[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 43 (Monday, April 20, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3249-S3270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          EDUCATION SAVINGS ACT FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 2646, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2646) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 
     1986 to allow tax-free expenditures from education individual 
     retirement accounts for elementary and secondary school 
     expenses, to increase the maximum annual amount of 
     contributions to such accounts, and for other purposes.

  The Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Delaware, Mr. 
Roth, is recognized.
  Mr. ROTH. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I am pleased that we have entered into a unanimous 
consent agreement with respect to H.R. 2646, the Parent and Student 
Savings Account Plus Act. It is good to see us moving at last toward 
passage of this significant bill. The importance of giving American 
families the resources and means they need to educate their children 
must be above politics.
  As I have said before, this bill empowers families--not the federal 
bureaucracy. It gives resources to the children, not to a monolithic 
establishment that has grown overbearing and antiquated on a diet of 
government subsidies.
  This bill is a much needed change in the way Washington looks at the 
education of children. It returns parental involvement to where it 
should be--at the very foundation of their children's education. It 
lets them use their money to educate their children, allowing them to 
put their own money into their own Parent and Student Savings 
Accounts.''
  This bill acknowledges that the best thing taxpayers can do with 
their hard-earned money is to earmark it for the education of their 
children.
  It allows them to increase their contributions from $500 per year to 
$2,000 per year. It allows for withdrawals to be used for elementary 
and secondary education expenses. And it covers public and private 
schools.

[[Page S3250]]

  The bill also makes state-sponsored prepaid tuition programs tax-
free, not tax-deferred, meaning that students will be able to withdraw 
on a tax-free basis the savings that accumulate in their pre-paid 
tuition accounts. Parents will have the incentive to put money away 
today and their children will have the full benefit of that money tax 
free tomorrow.
  Toward promoting these important objectives, the federal government 
must lead, follow, or get out of the way. Our states and communities--
our families--are embracing innovative educational programs. They 
realize the old way isn't working. Already, forty-four states have pre-
paid tuition plans in effect, and the other six have legislation to 
create a state plan, or they have implemented a feasibility study.
  Many cities and states are offering families the power of choice when 
it comes to selecting what school their children will attend. Others 
are embracing programs that make private schools more accessible.
  These measures are having a positive impact, but there is much more 
to be done, and the federal government must demonstrate its leadership. 
Let's be bold, Mr. President. The National Center for Education 
Statistics states that in our children's pre-school years, parents are 
active in preparing them for school. Almost three-quarters of all 
parents read to their children regularly. A full 60 percent are active 
in teaching them to recognize letters and numbers.
  Interestingly enough, this active parental involvement begins to fall 
off once the child has entered school. Perhaps this is because 
government has put itself in the position over the years where it has 
come to assume parental responsibility, and even frustrated parental 
participation. ``Give us your money,'' government has said. ``We'll 
educate your children. We'll make decisions concerning how your 
precious resources are spent, concerning what will be emphasized--how 
it will be taught, and by whom.''
  This has led to a condition where--according to one of the most 
extensive studies ever conducted on the forces that affect youth and 
their performance in school--nearly one in three parents in America is 
seriously disengaged from his or her adolescent's education. How can it 
be that while three-quarters of all parents are active in preparing 
their pre-school children for their educations, only one-third remain 
active when their child enters adolescence?
  The answer is simple: parents have become disenfranchised. They have 
been robbed of the resources they need to make the kinds of decisions 
that will keep them active in the educational attainments of their 
children.
  According to Lawrence Steinberg, the educator who conducted the 
extensive study of more than 20,000 teenagers and their families in 
nine very different American communities, ``The failure of our 
educational policies is due to our obsession with reforming schools and 
classrooms, and our general disregard of the contributing forces that, 
while outside the boundaries of the school, are probably more 
influential.''
  These influential forces, Mr. President, include the family. They 
include the educational resources families are given to provide their 
children with an environment for learning. They include the flexibility 
parents have to decide where their children will attend school and how 
it will be paid for.
  Our policies must offer Dad and Mom the resources they need to 
actively re-engage in Junior's education. The Coverdell bill does this. 
It is a very important step in the right direction, and I urge my 
colleagues to support it. It's time for innovation. It's time to 
empower parents. It's time to prepare for the future. This is what the 
Coverdell bill is all about.
  I will take a few minutes to walk through the various provisions of 
the bill. But before I get into the specifics, let me remind my 
colleagues that with the exception of several school construction bond 
provisions--which were newly added this year--all of the concepts in 
this bill should be very familiar.
  Mr. President, these concepts should be familiar because we have 
already endorsed them. The base provisions in the bill--which include 
the increase in the maximum allowable contribution to an education IRA, 
the use of the IRA for elementary and secondary school expenses for 
public and private schools, the tax-free treatment of state sponsored 
prepaid tuition plans, and the extension of tax-free treatment for 
employer provided educational assistance--all received overwhelming 
bipartisan support in the Senate as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 
1997.
  Despite this Senate support, these provisions were dropped from the 
bill during conference negotiations. Because of opposition from the 
Administration, these particular elements failed to be included in the 
final version of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997.
  We are here today to show our commitment to these provisions--and to 
enact what this body has already determined makes good sense for 
American families.
  Mr. President, it is important to note that this tax bill is not 
designed to answer all of the education-related issues that face this 
country. Those issues are too varied and complicated to be addressed by 
the federal government.
  They need to be solved at the state and local level--by schools, 
teachers, and parents working together.
  Instead, this bill is designed to build on the innovative concepts 
that have been introduced in the last few years. Our goal is to alter 
the tax code so that it provides the necessary incentives to help 
American families help their children. These are much needed tools.
  Over the past 15 years, tuition at a four year college has increased 
by 234%. The average student loan has increased by 367%. In contrast 
median household income rose only 82% during this period and the 
consumer price index rose only 74%.
  Our students--our families--need these resources to help them meet 
the costs and realize the opportunities of a quality education. The 
Senate recognized the importance of these provisions less than one year 
ago, voting in favor of them. I hope that my colleagues continue to 
recognize just how important they remain. The American people are 
counting on us.
  Now let me take a few minutes to describe the various provisions of 
this bill--to provide an overview and to highlight some reasons why 
these measures are so important.
  As I have already mentioned, the bill increases the maximum education 
IRA contribution from $500 to $2,000. That increase is important on two 
levels. First, with the well-documented increase in education costs, it 
is essential that we provide American families with the resources 
needed to meet those costs.
  I have long argued that it is essential to change the savings habits 
of the American people, and there are few things more important than 
the education of our children. Not only will saving in this way 
increase our investment capital, it will increase American's education 
capital as well. Anything that thwarts either of these objectives is 
short-sighted.
  By using the tax code to encourage individual responsibility for 
paying for educational expenses, we all benefit. The expansion of the 
education IRA will result in greater opportunities for individuals to 
save for their children's education.
  Besides being too low to give parents the necessary resources to pay 
for the costs of education, the current $500 limit fails from another 
practical perspective.
  As we all know, any broker or bank that provides an IRA account faces 
assorted administrative costs for each account. To ensure that they can 
adequately cover their administrative costs, most brokers or banks 
impose a minimum account balance. In many cases, the minimum balance 
has been set well higher than $500. That reality of the marketplace has 
the effect of limiting the availability of the education IRA to 
American families.

  Another reality is that confronted by a $500 limit, many mutual fund 
companies find that it is not worth their while to spend money on 
marketing the education IRA. It is a fact of life that regardless of 
what we say and do in Congress, many families will only know about the 
benefits of an education IRA through the marketing efforts of their 
local mutual fund companies and banks. These businesses have been very 
successful in marketing IRAs with a higher contribution limit. If we 
want to maximize the involvement of American families in education 
IRAs,

[[Page S3251]]

Mr. President, we need to ensure that the accounts make economic sense 
from the perspective of the companies offering them.
  Mr. President, the next major change that this bill makes to 
education IRAs is that it allows withdrawals for education expenses for 
elementary and secondary schools and for both private and public 
schools.
  As we recognized last year, it is a fundamental principle that a 
parent should have the right and the ability to make decisions about 
his or her child's education--to decide basic questions such as how the 
child should be educated and where the child should attend school.
  Last year, for example, when Congress passed a variety of provisions 
targeted to higher education, we made no distinction between private 
and public schools.
  We did not say, for instance, that an education IRA or a Hope 
scholarship would only be available if a student attended public 
school. We did not say that a student who attended the University of 
Maryland would receive a tax benefit and a student who attended George 
Washington University would receive nothing.
  This bill recognizes that just as with secondary schools, we should 
not establish a priority system where some elementary and secondary 
schools are favored over others. We should not forget that it is the 
taxpayer who funds the education IRA--that it is the parent who puts 
his or her hard-earned money into the education IRA.
  Mr. President, it seems a matter of common sense, therefore, that the 
parent should be able to choose how to spend that money.
  Moreover, parents with students in elementary and secondary schools 
need our help to cope with the costs. It is simply not true that only 
rich kids attend private elementary or secondary schools. For instance, 
according to the National Catholic Education Association, almost 70% of 
the families with children in Catholic schools have incomes below 
$35,000 and almost 90% of those families have incomes below $50,000.
  Another provision in this bill makes state-sponsored prepaid tuition 
plans tax-free, not simply tax-deferred. This is a significant 
distinction, because it allows students to withdraw the savings that 
accumulate in their pre-paid tuition accounts without paying any tax at 
all. It means that parents have the incentive to put money away today 
and their children have the full benefit of that money, without any 
tax, tomorrow.
  As I have already mentioned, forty-four states have pre-paid tuition 
plans in effect, and the other six are in the process of implementing 
such plans. This means that every member of the Senate has parents and 
students back home who either benefit from this plan right now, or will 
benefit from this plan soon.
  Mr. President, the Coverdell bill also extends tax-free treatment of 
employer provided educational assistance for graduates and 
undergraduates through the year 2002.
  This particular program is a time-tested and widely used benefit for 
working students. Over one million workers across America receive tax-
free employer provided education. This allows them to stay on the 
cutting edge of their careers. It benefits not only them, individually, 
but their employers and the economy as a whole. With the constant 
innovations and advancing technology of our society, it is vitally 
important that we continue this program.
  The various provisions that I have just described have already been 
embraced by members of this body, and they were approved last year. 
They made sense then. They certainly continue to make sense today.
  Mr. President, the Coverdell bill does even more than address the 
costs of attending school. In response to concerns from Members on both 
sides of the aisle, the Finance Committee agreed on some measures to 
provide targeted relief in the area of school construction.
  The first provision is directed at high growth school districts. It 
expands the tax-exempt bond rules for public/private partnerships set 
up for the construction, renovation, or restoration of public school 
facilities in these districts.
  In general, it allows states to issue tax-exempt bonds equal to $10 
per state resident. Each state would be guaranteed a minimum allocation 
of at least $5 million of these tax-exempt bonds. In total, up to $600 
million per year in new tax exempt bonds would be issued for these 
innovative school construction projects.
  This provision is important because it retains state and local 
flexibility. It does not impose a new bureaucracy on the states and it 
does not force the federal government to micro-manage school 
construction.
  The provision also is important because it promotes the use of 
public/private partnerships. Many high-growth school districts may be 
too poor or too overwhelmed to take on a school construction project 
themselves. With these bonds, those districts can partner with a 
private entity--and still enjoy the benefits of tax-exempt financing.
  Mr. President, it is worth noting that there already is a significant 
federal subsidy for school construction. Under current law, states and 
localities can issue debt that is exempt from federal taxation. This 
benefit allows them to finance school construction by issuing long term 
bonds at a lower cost than they otherwise could.
  Moreover, the evidence shows that states and localities are taking 
advantage of this benefit. In the first six months of 1996, voters 
approved $13.3 billion in school bonds, an increase of more than $4 
billion over the first six months of 1995. The bottom line is that many 
states and localities are doing their homework, passing bonds, building 
and renovating schools, and enjoying favorable treatment under the 
existing tax code. They are doing all this without significant federal 
involvement.
  I do not have to remind my colleagues that school construction has 
always been the province of state and local governments. President 
Clinton himself stated in 1994 that ``the construction and renovation 
of school facilities has traditionally been the responsibility of state 
and local governments financed primarily by local taxpayers.'' In that 
respect, I agree with the President.
  Mr. President, there is a second bond provision in this bill. That 
provision is designed to simplify the issuance of bonds for school 
construction. Under current law, arbitrage profits earned on 
investments unrelated to the purpose of the borrowing must be rebated 
to the Federal government. However, there is an exception--generally 
referred to as the small issuer exception--which allows governments to 
issue up to $5 million of bonds without being subject to the arbitrage 
rebate requirement. We recently increased this limit to $10 million for 
governments that issue at least $5 million of public school bonds 
during the year.
  The provision in the Coverdell bill increases the small issuer 
exception to $15 million, provided that at least $10 million of the 
bonds are issued to finance public schools. This measure will assist 
localities in meeting school construction needs by simplifying their 
use of tax-exempt financing. At the same time, it will not create 
incentives to issue such debt earlier or in larger amounts than is 
necessary. It is a type of targeted provision that makes sense.
  It is clear, Mr. President, that the Coverdell bill contains many 
important provisions for the American family. As I have said already, 
many of these measures have already been passed by the Senate.
  Anyone--students or parents--who is on the front line dealing with 
the costs of a quality education, must have been disappointed last year 
when we failed to give them all the tools that they needed. American 
families understand just how important these measures are. They have 
now been waiting for a year. Let's not disappoint them any further. 
Let's not keep them waiting any longer. Let's move forward. Let's pass 
the Coverdell bill now.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I congratulate Chairman Roth for his 
statement and for once again bringing a Finance Committee bill to the 
floor that includes ideas supported by members on both sides. And I 
thank the Chairman for insisting that the appropriate place for initial 
consideration of the Coverdell education savings account legislation 
was in the Finance

[[Page S3252]]

Committee, not on the floor. This legislation was reported by the 
Committee on February 10, 1998, by a vote of 11-8.
  This is one of those infrequent occasions in which the Chairman and I 
disagree on a policy matter. The good intentions of the proponents of 
expanding the availability of education individual retirement accounts 
are clear. However, in our view the proposed changes to the education 
IRA provisions, passed just last July and effective on January 1st of 
this year, are fraught with serious policy and technical defects. 
Secretaries Rubin and Riley have expressed strong opposition to the 
education IRA provisions in this bill, and have indicated that they 
will recommend that the President veto a bill that contains such 
provisions. In a letter to Members of the Finance Committee dated 
February 9, 1998, the Secretaries of the Treasury and Education stated 
that the education IRA provisions in this bill would disproportionately 
benefit the most affluent families and provide little or no benefit to 
lower and middle-income families. In addition, they indicated that the 
provisions ``would create significant compliance problems.''
  Treasury Department analyses conclude that 70 percent of the tax 
benefits from this provision would go to the top twenty percent of all 
income earners. In a memorandum of March 2, 1998, the staff of the 
Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that 52 percent of the tax 
benefits of the enhanced education IRA provision would go to seven 
percent of taxpayers: those with dependents already enrolled in private 
primary or secondary schools. The Joint Committee memorandum indicates 
that the per tax return benefit for taxpayers with children in private 
schools will be five times greater than the benefit to taxpayers with 
children in public schools.
  This bill will not result in greater opportunity for middle and lower 
income families to send children to private schools, as supporters 
contend. Instead, it will merely provide new tax breaks to families 
already able to afford private schools for their children. If the 
proponents are truly concerned about the middle class, the tax benefits 
should be targeted there. In order to accomplish this, the income 
limits would have to be lowered, and the ability to circumvent those 
limits would have to be prevented.
  Nor will this legislation result in an increase in national savings. 
The expansion of the education IRA will provide further incentives for 
taxpayers to shift money to tax-favored accounts, and to spend funds 
that would otherwise be used for retirement.
  Further, the additional complexity these changes would add to the 
Internal Revenue Code is of real concern. Taxpayers are just beginning 
to become aware of the hundreds of changes made in the 1997 tax bill. 
And now we are considering additional changes to a provision that 
became effective on January 1, 1998. More confusion for taxpayers; a 
boon for H&R Block.
  Even as we hear ever louder calls to simplify and even terminate the 
Code, we have before us a bill that would create a maze of rules in 
attempting to define what constitutes a ``qualified elementary and 
secondary education expense.'' For example, the bill defines such 
expenses to include computers and related software and services, but 
how is the IRS to monitor whether a computer, or the use of the 
Internet, is used by a child for educational purposes or for 
entertainment, or by the child's parents for unrelated purposes?

  Under this bill, the ability to contribute up to $2,000 per year in 
an account for elementary and secondary education expenses would sunset 
after 2002. However, money contributed through 2002 could still be used 
for such expenses. There will be different rules depending on whether 
contributions were made in 1998, 1999 to 2002, or post-2002. It will be 
up to the taxpayer to track--and the IRS to examine--when funds were 
contributed, the earnings on those funds, and whether they can be used 
for only higher education, or both elementary and secondary education 
and higher education. Who will understand these rules?
  Mr. President, we are already spending enough on IRAs and other tax-
advantaged savings vehicles. At a cost of $40 billion over 10 years, 
the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 created the Education IRA and the Roth 
IRA, and significantly expanded existing IRAs and the tax benefits of 
State-sponsored prepaid college tuition plans.
  Having said all of that, I must express thanks to the Chairman, who 
gave priority in this package to the income exclusion for employer-
provided educational assistance, which is Section 127 of the Internal 
Revenue Code. It is one of the most successful Federal education 
policies we have. A million persons per year are provided tax-free 
higher education by their employers; about a quarter of those are 
students enrolled in graduate-level education courses.
  In a world of continuing education, Section 127 permits an employer 
to send an employee to school to learn something new, get a degree, and 
bring the skills back into the workplace. The employee gets more 
income, and the Federal treasury gets more tax revenue. This is a 
program that works, and it administers itself.
  Last year, the Senate version of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 
would have made this absolutely easy; it made Section 127 permanent for 
both undergraduate and graduate study. For reasons I will never 
understand, the Senate language was dropped in conference. Members of 
the House have already indicated that in a conference on this measure 
they will move to strip the Section 127 provisions, particularly the 
piece for graduate students.
  Finally, I appreciate the Chairman's good faith efforts in working 
with members on both sides to try and come up with measures designed to 
address the issue of school infrastructure. Last year, Senators Carol 
Moseley-Braun and Bob Graham brought the issue of crumbling schools to 
our attention, and they continue to be the leaders in the effort to 
address this serious problem. Most of us would prefer not to address 
this issue via the Tax Code, but previous attempts at more direct 
solutions have been opposed. I am afraid that such opposition has 
resulted in the nominal tax provisions we find in this bill to address 
a problem that is estimated to cost at least $112 billion--a figure 
that does not include the cost of building new schools.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, in about half an hour or 45 minutes I 
will have the pleasure of being able to offer an amendment to the 
pending bill, along with my friend and colleague, Senator Mack of 
Florida, that will, I believe, help reform education. I believe the 
most important battle that America faces is to provide an opportunity 
for our youngsters to get a decent education, to get the best education 
possible.
  Reform of our education system is one of America's priorities. 
Indeed, our amendment will reform the evaluation of public school 
teachers in America and, most importantly, will reward the best 
teachers with additional salary.
  Reforming our education system is the most important issue facing our 
Nation. This is a fight for America's children. When we look at 
reforming our public schools, one thing must always be kept foremost in 
our efforts: We must put our children first--not anyone's interest, but 
the interest of our children. Our children are the best and the 
brightest. They are our most precious resource. That is what our 
legislative proposal will be about.
  This amendment is about promoting excellence in teaching, for the 
benefit of our children. Before I get into the details of the 
amendment, I want to speak a little bit about excellent teachers and 
how they help our children learn.
  When my dad entered elementary school quite a few years ago, he 
didn't speak a word of English. Indeed, very few spoke English in the 
poor, immigrant community in which he grew up. But he had teachers who 
were dedicated to giving the best education to those children who came 
from all kinds of diverse backgrounds. After many years of hard work, 
summer schools included, my dad graduated. He went on

[[Page S3253]]

to a State teachers' college where he majored, of all things, in 
English. My dad was able to achieve this amazing progress because he 
was inspired by his public school teachers who created magic in the 
classroom.
  That same inspiration takes place today in many classrooms throughout 
America. Public school teachers still make a difference for millions of 
our children. Truly outstanding teachers are the unsung heroes of our 
communities.
  Unfortunately, however, this magic does not take place for every 
child in every classroom, and that is a tragedy.
  Today, in most of our Nation's public schools, there is no financial 
incentive for those truly outstanding teachers. We should change that. 
Outstanding teachers who help our children achieve educational success 
should be rewarded with merit pay. That is just good common sense. It 
works in business. It works in other areas. And it should be part of 
our educational system.
  Another commonsense measure is teacher competence testing. Again, 
most teachers are very dedicated, and most teachers are up to the job. 
But some are not. In some cases, you have teachers who are competent in 
their area of specialty who are teaching other subjects in which they 
lack competence. When that happens, our children are the ones who 
suffer. We need to know that those who teach our children are competent 
in the subjects they teach. We need competency testing for all 
teachers. Our children deserve nothing less than the best.
  Our legislation will provide incentives for States and localities to 
adopt both of these vital measures: merit pay and competency testing. 
The amendment is called ``Measures to Encourage Results in Teaching.'' 
It is the MERIT Act.
  Incentives are provided through the Eisenhower Professional 
Development Program. The amendment sets aside 50 percent of the funds 
appropriated over fiscal year 1999 levels and then distributes it to 
States that have established teacher testing and merit pay plans.
  Last year, fiscal year 1998, Congress appropriated $335 million for 
this program to subsidize training for teachers, an increase of $25 
million from the year before. I support this effort to train teachers. 
But I also believe that we have to be able to ensure that teachers are 
actually improving their teaching skills and children are benefiting. 
Teacher testing will accomplish this goal. I also want to reward 
teachers whose training creates magic in the classroom. Merit pay will 
accomplish this goal.
  Under this amendment, as the Eisenhower Professional Development 
Program funding increases, so will each State and local Government's 
share. However, 50 percent of the increase will be reserved for those 
States that put in place merit pay and teacher testing.
  Mr. President, it is time to meet the challenges of massive, 
fundamental reform in education. Congress has repeatedly tried to 
address the inadequacies in our schools by providing funding. I support 
more funding for education. But we also have to recognize that funding 
alone will not make American schools competitive in the global economy. 
There needs to be significant reforms--and merit pay and teacher 
testing should be part of those reforms.
  The fight to reform our public education system is a fight for 
America's future. Our children are depending on us.
  I urge my colleagues to support this measure, to guarantee that all 
students have the right to be taught by educated, confidence and 
qualified teachers--and to reward the truly outstanding teachers with 
merit pay, those teachers who do create magic in the classroom.
  Let's not let the status quo diminish the dream of our parents and 
grandparents. The American people know the importance of this fight. 
The fight to reform our public schools is a fight for America's future. 
Our children are depending on us. And I know that if we once again give 
our children the best teachers and the best schools, there is no limit 
to what they can achieve.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the A+ accounts 
bill, and I want to commend its chief Senate sponsor, Senator Paul 
Coverdell, for his leadership in bringing this bill to the floor.
  Mr. President, this legislation does several things. It would allow 
more people to save for education in tax-preferred education savings 
accounts. The savings could be used for higher education, as well as 
education at the elementary and secondary levels. The bill would extend 
the existing tax exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance 
through the year 2002, and it would make savings in qualified state 
tuition plans tax-free. It would also create a new category of tax-
exempt facility bonds to assist with school construction in high-growth 
areas.
  Mr. President, perhaps the most important part of the bill is also 
the most controversial: the provisions that expand the allowable uses 
of education savings accounts to include elementary and secondary 
education. These provisions would put additional resources under the 
control of the people who know and understand the needs of children 
best--their families.
  Here is how it works. Families earning less than $95,000--$150,000 on 
a joint tax return--could put up to $2,000 in after-tax dollars into 
special interest-bearing accounts for each child. The funds would 
accumulate tax free, and could be withdrawn for any educational 
expense--from books and transportation to special programs and private-
school tuition.
  A family saving just $10 per week could accumulate about $4,000 by 
the time a newborn enters the first grade. Over the course of the 
child's education, the money could be spent on a school uniform, 
special tutoring, a home computer, tuition at a private or parohial 
school, an SAT preparation course, or any other educational expense. 
This is one of the rare occasions in Washington when we are talking 
about empowering parents--rather than government bureaucrats--to decide 
how best to satisfy their children's educational needs. An estimated 14 
million families are expected to take advantage of these new tax-
preferred savings accounts.
  Defenders of the status quo will throw up a series of arguments about 
why parents should not be trusted with more control over their 
children's education. Some will suggest that this will divert resources 
from public schools into private schools. Let me make two points about 
that.
  First, I think it is important to recall that we are not talking 
about a new subsidy for private or parochial schools. To the contrary, 
we are talking about allowing families to keep more of what they earn--
after all, it is their money--to send their children to the elementary 
or secondary school of their choice.
  We already go far beyond what would be allowed by this bill when we 
provide federal financial assistance to students at the college level, 
including students who attend private or religious institutions. No one 
argues that such choice harms public colleges or universities. In fact, 
it is choice and competition that has made our Nation's colleges and 
universities the best in the world. So I am perplexed why anyone would 
fear giving parents more choice and control at the elementary and 
secondary levels, as well. That is where the real crisis in education 
exists today, and it is where choice and competition will do the most 
good.
  Second, providing families with tax incentives for education savings 
will not decrease federal or state funding for public schools by a 
single dime. The fact is, Congress is likely to approve increases in 
funding for education in addition to the incentives that would come 
with the Coverdell bill. The budget resolution that we approved two 
weeks ago does exactly that, adhering to the spending levels set out in 
the budget agreement negotiated between Congress and the President just 
last year.
  Here is what President Clinton said about the education-spending 
levels in that agreement last July. These are his words:

       * * * at the heart of this balanced budget [agreement] is 
     the historic investment in

[[Page S3254]]

     education--the most significant increase in education funding 
     in more than 30 years.

  The most significant increase in education spending in a generation--
that is the level of funding that is provided under the budget we just 
passed, and it is in addition to the assistance provided under the 
Coverdell bill.
  Another point: The people who stand to gain the most from this 
legislation are those of more modest means who might not have the same 
choice or opportunity without the help that the Coverdell bill would 
provide. Of the people currently opting for Catholic schools, for 
example, 68 percent have annual incomes of $35,000 or less. Wealthier 
people obviously have the means to send their children to the school of 
their choice whether they receive a tax break or not. And in any event, 
wealthier taxpayers will not even qualify for the relief in this bill, 
give the income thresholds that are set out in it.
  It seems to me, Mr. President, that all of the agruments against the 
bill are based upon the flawed premise that public schools cannot 
compete successfully with other institutions. They are wrong. Many 
public schools have very well-regarded programs--programs that meet or 
exceed what is offered to students elsewhere--and it is likely that 
these schools would not only retain their current student body, but add 
to it with barriers to choice removed. And with additional enrollment 
would come additional funds for their budgets.
  It is true that failing schools would be forced to improve or face 
declining enrollment. But is it really our goal to force students with 
few financial resources to remain in a failing environment? Should they 
not have the same options that others have to find a school that better 
meets their needs?
  In Senate hearings earlier this year, low-income parents questioned 
why the schoolhouse door is often closed to their children--why they 
are kept from moving their children to schools that can better meet 
their children's needs. Why, these parents wanted to know, are their 
kids denied the chance to attend safer schools? They are right to ask 
questions. They deserve--their children deserve--access to a quality 
education.
  In my opinion, the single best thing we could do to improve the 
quality of education in this country is give parents more choice and 
control over where they send their children. It is an idea with broad 
support among the American people. A 1997 poll conducted by the Center 
for Education Reform found support for school choice among the general 
public at 82 percent. The Joint Center for Political and Economic 
Studies reported support among African Americans at more than 70 
percent. It is an idea whose time has come.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in support of the A+ bill.


                           Amendment No. 2288

(Purpose: To provide incentives for States to establish and administer 
 periodic teacher testing and merit pay programs for elementary school 
                     and secondary school teachers)

  Mr. MACK. Mr. President, I have an amendment which I send to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack], for himself and Mr. 
     D'Amato, proposes an amendment numbered 2288.

  Mr. MACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end, add the following:
          TITLE __--MEASURES TO ENCOURAGE RESULTS IN TEACHING

     SEC. __01. SHORT TITLE; FINDINGS; AND PURPOSES.

       (a) Short Title.--This title may be cited as the ``Measures 
     to Encourage Results in Teaching Act of 1998''.
       (b) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) All students deserve to be taught by well-educated, 
     competent, and qualified teachers.
       (2) More than ever before, education has and will continue 
     to become the ticket not only to economic success but to 
     basic survival. Students will not succeed in meeting the 
     demands of a knowledge-based, 21st century society and 
     economy if the students do not encounter more challenging 
     work in school. For future generations to have the 
     opportunities to achieve success the future generations will 
     need to have an education and a teacher workforce second to 
     none.
       (3) No other intervention can make the difference that a 
     knowledgeable, skillful teacher can make in the learning 
     process. At the same time, nothing can fully compensate for 
     weak teaching that, despite good intentions, can result from 
     a teacher's lack of opportunity to acquire the knowledge and 
     skill needed to help students master the curriculum.
       (4) The Federal Government established the Dwight D. 
     Eisenhower Professional Development Program in 1985 to ensure 
     that teachers and other educational staff have access to 
     sustained and high-quality professional development. This 
     ongoing development must include the ability to demonstrate 
     and judge the performance of teachers and other instructional 
     staff.
       (5) States should evaluate their teachers on the basis of 
     demonstrated ability, including tests of subject matter 
     knowledge, teaching knowledge, and teaching skill. States 
     should develop a test for their teachers and other 
     instructional staff with respect to the subjects taught by 
     the teachers and staff, and should administer the test every 
     3 to 5 years.
       (6) Evaluating and rewarding teachers with a compensation 
     system that supports teachers who become increasingly expert 
     in a subject area, are proficient in meeting the needs of 
     students and schools, and demonstrate high levels of 
     performance measured against professional teaching standards, 
     will encourage teachers to continue to learn needed skills 
     and broaden teachers' expertise, thereby enhancing education 
     for all students.
       (c) Purposes.--The purposes of this title are as follows:
       (1) To provide incentives for States to establish and 
     administer periodic teacher testing and merit pay programs 
     for elementary school and secondary school teachers.
       (2) To encourage States to establish merit pay programs 
     that have a significant impact on teacher salary scales.
       (3) To encourage programs that recognize and reward the 
     best teachers, and encourage those teachers that need to do 
     better.

     SEC. __02. STATE INCENTIVES FOR TEACHER TESTING AND MERIT 
                   PAY.

       (a) Amendments.--Title II of the Elementary and Secondary 
     Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6601 et seq.) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating part D as part E;
       (2) by redesignating sections 2401 and 2402 as sections 
     2501 and 2502, respectively; and
       (3) by inserting after part C the following:

      ``PART D--STATE INCENTIVES FOR TEACHER TESTING AND MERIT PAY

     ``SEC. 2401. STATE INCENTIVES FOR TEACHER TESTING AND MERIT 
                   PAY.

       ``(a) State Awards.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     this title, from funds described in subsection (b) that are 
     made available for a fiscal year, the Secretary shall make an 
     award to each State that--
       ``(1) administers a test to each elementary school and 
     secondary school teacher in the State, with respect to the 
     subjects taught by the teacher, every 3 to 5 years; and
       ``(2) has an elementary school and secondary school teacher 
     compensation system that is based on merit.
       ``(b) Available Funding.--The amount of funds referred to 
     in subsection (a) that are available to carry out this 
     section for a fiscal year is 50 percent of the amount of 
     funds appropriated to carry out this title that are in excess 
     of the amount so appropriated for fiscal year 1999, except 
     that no funds shall be available to carry out this section 
     for any fiscal year for which--
       ``(1) the amount appropriated to carry out this title 
     exceeds $600,000,000; or
       ``(2) each of the several States is eligible to receive an 
     award under this section.
       ``(c) Award Amount.--A State shall receive an award under 
     this section in an amount that bears the same relation to the 
     total amount available for awards under this section for a 
     fiscal year as the number of States that are eligible to 
     receive such an award for the fiscal year bears to the total 
     number of all States so eligible for the fiscal year.
       ``(d) Use of Funds.--Funds provided under this section may 
     be used by States to carry out the activities described in 
     section 2207.
       ``(e) Definition of State.--For the purpose of this 
     section, the term `State' means each of the 50 States and the 
     District of Columbia.''.
       (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by subsection (a) 
     shall take effect on October 1, 1999.

     SEC. __03. TEACHER TESTING AND MERIT PAY.

       (a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law, a State may use Federal education funds--
       (1) to carry out a test of each elementary school or 
     secondary school teacher in the State with respect to the 
     subjects taught by the teacher; or
       (2) to establish a merit pay program for the teachers.
       (b) Definitions.--In this section, the terms ``elementary 
     school'' and ``secondary school'' have the meanings given the 
     terms in section 14101 of the Elementary and Secondary 
     Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 8801).

  Mr. MACK. Mr. President, I understand there are 15 minutes now on 
each side for the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. MACK. Thank you, Mr. President.

[[Page S3255]]

  Today, Senator D'Amato and I are offering an amendment that would 
provide incentives for States to establish teacher testing and merit 
pay programs. I have said many times in the discussion about education 
that our children deserve an education that is second to none. I have 
listened to educators from my home state of Florida who have talked 
with educators in other countries. The consensus is that competition 
among nations in the 21st century will not be based on natural 
resources or military power, but on knowledge.
  I believe that they are correct, and if our children and our 
grandchildren--and I am proud to state that I have three grandsons, 13, 
11 and 4--if they are going to have an opportunity to compete in the 
21st century, and if they are going to have an opportunity to 
experience the opportunities that we have had, then they have to have 
an education that is second to none.
  Good teachers are the backbone to a good education. All students 
deserve to be taught by well-educated, competent and qualified 
teachers. Teachers make all the difference in the learning process. 
America's classrooms are staffed with many dedicated, knowledgeable and 
hard-working teachers. But we need to reward teachers for their 
efforts.
  I have traveled all around my State and, for that matter, around our 
Nation trying to make myself more knowledgeable about the issues 
related to education. I have told the story many times about an 
experience I had out in Los Angeles where I went to visit a school 
called the Marcus Garvey School and met the Administrator/Principal, 
Anyim Palmer. Mr. Palmer assigned a teacher to take my wife and I 
around the school.
  I was excited, and in some ways almost overwhelmed with what I saw. 
These youngsters, some of whom were 2 years old, could recite the 
alphabet in three languages. I want to restate that --2 years old, not 
second grade; 2 years old. There were 3-year-old children who could do 
complicated addition problems and 4-year-old students who could read at 
the second and third grade level. A 5-year-old student stood up in 
front of me and was asked by the teacher to recite all the Presidents 
of the United States in their proper chronological order, and the 
little fellow did it. I must tell you, the only reason I was sure he 
was correct was because they gave me a piece of paper that I could 
follow along with to make sure that he was doing it correctly. But he 
was 5 years old.
  I would like to also point out that Anyim Palmer challenged one of 
the best private schools in the Los Angeles area's sixth grade students 
against his third grade students in math and English. And you know who 
won--Anyim Palmer's Marcus Garvey School students.
  Every single time I asked him how he accomplished this and what makes 
this possible, the answer was simple, ``It's the teacher.'' ``It's the 
teacher.'' ``It's the teacher that makes the difference.'' That is why, 
in this education reform proposal, we have placed so much emphasis on 
the abilities of teachers.
  Let me give you a couple of statistics: 20 percent of English classes 
were taught by teachers who did not have at least a minor in English, 
literature, communications, speech, journalism, English education or 
reading education.
  Another example: In our public schools today, 25 percent of 
mathematics classes were taught by teachers without at least a minor in 
mathematics or mathematics education; 39 percent of life science or 
biology classes were taught by teachers without at least a minor in 
biology or life sciences; 56 percent of physical science classes were 
taught by teachers without at least a minor in physics, chemistry, 
geology or Earth sciences. I could go on.
  One additional point I want to make is that students in schools with 
the highest minority enrollments have less than a 50-percent chance of 
getting a science or mathematics teacher who holds a license and a 
degree in the field he or she teaches.
  Our amendment, which is referred to as the MERIT Act, rewards States 
that test teachers on their subject matter knowledge and pays teachers 
based on merit. Here is how it works:
  We will make half of any additional funding over the fiscal year 1999 
level for the Eisenhower Program available to States that periodically 
test elementary and secondary school teachers and reward teachers based 
on merit and proven performance.
  There will be no reduction in current funding to States under this 
program based on this amendment. All current money being spent on this 
program is unaffected by this amendment. Only additional money will be 
used as an incentive.
  Finally, this amendment also enables States to use Federal education 
money to establish and administer teacher testing and merit pay 
programs.
  Mr. President, I now yield to Senator D'Amato.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I want to commend my friend and 
colleague, Senator Mack, for his work in this area. Indeed, he just did 
not sit behind a desk and dream up a theory; he went out to see; he 
went out to see that there are programs that do work. And reforming our 
education system is the most important issue facing this Nation.
  I think the parents and grandparents know that the public education 
system can do better. This is a fight for our children, and I think 
what we should be focusing on is putting the interests of our children 
first. That is the question. And we should not let the status quo 
diminish the dream of our parents and our grandparents. The American 
people know the importance of this fight.
  The fight to reform our public schools is a fight for our future. And 
why shouldn't we say the best and the brightest teachers--those who 
make magic in the classroom; those who make a difference--should be 
rewarded with merit pay? There are some who are opposed to this. Well, 
I have to tell you, we cannot pay teachers enough, those great and 
gifted teachers. This is one way to realize and to give them that kind 
of recognition that they are entitled to.
  Secondly, a provision of this amendment that is most important says 
we need teacher competency testing. Indeed, we see all too often where 
teachers are moved into areas that they do not have the excellence and 
the competence to teach. A great English teacher, for example, being 
moved into an area of science or mathematics may not be up to that 
particular job. That is why we say--and, by the way, we do not impose 
this; this is something that States can opt into. We do not believe in 
big brother Government coming in and saying, ``This is the standard 
that you have to use for determining a competence.'' That is up to the 
State and the local districts to develop the standards for competency 
testing.
  But in all sectors of life there are levels of competence that are 
expected. Indeed, when it comes to the most important area, that of 
educating our children, should we do any less? I do not think so. In 
all areas of life, in terms of competition, including the business 
world, there is merit pay. We hear about stock options for the 
successful entrepreneur. In corporate America, we hear of bonuses for 
achieving certain levels.
  Why should we not do the same? Bring those areas of the private 
sector into public education that work for the benefit of our children. 
And if we have truly outstanding and dedicated teachers, then why not 
reward them? Why not merit pay? Indeed, the teachers that make magic in 
our classrooms are sorely needed. It is about time we began to 
recognize their efforts. They are truly extraordinary.
  I believe that when we look at many of the educational institutions 
today, particularly in our inner cities, we see distress, we see a 
system that needs the kinds of reforms that this bill will begin to 
bring into the system. And so while it is not a cure-all, I believe it 
is a powerful step forward to giving our children the opportunity they 
deserve.
  I am pleased to cosponsor this amendment and urge my colleagues to be 
open minded about it. Do not permit the special interest groups to put 
the kind of pressure that will have them voting against the interests 
of our children. It is about time we put the interests of our children 
first.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I did not want to reply to the debate that 
is

[[Page S3256]]

going on here, the discussion going on. I ask unanimous consent that 
the Democratic time on the Mack-D'Amato amendment be reserved and that 
I be permitted to offer an amendment of my own.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair.


                           amendment no. 2017

  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to offer an amendment to the 
Coverdell educational IRA bill. I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Landrieu be added as a cosponsor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GLENN. This amendment will simply delete the K-12 expenses as an 
authorized deduction for education IRAs. The amendment will keep the 
increase in the annual allowable contribution from the current $500 to 
the maximum $2,000 a year.
  Deleting K-12 and increasing the allowable contribution returns 
education IRAs to their original purpose of providing incentive savings 
for higher education expenses. I believe we should be looking at this 
bill for what it is; it is tax support for private school education, 
pure and simple.
  Also, I believe this is bad education policy and it is bad tax 
policy. And let me tell you why.
  We go back to the days of our forefathers: our own parents and 
grandparents and great, great grandparents coming to this country from 
Europe, where many were escaping persecution. One of the big things 
that they wanted for their children was an education. That's because 
education was, pure and simple, not for everybody. Education was only 
for the kids from the castle, or education was for the rich, or 
education was for the politically connected. And there were two kinds 
of people in those lands in Europe that our forefathers came from: 
wealthy and poor, educated and uneducated.
  When they landed in this country of ours and started expanding and 
started setting up communities, and became a United States of America, 
they knew that if democracy was to succeed, if they were not to return 
to serfdom, and ruled by a few, that education was not a choice; in a 
democracy it was a must or the democracy was doomed.
  The freedom to be educated spread to States and communities where 
public schools were established for all. That idea expanded and caught 
fire and took root. It was the beginning of our system of public 
education in this country. The public, taxpayers, continue to pay for 
this educational system. And, out of that education of all has come 
research, has come commitment, has come economics, has come 
agriculture, has come business, has come industry, has come health, has 
come standards of living that are the envy of the world; we have had 
longer life expectancy, all of those things, and more, because of 
universal education, the best we can have for our people.
  At the same time, if people, for religious reasons or beliefs, want 
education which reflects this or they want a particular kind of 
education--it used to be all-boys schools, all-girls schools, whatever; 
we supported that as long as those schools--were not supported with 
public money. We supported the right of people to have private schools, 
and support private schools as long as they paid for them. But the 
Government response was and is to provide not just a satisfactory 
educational system in this country, not just an educational system that 
will get us by, not just one that is OK, but what we should be shooting 
for is the best educational system in this world for all of our 
citizens in this country, through a public educational system.

  Public school systems now are having some problems, that is true. It 
is not much wonder when we look how they are set up. We don't have a 
national education as such. I am not proposing here today we suddenly 
say all States and local communities are taken out of the picture here 
and we are going to go to a national school system as other nations 
have. As a matter of fact, every major industrialized nation in the 
world has a national school system.
  But our school system in this country has come under some stress. It 
is no wonder, when we think back in the early days of this country when 
we had a tax for schools, it was paid for basically by the property 
owners. Back then we didn't have a NASDAQ, a New York stock exchange, 
an American stock exchange and mutual funds all over the place for 
people to invest in. Most of the people capable of supporting schools 
had their money in property, in real estate, real property. So it was 
natural that a property tax was put in place, and those people were the 
ones who wound up supporting most of our school systems.
  As it developed, we had other problems because today no longer is a 
property tax indicative of the wealth of this country, because two-
thirds of our economy is now generated from the service industries in 
our society. So it is no wonder the property tax has become unpopular 
with an awful lot of people.
  Plus, we have another problem, too, in this country as far as making 
sure we get a good education for everyone. As Lester Thurow has been 
pointing out in his last couple of books, our basic K-through-12 
education system in this country is run by 15,000 independent school 
boards all getting elected on the basis of ``We won't raise your 
taxes.'' That is some system. I think it is amazing that it has worked 
as well as it has up until now.
  Our K-through-12 education gets a little over 5 percent of their 
funding from the Federal Government. It is not something where the 
Federal Government tries to run the whole school system. But that is a 
little bit of background on what I think is very important: that every 
single child in this country should be able to get the finest, the best 
education of any place in this world. We should not be siphoning money 
off of our public education system to provide vouchers for private 
schools.
  This is my 24th year as a U.S. Senator representing the people of 
Ohio. In that time, I have seen many attempts to divert Federal funds 
from public to private schools. The approaches to accomplish this goal 
have been many--tuition tax credits, vouchers, school choice, and now 
educational IRAs for elementary and secondary education. These 
proposals all allow parents to select which school their children will 
attend and thereby competition, supposedly, with public schools. It is 
the presumed goal they will improve students' performance as a result 
of competition. There are problems coming up because public and private 
schools don't compete on an even basis. Private schools, unlike public 
schools, can refuse to accept students with disabilities or discipline 
problems and are not subjected to the same requirements.
  Each time these proposals come before the Senate, I am proud to say I 
have cast my vote in opposition because I firmly believe we must have 
the finest public school system in the world. That is what the 
Government should be supporting--not putting money off into other 
experiments. I want parents to exercise their right and responsibility 
to decide the school their children will attend--public, private, 
parochial. Nothing wrong with choice. However, it is not the 
responsibility of the Federal Government to pay them to do so.
  As I see it, the Coverdell IRA is a backdoor voucher that will do 
nothing to improve public schools, which are my main concern, for our 
public school children. This new IRA tax subsidy provides tax breaks 
for educational expenses, including tuition and fees at public, 
private, and religious schools.

  Also, the bill does not target needy families. In fact, here is one 
of the facts I was very much interested in: Families in the top 20 
percent of income in this country--the top 20 percent of income in this 
country--would receive 70 percent of the benefit. The Joint Committee 
on Taxation estimates that more than half the savings would go to 
families whose children would attend private school anyway. So the bill 
subsidizes the savings and spending patterns that already exist. Let me 
repeat that: 70 percent of the benefit would go to families already in 
the top 20 percent of income.
  In other words, the analogy I made a little while ago regarding the 
land of our forefathers in Europe, where education was for the wealthy, 
for the privileged, for the kids from the castle, we are now taking a 
step back in that direction by helping mainly those who are already 
well enough off to send their children to private or parochial schools.

[[Page S3257]]

  As I stated, qualified educational expense is defined in the bill to 
include tuition, fees, tutoring, special needs services, books, 
supplies and equipment, including computers. The expenses must be 
incurred in connection with the beneficiary's enrollment in a public, 
private, or parochial elementary or secondary school, and the funds may 
be used to pay for expenses such as room and board and uniforms and 
transportation.
  Let me give a little bit of personal experience from Ohio. Cleveland, 
OH, has one of only two voucher programs in the country. The other one 
is in Milwaukee. In Ohio, this program permits State funds to be used 
to send low-income children to private schools. It is the only program 
that allows the children to attend religious schools with taxpayer 
funds. It is funded at $12.5 million over 2 years. Right now, the 
legality of the program is being challenged and it is before the Ohio 
State Supreme Court now.
  Let me say this, the program has been in effect now for 2 years. In 
surveys made recently of how the academics are going with the children 
in these schools, it is not all that great. So far, they have not been 
able to show any real results where the kids that are going to these 
private schools are any better off academically than they would have 
been in public school. Some of the proponents of the voucher system in 
Ohio and Cleveland say it hasn't had long enough to take effect yet. We 
are close to the end of the second year of this program now and testing 
has not shown much difference at all.
  Another problem that was unforeseen--and this may seem like a minor 
problem and maybe not one that will be a problem nationally, but it 
shows we have some unforeseen consequences sometimes when we start 
something like this. That is paying for taxicabs. Paying for cabs to 
carry children to private schools is one of the reasons the school 
choice program is in jeopardy in Cleveland. This is no small item. 
Students' taxi rides account for more than half of the $4.8 million 
deficit in Cleveland's 2-year-old school voucher program. More than 
half of the deficit goes to providing kids taxicab rides basically 
because the school officials had no yellow bus transportation available 
for the voucher students.
  So sometimes there are unintended consequences. The voucher program 
had to turn to taxi firms and provide payments to parents in lieu of 
transportation services. The image of children riding taxicabs to 
private schools because the Cleveland public schools could not 
accommodate them on its yellow schoolbuses is one example of the 
structural deficiencies in the program and one of the main reasons why 
some Clevelanders are pretty much up in arms over this. I have a couple 
of newspaper articles that I will later have included in the Record.
  Now, as I mentioned, there is no strong evidence so far that 
participation in a voucher program increases student achievement. We 
need to have a better understanding of what makes a school successful 
because we institute a program that benefits comparatively few. Instead 
of looking for incentives for parents to send their children to private 
schools, I believe it is far more important we take steps toward 
strengthening public education across the board in this country and not 
trying to find ways to take money off and put it into the private 
school systems.
  A strong educational system must be a fundamental part of our effort 
to keep our country strong and keep it competitive. Only by making 
high-quality education available to all American children, not just a 
few, but all American children, will we help develop the skills they 
need to find meaningful, high-wage jobs while developing a capable and 
productive work force that is essential to the economic future of this 
country.
  Education reform is one of the top issues in this country. That is 
why I continue to oppose attempts to encourage the use of Federal funds 
for nonpublic education, whether in the form of tuition tax credits, 
vouchers, or school choice. I believe that including K-12 in 
educational IRAs would be the first step toward establishing a 
permanent voucher system, one that bleeds off dollars needed in our 
public schools.
  We have a system of public education in this country that is 
available to all children. We need to make it the best and the finest 
in the world, one that is second to none in this world if our children 
are going to be competitive in the future. This education system is not 
producing the high level of achievement this Nation now needs, and we 
cannot abandon them and say we are going to bring up a favorite few and 
send them off to other schools. Rather, we need to find ways to make 
improvements.
  That is why I support another amendment that will be proposed, and 
that is the school construction amendment--an initiative that will help 
reduce classroom size. These will directly benefit all of our Nation's 
public schools by ensuring all children attend safe, modern public 
schools.
  I clearly believe that everybody should be saving for their 
children's education--for their higher education. The difference 
between elementary and secondary education and higher education is 
important. Every single child in this country is entitled to a free, 
appropriate, tuition-free education in every State in this Nation. 
Higher education, on the other hand--once you get above the minimums of 
the high school level--is optional and is tuition-based. It is hard for 
parents to save for college. I believe it is appropriate to provide 
incentives for them to do so. I have supported the prepaid tuition 
plans in the State of Ohio as one of the ways students can be assured a 
quality education at one of Ohio's universities or colleges.
  This amendment I am offering returns the educational IRAs back to its 
original purpose--higher education expenses only. The only change I 
make is to keep the annual increase in the contribution limit for 
education IRAs, which goes from $500 to $2,000. This increase in the 
contribution limit will enable parents to save more per year for higher 
education.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment. Again, 
I ask my colleagues to look at this bill for what it is--a tax break 
for private school education. I believe it is bad education policy and 
bad tax policy.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that two articles--one from 
the Washington Times and one from the Washington Post--be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Times, Jan. 19, 1998]

Student Taxi Rides Imperil School Choice in Cleveland--Half of Programs 
                    Deficit Comes From Lack of Buses

                           (By Carol Innerst)

       Paying for taxicabs to carry children to private schools 
     may jeopardize a landmark school-choice policy in Cleveland.
       Student taxi rides account for more than half of the $4.8 
     million deficit in Cleveland's 2-year-old school-voucher 
     program. The deficit has sparked political criticism of Ohio 
     Gov. George V. Voinovich, one of the program's biggest 
     supporters.
       ``At a time when Ohio needs leadership to solve our 
     education crisis, Voinovich has spent millions on a program 
     that does nothing to help our 1.8 million public school 
     children,'' said David J. Leland, chairman of the Ohio 
     Democratic Party.
       ``The public is pretty upset,'' said Ohio researcher Sam 
     Staley. ``The public is not very happy with this. It is a 
     problem that should have been resolved before this.''
       At least $2.7 million of the shortfall in the controversial 
     program--one of only two voucher systems in the nation--in 
     attributed to voucher students who ride taxicabs to private 
     schools because the Cleveland Public Schools cannot 
     accommodate then on its yellow school buses.
       Although the governor's office projected confidence over 
     weathering the political storm, the image of children riding 
     taxis to school is a hard one for the public to digest, 
     according to Mr. Staley, vice president for research of the 
     Buckeye Institute, a market-based Ohio think tank.
       ``It will give people who opposed the scholarship program 
     an opportunity to kill the program,'' he said. ``They will 
     use this as a way to go after the program even though it goes 
     against the views of their own constituency. The voucher 
     program is most among minority and poor people in 
     Cleveland.''
       The $4.8 million shortfall left the governor scrambling to 
     find money to preserve the voucher program. The legislature, 
     now in session, signaled that it did not want to encumber 
     the next education budget with the problem.
       ``We will identify a legislative or financial vehicle to 
     make up for the funding shortfall,'' said Tom Needles, 
     executive assistant to the governor.
       ``There are structural deficiencies in the program that 
     need to be fixed, but the governor is confident this is a 
     valuable program yielding positive results,'' Mr. Needles 
     said. ``We've begun very intensive discussions

[[Page S3258]]

     with various transportation officials and others to determine 
     our options and what are the best alternatives for remedying 
     this problem.''
       The Ohio voucher program is one of only two in the nation--
     the other is in Milwaukee--that permit state funds to be used 
     to send low-income children to private schools. It is the 
     only program that allows them to attend religious schools. It 
     was funded at $12.5 million over two years.
       Ohio affiliates of the 950,000-member American Federation 
     of Teachers and the 2.3 million-member National Education 
     Association have challenged the legality of the program, and 
     the case is now before the Ohio State Supreme Court, where 
     arguments could be scheduled this spring, according to the 
     Institute for Justice, which is defending the program. Last 
     year the court allowed the program to continue for another 
     academic year while its legal status is being decided.
       Bert L. Holt, a former administrator for Cleveland Public 
     Schools who was hired by the Ohio State Department of 
     Education to administer the Scholarship and Tutoring Program, 
     said the idea from the inception of the program ``was to try 
     to get as many children on yellow buses as possible.''
       But Cleveland public schools officials said all they could 
     do was provide payment to parents in lieu of transportation 
     service, she said. When schools opened in 1996, no yellow bus 
     transportation was available for the voucher students. After 
     talking to two private bus companies, the voucher program had 
     to turn to two taxi firms. One bus company was too costly and 
     the other couldn't adjust routes to do the pickups.
       ``I think Cleveland schools at the time didn't consider it 
     a priority,'' Mrs. Holt said. ``The voucher program was 
     controversial and also maybe it wasn't being taken 
     seriously.''
       In November, 1996, Cleveland public schools began providing 
     bus service to seven of the private schools and in March 1997 
     they were able to provide buses for an additional eight 
     schools, she said.
       This school year, 38 yellow school buses are taking 516 
     kindergarten through fourth-graders to 18 private schools, 
     she said. Another 1,077 voucher students are riding taxicabs 
     and 1,395 are within walking distance of their schools.
       There are 55 private schools participating in the voucher 
     program, and only five don't have taxis dropping off 
     students, she said.
       The program anticipates increasing the number of 
     participants to 4,000 students in the 1998-99 school year, 
     according to Mrs. Holt. The maximum tuition the state will 
     pay is $2,500 a year, with parents paying $250 of that. The 
     average tuition runs less than that--$1,831 in the 1996-97 
     school year and projected at $1,939 this school year.
       The Ohio Democratic Party was helping to trumpet the budget 
     deficit in the voucher program.
       ``George Voinovich is giving his seal of approval on his 
     program that has wasted nearly 5 million taxpayer dollars,'' 
     a press release from party headquarters stated.
       Voucher defenders say such criticism is unfair.
       ``The hue and cry is over transportation, busing,'' said 
     Mrs. Holt. ``It's never about education and removing the 
     caste system that has been allowed to occur with our children 
     in urban settings who are socioeconomically deprived. Now 
     they have access to private education and are doing well, and 
     people in various corners have an agenda and don't want to 
     see it happen.''
                                  ____


                [From the Washington Post, Apr. 8, 1998]

            In Cleveland, Vouchers Fail To Raise Test Scores

                           (By Rene Sanchez)

       A new evaluation of one of the nation's few school voucher 
     programs has found that students using the tuition stipends 
     to pay for private education are not achieving better test 
     scores than similar students who are still in public schools.
       The two-year-old Cleveland program gives 3,000 needy 
     students publicly funded scholarships worth as much as $2,250 
     to attend private schools. Advocates have touted the idea, 
     which is one of the most divisive education issues in the 
     country, as a way to give better learning opportunities to 
     children trapped in failing public schools.
       But in a new report commissioned by the state of Ohio, 
     researchers contend that the promise of Cleveland's voucher 
     experiment so far has not been fulfilled. They found ``no 
     significant differences'' in achievement in either reading, 
     math or science between students using vouchers and a 
     comparable sample from Cleveland's public schools. Both 
     groups of students were assessed near the end of the voucher 
     program's first year.
       And in a separate measure of the program's performance, a 
     new audit is raising questions about how some of its funds 
     are being spent. Students with vouchers, for example, have 
     spent a total of about $1.4 million in state money to take 
     taxicabs to class, rather than the school buses they would 
     ride if they were part of Cleveland's public school system.
       Opponents of vouchers said that both findings show how 
     flawed the voucher idea is. ``It's a significant early signal 
     that this is not a magic bullet by any means for educating 
     poor children,'' said Sandra Feldman, president of the 
     American Frederation of Teachers.
       Only one other city, Milwaukee, allows students to use 
     vouchers, but Republican leaders in Congress have the idea 
     atop their education agenda. Arguing that public schools 
     would benefit from competition and that poor parents deserve 
     more educational choices for their children, they are 
     proposing to use federal money to create similar voucher 
     programs for students in the District and several dozen other 
     cities.
       President Clinton adamantly opposes that plan. He and other 
     voucher opponents say the idea would drain money and civic 
     support from the public schools that need it most. Critics 
     also contend that letting students use vouchers for religious 
     schools, as both Cleveland and Milwaukee want to do, is 
     unconstitutional.
       The new report on Cleveland's program focuses only on the 
     question of academic achievement. Those who support vouchers 
     cautioned against drawing too much from its conclusions. They 
     said judging the academic work of students will take more 
     time.
       ``We're still very confident that over the long term, these 
     students will show more gains in their academic scores,'' 
     said Tom Needle, the education adviser to Ohio Gov. George V. 
     Voinovich (R), who pushed for the voucher plan. ``It's not 
     surprising to see these findings at the very beginning of a 
     program.''
       Needle also said that a privately funded study of 
     Cleveland's program conducted last year by a Harvard 
     University professor showed that students using vouchers are 
     making more academic strides. It also reported great 
     enthusiasm for the program among their parents.
       In the latest evaluation, researchers at Indiana University 
     compared the achievement of 94 students using vouchers with 
     494 students still enrolled in Cleveland public schools. Both 
     groups were tested before the voucher program began and near 
     the end of its first year. Their scores in every subject 
     tested were roughly the same. Both groups were third-graders 
     with virtually the same backgrounds: Nearly all of them were 
     African American or Hispanic children living in poverty and 
     with only one parent at home.
       As has been the case in every attempt to assess Milwaukee's 
     voucher program, the methodology that researchers have used 
     in Cleveland is provoking disputes.
       But the audit, which suggested that oversight of some 
     voucher funds has been lax, already is prompting changes. The 
     number of taxicabs that students are using, Needle said, has 
     been cut by more than two-thirds. Also, the next group of 
     students who receive vouchers and lack private means of 
     transportation will have to select private schools in walking 
     distance from their homes, or ones that are near city bus 
     routes.
       ``Their choice of schools will have to be limited 
     somewhat,'' he said.


                           amendment no. 2017

   (Purpose: To delete education IRA expenditures for elementary and 
                       secondary school expenses)

  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 2017.

  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike section 101 and insert the following:

     SEC. 101. MODIFICATIONS TO EDUCATION INDIVIDUAL RETIREMENT 
                   ACCOUNTS.

       (a) Maximum Annual Contributions.--
       (1) In general.--Section 530(b)(1)(A)(iii) (defining 
     education individual retirement account) is amended by 
     striking ``$500'' and inserting ``the contribution limit for 
     such taxable year''.
       (2) Contribution limit.--Section 530(b) (relating to 
     definitions and special rules) is amended by adding at the 
     end the following new paragraph:
       ``(4) Contribution limit.--The term `contribution limit' 
     means $500 ($2,000 in the case of any taxable year beginning 
     after December 31, 1998, and ending before January 1, 
     2003).''
       (3) Conforming amendments.--
       (A) Section 530(d)(4)(C) is amended by striking ``$500'' 
     and inserting ``the contribution limit for such taxable 
     year''.
       (B) Section 4973(e)(1)(A) is amended by striking ``$500'' 
     and inserting ``the contribution limit (as defined in section 
     530(b)(5)) for such taxable year''.
       (b) Waiver of Age Limitations for Children With Special 
     Needs.--Section 530(b)(1) (defining education individual 
     retirement account) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following flush sentence:

     ``The age limitations in the preceding sentence shall not 
     apply to any designated beneficiary with special needs (as 
     determined under regulations prescribed by the Secretary).''
       (c) Corporations Permitted To Contribute to Accounts.--
     Section 530(c)(1) (relating to reduction in permitted 
     contributions based on adjusted gross income) is amended by 
     striking ``The maximum amount which a contributor'' and 
     inserting ``In the case of a contributor who is an 
     individual, the maximum amount the contributor''.
       (d) No Double Benefit.--Section 530(d)(2) (relating to 
     distributions for qualified education expenses) is amended by 
     adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
       ``(D) Disallowance of excluded amounts as credit or 
     deduction.--No deduction or credit shall be allowed to the 
     taxpayer under any other section of this chapter for any

[[Page S3259]]

     qualified education expenses to the extent taken into account 
     in determining the amount of the exclusion under this 
     paragraph.''
       (e) Technical Corrections.--
       (1)(A) Section 530(b)(1)(E) (defining education individual 
     retirement account) is amended to read as follows:
       ``(E) Any balance to the credit of the designated 
     beneficiary on the date on which the beneficiary attains age 
     30 shall be distributed within 30 days after such date to the 
     beneficiary or, if the beneficiary dies before attaining age 
     30, shall be distributed within 30 days after the date of 
     death to the estate of such beneficiary.''
       (B) Section 530(d) (relating to tax treatment of 
     distributions) is amended by adding at the end the following 
     new paragraph:
       ``(8) Deemed distribution on required distribution date.--
     In any case in which a distribution is required under 
     subsection (b)(1)(E), any balance to the credit of a 
     designated beneficiary as of the close of the 30-day period 
     referred to in such subsection for making such distribution 
     shall be deemed distributed at the close of such period.''
       (2)(A) Section 530(d)(1) is amended by striking ``section 
     72(b)'' and inserting ``section 72''.
       (B) Section 72(e) (relating to amounts not received as 
     annuities) is amended by inserting after paragraph (8) the 
     following new paragraph:
       ``(9) Extension of paragraph (2)(b) to qualified state 
     tuition programs and educational individual retirement 
     accounts.--Notwithstanding any other provision of this 
     subsection, paragraph (2)(B) shall apply to amounts received 
     under a qualified State tuition program (as defined in 
     section 529(b)) or under an education individual retirement 
     account (as defined in section 530(b)). The rule of paragraph 
     (8)(B) shall apply for purposes of this paragraph.''
       (3) Section 530(d)(4)(B) (relating to exceptions) is 
     amended by striking ``or'' at the end of clause (ii), by 
     striking the period at the end of clause (iii) and inserting 
     ``, or'', and by adding at the end the following new clause:
       ``(iv) an amount which is includible in gross income solely 
     because the taxpayer elected under paragraph (2)(C) to waive 
     the application of paragraph (2) for the taxable year.''
       (f) Effective Dates.--
       (1) In general.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), the 
     amendments made by this section shall apply to taxable years 
     beginning after December 31, 1998.
       (2) Technical corrections.--The amendments made by 
     subsection (e) shall take effect as if included in the 
     amendments made by section 213 of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 
     1997.

  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. As I understand 
it, the Senator from Ohio has just offered his amendment, so that 
triggers 15 minutes equally divided on both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty minutes equally divided.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that our side 
be accorded time similar to that which was just utilized by the Senator 
from Ohio so that both sides will have had approximately the same 
amount of time for the amendment.
  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). The Senator from Delaware is 
recognized.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to this amendment. This 
amendment would not permit educational IRAs to be used to pay the 
expenses of kindergarten up through 12th grade. This proposal to limit 
the use of educational IRAs would dramatically--I want to emphasize 
``dramatically''--reduce the benefits of an educational IRA for 
American families.
  I believe that it is a fundamental principle that a parent should 
have the right and the ability to make decisions about his or her 
child's education --to decide basic questions, such as how the child 
should be educated and where the child should attend school. The rich 
should not be the only ones that too often have this choice--although 
there are many, many children from middle-class families who attend 
private schools at great personal sacrifice of their families.
  What we seek here is to give a choice to all families as to where 
their child will attend school. We should not try to control that 
parental right by providing tax benefits only to those parents who make 
what some Members of this body consider to be the correct choice. We 
should all remember that last year, when the Senate passed a variety of 
provisions targeted towards helping American families cope with the 
costs of a quality education, we made no distinction between public and 
private schools or between higher education and secondary or elementary 
schools.
  For example, we did not say that an educational IRA would only be 
available if a student attended public school or college. We did not 
say that a student who attended the University of Maryland would 
receive a tax benefit, but a student who attended George Washington 
University would receive nothing. We did not say that a student who 
attended college would receive a tax benefit, but a student who 
incurred costs in connection with secondary or elementary school would 
receive nothing.
  The bottom line was that we treated all schools the same. And the 
reason for that treatment is that we did not consider it our business 
to set up a system where some schools were favored over others.
  Mr. President, we should also not forget that it is the taxpayer who 
funds the education IRA. It is the parents--the parent who put his or 
her hard-earned money into the education IRA. And it seems a matter of 
common sense, therefore, that the parents should be able to choose how 
to spend that money.
  To fully receive the benefits of an education IRA, parents should try 
to establish accounts for their schoolchildren as early as possible. If 
the parent can afford to make contributions early in a child's life, 
the benefits of the education IRA will increase dramatically through 
the magic of tax-free compounding within the IRA. At this early stage 
in a child's life, parents may not know whether they will send their 
children to a private or public school. Parents also may not know 
whether they will need the benefits of an education IRA for elementary 
and secondary school or for higher education.
  There are many, many factors that go into these important decisions. 
The needs of the child may change. The family may move into a different 
school district. The quality of the neighborhood schools may rise or 
fall. It is simply unfair to make the parent look into a crystal ball 
and predict what type of school their child may attend or how much that 
school may cost. This places too great of an unnecessary burden on the 
parent.
  The side effect of that burden of making parents look into the future 
is that parents may be reluctant to fully utilize the education IRA. 
The parents may not contribute the maximum amount of money that they 
can to these accounts. That, Mr. President, would be most unfortunate 
because it would defeat the whole purpose of the education IRA concept.
  Moreover, Mr. President, the existing provisions of the bill do not 
favor the wealthy, as some here have argued.
  First of all, there is an adjusted gross income phaseout. In other 
words, only parents with incomes below a certain threshold can take 
advantage of the tax savings in the education IRA.
  Second, it simply is not true that only rich kids attend private 
schools. As I said earlier, many, many children from middle-class 
families attend private schools at great personal sacrifice on the part 
of their parents. For instance, according to the National Catholic 
Education Association, of the families with children in Catholic 
schools, almost 70 percent of those families have incomes below 
$35,000; almost 90 percent of those families have incomes below 
$50,000.
  If we adopt this amendment, all of those families will be shut out 
from receiving the tax benefits in the education IRA, as would all of 
the roughly 38 million families who have children in either public or 
private elementary and secondary schools.
  Mr. President, limiting the education IRA is not good policy, and it 
does not make sense for American families. Accordingly, I oppose this 
amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?

[[Page S3260]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's side has 26 minutes.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, will the Chair notify this Senator when 
15 minutes remain?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Very well.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Senator from 
Delaware, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and his message with 
regard to the amendment that has just been offered by the Senator from 
Ohio.
  I would like to just reiterate several key points.
  The Senator from Ohio infers that the education savings account 
directs public money to a private school. This is not correct. All of 
the money in the education savings accounts is after-tax dollars saved 
by families, whether their children are in public schools, or private, 
or home schools. These are not public dollars, they are private 
dollars, No. 1.
  No. 2, the suggestion, to me, is egregious that if, for whatever 
reason, a family had chosen that their child would go to a private 
school, they would be disallowed from creating a savings account, as a 
family would that has made the decision to send their child to a public 
school. It is important to note that according to the Joint Tax 
Committee, 70 percent of the families who use these savings accounts 
would have children in public schools, 30 percent would have children 
in private schools.
  Mr. President, the education savings account that we are debating 
here today is identical to the education savings account that the 
President and the Senate and House confirmed and put into law last 
year. It is identical. That savings account that was celebrated on the 
White House Lawn allowed a family to save $500 a year, and whatever 
interest was earned would be tax free if it was used for higher 
education--higher education at the University of Georgia, or higher 
education at Georgetown just down the street, or higher education at 
the University of Texas, or higher education at Southern Methodist 
University. All we are proposing is that the account be allowed to be 
larger so it would be meaningful to save up to $2,000 and have the same 
criteria, which means that most of these benefits and most of these 
savings will flow to people who make less than $75,000 a year.
  But, again, I want to reiterate, the very criterion, the very 
instrument, which the House and Senate passed, the President signed, 
and we all celebrated, is identical to this savings account except that 
this savings account could be larger, more meaningful, and this savings 
account would apply to kindergarten through high school, not just 
college. It is the only difference.
  So I find it interesting that the Senator from Ohio would want to 
deny a family who has a child in kindergarten through high school from 
going to a private school but it is OK if they go to a private college, 
or to be worried about the income of the family that is going to take 
advantage of it when he wasn't worried about it when we were talking 
about a family that might send their children to college. Why are we 
suddenly setting a different set of criteria for families with children 
at kindergarten through high school? It is just perplexing.
  I want to reiterate that this savings account, on which the chairman 
is so knowledgeable on the concept of IRAs, is identical in who can use 
it, who can't, how it can be used, and how it can't be used as the 
House and Senate passed last year, signed by the President, and 
celebrated by everybody. The only thing we have done is to represent 
that it allow people to save more and allow them to use it not just for 
college but for kindergarten through high school. They can use it for 
college, too, if they want. They can use it, if they have a disabled 
student, after college. But it is the same as the one that was adopted. 
So these arguments are suspicious. It sounds to me as if this amendment 
is designed to defend the status quo.

  Now, the Senator from Ohio said, in effect, that we have some 
problems in kindergarten through high school, that some of the data, a 
lot of the data, are suggesting that we have people coming out of these 
schools who have trouble reading and writing and adding and 
subtracting. And so giving families tools that might help them deal 
with that, whether the child is in a public or private school, whether 
the child needs a tutor or a home computer, there is no American child 
whose family has made a decision about where they can best get that 
education, that we should strap or put an anvil around their leg over 
some philosophic exercise up here in defense of the National Education 
Association.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand that the amendment of the 
Senator from Ohio is pending. Am I correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. KENNEDY. As I also understand, having been recognized, I can also 
speak on the bill itself. Am I correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It would take unanimous consent to speak on 
the bill. We are now on the amendment.
  Mr. KENNEDY. As I understand, I can temporarily set aside the pending 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set it aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. COVERDELL. I object.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask 
that the time be divided equally.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask that the amendment that is pending 
be temporarily set aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2289

 (Purpose: To provide an additional 100,000, well-qualified elementary 
  and secondary school teachers annually to the national pool of such 
 teachers during the 10-year period beginning with 1999 through a new 
                   student loan forgiveness program)

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2289.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike section 101, and insert the following:

     SEC. 101. LOAN FORGIVENESS FOR TEACHERS.

       (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) Our Nation is witnessing a 10-year rise in the 
     elementary and secondary school age population. Between the 
     fall of 1996 and the fall of 2006, total elementary and 
     secondary school enrollment will rise from a record 
     51,700,000 to 54,600,000, a rise of approximately 3,000,000 
     children. Elementary school enrollment is projected to grow 
     by 2 percent, from 37,300,000 to 38,100,000, while secondary 
     school enrollment is expected to rise by 15 percent, from 
     14,400,000 to 16,500,000.
       (2) In addition to the enrollment increases, many of the 
     Nation's elementary and secondary school teachers working in 
     1998 will begin to reach retirement age. According to the 
     National Center for Education Statistics data, between one-
     third and one-half of all elementary and secondary school 
     teachers are 45 years old or older. Qualified, experienced 
     elementary and secondary school teachers will be leaving the 
     profession at a time when the demand for the teachers is at 
     the highest level in our Nation's history.
       (3) There is a lack of qualified elementary and secondary 
     school teachers in specific geographic and content areas. 
     More than one-

[[Page S3261]]

     half, 56 percent, of secondary school students taking 
     physical science courses are taught by teachers who have no 
     background in physical science. Twenty-seven percent of 
     secondary school students taking any level mathematics course 
     are taught by teachers with no mathematics background. 
     Students in inner-city schools have only a 50 percent chance 
     of being taught by a qualified mathematics or science 
     teacher. States that have large percentages of classes taught 
     by teachers without a background in a particular subject 
     area, such as Tennessee (26.5 percent), Florida (26.4 
     percent), Louisiana (26.2 percent), and Maryland (25.6 
     percent), demonstrate the need for increased numbers of 
     elementary and secondary school teachers with the necessary 
     qualifications.
       (4) Our Nation must address the need described in paragraph 
     (3) to ensure a qualified elementary and secondary school 
     teacher for every child in every elementary and secondary 
     school course.
       (b) Purpose.--The purpose of this section is to create a 
     Federal student loan forgiveness program to attract 
     individuals to careers as elementary and secondary school 
     teachers.
       (c) Loan Forgiveness for Teachers.--Part B of title IV of 
     the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1071 et seq.) is 
     amended by inserting after section 428J (20 U.S.C. 1078-10) 
     the following:

     ``SEC. 428K. LOAN FORGIVENESS FOR TEACHERS.

       ``(a) Program Authorized.--The Secretary is authorized to 
     carry out a program of assuming the obligation to repay a 
     loan made, insured, or guaranteed under this title (excluding 
     loans made under section 428A for any new borrower after July 
     1, 1998, who is employed as a full-time elementary school or 
     secondary school teacher--
       ``(1) in a school served by a local educational agency that 
     is eligible for assistance under part A of title I of the 
     Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 
     6301 et seq.); or
       ``(2) who teaches mathematics, science, foreign language, 
     bilingual education, or any other area that the State 
     educational agency determines to be an area for which there 
     is a shortage of qualified elementary school or secondary 
     school teachers.
       ``(b) Loan Repayment.--
       ``(1) In general.--The Secretary shall assume the 
     obligation to repay--
       ``(A) 15 percent of the total amount of loans incurred by 
     the borrower under this title, not to exceed $1,200 per year, 
     for each of the first two years the borrower meets the 
     employment requirement described in subsection (a);
       ``(B) 20 percent of such total amount, not to exceed $1,600 
     per year, for each of the third and fourth years the borrower 
     meets such requirement; and
       ``(C) 30 percent of such total amount, not to exceed 
     $2,400, for the fifth year the borrower meets such 
     requirement.
       ``(2) Construction.--Nothing in this subsection shall be 
     construed to authorize the refunding of any repayment of a 
     loan under this title.
       ``(3) Interest.--If a portion of a loan is repaid by the 
     Secretary under this section for any year, the proportionate 
     amount of interest on such loan which accrues for such year 
     shall be repaid by the Secretary.
       ``(c) Repayment to Eligible Lenders.--The Secretary shall 
     pay to each eligible lender or holder for each fiscal year an 
     amount equal to the aggregate amount of loans which are 
     subject to repayment pursuant to this section for such year.
       ``(d) Application for Repayment.--
       ``(1) In general.--Each eligible individual desiring loan 
     repayment under this section shall submit a complete and 
     accurate application to the Secretary at such time, in such 
     manner, and containing such information as the Secretary may 
     reasonably require. Loan repayment under this section shall 
     be on a first-come, first-served basis and subject to the 
     availability of appropriations.
       ``(2) Conditions.--An eligible individual may apply for 
     repayment after completing each year of qualifying 
     employment. The borrower shall receive forbearance while 
     engaged in qualifying employment unless the borrower is in 
     deferment while so engaged.
       ``(e) Definitions.--For the purpose of this section the 
     term ``eligible lender'' has the meaning given the term in 
     section 435(d).
       ``(f) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are 
     authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section 
     $3,600,000 for each of the fiscal years 1999 and 2000.''.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as I understand it, now there is 15 
minutes for the proponents of the amendment; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.


                         privilege of the floor

  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 10 minutes. I ask unanimous consent 
Connie Garner, a legislative fellow in my office, be granted floor 
privileges during debate on the Coverdell tax bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the amendment, which hopefully we will 
have more of an opportunity to debate later this week, deals with 
meeting the demand for qualified teachers in this country. We are 
seeing an expansion of the number of students in our elementary-
secondary education. This amendment would provide for an increase of 
100,000 schoolteachers a year for the next 10 years. It would 
effectively meet half of the Nation's requirements to do so.
  There are very compelling reasons to support this amendment if we are 
going to be serious about ensuring the adequacy of the academic 
achievement and accomplishment for those students who are attending our 
public schools. We have devised a way of doing this through a loan 
forgiveness program that is taking the concept, for example, of the 
National Health Service Corps--which is a resounding success. Doctors 
serve in underserved areas and see a diminution of their debt with the 
years of service in the Health Service Corps. Given the need that we 
have for teachers to serve in our schools, this would provide an 
incentive for those who have indebtedness and would like to work as 
schoolteachers but are unable to do so because they are required to go 
to other jobs that may have more financial reward although they would 
prefer to work in the schools. This provides the means for them to do 
so. I plan to speak of that at greater length tomorrow or the next day 
and will take the opportunity to do so at that time, when the 
leadership works out the scheduling of the particular amendments.
  Mr. President, given the shortage of time, I just want to come back 
to some rather fundamental and basic issues that are involved in this 
debate. When all is said and done and when all the explanations are 
made, I think it is appropriate that we find out who are going to be 
the winners and who are going to be the losers. It is always 
interesting to listen to our colleagues explain what they hope might be 
achieved by the amendment, and then also examine what, in fact, will be 
achieved by this amendment and who will benefit from this particular 
amendment.
  As we had seen during our earlier debate and discussion on the 
Coverdell amendment, there are some very important winners and 
important losers. But the fact remains that, according to the Joint Tax 
Committee--which is neither a Republican committee nor a Democratic 
committee, but serves to provide technical information on the impact of 
a tax proposal to the membership, that the bill gives the benefit to 
those going to the private schools. At the present time, nationwide, 93 
percent of American families send their children to the public schools, 
7 percent to the private schools. We certainly know the important role 
private schools have in our society. But with scarce resources we have 
to ask the question whether we want to use scarce resources to add to 
the private schools or to the public schools. I do not believe we 
should abandon the public school system in this country. I think we 
have a responsibility to the public schools. If we have scarce 
resources, we ought to find ways of targeting scarce resources in ways 
that can be academically important and enhance the ability of our 
children to make progress in the public schools.

  So, with the analysis that was done by the Joint Tax Committee, they 
indicated where the money would go. Mr. President, 48 percent of the 
tax benefit would go to families that send their children to the public 
schools and 52 percent would go to families that send them to the 
private schools. Then, if you see that only 7 percent of Americans go 
to private schools, you see that a majority of the benefit of this 
proposal will go to a relatively small number of families who are 
sending their children to the private schools.
  That is not what the Senator from Massachusetts is saying; that is 
what the Joint Tax Committee tells us. We have a certain amount of 
resources that will be collected through the tax system. When they are 
collected, they will be disposed of--at least according to the Joint 
Tax Committee estimate--in this way. There are better ways to spend 
public tax dollars. An after-school program, could benefit the 5 
million children who left school just about a half-hour ago, and will 
go home without any supervision. Maybe we should have the kinds of 
programs that we have seen that are effective, which provide some 
opportunity for those children to go to after-school programs, where 
they are able to work with their homework and get that

[[Page S3262]]

homework done so when they finally go back home to their parents, one 
or two of whom may be working, that they can have quality time with 
their parents rather than having the parents telling them you better go 
upstairs and get your homework done.
  This is really a basic, fundamental issue, whether we have sufficient 
funds that are available to the Congress where we want to try to 
provide this kind of benefit to a relatively small group of parents. I 
do not think that we do.
  I have heard a lot from our colleagues on the other side talking 
about entitlements. There was a great debate about entitlements here on 
the floor of the U.S. Senate over the last 3 or 4 years. This basically 
is a new entitlement. This is a new entitlement by our Republican 
friends. We heard the criticisms of so many entitlements over the past. 
Now we have the creation of a new entitlement. Once this is passed and 
goes into the Internal Revenue Code, it will be out there available to 
anyone who would be able to develop this kind of an IRA. That 
effectively is an entitlement. But it is an entitlement that is going 
to benefit a relatively small group of families who are going to be 
using those resources primarily in the private schools.

  There may be those who feel that is the way we ought to go. But I 
think you will find here on our side, on the Democratic side, a range 
of different proposals that say we will not abandon our public schools 
in this country. We think they need modernization, they need some help 
and assistance in the construction program. We are very creative. An 
important, significant amendment will be offered by the Senator from 
Illinois, Carol Moseley-Braun. There will be programs that will say we 
ought to have smaller class sizes. That has been demonstrated to 
improve academics for children. That amendment will be offered by 
Senator Murray. We ought to support public schools.
  The benefit of those programs go to all of those parents whose 
children are going to the public schools. That is a very important, 
basic difference. It is targeted programs that can really make a 
difference in enhancing academic achievement and accomplishment.
  We will have an opportunity, as well, to debate concepts such as that 
proposed by the Senator from the State of Washington, Senator Gorton, 
that block grants education programs, undermining targeting of scarce 
resources, and undermining accountability. We will have a chance to 
debate those.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 10 minutes have elapsed.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 1 more minute. We will have a chance as 
well to debate whether we will uphold the civil right of children with 
disabilities. That is going to be a very important debate.
  But I hope, as we are starting off on this Monday, and as we are 
going through this debate over the period of the next 4 or 5 days, to 
understand what is really the issue. With the amount of funds that are 
going to be made available under this program, which is effectively a 
new entitlement program, $1.6 billion, are we going to say we should 
use that in such a way that it is going to benefit a small number of 
families who are going to primarily use these funds for private 
schools? Or are we going to say, with scarce resources, we ought to use 
that money in order to benefit the large number of children who are 
going to the public school systems and we ought to use that in an 
effective and creative way, to make sure that children who are going to 
our public school systems are going to get a good education in safe, 
modern schools?
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on the other 
side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 3 minutes 
45 seconds.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, again, I am puzzled by the vociferous 
opposition of the Senator from Massachusetts to an education savings 
account. I repeat what I said a moment ago when I was responding to the 
Senator from Ohio.
  The education savings account that we are proposing and talking about 
today is nothing more than an expansion of the savings account that has 
already been adopted by the Senate and House and signed by the 
President last year. Last year, we created an education savings account 
that allowed a family to save $500 a year, and the interest that was 
earned would not be taxed if the account was used for the cost of 
higher education.
  We have taken the same account--it applies to the same earning level, 
who can use it and who can't; it is directed to the middle class--the 
same criteria. There is no change whatsoever. Identical. That savings 
account can be used by a family to go to Georgetown down the street 
here or to the University of Georgia.
  We have said to those same families in America that we all celebrated 
because they have this $500 savings account for higher education, we 
are going to say instead of $500, let's allow a family to save up to 
$2,000 so they can really build up the kitty. We said, why limit it to 
college when there is so much trouble in kindergarten through high 
school? Let's let the family use it whenever they need it. They may 
need it when the child is in sixth grade because of dyslexia or a 
learning disability. They may need it in freshman high school because 
of a math deficiency. They may need it because the child cannot compete 
because of not having a home computer.
  We have taken the very instrument that was so celebrated on the White 
House lawn, a $500 savings account, and said let's let it be up to 
$2,000, and instead of just limiting it to college, although it could 
be used for college, let's let them use it whenever they need it--
kindergarten through high school or college. No change. Same group of 
families. Same criteria. Use it in the same way. It is just bigger if 
they want to make it bigger, and it covers all the school years, not 
just some of them.
  Whatever all these concerns are that the Senator just alluded to 
would have applied to what we did last year. It would have had the same 
discrimination; it would have favored the same kind of families as his 
chart alludes to in that account.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mr. COVERDELL. I will be glad to yield.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Doesn't the Senator draw a distinction between the 
mandatory requirements that we have for the public school system for 
our 55 million children and those who are going to higher education, 
which is basically not a mandated requirement? That is an optional 
requirement and, therefore, historically higher education has always 
been treated differently.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Let me respond to the Senator. I recognize there is a 
distinction with the public-private issue, but the Senator spent a good 
bit of his time trying to suggest that certain kinds of families would 
benefit; that the dollars are skewed, there was some formula here that 
was working against the public interest.
  My point to the Senator from Massachusetts is, it is identical to the 
formula that was used when we created the higher education savings 
account. Identical. It is just that folks can save more now for 
kindergarten through high school or they can save it for college. They 
have a chance to save more, and they have a chance to use it more 
frequently.
  The Joint Tax Committee has said that in this education savings 
account, 14 million families will probably use it; 20 million kids, 
that is half the school population almost.

  Here is the point that I would like to make to the Senator: What is 
amazing to me about this education savings account is that it takes 
such a little incentive to make Americans do huge things. The tax 
relief to these 14 million families over the next 5 years is just a 
pittance over $500 million--over 5 years. What do the 14 million 
families do because of that? They save over $5 billion--$5 billion. 
That puts 5 billion volunteer dollars--these are not tax dollars; no 
school board has to levy a new property tax; no State government has to 
raise their income tax; the Federal Government doesn't have to raise 
taxes--the people on their own, because of the nature of the savings 
account, save $5 billion. Seventy percent of

[[Page S3263]]

those families will have children in public schools, and 30 percent 
will have children in private schools. About half the money will end up 
helping children in public schools, and about half the money will help 
children in private schools.
  Everybody is a winner here. There are no losers. A lot of times we do 
things in Washington and somebody gains and somebody loses. But in this 
case, everybody wins. The public school system wins; the private school 
system wins. People with kids in public schools can use the savings 
account; people with kids in private schools can use the savings 
account.
  I see I have just been joined by the distinguished Senator from 
Indiana, so I am going to yield to him.
  But everybody wins. These are not public dollars. These are volunteer 
dollars to help children wherever they are going to school.
  Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Indiana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment that 
is currently before us. Although Senator Kennedy may be using the 
opportunity to talk about the broader bill, it is the amendment that we 
will have to vote on unless that amendment is withdrawn. I want to 
briefly state reasons why I think Members should vote against that 
particular amendment.
  A primary reason is that it is unnecessary. The Labor Committee on 
which both the Senator from Massachusetts and I serve has, as part of 
the Higher Education Act, just unanimously voted out of the committee a 
loan forgiveness program for teachers, which I believe is far more 
effective than what is being offered by the Senator from Massachusetts.
  That teacher loan forgiveness program provides loan forgiveness to 
teachers who have loans that are eligible for the interest subsidy, 
ensuring that those who qualify would be most in need of help of 
repaying the loans.
  The second condition is that the teacher be employed for 3 years; 
third, that they teach in a public or private school whose school 
district has 30 percent or more of its students eligible for title I 
assistance; that they have an academic major in the subject area in 
which they teach if they are a high school teacher, and have 
demonstrated knowledge and teaching skills in reading, writing, and 
mathematics if they are elementary schoolteachers.
  The reason these conditions were imposed and, by the way, again, 
unanimously accepted by the Labor Committee, is because we wanted to 
target loan forgiveness to the most qualified teachers. We did not want 
a broad, all-encompassing loan forgiveness program, which I believe the 
amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts covers about 90 percent of 
the teachers in this country--all those employed within the title I 
schools, which equals about 90 percent. The issue is not just more 
teachers; the issue is better qualified teachers.
  Statistics show, and studies show, that the real shortage is not the 
number of teachers--I could go into some detail on that, but I do not 
have time to do it--but the issue and the need is for qualified 
teachers. So we have structured this loan forgiveness program to 
support and emphasize teachers who meet these particular 
qualifications.
  The second reason I believe Members should not support this 
particular amendment is that the average debt for teachers is 
considerably more than what the Senator's amendment offers in terms of 
forgiveness. Ours allows provisions for up to $10,000 of loan 
forgiveness, which more closely meets the debt problems that teachers 
currently face, rather than the $8,000 which the Senator's amendment 
provides.
  Finally, the amendment is directed toward schools in general, the 
loan forgiveness program, whereas the Labor Committee amendment is 
basically directed toward the poorest schools, teachers that meet the 
qualifications as outlined in the Labor Committee's language, which is 
designed specifically for the purpose of trying to address the most 
critical need in this country, and that is getting qualified teachers 
who have the credentials to teach and are teaching in the Nation's 
poorest schools. I outlined those criteria earlier.
  But that was the basis for the Labor Committee's drafting of the 
language to address the most critical need, and that is where we ought 
to be putting our resources. It is not the schools in some of the more 
affluent suburbs that are having problems attracting teachers, 
particularly qualified teachers; it is the schools in the poorest 
districts, the schools in the low-income districts, the schools in the 
minority districts, that are having trouble attracting qualified 
teachers to teach their students. Those are the teachers that we want 
to encourage through this loan forgiveness program.
  So for those reasons, I urge our colleagues to oppose the amendment 
being offered by the Senator from Massachusetts, primarily because it 
is not needed, it has been addressed, it has been supported unanimously 
by the Labor Committee. It is directed toward the areas that need it 
the most; it is directed towards supporting qualified teachers. For 
those reasons, I urge a no vote on the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 5 minutes have expired.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself a minute just in response 
to the Senator from Indiana.
  This is a basic substitute to the Coverdell amendment. We have an 
opportunity to say it is more beneficial to the children that are going 
to our public schools to support our amendment that is going to 
increase the number of qualified teachers than to support the Coverdell 
amendment which is primarily going to benefit the parents who are 
sending their children to private schools, No. 1.
  Secondly, I hope that my friend and colleague would read my amendment 
more carefully, because it does target the teachers into the 
underserved areas, and also it targets teachers into the areas where 
the State finds that there are critical shortages in terms of the type 
of specialty needs--for example, in subject matters, for example, in 
math and science, and others, and does it, I think, more creatively 
than we have done in the higher ed bill.
  I yield myself another minute.
  It is clearly responding to what our Human Resources Committee has 
had hours of hearings on, and that is the importance of having high-
quality teachers for our expanded school-age population. I am a strong 
supporter of what we have done in the higher ed bill, but it is not 
going to be enough to be able to meet the needs of the Nation. And 
every study we have done has pointed this out. If you want to try and 
benefit public schools and teachers, my amendment is the way to do it. 
If you want to abandon public schools and move towards the support of 
families that are sending their children to private schools, then the 
Coverdell bill is the way to do it.

  I withhold the balance of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks time?
  Mr. COVERDELL. I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, the Labor Committee, of which the Senator 
from Massachusetts is the ranking member--the Senator joined his 
colleagues on the Democrat side and joined all Republicans in passing 
out of the Labor Committee language unanimously. He did not offer his 
amendment there, so I just wonder what has changed. Obviously, what has 
changed is that the amendment is designed to gut the underlying 
Coverdell bill.
  Secondly, the language of the Senator's amendment is not targeted. It 
says title I eligibility. Title I covers 96 percent of all schools. 
That is not targeted. Targeted is designed to address a specific 
problem. A specific problem is the minority students, poor students, 
students in poor districts who are not getting the qualified teachers 
and the education they need.
  This Labor Committee product targets it towards those teachers. The 
Senator's language does not target; it says, where there is a shortage 
of qualified elementary and secondary school teachers under the title I 
programs. That is 96 percent. I do not call that being targeted.
  So for those reasons, I believe we should oppose the amendment.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I move to table the pending amendment 
of the Senator from Massachusetts and ask for the yeas and nays on the 
motion.

[[Page S3264]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to table is premature until the 
time has expired for the proponents. And they have 1 minute 43 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask the Senator to reread the 
amendment. If he looks at the loan forgiveness for the teachers, on 
line 8 it talks about the title I programs which are targeted to the 
poorest schools. At paragraph (2), line 12, it makes reference to 
teachers who teach math, science, foreign languages, and that the State 
educational agency determines it.
  So I do realize that we have supported a good program that is coming 
out of our Human Resources Committee. But the Budget Committee put 
hands down, thumbs down, on a very similar program that was advanced by 
the President of the United States. We have real money here on the 
floor of the U.S. Senate. And this is an opportunity that if you want 
to do something about increasing the number of qualified teachers, our 
amendment does it. If you do not want to do that, and you want to 
benefit the private schools, you will vote against this.
  I urge the Senate to oppose the anti-education Republican tax bill. 
Improving education can and must be a top priority for Congress and the 
nation. But this Republican bill flunks the test. They call it their 
``A+'' bill. But, it's anti-education, and it deserves an ``F.'' This 
Republican bill and its proposed Republican amendments are bad tax 
policy, bad education policy, and bad disability policy, and it clearly 
deserves the veto that President Clinton has pledged to give it.
  It is the nation's public schools that need help. So what do our 
Republican friends to? They proposed legislation that aid private 
schools. That makes no sense at all. Our goal is to strengthen public 
schools, not abandon them. Our goal is to help all children get a good 
eduction--not just the ones with wealthy parents.
  It is clear that our Republican friends are no friends of public 
schools. They have an anti-education agenda. They want tax breaks for 
the wealthy who send their children to private schools. They want to 
cut the budget for public schools. They want to dismantle the federal 
role in education. They want to eliminate civil rights protections for 
children with disabilities. The Republicans have put the cards on the 
table--and it's a losing hand for education.
  Over the course of the limited debate on this bill, we will discuss 
good ideas that will help improve public schools such as rebuilding the 
nation's schools, reducing class size, forgiving student loans for 
college graduates who teach in high-need areas, and increasing funding 
for children with disabilities. I urge my colleagues to support these 
very important Democratic amendments. I also urge my colleagues to 
oppose Republican amendments to that undermine public education, and 
make a bad bill worse.
  I understand that we will be voting on a new version of a block grant 
for education, sponsored by Senator Gorton. It is clear that this 
amendment will undermine the federal commitment to improve the nation's 
schools. There have been no hearings on this proposal and no committee 
review of the proposal. It would be irresponsible for the Senate to 
support this proposal to revamp the federal role in education after a 
total of only 30 minutes of debate.
  The proposed Gorton amendment hurts students and goes against the 
nation's commitment to helping poor and educationally disadvantaged 
students who need our strong support. It also undermines the 
partnerships that have been created by federal, state, and local 
education agencies to improve all schools for all children.
  We all agree that education is a local responsibility. But the states 
and the federal government are important partners in helping to improve 
education for all children. We all need to work together to improve the 
nation's public schools.
  This amendment rejects that basic principle. It destroys carefully 
crafted and widely supported federal programs. And it undermines 
accountability for improving the achievement of all students.
  Currently, federal funds are offering a helping hand to local school 
districts in meeting high priority responsibilities important to the 
nation as a whole. The funds help schools and school districts improve 
reading and math skills of disadvantaged students, help teachers get 
the extra skills they need to teach all children to higher standards, 
help communities create safe and drug-free schools, and help 
communities modernize their schools.
  This amendment creates a ``General Education Block Grant'' by 
combining funds from 20 targeted programs. Then it limits the use of 
those funds to only 8 activities. It denies local communities the funds 
to make schools safe and drug-free. It denies local communities the 
funds to improve skills of math and science teachers. It denies local 
communities the funds to continue their efforts to set high academic 
standards for all children.
  In addition, in response to growing needs of schools in communities 
across the country to address problems such as low student performance, 
rising enrollments, and lack of adequate modern technology, the 
amendment would cap spending at 2.3 percent per year for the next five 
years. These limits are far below the necessary increases we made over 
the last two years of 15 percent and 12 percent. It would be 
irresponsible for Congress to do so little to help communities address 
their growing and pressing educational needs.
  Contrary to arguments made by proponents of the amendment, federal 
education laws are more flexible and school-friendly than ever before. 
States and local education agencies are working in closer and more 
effective cooperation. The result is that schools are doing a better 
job of helping all children meet higher standards of achievement.
  The federal-state-local partnership in education isn't broken, and 
this amendment can't fix it. Congress should be doing all it can to 
strengthen that partnership, not destroy it.
  As a nation, we have made a commitment to help all students have the 
opportunity to get a good education. We have a responsibility to make 
sure that public tax dollars are well spent. This amendment provides no 
accountability for how these dollars are spent. Reforming the federal 
role in education does not mean abdicating that role.

  This amendment is the wrong direction for the nation's children and 
the wrong direction for education. It is not an attempt to offer a 
helping hand to local schools. It is simply a thinly-veiled attempt to 
dismantle the federal role in education.
  We should support efforts to improve education for all students, not 
undermine them. I urge my colleagues to oppose the Gorton block grant 
amendment.
  Another problematic amendment that I understand will be introduced 
later in the debate is the Gregg amendment to allow states and school 
districts to strip civil rights protections for students with 
disabilities.
  The proposed Gregg amendment would repeal the critical civil rights 
protections included in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 
that ensures that children with disabilities are not denied educational 
services. Prior to the enactment of IDEA, over half the children with 
disabilities in this country were receiving an inadequate education or 
no education at all. Under the proposal, children with disabilities 
could be unilaterally thrown out of school, even if the child was being 
``disciplined'' for a behavior caused by the child's disability.
  This proposal is not in the interest of children with disabilities 
and it is not in the interest of the nation. In fact, a similar 
amendment was rejected on the Senate floor last year during 
consideration of the reauthorization of IDEA. The Senate did not 
support the proposed policy last year, and we should not support it 
now.
  Proponents of the bill claim that under current law, schools cannot 
discipline children with disabilities when they break the rules. That 
is simply not true.
  IDEA allows school officials to discipline a child with a disability 
when discipline is warranted. IDEA already allows immediate action 
against a child with a disability who brings a weapon to school, who 
knowingly possesses, uses, or sells illegal drugs or controlled 
substances, or whose behavior is substantially likely to result in 
injury to the child or others. In addition, if the behavior resulting 
in the disciplinary action is not the result of

[[Page S3265]]

a child's disability, IDEA allows the school to apply any relevant 
disciplinary procedures that they would apply to a child without a 
disability.
  Police, prosecutors, and groups representing school officials and 
children with disabilities all support pursuing policies that ensure 
that our schools are safe and conducive to learning, and to help all 
children, including children with disabilities, learn personal 
responsibility. But, discipline should never be used as an excuse to 
exclude, segregate, or deny services to children with disabilities.
  The goal of public education is to give all children the opportunity 
to pursue their dreams. We must be committed to every child--even the 
ones who aren't so easy to teach. This amendment would undermine that 
goal and put children with disabilities on the street. It's bad policy 
and we should overwhelmingly reject it.
  These amendments simply make the bad underlying bill even worse. The 
underlying bill uses tax breaks to subsidize parents who send their 
children to private schools, and it is a serious mistake. It diverts 
scarce resources away from public schools that have the greatest need.
  The regressive Republican tax bill does nothing to improve public 
schools.
  It does nothing to address the serious need of public schools to 
build new facilities and repair their crumbling existing facilities.
  It does nothing to reduce class sizes in schools.
  It does nothing to provide qualified teachers in more classrooms 
across the nation.
  It does nothing to help children reach high academic standards.
  It does nothing to provide after-school activities to keep kids off 
the street, away from drugs, and out of trouble.
  It does nothing to improve the quality of education for children in 
public schools. Tax breaks for private schools are not the answer to 
the serious problems facing the nation's public schools.
  This bill would spend $1.5 billion of public tax dollars over the 
next 10 years on subsidies to help wealthy people pay private school 
tuition and other private school expenses.
  According to the Joint Tax Committee, the bill will cost $1.5 billion 
over the next 10 years, and half the benefits will go to the 7 percent 
of families that have children in private schools. That's unacceptable, 
when public schools are desperate for additional help.
  The Joint Tax Committee also estimates that while 83 percent of 
private school families will use this tax break, only 30 percent of 
public school families will use it.
  The bill disproportionately benefits private school families, and it 
disproportionately benefits the wealthy. The majority of the tax 
benefits will go to families in the highest income brackets, who can 
already afford to send their children to private school.

  Working families do not have enough assets and savings to participate 
in this scheme. This regressive bill does not help families struggling 
to pay day-to-day expenses during their children's school years.
  This so-called education bill does nothing for education. It simply 
provides a tax shelter for the rich.
  Congress should be building new schools--not building new tax 
shelters for the wealthy.
  Congress should be reducing class size--not reducing aid to public 
schools.
  We know what it takes to achieve genuine education reform. The place 
to start is by resoundingly rejecting this defective bill, and then 
amending it in ways that will genuinely help the nation's schools.
  The challenge is clear. We must do all we can to improve teaching and 
learning for all students across the nation.
  We must continue to support efforts to raise academic standards.
  We must test students early, so that we know where they need help in 
time to make that help effective.
  We must provide better training for current and new teachers, so that 
they are well-prepared to teach to high standards.
  We must reduce class size, to help students obtain the individual 
attention they need.
  We must provide after-school programs to make constructive 
alternatives available to students.
  We must provide greater resources to modernize and expand the 
nation's school buildings to meet the urgent needs of schools for up-
to-date facilities.
  We cannot stand by and let this regressive tax policy pass to help 
private schools at the expense of public schools.
  Parents across the country want real solutions--not token gestures in 
the name of education. We should not waste $1.5 billion of public tax 
dollars on a do-nothing tax break program.
  I hope that my colleagues will join me today in opposing this bill. 
We should be doing all we can to help public schools--not abandon them.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, if I might ask the Senator from 
Massachusetts, it would be my intent to ask unanimous consent that this 
vote occur tomorrow at a time selected by the majority and minority 
leaders and 2 minutes be afforded each side at the time of the vote. If 
that is agreeable, I am going to proceed with a motion to table and ask 
for the yeas and nays.
  Mr. KENNEDY. As described by the Senator?
  Mr. COVERDELL. Yes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. With that understanding, I yield back all time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has been yielded back. The Senator 
may proceed.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the vote which 
I will make in a moment on the motion to table this amendment occur on 
Tuesday at a time to be determined by the majority leader and minority 
leader, and that the time remaining on both sides be reserved 
respectively.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Hearing none, without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I move to table the pending amendment 
of the Senator from Massachusetts and ask for the yeas and nays on the 
motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the 
pending amendments so I might speak for 15 minutes on the legislation 
itself.
  Mr. ROTH. I say to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, we 
would have no objection to your taking 15 minutes. But we do hope it 
will be the understanding tomorrow that we will proceed from amendment 
to amendment. But with that admonition, we agree to your request.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I'm assuming the Senator would not object if this 
side, in keeping the balance, if we ask unanimous consent, even though 
we are on pending amendments, for 15 minutes to respond.
  Mr. DORGAN. If I might respond to the Senator from Georgia, I 
certainly would have no objection to some parity in time. My 
understanding is that more time has been consumed on that side during 
this day. I assume you would also want parity. My expectation is we 
have a unanimous consent request by which we will dispose of this bill.
  My intent and my hope was to be able to speak for 15 minutes inasmuch 
as this amendment was disposed of and another amendment is not now 
offered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The Senator from North Dakota 
asked for unanimous consent for 15 minutes on the bill.
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. I have listened with interest not only to this debate but 
to much debate prior to this on this legislation.
  Since the year 1647, when the colonists in Massachusetts created tax-
supported public education, we have had a long and proud tradition in 
this country of public schools. By far, the majority--in fact, well 
over 90 percent--of the students who attend elementary and secondary 
schools in our country will attend public schools as part of our public 
education system.

[[Page S3266]]

  We have substantial tax incentives that already exist in this country 
in our Tax Code to support education. I am holding a list of 16 such 
tax incentives. They provide over $78 billion in tax reductions over a 
5-year period for various kinds of expenditures and activities dealing 
with education. One of them, $19.6 billion, is the deduction for 
charitable contributions to educational institutions. That is a method 
by which some make contributions to private schools and get tax 
deductions for that.
  All of these provisions dealing with tax incentives are important. 
This Congress has generally supported them and increased them 
substantially last year with HOPE and lifetime learning credits, 
deductibility for interest on student loans and various other devices.
  The question now is on a proposal offered by the Senator from 
Georgia. I have indicated to him previously that I am not attempting to 
trash the proposal itself. I think this kind of discussion begs the 
question, what is the priority of need? What are the rankings of need 
that exist with respect to education in our country?
  The Senator from Georgia comes up with a proposal that says the need 
is that we should provide other tax incentives that allow people to put 
away savings to be used for public and private elementary and secondary 
education.
  The Secretaries of Treasury and Education, in a letter dated February 
9, says that this proposal, the way it is constructed, 
``disproportionately benefits the most affluent families.'' This is the 
Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Education. This proposal 
``disproportionately benefits the most affluent families.'' Further, 
they say, this will not generate much additional savings in any event.
  If one were going to do this, it seems to me one would want to do it 
the right way. The question that I come to the floor to ask is, what is 
the ranking of need that exists in education? What are the priorities? 
What represents the approach that is most in need of public investment? 
I want to take this down to the specifics. I know some will say this is 
just anecdotal and doesn't matter.

  Education is one child at a time in this country. It is not some 
theory. It is one child at a time. I want to tell you about a young 
woman that I met last Wednesday morning named Rosie Two Bears. Rosie is 
a little second grader, bright-eyed. She has a wonderful little smile, 
and she goes to school in Cannon Ball, ND, a school that I visited last 
Wednesday, among many other schools. The Cannon Ball, ND, school is on 
the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, but it is a public school in a 
public school district with very little tax base.
  I want to tell you about the school, because Rosie Two Bears, when I 
entered her second grade class, asked me, ``Senator, will you buy us a 
new school?'' Well, I didn't have the answer for Rosie last Wednesday, 
but I want to tell you why Rosie Two Bears asks if we can buy her a new 
school. And I tell you this by virtue of saying this represents the 
need, the priority of need, not just in Cannon Ball, ND, but all across 
this country.
  This school is, in its oldest part, some 90 years old. It sits in a 
desperately poor school district. It has been condemned with respect to 
the older part of the school as a fire hazard, among other things. It 
has 145 students and 40 other staff and maintenance workers. For the 
145 students in K through 6th grade there are two bathrooms and one 
water fountain. Let me say that again: 145 kids, two bathrooms and one 
water fountain.
  Now, one of the classes is held in what is called the choir room. It 
used to be the janitor closet. But they can't always hold class there 
because sewer gas comes backing up and you can't have a classroom when 
sewer gas creates such a stench that little kids will be made sick if 
they sit in that room. So what do they do when the sewer gas backs up 
and fills that old janitor's closet, which is now used as a room in 
which they sing and practice choir? They move those kids out of that 
room to some other hallway in the school.
  There is a little gymnasium, very old, but there are no locker rooms, 
so the fourth and fifth grade basketball players must change in the 
bathrooms--two bathrooms in the entire school. But there is not enough 
room in the bathrooms, so little fourth graders are changing out in the 
hallway. You wonder what is it like for a fourth grade basketball 
player to change into his basketball clothes in the hallway because 
there are no locker rooms and the toilets are full, with people trying 
to change for the same basketball game.
  You might say, what does this mean? It means, in our country, right 
in this country, we have schools that are in desperate condition, and 
we have bright-eyed, wonderful little children walking through the 
school door, going into a classroom where the desks are not a half inch 
apart--the desks are touching in every circumstance because the 
classroom is 8 feet by 12 feet and they have so many kids in there 
there is no room for even an inch between the desks. Next year, twice 
as many kids are supposed to be in that classroom, but they can't do 
that so they will break up the class. When they break up the class, one 
teacher handles two classes and spends 15 minutes talking to this group 
and then says, ``All right, now I will be talking to this class for 15 
minutes,'' in the same room and will go back 15 minutes later, in a 
crowded room with two classes because that represents the overflow from 
other classes.
  I ask the question, how many of us would like our kids to walk 
through that school door and would say to our second grader, say to 
Rosie's classmate, ``Yes this is a good education. Our country is proud 
of the education it gives to you.'' We cannot afford to put another 
bathroom in that school, we cannot afford to add classrooms that are of 
adequate size. We cannot afford to fix a school that has sewer gas 
seeping up through the choir room. We can't afford it. We don't have 
the money.
  That is why I ask this question today about need. We see today a 
proposal coming to the Senate that says let's spend $1.6 billion on 
education in a manner that the Secretary of the Treasury says will 
``disproportionately benefit the most affluent families.'' I ask the 
question, is that expenditure something that was determined to be more 
important than the Cannon Ball school? Because the Cannon Ball school 
is not about theory. The Cannon Ball school, on Wednesday when I 
visited, was about real needs for real little kids that are in the 
public school system hoping to catch up and keep up with every other 
kid that enters a classroom door in this country.
  What is the ranking of need? What do we decide is important? It is 
unfair for me to talk just about Cannon Ball. Down the road 40 miles, I 
met with a school board there on Wednesday, the Standing Rock High 
School, run by the BIA--in effect, this Congress. It is a wonderful 
school. Those boys just won the State class B basketball championship. 
That Indian school on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation is 
enormously proud of those young boys. Against all odds, no one expected 
them to win the State high school basketball championship, but they 
did.
  You know what is wrong with their school? They have classrooms in the 
gymnasium for 2 months. Their school has lighting fixtures that are 
leaking PCBs. It would be funny to see the national press go down and 
take a look at PCBs leaking from lighting fixtures or visit Rosie Two 
Bears in Cannon Ball. But somehow that is not sexy. Those kids aren't 
in classrooms, because the lights are leaking a carcinogen, so we have 
to clear the building out.
  Is that a priority? It is our responsibility. That school belongs to 
the BIA. The funds for that come from this Congress. Is that a 
priority? Is it less of a priority than providing a tax break, the bulk 
of which will disproportionately benefit the most affluent families. 
That is the question I ask.
  I am not suggesting this is wholly unworthy, or that it is an idea 
that has no merit. That is not what I come to suggest. I say if the 
U.S. Senate is prepared to say we have $1.6 billion with which to 
invest in the education of young Americans, then I say the Cannon Ball 
school ought to have some claim to that. Rosie Two Bears and her 
second-grade class, sitting in a building where sewer gas forces them 
out of their choir room, ought to have some claim to part of that at 
least. We at least ought to have the opportunity to have that debate 
here on the floor of the Senate.

[[Page S3267]]

  When you have unlimited wants, virtually unlimited wants and limited 
resources, then there is a responsibility, I think, to prioritize them. 
What represents our most important investment? We have a range of 
amendments that will be offered. There is an amendment, for example, 
that talks about exactly what I am discussing--school construction, the 
need to respond to crumbling schools, the need to be fair to Rosie Two 
Bears and her classmates in that second grade class. School 
construction. Can we help repair crumbling schools? That amendment is 
going to have 15 minutes of debate on each side. What an awful, awful 
thing for us to have done.

  I hope that however we dispose of these issues, that some day, some 
way, on the floor of this Senate we will truly have the capability of 
deciding what represents our priorities in education. This may 
represent the priority of the Senator from Georgia; it is not mine. My 
priority is to decide that we have enormous challenges in public 
education in this country.
  I am proud of our public education system. We have not come to this 
point in our history by accident. I mentioned when I started that, in 
1647, the colonists in this country decided to begin a tax-supported 
system of public education. What an enormously important element in our 
country's future and our country's history, to have decided that every 
young American can become everything that his or her natural talents 
will allow, because we are going to create a public education system 
that allows every single one of them that opportunity. That has been 
our tradition and must be our future.
  When we talk about $1.6 billion, the question is, if that $1.6 
billion is available, what do we use it for? What do we use it for? Do 
we use it to fix those schools that are falling down on these kids? Or 
do we add a teacher to a class that is twice the size it ought to be? 
Or do we provide another tax credit in which over half of the benefit 
will go to 7 percent of the students in private schools?
  I say to the Senator from Georgia, I have great respect for him as a 
legislator; I just disagree with the priority. Based on a ranking of 
needs, there is no question as to what the answer is. The answer is 
that we ought to, as a country, decide that our investment in the 
public education of this country is paramount. And when we have 
problems that local school districts can't correct, where they don't 
have the tax base and the resources to make investments on behalf of 
those kids, then we are going to try to help them some way or another. 
If $1.6 billion is what we have today, then I say that is the way we 
ought to use that money. That is the debate we must have.
  We have a good number of amendments pending or to be offered of 
legislation. I know that the Senator from Georgia has always maintained 
there has been a filibuster on this legislation. In fact, I maintain 
that there has been a lockout and has always been a lockout. The reason 
people have had a problem getting this to the floor is, they wanted to 
bring it to the floor by saying: This is our idea, and if you have 
another one, we may allow you to debate it, but only minimally. We are 
not going to allow the Senate to do its regular order, because we are 
not going to allow an amendment and allow you to debate the amendment 
for 3 or 4 hours.
  We were involved in that for a long while. Now we are back on the 
issue and we are stuck in a situation where, I guess, in order to have 
this bill considered and to have our amendments in order, we had to 
agree to 15 minutes of debate on each side on an amendment that 
addresses the central issue I have been talking about--investment in 
school construction.
  Mr. COVERDELL. If the Senator will yield for 10 seconds. The 
amendment to which the Senator spoke for most of his remarks has an 
hour for debate.
  Mr. DORGAN. Well, that makes my point. That is 30 minutes on each 
side to talk about the central issue in education, about the need for 
investment in infrastructure in education. You just can't expect these 
little kids to walk through a school door and say, ``By the way, we 
know this school is in disrepair, falling down around you.'' The Cannon 
Ball school I mentioned, they have a heater, but they don't have an 
automatic switch for it. And this school can't hook-up to the Internet 
because the wiring is so old. But back to the heater, they turn the 
heater on by climbing up a scaffold to the ceiling of the gymnasium and 
turning a manual switch.
  My point is that a half hour on each side is not enough. That is 
twice as much as I suggested, because that amendment gets a little more 
than others. But a half hour on each side is not nearly enough to 
debate the central problems of how much we should invest and how we 
invest in the needs of public education. That is my problem with the 
legislation the Senator from Georgia has offered. There are better 
amendments. I hope one will be approved as we move along, and I hope we 
will have a longer period of debate on education sometime later in this 
Congress.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 2288

  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I call for the regular order regarding 
the Mack amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment of the Senator from Florida, 
Senator Mack, is now pending.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may use in 
opposition to the amendment.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, it is my understanding that, by 
unanimous consent, their side has 15 minutes on this amendment. I 
assume that is what the Senator is using.
  Mr. BUMPERS. The Senator is correct.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for up to 15 
minutes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Coverdell 
bill. Let me start by saying that I served on the school board of 
Charleston, AR, population 1,200, for 12 years before I ran for 
Governor of my State. I have often said--not entirely facetiously--that 
I ran for Governor to get off the school board because that is the 
worst job I ever had. It was a poor school district. When we asked the 
people of that district, though, for millage increases to build new 
facilities, not one single time, in my memory--not just the 12 years I 
served on the school board--did the people ever defeat a millage 
increase to improve the plight of our students. That situation still 
exists. The reason it was so difficult is because salaries were 
pitifully low.
  When I got out of law school, I didn't know what I was going to do, 
but I knew I wasn't going to make very much money practicing law. Betty 
went to work teaching third grade in the Charleston Elementary School 
at the princely sum of $125 a month. That is what we lived on. Things 
were very tough. In a relative sense, things are not all that much 
better right now. Incidentally, Charleston was the first school in the 
South to integrate schools after the Brown decision in 1954. Yes, my 
little hometown was the first school south of the Mason-Dixon Line to 
integrate its schools following the Brown decision. We are proud of 
that.
  I am a great champion, as a result of my experience on that school 
board, of public education. I have nothing against private schools. 
When I was elected Governor, because I was apprehensive about the 
safety of a couple of my children, I sent them to private schools. I 
was concerned about their safety not because of the schools, but 
because their father was Governor. The second reason I sent them, of 
course, is that I had the money to do it.
  Under the Coverdell bill, if we are going to spend $1.6 billion over 
10 years, that equates to the princely sum of $160 million a year. Do 
you know what that does for education in this country? Nothing. That is 
not a drop in the bucket compared to the educational needs of this 
Nation.
  Senator Moseley-Braun has an amendment to rebuild the crumbling 
infrastructure of the school buildings in this country. I think it is 
$5 billion over a 5-year period. That doesn't even begin to address the 
problem when you consider the fact that 93 percent of the money under 
this bill goes to the wealthiest people in America, goes to

[[Page S3268]]

those people who go to private schools, and 7 percent goes to the other 
85 percent of the people in America who go to public schools. I 
repeat--this is a Treasury Department figure--93 percent of the dollars 
that would go for education under this bill goes to the families who 
send their children to private schools. That is 12 percent. Seven 
percent of the money goes to the other 85 percent. That tells you all 
you need to know about what this bill is all about. It doesn't address 
the problems of education in the country. It simply extends those IRAs 
to the first 12 grades. That in itself is nonsense.
  If all of this money is going for private schools, then there is not 
very much of it--$37 a year--for a family who sends their children to a 
private school. Who is going to send their kid to a private school for 
$37 a year? But more importantly, the people who send their children to 
public schools get the princely sum of $7 a year.
  So you have to ask, what is going on here? What do we think we are 
going to do for somebody for $7 a year, or even the wealthy people for 
$37 a year?
  Mr. President, that tells you one thing. The reason I am so 
stridently opposed to this bill is that it is a nose under the tent of 
crooks to aid private schools, even though it be very small and it is a 
diminution of public education. I can tell you where you are headed. 
You are headed toward the abandonment of public education in this 
country, and you are headed for one of the biggest disasters of the 
Nation when you go to vouchers. I am adamantly, and always have been, 
opposed to vouchers. But I can tell you that will ultimately be the end 
result of this bill.
  Our educational system is not perfect--never has been, never will be. 
But the reason we had a tough time in Charleston, the reason we have a 
tough time in America in public education is we are not committing the 
resources to it. We have a $50-billion surplus this year. Think about 
it. Six years ago we were looking at a $300-billion deficit. Today, we 
are looking at a $50-billion surplus.
  I am not voting for tax cuts. I am not going to vote to spend that 
$50 billion for tax cuts when we have 40 million people with no health 
insurance. We have an educational system that is 13th among 17 
developed nations of the world. We have environmental problems that are 
going to cost billions and billions to solve.
  I will tell you what I would like to do if I were king. I can tell 
you Bill Clinton agrees with this. I would start a GI bill to make sure 
that every child in America got a college education. They would get a 
Pell grant--not loans. They would get grants. Every kid in America--86 
percent of the people in this country--would go to college if they had 
the money. If it had not been for the GI bill waiting for me when I got 
out of the Marine Corps in 1946, I wouldn't be standing here. There are 
about seven other Members of the Senate who would not be here either if 
it had not been for the GI bill. If you want to spend that $50-billion 
surplus, give the children of America a college education and make sure 
they get it.
  Mr. President, I will close by saying, if I had my way, in addition 
to giving every child a college education, I would also reeducate the 
teachers of America. I can remember when the Carnegie Foundation 
started the program to allow teachers of this country--a limited number 
of them--to improve their skills by going to summer seminars about 10 
or 12 years ago. The first one was at the University of Texas which had 
a summer seminar dealing with Virgil's Aeneas and Homer's Ulysses, 
comparing them, and 4,400 schoolteachers applied for 250 spots. That 
shows teachers want to improve their education if they had the money.
  Since that time we have done a little bit in the National Endowment 
for the Humanities. If I had my way about it, every schoolteacher in 
this country would be making a minimum of $50,000. How do you expect 
teachers to spend all of this time going to college and then standing 
out there and getting killed, as one in my State did 3 weeks ago in 
Jonesboro, AR? And we pay them $25,000 or $30,000 a year. They can go 
to law school and start at $75,000 to $100,000 a year. Why would 
anybody want to teach school when it is a dangerous profession among 
other things? The pay is miserable. Those are the reasons our 
educational system is lacking.
  Mr. President, I will not belabor it any longer but to simply say 
this is precisely the wrong thing to be doing if you are trying to 
improve education in this country. Improve the teacher quality, improve 
the buildings they go to school in, improve the safety of the teachers, 
and improve the discipline in the classroom. This is a nose-under-the-
tent approach.
  I cannot state it strongly enough. I thank God Bill Clinton is in the 
White House. He will veto this thing the minute it hits his desk. I 
will praise him for it.
  I yield such time as may be remaining in opposition to the Mack 
amendment.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2 minutes 10 seconds.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, there is no time remaining on the other 
side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, let me just quickly say that the 
Senator from Arkansas was speaking to the Mack-D'Amato amendment, and 
he implored the Senate to be conscious of the fact that we should be 
very concerned about the condition and quality of teachers. The purpose 
of the amendment to which he was speaking, and I read, is ``to provide 
incentives for States to establish and administer periodic teacher 
testing and merit pay programs for elementary school and secondary 
schoolteachers.''
  When Senators Mack and D'Amato were here speaking for the amendment, 
they characterized what is important in a classroom in America is a 
teacher, is a teacher, is a teacher, which is the purpose of the 
amendment to which the Senator from Arkansas rose in opposition.
  I yield back our remaining time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.


                Amendment No. 2290 to Amendment No. 2288

(Purpose: To provide incentives for States to establish and administer 
 periodic teacher testing and merit pay programs for elementary school 
                     and secondary school teachers)

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on 
behalf of Senator D'Amato.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Coverdell], for Mr. D'Amato 
     and Mr. Mack, proposes an amendment numbered 2290 to 
     amendment No. 2288.

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike all after the first word, and insert the following:

     __. STATE INCENTIVES FOR TEACHER TESTING AND MERIT PAY.

       (a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the 
     ``Measures to Encourage Results in Teaching Act of 1998''.
       (b) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) All students deserve to be taught by well-educated, 
     competent, and qualified teachers.
       (2) More than ever before, education has and will continue 
     to become the ticket not only to economic success but to 
     basic survival. Students will not succeed in meeting the 
     demands of a knowledge-based, 21st century society and 
     economy if the students do not encounter more challenging 
     work in school. For future generations to have the 
     opportunities to achieve success the future generations will 
     need to have an education and a teacher workforce second to 
     none.
       (3) No other intervention can make the difference that a 
     knowledgeable, skillful teacher can make in the learning 
     process. At the same time, nothing can fully compensate for 
     weak teaching that, despite good intentions, can result from 
     a teacher's lack of opportunity to acquire the knowledge and 
     skill needed to help students master the curriculum.
       (4) The Federal Government established the Dwight D. 
     Eisenhower Professional Development Program in 1985 to ensure 
     that

[[Page S3269]]

     teachers and other educational staff have access to sustained 
     and high-quality professional development. This ongoing 
     development must include the ability to demonstrate and judge 
     the performance of teachers and other instructional staff.
       (5) States should evaluate their teachers on the basis of 
     demonstrated ability, including tests of subject matter 
     knowledge, teaching knowledge, and teaching skill. States 
     should develop a test for their teachers and other 
     instructional staff with respect to the subjects taught by 
     the teachers and staff, and should administer the test every 
     3 to 5 years.
       (6) Evaluating and rewarding teachers with a compensation 
     system that supports teachers who become increasingly expert 
     in a subject area, are proficient in meeting the needs of 
     students and schools, and demonstrate high levels of 
     performance measured against professional teaching standards, 
     will encourage teachers to continue to learn needed skills 
     and broaden teachers' expertise, thereby enhancing education 
     for all students.
       (c) Purposes.--The purposes of this section are as follows:
       (1) To provide incentives for States to establish and 
     administer periodic teacher testing and merit pay programs 
     for elementary school and secondary school teachers.
       (2) To encourage States to establish merit pay programs 
     that have a significant impact on teacher salary scales.
       (3) To encourage programs that recognize and reward the 
     best teachers, and encourage those teachers that need to do 
     better.
       (d) State Incentives for Teacher Testing and Merit Pay.--
       (1) Amendments.--Title II of the Elementary and Secondary 
     Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6601 et seq.) is amended--
       (A) by redesignating part D as part E;
       (B) by redesignating sections 2401 and 2402 as sections 
     2501 and 2502, respectively; and
       (C) by inserting after part C the following:

      ``PART D--STATE INCENTIVES FOR TEACHER TESTING AND MERIT PAY

     ``SEC. 2401. STATE INCENTIVES FOR TEACHER TESTING AND MERIT 
                   PAY.

       ``(a) State Awards.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     this title, from funds described in subsection (b) that are 
     made available for a fiscal year, the Secretary shall make an 
     award to each State that--
       ``(1) administers a test to each elementary school and 
     secondary school teacher in the State, with respect to the 
     subjects taught by the teacher, every 3 to 5 years; and
       ``(2) has an elementary school and secondary school teacher 
     compensation system that is based on merit.
       ``(b) Available Funding.--The amount of funds referred to 
     in subsection (a) that are available to carry out this 
     section for a fiscal year is 50 percent of the amount of 
     funds appropriated to carry out this title that are in excess 
     of the amount so appropriated for fiscal year 1999, except 
     that no funds shall be available to carry out this section 
     for any fiscal year for which--
       ``(1) the amount appropriated to carry out this title 
     exceeds $600,000,000; or
       ``(2) each of the several States is eligible to receive an 
     award under this section.
       ``(c) Award Amount.--A State shall receive an award under 
     this section in an amount that bears the same relation to the 
     total amount available for awards under this section for a 
     fiscal year as the number of States that are eligible to 
     receive such an award for the fiscal year bears to the total 
     number of all States so eligible for the fiscal year.
       ``(d) Use of Funds.--Funds provided under this section may 
     be used by States to carry out the activities described in 
     section 2207.
       ``(e) Definition of State.--For the purpose of this 
     section, the term `State' means each of the 50 States and the 
     District of Columbia.''.
       (2) Effective Date.--The amendments made by paragraph (1) 
     shall take effect on October 2, 1999.
       (e) Teacher Testing and Merit Pay.--
       (1) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law, a State may use Federal education funds--
       (A) to carry out a test of each elementary school or 
     secondary school teacher in the State with respect to the 
     subjects taught by the teacher; or
       (B) to establish a merit pay program for the teachers.
       (2) Definitions.--In this subsection, the terms 
     ``elementary school'' and ``secondary school'' have the 
     meanings given the terms in section 14101 of the Elementary 
     and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 8801).

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside 
all pending amendments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2291

  (Purpose: To amend section 6301(b) of the Elementary and Secondary 
          Education Act of 1965 regarding same gender schools)

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Kay Bailey 
Hutchison, of Texas, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Coverdell], for Mrs. 
     Hutchison, proposes an amendment numbered 2291.

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end, add the following:

                 TITLE  --EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY

     SEC.--01. EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY.

       Subsection (b) of section 6301 of the Elementary and 
     Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7351) is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (7), by striking ``and'' after the 
     semicolon;
       (2) in paragraph (8), by striking the period and inserting 
     ``; and''; and
       (3) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(9) education reform projects that provide same gender 
     schools and classrooms, as long as comparable educational 
     opportunities are offered for students of both sexes.''.

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all 
amendments be laid aside and that I be given up to 15 minutes, as we 
discussed earlier, to respond to the remarks of the Senator from North 
Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COVERDELL. First, I want to come back, as I probably will have to 
do all week long, to respond to the characterization of the nature of 
the education savings account that is a title--one piece--of the bill 
that is before the Senate. The Senator from Massachusetts, the Senator 
from North Dakota, and the Senator from Arkansas have characterized the 
distribution of these moneys. I do not know where they are getting 
their figures. I think the Senator from Arkansas indicated that some 90 
percent of the proceeds of the education savings account would end up 
in support of students in private schools. That is just absolutely and 
totally incorrect.
  Let me run it down one more time.
  This education savings account is identical, the same--I underline 
``the same''--as the education savings account embraced by the 
President, that he was applauding, passed with a majority of their 
votes, Senate and House, and signed on the White House lawn in a huge 
celebration. We were celebrating the fact that we had created an 
education savings account that would help middle-income people pay for 
the cost of higher education. That savings account that we celebrated, 
that the President signed and took pride in authorship, although there 
were a lot of authors, allowed a family, a middle-class family, to save 
$500 a year and the interest buildup would not be taxed if they used it 
for the cost of higher education.
  That is what we passed, that is what he signed, and that is what we 
celebrated.
  This education savings account is identical and for the same people 
who are middle class just like the others. The only differences are 
these. We have said you should be able to save more than $500. Let's 
let people save up to $2,000. If we are going to help people pay 
college bills, we better make it substantive enough that they will 
really do it. The second change is that we said, if you need it before 
then, you can use it. If you need it for kindergarten or first grade or 
third or fourth or fifth or sixth or middle school or junior high or 
high school, if the problem occurs there, you can use it, or you can 
keep it for college, or, if the student is disabled, even up to age 30. 
So we just took the idea for middle-income taxpayers and said we are 
going to make it bigger so it can be used in different ways.
  That is the only difference. And yet we have a parade of people down 
here saying this account is for rich people. It is the same people, 
identical, that they designated. It is for college. It is for 1st grade 
through 12th. Then they say, well, this is all going to go to a family 
that is sending their child to a private school.
  The first thing to remember is that it is the family's money. This is 
not tax money or public money. This is money that they reached in their 
pocket to put in the savings account. So it sort of stands to reason 
they maybe ought to have some say about where it goes since it is 
theirs. But if we are concerned about the distribution of public and 
private, it is important to note that 70 percent of the families who 
use the savings accounts will have children in public schools and 30 
percent will have children in private schools--70 in public schools, 30 
in private. The amount of money is equally divided, not 90 percent to 
private schools but equally divided. It is about 50-50.

[[Page S3270]]

  You could ask yourself, well, if 70 percent of the families have 
children in public schools, why doesn't 70 percent of the money go 
there? It is because the families with children in private schools know 
they have a higher hurdle to get over and they are going to tend to 
save more. They are going to spend more. But it is still about 50-50.
  They talk about the expenditure. This one is a little unique. But 
they seem to feel that if you leave a person's money they earned in 
their checking account and do not tax it, you have done them a 
favor. That argues that the Government owns all the money and decides 
what little pieces to give back to you. This is the people's money. The 
tax that will be saved by 14 million American families is $520-some-odd 
million for 5 years in a $1.6 trillion operation. We would leave $500 
million over 5 years in their savings accounts.

  What is stunning to me is what it makes those American families do. 
They go out and save $5 billion. This is $5 billion that no school, no 
student will be able to take advantage of if we do not do this. It will 
never appear. So, by using this modest tax incentive, Americans do huge 
things. They save big dollars and every school system in America will 
benefit. Run down the litany--14 million families, over 20 million 
children, over $5 billion being volunteered to come in to back up 
education needs, without any local school district having to raise a 
dime of taxes; volunteer dollars, families stepping forward trying to 
help their children.
  You heard this is not a priority, just forget the 14 million 
families. They try to make the juxtaposition that this is either/or, it 
is a savings account or school construction. The other side needs to 
review and be mindful of several things. First of all, this is a 
bipartisan effort. The principal cosponsor of this bill sits right over 
there. His name is Senator Torricelli, from New Jersey. Another key one 
is right up here, and that is Senator Lieberman, from Connecticut. And 
right over there is Senator Breaux from Louisiana. Midway over there is 
Senator Graham of Florida. These are authors of this proposal too.
  It is not just an Education Savings Account we are debating. We have 
heard a lot about school construction here. They need to review the 
proposal as offered by their side, Senator Graham of Florida, which 
expands the ability of local school districts to finance school 
construction. That is right here. If school construction is important, 
it is part of the proposal. We have education savings accounts. We 
encourage States for early prepaid tuition. This encourages employers 
to pay for continuing education costs for their employees. One million 
employees will be positively affected by this.
  As I said, school construction will be a part of the proposal, and 
helping the National Health Corps scholarships. All of these are what 
the bill is. Education savings accounts, I think, are a very important 
piece, but they are just a piece. And, I might add, in terms of the--
they call it costs--in terms of leaving the amount of money in the 
individual checking accounts, it is a minor cost as compared to the 
total. It is about 15 percent of this total proposal that is involved 
in the education savings account. So, once again, it helps families 
create savings accounts to help kids, a lot of them--20 million. It 
helps States create prepaid tuition. We heard a lot here about, ``Let's 
get people into college,'' from the Senator from Arkansas. That is 
exactly what this bill does. It also helps employers continue to 
educate people. It helps build schools. All of this is in this 
proposal.
  Having said that, since we have heard the Senator from North Dakota 
talk about the quality of a school--we want quality buildings. That is 
principally a State responsibility. We want to be careful we do not 
reward people who have not been getting the job done. There have been a 
lot of States building a lot of schools. If some haven't seen to that, 
it is not our job. You want to make sure everybody is being treated 
fairly here.
  The last thing I say on that is, my dad was educated in a one-room 
schoolhouse. They had all the grades in one room. He learned how to 
read; he learned how to write; he learned how to add and subtract. In 
that one room, they gave him the tools he needed to be a full-fledged 
American citizen. And that is the problem here. We have hundreds of 
thousands of children coming out of grades K-12 who cannot read right, 
and they can't add, and they can't write. And the numbers are 
astounding. In city schools, only 4 in 10 can pass a basic exam; put 
all the schools together, only 6. An uneducated mind is denied full 
citizenship and the privileges and opportunities of that citizenship in 
the United States, and we have too many kids coming out where we are 
stunting their citizenship, their participation. We have to stop it.
  There needs to be change. These are not all the ideas; they are some 
of them. Just to sit and defend the status quo is unconscionable.
  Mr. President, I yield whatever of the 15 minutes was left, and I 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to discuss briefly 
a Senate resolution relating to the Pulitzer Prize just won by a major 
newspaper in my State.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________