You can do 
it right on the Internet and send it in.

                              {time}  1700

  Anytime within that 75-day period that you put your proposal in, it 
will be considered like the first day, everybody is equal; and only at 
the end of the 75 days will the clock be cut off. So I think it is very 
important to link these things up and understand that here is an 
advantage that is being made as a result of an act of Congress, 
Telecommunications Act of 1996, where the Congress instructed the FCC 
to set up a universal fund for libraries and schools for 
telecommunications and give them a discount.
  The poorest schools get up to a 90-percent discount. Any school in 
America can get a 20-percent discount. So that only operates if you 
have computers.
  If they have a technology set up where they have computers and 
somebody who is in charge of their computers in their school and they 
meet the requirements, only that way will they be able to take 
advantage of a discount. They cannot have the setup and have their 
school wired if they do not have an infrastructure already that allows 
them to do that.
  Asbestos is a major problem. When we start marking holes in the 
walls, boring the holes to put the wires through, we confront an 
asbestos problem. New York City must have a certified asbestos 
inspector come out, very expensive, each school have a certified 
asbestos inspector come out and say what we are doing will not cause a 
health hazard. Very expensive. So if there are only a tiny number of 
schools that are wired, my colleagues can understand how that hurdle 
alone will keep the number down.
  When we get into the details, it makes it very sad for inner city 
schools. They are not wired now, and they are not likely to be wired 
anytime soon. They will not be able to take advantage of universal 
telecommunications for the universal funds for libraries and schools 
for telecommunication if they are not wired. It all goes back to the 
problem of infrastructure and construction.
  So we must assume a state of emergency. Because there is a domino 
theory operating here. One inadequacy, one critical inadequacy with 
respect to construction and infrastructure sets off a chain reaction 
where it generates more disadvantages and more inadequacies.
  The President gave a long list of initiatives and education, and I 
think he must understand and all of us must understand that those 
initiatives, most of them, will not go forward unless we deal with the 
basic problem of school infrastructure. Among those initiatives, he 
mentioned the fact that we want to have our children able to go into 
the 21st century with the knowledge that they need to hook up with the 
burgeoning and growing information industries.
  There was a major conference held in California in Berkeley in the 
second week in January related to the critical shortage of information 
technology workers. Business is very upset by the fact that they are 
beginning to feel the pinch of this critical shortage of workers. And I 
think that it directly relates to the fact that at one point the 
President talked about an initiative that is needed which is similar to 
the GI education bill. We need something as massive as that in order to 
really get ready to confront the changing of our society into an 
information technology society.
  The conference was held on January 12. I just want to read a few 
excerpts from an article that appeared in the New York Times.

       The Clinton administration will announce today a broad and 
     unique Federal effort to help train more computer 
     programmers, responding to concerns from economists and 
     business leaders that U.S. companies have a critical shortage 
     of skilled technology workers.
       The administration's initiatives, which include millions of 
     dollars in grants to fund educational programs, the creation 
     of a nationwide job bank on the Internet, and a campaign to 
     glamorize computer-related professions, come as a new survey 
     shows that 1 in every 10 information technology jobs in the 
     United States is unfilled.
       The study, conducted for an industry group by Virginia Tech 
     and scheduled to be released today, estimated that 346,000 
     computer programmer and systems analyst jobs are vacant in 
     U.S. companies with more than 100 employees.
       Although rapidly growing computer firms increasingly have 
     had difficulties finding enough workers with cutting-edge 
     skills, the Virginia Tech report indicates that the shortage 
     has spread to many non-technology firms, including banks, 
     hospitals and retailers that depend on programmers to design 
     and operate large systems for their businesses. The widening 
     scope of the issue has prompted the administration to take 
     the unusual step of intervening in a worker training issue.
       The Federal Government programs will form the central part 
     of a campaign among industry and educational institutions to 
     chip away at the shortage. The efforts will be unveiled 
     formally at a meeting of government and industry leaders in 
     Berkeley, California, including Commerce Secretary Daley and 
     Education Secretary Riley.
       ``The shortage is a fundamental threat to the economic 
     growth of the United States,'' says Harris N. Miller, 
     president of the Information Technology Association of 
     America, an Arlington-based industry group that is organizing 
     the meeting.
       ``It's not just hurting the ability of classic computer 
     companies to grow. It's hurting the ability of the entire 
     economy to grow through the productivity increases you get if 
     you can install the latest technology products,'' Miller 
     said.
       The Virginia Tech study confirmed similar findings made 
     last year and shows that the industry has made no progress in 
     reducing the shortage of technology workers.
       Though many statistical measures indicate the U.S. economy 
     is at one of its strongest points in recent history, the 
     economists say

[[Page H97]]

     much of the recent growth has come through technology: both 
     the growth of the Nation's tech industry and cost savings 
     from the use of computers.
       ``Right now, technology represents 50 percent of the 
     Nation's economic growth,'' says Kelly H. Carnes, deputy 
     assistant secretary for technology policy at the Commerce 
     Department. ``It is the most important enabling industry.''

  I will not read any further, but my point is that this has a great 
deal to do with those constituents of mine in the low-income section of 
my district, the people who cannot find jobs, and some of them, you 
know, are community college graduates. But many have never been exposed 
at all to a computer. It is relevant in terms of not so much the 
astronomical figures that are mentioned today, and they say 346 
vacancies now.
  The Department of Labor has a more conservative estimate of an 
additional 1.2 million workers over the next 5 years. If we take the 
most conservative estimate of the Department of Labor or the estimate 
given as a result of the Virginia Tech report, we still have a large 
growing industry which probably nobody can fully estimate what the 
limits are.
  There are jobs there for the future. There are jobs for the 
youngsters coming out of our schools if they have had some kind of 
orientation to computers early in their schooling, beginning in the 
elementary grades, progressing through junior high school and, of 
course, high school. They really need some significant exposure to the 
utilization of computers before they get to college. And many of them 
may never go to college. Many of them may never go to college.
  There are some young men that I know who did take a few courses in 
college and maybe were exposed to college to some degree, but they did 
not take any computer science courses, and they have decided because 
they like to work with computers that they will go into this field. 
They are getting promotions and making very good salaries with a 
bright, rosy future. One who started at $35,000 says that by the end of 
this year, in less than 3 years, he expects to be making $100,000 a 
year, and he has never taken a computer science course in a college.
  So, in addition to the programmers, in addition to the analysts, we 
need the troubleshooters, we need the mechanics, we need people all up 
and down the line. And it cannot happen. The opportunity will be there, 
and we will not be able to fill that opportunity if our schools do not 
have the courses and the exposure to computers that are necessary, the 
opportunity to utilize computers.
  Most of the homes in my district do not have computers. Nationwide, 
computers are a middle-class phenomenon, upper middle-class phenomenon 
and a large percentage of middle-class people have computers in the 
home. Most of the children who go to public school in my district will 
not be exposed to computers except in school and library.
  And I want to congratulate the Brooklyn Public Library. In several of 
the poor areas, they have installed computers. They have only a few. 
But it does give youngsters an opportunity to come in and practice a 
little and get some exposure. The Brooklyn Public Library has a very 
forward-looking approach to computerization and technology. There is a 
lot of vision that the director of that library has shown in this area.
  Recently, the Brooklyn Public Library received some grants from 
Microsoft to continue their work and to expand it; and we are looking 
forward to the library, which is a free-standing institution. Not only 
can the student and school come there, but the parents can come, and 
the people who are not enrolled in school can also utilize the 
library's computers. That is an area we hope will continue to grow.
  I did say that the universal fund that the FCC has created is for 
both schools and libraries. It is for private schools as well as public 
schools, and it is for libraries. So they will have an opportunity to 
be able to get the discount on the telecommunications services, 
telephone company, Internet, various telecommunications services. They 
will qualify also for the discount which ranges between 20 and 90 
percent.
  And I am not rambling at all, I assure my colleagues. There is a 
direct connection between the need to have an emergency school 
construction initiative across the country. There is a need to deal 
with this as a central problem related to education.
  The additional qualified teachers, the efforts of the Federal 
Government to recruit more teachers, all of those are important and 
must go forward. But I hope that we understand if you bring teachers in 
on a system where they see children's lives in jeopardy, and in many 
cases their own lives are placed in jeopardy, or if you bring them in 
situations where their lives are not placed in jeopardy directly in 
some kind of concrete way but they are in a polluted environment that 
is injuring not only the health of the children but also their health, 
how long do you think we will keep these qualified teachers?
  I think we ought to think in terms of the GI education bill that 
allowed thousands and thousands of returning GIs to get an education, a 
broad sweeping approach. This country has done that kind of thing only 
a few times in its history, but it has been very important.
  The GI bill set up a situation where the need for a highly educated 
work pool, workforce, was met by the people who came out of those 
programs. We did not really know exactly what they were going to do 
later. But we have outstanding scientists, outstanding lawyers, 
politicians. A lot of people came through the GI bill into the schools 
and never would have gotten an education otherwise. It is a massive 
program. It was not an incremental program. It was not a nickel-and-
dime program. It was a massive program which was necessary.
  We ought to see what we are facing now as the day after Pearl Harbor. 
There are many, and certainly my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle insist that there should be no more, big Federal programs, big 
spending programs.

                              {time}  1715

  I agree that government should be reduced, and we are proud of the 
fact it has been reduced. I agree there is a lot of waste in 
government. I have said it over and over again, you do not need the CIA 
spending $20 billion or more. You can downsize our overseas bases.
  There are a number of ways you can save money in government, but do 
not get locked into an ideological approach, a dogma, that says that no 
program should be big enough to meet the challenge.
  If, on the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, we came to the 
conclusion that, yes, there is a need to mobilize the country, there is 
a need to spend a great deal of money to marshal resources to meet the 
threat, but somebody said, well, it costs too much, where would we be? 
It would be absurd for anyone to argue that the mobilization to meet 
the threat that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor posed, or Hitler posed 
operating in concert with Japan, the threat to the world's freedom, the 
direct threat to our own well-being, nobody would be so absurd as to 
say you cannot spend the money that is necessary to do it.
  The problem is when it comes to educational reform, we really do not 
believe we are threatened. We really do not believe the very 
foundations of society can be rocked if we have jobs and opportunities 
out there available and a large population that needs jobs, and are not 
qualified and cannot get to those jobs, and the reason that happens is 
just because we fail to provide adequate opportunities.
  We really do not believe that our competitors in other parts of the 
world can outstrip us, despite all the advantages that we have, we are 
on top of the economic heap right now; really do not believe that can 
be threatened if some other nations showing much more vision about 
educating their population would overtake us in the critical areas of 
information technology and the kinds of things you can do only with 
information technology.
  Right now you have India. That is not a superpower and never claims 
to be a superpower, but India is a major source of computer programmers 
for the United States. Bangladore, India, some people call the computer 
capital of the world, computer programming capital. Large numbers of 
American companies are contracting with groups in Bangladore to do 
their computer work, and large numbers of companies are bringing 
personnel from there here to work.
  Here is a country not nearly with as many advantages and resources 
that

[[Page H98]]

we have, but they have made a choice educationally which is paying 
great dividends in terms of being able to employ their work force in a 
foreign country.
  We should not allow the situation to develop where we have to rely on 
foreign sources for the work force of the future because those foreign 
centers in the final analysis will take the know-how back to their own 
countries and increase the competition.
  We may be on top of the heap now and consider ourselves invulnerable 
economically, but that is not the case. Let's declare a state of 
emergency and start thinking about the things with the greatest sense 
of urgency, and get away from the incremental approach where everybody 
in this capital that has some power has some idea of what should be 
done with education.
  The Committee on Appropriations more and more writes education bills, 
taking the power away from the authorizing committee, because they have 
the power to do it, not the know-how. Many things proposed in the 
Committee on Appropriations are not harmful, they will do some good, 
but the whole idea of a scatter gun approach, that any man with power 
interested in education is able to impose his will on us because they 
can get the appropriate bill passed and an amount of money 
appropriated, that is the wrong approach to education reform.
  We need a comprehensive approach where we understand that large 
amounts of resources are needed, and we must focus on what is most 
important and set some priorities.
  I think the President, some people accused him last night of giving a 
laundry list not only of education programs, but other programs, I 
think he understands that laundry list has priorities. He understands 
some of the connections.
  I am confident this President can deliver on his educational agenda, 
as well as the rest of his agenda. I have had a lot of calls from 
people asking me and people who are really concerned about the child 
care initiatives and the education agenda of the President. Those 
announcements have been going on for the last 10 days, announcements 
coming from the White House about new programs for child care, tax 
credits and more money for day care centers.
  There are large numbers of people among my constituents that are very 
interested in the reality of those things, will he be able to deliver, 
and those questions, of course, have come in the last few days as a 
result of the problems that have come forward from the White House with 
respect to the President's personal life.
  My answer to the constituents who want to know will we really get the 
child care initiative program implemented, does he have the ability to 
go forward and do this, where some people want the training, they 
finally think that people who want to go into the child care field can 
get some training which allows them to qualify for a job which is a 
decent paying job and be in a position to be promoted, will it really 
happen? Will we get more money, so day care centers are not just for 
the very poorest people, but also for some working families that are 
not on welfare.
  All these questions are being asked, and my answer to them is yes, 
this President can deliver, and he will deliver. I have seen nothing 
happen at the White House which says that he will not be able to 
deliver on the agenda which was laid out last night.
  I answer some people by saying, look, Thomas Jefferson in his first 
year in office was confronted with a problem where they were trying to 
drive him out of office, accusations were made about his private life, 
and the press of that day had a drum beat going to try to get him out 
of office. But they did not succeed. Thomas Jefferson refused to even 
address their criticisms, to address their charges.
  Thomas Jefferson kept his focus on what he was doing, and Thomas 
Jefferson delivered the Louisiana purchase, which doubled the size of 
the Nation at a very low price. Thomas Jefferson fathered the Lewis and 
Clark expedition. Thomas Jefferson restored certain liberties that the 
Federalists had carelessly begun to take away from people. His 
accomplishments were magnificent, despite the fact he was confronted 
with a major challenge on the basis of his personal life.
  There is no reason to assume that this President cannot deliver 
because of the present challenges. There is no way to assume that he 
will not be around or be able to negotiate and to drive his program 
through to conclusion. I think it is very important to understand that.
  I have been here 16 years. I was here when another government was set 
up in the basement of the White House. People have forgotten Irangate. 
They have forgotten that in the basement of the White House there was 
an operation running which was raising money, where money was being 
raised to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. Not only were they raising 
money, but they entered into a deal for Iran to buy arms, to let Iran 
buy arms from us, and use the money raised from that to fund the 
Contras. That was a government operating out of the basement of the 
White House, contrary to what Congress had already clearly stated in 
legislation they should not do.
  This Nation survived that, and no President was impeached as a result 
of that, and that was far more serious than anything I have heard 
recently. I think it is important that we keep our focus on the things 
that are important to the American people.
  Common sense dictates that the agenda set forth last night ought to 
be realized. We ought to allow the President the opportunity to deliver 
that to the American people. I think it can happen. At the heart of it, 
I think, should be his educational initiative. At the heart of his 
educational initiative should be the school construction priority. We 
are going to hear more about this in the future. I do not intend to let 
it get lost again.
  Last year we had a great start. The President mentioned in the first 
session of the 105th Congress a school construction initiative. Later 
on negotiations took place with the White House and the school 
construction initiative was taken off the table. We must not let that 
happen again. From start to finish, we must focus on the fact that if 
you care about children, if you want to improve American education, at 
the core of the improvement process has to be a massive school 
construction initiative in this Nation.

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