[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 44 (Tuesday, April 21, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H2078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


             VOUCHER PLAN RAISES UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, in anticipation of bringing a bill to the 
floor, the Republican majority is pouring thousands of dollars into ads 
for a voucher bill. But I challenge them to use that to send some of 
the 7,500 kids they want to help to parochial schools, as they claim 
they want to do.
  This is a political exercise. It has become a political perennial, 
because it comes every year. This year it is an election year charade. 
We know it is a charade because the President has promised to veto. If 
the majority is sincere, I challenge them to sit down with me and write 
a bill that can be signed.
  This year a bill of this kind is a real insult because we have a real 
shot at exponential improvement in the D.C. public schools, finally.
  One good example is the Summer Stars program about to begin. We will 
become the first big city school system to eliminate social promotion 
and replace it not only with a remedial program but with a program in 
the summer that helps youngsters catch up so they do not fail in the 
first place. A rigorous academic program is going to be put in place. 
Our youngsters are going to have to read 25 books next year in order to 
pass the grade.
  Want to help? There are ways to make a real difference for the many 
and not merely the few. It is cruel to raise the expectations of 75 
youngsters for 2,000 school vouchers. It is cruel because there are two 
insurmountable barriers, and we know they are insurmountable. First is 
the veto, but, second, no serious constitutional scholar believes 
public school vouchers are constitutional.
  As I speak, there are two injunctions on public school vouchers right 
now. Two courts in Wisconsin have stopped public school vouchers with 
injunctions on constitutional grounds. An appeals court in Ohio has 
stopped public school vouchers on constitutional grounds.
  D.C. schools need help. If Members want to raise people's 
expectations and then let them fall, they should go do it in their own 
districts. Do not come in and do it to my folks. I challenge the 
majority, if they want to see D.C. kids go to parochial schools, I will 
join Members in raising private funds to send them to private schools.
  Everyone knows what they are doing. They are preparing for a $1 
billion raid on the public Treasury to take money that would go to 
public schools and give it to private and parochial schools. We are not 
going to let them do it. Either the President will stop them or the 
courts will stop them. Meanwhile, they are playing with the lives of 
the people I represent.
  I ask Members to stand back and instead come forward and join me in 
truly helping youngsters who are crying out for help but cannot get it, 
as Members know they cannot, in the way they have chosen.
  We can work together. No one has even come to me and approached me 
about this issue. They would not dare go into the district of another 
Member without even approaching her on the district. They have not 
asked me if there is an approach that we can agree upon.
  I can tell them that the approach that they are depending upon, a 
starkly partisan approach that has nothing to do with the youngsters I 
represent, will in fact be turned down not only by me but by those I 
represent. And, for them, I resent Members coming forward to raise 
their expectations, knowing full well that they cannot meet them and 
having no intention whatsoever to meet them in yet another election 
year charade designed falsely to show what Members cannot show, and 
that is that public schools cannot be improved. Perhaps they cannot be. 
Neither, I assure the Members, will the courts of this great country 
allow us to empty the Federal Treasury of funds and put them into 
private schools.
  If Members want to help my kids, understand that they want your help, 
need your help, and that their Member is willing to cooperate with 
others in order to get help. But I ask Members to cooperate with us, 
not to exercise their will on us.

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