[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 33 (Monday, March 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2394-S2395]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    SUBSTANTIVE DEBATE ON EDUCATION

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Let me thank the Senator from Georgia for his 
graciousness and let me thank my colleague from Alaska.
  Madam President, I think there are two different issues that we are 
confronted with as we address the Coverdell bill. One of them has to do 
with just the substantive debate about education, which I want to talk 
about for a few minutes; and the other has to do with, I guess, the 
Senate process, which I think is equally important, as we think about 
the Senate and how we do our work together.
  On the substance, I simply say to my colleague I spend about every 2 
weeks in a school somewhere in Minnesota. If I could think of any one 
area that I feel I have the most passion about, it is education: 
education of children, preschool, young people, high school, higher ed. 
For that matter, since I think education is preschool all the way to 85 
or 90, education, period.
  As I travel the country, with a special emphasis in Minnesota, I say 
to my colleague, I can think of much better uses and a higher priority 
for $1.6 billion to be spent. I put the emphasis not in the direction 
that my colleague from Georgia goes in, which is people being able to 
put this money into IRAs. Not a whole lot of families I know have 
$2,000 they can put into IRAs. This disproportionately benefits people 
who are fairly well off. It benefits people who especially want to send 
their kids to private schools and who have the resource to do so. I 
would rather make an all-out effort to support the public school 
system.
  I would be pleased to come back to the U.S. Senate some day, the 
sooner the better, and maybe in a debate change my mind and say that I 
would be all for applying taxpayers' money to support for private 
education--and that is why I say the sooner the better--but not until 
we have made the commitment to public education, not until we rebuild 
crumbling schools around the country; I have been to too many of those 
schools in Minnesota, and all around the country as well, and not until 
we reduce class size, not until we get more teachers and teacher 
assistants into the classrooms, and not until we have more resources 
for professional development, not until we make an all-out commitment 
to really deal with the learning gap between children who do well in 
school and children who don't do well in school, which starts, I might 
say, with a real commitment and the resources to early childhood 
development. I think the medical evidence is irreducible and 
irrefutable; if we don't get it right for these children by age 3, many 
of them will never be able to do well in school or well in life.
  I don't understand what I think is a misplaced priority that my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle have about $1.6 billion that 
doesn't go directly to public education. And I put the emphasis, and I 
think the vast majority of the people in the United States of America 
would put the emphasis, on rebuilding the crumbling schools, on 
reducing class size, on making sure that we have the best education for 
our teachers and, I might argue, making sure we do our very best by way 
of children so that when children come to kindergarten, they come ready 
to learn. That is where we ought to be investing our resources--not in 
allocating resources to support private education, not in a Coverdell 
bill where the benefits disproportionately go to those families which 
least need those benefits.

  The second point speaks more to the majority leader than my colleague 
from Georgia. I don't have a corner on the truth and I do not want to 
come off arrogant, but this argument that the majority leader makes 
about getting to decide what kind of amendments are relevant and 
dramatically reducing the number of amendments that are out here on the 
floor presupposes that there aren't any number of different ways of 
thinking about what is really helpful for education and the development 
of children and young people in this country.
  I have a number of amendments that I think are important. I think the 
amendment on rebuilding crumbling schools is right on the mark. I think 
we devalue children and we devalue the work of adults who work with 
children when we don't make an investment in rebuilding these crumbling 
schools. I think reducing class size and more teachers in the classroom 
is extremely important. If I am going to think about ways of making 
better use of $1.6 billion, we ought to get back to making sure young 
people have the hope to go on to higher education. The HOPE scholarship 
with tax credits that aren't refundable doesn't help very many families 
in Georgia or Minnesota with incomes under $28,000 a year. Spend a 
little time in community colleges. The education is not affordable. I 
have an amendment to take that $1.6 billion and make higher education 
more affordable for these men and women from working families.
  I have an amendment, since we are talking about children and 
education, that deals with the cuts we made in the Food Stamp Program, 
the major safety net program for poor children in America. We made a 20 
percent cut in food stamp benefits. The vast majority of the 
beneficiaries are children. The vast majority of beneficiaries are 
working poor families. Every single doctor and every single scientist 
and every single nutritional expert will tell you children don't do 
well in school when they are malnourished. They don't do well in school 
when they don't have enough to eat. I think we ought to restore that 
funding for the Food Stamp Program as it applies to children in 
America. That is a top priority education program.
  Now we have a majority leader who is saying, ``No, I don't want to 
have debate on all these amendments.'' What are my colleagues afraid 
of? Why would it be too much time to take 4 or 5 days or a week and 
debate this piece of legislation?
  I have another amendment which I think is terribly important and I 
think it has everything in the world to do with how well kids do in 
school. We, right now, all around the country, are saying to single 
parents--and I spoke about this last week--mainly women, you can't stay 
in college because of the welfare bill. You have to leave school. Take 
a job at $6 an hour with no health care benefits. You know what. If 
those single parents --that means they have children--are able to 
finish their college education, it means better earnings, better 
opportunities for their children, more self-esteem for the parent, 
better educational achievement by

[[Page S2395]]

the child. I have an amendment which says we ought to make sure that 
those single parents, those women, are able to finish their college 
education. I may or may not be able to present that amendment here in 
this debate.
  I just want to make it crystal clear, Madam President, on both counts 
I am in opposition with the majority leader on this question. Madam 
President, $1.6 billion--put it into rebuilding crumbling schools, put 
it into smaller class size. Don't put it into a program that benefits 
mainly upper income people and private schools. It is that simple.

  Second of all, let's have a debate about education. You cannot 
decontextualize what happens to children before they go to school and 
what happens to children when they go home after being in school from 
how well they do in school. There are a whole bunch of issues--some of 
them are direct education issues; some of them have to do with whether 
the parents are doing well employment-wise; some have to do with 
nutrition; some have to do with health care; some of them have to do 
with whether or not these young people think they can afford higher 
education--that dramatically affect how well children do in school.
  I don't think the majority leader ought to, as a priority, decide 
what are relevant amendments or what kind of debate we ought to have on 
education. I don't know why my colleagues are afraid of a full-fledged 
substantive debate about education. Let's take the next week and let's 
debate the education amendments up or down.
  I said to my colleague from Georgia, to end on a slightly different 
note, that I appreciated his effort. I said that a few days ago, that I 
think he is absolutely sincere in what he is doing, even though we 
disagree and that, most important of all, I look forward to a real 
debate. I hope we will have that real debate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.

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