[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 33 (Monday, March 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2390-S2393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I know that we are debating very 
important issues on the supplemental appropriations bill. But I would 
like to take a few moments this afternoon to address another important 
issue, the Coverdell bill. There is a very important question we must 
all ask. Will Congress support public education or

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abandon it? I believe the vote tomorrow, and the debate going through 
next week on the Budget Resolution, may very well be the most important 
days that we will have to talk about the issue of education in this 
Congress. I would like to outline the challenges we face in the 
nation's public schools. May I yield myself 5 minutes? Can I do that; 
if the chair will let me know?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, we ought to understand exactly where we 
are as a nation and measure the proposal that we will be voting on 
tomorrow against our particular national needs. I think that is a fair 
way of making the decision whether we ought to eliminate any 
opportunity for additional debate and discussion on the question of 
support for public education across the country. No one is questioning 
whether the Coverdell bill will make a substantial contribution to 
private education. But if you are going to spend $1.6 billion, which is 
the amount of money that will be lost from the Federal budget under the 
Coverdell bill, we ought to know whether the money we spend will 
benefit the majority of the children in this country? Does this 
proposal abandon our support for public education, where about 48 
million--90 percent--of our children are educated?
  This year, K-12 enrollment has reached an all-time high and will grow 
by 4 million students over the next 7 years across this country. 
Second, 6,000 new public schools will be needed by the year 2006 just 
to maintain the current class size--6,000 new schools by the year 2006. 
Due to overcrowding, schools are using trailers for classrooms, 
teaching students in former hallways, closets and bathrooms. 
Overcrowded classrooms undermine discipline and decrease the students' 
morale. America's children are learning in overcrowded classrooms. 
These are the undisputed facts on the condition of education in the 
United States of America.
  This chart is called ``America's Children Are Learning In Crumbling 
Schools.'' Madam President, 14 million children learn in substandard 
schools; 7 million children attend schools with asbestos, lead paint or 
radon in the ceilings or walls; 12 million children go to school under 
leaky roofs; one-third of American children study in classrooms without 
enough panel outlets and electrical wiring to accommodate computers and 
for multimedia equipment.
  These are the conditions today and these are the expectations of 
tomorrow. We are going to be faced with a Republican education program 
that says we will answer this national challenge with a $1.6 billion 
tax break for wealthy individuals. I call it an entitlement. I want to 
hear our friends who are always talking about entitlements address that 
issue, because this is an entitlement. Once the proposal goes into 
effect, anyone who is qualified is going to get a tax break every 
year--that's an entitlement in my book. It's an entitlement for the 
wealthy who send their children to private school.
  Should we have a good chance to debate different public policy 
alternatives to the Coverdell bill that is offered on behalf of the 
Republicans? We would welcome that debate. We do not fear that debate; 
we welcome it. We think the country would welcome it. We have our 
ideas. The President has his ideas. The President, in his State of the 
Union and in his speech on education, has outlined some very important 
measures--school construction and modernization, smaller class size, 
better trained teachers, increase in the number of qualified teachers, 
after-school programs, and expansion of the Head Start programs. Those 
are out there. These crucial programs are paid for in the President's 
budget.
  How did the Budget Committee address these issues? Thumbs down on all 
of those programs. Not only thumbs down on those programs, but reducing 
aid for education by $1.6 billion on existing programs below the 
President's level. We have not had that debate here. And we are being 
asked now to provide a new entitlement for the wealthier individuals 
who are sending their children to the private schools--not the public 
schools; to the private schools. That is what we are being asked to do.
  So let's get out and debate this issue. But, no; we are facing a 
cloture motion that says we are going to be absolutely denied the 
opportunity for considering alternatives. That is wrong. But it is 
something that American parents ought to understand, that this is 
basically an ill-conceived program that is abandoning the public 
schools in order to get additional tax entitlements and tax breaks for 
tuition for children to go to private schools. We do not have anything 
against the private schools, but with the scarce resources that are 
available, they ought to be carefully invested in the public schools. 
We should not be creating more tax breaks for the wealthy individuals. 
We should not be abandoning the public schools of this country. We 
ought to be responding to their particular needs.
  Mr. President, I believe my 5 minutes is up, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Madam President, let me continue what our colleague from 
Massachusetts has been talking about.
  This issue is going to come up tomorrow and will be debated. There 
will be a cloture motion. There are two issues the Senator from 
Massachusetts and the Senator from North Dakota, who has joined us here 
on the floor, and I care about. The first is we would like the 
opportunity to be able to offer amendments to this bill. I gather there 
has been some agreement on a limited number of amendments. But we 
think, on something as important as education, this may be the only 
time this year that we get to talk about the educational needs of the 
53 million children who attend our primary and secondary schools in 
this country.
  First of all, the issue is about choice and giving our colleagues the 
choice to consider an alternative or alternatives to Senator 
Coverdell's legislation. Secondly, we believe that the issue is how the 
American people decide how they want their tax dollars spent.
  Let me first, if I can, describe what the Coverdell amendment does. 
The Coverdell amendment is a tax expenditure of $1.6 billion over the 
next 10 years that would provide, according to the Joint Taxation 
Committee, a $1.6 billion tax break, providing $37 a year to the 
families of children who attend private schools and $7 a year to the 
children who attend public schools.
  Of the 53 million children who attend primary and secondary schools, 
90 percent of those 53 million children attend public primary and 
secondary schools; 10 percent, 5.3 million, attend private schools. 
What Senator Coverdell's legislation does is take a $37 tax break and a 
$7 tax break, and gives it to the 5.3 million children who attend 
private schools and gives the $7 tax break to children attending public 
schools. Madam President, 52 percent of the tax break goes to the 10 
percent of children who are in private schools.
  Please let me put that in context. I recently researched how much it 
costs to attend a private school in the Greater Washington area. On 
average, it is between $10,000 and $14,000 a year. Such a small tax 
break, Mr. President, would provide very little assistance to parents 
who choose these schools for their children.
  The point that I make is, if you are going to spend $1.6 billion, 
whether you are a conservative Republican or liberal Democrat, would it 
not be wiser for us to try to improve the deteriorating physical 
structures of public schools that are falling apart in this country? 
Would it not be better, perhaps, to take the $1.6 billion and have it 
go to special education?
  Mr. President, I don't know how many mayors, how many county boards 
of supervisors I have heard from who report to me that they are 
spending an exorbitant amount of money to provide the valuable needed 
services to children who have special needs? All of us would agree that 
these children often require and deserve a great deal of assistance, 
but local school districts and taxpayers are often in desperate need of 
some financial assistance in providing for the educational needs of 
children with disabilities. Is this not a priority? Do you perhaps 
think this priority more deserves our attention than a $37 tax break?
  How about providing 100,000 new teachers to shrink the size of 
classrooms across this country? Most everyone will tell you, if a 
teacher is teaching 25, 30, or 35 students, those students are not 
learning as well as they could.

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 Again, most everyone agrees, if you can make classes smaller, you can 
greatly increase the learning potential of children. Is that not a 
higher priority than a $37 tax break to go to the top 70 percent of 
income earners in the country? Or a $7 tax break if your child attends 
a public school? $1.6 billion could, as I said, provide some real 
assistance in construction, special education, Head Start, or 
additional teachers. There are many other valuable ideas. I am not 
limiting it to these four.
  As I said earlier, we have come through an era where we often spent 
money on many different ideas. We cannot do that any longer. We must 
now be very selective when we spend federal tax dollars. It seems to me 
it would be a wiser investment of taxpayer money to do something about 
special ed, something about school construction, something about 
classroom size, and something about early childhood education. I don't 
know of anyone in this country, regardless of their personal ideology 
or political affiliation, who would tell you they think those four 
ideas are less important than a $37 or $7 tax break.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DODD. I will be glad to yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. As you know, the Budget Committee approved $30 billion 
in tax breaks--$30 billion. So, on the one hand, Republicans cut back 
education funding $1.6 billion below the President's program, and then 
spend $1.6 billion to create a $37 tax break for individuals that send 
their children to private school. Then they have the gall to come out 
here to say that Coverdell is the answer to the problems in education. 
Instead, the Coverdell bill is another Republican effort to abandon the 
public schools.
  I wonder, if the Senator will yield for another moment, I would like 
to just mention David Rosborough and ask my colleague whether this is 
the kind of situation that is troubling the Senator.

       Hi, my name is David Rosborough and I am a junior at 
     Centerville High School in Clifton, Virginia. My school is 
     extremely overcrowded, having well over 2600 students in a 
     school that holds 2000, and whose optimal size is 1800. As a 
     result of this, we have 32 makeshift trailers as classrooms 
     this year and will have a total of 40 next year. Nearly 1000 
     students are in these trailers at any one time, and we have 
     been forced to go to a complicated ``double master'' 
     schedule. This new schedule which divides the school in two, 
     is a great idea, and makes it so that class changes are 
     staggered, however also created many new problems. Lunch 
     periods begin at 10:00 a.m. and don't end until well after 
     1:00 p.m.
       This bill--

  He was talking about the President's bill--

     will put an end to ridiculous situations, like that of my 
     school.
       The tremendous size of the school has caused inconveniences 
     and problems, some minor, like the assembly situation. Right 
     now, a simple music assembly will have to run three or four 
     different times throughout the day, creating scheduling 
     problems and keeping students out of class for unnecessarily 
     long periods of time.
       Some problems are a lot more significant. ``Hall rage'' --

  I never heard of that word before; ``hall rage'' are the words that 
this young student, a junior, uses--

       ``Hall rage'' as our principal calls it, is one of them. 
     Last year, before the new schedule was implemented, there was 
     a huge outbreak of fights, many caused by frustration of 
     being knocked around in the overflowing halls. Teachers found 
     it much harder to teach with the distraction of ``hall 
     rage,'' causing students to have difficulty focusing on class 
     work with all the chaos outside. Teachers very rarely even 
     get to teach in the same classroom all day, and some move 
     between three and four classrooms.
       The new schedule at our school has solved some of these 
     problems, but many still remain, and the school's size keeps 
     on mushrooming. The ``double master'' schedule has caused 
     many conflicts which limit the courses available to students. 
     Hopefully this bill will pass--

  Talking about the President's bill--

     and bring . . . long-term relief to my school as well as many 
     others like it.

  This is not the inner-city; this is in the suburbs. School repair, 
modernization, and expansion problems affect every community--urban, 
rural, or suburban.
  I ask the Senator from Connecticut, will the Coverdell legislation do 
anything about the kind of problems that this student is talking about; 
that would shock any parent?
  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I say to my colleague from Massachusetts, 
absolutely not. In fact, as the Senator knows, our distinguished 
colleague from Illinois, Carol Moseley-Braun, has offered legislation 
to try and do something that would allow for these schools to be 
repaired. The estimated cost of that, the estimated cost nationwide 
from Maine to California I think is $22 billion.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Her program costs only $3.3 billion, but will allocate 
$22 billion in interest-free bonding authority for States and local 
communities.
  Mr. DODD. What we are talking about today, when we say we would like 
to take this $1.6 billion and maybe apply it to the programs I have 
mentioned, not to suggest we will pay for all of it, but if you have 
limited resources, it will at least provide meaningful resources to 
these communities.
  Senator Coverdell's legislation is a tax break that goes to 
individuals, and parents who send their children to private schools get 
the bulk of it. Remember, 7 percent of the families in this country 
send their children to private schools. Ten percent of the children--93 
percent of the families send their kids to public schools.
  Has anyone asked the families of children attending public schools 
how they feel about subsidizing the children who go to private schools? 
With all due respect, those parents made a choice. I respect that 
choice, but I don't necessarily believe that we ought to subsidize it 
with $37 a year when that $1.6 billion might go to the very issue the 
Senator from Massachusetts raised.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Finally, because I see other Senators on the floor, will 
anything in the Coverdell bill result in a reduction of class size?
  Mr. DODD. I say to my colleague, absolutely nothing.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will anything help provide 100,000 new teachers as 
proposed by the President?

  Mr. DODD. I say to my colleague, absolutely nothing.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Is there anything in the Coverdell bill that will help 
provide after-school programs that are so important for the 13 million 
young people that the Senator from Connecticut, who is a champion for 
children in this country, speaks about? Is there anything in the 
Coverdell bill that will help expand and improve those after-school 
programs?
  Mr. DODD. Not one penny of the $1.6 billion will go for after-school 
programs.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Is it not true that the cuts in education funding by the 
Budget Committee provide no increase in Pell grants?
  Mr. DODD. I say to my colleague from Massachusetts, he brings up an 
excellent point. Not only do we have $1.6 billion here in tax breaks, 
but just the other day the Budget Committee cut $1.6 billion out of the 
budget for educational programs.
  Our colleague from Illinois Carol Moseley-Braun, our colleague from 
the State of Washington Patty Murray, Senator Boxer of California, 
among others, all tried, as members of that committee, to get some 
resources in order to help out in these areas. Not only did they lose 
providing some additional help for these areas, the Budget Committee 
cut $1.6 billion across the board in education.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will my colleague yield?
  Mr. DODD. I will yield to my colleague from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. I ask the Senator from Connecticut, are we now talking 
about the Coverdell education proposal? Is it not the case that the 
Coverdell legislation is not now before the Senate --it was before the 
Senate but then was withdrawn--because a number of Senators, including 
myself, the Senator from Connecticut, the Senator from Massachusetts, 
and others, wanted to offer amendments to it dealing with the kinds of 
questions you are now asking? Isn't that the case?
  Mr. DODD. It is true. We had hoped to be able to offer these 
amendments, and the bill was pulled down last week. We are told now it 
is going to come up again tomorrow, and the reason why we are here this 
afternoon to talk about it is because we believe it may be coming back.
  Mr. DORGAN. I would like to ask the Senator an additional question 
relating to an issue I discussed last week when the Coverdell bill was 
first withdrawn

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from the floor. It is not acceptable to me to have someone bring a bill 
to the floor that is amendable and then tell us, ``By the way, we have 
established a gate here, and the only people who can go through the 
gate are the ones we decide can go through the gate.''
  The Coverdell IRA proposal, in my judgment, ought to be amended by a 
range of other proposals. One, for example, deals with reducing class 
size. I have a daughter in the third grade. Last year, that daughter 
was in a public school class with 30 students--30 in a class. Do I have 
a self-interest here as a parent? Of course I do. Do we think kids do 
better when they are in a smaller class? Of course they do. We know 
that. The studies demonstrate that.
  The question before us is not just about Coverdell IRAs, but about 
what our priorities are going to be. One hundred years from now, all of 
us in the Chamber are going to be gone.
  Mr. DODD. Except Strom Thurmond.
  Mr. DORGAN. Except Senator Thurmond. But historians will be able to 
look back at what we did here and evaluate, by looking at how we 
decided to spend money, what our priorities were. What did we place 
first? What did we think was important? Kids? Education? What kind of 
legislation did we pass to advance these issues that are important to 
public education in this country?
  Finally, to those who say the public education system in this country 
is somehow unworthy of keeping, I ask them, how did this country get to 
where it is? How did we get here? Is anybody going out to the airport 
this afternoon to get on a plane and leave? Have they found a better 
place to live? I don't think so.
  We have had in this country a wonderful system of public education. 
We also have some outstanding private schools. Our obligation in this 
Chamber is to provide the support that we can, especially with niche 
financing. We don't provide the bulk of financing for elementary and 
secondary education, but we provide important funds to support a number 
of priorities in public education. That is our job. That is what we 
need to do.
  But we were told last week that because a bill is brought to the 
floor dealing with education--a bill that essentially provides tax 
breaks for those who want to send their kids to private school--somehow 
we are being selfish for saying let's amend this so we invest in and 
strengthen public schools. It seems to me that the message from all of 
this is that kids are not first, education is not a priority. Isn't 
that how you would view it?
  Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague from North Dakota. I think he said it 
very well. Of course, he brings some firsthand information to it, 
talking about his own daughter who is in the third grade and the size 
of her classroom. It provides a wonderful example of something we might 
do to help out our local school districts.
  Education is very expensive, and the bulk of it is paid for by local 
property taxes, sales taxes; in some States by a State income tax. It 
is expensive. We made a commitment here years ago that we would help 
out with special education; we said we would contribute as much as 40 
percent of the expenses to educate a child that has special needs. We 
have never gotten above 8 percent--never above 8 percent.
  I have communities in my State of Connecticut that spend $100,000 on 
a child in a small town. Now, these towns surely want to help these 
children with disabilities, but it seems to me that is a national 
issue, giving children an opportunity to maximize their potential. We 
promised 40 percent; we have never provided more than 8.
  What if we gave $1.6 billion to the States across this country that 
are trying to provide the education for these special needs children? I 
assure you, people will say thank you.
  I don't think anyone would believe that a $37 tax break for children 
attending private schools and a $7 tax break for children attending 
public schools is of a higher priority than almost any other issue you 
can mention when it comes to the educational needs of America's 
children. On the close of the 20th century, when we are going to have 
to have the best prepared and the best educated generation we have ever 
produced to compete in the global resources with limited, scarce 
resources, we provide $1.6 billion tax cut that could be better applied 
to our Nation's schools. I don't think it is right, and I am hopeful 
the American people will be heard over the next 24 hours and say to 
their Members, ``Don't vote for this. Don't vote for this. Use my money 
wisely and well.''
  Madam President, I thank our distinguished colleague from Alaska for 
yielding us some time to be heard on this issue.
  Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.

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