[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 5 (Tuesday, February 3, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H104]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                PRESIDENT CLINTON'S EDUCATION INITIATIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, I am glad I have the opportunity to follow 
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), my colleague from Texas and 
Majority Leader.
  I think there is such a diversity in what we can talk about because 
both the Majority Leader and my Republican colleagues' solution to our 
education problems is vouchers. Let us give vouchers to a small number 
of children instead of fixing the big problem.
  That is the difference that I want to talk about today. Let us fix 
public education. Let us not abandon it. Let us not take away and give 
vouchers for a small segment, 7,500 that the gentleman talks about, 
when we have thousands that need help. I do not want to abandon public 
education and only help a few.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why I join a lot of my Democratic colleagues 
today saying let us fix the problems rather than saying that vouchers 
are the solution. That is not a solution. That is a short-term, one-
time solution for one child.
  Let us talk about the millions of children that are in public 
education. Public education educates millions of children around the 
country, compared to what private and church-based education can do. 
There is just not enough private and church-based education to do what 
they want to do. We need to fix the problems for the millions and not 
the few; that is what is important today.
  My children went to public schools in Texas in an urban environment, 
and now they attend a public university in Texas. The image that people 
may have that in Congress a lot of our children go to private schools, 
that is just not true. Students can get an adequate public education in 
public schools as well as they can in private schools. It takes 
parental involvement, it takes dedicated teachers, and it takes 
business-community partnerships.
  President Clinton last week in his State of the Union talked about 
some of the new initiatives that we need to do, including preparing 
children for the future. The President and Members, whether it be 
President, Member of Congress, a doctor, lawyer, engineer, business 
owner, whatever, that is our job as a Member of Congress and leader of 
our country, to be able to prepare the children who are in school now, 
whether it be in the D.C. schools or the schools in my district in 
Houston, Texas.

  One of those initiatives that he talked about is the Head Start 
program. The President committed to Head Start for one million 
children, expanding it to one million children. I know in Harris County 
our Head Start program for a number of years has had problems, but we 
are fixing it. They serve now over 5,000 students, needy preschoolers.
  What we are doing now with the help of both the independent school 
districts in our community, with Health and Human Service employees and 
the staff that are helping, we have an interim provider providing the 
service for 70 percent of those children. We are going to fix it even 
more by providing a long-term solution for those children in Head 
Start; and we need to expand it, whether it be in Harris County or all 
across this great Nation.
  We are fixing our problem locally, but we also need to make sure that 
the funds are there for those children when we can expand it. Head 
Start works. It works to give children, when they show up at that 
kindergarten or the public schools or first grade, that same start, 
that same opportunity as those children whose parents could afford 
prekindergarten programs.
  President Clinton proposed a lot of other great programs for 
expanding education and making sure that the next generation of 
Americans can stand in the place that we do and a lot of our colleagues 
do, to take over the job that a lot of us do here on the floor or also 
in lots of businesses and places all across the country, including 
reducing the class size to 18-to-1.
  In Texas, we reduced our class size in the 1980s for kindergarten 
through fourth grade by mandate that the schools could not have more 
than 22-to-1 in kindergarten through fourth grade. I would like to see 
that on a national basis.
  Again, it is tough to pay for it and tough to have facilities; and 
that is another thing that the President asked for. For the first time, 
we will actually see the Federal Government helping with facilities 
construction. It is great to talk about lowering class size, but we 
have to have buildings, and we have to have teachers. We have to have 
Federal assistance. Not a great deal of money, because it is not going 
to help any one district, but it will help leverage a lot of our 
districts that are having trouble providing facilities.
  Also, he talked about the 100,000 new teachers, if we are going to 
have smaller class size, 100,000 new teachers helping our children. 
That is preparing for the next generation of our country, not just a 
quick fix to have vouchers for a small group of children who are 
fortunate enough to have a voucher.
  Another one of the President's proposals was the Education 
Opportunity Zones. The Department of Education would select 50 high-
poverty urban or rural districts who use high standards of tests for 
their children, provide the help to teachers and students and schools 
who need it, prevent students from falling behind by ensuring quality 
curriculum and teaching and also end social promotion.
  I think that is something on this floor that we can probably agree 
upon on a bipartisan basis. We do not need to continue to promote 
someone if they are not making the grade in their current district. We 
are not doing that child a favor.
  There are so many good things that I could talk about. I look forward 
to engaging my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in really 
dealing with education issues.

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