[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 45 (Wednesday, April 22, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3375-S3407]
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 now 
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 resumed consideration of the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Washington, Mr. Gorton, is recognized to offer an amendment regarding 
block grants, on which there shall be 30 minutes equally divided.
  The Senator from Washington.


                           Amendment No. 2293

      (Purpose: To provide for direct awards of education funding)

  Mr. GORTON. 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 Washington [Mr. Gorton], for himself, Mr. 
     Frist, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Mack, Mr. Coverdell, Mr. Helms, Mr. 
     Smith of New Hampshire, Mr. Domenici, Mr. Nickles and Mr. 
     Craig, proposes an amendment numbered 2293.

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.'')
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask the following Senators be listed as 
original cosponsors of the amendment: Senator Frist, Senator Hagel, 
Senator Mack, Senator Coverdell, Senator Helms, Senator Bob Smith, 
Senator Domenici, Senator Nickles, and Senator Craig.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, last fall during the debate of the Labor, 
Education appropriations bill, I introduced an amendment to consolidate 
more than a dozen Federal aid programs for education from kindergarten 
through 12th grade into a single block grant, with the block grant 
going to each individual school district across the United States. The 
amendment had

[[Page S3376]]

three goals: To see to it that each school district receive more money 
than it does at the present time by sending directly to the school 
districts money now kept by the Department of Education for 
administrative purposes and money kept by State educational agencies 
for administrative purposes. The second goal was to reduce the flood, 
the blizzard, of paperwork imposed on all of our school districts 
across the country with respect to dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of 
separate programs directly or indirectly aimed at the education of our 
children between kindergarten and 12th grade. And the third and 
philosophical reason for the amendment was the belief that the 
professional educators, the parents, and the elected school board 
members in each State and school district in this country had the 
education of their children close to their hearts and really knew, in 
each community, more about what the children of that community required 
in connection with education policy than did any person in Washington, 
DC, whether a bureaucrat in the Department of Education or a U.S. 
Senator in this body.
  Perhaps the most difficult conclusion for any of us here to reach is 
that maybe we don't know as much as do people at home about the 
immediate problems and challenges that they face in a wide range of 
areas--in this case, most particularly, education. So it was an attempt 
to allow 10,000 flowers to bloom, to allow each individual school 
district far more discretion than it has at the present time to 
determine where Federal aid could best be used. After all, we only come 
up with 6 to 8 percent of the money that our schools spend. We don't 
have a right to come up with 50 or 60 percent of the rules and 
regulations and forms with which our schools must contend. That burden 
lessens the ability of teachers to teach and administrators to 
administer and school board members to set policies.
  Somewhat to my surprise, that amendment was passed by a vote of 51 to 
49. It was objected to, partly on substantive grounds and partly on 
procedural grounds. It had not been the subject of hearings. The House 
of Representatives was uncomfortable with it. The President was 
opposed. And it was eventually dropped in the conference committee on 
that appropriations bill. Since then, however, it has been a matter of 
major discussion among school officials all across the United States. 
It has been the subject of hearings here in the U.S. Senate, conducted 
by my distinguished friend and colleague, Senator Frist from Tennessee, 
on a bipartisan basis. I have spent countless hours talking to 
educators on the subject and listening to both their praise and to 
their concerns. As a consequence, this amendment is somewhat changed 
from the previous amendment. This amendment will last for 5 years, but 
its effective date will be delayed in order to give the people of each 
State a very real choice in the way in which they receive their Federal 
aid for education.
  We heard the representative of at least one State school 
superintendent say that he liked the present system. We heard several 
State school superintendents say how much more they could do with the 
money dramatically to reform education policy if the money came to each 
of the 50 States, to their Governor or to their superintendent of 
schools. Many of the outside intellectuals and academics in the field 
of education feel that it is at the State level that true education 
reform is taking place.
  We hear from many school board members--I hear from many of them in 
my home State and so do other Members--that they liked my original 
proposal to get rid of both bureaucracies and allow each individual 
school district to make these decisions.
  So this amendment gives each State a choice. The State legislature in 
the next year may elect to continue the present system, it may elect to 
take the money at the State level going through whatever educational 
establishment that State has established, or it may elect, either 
positively or by taking no action, to allow the money to go directly 
through to school districts.
  Senator Frist will offer a second-degree amendment allowing that 
choice to be rescinded to change the amendment I think friendly to the 
proposition.
  As a consequence, we will be able to determine whether or not the 
proposal I made last year is a significant benefit to education, 
whether the best system is one in which each State makes its own 
choices, much as we have done with respect to welfare reform, or 
whether the present system is best, because there will be States that 
make each of these three decisions.
  I hope that this will turn this proposal into a bipartisan proposal. 
I am not sure why anyone should oppose that triple option allowing a 
different way of doing things. Only if we regarded the present 
education system as perfect should we reject an experiment of this 
sort.
  The second objection, the second apprehension that was close to 
universal, was the proposition that if we went to a block grant, if we 
combined all of these ideas into a block grant, Congress would 
immediately lose interest in education and the block grant would 
inevitably decline and that the money wouldn't be there for schools. I 
believe the interest in education here to be high enough so that that 
would not have taken place, but the concern was very real.
  In responding to that concern, we have set authorization levels for 
the 5 years during which this experiment will take place, each of which 
rises modestly in each of those years consistent with the balanced 
budget agreement and the projections of the freeze under which 
discretionary spending will operate. This proposal says that if in any 
year we don't meet that authorization level, the whole experiment falls 
and ends, and we go back to the present system. We have guaranteed not 
only a continuation of effort, we have guaranteed a modest increase in 
that effort over the years.
  Finally, we have a hold harmless under which school districts say 
that no school will receive less money if they elect one of the two 
systems other than continuing the status quo than they would have 
received otherwise, with the distribution of title I money based on the 
number of title I eligible students fundamentally, bilingual money 
based on the number of bilingual students fundamentally, and a 
distribution of the balance on the basis of the prosperity and poverty 
of a given State.
  I think we have something very positive for education here, a system 
that will get more money into the classroom, will allow more 
experimentation, will allow us to find out whether the present system 
is the best system we can come up with or a State-based system or a 
local-based system.
  At this point, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues of both parties to 
look at this very carefully, not to judge it necessarily on the basis 
of the way in which they judged last year's proposal but to judge it on 
the basis of whether or not they have a sufficient trust in their own 
elected school board members, elected by the same people who elect us, 
to make better judgments, in some cases, about their schools than we 
can make here on a one-size-fits-all basis in Washington, DC.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the Gorton amendment. I 
listened with great interest to the Senator's presentation, as I did 
the last time we debated this issue. Of course, we understand now that 
if the States want to go out to their taxpayers and raise taxes and to 
vote those taxes to any of the points that the Senator desires, they 
have every right to do so, and there is nothing that any of us are 
doing here that would prohibit them from doing it.
  The fact is that the resources which are being provided here and 
which the amendment is directed to are the resources that are being 
raised at the Federal level and have been targeted to those aspects of 
our educational systems that have been identified as being meaningful 
in terms of our national interest and our national purpose. The 
Senator's amendment effectively eliminates the Drug-Free Schools 
Program. That would be included in his block grant, but the funding 
would not be there.

  Maybe parents are speaking to the Senator from Washington and saying 
they don't like a drug-free program in their schools, but parents in my 
State are saying they like it and they hope it will be enhanced.

[[Page S3377]]

  They talk about dispute resolutions that are being developed in 
various schools. They don't want that program emasculated or 
effectively destroyed. It does not reach a level of priority in the 
Gorton amendment.
  When I go around my State of Massachusetts, particularly after all of 
the publicity that was received in the international competition about 
where the United States stood in areas of math and science, they are 
not saying cut out the Eisenhower Math and Science Education Training 
Program. They are asking me, ``Do we have in our schools qualified 
teachers in math and science, and what are you going to do in your 
higher ed bill to try to have enhanced math and science qualified 
teachers who are going to teach our children in our schools?''
  Too many of the teachers who are teaching in the schools in my 
State--and in every other State, I might add--are not qualified to 
teach in their particular courses. One of the most effective programs 
is math and science under the Eisenhower program. That doesn't exist in 
the Gorton amendment.
  Maybe people are going around and saying to their Senators that math 
and science training and additional enhancements for our teachers is 
something in which they are not interested. But I do not hear that in 
Massachusetts. I do not hear that.
  We have support for programming that is going to enhance academic 
achievement and accomplishments to raise the bar. One of the most 
important transitions we have seen in terms of education policy is to 
free ourselves from dumbing down academics, from social promotions in 
the various schools, and setting high academic standards. The 
provisions that exist in Federal law would be virtually eliminated by 
the Senator's amendment. I do not find parents in my State saying, ``We 
are not interested in establishing higher academic standards in our 
schools.'' That is eliminated.
  If, in particular, communities do not choose to take advantage of 
these programs, they do not have to take advantage of these programs. 
But why deny the people in my State the opportunity to take advantage 
of it if it is desired in the local community and the State makes that 
determination of priority? It is a partnership today. It is a 
partnership, but they effectively are denying it under the Gorton block 
grant resolution.
  Mr. President, our role is extremely limited. We provide maybe 7 
cents out of every dollar that is extended locally--maybe 6, 7, 8 
cents. A chunk of that goes into nutrition programs. A good part of 
that is the title I programs, additional help and assistance in terms 
of IDEA, a small part in terms of the bilingual program and a few 
others, such as the math and science programs. In the Eisenhower math 
and science training, it is about $360 million, but it is a very good 
qualified program. And for the life of me, I do not understand where 
this demand is coming to vitiate that and eliminate those programs.

  If a particular community wants to innovate and create and try to do 
all these other kinds of matters that the Senator talks about, then let 
them go ahead and do it, let them go ahead and do it. But these 
programs have been targeted, been basically developed with strong 
bipartisan support, I might add, or they would not be on the books. We 
have had strong bipartisan support in terms of the safe and drug-free 
schools.
  We have had it with regard to the Eisenhower training programs, math 
and science training programs. They will be reinstated when we are 
dealing again with the Higher Ed Act, with strong bipartisan support. 
Effectively, we are saying, without a day of hearings, with a very 
limited debate here for 30 minutes--a few hours in the last session of 
Congress--that we are effectively emasculating all of these programs.
  It is not sound education policy, and I think it is unwise policy for 
us to be considering at this particular time. We ought to be looking 
and evaluating each of these programs one by one. If they are having a 
heavy administrative burden, we ought to examine that and address that. 
That is why we are commending the work that has been worked out with 
Senator DeWine, Senator Wellstone, Senator Jeffords, and others in our 
committee for consolidating various work training programs, 126 work 
training programs in six different agencies to eliminate those 
administrative costs and to try to do it in a way as to protect the 
function but eliminate a lot of the administrative costs.
  We have been involved in the last several years with waiving various 
rules and regulations in States and in educational districts, which is 
working out. And we can do that, selectively and effectively. We 
welcome the opportunity to do so. We have had evaluations, and they are 
effective. We welcome the opportunity to work with Members here. The 
leader in that effort was Senator Hatfield of Oregon, who is a leader 
in education as well as an attempt to try to give the focus of limited 
Federal funds to areas which have national purpose and national accord.
  Finally, Mr. President, we do not have accountability under the 
Gorton amendment. We hear a great deal about trying to have greater 
accountability so we know what are going to be the results of 
investments of scarce Federal funds. We do not have that in the Gorton 
amendment. We do not know what is going to happen when that money goes 
out into these various communities. There may be some feel-good 
measures that people feel good that they are able to try to move 
various resources around in different directions, but we do not know 
what the outcomes are going to be. You do not have the accountability.
  So finally I just say that we have a relationship at the Federal, 
State, and local community levels in terms of education. It is a 
partnership. I think it is fair to review that partnership. It is fair 
to examine various programs and what is effective in that partnership. 
But we raise money at the Federal level for national purposes, safe and 
drug-free schools. We made that a part of our war on drugs in this 
country.
  It is a matter of national policy. We said we want, as a national 
policy, to have drug-free schools. That is effectively eliminated in 
this program. We said we want focus and attention on math and science 
in our schools, and we developed a program that if initiated in the 
local communities on a competitive basis will provide those resources. 
That program is eliminated.
  We have said as a matter of national policy that--and just about 
everyone agrees with that--we ought to raise the bar in terms of 
academic achievement and accomplishment. Let us go ahead and do that. 
And we have an agreement by parents. They are enthusiastic about it. 
And that is going to be eliminated under this program.
  Mr. President, this is not an advance. It is rearranging the deck 
chairs, but we are not enhancing the academic opportunities for 
children in this country with this amendment. And I hope that it will 
not be accepted.

  Mr. President, how much time do we have on this side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. You have 5 minutes 40 seconds.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I withhold the balance of the time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, those deck chairs, as I remember, were 
sitting on the deck of the Titanic. It is already going down.
  I ask unanimous consent that Senator Ashcroft be added as a cosponsor 
to the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am saddened by the response of Senator 
Kennedy. This amendment was revised very substantially after 
consultation, wide consultation with people thoughtfully interested in 
education.
  By the terms of the amendment, any State that wants to continue the 
present system and thinks it is best may do so, any State that wants to 
operate its Federal aid through its State educational entity may do so, 
and any State that thinks that education will best be conducted at the 
local level will be permitted to do so. How that destroys programs or 
hurts education is beyond my understanding.
  In January, Dr. Carlotta Joyner of the General Accounting Office came 
before the Senate budget task force and said in three areas of 
education 15 Federal departments and agencies administer 127 at-risk 
and delinquent youth programs; 11 Federal departments and agencies 
administer more than 90 early childhood programs; and

[[Page S3378]]

9 Federal departments and agencies administer 86 teacher-training 
programs.
  Twenty programs are consolidated into this block grant for those 
States that wish it. It takes about one-third of all of the money that 
the U.S. Department of Education spends on education from kindergarten 
through 12th grade. To say that once we reduce the rulemaking functions 
of the U.S. Department of Education we are going to destroy education 
is to say that neither State education agencies nor local school 
districts nor superintendents nor teachers either know what they are 
doing or care about what they are doing.
  That is simply wrong. They know more and they care more because they 
are right there with our children. If it does not work, it will go out 
of existence. Any State that does not want it does not have to take it. 
I believe this is an amendment that ought to be adopted unanimously. I 
regret the opposition of the Senator from Massachusetts. What we are 
doing is improving education and getting more dollars into the 
classroom, not less.
  Mr. President, I yield such time as he wishes to the Senator from New 
Mexico.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Two?
  Mr. GORTON. I yield the Senator 1 minute. Sorry.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise to congratulate both Senator 
Gorton and Senator Frist. Senator Frist conducted a series of hearings 
in his Budget Committee task force from which came much of the factual 
information and evidence of the great need for reform in the programs 
that are now in the Gorton amendment.
  Frankly, I think what has happened is some are still looking at last 
year's Gorton amendment and assuming that is the bill before us. This 
is about one-third of the Department of Education's programs, a little 
over $10 billion out of a little over $30 billion. So one-third of it 
will be block granted.
  But the point of this amendment this year for those who thought we 
were going to in some way dismantle the programs nationally, this bill 
has options in it so if anybody wants to stand up and say these Federal 
programs are the greatest thing and the States love them and the school 
boards love them and they participate wholeheartedly and they are 
effective, they can say that. It really isn't true, but they can say 
that, and we can stand up and say, well, fine, if they are that good, 
obviously, the States and school boards across the land will choose the 
option to keep them just like they are and let the Federal Government 
run them. The healthy part of this is it is going to be a wonderful 
experiment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent I be permitted to speak for 1 
additional minute and it not be counted against Senator Gorton's time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. This will be a wonderful experiment, for if, indeed, 
some States choose to remain under the bureaucratic programs that in 
many cases do not even fit the needs, and in many cases States do not 
even participate because they are so far from what the needs are, if 
they want to, they keep the programs. And then a number of States may 
go the other route, it will be marvelous for Americans to be able to 
see, in about 5 or 6 years, which approach helped the kids more, which 
approach got more education dollars into the classroom on a day-by-day 
basis, addressing the major problems that the school boards and State 
school boards find to be the real areas of need at the State level.
  I think it is time to let States make that choice. Let us see which 
one works best--categorical strings attached, Federal programs that 
frequently miss the mark, or the approach that Senator Gorton has. I am 
delighted to be a cosponsor.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN. How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota has 5 minutes 40 
seconds and the manager has 1 minute.
  Mr. DORGAN. Let me make a couple of comments.
  First, I think the Senator from Washington, Senator Gorton, is a 
thoughtful legislator and I have agreed with him on a number of 
education policies, including last year his fairly controversial 
amendment on IDEA. I supported him on that and I thought his amendment 
was the right amendment.
  This is an area in which there is just some philosophical 
disagreement. Let us be honest, there are some--I don't think the 
Senator from Washington is among them, or perhaps the Senator from New 
Mexico--there are some who very much believe the Federal Government 
should not be involved in education in the elementary and secondary 
education at all.
  The Republican Party platform in 1996 said, ``This is why we will 
abolish the Department of Education and end Federal meddling in our 
schools.'' I am not suggesting that is what this amendment does, but 
philosophically there are people, and a fairly significant number in 
your party, who really believe there should not be a Federal Department 
of Education, who believe that these programs represent meddling, and 
it ought to all be done at the local level.
  My point is this: There have been certain national priorities that we 
have tried to address with the programs that we have developed for 
elementary and secondary education at the Federal level. By far the 
bulk of funding for elementary and secondary education is at the local 
level. They run the schools; they finance the schools. If we were to 
decide, ``Let's not care about how these moneys are spent that go to 
State and local governments from the Federal Government for elementary 
and secondary education,'' I would say then let's not be a tax 
collector here. That is what we would be. If we say we don't care how 
the money is spent, we will collect the money and throw it back there, 
all we end up being is a tax collector to add extra money for 
elementary and secondary education. In that case I say, raise the money 
at home. Why pass around an ice cube? All that does is mean you get 
less money back when you do it that way, so just raise the money at 
home. Don't do it at all. Just suggest there aren't national programs 
of national interest or national need.
  Some of us here believe very strongly that what we have done with the 
Department of Education and the kind of ``gap funding'' we have 
provided for certain title programs and other programs of some national 
importance and national interest and national need have advanced the 
issue of education in this country. It doesn't mean we have tried to 
run the school systems. We haven't and shouldn't and won't. It does 
mean that a number of these things we have done nationally strengthens 
the schools. It fills in areas of national need on issues of national 
importance that otherwise would not have gotten done.
  Again, I have great respect for the Senator from Washington, but I 
will oppose his amendment simply because I happen to think that what we 
have done in creating a Department of Education and in providing some 
directed gap financing for programs that represent national interest 
and national need--drug-free schools program being one, for example, 
and many, many others that are very important that I think have 
strengthened education in this country.
  I understand there will be a second-degree amendment offered here and 
that will allow a few more minutes of discussion. But let me just say 
again, I think this stems just from some philosophical differences. I 
respect those on the other side who say, ``Well, you can spend this 
money better at home.'' I say, if that is the case that there shall be 
no national purpose and no national interest with respect to some of 
these issues, let us not have tax collectors in Washington raising the 
money here and taking it away before they send it back home. Just have 
the folks back home raise all the money and spend all the money.
  If you believe there are certain things that are worthy--including 
programs like title I and so many others--that have advanced education 
in this country and been very helpful, not intrusive, but very helpful, 
to State and local governments who run our elementary and secondary 
school systems, if you believe that, then I think you support what we 
have done to improve it and strengthen it.

[[Page S3379]]

  I yield back the remainder of our time. My understanding is there 
will be offered a second-degree amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The Senator from 
Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, my friend from North Dakota makes two 
arguments. One, a philosophical argument against the abolition of the 
Department of Education, based on the philosophy that there is a 
function of the Department of Education in Washington, DC. That, 
however, is not an argument against this amendment since this amendment 
does not abolish the Department. It takes only about one-third of the 
money that it is spending in K through 12 education.
  The second argument the Senator from North Dakota makes is that it is 
absolutely essential for the success of our educational efforts that 
there be very strict rules coming from the Department of Education to 
every school district in the United States. That would be a forceful 
argument if we had been a tremendous ``signal'' success in these 
policies. Nothing indicates that we have been. It is one of the reasons 
we are debating education policy here today.
  What I proposed is an opportunity to try three experiments: Continue 
the present system, allow the States to do it, or allow local school 
districts to do it. I remain puzzled that anyone should say that we are 
so successful today that we can't experiment, we can't change. Let's 
try for a while three different systems and see which one works the 
best. Competition always ends up with the best results.
  I yield back the remaining time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time on the amendment is expired.


                Amendment No. 2294 to Amendment No. 2293

      (Purpose: To provide for direct awards of education funding)

  Mr. FRIST. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Frist] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2294 to amendment No. 2293.
  Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.'')
  Mr. FRIST. I understand we have 15 minutes on either side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Gorton 
amendment and also rise to explain the amendment which I just 
submitted.
  As has previously been referred to this morning, I have had the 
opportunity over the past 6 months to chair the Senate Budget Committee 
task force on education. During that series of seven hearings that we 
held, I listened very carefully to a number of witnesses. Both 
Democrats and Republicans alike came before our committee and discussed 
the nature of the Federal role in education. The terms that were used 
and the picture painted was that we had this sprawling endeavor, that 
is duplicative in many ways, that has not been focused to the degree 
that any of us would like, which in turn, in many ways, has tied the 
hands of the education establishment, has tied the hands of State 
communities and local communities and local school administrators and 
teachers and principals and parents. We have heard it again and again.
  I applaud Senator Gorton for building upon his amendment from last 
year. The amendment that we see today, which I think goes a long way 
toward accomplishing the goals as recommended by the task force to 
consolidate--not eliminate, but consolidate--the various efforts we 
have at the Federal level to accomplish what we want to accomplish; 
that is, to educate the young people, K through 12 today. We have not 
been successful in the past. We all know that. That has been 
demonstrated again and again.
  The amendment that I introduced today makes the Gorton amendment, I 
believe, even stronger. Under the Gorton amendment, a State must choose 
within a 1-year time period and pursuant to a majority vote in their 
State legislature and with the concurrence of the Governor, one of 
three options. Again, the beauty of this amendment is that there are 
three options. After the initial selection under the Gorton amendment, 
a State can only change that selection one time and only after a 3-year 
period.
  My amendment would simply allow a State which has chosen to remain in 
the current system--again that is the beauty; if a State elects not to 
change under the Gorton amendment, they don't have to change--if a 
State does say we will stay exactly as we are today, continue the 
categorical program that they have today, under my amendment they will 
be able to opt any time over the next 4 years to go into one of the 
block grant programs.
  That is the extent of my amendment. In addition, we heard from States 
like Kentucky that have biennial State legislatures, and it gives them 
the opportunity to make that decision after they next meet, since the 
underlying amendment had this 1-year time limit. The real theme to the 
Gorton amendment is the flexibility that is given to localities--
flexibility for individual localities and individual States to decide 
for themselves, based on their own priorities, based on their own 
identified needs, how to best spend their education dollars.
  My amendment builds on that flexibility, allowing States to decide, 
and they are given more choice. The need for consolidation could not be 
clearer today. We know that over the last 20 years we have had stagnant 
student performance in science, mathematics, and reading. We have seen 
that data again and again. Our task force looked at the Federal role in 
education, and we found this sprawling, unfocused effort that did 
suffer from a programmatic reluctance to ask the fundamental question: 
What works and what doesn't work? There is something inherent in the 
program that prevented us from asking that question, until today.
  We saw these huge charts that take the 500 Federal programs, or 2,900 
programs of the Department of Education, and we saw these overlapping, 
intertwining, well-intended programs that have lacked the focus, have 
lacked the streamlined consolidation approach, and they have not 
worked. What the Gorton amendment allows us to do is choose a system, 
not change it all for two block grants of about $10 billion, to choose 
based on your individual needs what might work for you.
  We have already tabled, over the last 2 days, a school construction 
program. We will debate other amendments that create a program for 
dropout prevention, to create new programs. The beauty of the Gorton 
amendment is that we give the States and the localities the money, and 
if they have a problem with dropouts, they can identify that program 
and use the money there. If they don't have a problem, they don't have 
to use it there. For technology development, we give the States and the 
localities the option to decide how to spend that money.
  It is not a partisan issue. People have tried to make it, both in the 
media and sometimes on the floor, Republicans versus Democrats. We 
listened carefully in our task force to the Democratic officials from 
the Chicago school system. They extolled the virtues of flexibility. 
That is what the Gorton amendment is all about. They said that the 
flexibility in much of their own program's success in reforming the 
Chicago system can be--it draws back to that use of block grants, which 
has that flexibility. They said to our task force: ``We know the 
system, and we believe we know the things that it needs to have in 
order to improve.'' They continued: ``So the more flexibility we have 
with Federal and State funds, the easier it is to make those changes.''
  Florida's commissioner of education went on to say: ``We at the State 
and local level feel the crushing burden caused by too many Federal 
regulations, procedures, and mandates. Florida spends millions of 
dollars every year to administer inflexible categorical Federal 
programs that divert precious dollars away from raising student 
achievement. Many of these Federal programs typify the misguided, one-
size-fits-all command and control approach.''
  Those were the words of Florida's commissioner of education.

[[Page S3380]]

  We also heard that the Department of Education has indeed made some 
progress in eliminating some regulations and consolidating programs. 
Secretary of Education Riley reported that the Department eliminated 64 
programs. But then we heard 2 weeks later from the General Accounting 
Office that the Department still oversees 244 separate individual 
programs. Given that the Department and the Secretary are moving in the 
direction of streamlining and consolidation, it is really confusing to 
me why the Department and the administration oppose the Gorton 
amendment, which does just that; it consolidates, it does not eliminate 
the Department of Education, it does not eliminate the targeted 
populations; it consolidates and allows individual communities to best 
choose how to use those same amounts of dollars.
  Accountability was mentioned. It is a red herring. The Gorton 
amendment very specifically provides for accountability to both the 
Federal Government and to those people who really care the most. I am 
absolutely convinced that the people who really care the most are the 
parents of those children in those schools. The Gorton amendment very 
specifically requires public involvement in planning a strategy for the 
use of block-granted funds and an accounting to the public of the 
results once the funds are used. Accountability is specifically 
addressed.
  Targeting. We heard about the title I population. That is 
specifically spelled out in this amendment. There is no weakening of 
the targeting nature of the Federal funding of things like title I. It 
is interesting to note that the Gorton amendment does not do this. In 
fact, 100 percent of title I part A funds would flow directly to the 
local education agencies--100 percent. There is no cutting there. Under 
the Gorton amendment, 100 percent of the funds would be used by the 
schools in the classrooms, not with that administrative overlay, 
administrative cut taken off to be spent here in Washington, DC. No; 
this makes sure that the targeted populations receive the funds in the 
classroom.

  The premise behind both my second-degree amendment and the Gorton 
amendment is flexibility. States and localities will have the 
flexibility to decide for themselves how to best use education dollars, 
not the U.S. Congress' well-intended layering on of program on program, 
not the administration's budget proposal sent to us in which there were 
eight new education programs. Another four have been proposed here in 
the last 2 days. No; we want those moneys, that accountability, that 
flexibility to be carried out at the local level.
  The task force heard testimony of numerous witnesses. We heard from 
Susan Gendrich, who runs a wonderful public school in Murfreesboro, TN, 
called Cason Lane Academy. We heard that the real beauty, the reason 
they have been able to accomplish so much, is because they were given 
the flexibility to have remedial schoolwork in the afternoons by using 
unused funds that otherwise would have gone to something they did not 
need.
  Yes, let the States and the localities exercise some creativity. That 
is where the innovation actually is. Again, remember, in the last 20 
years we have been stagnant in school performance. What we have done 
through 500 programs, spending $100 billion a year, has not improved 
education in our public schools. Let's give them an option. That is 
what this is, an option to keep what you have, to go to a block grant 
program. Our current approach is simply not working. Let's try a new 
approach, something novel, and return decisionmaking authority to those 
closest to our students--the States and the localities.
  Mr. President, I urge adoption of the Frist amendment, and I reserve 
the balance of my time.
  I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Missouri.
  How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Four minutes 42 seconds.
  Mr. FRIST. I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I rise to commend Senators Gorton and 
Frist for what I believe to be a very important step forward in 
providing the basis for educational achievement by students. Sometimes 
I think in all the debate we have about education, we get worried about 
one group of individuals who might manage funds here and one group who 
might manage funds there, and whether or not this would be directed by 
this group or that group. The ultimate objective of our program in 
education is student achievement. We want students to develop, as a 
result of our educational efforts, the capacity to grapple with the 
issues of the next century. We ought to ask ourselves on a regular 
basis, How is that best done? How do we elevate the capacity and the 
performance of the students? What is it that gets that done best?
  Well, I think this particular effort on the part of the Senator from 
Washington and the Senator from Tennessee recognizes two or three 
important principles in student achievement. First, nothing is more 
directly correlated to student achievement than parental involvement. 
The more influence we give to parents, to community leaders, and to the 
role models who are right around those students in shaping the 
students' opportunities, the more likely those students are to achieve. 
Study after study shows that when parents are involved, when 
schoolteachers and community officials are involved, when the culture 
around the student is involved in decisionmaking and they get active in 
the schools, that is when achievement goes up.
  Now, this block grant approach is going to move toward the parents, 
toward the communities, toward the students, toward the cultural 
leaders who surround the students, and give the right to make and the 
opportunity to make decisions that they believe will best motivate and 
enhance the capacity of students to achieve. It is very, very 
important.

  Second, I believe that it is very difficult to make intelligent 
decisions for the whole country under the rubric of a single 
prescription. There are a lot of health problems in the United States. 
But if we were to say we were going to prescribe a single wonder drug, 
I think people would wonder about it. They know they would like to be 
able to go to their doctor to decide what is wrong with them, what 
their problems are, and to get a prescription that would really make a 
difference to them. I think when we give the capacity to deploy 
resources to State and local school agencies and we don't tell them 
what sort of prescription there has to be but we allow them to use the 
resources to best achieve what is needed in that area, we provide the 
basis for student achievement for actually delivering through the 
educational process what it is we need to deliver.
  I visited a school in southwest Missouri just this last year. Both 
State and local governments had so many strings on what they said money 
could be used for that they could not do what needed to be done. They 
needed to build new classrooms. They were laboring under a requirement 
that they had to spend so much of the money for teacher's salaries. 
They wanted to be able to do teacher's salaries. But they first needed 
classes. Because it was a high growth area, they were trapped between 
needing to get the classrooms first, for which they could not spend the 
money, and having to spend the money for teachers. They couldn't use 
the teachers until they had the classrooms.
  We really need to free the people who care the most about America's 
future--they are parents, community leaders, school leaders, teachers, 
and administrators at the local level. We need to free them to be able 
to deploy resources effectively.
  There is a myth in Washington; that is, that we can make something 
where one size fits all. The truth of the matter is one size fits none.
  These amendments are fundamentally beneficial amendments which will 
help Americans develop and shape better schools for their children in 
which students achieve.
  I thank the Senator from Tennessee.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, once again I think we have a philosophical 
difference here. I don't see that parents, teachers, schools, and local 
officials are not free now. They are certainly free now to develop 
their own programs, raise their own money, and

[[Page S3381]]

run their own schools. They do that. They are free to do that. They do 
it every day in every way.
  The local school in my hometown of 300 people is run by the local 
school board. They raise the money in the local tax district. The 
school board hires the teachers. They decide with the State government 
about the curriculum. They are perfectly free to do that, and do it 
every day.
  The Senator from Washington indicated this is not a debate about 
abolishing the Department of Education. He is absolutely correct about 
that. This, however, represents a seed from the same garden. That is 
why I mentioned that in the 1996 Republican National Party platform it 
says: ``That is why we will abolish the Department of Education and 
Federal meddling in our schools.''
  It is a seed from the same garden that says, by the way, if there is 
any money going back from the Federal Government, let's make sure that 
there is no purpose for that money; let's make sure it goes back in the 
form only of general aid and not some kind of assistance, as has 
historically been the case for compensatory education for poor 
children.
  One-half of the Federal money that has been spent since 1960 for 
elementary and secondary education has been spent for compensatory 
education for lower-income children. It has been remarkably successful.
  Once again, let me emphasis that we don't run and never will run the 
local school districts, and we don't finance the local school systems. 
This is kind of gap financing for certain things that we have 
considered a national purpose, among which, as I mentioned, is 
compensatory education for lower-income children, but other areas as 
well.
  Let me mention just a couple of them: The School-to-Work Program, the 
Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program. What if, for example, this 
amendment passes, and it is decided that in 45 States, while we have 
said there ought to be a national priority on the Safe and Drug-Free 
Schools Program, and here is the money for it, 45 States say, ``Well, 
sorry. It is not our priority. That is not our priority. We are not 
going to do that.'' Yet, we keep sending the money, and we have 45 
States in which there is not a safe and drug-free schools program.
  My question to the Senator from Tennessee and the Senator from 
Washington is: Why would we want to keep spending the money in that 
case? Why would we want the Federal Government to become a tax 
collector for local school districts for no national purpose? They have 
said, ``We want your money, but there is no national purpose served in 
having a safe and drug-free school program.'' I don't think that makes 
any sense.

  I say just do this through the front door. If one really doesn't want 
the Federal Government to be involved in these programs, just end the 
financing for the programs.
  What we are suggesting here is not--the Senator from Washington is 
correct--abolish the Department of Education, although I certainly 
think there are plenty who want to do that. But I think the American 
people probably would not approve of that. So it is the kind of an 
approach that says, ``Well, let's simply abolish the purpose for the 
money but continue to provide the money.'' I just do not understand 
that.
  The Senator from Missouri made a general point about education. Let 
me say that I agree with what he said about education. Education works 
in our local schools all across this country when you have a teacher 
that is a good teacher, when you have a student who comes to school 
willing to learn, and when you have a parent involved in that 
education. Those three elements are critical and necessary for 
education to work. There is no question about that.
  We debated yesterday the question of the priority of school 
construction to see if there could be some incentive to promote further 
investment in school construction. That was not the priority yesterday. 
There needs to be other discussions. Regrettably, I wish it was. But 
that is also a rather important point. That child must go through the 
classroom door of the classroom that is a good classroom in good repair 
and not overcrowded.
  I mentioned a week ago that I was at the Cannon Ball school--at an 
Indian school, a public school, and a public school district--and a 
second grader named Rosie Two Bears, she is going to school this 
morning in a school that is not in good repair. You can have all the 
other things that work, and then to have classes where one teacher is 
teaching two classes back and forth at 50-minute intervals with kids 
with desks that don't have a half an inch between them, because there 
is not room with 140 kids and 40 staff people in a building that is 90 
years old, part of which is condemned, and they have two bathrooms and 
one water fountain for 180 people, that is not in good repair. Does 
that school need substantial investment to make sure this second grader 
named Rosie who goes to school has the same opportunity that your kids 
and my kids do? Absolutely.
  We have a lot to do, and a lot of challenges.
  This issue, however, is not about the general financing of elementary 
and secondary education, because we do not do that. The general 
financing and the management of our elementary and secondary education 
system is done at home. That is where it ought to be done. We have, 
however, in recent decades indicated there are some basic issues of 
national purpose to be served by creating a title I program, a 
vocational education program, and a safe and drug-free schools program. 
That represents national interests and a national purpose that you 
would hope to see attained at every school district in every State all 
across this country. Some say, ``Well, let's just retreat on this issue 
of national purpose. Let's just back up on this issue of national 
importance.'' The Senator from Washington last year when he offered his 
amendment included, for example, title I in vocational education. He 
did not include it this year. I am pleased to see that because, 
frankly, it seems to me that if you just look at what has happened to 
the success of these programs you can't help but conclude that what we 
have done, while not perfect, has been enormously important in the 
lives of a lot of students, especially poor students in every school 
district in this country.
  The General Accounting Office recently found that the targeting of 
the Federal education programs to those with the greatest financial 
need has been very successful.
  In fact, they say for every dollar the Federal Government provides to 
a student, in general, it provides $4.73 to an impoverished student.
  What that means is what we have tried to do has largely worked to try 
to fill in some gaps to say that where there is not adequate funding 
locally and where we have a sense of national purpose about something 
that we know needs to be done, we are going to try to fill in that gap.
  It seems to me to say that we are going to retreat on that and say 
what we are going to send back now will just be general aid--I say the 
right approach for that is, if you are going to retreat altogether, 
just say we will not be sending categorical aid because we do not sense 
a national priority or a national purpose or a national interest and 
therefore we won't send the money either.
  Or, alternatively, you can end up deciding there is no national 
purpose here and we will not support the national interest in these 
programs, safe and drug-free schools being an example, but we will 
continue to be a tax collector and will collect the taxes and then send 
the money back. Gee, I think the folks back home would be much more 
impressed with a straightforward approach to this alternative, which I 
don't support, in which we say we do not support the programs and we 
will not collect the money for it; you do what you will back home.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee has 29 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. FRIST. And the other side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Six minutes 22 seconds.
  Mr. FRIST addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. FRIST. In my 29 seconds, let me make it very clear that the 
Gorton amendment continues to target title I, the student. The 
disadvantaged students still get the money, still get the programs. The 
difference is that 100 percent of the money gets down to the classroom 
where it is needed.

[[Page S3382]]

  The Gorton amendment has as its underlying theme flexibility and 
accountability, the two things that we have heard again and again are 
necessary to accomplish our goals of educating students. We are not 
doing a good job. Our education system is not successful. When we 
compare ourselves in the 12th grade to science students all over the 
world, out of 21 countries only 2 do worse than us. It is not 
successful.
  This bill preserves choice. It gives options: No. 1, to continue to 
receive this $10 billion in Federal funds under the current system with 
the same regulations, no change. You can choose that. Or your second 
choice: Have those Federal funds sent directly to the local school 
districts minus the Federal regulations. Or choice No. 3: Have Federal 
funds sent to the State education authority minus Federal regulations.
  As Frank Grogan, Florida's commissioner of education, said:

       With education, we are already beginning to see States 
     becoming living laboratories. If left to pursue reform 
     without added Federal burdens and interference, States can 
     learn from the success and mistakes of others with the 
     freedom to emulate some programs as models and/or discard 
     those that are ineffective.

  The Gorton amendment gives that opportunity, with accountability 
built into those States and the local level.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Six minutes 22 seconds.
  Mr. DORGAN. Let me just make another quick point.
  You will not find a challenge anywhere in this Chamber by anyone who 
would stand up and say it is not important to have local people making 
local decisions, that some of the best decisions that can be made can 
be made locally. No one is going to contest that.
  The point I am making is this: Local governments, State and local 
officials who run the elementary and secondary school systems in many 
cases over now many years, have indicated they do not have the 
resources to provide the kind of help we provide in title I as a gap 
financing that moves certain kinds of assistance to poor children or 
children who go to poor school districts.
  Now, the amendment of the Senator from Washington does not put title 
I in this block grant category this time, as I indicated he did last 
year but does not this time, as I understand it. I address the Senator 
from Washington. Is that correct?
  Mr. GORTON. No, the Senator is not correct. Title I is in this 
amendment. However, the money is distributed only on the basis of title 
I-eligible students. In other words, the school districts will get the 
same amount of money and will still be targeted for title I-eligible 
students. But it is in this amendment.
  Mr. DORGAN. My understanding was that title I was not part of his 
amendment. We were trying last evening and this morning to understand 
exactly what the language would be.

  That makes his amendment much, much worse than I had previously 
thought. It does confirm then what I said earlier, that we have taken a 
successful approach in which we have tried to provide some compensatory 
education assistance especially directed at impoverished areas and at 
poor children, and have done it in a very successful way, and now say 
but all of that will become a pot of money that we send back, and we 
will just become tax collectors for local governments or for school 
districts and say, ``You all pretty much retool this and rethink what 
you want to do with it along the lines that represent your 
priorities.'' They have their priorities, and should have their 
priorities, and their priorities are to govern how they run their 
schools. And they are free to do that.
  Again, the discussion earlier was about they are not free somehow. Of 
course, they are free. State and local schools are run by the State and 
local school districts. They are free to raise their money, free to 
impose taxes, free with their State governments to develop curriculums. 
Of course, they are free to make those decisions. But in areas where we 
have provided some assistance based on what we perceive to be a 
national purpose, the amendment says, let us provide the money but no 
requirement that anyone sign up to this national purpose. And again I 
come to the issue of safe and drug-free schools. There are a good many 
of them: Eisenhower Professional Development, the Innovative Education 
Program, the Technology Challenge Grants, and so on--safe and drug-free 
schools.
  Have we decided, or should we decide, or will we decide as a country 
on a national need to have a safe and drug-free schools program across 
this country that is stimulated by some financing that we say you must 
pursue this and must have it because there is a national purpose for 
this, and we will provide some financing help because we are mandating 
something? Are we at a point where we say, no, there is no longer a 
national purpose for a Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act? Let's have a 
Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act, for example, in North Dakota, but the 
other 46 States say, ``Gee, we don't want one; this is not a national 
priority.''
  Drugs and the issues surrounding drugs and young Americans and 
schoolchildren are a national priority. It is of national interest. And 
we have decided in the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act that we want to 
provide some funding if we are going to provide a mandate here, some 
funding from the Federal Government to say to these school districts, 
``We would like you to do this as a sense of national purpose and 
national interest, and here is some financing to help you do it.''
  The amendment is an amendment that essentially says, well, let's 
convert all of those national interests and urges to some notion of 
general aid, and so we will then be tax collectors and we will just 
collect money and send it back. I say as I started, that is like 
passing an ice cube around. By the time you get to the sixth or seventh 
position on that ice cube passing, there is no ice cube left.
  A much more straightforward way of doing this would be to say we 
don't believe these are programs of national interest, and therefore 
let us say to local governments, ``Raise your own money and spend your 
own money. We are out of the way.'' We are, as their party would 
suggest in their platform, abolishing the Department of Education. Get 
out of the way and let everyone else do their thing.
  There is a different way, and the other way is to recognize that most 
all of elementary and secondary education is funded by, controlled by, 
the local people back in the home districts and the school district in 
the towns. It will always be that way. But there are things that 
represent a national interest, and those kinds of policies and those 
kinds of issues, debated over many, many years here in this Congress, 
resulted in the construction of a program called title I and other 
title programs. The Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act, the Technology 
Challenge Grants, and others have been, I think, enormously important 
to say to the local school districts, ``While you are there, we are 
going to offer some help, for example, to see that you get your school 
wired up to the Internet. If you need help to do that, here is some 
help to do that, to see that you have a safe and drug-free schools 
program in your school district, in your schools.''
  That has been the nature of our involvement in education. Again, it 
is very seductive, I think, to say, well, gee, shouldn't local people 
make all these decisions. Yes, I think so. With their money they should 
make all their decisions in their elementary and secondary education 
programs. But isn't there a circumstance where we have some issues of 
national importance where our money, our resources, our investment 
ought to follow that urge of national importance on the Safe and Drug-
Free Schools Act? I think so. To back away from that, I think, would be 
a mistake.

  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time on the amendment has expired.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I understand the minority will simply 
permit the Frist second-degree amendment to pass by a voice vote. I 
will then ask for a rollcall vote, which will take place at 3 o'clock, 
on the underlying amendment.
  Mr. DORGAN. Might I, by consent, say to the Senator from Washington, 
while we do not support the second-degree amendment, the second-degree 
amendment is a rather technical change of the underlying amendment

[[Page S3383]]

and we see no purpose in having another rollcall vote on that. While I 
do not support it, we will accept a voice vote on the second-degree and 
then have a recorded vote on the underlying amendment today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the second-
degree amendment.
  The amendment (No. 2294) was agreed to.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           amendment no. 2293

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, in 1768 in a letter to George Wythe, 
Thomas Jefferson wrote,

       No other sure foundation can be devised for the 
     preservation of freedom and happiness . . . Preach a crusade 
     against ignorance; establish and improve the law for 
     educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the 
     people alone can protect us against the evils [of 
     misgovernment].

  As a nation we have long recognized the importance of education of 
the future well-being of our children and our nation. A quality 
education is vital in an increasingly competitive global environment 
and indeed, as Jefferson notes, to the preservation of our democracy. 
Every Senator undoubtedly wants to do everything in their power to 
improve the educational opportunities for all children. It is one of 
our highest priorities in the U.S. Senate.
  As many of my colleagues may recall, last year I offered an amendment 
to the fiscal year 1998 Senate Labor, Health and Human Services 
Education appropriations bill that consolidated most federally funded 
K-12 education programs, and sent that money directly to local school 
districts free from the mandates and regulations imposed on our schools 
by Washington, DC, bureaucrats. The Senate approved the amendment but, 
at the administration's insistence, it was stripped from the final 
bill.
  For most of this half century Washington, DC, has been dominated by 
people who believe that centralized decisions and centralized control 
exercised by Washington, DC, is the best way to solve problems, 
including those in the classroom. This approach has not worked. As 
Washington, DC, has taken power and authority from local school 
districts, our schools have not improved. But, old habits die hard. The 
belief in centralized power is still very much alive. When I proposed 
my amendment last year, every single Democrat in the Senate opposed it 
and the President strongly criticized the approach of returning money 
and authority over education to our school districts.
  Why is the status quo no longer acceptable? There are a multitude of 
reasons. As many of you know, the results of the Third International 
Math and Science Study (TIMSS) were recently announced. Unfortunately, 
those graduating from our high schools did not fare well. Twelfth grade 
students from the United States did not achieve at a level I would call 
acceptable, with scores below the international average in both science 
and mathematics.
  Is it because the United States has not been devoting sufficient 
resources to education? The facts don't bear out that assessment. 
Resources devoted to education have been increasing in constant dollars 
almost yearly for the last 25 years, but there has been no significant 
change in the achievement of students.
  What do we have to show for our investment? We have a web of 
literally hundreds of Federal education programs woven throughout 39 
Federal departments and agencies and totaling $73.1 billion in 1997. I 
wish I had a comprehensive list of all the Federal education programs 
to show you, but the Department of Education doesn't know exactly how 
many there are.
  In January of this year Dr. Carlotta Joyner of the GAO appeared 
before the Senate Budget Committee Education Task Force and presented 
us with a graphic that highlights the web of Federal education programs 
in only the three areas of education: At Risk and Delinquent Youth, 
Early Childhood programs, and Teacher training programs. What this 
chart shows is that 15 Federal departments and agencies administer 127 
At Risk and Delinquent Youth programs, 11 Federal departments and 
agencies administer more than 90 Early Childhood programs, and 9 
Federal departments and agencies administer 86 Teacher Training 
programs.
  It is no wonder that more and more, our states and local school 
districts are being suffocated by a tidal wave of papers, forms and 
programs, each of which no doubt began with good intentions. The net 
result of this tidal wave, however, is precisely what makes it 
difficult to set priorities in each of the many varied states and 
school districts across the country to determine that which will best 
serve their students. I firmly believe that the elected school board 
members, parents, superintendents and principals, as well as governors 
and legislatures, are dedicated to providing the best possible 
education for school children that they possibly can, and that they are 
better able to make decisions about what is best for their students 
than are Members of Congress or bureaucrats in the Department of 
Education.
  It is extremely arrogant of us here in this body to set detailed 
requirements for very specific education programs that apply to 
children all across the United States. It's wrong to believe that 
Congress or the Department of Education has all the answers to the 
variety of problems our schools and educators face. Why should a 
bureaucrat in Washington, DC, decide what's best for the children in 
Washington State? They don't know Walla Walla from Wenatchee from 
Woodinville.
  Over the past several months I have had the opportunity to meet with 
parents and educators from across Washington State and the Nation. They 
have expressed a great deal of concern about the stifling nature of the 
rules and regulations that come along with the myriad of federal 
education programs in existence. In fact, several have commented that 
although school districts receive only about 7 percent of their funding 
from the Federal Government, with that money comes 50 percent of the 
rules and regulations they must comply with.
  A perfect example of the crushing nature of Federal rules, 
regulations and paperwork comes from a program I didn't even include in 
my amendment. The Bellevue School District, a suburban school district 
east of Seattle, has gathered all the paperwork necessary to begin, 
just begin, the file they are required to keep for special education 
students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 
Placed end to end, this paperwork extends for almost 40 feet. 40 Feet! 
We have allowed bureaucrats in Washington, DC, to impose half or more 
than half of the rules and regulations that so often frustrate 
innovation and success in our schools.
  Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that Congress must do more 
to free State and local officials from the burden placed on them by the 
Federal Government to educating America's children. We must be willing 
to admit that somebody else may know a little bit more than we do about 
this subject. My firm belief is that the wisdom needed to educate our 
children lies in States and individual school districts--with parents 
at home, with teachers in the classroom, with principals in the 
schools, and with school board members who, almost without exception, 
are public-spirited citizens who have run for election to a job that 
does not pay or pays very little. We must keep in mind that the same 
citizenry who elected us to the U.S. Senate also elected our school 
board members. It is unlikely that they were wise in electing us and 
ignorant of their own interests in picking their school board members.

  I have listened to educators from around the country and have applied 
those lessons to the crafting of this amendment. My amendment makes 
several changes that address the concerns of those who have been kind 
enough to take the time and work with me and my office to improve upon 
the work begun during last year's appropriations process.
  First, there were concerns that any attempt to block grant education 
funds to local communities was simply a back door attempt to cut 
funding. My amendment makes it crystal clear that is not what this 
effort is about. My amendment authorizes specific levels of funding 
through fiscal year 2003, targets that appropriators must meet in order 
for the block grants to continue.

[[Page S3384]]

If these targets are not met, we would revert to the status quo.
  Others have expressed concern that my amendment is an attempt to 
close the Department of Education. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. My amendment is not about abolishing the Department of 
Education--my amendment is about giving communities the flexibility 
they need to educate our children. Even after enactment of my 
amendment, there would be plenty of work left for the Department. My 
amendment does not even touch on the Department's responsibilities with 
respect to higher education. And even though my amendment includes more 
than 20 Federal education programs, that is but a fraction of the total 
number of education programs administered by the Department of 
Education, not to mention the Federal Government as a whole.
  Concerns have also been expressed about the targeting of Federal 
funds to disadvantaged students. The concern is that because Federal 
funding often is targeted at a specific population, block granting 
funds and allowing States and school districts to decide how those 
funds are spent will mean those populations will no longer be served. 
Well, this mentality is what led to the creation of the quagmire of 
education programs we find ourselves wallowing in today. My amendment 
retains specification for what populations the Bilingual Education and 
Education for the Disadvantaged (Title I, Part A), funds are to be 
spent, but it leaves up to States and school districts the method by 
which those populations are best served. As for the list of 20 Federal 
programs, my amendment outlines a series of allowable uses such as 
hiring new teachers, magnet schools, charter schools, and combating 
illiteracy, which give local officials flexibility in designing reforms 
to improve the achievement of students. The total amount of funding 
that gets to the classroom will be considerably greater because so much 
less will get lost in the gears of administration at two, three or four 
different levels of bureaucracy between Washington, DC, and the 
classroom. As I've stated previously, we cannot assume that Washington, 
DC, knows best when it comes to educating the diverse population that 
exists in America today.
  I have heard comments that different states have different opinions 
about how they should receive federal funds. As a member of the Senate 
Budget Committee Education Task Force, chaired by my good friend and 
colleague Senator Frist, I had a chance to hear from Frank Brogan, 
Commissioner of Education from the State of Florida, and Henry Der, 
Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction from the State of 
California. Mr. Brogan and Mr. Der have widely different opinions about 
the efficacy of involving the Federal Government in decisions regarding 
education in their States. Mr. Brogan states,

       Congress should identify priority areas and allow States to 
     designate the dollars for specific programs.
       With Education, we are already beginning to see States 
     becoming living laboratories, testing varied programs and 
     options. If left to pursue reform without added Federal 
     burdens and interference, States can learn from the success 
     and mistakes of others, . . . with the freedom to emulate 
     some programs as models and/or discard those that are 
     ineffective.

  Mr. Der followed Mr. Brogan with,

       We submit to you that the roads toward devolution will 
     result in less opportunities for those with special needs and 
     will retard the leadership role that the U.S. Department of 
     Education has played, as well as undermine the accountability 
     that we need to build into our education programs.''

  Therefore, it became clear to me that States should have a choice 
concerning how they receive their Federal funds, and my amendment gives 
them that choice. My amendment says that States will have three options 
with respect to how they receive Federal education funds. Simply put, a 
State legislature, with the concurrence of the Governor, will choose 
from one of three methods for receiving Federal funds: (1) States can 
continue to receive Federal education funds through current categorical 
programs; (2) States can receive Federal education funds in a block 
grant to the State Educational Agency; or (3) States can direct the 
Federal Government to send Federal education funds directly to their 
Local Educational Agencies.
  There are also provisions in my amendment that respond to other 
concerns about the immediate financial impact on States and school 
districts. My amendment includes a 100 percent hold harmless, so that 
no State or school district will receive less than what they received 
before enactment of this legislation. Further, there is a provision 
which says that for those States receiving a multiyear grant through 
one of the programs included in the block grant, that multiyear grant 
will be funded through to completion in order to provide an appropriate 
transition from one process to another.
  Finally, my amendment encourages accountability by requiring States 
and school districts to collect information about how Federal funds are 
spent, as well as involving parents and other members of the public in 
debates over how funds will be utilized.
  As you can see, my amendment is based on the principal that with 
additional authority and money schools would receive from this reform, 
our teachers, parents, principals, and school boards would be inspired 
to do even more for our children. They would not, as some suggested 
during debate on this issue last year, be inspired to build swimming 
pools. They would be inspired to make sure that every child in their 
community receives the best education possible. While I think this 
example shows the fundamental difference between the approach I 
advocate, and that of the administration, I just have to ask this 
question: Does anyone really believe that there are parents, teachers 
or school board members in America who would rather use scarce 
education dollars for swimming pools instead of providing a quality 
education for their children?

  On February 10 of this year, I had the opportunity to visit the Union 
Gap Elementary School and learn about the tremendous work they are 
doing, in the words of their Superintendent Bob McLaughlin, to `heal' 
their children's reading difficulties.
  More than three years ago, Dr. McLaughlin became painfully aware that 
the Union Gap School District did not have a program to assist its 
students who were having difficulty learning to read. Dr. McLaughlin 
then took it upon himself to search out a program which would be both 
affordable and helpful to the students. During the 1995-96 school year. 
Dr. McLaughlin discovered the Read-Write program and soon thereafter 
the program underwent a 10-week test in the school.
  The test was so successful that at the conclusion of the 10-week test 
run the school board adopted the program and fully implemented it for 
the 1996-97 school year. Since the program has been implemented, 
significant gains have become evident.
  Dr. McLaughlin also took the time to explain to me his previous 
experience as a principal at a neighboring high school upon which 
brought him to the conclusion something should be done about reading 
comprehension at the elementary level. As a high school principal, Dr. 
McLaughlin would continually see students entering his school 
unprepared to read and write effectively, and in many instances no 
where near grade level. The frustration he experienced seeing these 
kids struggle through high school without the necessary tools drove Dr. 
McLaughlin to seek a solution at Union Gap Elementary. As Dr. 
McLaughlin and other teachers at the elementary school know, once you 
teach a child to read that child has gained a skill he or she retained 
for a lifetime of enrichment.
  This instance is a clear example of the innovative work school 
districts are engaging in to improve the education of their students. 
Under the Gorton Amendment, Dr. McLaughlin and his school board would 
have the flexibility to expand this program if that is what they felt 
was in the best interest of their students. I doubt seriously that Dr. 
McLaughlin would consider tennis courts or swimming pools to be a 
priority.
  This issue boils down to each Senator asking if he or she believes 
schools will be improved through more control from Washington, DC, or 
by giving more control to parents, teachers, principals, 
superintendents, and school board members? I believe our best hope for 
improving the education of our children is to put the American people 
in charge of their local schools.
  Mr. President, I wonder if the minority manager will agree to a 
unanimous

[[Page S3385]]

consent agreement that I have 3 additional minutes on this amendment? I 
do see my colleague from Washington here. We are going forward with 
that amendment, and I would like just 3 minutes further to speak on 
this subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, my friend and colleague from North Dakota 
and I, together, less than 2 months ago, voted with 94 other Members of 
this Senate for a bill relating to transportation covering somewhat 
more than four times as many billions of dollars as this amendment 
does. Unlike the House of Representatives, we included no specific 
programs in that transportation bill. We decided there was a national 
purpose for transportation but that the priorities as to how that money 
for highways ought to be spent should be set by States--generally 
speaking, not by elected officials in those States, but usually by a 
highway bureaucracy.
  No one said that, because we weren't telling the States what roads to 
build, there was no national purpose and we should abandon 
transportation as a national issue. Yet the Senator from North Dakota 
says that, rather than give a three-way option to States with respect 
to $10 billion a year in education money, it would be philosophically 
more consistent to abandon the field because, after all, the States 
might set different priorities; maybe the States and local school 
districts don't care about drugs or don't care about disadvantaged 
students.
  Mr. President, that is a basic philosophical difference between us. 
The thought being expressed to me--that elected school board members 
and principals and teachers and parents and even State legislators 
don't care much about education or about education priorities--boggles 
the mind. We are the only people who do so? We are the only people who 
can set the way in which national priorities are carried out? We and 
bureaucrats at the Department of Education? Let me tell you, we come up 
with 7 percent of the money and 50 or 60 percent of the rules? In one 
field not covered by this, where the Senator from North Dakota did 
support me, we give 9 percent of the money for disabled education and 
we set rules that are so stringent that some school board members are 
saying they are going to defy those rules because they cannot provide 
for a safe environment for their students. In title I, the forms are 
exceeded only by IDEA.
  This proposal will allow schools to spend more money on disadvantaged 
students, more money on bilingual students, and do it in a way that 
suits the particular needs of the districts, if the State elects to do 
so. Any State that agrees with the position of Senator Dorgan is 
perfectly free to keep the present system. Any State that feels it can 
do a better job will be allowed to do a better job. And any State that 
feels its elected school board members can do a better job will be 
allowed to do that.
  Maybe Senator Dorgan is right. If so, we will learn by experiment. 
But unless we feel--with him and Senator Kennedy--that the present 
system is working magnificently, that our system of education is so 
good that it doesn't need to be changed or experimented with at all, we 
should reject this amendment.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Washington will 
allow me, by consent, 2 minutes to respond.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from Washington chooses an inappropriate 
example to begin with, the highway system. We provide Federal money to 
the State of Washington. But if I go to Washington and drive on roads 
that are constructed in the State of Washington by his State highway 
officials with Federal money, I know I am not going to drive on a 
roadbed of marshmallows or cork. Why? Because his highway officials 
must follow the Federal prescribed rules about what kind of highways 
they are going to build with those Federal funds.
  My only point is, if the Senator from Washington suggests that if, 
for example, the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program is not a national 
priority, let's give them the money for it but not require them to do 
it, I think that is a huge step backwards. Is it in most instances the 
case that people closer to the problem can spend the money more 
effectively? Absolutely. That is why almost all of elementary and 
secondary education is done and managed and controlled locally. But 
there are some programs of national interest for which we provide the 
financing and for which we hope there is a national purpose and to 
which we will have all school districts subscribe. That is the purpose 
for all this.

  I find it interesting. You could make the same case about food 
safety. You could have exactly the same debate. Say, do you think back 
home they are not concerned about food safety? Why do we need national 
food safety standards? Do you think back home in every State they are 
not concerned about food safety? Of course they are. Of course they 
are. But it is something of national interest and national importance, 
and that is the gap financing that is involved here with respect to 
these kinds of programs. Are they perfect? No. Should they be changed? 
Yes. Should we retreat from them? In my opinion, I think that would be 
a huge mistake.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
McConnell be added as a cosponsor to the Gorton amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, seeing there is the sponsor of another 
amendment here, I think proper procedure is to move to that amendment.
  Mr. President, I ask for a rollcall on the Gorton amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Gorton amendment 
is temporarily laid aside and the Senator from Washington, Senator 
Murray, is recognized to offer an amendment on which there shall be 30 
minutes equally divided.
  The Senator from Washington.


                           Amendment No. 2295

  (Purpose: To express the sense of Congress regarding reductions in 
                              class size)

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

       The Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2295.

  Mrs. MURRAY. 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 ____--SENSE OF CONGRESS

     SEC. ____01. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

       Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) Qualified teachers in small classes can provide 
     students with more individualized attention, spend more time 
     on instruction and less on other tasks, cover more material 
     effectively, and are better able to work with parents to help 
     the parents further their children's education.
       (2) Rigorous research has shown that students attending 
     small classes in the early grades make more rapid educational 
     progress than the students in larger classes, and that those 
     achievement gains persist through at least the 8th grade. For 
     example:
       (A) In a landmark 4-year experimental study of class size 
     reduction in grades kindergarten through grade 3 in 
     Tennessee, researchers found that students in smaller classes 
     earned significantly higher scores on basic skills tests in 
     all 4 years and in all types of schools, including urban, 
     rural, and suburban schools.
       (B) After 2 years in reduced class sizes, students in the 
     Flint, Michigan Public School District improved their reading 
     scores by 44 percent.
       (3) The benefits of smaller classes are greatest for lower-
     achieving, minority, poor, and inner-city children. One study 
     found that urban 4th-graders in smaller than average classes 
     were \3/4\ of a school year ahead of their counterparts in 
     larger than average classes.
       (4) Smaller classes allow teachers to identify and work 
     sooner with students who have learning disabilities and, 
     potentially, can reduce those students' need for special 
     education services in the later grades.
       (5) Students in smaller classes are able to become more 
     actively engaged in learning than their peers in large 
     classes.
       (6) Efforts to improve educational outcomes by reducing 
     class sizes in the early grades are likely to be successful 
     only if well-qualified teachers are hired to fill additional 
     classroom positions and if teachers received intensive, 
     continuing training in

[[Page S3386]]

     working effectively in smaller classroom settings.
       (7) State certified and licensed teachers help ensure high 
     quality instruction in the classroom.
       (8) According to the National Commission on Teaching and 
     America's Future, the most important influence on student 
     achievement is the expertise of their teachers. One New York 
     City study comparing high- and low-achieving elementary 
     schools with similar student characteristics, found that more 
     than 90 percent of the variation in achievement in 
     mathematics and reading was due to differences in teacher 
     qualifications.
       (9) Our Nation needs more qualified teachers to meet 
     changing demographics and to help students meet high 
     standards, as demonstrated by the following:
       (A) Over the next decade, our Nation will need to hire over 
     2,000,000 teachers to meet increasing student enrollments and 
     teacher retirements.
       (B) 1 out of 4 high school teachers does not have a major 
     or minor in the main subject that they teach. This is true 
     for more than 30 percent of mathematics teachers.
       (C) In schools with the highest minority enrollments, 
     students have less than a 50 percent chance of getting a 
     science or mathematics teacher who holds a degree in that 
     field.
       (D) In 1991, 25 percent of new public school teachers had 
     not completed the requirements for a license in their main 
     assignment field. This number increased to 27 percent by 
     1994, including 11 percent who did not have a license.
       (10) We need more teachers who are adequately prepared for 
     the challenges of the 21st century classroom, as demonstrated 
     by the fact that--
       (A) 50 percent of teachers have little or no experience 
     using technology in the classroom; and
       (B) in 1994, only 10 percent of new teachers felt they were 
     prepared to integrate new technology into their instruction.
       (11) Teacher quality cannot be further compromised to meet 
     the demographic demand for new teachers and smaller class 
     sizes. Comprehensive improvements in teacher preparation and 
     development programs are also necessary to ensure the 
     effectiveness of new teachers and the academic success of 
     students in the classroom. These comprehensive improvements 
     should include encouraging more institutions of higher 
     education that operate teacher preparation programs to work 
     in partnership with local educational agencies and elementary 
     and secondary schools; providing more hands-on, classroom 
     experience to prospective teachers; creating mentorship 
     programs for new teachers; providing high quality content 
     area training and classroom skills for new teachers; and 
     training teachers to incorporate technology into the 
     classroom.
       (12) Efforts should be made to provide prospective teachers 
     with a greater knowledge of instructional programs that are 
     research-based, of demonstrated effectiveness, replicable in 
     diverse and challenging circumstances, and supported by 
     networks of experts and experienced practitioners.
       (13) Several States have begun serious efforts to reduce 
     class sizes in the early elementary grades, but these actions 
     may be impeded by financial limitations or difficulties in 
     hiring qualified teachers.
       (14) The Federal Government can assist in this effort by 
     providing funding for class size reductions in grades 1 
     through 3, and by helping to ensure that the new teachers 
     brought into the classroom are well-qualified.

     SEC. ____02. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

       It is the sense of Congress that Congress should support 
     efforts to hire 100,000 new teachers to reduce class sizes in 
     first, second, and third grades to an average of 18 students 
     per class all across America.

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, we have been debating education policy 
for several days and actually several times over the last several 
months here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I am very excited about 
that, because one of the reasons I came here to the U.S. Senate was to 
make sure that we focus on real issues that affect everyday average 
families across our country. There is nothing more important to any 
parents than making sure, when they send their children off to school 
in the morning, that they get the kind of education that will mean they 
will be a success in this country.
  I am disappointed, however, that the bill before us, the Coverdell 
IRA proposal, will not provide that kind of quality education that 
parents are demanding. I believe it is a flawed policy which really 
will not make any meaningful difference for either private or public 
school students and their families. It is not a real results-driven 
proposal.
  Many of my colleagues have been out here on the floor over the last 
several days talking about what the IRA Coverdell proposal will do and 
that it will only mean $7 for a family in the future. Many of my 
colleagues have talked about how it will begin us on a road to publicly 
funding private schools, and the dangers of that.
  We can debate that. But I am here today to bring forward an amendment 
that I believe will make a substantial difference in our children's 
education across the country, and that is regarding the issue of class 
size. Ask any parent who sends his or her child off to school what 
question they ask when their child comes home on the first day of 
school. It is, ``How many kids are in your class?'' They ask that 
because they know it will make a difference in whether or not their 
child gets the attention and the education he or she needs throughout 
that entire school year. If there are 40 kids in the classroom, or 35 
kids in the classroom, your child will not get the kind of education 
and attention that he or she needs and deserves in this complex world 
that we live in today.
  My amendment that is before the Senate is a sense of the Congress 
that we should support efforts to hire 100,000 new teachers so that we 
can reduce class sizes in first, second and third grades to an average 
of 18 students per class all across America.
  This is simply a sense of the Congress saying this is the way we 
should move forward. We have been on the floor before to debate this 
issue, and this Congress has said no, they are not going to fund lower 
class sizes. I am back today because I believe this is the kind of 
difference that we can make, that we should make, and that we must 
make. Reducing class sizes will make a difference for children across 
the country.
  Will 100,000 teachers be enough? No, but it will be an impetus. This 
amendment simply will send a message that we understand the issue and 
we are willing to take it under consideration and move it forward.
  I know as a former educator what a difference it makes to have a 
smaller class size. I have taught 4-year-olds. I have had 18 children 
in my classroom. I have had 24 children in my classroom. It means the 
difference between having the time to work individually with students 
or simply having crowd control for the entire classroom.
  Every teacher of early grades will tell you the more time they have 
with their students, the better chance they have to make sure that all 
students will have the chance to learn to read, to learn to write, to 
learn the basic skills that will mean that they are a success 
throughout their later years. It also means that those teachers will 
have the time to deal with the complex problems that come before them 
as a teacher in our classrooms.
  I distinctly remember one time I had with a class when I had a young 
student come to class and we were in the process of talking about the 
alphabet. We were talking about one of the letters. I was talking with 
my young children about different words that begin with the letter A, 
and all of a sudden a young child in my classroom just simply blurted 
out to me, ``My dad didn't come home last night; he was arrested.'' My 
entire class stopped. How could I have talked about the alphabet? How 
could I have talked about the words that started with the letter A?
  I had a devastated child in my classroom of 24. Yet, I could not take 
the time to sit with him and work with him because I had 23 other 
children in my classroom who needed attention and whose parents wanted 
them to learn about the alphabet.
  That child probably went on to a very troubled adulthood. We could 
have made a difference simply by having fewer students in the 
classroom, by simply having the time to deal with these kind of 
problems. Don't just take it from me as a former educator, take it from 
the studies.
  I have submitted a number of studies in the past as I have talked 
about this issue on this floor. A 1989 study of the Tennessee STAR 
Program which compared the performance of students in grades K through 
3 in small and regular size classes found that students in small 
classes of 13 to 17 students significantly outperformed other students 
in math and reading every year at all grade levels across all 
geographic areas.
  My sense of the Congress simply says we understand this is 
significant. It says we in the Senate want to make a difference in the 
learning of American children, and we want to move forward on the 
progress of reducing class size and take that on as an issue in this 
country.

[[Page S3387]]

  I have talked about it as an educator. I have talked about the 
studies many times that prove what I say, but we should also be 
listening to other people. I know that when we were here a month ago 
and debating, I submitted a number of letters from different teachers 
from across my State and across this country, but I want to 
specifically have printed today a letter, and I ask unanimous consent 
that a letter to the editor by State Senator Al Bauer be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the letter to the editor was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

                  [From the Columbian, April 15, 1998]

                       Murray Has the Right Idea

       The April 5 editorial, ``Patty Murray's teacher plan is 
     costly mandate,'' criticized the plan by U.S. Sen. Patty 
     Murray, D-Wash., for the federal government to hire 100,000 
     new teachers to reduce class sizes nationwide.
       The editorial warned that ``unintended consequences can 
     destroy any attempt at progress,'' noting that a school 
     district in the Seattle area cut early childhood education 
     for at-risk youngsters because of its decision to reduce 
     class sizes.
       The criticism makes the best case for Murray's proposal. If 
     that school district had the additional federally funded 
     teachers to reduce class sizes in all grades, it would not 
     have to negatively impact Head Start and at-risk programs. 
     Matter of fact, the district could also improve those 
     programs by smaller class sizes.
       As for the criticism that 100,000 new teachers would need 
     that many more new classrooms, teachers are creative enough 
     to develop curriculum around the needs of children without 
     additional classrooms.
       I visited several classrooms this year where two teachers 
     shared 46 or more students. With Murray's proposal, a third 
     teacher could be added to such a team, thereby reducing the 
     student-teacher ratio from one teacher for 22 students to one 
     for 15. We are not talking about added classrooms; we are 
     talking about more teacher time for each student so that 
     fewer students fall through the cracks.
       As for how Murray should pay for the additional teachers, 
     Congress should pay in the same way the members propose to 
     pay for a highway budget that is billions of dollars higher 
     than the balanced-budget agreement.
       It sounds like what happened in the State Legislature this 
     past session. The majority party refused the proposal by us 
     Democrats to spend $50 million more for class size 
     reductions, particularly in the early-grades. The majority 
     also decided to propose to the voters in November to transfer 
     currently used sources of revenue for education from the 
     general fund to the highway fund.
       The editorial correctly urges school districts to sue the 
     Legislature for underfunding education from the State level. 
     In 1977 the Legislature was sued, and the courts ruled that 
     it was the paramount duty of the Legislature to fully fund 
     kindergarten through grade-12 education. As a consequence, in 
     the Vancouver School District school levies dropped. A person 
     with a $50,000 home or property saved $254 a year.
       It is time to get the Legislature to live up to the court's 
     mandate. Where are our priorities? Children's education lasts 
     forever; asphalt lasts a few years.
       I am glad we have Murray in the U.S. Senate. By speaking 
     out for our most valuable assets, our children, she is 
     exerting the leadership on educational matters she 
     demonstrated while serving in the State Senate.--State Sen. 
     Al Bauer, Vancouver.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, Al Bauer is a former colleague of mine in 
the State Senate of Washington. He is also a former educator, and he 
speaks from his heart when he talks about education. He wrote in his 
letter that hiring more well-trained teachers will help school 
districts stave off cuts to other special programs for at-risk 
students. He argues that more teachers does not have to mean more 
classrooms. It is the number of well-trained adults in the room that is 
important, because students' access to time with the teacher is at the 
heart of learning. He argues that Congress can pay for class-size 
reductions if we can put billions of extra dollars into transportation.
  State Senator Al Bauer is absolutely right. The arguments against 
this proposal are not valid. It doesn't mean that we need more class 
space. It doesn't mean that we will siphon money from other places.
  It does mean that this Congress, this Senate, the people on this 
floor are listening to what parents and educators and people across 
this country are saying. When we send our children off to school, we 
want to know they are safe, we want to know they will learn, and we 
know they will be safe and they will learn and get the attention they 
need if we begin to focus on class size in this country.
  Now, a person could spend a year or a lifetime searching, and they 
would not be able to find someone who understands education in 
Washington state more deeply than Senator Al Bauer. And he happens to 
be a former educator, and he happens to be a Democrat. But Senator 
Bauer and I stood together in the state Senate, and we worked with our 
Republican colleagues to do everything we could to improve public 
education.
  He knows and I know that Republicans and Democrats in Washington 
state can work together. They have worked together to reduce class 
size, increase family involvement in school decisions, fund school 
construction, improve teacher quality, allow communities to set higher 
standards for students, publish school report cards, hold schools 
accountable for results, reward schools that do well and mediate 
schools that are failing, increase student's options about which school 
they attend.
  All these things were bipartisan proposals, based on what local 
school communities told us would work to improve results for students. 
And the great news is that many of these proposals have actually 
improved things in Washington state schools.
  And when I think about the partisan tone of this debate on education, 
and I look at the education IRA proposal which offers only a seven-
dollar a year solution to only a few families--I think of all the 
things we could be doing that would really make a difference for all 
students. And class size improvement is near the top of that list.
  I think it is important to listen to what educators say. I want to 
read to you what some of the educators have written to me as I have 
talked about this issue over the last several months.
  Larry Swift, who is the executive director of the Washington State 
School Directors' Association, wrote to me, and I especially appreciate 
his words because I am a former school board member and Larry Swift 
represents the school board members across my State. He says:

       As we pursue our state's goal of improving learning for all 
     of our students, it becomes increasingly important that all 
     of our resources be used efficiently and effectively. The 
     most valuable resource in today's schools is the people who 
     devote their time and effort to make schools successful--the 
     teachers. Reducing the ratio of students to adults is 
     particularly critical for youngsters with a variety of 
     learning challenges that must be overcome if those students 
     are to meet the new, higher learning standards.

  Mr. President, Larry Swift is right. Representing the school boards 
across my country, he makes a very clear case that increasing the 
number of teachers and reducing the class size is critical because we 
are requiring our young students to know more today than we ever have 
before in the history of this country.
  Let me also quote from Kenneth Winkes, who is the head of the 
Association of Washington State Principals. He represents all the 
principals in my State, and here is what they say:

       It is increasingly evident that students entering our 
     schools have diverse and unique needs which can only be 
     addressed by principals, teachers, and support personnel who 
     are not overwhelmed by crowded classrooms. Rather, educators 
     must be able to devote attention to each student in smaller, 
     more manageable classes.

  That is what principals say.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that four short statements be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                           Washington State School


                                       Directors' Association,

                                      Olympia, WA, March 20, 1998.
       ``As we pursue our state's goal of improving learning for 
     all of our students,'' Larry Swift, executive director of the 
     Washington State School Directors' Association, said, ``it 
     becomes increasingly important that all of our resources be 
     used efficiently and effectively. The most valuable resource 
     in today's schools is the people who devote their time and 
     effort to make schools successful--the teachers. Reducing the 
     ratio of students to adults is particularly critical for 
     youngsters with a variety of learning challenges that must be 
     overcome if those students are to meet the new, higher 
     learning standards.
       ``We acknowledge and commend Senator Murray for leading the 
     way to assuring that our students have the learning 
     environment and the human resources necessary for the kind of 
     schools that will provide the opportunities and training they 
     need to become successful,'' Swift said.
       The Washington State School Directors' Association is a 
     statewide organization representing all of the 1,482 locally-
     elected

[[Page S3388]]

     school board members from the state's 296 school districts. 
     WSSDA serves as an advocate for the state's public schools, 
     provides training and technical assistance for school board 
     members and is very active in the legislative process.
                                                                    ____

                                                The Association of


                                 Washington School Principals,

                                                      Olympia, WA.
       The Association of Washington School Principals (AWSP) is 
     strongly committed to supporting legislation which reduces 
     class size in our public school system. It is increasingly 
     evident that students entering our schools have diverse and 
     unique needs which can only be addressed by principals, 
     teachers, and support personnel who are not overwhelmed by 
     crowded classrooms. Rather, educators must be able to devote 
     attention to each student in smaller, more manageable 
     classes.
       Recent studies on reduced class size and their impact on 
     student performance, undertaken in Tennessee (STAR study) and 
     Wisconsin (SAGE study), speak to learner benefits in areas 
     such as reading, language arts, and math. In our own state of 
     Washington, reduction of class size and improved student 
     performance are priorities for both legislators and 
     educators.
       AWSP is convinced that class size reduction is essential if 
     our state's, and nation's, efforts towards school improvement 
     are to be successful. We appreciate and support Senator Patty 
     Murray's commitment to this end.
                                                                    ____



                             Washington Education Association,

                          Federal Way, WA, Friday, March 20, 1998.

        WEA President Applauds Sen. Murray's Work on Class Size


 Statement of Lee Ann Prielipp, president of the Washington Education 
Association, regarding Sen. Patty Murray's work to lower class sizes in 
                       Washington, March 20, 1998

       Every student deserves a safe and effective learning 
     environment, and we commend Sen. Murray's devotion to this 
     pressing issue. Washington currently has the fourth largest 
     class sizes in the United States, a dubious distinction which 
     we must work to change.
       When educators have too many students in a class, it is 
     hard for them to give each student the individual attention 
     that students need. It is this individual attention that is 
     at the heart of the learning process, and it is crucial in 
     helping our students succeed.
       The 65,000 members of WEA support Sen. Murray in her work 
     to lower class size in Washington. This is an issue that is 
     getting worse, and which we can no longer ignore. Thank you, 
     Senator Murray, for working to give our students the 
     education they need and deserve.
                                                                    ____

                                            American Federation of


                                                     Teachers,

                                   Washington, DC, March 20, 1998.

Statement by Sandra Feldman, President, American Federation of Teachers 
                        on Reducing Class Sizes

       Modern schools and more well-trained teachers are the right 
     antidote for the overcrowding that plagues too many American 
     schools. Research shows that youngsters, especially in the 
     early grades, perform better in smaller classes that allow 
     for greater one-on-one instruction. Smaller classes also help 
     teachers maintain discipline. Parents and teachers understand 
     this well, and that's why Senator Murray is absolutely 
     correct in supporting the President's proposal to provide 
     subsidies for school construction and to emphasize teacher 
     recruitment.
       Several new studies clearly demonstrate the link between 
     reduced class sizes and improved academic achievement. A 
     sampling:
       STAR, the highly reputed Tennessee class-size study, 
     analyzed the achievement levels of K-3 students randomly 
     assigned to classes of 13 to 17. Those in small classes did 
     much better than students in regular classes in math and 
     reading, every year and in all grades. The small classes made 
     the biggest difference in the scores of children in inner-
     city schools.
       SAGE, a Wisconsin program begun in 1996-97, reduces class 
     size for K-3 children in certain high-poverty schools. At the 
     end of the first year, SAGE kids had made significantly 
     greater improvements in reading, language arts, and math than 
     children had in similar schools.

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr, President, I have numerous quotes from teachers, and 
I can tell you from personal anecdotes, as I have talked with teachers 
throughout my State, it makes a difference when you have time, it makes 
a difference when you have to turn away three or four students with a 
question because you simply don't have time. We demand higher learning 
skills. We have a responsibility to do something about it. We can't 
just say, ``Oh, it's a local school district problem.'' ``Oh, it's a 
State problem.'' ``Oh, it's somebody else's problem.''
  We have a responsibility in the U.S. Senate as leaders in this 
country to send a message that we want to make a difference and we are 
listening to the people we represent that class size makes a 
difference.
  Let me also tell you what some students say, because I have a group 
of students who are my advisors. They are called my student advisory 
youth involvement team or SAYIT. I go to them and ask them to tell me 
what they think of the issues we are debating.
  On the issue of class size, this is what students say:
  Brook Bodnar, who is age 16, recently moved from a school with larger 
classes to Olympia High School which has smaller classes. She says:

       . . . with smaller classes I'm learning so much more. Class 
     is going so much faster.

  That is what a student says.
  Jared Stueckle, age 16, a junior at Selah High School, believes 
education should be a higher priority in funding and that class size is 
a good investment. Jared says:

       The classes in which the number (of students) is lower I 
     generally do better, but in a crowded class, the teacher does 
     not give us enough individual attention.

  I have numbers of comments from young students. They are excellent. I 
ask unanimous consent they be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                Class Size Reduction--What Students Say

       Meghan Sullivan, age 15, a 10th grader at Tumwater High 
     School, says: ``. . . reduction is needed especially at the 
     K-5 grade levels. This is the beginning of their education 
     and this is where they form study habits and learning skills, 
     so it's more important to get some one-on-one contact with 
     teachers.''
       Antonella Novi, age 18, a senior at Anacortes High School, 
     says: ``Smaller class sizes enrich the learning experience 
     for the student and the teaching experience for the 
     teacher.''
       Jaime Oberlander, age 16, a junior at Tumwater High School, 
     says: ``I know that I have learned more in smaller classes. I 
     have a stronger relationship with the teacher. I am less 
     intimidated to participate in class discussions or ask for 
     help when I need it. I also receive more feedback from my 
     teacher . . . my teacher can spend more time critiquing my 
     work and helping me to learn.''

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, if we listen to parents, if we listen to 
teachers, if we listen to principals, if we listen to school board 
members, and if we listen to our children, we will hear what the 
American public truly wants and knows is right. Parents say it, 
teachers say it, studies prove it: Smaller class sizes will make a 
difference in our children's ability to learn.
  My amendment simply says that it is the sense of the Congress that we 
will move forward in any way we can to make sure that class sizes in 
this country are reduced to manageable levels.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, we certainly concur with the Senator 
from Washington that class size is a fundamental ingredient, a concern 
to everyone. I will simply say that perhaps there are two very 
meaningful issues that would affect that.
  We have just spent over an hour discussing a real bullet that is not 
a sense of the Senate, it is a real bullet that would free up over $10 
billion to local schools to take care of whatever issue they have. If 
it is like the Senator from Missouri said, they had to have new 
classrooms before they could hire new teachers. They could not use the 
teachers if they did not get the classrooms.
  The Gorton amendment which has just been discussed would send over 
$10 billion to local schools to do just what the Senator from 
Washington wants to have done. They would be in a position and be freed 
to have resources to reduce their class size or to make more efficient 
the facilities for teaching in these local school districts.
  In a moment we will hear from the Senator from Arkansas, who brings a 
very meaningful perspective to moving these resources directly to 
classrooms and not letting it get siphoned off en route.
  So, Mr. President, with these two points--we have just spent an hour 
addressing the issue that the amendment of the Senator from Washington 
alludes to, and we have a real solution here that will be before us 
this afternoon that really gets to the problem--I yield the remainder 
of my time to the Senator from Arkansas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the last

[[Page S3389]]

minute of our time be reserved for Senator Coverdell from Georgia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I thank the Senator for yielding.
  While no one questions the sincerity of the desire of my colleague 
from Washington to lower the class size and the student-teacher ratio, 
I think it once again reveals the huge philosophic chasm that has been 
evident time and time again during this debate on education and the 
amendments that have been offered on the floor of the Senate, the 
difference between the approach and the philosophy that we can best do 
things controlled out of Washington, DC, that knowledge and wisdom 
flows from this city and this institution, and that we want to 
concentrate the power and the control over education in this country in 
Washington.
  The effort here to support the President's plan for hiring 100,000 
new teachers at the Federal level, I think, is once again evidence that 
those of us who believe that there needs to be flexibility with local 
control cannot accept this as moving in the right direction.
  One size does not always fit all. While some schools may benefit from 
reduced class sizes, other schools may not benefit from reduced class 
sizes. In fact most teachers--most teachers --in this country are 
satisfied with current class sizes.
  For example, according to a survey by the Department of Education, 79 
percent of the teachers in my home State of Arkansas are satisfied with 
current class sizes--79 percent. My sister teaches in public school in 
Rogers, AR. There are many things that my sister is not satisfied with 
about education in Arkansas. I know that is true of public school 
teachers all across the State of Arkansas. There are many things they 
would like to change and improve. But 79 percent said that that is one 
area that they currently are satisfied with, that the student-teacher 
ratio is not the big problem in education in Arkansas.
  Over three-quarters of the teachers in Connecticut, Kansas, Montana, 
Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming are satisfied with the 
current class size ratio.
  Nationally--I would call the attention of my colleagues--nationally 
65 percent of teachers are satisfied with current class sizes. So I 
suggest if there is a crisis in class size, if there is one group in 
this country that would know, it would be the teachers of this country. 
And the teachers of this country are saying that is one area where 
there is not a crisis. Thus the Washington-knows-best proposal to hire 
100,000 new teachers does not make any sense.
  Class size does not always mean better education. Many schools with 
small class sizes have poor achievement results, and vice versa. For 
example, once again according to the Department of Education, 
Washington, DC, schools have one of the lowest average class sizes in 
the Nation but ranks near the bottom in academic achievement; while 
Utah ranks near the bottom in class size ratio but ranks very high in 
student achievement. There is not a direct and definite correlation.
  I further point out that average class size has already dropped 
significantly over the past 40 years and we have not seen a 
corresponding improvement in student achievement. Average class size 
has dropped from 27 to 1 in 1955, to 21 in 1975, to 17.3 today. Isn't 
it interesting that over the last 40 years, while we have seen class 
sizes consistently drop from 27 to 21 to 17.3, that student achievement 
scores--student achievement--have been dropping during that same 40-
year period?

  Average elementary class size has dropped from 30.2 in 1955 to 18.5 
today, a dramatic drop in class sizes on the elementary level, and once 
again we have student achievement scores falling at the same time. 
According to the Department of Education, most States already have 
average class sizes of 18 or less.
  Although elementary classes are a little bit larger, the national 
average now is 17.3, with the lowest being in New Jersey and Vermont at 
13.8, and the highest being in California at 24 and Utah at 23.8 and 
Washington State at 20.4.
  The average elementary class size--18.5--due to demographics alone, 
is projected to fall over the next 10 years without any massive 
infusion of teachers from the Federal level. We will, because of 
demography, see the class sizes at the elementary level continue to 
drop. Many States, independent of the Federal Government, independently 
of anything we do, are already taking actions to reduce class size. My 
point being, we do not need a new Federal program to hire teachers when 
the States are already addressing this problem. We should not be 
imposing this from the Federal level.
  Five States--California, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and 
Wisconsin--have already taken dramatic steps to reduce class size by 
hiring thousands of new teachers in their States. These States are 
hiring teachers, and they are doing it with State dollars.
  Senator Moseley-Braun yesterday shared convincing pictures that her 
State needs to use Federal money, if it gets it, for school 
construction and repair. I do not agree with a Federal program to do 
that. But Illinois has an average class size of 17. Their great need, 
according to Senator Moseley-Braun, is not for an infusion of teachers. 
Their great need is actually in school construction.
  That is the beauty of the Gorton approach. That is the beauty of the 
dollars-to-the-classrooms approach. I have a bill we introduced that 
would ensure that the money actually reaches the local level and that 
the local decisionmakers have the right to decide where the need is and 
how that money should be spent.
  Washington, DC, needs funds for school repair, textbooks and other 
supplies in the District right here. The great need is not for more 
teachers in the Nation's Capital. The great need is school repair, 
textbooks, other supplies, perhaps computers. They already have an 
average class size of 15 in the District. And so what do we say? 
``Well, let's hire 100,000 new teachers.'' That is not the great need 
here in our Nation's Capital. That is not the great need in the State 
of Arkansas.
  There are many needs in education, some of them being resource 
oriented. But for us to have a one-size-fits-all solution from 
Washington is not the direction we need to be going.
  A new Federal teacher program would further add to the paperwork 
burden that our teachers already complain about, thus increasing the 
true cost of this program and reducing its effectiveness. As we have 
heard so often in this debate, we provide 6, 7 percent of local school 
funding but we provide 50 to 60 percent of their regulations and their 
paperwork burden.
  So what do we come up with? Another Federal solution with more 
paperwork and more regulations on that local level. New Federal 
programs require new Federal bureaucrats to administer the program. We 
have already placed an enormously heavy burden upon those local 
teachers, and we don't need to siphon off scarce Federal dollars going 
to the States currently to start a new program hiring large numbers of 
teachers with Federal dollars.
  My sister, Gerri, teaches at the Reagan Elementary Public School in 
Rogers, AR. She reflects the attitude of 79 percent of the teachers in 
Arkansas that class size is not the big problem that she faces. 
Discipline, yes; many other needs, yes. Class size is not at the top of 
the list. Arkansas has made great strides. I think we rank 28th in 
student-teacher ratio nationally. Twenty-eighth is not great, but it is 
far better than we are in many other categories, including academic 
scores and the percentage going on to college and so forth. So while we 
have many challenges, we wouldn't put class size at the top of the 
list. We couldn't. I have never heard my sister complain once about the 
size of her class.
  I believe the Gorton amendment that we will vote on later today--the 
dollars to the classroom bill, legislation that I have introduced, that 
would ensure that 95 cents out of every dollar, Federal dollar, would 
actually reach the classroom and local control--is a far better 
approach. Allow local school boards, allow classroom teachers, greater 
discretion, greater flexibility on how those dollars are used, greater 
flexibility with fewer Federal mandates. Perhaps they need to paint the 
classroom. Perhaps they need to buy a computer. Perhaps they need to 
hire a tutor. Perhaps they have another local need. But what we don't 
need to do is to start a new Federal program and to hire massive 
numbers of new teachers from the Federal level.

[[Page S3390]]

  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 3 minutes remaining, and the 
other side has 2 minutes 47 seconds.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I listened with interest to my colleague from the other side of the 
aisle debate the issue of whether or not we as parents across this 
country believe that our class sizes should be reduced and that it will 
make a difference. I heard numbers that don't take into account what is 
really happening, because that is the number of adults in a school that 
my colleague from Arkansas referred to--the nurses, the counselors, 
librarians, social workers. What we are talking about here is the need 
to put new teachers across this country into classrooms so we can 
reduce class size.
  I speak to all of the people who are listening to this debate today. 
When you hear somebody say your class sizes are the right size, think 
about how many kids are in the classroom in your local school; think of 
the amount of attention they are getting; think about whether or not 
they are getting the skills that you as a parent want them to get. If 
you agree with me that class size reduction will make a difference, 
call this Senate and let us know. Call this Senate and let us know. 
People across this country need to let us know that you recognize it is 
our responsibility as adults at every level to make sure that our 
children are getting a good education. Parents know it, teachers know 
it, and studies show it: Class size reduction makes a difference. We 
can't pass this off and say it is somebody else's responsibility; it is 
our responsibility.
  I heard my colleague say there is a philosophical difference. You bet 
there is a philosophical difference. There is a philosophical 
difference between those who believe we should go down a path of block 
grants and cuts, meaning high-need students will get less. There is a 
proposal that we eliminate the Department of Education and no longer 
even say public education is in the domain of this country or that we 
care about it as a priority.
  This current budget that was passed by the Republicans just a short 
time ago cut education by $2.2 billion. The IRA proposal in front of us 
that takes us down a road where somebody gets $7 in the year 2002 for 
education, it is a narrow road that says in the future only a few 
children will get a good education.
  The philosophy I believe is that every child, no matter who they are, 
where they come from, or how much money they have in these United 
States of America, will be able to get a good public education. We can 
do that by reducing class size, by rebuilding our crumbling schools, by 
making an investment in our teachers and training them with the skills 
they need to teach our children. That is the philosophy that will make 
sure we have a strong democracy in the future.
  I hope that parents across this country weigh in on this debate. It 
is a critical one for the future of all of us.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  The Senator from Arkansas has 1 minute 47 seconds remaining.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Let me respond to a couple of points. The Senator 
from Washington said the figures I used speak of a number of adults in 
the school system. That is not the fact. The Department of Education 
has provided these figures, and it speaks of class size. Average class 
size has dropped from 27 in 1955 to 17.3 today. That is class size. It 
has dropped dramatically. And while it has dropped dramatically, 
student achievement has decreased. Twenty-one countries tested in the 
12th grade math and science competency; the United States ranked 19th. 
There is no disputing our schools have problems, but it is also very 
evident that simply reducing class size, as we have done over the last 
40 years, will not be the magic bullet. It will not be the panacea that 
suddenly is going to give us great academic achievement.
  What we do need is, in fact, greater local control, greater 
flexibility. The issue is not, as my colleague tried to make it, 
whether we will eliminate the Department of Education; that is a red 
herring, a straw man.
  The issue and the debate is whether we are going to provide greater 
flexibility and greater control at the local level, or whether we 
continue down the path that Washington, DC, is the fount of all wisdom, 
have all our solutions float from the Nation's Capitol, and it is so 
evidently demonstrated we don't solve the problem, and in many cases we 
simply exacerbate them.
  I suggest this is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that is, while 
well motivated, ill conceived and takes us down the road of further 
federalizing education, placing greater mandates and greater burdens 
upon local teachers while not appreciably addressing the educational 
problems we face in this country.
  I ask my colleagues to consider there is a better way.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Arkansas has 
expired.


                Amendment No. 2296 to Amendment No. 2295

   (Purpose: Expressing the sense of Congress that the Department of 
   Education, States, and local educational agencies should spend a 
 greater percentage of Federal education tax dollars in our children's 
                              classrooms)

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I have a second-degree amendment that I send to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia has reserved 1 
minute.
  Does the Senator from Arkansas yield that back?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I yield that back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2296 to amendment numbered 2295.

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. 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 ``TITLE ____'' and insert the following:
                          --SENSE OF CONGRESS

     SEC. ____01. FINDINGS.

       Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) The people of the United States know that effective 
     teaching takes place when the people of the United States 
     begin (A) helping children master basic academics, (B) 
     engaging and involving parents, (C) creating safe and orderly 
     classrooms, and (D) getting dollars to the classroom.
       (2) Our Nation's children deserve an educational system 
     which will provide opportunities to excel.
       (3) States and localities must spend a significant amount 
     of Federal education tax dollars applying for and 
     administering Federal education dollars.
       (4) Several States have reported that although the States 
     receive less than 10 percent of their education funding from 
     the Federal Government, more than 50 percent of their 
     paperwork is associated with those Federal dollars.
       (5) While it is unknown exactly what percentage of Federal 
     education dollars reaches the classroom, a recent audit of 
     New York City public schools found that only 43 percent of 
     their local education budget reaches the classroom; further, 
     it is thought that only 85 percent of funds administered by 
     the Department of Education for elementary and secondary 
     education reach the school district level; and even if 65 
     percent of Federal education funds reach the classroom, it 
     still means that billions of dollars are not directly spent 
     on children in the classroom.
       (6) American students are not performing up to their full 
     academic potential, despite the more than 760 Federal 
     education programs, which span 39 Federal agencies at the 
     price of nearly $100,000,000,000 annually.
       (7) According to the Digest of Education Statistics, in 
     1993 only $141,598,786,000 out of $265,285,370,000 spent on 
     elementary and secondary education was spent on instruction.
       (8) According to the National Center for Education 
     Statistics, in 1994 only 52 percent of staff employed in 
     public elementary and secondary school systems were teachers.
       (9) Too much of our Federal education funding is spent on 
     bureaucracy, and too little is spent on our Nation's youth.
       (10) Getting 95 percent of Department of Education 
     elementary and secondary education funds to the classroom 
     could provide approximately $2,094 in additional funding per 
     classroom across the United States.
       (11) More education funding should be put in the hands of 
     someone in a child's classroom who knows the child's name.
       (12) President Clinton has stated: ``We cannot ask the 
     American people to spend more on education until we do a 
     better job with the money we've got now.''.
       (13) President Clinton and Vice President Gore agree that 
     the reinventing of public education will not begin in 
     Washington but in communities across the United States and

[[Page S3391]]

     that the people of the United States must ask fundamental 
     questions about how our Nation's public school systems' 
     dollars are spent.
       (14) President Clinton and Vice President Gore agree that 
     in an age of tight budgets, our Nation should be spending 
     public funds on teachers and children, not on unnecessary 
     overhead and bloated bureaucracy.

     SEC. ____02. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

       It is the sense of Congress that the Department of 
     Education, States, and local educational agencies should work 
     together to ensure that not less than 95 percent of all funds 
     appropriated for the purpose of carrying out elementary and 
     secondary education programs administered by the Department 
     of Education is spent for our Nation's children in their 
     classrooms.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 30 minutes of debate equally divided 
on this amendment.
  The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. There is no doubt we are facing a crisis in American 
education, a crisis that is putting us at risk economically. While it 
has been 15 years since the education alarm was sounded in this Nation 
with the report, ``A Nation at Risk,'' most indicators show that U.S. 
education is still desperately in need of repair.
  As I have suggested, mandating the hiring of 100,000 new teachers at 
the Federal level is not the right answer. I further suggest there is a 
better way, and that is the dollars to the classroom. If we can take 
the limited Federal dollars--and I think that is about 67 percent of 
local funding of the schools right now--if we can take those dollars 
and assure they actually reach the classroom, we will be far better 
off. Keep the local control. It will mean more money at the local 
level.
  So the sense-of-the-Senate resolution that I am offering as a 
perfecting second-degree amendment would simply say that we will make 
our efforts to ensure that 95 cents out of every dollar actually 
reaches the classroom. Right now, money does not reach the classroom. 
It is estimated between 15 percent and 35 percent of Federal funds 
spent on education never reaches the classroom. My colleagues, that is 
absolutely amazing. That is astounding, that 15 to 35 percent of 
Federal funds spent on education never reach the classroom. That is as 
much as $5.4 billion of taxpayer money targeted to education that will 
get lost in nothing but bureaucracy. School systems waste their own 
money on Federal paperwork. Federal paperwork burdens account for 50 
percent of paperwork completed at the State education agencies, yet 
only 6 percent of their funds come from the Federal Government.
  Federal money is wasted--wasted over and over again. If we can take a 
look at this chart, we have a little example of where some of those 
Federal dollars are wasted. There are 21,922 publications listed by the 
Department. What are some of those publications that our tax dollars 
are being spent on?
  They include: 140 studies on checklists; 13 studies on welding; 260 
studies on surveys; 100 studies on education researchers researching 
their research techniques; and 3 studies entitled ``Cement: The 
Concrete Experience.''
  If there were any other evidence necessary to demonstrate that the 
solution doesn't come from Washington, DC, I don't know what it would 
be. This should be sufficient. Is it any wonder that only 65 cents out 
of every dollar actually reaches the classroom when we are spending 
Federal education dollars in these ways? Again, three studies were 
entitled, ``Cement: The Concrete Experience.''
  We also spend Federal education dollars for closed captioning of 
programs like Baywatch, Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Hard Copy, and 
MTV's Real World. Those are some of the areas where I believe we are 
currently wasting valuable and precious tax dollars.
  So we find that between 15 and 35 percent of these funds are consumed 
at the Federal bureaucracy. So $5.4 billion of taxpayer money targeted 
to education will get lost in the bureaucracy. Federal money is wasted 
time and time again. The fact is that a large portion of Federal 
education dollars support this huge and growing Federal and State 
education bureaucracy.
  The question boils down to how we spend the money, not how much we 
spend. We throw money at problem after problem and find that the 
problems simply get worse. Even the President said this: ``We cannot 
ask the American people to spend more on education until we do a better 
job with the money we have got now.'' So I believe the solution--or at 
least a step in the right direction is the dollars-to-the-classroom 
proposal. The fact is that those closest to the students are the 
parents. That is the first and best ``department of education'' that 
has ever existed. And the teachers who spend every day in that 
classroom with those children and the school administrators know best 
the individual needs of the students. That is why I am offering this 
sense-of-the-Senate resolution.
  Under the sense-of-the-Senate resolution, we urge that 95 percent of 
Federal funds should go to the classroom. If 95 percent went to the 
classroom, each class would have an additional $2,094 to spend on their 
particular needs.
  I will show this chart to my colleagues. Under the dollars-to-the-
classroom amendment, simply go through the figures. The number of 
students in K through 12 in the United States is 51.7 million. 
Elementary and secondary Department of Education outlays for fiscal 
year 1997, according to CBO, were $15.04 billion. The current estimate 
of above-mentioned dollars to the classrooms, the 65 percent that 
actually make it to the classroom under current policies, is $9.78 
billion. The goal of the above-mentioned dollars to the classrooms, 95 
percent, would be $14.29 billion that would get to the classroom. So 
the added dollars for use in the classroom are over $4.5 billion. That 
is without any new taxes. Without any new appropriations necessary, we 
would free up $4.5 billion for use in the classroom to be determined by 
the local school boards as to how that money could best be spent. That 
could be the hiring of additional teachers. It could be that in some 
school districts the great need is to lower classroom sizes. It could 
also be that they need to build a new school building or purchase some 
computers. It could be that they need to hire a tutor to help in a 
particular academic area. Additional dollars per student under this 
formula of 95 percent would be $89.23 per student. Average class size 
is 23.2 for teachers in departments, 25.2 for self-employed--
approximately 24 children per class. If you multiply by 24, you come 
out with over $2,000 per classroom.
  I suggest to my colleagues that that is a far wiser approach than 
starting a new Federal program. The classroom is where learning occurs. 
It is where knowledge grows. It is not in some stuffy office in 
Washington where 35 cents out of every dollar is currently being spent. 
Thus, we should get the money away from Washington and drive it to the 
classrooms through that block grant approach that has been so 
ridiculed. We would be able to accomplish that, where local school 
boards or the States would be able to make those decisions.

  This resolution--it is only a sense of the Senate--lays the 
groundwork for getting education dollars to the schools, where local 
officials and parents and teachers can decide how best to spend the 
money. The question is, whom do we trust? Do we trust Washington, or 
local school boards, local schools, teachers and parents? A vote for 
this perfecting second-degree amendment is a vote for the classroom in 
your States and a vote against bureaucracy. That is the question. Do 
you want it down in the classroom or do you want to have another 
Federal bureaucracy hiring more teachers, another overlay, another step 
in federalizing education in this country?
  I ask my colleagues to support this sense-of-the-Senate resolution on 
dollars to the classroom, where the money can best be used, where the 
decisions can best be made.
  I reserve the remainder of my time, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas has 7 minutes 
remaining.
  Who yields time in opposition?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes. But I see the 
Senator from Washington on her feet at this time. Maybe she would like 
to address this and then I will make some brief comments about it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, we have had a brief chance to take a look 
at this amendment. We have not seen it before 10 minutes ago. We are 
looking at the language now.
  The Senator from Arkansas says that he wants 95 percent of the money 
to go

[[Page S3392]]

to classrooms. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. In fact, it 
is my understanding that much more than that--in fact, 98 percent of 
Federal funds actually go to school districts and classrooms. So what 
he is asking for currently is in place.
  We go back to why I originally put this amendment before us, which is 
the fact that we have classrooms that are overcrowded, classrooms where 
children are not learning. We have classrooms where we as elected 
officials are demanding that our students learn math, reading, and 
language skills but simply do not have the ability to do it because of 
overcrowded classrooms.
  Mr. President, we will continue to take a look at this language. I 
yield to my colleague from Massachusetts for a comment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the amendment of the Senator from 
Washington is really targeted on a key area of educational policy--that 
is, the reduced class size--for all the reasons she eloquently 
presented to the Senate just a few moments ago. It is a time-tested way 
of enhancing academic achievement and accomplishment for our public 
schools. The fact is that she has taken this proposal, offered it to 
the Senate so that we would have an opportunity to state whether we 
believe that smaller class size would be useful and helpful, 
particularly in the early grades. That is what this is really targeted 
on.
  The Senator from Arkansas has come in and offered an amendment that 
effectively vitiates her amendment, by saying that we should be 
committed to at least 95 cents of the educational dollar going into the 
classroom. Well, we are in favor of that. This is a rather clever way, 
evidently, by our Republican friends of trying to obscure the issue of 
whether smaller class size is an important educational tool.
  We agree that 95 percent of the funds ought to go to the classrooms. 
In many programs, it's more than 95 percent; 98 percent goes through to 
the classrooms. So why the Senator has made this proposal is to wipe 
out the Murray amendment. Let's not fool ourselves. We can stand up 
here all day long and say how we want to preserve taxpayer funding to 
targeted areas in educational programs. We are for it. We are all for 
it. It is not a new idea. It has already been accepted in the House of 
Representatives. We hope there will be a voice vote on it. But we ask 
the Senator, why attempt to vitiate the excellent program or deny the 
Senator the opportunity to get a vote on her program for smaller class 
size?
  That is what you are basically about. Let's not kid ourselves. Let's 
not stand up here and take the time of the U.S. Senate and try to say 
we are all for trying to get the money into the classroom. We are all 
for that. The Senator has the legitimacy to take the time of the Senate 
to do so. We are for it. But what you should say is: By accepting my 
amendment, we effectively emasculate the Murray amendment, which has 
tried to put the Senate on record saying that smaller classrooms can be 
one of a number of tools to try to enhance academic achievement and 
accomplishment.
  You are effectively trying to deny that. Let's call a spade a spade. 
That is why I certainly hope that we have every intention of getting a 
vote on the Murray concept. We will have that opportunity to do so at 
some time. I hope we will persevere.

  I think the amendment of the Senator from Washington is a carefully 
crafted amendment and that we in this body understand the importance of 
moving towards smaller class size. I heard the Senator eloquently speak 
from her own personal experience. There isn't a Member in this body who 
can speak with the personal experience of the Senator from Washington. 
She has been in the classroom. She has been in large classes and in 
smaller classes and has been a school board member. There isn't a 
Member in the Senate who can claim those kinds of credentials. She 
knows about this as an important concept.
  We are not going to be denied by any Senator in here from at least 
getting an opportunity to vote on that. You can try what you like, but 
you are not going to be successful. I hope we can get beyond the chaff 
that is out here and get to the real wheat, which is the Senator's 
amendment.
  If the Senator wants to have a vote on his, good. I hope we would get 
on with it, if we are serious about having an education debate. But 
make no mistake about it. The thrust of the Senator's amendment is to 
effectively deny the Senate an opportunity to vote on the Murray 
amendment because we all virtually agree. I have not heard a voice out 
here that isn't going to support the Senator's amendment, which is 
about 95 cents out of every dollar going to the classroom. That is not 
what this is about. It is to deny the Senator from Washington of having 
a fair chance to have her amendment heard. We know our Republican 
friends are so tied up with this idea of using scarce resources for 
private schools, and we know the drive that has in terms of the whole 
Coverdell proposal. But they want to deny even the opportunity for the 
Senate to address in a short period of time a very important and 
significant educational policy issue. Even under these restrictive 
rules, which we had to agree to, they are not going to be able to 
prohibit the Senator from getting a vote on it.
  I hope that we do that in a way that will be accommodated. We can do 
it nice or do it rough. But we are going to get a vote on it. The 
Senator can make up his mind which way he wants to play with it.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, may I inquire? What time is available, 
without consuming time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington controls 8 
minutes; the Senator from Arkansas is in control of 7 minutes.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Arkansas may want to 
respond. But let me make a point that his amendment essentially, as the 
Senator from Massachusetts says, wipes out the Murray amendment dealing 
with class size and 100,000 teachers and reducing the class size of 
first, second, and third grades to an average of 18 students.
  The point I made the other day is that this debate is about the 
priorities of need in education. The Senator from Georgia brings a bill 
to the floor and says the priority of need is a provision for a tax 
credit, the bulk of which will go to wealthy folks who send kids to 
private schools. That is his priority of need. It is not me saying 
that; it is now the Department of Treasury saying that of the 
legislation.
  The Senator from Washington says there is another need. We talked 
earlier about school construction. The President and the Senator from 
Washington has done a lot of work on this issue and talk about the need 
to reduce the class size of first, second, and third grades. We know 
that makes a difference in education. That is not rocket science. We 
know that works. That makes a difference in education.

  The second-degree perfecting amendment that has been offered 
essentially obliterates this and takes it out. The Senator from 
Massachusetts just indicated--he is absolutely correct--that we are 
going to get a vote on the amendment offered by the Senator from 
Washington, Senator Murray. We have a right to get that vote. We will, 
because the Senator from Arkansas says he wants to obliterate that 
amendment. We will then come back and offer a second-degree at the end 
of his amendment, and we will get this vote later now rather than 
sooner. But we will get it.
  So I don't have any objection to somebody coming to the floor saying 
let's have 99 percent of the money spent on education going into the 
classroom. I have no objection to that. I have no objection to his 
amendment at all. What I object to is he comes to the floor and says--
by the way, the Senator from Washington worked on this for some while, 
and it was one called for in the President's State of the Union 
Address--we will just wipe that out. That is not part of the unanimous 
consent. She has a right to vote on it. What we will do at 11:30 in the 
morning is just wipe it out.
  Finally, let me propound a parliamentary inquiry, if I might, to the 
Presiding Officer. Is it not the case that the Senator from Washington 
will be able to offer a second-degree amendment at the end of the 
perfecting amendment providing this perfecting amendment is approved by 
the Senate at some appropriate point in this process and get a vote on 
the second-degree amendment?

[[Page S3393]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Upon disposition or taking care of the 
Hutchinson second-degree, other second-degrees would be in order.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. How much time do I control?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seven minutes.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the 
remainder of the time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, as I began my remarks, I was not 
trying to play dirty pool, or something, as the Senator from 
Massachusetts has suggested. The rules are the rules. The rules allow 
me to offer a second-degree amendment. As I expressed at the very 
beginning, I think there is a big philosophic difference as to how we 
improve education in this country because I don't believe that a 
Federal program of 100,000 new teachers is the best way to do it. It 
doesn't mean that I somehow am playing dirty pool. We have a great 
difference of opinion as to what is the best approach.
  Everybody stands up and says what we want in this case is to just 
lower the class size and we are going to have better schools. No one 
deals with the figures. No one deals with the facts that I have given. 
I wish somebody would. The Department of Education gives us figures 
saying from 1955, when the class size average was 27 in this country 
until the current time when the average size is 18.5 in elementary, 
17.3 overall, that we have seen class size drop now by over 10 per 
class size. During the same 40-year period, we have seen academic 
achievement decrease.
  Furthermore, I wish somebody would explain this to me. Here in 
Washington, DC, we have one of the lowest average class sizes in the 
Nation--13. Yet, our Nation's Capital ranks near the bottom in academic 
achievement. If this is the solution, why 100,000? Let's hire 200,000, 
if the solution to education in this country is getting class sizes 
down. Let's get it down to 10. But the fact is we have seen class sizes 
drop and drop and drop, and at the same time we have seen academic 
scores--nationalized achievement tests--drop and drop and drop. What do 
we do? Let's hire more teachers. That is bound to help. Yet, no one 
wants to deal with the issue. They just want to say this isn't right, 
that you should offer a second-degree amendment.
  By the way, I am so glad about the endorsement of the 95 cents out of 
every dollar going to classrooms. There is legislation that would do 
that. I expect now--as Senator Dorgan says--I don't think they actually 
will but I hope that we get the dollars for the classrooms and allow us 
to get that money to the classrooms. It is a better approach.
  In Utah, the State of Utah ranks near the bottom in class size. In 
fact, I think it was 48th in class size. Yet, they are at the top 
nationally in student achievement. But the way we are going to solve 
the school problems in this country is hire more teachers.

  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. No, I will not yield for questions at this time. I 
resent the implication that somehow I have violated the comity of the 
process by offering a second-degree amendment which sincerely reflects 
my desire to address the education problems in this Nation in what I 
believe is a better way and my sincere--my sincere--reluctance to 
further federalize education in this country by hiring 100,000 new 
teachers with Federal funds. I think it is the wrong direction.
  I think it is the right of any Senator to come and propose a better 
way.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas has 3 minutes 1 
second remaining.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I will yield for a question.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Arkansas has offered an 
amendment that strikes the amendment offered by the Senator from 
Washington. We had a unanimous consent agreement in this Chamber on how 
we were going to handle amendments. It provided that she was going to 
have an opportunity to offer her amendment and get a vote on her 
amendment. I didn't use the words ``dirty pool.'' The Senator did. But 
my point is, if we had an agreement that she was going to be able to 
offer this amendment on the Senate floor and the Senator comes and 
strikes her amendment, it seems to me that is not what we agreed to 
some long while ago when we agreed to the rules of this debate.
  The Senator is within his rights of offering the second degree. I 
don't disagree. But my point is the Senator comes to the floor, not 
just advancing his ideas, but essentially prevents her from getting a 
vote on her amendment because the Senator strikes the Murray amendment.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am not sure what the question is. I yielded for a 
question.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. Let me ask a question. And while you do this you make the 
point apparently larger class sizes are better. Do you believe that?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I have not made that point, as we all well know. Let 
me say again, what I think I demonstrated very, very clearly is that 
there is no evidence that simply lowering class size is going to 
improve academic achievement. That's been the assertion from the other 
side.
  I yield to the Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I just wanted to clarify the unanimous consent 
agreement. I have been off the floor for a moment. But the unanimous 
consent agreed to 12 Democrat amendments, 5 Republican amendments and 
any second degrees, unlimited. So I don't think anything has happened 
here that was not appropriate under the unanimous consent agreement.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. COVERDELL. I yield.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Is it your understanding that my offering of the 
second-degree amendment is any violation of comity as to the agreement 
that was entered into?
  Mr. COVERDELL. No, there is not. That's the point.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Any implication that somehow I have wronged the 
Senator from Washington in offering this would be inaccurate?
  Mr. COVERDELL. That is inaccurate.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.


                    Amendment No. 2296, as modified

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I believe I have control of the floor. I ask the 
Senator from Georgia if he would be agreeable to me offering this as a 
first-degree amendment with a recorded vote and removing this as a 
second-degree amendment, in my effort, in my desire to be as agreeable 
and cooperative as possible to the Senator from Washington?
  Mr. COVERDELL. If I understand--I just heard this--what the Senator 
from Arkansas is saying, there is a suggestion that your second degree 
would be framed as a first degree?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. That is correct.
  Mr. COVERDELL. On which there would be a vote, and then there would 
be a vote on the amendment of the Senator from Washington absent the 
second degree. So both proposals would be voted on. It is my 
understanding that was agreeable to the Senator from Washington. If it 
is agreeable to the Senator from Arkansas, I think that could be 
facilitated.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. It is agreeable to the Senator from Arkansas.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. If the Senator will yield, I will get a vote then on my 
amendment?
  Mr. COVERDELL. That is correct.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia want to propose 
that as a unanimous consent request?
  The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Let me propose it as a unanimous consent request then.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I have not had a chance to respond. How much time do I 
have remaining on my side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has 4 minutes.
  Mr. COVERDELL. When I said no more time, I didn't mean to interrupt 
the time already allotted.

[[Page S3394]]

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Is it the Senator's intention there be no second-degree 
intervening amendment before voting on the amendment of the Senator 
from Washington?
  Mr. COVERDELL. Yes. We are agreeing to have a vote on the amendment 
of the Senator from Washington and the amendment of the Senator from 
Arkansas, and no other amendment.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, again reserving, and I shall not object, 
this does correct exactly what we were complaining about. I appreciate 
very much the opportunity to do that because the unanimous consent 
agreement gave her the understanding that she was going to be able to 
offer an amendment, provide the debate and get a vote on her amendment. 
I do not represent that the intention here was to deliberately prevent 
that. But the effect----
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Such a suggestion was made.
  Mr. DORGAN. But the effect of it is to prevent her from getting a 
vote on her amendment unless it is corrected. This does correct it, and 
I think it makes a great deal of sense.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 2296), as modified, reads as follows:

       At the end of the bill, add the following:

                      TITLE   --SENSE OF CONGRESS

     SEC. ____01. FINDINGS.

       Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) The people of the United States know that effective 
     teaching takes place when the people of the United States 
     begin (A) helping children master basic academics, (B) 
     engaging and involving parents, (C) creating safe and orderly 
     classrooms, and (D) getting dollars to the classroom.
       (2) Our Nation's children deserve an educational system 
     which will provide opportunities to excel.
       (3) States and localities must spend a significant amount 
     of Federal education tax dollars applying for and 
     administering Federal education dollars.
       (4) Several States have reported that although the States 
     receive less than 10 percent of their education funding from 
     the Federal Government, more than 50 percent of their 
     paperwork is associated with those Federal dollars.
       (5) While it is unknown exactly what percentage of Federal 
     education dollars reaches the classroom, a recent audit of 
     New York City public schools found that only 43 percent of 
     their local education budget reaches the classroom; further, 
     it is thought that only 85 percent of funds administered by 
     the Department of Education for elementary and secondary 
     education reach the school district level; and even if 65 
     percent of Federal education funds reach the classroom, it 
     still means that billions of dollars are not directly spent 
     on children in the classroom.
       (6) American students are not performing up to their full 
     academic potential, despite the more than 760 Federal 
     education programs, which span 39 Federal agencies at the 
     price of nearly $100,000,000,000 annually.
       (7) According to the Digest of Education Statistics, in 
     1993 only $141,598,786,000 out of $265,285,370,000 spent on 
     elementary and secondary education was spent on instruction.
       (8) According to the National Center for Education 
     Statistics, in 1994 only 52 percent of staff employed in 
     public elementary and secondary school systems were teachers.
       (9) Too much of our Federal education funding is spent on 
     bureaucracy, and too little is spent on our Nation's youth.
       (10) Getting 95 percent of Department of Education 
     elementary and secondary education funds to the classroom 
     could provide approximately $2,094 in additional funding per 
     classroom across the United States.
       (11) More education funding should be put in the hands of 
     someone in a child's classroom who knows the child's name.
       (12) President Clinton has stated: ``We cannot ask the 
     American people to spend more on education until we do a 
     better job with the money we've got now.''.
       (13) President Clinton and Vice President Gore agree that 
     the reinventing of public education will not begin in 
     Washington but in communities across the United States and 
     that the people of the United States must ask fundamental 
     questions about how our Nation's public school systems' 
     dollars are spent.
       (14) President Clinton and Vice President Gore agree that 
     in an age of tight budgets, our Nation should be spending 
     public funds on teachers and children, not on unnecessary 
     overhead and bloated bureaucracy.

     SEC. ____02. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

       It is the sense of Congress that the Department of 
     Education, States, and local educational agencies should work 
     together to ensure that not less than 95 percent of all funds 
     appropriated for the purpose of carrying out elementary and 
     secondary education programs administered by the Department 
     of Education is spent for our Nation's children in their 
     classrooms.

  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I see the Senator from Washington is on 
the floor. I will just take a moment or two to talk about support for 
smaller class sizes. The idea that we say this is going to be the 
answer in education, of course, no one has represented that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has 4 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Two minutes. No one has represented that.
  But what we have found, for example, as a result of very extensive 
hearings--I do not know which ones were cited--is that in Flint, MI, 
efforts over the last 3 years to reduce class size in grades K through 
3 have lead to a 44 percent increase in reading scores and an 18 
percent increase in math scores. In Wisconsin, student achievement in 
grades K through 3 is also finding similar results. Project STAR in 
Tennessee, K through 3 in 80 different schools in Tennessee. And in 
California similar kinds of results. So the idea that this is not a 
worthwhile educational policy tied into other education policy as a way 
to help to assist local schools that make that judgment fails, I think, 
to be credible, and I think that is why we are all grateful we are 
going to be in a situation that we can have the vote on the amendment 
of the Senator from Washington and a vote on the amendment of the 
Senator from Arkansas. I hope this body will vote in favor of both.
  I thank the Senator from Washington for bringing this very important 
measure to the Senate.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has 2\1/2\ 
minutes.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleagues from 
Massachusetts and North Dakota because they are stating the case quite 
correctly on class size. It absolutely makes a difference when you 
reduce class size particularly in lower grades.
  The Senator from Massachusetts has cited what several empirical 
studies have shown. The Educational Testing Service says that empirical 
evidence is clear; smaller classes can make higher levels of student 
achievement, at least in the elementary school grades and particularly 
for disadvantaged students.
  We have submitted these studies for the Record, and our colleagues 
are welcome to look at the Record. But I can tell you as an educator, 
clearly class size makes a difference. There is not a parent in this 
country who does not want to send their child off to school and know 
that they are learning how to read, that they are learning how to 
write, that they are learning math skills. When you have reduced class 
size, it makes a difference. Ask any parent. Ask any student. Ask any 
teacher. It will make a difference.
  Every parent asks their child on the first day of school when they 
come home, ``Who is your teacher? How many kids in your classroom?'' 
They ask that because they know it makes a difference. Parents know it. 
Students know it. Teachers know it. And the studies show it. If you 
want to help IDEA kids, to which many of my colleagues have been 
alluding on the floor, I will tell you that class size matters. It 
matters more than anything else. I think it is absolutely imperative 
that this Senate go on record stating that we understand that. We are 
not going to ignore it. We are not going to come up with all kinds of 
arguments about paperwork and bureaucracy and federalism. We are going 
to say that as leaders in this country we understand that class size 
makes a difference. We want to make a difference for our children in 
our schools across this country, and we can by passing this amendment.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. MURRAY. Yes. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has 15 seconds.
  Mr. NICKLES. The question to my colleague from Washington is: How 
much does your proposal cost, and are these going to be Federal 
teachers? Are they going to be paid for entirely by the Federal 
Government or partly by the State government? What is the cost 
allocation?
  Mrs. MURRAY. In the President's State of the Union Address, he said 
he

[[Page S3395]]

wanted us, in our budget, to add 100,000 additional teachers in our 
classrooms just as we added 100,000 police officers. Within our budget, 
we will look at how we can do that. My sense of the Senate simply puts 
us on record, as leaders in this country, that we are going to move in 
this direction. We have numerous ways of looking at it.
  If we can fund roads, if we can fund construction projects across 
this country, if we can fund numerous projects that we have in our 
budgets, we certainly can fund lower class sizes for our students 
across this country that will make a difference.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Washington has 
expired. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. I ask unanimous consent that each side have an 
additional 2 minutes to discuss this issue.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized for 2 
minutes.
  Mr. NICKLES. I appreciate my colleague's response. I said, How much 
is it going to cost? She said it is in the President's budget. The 
President's budget says we will spend $7.3 billion to hire an 
additional 100,000 teachers. It doesn't really define in the budget how 
that is going to be done. My colleague from Washington said it is going 
to be done like we did community policing. He has a goal to hire 
100,000 community police. When that started out, it was 100 percent or 
75 percent Federal, and then 50 percent Federal, and then 25 percent 
Federal each succeeding year, and the individual communities had to 
pick up the greater costs.
  I laugh at that. A lot of communities are saying, ``We like the 
program when the Federal Government is paying all of it. We don't like 
it when we have to pay all of it.''
  Then I asked my communities in the State, I went around to several 
communities--I am sure several of my colleagues did--and said, ``Are 
you going to get one of these teachers? Is your school going to get a 
teacher? Is your school going to get a teacher? Who is going to be 
lucky enough to get the Federal teacher?'' I don't think it makes any 
sense.
  Do I want smaller class size? I would say, in general, yes. Do I 
think the Federal Government should mandate it, should pay for it? The 
answer is no. I think the solution is, as our Senator from Washington 
said, let's give the money and power and control back to the States, 
and if they want smaller class size, they can make that decision. If 
they want new buildings, they can make that decision. If they want new 
computers, they can make that decision. We should not try to say, ``Oh, 
we think this classroom should have another teacher. We are going to 
have a Federal teacher here and have the Federal Government pay 75 
percent of it or 50 percent of it for the first year.'' I just don't 
think it makes sense. I don't think it is affordable.

  The $7.3 billion the President had in his budget was financed on the 
so-called tobacco deal, and we don't even know whether or not it is 
going to happen. So I urge my colleagues to support the amendment of my 
friend and colleague from Arkansas saying that 95 percent of this money 
should go directly to the classroom. I urge my colleagues not to say we 
should be dictating to the States how, and put Federal teachers or 
federally-paid-for teachers in the schools. I think it would be a 
serious mistake.
  If we want to have a sense of the Senate, ``Hey, we urge you to have 
smaller class size,'' and leave it to the States, fine. But the 
implication of the amendment of the Senator from Washington is that we 
need to have the President's program, we need to have the Federal 
Government writing checks for teachers in individual school districts, 
and I think that is a mistake.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I have 2 minutes remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 minutes remaining under your 
control.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I appreciate the Senator from Oklahoma and his 
clarification on the amendment, the sense-of-the-Senate resolution of 
the Senator from Washington, because it is not clear whether these are 
Federal teachers, federally funded or not. It is clear now that it is 
Senator Murray's intention that this fulfill the President's request in 
his budget; that is $7.3 billion.
  We all want smaller class sizes. My point has been that we have been 
getting that. Mr. President, 27 was the average class size in 1955, 21 
in 1975, 17.3 today. Class sizes are dropping. They will continue to. 
Demographically, we are told class sizes will continue to decrease.
  Furthermore, we know as well that many States are already addressing 
this problem. California, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and 
Wisconsin have taken dramatic steps to reduce class size on their own. 
Our whole point has been that 100,000 new teachers hired at the Federal 
level is not the best use of $7.3 billion. We would be far wiser in use 
of limited Federal resources to ensure that that money gets to the 
classroom, as opposed to starting another Federal initiative, another 
Federal effort.
  We know that our schools have problems. Mr. President, 25 percent of 
12th grade scores were below basic reading in the 1994 NAPE test. The 
literacy level of young adults, 15 to 21, dropped 11 points between 
1984 and 1994. That has happened simultaneous with smaller class sizes. 
We all want smaller class sizes. I think that is wonderful. But is that 
the best use of scarce resources? The answer is no.
  What is the correct answer is to provide maximum flexibility with the 
fewest possible mandates, ensuring that the highest percentage possible 
of those dollars gets to the classroom. That is what my amendment does. 
That is what the ``dollars to the classroom'' proposal is all about--
more money to the classroom with fewer regulations and fewer controls 
from the bureaucrats in Washington, DC. I think most Americans agree 
with that, I think most schoolteachers agree with that, and I am sure 
most parents agree with that proposal.
  So I ask my colleagues to vote for this sense-of-the-Senate 
resolution. It expresses their reluctance, skepticism about another 
Federal program hiring another 100,000 teachers for our local schools.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time of the Senator from Arkansas has 
expired. The Senator from Washington has 2 minutes.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I have listened carefully to the 
education debate because I care deeply about public education in this 
country. I believe that our democracy was founded on the principle that 
all children, no matter who they are or where they come from or how 
much money they have, should have the opportunity within our public 
education system in this country to get a good education. I have gone 
across my State and asked parents and teachers and principals and 
school board members, What will make a difference? And resoundingly 
they have said to me we need to focus attention on class size; the 
Senate needs to focus their attention on class size.
  I am, frankly, really tired of the argument that our public education 
system has failed. Our public education system has not failed. We have 
failed our public education system. And we have failed it because we 
have not put in the adequate resources for what we are demanding, as 
leaders in this country--that our children learn how to read and write 
and get the skills they need to get jobs one day. These are skills we 
are demanding. Yet we turn our backs and say we are not going to fund 
it.
  This is an issue of priorities. Are we going to fund public education 
in this country? Or are we going to do what my Republican colleagues 
did in this budget and cut $2.2 billion from education? Mr. President, 
we can go down a narrow road in this country, and we can pass vouchers, 
and we can say that we can block grant, and we can make sure that a few 
kids get a public education. But that is not the country I was born and 
raised in. That is not the philosophy I believe in. I believe we can do 
the right thing. I know, and I will tell all of you: Reducing class 
size makes a difference. Ask any parent. Ask any parent if they know 
that it makes a difference, and they will tell you yes, it does.
  Mr. President, this is a simple amendment that we are offering. It

[[Page S3396]]

simply says this Congress understands that class size reduction is an 
issue that makes a difference and we are willing to look at how we can 
help make that happen across this country. I urge its adoption.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Washington has 
expired.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the 
Hutchinson amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2295

  Mr. KENNEDY. The yeas and nays on the Murray amendment, Mr. 
President? I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Murray amendment 
and the Hutchinson amendment are temporarily laid aside. The Senator 
from Indiana, Mr. Coats, is recognized to offer an amendment.


                           Amendment No. 2297

  (Purpose: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide an 
 additional incentive to donate to elementary and secondary schools or 
    other organizations which provide scholarships to disadvantaged 
                   children, and for other purposes)

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

       The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Coats] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 2297.

  Mr. COATS. 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 ____--ADDITIONAL INCENTIVE TO MAKE SCHOLARSHIP DONATIONS

     SEC. ____. ADDITIONAL INCENTIVE TO MAKE DONATIONS TO SCHOOLS 
                   OR ORGANIZATIONS WHICH OFFER SCHOLARSHIPS.

       (a) In General.--Section 170 (relating to charitable, etc., 
     contributions and gifts) is amended by redesignating 
     subsection (m) as subsection (n) and by inserting after 
     subsection (l) the following:
       ``(m) Treatment of Amounts Paid to Certain Educational 
     Organizations.--
       ``(1) In general.--For purposes of this section, 110 
     percent of any amount described in paragraph (2) shall be 
     treated as a charitable contribution.
       ``(2) Amount described.--For purposes of paragraph (1), an 
     amount is described in this paragraph if the amount--
       ``(A) is paid in cash by the taxpayer to or for the benefit 
     of a qualified organization, and
       ``(B) is used by such organization to provide qualified 
     scholarships (as defined in section 117(b)) to any individual 
     attending kindergarten through grade 12 whose family income 
     does not exceed 185 percent of the poverty line for a family 
     of the size involved.
       ``(3) Definitions.--For purposes of this subsection--
       ``(A) Qualified organization.--The term `qualified 
     organization' means--
       ``(i) an educational organization--

       ``(I) which is described in subsection (b)(1)(A)(ii), and
       ``(II) which provides elementary education or secondary 
     education (kindergarten through grade 12), as determined 
     under State law, or

       ``(ii) an organization which is described in section 
     501(c)(3) and exempt from taxation under section 501(a).
       ``(B) Poverty line.--The term `poverty line' means the 
     income official poverty line (as defined by the Office of 
     Management and Budget, and revised annually in accordance 
     with section 673(2) of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 
     of 1981) applicable to a family of the size involved.
       ``(4) Termination.--This subsection shall not apply to 
     contributions made after December 31, 2002.''
       (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 
     1998.

     SEC. ____. CLARIFICATION AND EXPANSION OF MATHEMATICAL ERROR 
                   ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES.

       (a) TIN Deemed Incorrect if Information on Return Differs 
     With Agency Records.--Section 6213(g)(2) (defining 
     mathematical or clerical error) is amended by adding at the 
     end the following flush sentence:

     ``A taxpayer shall be treated as having omitted a correct TIN 
     for purposes of the preceding sentence if information 
     provided by the taxpayer on the return with respect to the 
     individual whose TIN was provided differs from the 
     information the Secretary obtains from the person issuing the 
     TIN.''
       (b) Expansion of Mathematical Error Procedures to Cases 
     Where TIN Establishes Individual Not Eligible for Tax 
     Credit.--Section 6213(g)(2), as amended by title VI of this 
     Act, is amended by striking ``and'' at the end of 
     subparagraph (J), by striking the period at the end of the 
     subparagraph (K) and inserting ``, and'', and by adding at 
     the end the following new subparagraph:
       ``(L) the inclusion on a return of a TIN required to be 
     included on the return under section 21, 24, or 32 if--
       ``(i) such TIN is of an individual whose age affects the 
     amount of the credit under such section, and
       ``(ii) the computation of the credit on the return reflects 
     the treatment of such individual as being of an age different 
     from the individual's age based on such TIN.''
       (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall apply to taxable years ending after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act.

     SEC. ____. CERTAIN CUSTOMER RECEIVABLES INELIGIBLE FOR MARK-
                   TO-MARKET TREATMENT.

       (a) Certain Receivables Not Eligible for Mark to Market.--
     Section 475(c) (relating to definitions) is amended by adding 
     at the end the following new paragraph:
       ``(4) Special rules for certain receivables.--
       ``(A) In general.--Paragraph (2)(C) shall not include any 
     note, bond, debenture, or other evidence of indebtedness 
     which is nonfinancial customer paper.
       ``(B) Nonfinancial customer paper.--For purposes of 
     subparagraph (A), the term `nonfinancial customer paper' 
     means any receivable--
       ``(i) arising out of the sale of goods or services by a 
     person the principal activity of which is the selling or 
     providing of nonfinancial goods and services, and
       ``(ii) held by such person or a related person at all times 
     since issue.''
       (b) Effective Date.--
       (1) In general.--The amendments made by this section shall 
     apply to taxable years ending after the date of the enactment 
     of this Act.
       (2) Change in method of accounting.--In the case of any 
     taxpayer required by the amendments made by this section to 
     change its method of accounting for its first taxable year 
     ending after the date of the enactment of this Act--
       (A) such change shall be treated as initiated by the 
     taxpayer,
       (B) such change shall be treated as made with the consent 
     of the Secretary of the Treasury, and
       (C) the net amount of the adjustments required to be taken 
     into account by the taxpayer under section 481 of the 
     Internal Revenue Code of 1986 shall be taken into account 
     ratably over the 4-taxable year period beginning with such 
     first taxable year.

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, can I inquire of the time allotted to the 
Senator for this amendment? My understanding is it is 15 minutes. Is 
that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana has 30 minutes on 
this amendment, equally divided. So 15 minutes under the control of the 
Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, first of all, I compliment the author of 
the underlying legislation. It has been an extraordinary effort. It is 
a bipartisan effort, we ought to stress, and it is one that clearly 
offers long-term improvement in education and opportunities in 
education for many Americans. I thank them for their work on this, and 
I intend to support them when it comes to a vote.
  There has been a critique of the legislation in that most of the 
benefits will flow to middle-income Americans and above, and that we 
are not paying adequate attention to low-income Americans and 
particularly those who attend urban schools, so many of which are 
failing urban schools.

  That critique is really misplaced because that is not the intent of 
the bill. There have been other opportunities offered on this floor, 
again, in a bipartisan fashion. Senator Lieberman and I have joined 
forces on a number of occasions to try to address specifically the 
problems of low-income students, minority students, who are receiving 
inadequate educations, and each time those efforts have been met with a 
filibuster and defeated.
  There have been other initiatives. I have offered some, and other 
Members have offered some. We are going to continue to do that. So the 
critique is really misplaced. But in an effort to strengthen the 
underlying bill which we are addressing, I am offering this amendment 
which I will explain in a moment.
  It is clear that there will be Americans, a sizable number of 
Americans, who don't have the income to take advantage of the tax-free 
savings accounts that are created in this legislation. Under the best 
of circumstances,

[[Page S3397]]

it would take them years to accumulate the amount of money necessary to 
utilize those funds for alternative means of education. We cannot 
afford years. We are losing people to the system, and it is an 
inadequate system.
  Let me take a moment to talk about that crisis that exists in urban 
education.
  A recent study published by Education Week points out just how 
desperate the situation has become. In 1997, just 43 percent of grade-
school-age children attending urban schools met the basic standard for 
reading skills, and that ``basic,'' just for my colleagues' 
understanding, is defined as being able to read a very simple child's 
book or children's literature. Among children attending urban schools 
in high-poverty areas, basic reading ability rates fall to just 23 
percent of students. Think of it: Fewer than one in three children 
attending schools in poor neighborhoods can read a simple story; two-
thirds of nonurban students meet the basic standard for mathematics.
  Among urban students in high-poverty areas, this one-in-three 
statistic is truly disturbing. Looking at the area of science, while 65 
percent of nonurban students are meeting the basic standard in science 
achievement, only 38 percent of urban students perform this, and in 
high-poverty schools, only 31 percent. So, again, fewer than one in 
three are meeting these standards.
  A public school system in which over two-thirds of our children are 
functionally illiterate in reading, in science, in math is a system 
that cannot and must not be defended. Yet, those who are opposing any 
efforts to try to move this system to improve it or reform it, to 
provide alternatives for children trapped in the system, are met with 
disdain, are met with challenges.
  The logic--actually, I should say the illogic--of the opponents of 
attempts at reform is difficult to understand, because it is literally 
condemning poor children to an inadequate education. The one chance 
they have to escape the plight that they live in is being denied them, 
because people want to maintain--some people want to maintain--the 
status quo, and the status quo is bankrupt.
  Every year, we debate, as I said, different proposals to permit these 
low-income children to escape the plight in which they find themselves. 
Every year, we talk about the need for competition to force public 
schools to reform the way in which they teach their children. And every 
year, we are met on the Senate floor with a filibuster by those who 
say, ``No; let's maintain the status quo in the name of absolute 
equality.''

  One of the analogies that is often used is that we are just simply 
trying to throw lifeboats out and scholarships are just lifeboats that 
are not available to all; and if they are not available to all, then 
they shouldn't be available to anybody.
  A lot of us have seen the recent epic ``The Titanic.'' Fortunately, 
the opponents of the basis of the proposal that, if you can't help 
everybody, you shouldn't help anybody were not running the Titanic, 
because then everybody would have been denied an opportunity to escape 
on a lifeboat because there were not enough lifeboats for everybody.
  If we cannot help everybody all at once, we are not going to help 
anybody. That is the logic of the opponents of any attempt, whether it 
is this bill, whether it is the voucher bill that this Senator, Senator 
Lieberman, and others have been offering, or whether it is any other 
proposal that other Members have been offering. That is the logic of 
the opposition. It does not match up.
  Recently--I think it was just yesterday or maybe a couple days ago--
the President at a press conference with the Democratic leadership 
challenged the supporters of scholarships to make their case to the 
Nation, he said. The President said, ``You ought to do something rather 
than just talk about it.''
  Mr. President, I don't know where you have been lately--well, maybe I 
do know, preoccupied with other matters--but if you will just look very 
closely, you will understand that things are being done by those who 
favor the proposal. We are doing something.
  Currently, there are 32 privately funded scholarship programs 
operating across this country. In virtually every major urban area of 
this Nation--New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Seattle, Indianapolis, 
Albany, San Antonio, Atlanta, just to name a few--private citizens are 
joining forces to provide poor children a way out of collapsing public 
school systems. To date, these foundations have raised over $30 million 
and have provided assistance to over 13,000 children. Just this 
morning, we learned that a major private funder of private school 
choice announced a $50 million gift to San Antonio's program that will 
permit any low-income student in the San Antonio system to opt out of a 
public school if they are not getting an adequate education.
  I say we are putting our money where our mouths are. Individuals are 
stepping forward, people are addressing it and are doing so out of a 
matter of desperation, desperation that children are being left behind 
and are not buying into this idea that if you cannot do it for 
everybody right now, don't do it for anybody.
  The demand for this is rising. We are all familiar with the New York 
City Private Scholarship Foundation. When they announced they had 13 
new scholarships for low-income children, they received 17,000 
applications. Ten percent of the eligible population of New York said, 
``Give us a chance. Give us something different.'' They were 
overwhelmed by the response.

  Last year, the Washington Scholarship Fund here in the District of 
Columbia announced plans to offer 1,000 new scholarships and received 
7,500 requests. That represents 15 percent of the eligible population 
in the D.C. public schools.
  A recent poll of minority parents published last year found that two-
thirds of them are crying out for some alternative for education. Low-
income families in cities around the country are saying, ``We refuse to 
continue to allow our children to be condemned to schools which don't 
give them any chance to escape the poverty that they live in.''
  My colleague, Senator Lieberman, has appealed to his party to say: We 
are the party of equality. We are the party that reaches out to help 
those who need help, and yet we are turning our backs on the very 
people our party is supposed to defend. We are condemning them to an 
inadequate education and therefore condemning them to a life in which 
they will not be able to participate in the American dream.
  The only way out of many of these areas in our urban cities is drugs, 
athletics, or education. One in 10,000 make it into college athletics. 
That is the statistics of all the kids playing basketball, baseball, 
and football: 1 in 10,000 gets a college scholarship. Out of that, the 
number is infinitesimal of those who can go on and actually earn a 
living playing professional sports. So while many dream of being the 
next Michael Jordan, the reality is that only 1 in about 100,000 or 
maybe a million is going to be that person or have that opportunity.
  The next alternative is drugs and crime. And the statistics there are 
appalling. Children are dying on the streets, as we speak, at tender 
ages because they think the way out of their plight--the only way out 
of their plight--is to move drugs. And that is a prescription for 
death, that is a prescription for incarceration, that is a prescription 
for failure.
  What do parents want? They understand those realities. They want 
their children to be educated, given the skills necessary to be able to 
enter today's workplace, given the education to be able to go on and 
further their education after high school. And they are not getting 
that in our urban schools.
  How does my amendment try to address this? We try to provide a little 
piece of a solution to the puzzle we are trying to put together, a 
mosaic we are trying to put together to try to get us out of this 
conundrum that tweaks the Tax Code a little bit to give a little extra 
encouragement to people who donate money to those scholarship funds.
  Under current law, a contribution to a 501(c)(3) organization that 
provides scholarships is deductible against income. My amendment would 
simply give them a 10 percent incentive to try to encourage more people 
to give more. We offset that so that it is paid for and revenue 
neutral. I offered an offset which I thought would be fairly 
attractive, but I could not get the votes to

[[Page S3398]]

support it. I did not want to see my amendment fail on that basis, so 
we worked with the majority leader, we worked with Members, to try to 
find something that had been vented by the Finance Committee, had been 
approved as a potential offset. And I do not believe there is any 
controversy. We have tried to run all the traps on that in terms of the 
offset.
  I can describe the offset. It is two technical items that pay for the 
change which takes place in the Tax Code with this. What it means is 
that if a family wanted to donate $500 to a scholarship fund or an 
individual, they would get a $550 deduction for that. It is an extra 
incentive. It is just a small piece. I mean, people are going to come 
down and probably say, ``Well, this doesn't solve the problem.'' No, it 
does not solve the problem, but it is a step in the right correction. 
It is a tiny step. And I guess we are reaching out saying, at least can 
we take some tiny steps to help people who find themselves in an 
absolute lockbox of inadequate education with no way to escape?
  This is my latest attempt. I keep trying to bring ideas down here to 
try to give poor kids, minority kids, kids condemned to failing urban 
schools, a chance to get out and get an education. I try to use it as a 
basis to spur some competition so those who run the public schools will 
get the idea they need to improve their schools.
  We really care about these low-income children, which this bill does 
not address, but, again, that is not the intent of the bill. I think 
this strengthens the bill. Then we ought to look for ways in which we 
can encourage alternatives to education and encourage competition in 
the system that will force some change.
  I will never forget the testimony of the former 25-year 
superintendent of the Milwaukee public schools, an educated man, an 
African American, who said: Senator, I've tried everything. You can't 
name a reform proposal within the system that has worked. The unions 
block it. The public teachers don't want it. We've tried everything. I 
defy you to name an approach within the current public education system 
that forces change. Only one thing has forced change in the Milwaukee 
public schools, and that is the competition from private schools, the 
vouchers and the scholarships that have been available so that parents 
can vote with their feet and their children may have a choice. All of a 
sudden that has wakened up the Milwaukee public schools which has said, 
``We've got to change or we're going to lose these kids.''
  So instead of trying to perpetuate a bureaucracy that protects their 
employment, and their tenure, they have said, ``Let's make the changes 
that will give students an opportunity to learn, to read, to meet the 
math and the science skills, to advance in their education.''
  Who do we care more about? Protecting the system or helping the 
children? That is the only thing. And so this is an attempt to, one, 
provide some lifeboats for some kids who are trapped--no, we cannot 
provide enough for everybody. That really isn't even my intent. My 
intent is to reform the public school system, because we are going to 
have, and we need to have, a public school system, a viable public 
school system, but we can do it by providing competition. In the 
meantime, we can at least help some kids. This amendment will do that. 
I hope I have the support of my colleagues in doing so.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute 40 seconds remaining.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to this amendment to 
increase the charitable deduction to 110 percent of any contribution 
made to an educational institution if the contribution is used to 
provide scholarships for low-income families.
  Education is paramount to the future of our children and nation, and 
contributing toward the education of another is certainly one of the 
finest forms charitable giving can take.
  Let me also say that I know the distinguished Senator from Indiana 
has the best intentions with this amendment. I generally believe that 
charitable giving serves disadvantaged people much better than 
government programs.
  However, there are several concerns that I believe need to be fully 
examined and addressed before we consider moving down a road that 
provides a charitable tax deduction in excess of the amount donated. 
This is a serious departure from settled tax policy principles.
  Once we begin to offer charitable tax deductions that are more than 
the amount donated for low-income scholarships, what comes next?
  What other kinds of tax benefits will be proposed where the amount of 
the deduction exceeds the cost to the taxpayer?
  Should these kinds of scholarships be the only charitable activities 
enjoying this benefit? And, if not, are we prepared to move forward 
with such a precedent?
  There are other concerns I have about the Senator from Indiana's 
proposal. On what basis does one decide that the percentage should be 
105, 120 percent, or a percentage lower than 100 percent? Should we be 
in the position of choosing among charities and assigning percentages?

  Another concern I have is the proposal's attempt to single out one 
kind of charitable activity and offer it special tax advantages. Why is 
this kind of charitable activity better than other charitable 
activities? To do so is a step towards complexity in the tax code.
  Mr. President, I believe charitable giving is an activity that we 
must continue to encourage with tax benefits. For instance, most 
taxpayers do not itemize, and therefore, cannot deduct their charitable 
contributions. This is a feature of our tax policy that concerns many 
members.
  This issue, along with other proposals in the charitable giving area, 
such as the one from the Senator from Indiana, should be reviewed when 
the Finance Committee holds hearings on fundamental tax reform.
  Mr. President, Senator Coats' amendment is well-intended, but raises 
too many questions to be hastily considered in a Senate floor vote. 
Let's pass the Coverdell bill, and deliver to taxpayers education tax 
incentives we have previously debated and approved.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, 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. 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, we conferred with the other side and I 
am going to ask unanimous consent that the Coats amendment be set 
aside.
  Mr. COATS. Reserving the right to object, I want to make sure that 
the time remaining is reserved under the amendment.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Let me clarify the unanimous consent--that all time 
remaining be reserved and the amendment be brought back into the queue 
at the appropriate time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, as I understand it, the next amendment 
in order would be a Levin amendment. We are now notifying the Senator 
that he is next in the order.
  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. McCAIN. 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. McCAIN. Mr. President, I will soon send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Coats amendment 
will be set aside.
  Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, I wonder if I can ask the 
manager of the bill whether or not this amendment has been cleared on 
our side.
  Mr. COVERDELL. It has been cleared on both sides.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page S3399]]

  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEVIN. 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. LEVIN. Mr. President, I understand that regular order now would 
call for me to offer my amendment. I tell my friends, if they can work 
out the issues that they have, that I would be happy to stand aside in 
the middle of my presentation and turn the floor over to the Senator 
from Arizona.


                           Amendment No. 2299

 (Purpose: To replace the expansion of education individual retirement 
 accounts to elementary and secondary school expenses with an increase 
  the lifetime learning education credit for expenses of teachers in 
                     improving technology training)

  Mr. LEVIN. 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 Michigan (Mr. Levin), for himself, and Mr. 
     Bingaman, proposes an amendment numbered 2299.

  Mr. LEVIN. 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:

       Beginning on page 2, line 9, strike all through page 10, 
     line 21, and insert:

     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 
     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.
       On page 21, between lines 9 and 10, insert:

     SEC. 107. INCREASED LIFETIME LEARNING CREDIT FOR TECHNOLOGY 
                   TRAINING OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY TEACHERS.

       (a) In General.--Section 25A(c) (relating to lifetime 
     learning credit) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following new paragraph:
       ``(3) Special rule for technology training of certain 
     teachers.--
       ``(A) In general.--If any portion of the qualified tuition 
     and related expenses to which this subsection applies--
       ``(i) are paid or incurred by an individual who is a 
     kindergarten through grade 12 teacher in an elementary or 
     secondary school, and
       ``(ii) are incurred as part of a program which is approved 
     and certified by the appropriate local educational agency as 
     directly related to improvement of the individual's capacity 
     to use technology in teaching,

     paragraph (1) shall be applied with respect to such portion 
     by substituting `50 percent' for `20 percent'.
       ``(B) Termination.--This paragraph shall not apply to 
     expenses paid after December 31, 2002, for education 
     furnished in academic periods beginning after such date.''
       (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by this section 
     shall apply to expenses paid after June 30, 1998, for 
     education furnished in academic periods beginning after such 
     date.

  Mr. PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized for 15 
minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent Senator Bingaman be 
added as a cosponsor.
  Under current law, there is a learning credit in the Tax Code equal 
to 20 percent of a student's college education cost, up to $5,000. My 
amendment increases the percentage from 20 percent to 50 percent of 
those college costs for teachers who return to receive training in 
technology. We currently have this lifetime learning credit of 20 
percent for college costs, up to $5,000.
  Because of the critical importance of our teachers learning how to 
utilize technology in the classrooms, this amendment would increase 
that credit to 50 percent of that teacher's college costs in those 
courses where he or she received training in technology. The amendment 
does not affect most of the beneficial aspects of the bill before us. 
It only removes the most controversial part of that bill relative to 
the use of the IRA in the K through 12th grades--I will come to that in 
a moment--but it leaves in place the other parts of the education bill 
before us, including the extension of the tax exclusion for employer-
provided education assistance, the provision of a tax exclusion for 
withdrawals from State tuition programs, the limited school 
construction provisions, and, again, the expansion of the education IRA 
as it relates to college and postsecondary education.
  This amendment is necessary in our school districts all over our 
country because they are making investments in technology, hardware and 
software, wiring together schools so they can connect their computers, 
and inside of the school building connecting computers through what is 
called ``local area networks,'' connecting our K through 12 classrooms 
to colleges and universities for distance learning through fiber 
optics. Lots of new technologies are being provided in our schools at 
great cost to our taxpayers.
  I have spent a lot of time traveling in my State. What I find is that 
no matter how advanced a school district is in the installation of 
these technologies, we do not have nearly enough of the professional 
development, the giving to our teachers those skills that are essential 
so that they can utilize these education technologies.

[[Page S3400]]

  School districts vary as to how much technology they have, how much 
access to the Internet they have, how modern their computers are, how 
many computers they have for their students, and how well-connected 
they are to the higher institutions to which they connect. They vary in 
that regard a great deal. But all of the school districts tell me their 
teachers who are so experienced in teaching in the traditional ways 
have not been given the skills to utilize these new technologies. So we 
are making these huge investments in hardware and software and wiring 
without making anywhere close to full use of these investments.
  A study that was conducted by the Education Testing Service at 
Princeton, NJ, shows that on the national average only 15 percent of 
our teachers at the time of the study had at least 9 hours of training 
in education technology in their lifetime. By the way, that training is 
mostly spent just teaching a teacher how to use a computer to, for 
instance, give their grades and keep track of attendance, to input. 
What we are talking about here is training teachers in the use of 
technology so that they can use that wealth of information that is now 
available, those thousands of libraries around the world, those 
hundreds of field trips that they can bring into their classroom 
through this technology. What our teachers need to do is have the 
opportunity to train themselves to use these technologies for those 
new, wonderful opportunities to bring exciting material into their 
curriculum, to integrate into their curriculum the material that is now 
available through these technologies. For instance, in my State, only 
10 percent of the teachers had 9 hours of training in their lifetime in 
the use of education technology for any purpose. The national average 
is 15 percent. That meant that 85 percent of our teachers did not even 
have 9 hours of training in their lifetime in the use of education 
technology.

  For the younger generation, it is easy to learn how to input, it is 
easy to learn how to access the Internet. For those of us who are 
older, it is not so easy. It takes training. My children teach me how 
to input, how to access the Internet. For them, it is like breathing. 
For me, it is work. It is concentration. It is repetition. It is having 
a mentor. That mentor might be 5 years old. But for me it is more 
difficult. For our experienced teachers, it takes training. In many 
cases it takes returning to school. This amendment provides the 
incentive to go back to school to learn how to use the education 
technologies which are now made available to our teachers.
  This amendment pays for this by restricting the use of the expanded 
IRA that is in this bill to postsecondary education. This is a highly 
controversial part of the bill, as we all know. Senator Glenn offered 
an amendment to strike this provision just as it relates to K through 
12. My amendment goes the same distance as Senator Glenn in trying to 
strike this provision for the reasons which he and so many others have 
spoken about on this floor. But it takes the funds that are freed up 
and invests them in this 50-percent lifetime learning credit for 
teachers who go back to learn how to utilize education technology.
  The provision in the bill relative to the use of these funds in the 
lower grades, K through 12, is flawed for many reasons, I believe 
constitutionally flawed, but it also has a fundamental unfairness.
  It is significantly tilted towards those families with children in 
private schools. This is according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. 
These numbers are not mine; these are the numbers of the Joint 
Committee on Taxation. There are 35.4 million families filing tax 
returns who have children in public schools. Those families get less 
than half of the dollars which are utilized in this part of the pending 
bill; 48 percent of the dollars go to 35 million taxpayers, the ones 
with children in public schools. More than half, 52 percent, of the 
dollars, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, go to 2.9 
million taxpayers with children in private schools.
  Now, that is a significant inequity. Putting aside its constitutional 
question, that represents a significant tilt away from public schools. 
This amendment would strike that part of the expanded IRA. It leaves 
all the other provisions in the education bill before us that I have 
talked about. The extension of the tax exclusion for employer-provided 
education assistance is not touched. The tax exclusion it provides for 
withdrawals from State tuition programs is not touched by this 
amendment. The limited school construction language is not touched. The 
expansion of the education IRA for college and graduate cost is not 
touched.
  What is eliminated is the use of the expanded IRA for kindergarten 
through the 12th grade, and it uses that money instead to give 
incentives to teachers to learn how to use the technologies which are 
being provided at such great cost by our taxpayers to our schools. 
There is no point in spending a fortune on computers and distance 
learning and software unless our teachers have the training to fully 
utilize those technologies, and this amendment addresses that issue.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, most of the teachers in today's public 
schools became educators before the era of personal computers really 
began and was established. To address the skills of the next generation 
of teachers, 32 states require a course in education technology as part 
of the teacher preparation curriculum. 18 states have not yet 
incorporated such a requirement.
  New Mexico teachers must have just one education technology course 
before they are certified, and some universities such as New Mexico 
State University and Eastern are taking the lead in integrating 
technology into their education school programs. Yet, the majority of 
New Mexico's current teachers received their training before the start 
of the computer era in the mid-1980's and the new regulations do not 
address their training needs.
  Nationwide, although 98 percent of schools are equipped with 
computers to some degree, 90 percent of new teachers, even after a 
single course, do not feel prepared to use technology in the classroom. 
Clearly, more skill development needs to take place to increase the 
comfort teachers feel with technology.
  Most of the roughly $6 million in New Mexico state and federal 
funding for education technology has been used to purchase and install 
equipment rather than to train teachers to use new technology. 
Tremendous resources have been invested in hardware and installing the 
mechanism for access to the Internet. Sixty five percent of schools 
nationwide have at least some connection to the Internet, yet only 13 
percent of schools have Internet training for teachers, and only 20 
percent of teachers say that they readily use the Internet to help with 
their instruction.
  With a teaching load of 80 students and an average salary of $29,600, 
most New Mexican teachers cannot afford to pay for their own training 
or take the summer off to learn how to use computers.
  Although we have seen significant progress over the last few years in 
Federal support for technology and the use of technology in education, 
the one great deficiency is the preparation teachers need to use 
technology effectively. This legislation will help to correct the 
problem by supporting educators' pursuit of training and expertise.
  I thank Senator Levin for sponsoring this legislation as an amendment 
to the Coverdell bill, and I'm proud to serve as a cosponsor on it.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, if I have time remaining, I would ask to 
reserve the remainder of that time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4 minutes 41 seconds 
remaining, and the time has been reserved.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I 
rise in opposition because it takes away the ability of parents to use 
educational IRAs to pay for expenses relating to the schooling of their 
children between kindergarten and 12th grade. Allowing parents greater 
resources to meet the educational needs of their young people is a very 
important part of the Coverdell legislation. Senator Levin proposes to 
take those resources away and give them to teachers by expanding the 
lifetime learning credit for those who participate in technology 
training.
  No one can argue that helping teachers become more proficient in 
technology is not a good thing. It is vitally

[[Page S3401]]

important. It will have a positive influence on their ability to teach 
our children. However, to increase the lifetime learning credit for 
teachers at the expense of expanding the IRAs for our children runs 
contrary to the needs and objectives of American families.
  Mothers and fathers need increased wherewithal to support their 
children's educational goals. Mothers and fathers need stronger, more 
useful IRAs. They need the ability to use more of their own hard-earned 
money to take care of family priorities. The Senate recognized this 
last year when we gave parents with children in grades K-12 the ability 
to use educational IRAs.
  Our objective was to strengthen mom and dad's ability to get the best 
education possible for their children. Our objective remains the same 
today. This is what the Coverdell legislation is all about, empowering 
families to make decisions that are in their best interests, allowing 
them to use their own resources for their own benefit.
  Remember, Mr. President, the money in question here belongs to the 
taxpayers. They earned it. It is theirs. They will save it, and they 
should be able to choose how it will be spent. Let them use it where it 
serves them best--on their children.
  Senator Levin's amendment is well intentioned. A lifetime learning 
credit is a provision that was included in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 
1997. It allows everyone pursuing postsecondary education to take a tax 
credit each year equal to 20 percent of their qualified expenses. Those 
expenses are limited annually to $5,000 through the year 2002, and 
starting in the year 2003 they will be annually limited to a total of 
$10,000. The lifetime learning credit is available to any taxpayer who 
meets the income requirements. Full-time students can take the credit, 
as can any professional who wants to continue his or her education. And 
this includes teachers, engineers, or research scientists.
  What Senator Levin proposes is to single out teachers and increase 
their lifetime learning credit to 50 percent for technology training. 
Not only would this come at the expense of students and their families 
but it would be inequitable among the professions. Remember, teachers 
can already receive a 20 percent credit for any additional education in 
which they engage. The fact is, Senator Levin's amendment goes too far 
too fast and it comes at the expense of the children.
  This amendment takes the means to use expanded IRAs to educate 
children, and it creates a more complex and distorted learning credit. 
Not only will meeting the criteria to qualify for the credit create a 
bureaucracy to determine what conditions qualify, but it emphasizes one 
area of study over another. For example, why give a 50 percent credit 
for teachers to become more proficient in using and teaching technology 
but only give a 20 percent credit to those who take courses to become 
better reading instructors? Or we could ask the same question. What 
about the teacher who takes courses to enable them to better teach 
those who are disabled? All worthy goals. And the problem here is that 
we would single out one to benefit over the others, which only adds to 
the complexity of this matter.
  This is not what we want to do. Ask the parents of America. Ask our 
families. Ask our students how they would choose to use the financial 
resources in question. I believe the vast majority would make it clear 
that they want the opportunity to use their money to give them greater 
flexibility and power to meet the educational objectives of the family.
  Mr. President, I must oppose the Levin amendment. The educational IRA 
is the foundation of the Coverdell bill. This modification guts the 
bill at the expense of the children. For that reason I oppose this 
amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, how much time remains on both sides?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 7 minutes 28 seconds, and the 
Senator from Michigan has 4 minutes 41 seconds.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, will the Chair notify me at the 
expiration of 2 minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized for 2 
minutes.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I echo the remarks of the Senator from 
Delaware, the Finance Committee chairman. I rise in opposition to the 
amendment offered by the Senator from Michigan because its effect would 
make moot a core component of the legislation that came from the 
Finance Committee and to the Senate floor; i.e., the education savings 
account. If the Levin amendment were to succeed, it would have the 
effect of telling 14 million American families, ``No thanks. We don't 
want you to create these savings accounts and prepare for your 
children's specific educational needs.''
  The number of children who would no longer have the opportunity to be 
beneficiaries of these savings accounts, guided to help them with their 
educational needs, would be over 20 million--14 million families, 20 
million children. Public schools, private schools, home schools all 
across our Nation would be deprived of, over a 5-year period, $5 
billion of volunteered money and resources that would be coming to the 
aid of America's children grades kindergarten through college. You 
would severely hamper the ability of families to prepare for the higher 
costs of higher education. Over a 10-year period, the effect of the 
amendment would be to eliminate over $10 billion of savings that would 
have been accrued.
  Remember, these moneys are volunteered moneys. They are moneys coming 
from the individual families themselves and sponsors, and no school 
board, no school district had to raise a dime of taxes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). The Senator's 2 minutes is 
exhausted.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I ask for 1 more minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. COVERDELL. No county school board had to raise taxes, no State 
had to raise income taxes, no Federal taxes were required to accomplish 
a $10 billion resource coming to the aid of children throughout all of 
our country. So this, among the other reasons listed by the Finance 
chairman, would be the reason I oppose the amendment.
  I reserve the remainder of our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, I ask unanimous consent that a 
number of letters from a number of groups supporting my amendment be 
printed in the Record at this time. Those groups are the National 
Association of State Boards of Education that support the amendment, 
the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the 
American Association of University Professors and the American 
Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, as well as the American 
Vocational Association.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                           National Association of


                                    State Boards of Education,

                                   Alexandria, VA, April 17, 1998.
     Hon. Carl Levin,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Levin: The National Association of State 
     Boards of Education (NASBE) appreciates your intent to offer 
     an amendment to the Coverdell Education IRA bill which will 
     be considered by the Senate early next week.
       The Coverdell bill, S. 1133/H.R. 2646, seeks to expand 
     existing higher education savings accounts to include K-12 
     educational expenses, including private school tuition. These 
     benefits will disproportionately accrue to wealthy families 
     and even then will only amount to $37 in annual tax savings, 
     according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
       Unlike the Coverdell bill, which does nothing to improve 
     public education, your amendment to increase the lifetime 
     learning education tax credit for teachers enrolled in 
     technology training will directly improve the quality of 
     instruction for America's students. As more advanced 
     technologies are introduced into the classroom, teachers will 
     need more training in both new methods of instruction and 
     integrating this technology into the curriculum. The Levin 
     amendment would help accomplish these goals.
       NASBE supports your efforts to replace the Coverdell 
     provision with your proposal to promote teacher training.
           Sincerely,
                                                   David Griffith,
                                 Director of Governmental Affairs.

[[Page S3402]]

     
                                                                    ____
                                Fax Memo

     From: Don Ernst, Director of Government Relations, 
         Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
     Subject: Support for Senator Levin's Amendment for 
         improvement of teacher training in the use of technology.
     Date: 20 April 1998.
       ASCD endorses Senator Levin's proposal to provide tax 
     credit support for K-12 teachers in the essential quest to 
     improve the use of technology in classrooms and schools. 
     Ultimately, such support for teachers will benefit students 
     who must face the daily implications of technology.
       Indeed, essential to the success of teachers in the future 
     will be their ability to assist students with accessing the 
     Internet, using new technologies to expand curricular 
     offerings and enrich pedagogy, providing students with the 
     skills and knowledge to critique the use of technology, and 
     improving student learning with the power of accessible, 
     relevant, and timely knowledge that educational technology 
     has the potential to provide.
       Good luck and we will send a formal letter in the next day 
     or so!
                                                                    ____

                                              American Association


                                     of University Professors,

                                   Washington, DC, April 20, 1998.
     Re increased lifelong learning credit for technology 
         education for teachers.

     Senator Carl Levin,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington DC.
       Dear Senator Levin: The American Association of University 
     Professors supports your proposal to increase the Lifelong 
     Learning Credit to support teachers' efforts to upgrade their 
     knowledge and skills with regard to new technologies.
       Teachers are being asked to incorporate into their teaching 
     new ways of finding, sorting, evaluating, and understanding 
     information using the new tools that electronic communication 
     systems offer. In order to teach their students how learn in 
     these media--in order to go beyond the merely technical 
     skills involved in operating the machinery--teachers need 
     some educational support.
       Using the newly created Lifelong Learning Credit as a 
     vehicle is an appropriate and efficient way to assist 
     teachers in meeting this shared need. We appreciate your 
     initiative in coming forward with this proposal.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Ruth Flowers,
     Director, AAUP Government Relations.
                                                                    ____

                                              American Association


                            of Colleges for Teacher Education,

                                   Washington, DC, April 20, 1998.
     Senator Carl Levin,
     Russel Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Levin: On behalf of the American Association 
     of Colleges for Teacher Education, please accept our 
     endorsement of your legislation to provide a tax credit for 
     teachers who take coursework to improve their use of 
     technology in the classroom.
       We appreciate your leadership on this issue and your 
     commitment to well prepared teachers. Please let me know if 
     we may be of assistance to you.
           Sincerely,
                                              Penelope, M. Earley,
     Senior Director.
                                                                    ____



                              American Vocational Association,

                                   Alexandria, VA, April 20, 1998.
     Hon. Carl Levin,
     Russell Senate Office Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Levin: On behalf of the American Vocational 
     Association (AVA), I am writing to commend you on your 
     efforts to emphasize technology in teacher training. Your 
     amendment to expand the Lifelong Learning Credit for teachers 
     enrolled in technology programs is an important step in 
     raising awareness of the need for teachers to better 
     understand and more effectively use technology in the 
     classroom.
       AVA represents 38,000 secondary and postsecondary teachers, 
     career guidance counselors, administrators, teacher educators 
     and business leaders from across the country who are 
     dedicated to improving vocational-technical education for our 
     nation's students. Vocational-technical education prepares 
     students with the critical combination of academic and 
     technical skills that is needed to succeed in a 
     technologically advanced workplace. Teachers must have high-
     level technology skills to prepare students effectively for 
     the careers of the future. In addition, expanding the use of 
     technology as a teaching tool will make teaching more 
     effective and will give students a first-hand view of how 
     technology applies to learning and work.
       With these things in mind, AVA is advocating for a stronger 
     focus on technology issues in the reauthorization of the 
     Higher Education Act and the reauthorization of the Carl D. 
     Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act. 
     Federal leadership on this issue is necessary to promote 
     innovation and improvement in teacher preparation. Your 
     amendment helps to highlight this priority.
       In addition to seeking federal leadership, AVA is working 
     hand-in-hand with the business community to create new 
     opportunities for teachers and students to improve their 
     knowledge of technology. Our new partnership with Pulsar Data 
     Systems and the Xerox Corporation will provide scholarships 
     to teachers to learn how to use technology and to students 
     who want to pursue education programs that will enable them 
     to enter into information technology careers. We are excited 
     about this project and will continue to seek additional ways 
     to expand the technology focus in education.
       Thank you for your leadership in seeking to improve 
     teachers' knowledge of technology. We also greatly appreciate 
     the work of Dan Guglielmo and Jackie Parker of your staff who 
     have been most helpful to us in working on this important 
     issue. Please feel free to contact Nancy O'Brien, AVA's 
     assistant executive director for government relations, or me 
     whenever we may be of assistance to you.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Bret Lovejoy,
                                               Executive Director.

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first on the question of why technology. In 
my earlier remarks I indicated why there was such a need for training 
in technology for our teachers. We make a number of special provisions 
in our law for technology. It's not unique. We make special provisions 
for lots of purposes, including language training. Why language 
training? Because there is a need that we have for language training. 
Why technology? Because obviously the incomes of our students are going 
to depend on how well they can use technologies and how well we utilize 
technologies in their training. For instance, we currently have a 
Technology Literacy Challenge Fund. That is part of our law; $425 
million, I believe, in this year's fiscal budget. It is addressed 
towards technology because of the importance of technology. So there is 
nothing unusual about having special provisions for different parts of 
education and for training, and this amendment is focused on one of the 
very critical needs that we now have.
  Let me briefly quote the acting director of technology from the 
Michigan Education Department. His name is Jamie Fitzpatrick. I have 
worked with him closely over the past 6 months as I have traveled over 
the State visiting with schools and school districts in this technology 
area. This is what Mr. Fitzpatrick says, as quoted in a press dispatch:

       For every dollar we spend on computer hardware and software 
     in kindergarten through 12th grades, I think we would be 
     lucky if we saw 5 cents on the dollar spent on training and 
     support. If we continue with those kinds of ratios, we will 
     never realize the gain in student achievement that we think 
     technology has the potential to elicit. We obviously need to 
     put money into training.

  That is what this amendment is aimed at, giving an incentive to 
teachers, experienced teachers in their courses, to go back to get 
skills necessary to utilize these new technologies in their curricula. 
Otherwise we are not utilizing fully the potential of these 
technologies that come at such great cost to our parents.
  I would wager on the answer, if we ask the American people whether or 
not they think it is right for 35.4 million families with students in 
public schools to get less of a benefit from the current provision in 
this bill that we would draft--less of a dollar benefit than the 2.9 
million families with students in private schools who get the lion's 
share of that IRA money for grades K-12. That's not my numbers. That's 
the Joint Committee on Taxation's numbers. I wish we had a way of 
taking a survey of families in America, to ask whether or not they 
think this provision in the pending bill fairly treats the families of 
America. I don't think it does, and I think those families want us to 
have our teachers fully trained to utilize these new technologies. I 
think that is why the support for this amendment comes from the 
grassroots, as I know it does from my travels around my own State.
  Mr. President if I have any time remaining, I reserve the remainder 
of that time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 41 seconds. Who yields time? 
The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 minutes. First of all, I 
want to point out again that we have no quarrel with respect to the 
importance of technology and technical training. We think that it is of 
key interest. But at the same time we think its critically important to 
recognize that other types of training for teachers are equally 
important. For example, taking programs to better learn how to teach 
the disabled is certainly a top goal and desire, or to teach math or 
English to our children. All of these are worthy goals, and our concern 
is that by singling out technology we

[[Page S3403]]

would be hurting others who have interests of similar importance.
  I am also concerned about the complexity this proposal writes into 
the Tax Code. One of the constant complaints--and I think a justified 
complaint--is that we are always making the Federal code more 
difficult, more complex to administer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired. The 
Senator's 2 minutes have expired. The Senator has 3 minutes remaining.
  Mr. ROTH. I yield myself 1 more minute.
  So, I say that one of the problems with this proposal is that it adds 
an additional complexity that is going to be harder to administer and 
require the creation of a new bureaucracy. Let's keep and treat all 
people in this situation the same.

  The other point I want to make is that the benefits of the Coverdell 
amendment do not go to the wealthy. I point out that 70 percent of the 
benefits of the Coverdell education IRA go to families making $75,000 
or less. I point out that a blue-collar worker can easily be making 
$40,000 with overtime; his spouse or her spouse working as a teacher, 
or otherwise, can be within this range. I defy anyone to go out and ask 
any of these people whether they consider themselves to be wealthy. The 
answer will be no.
  Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator yield back the remainder of 
his time?
  Mr. ROTH. No; I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute 51 seconds remaining.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, very briefly, the argument that alleges or 
suggests that someone making $75,000 is wealthy, we did not address 
that issue at all. What this chart shows, though, is that the 2.9 
million families with children in private schools get more of the 
benefit than the 35.4 million families with children in public schools. 
That is the disproportion and inequity that I point out in this 
amendment.
  We have almost 36 million families getting back less of a total 
benefit, 48 percent, than 2.9 million families with children in private 
schools. That is the argument.
  I do not have any time to yield back, but I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired. Who yields 
time?
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. How much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. One minute 50 seconds.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I would like to address the chart. The 
chart, with all due respect to my good colleague, is very misleading. 
Seventy-five percent of the families who open savings accounts will be 
supporting children in public schools, and 30 percent will be 
supporting children in private schools. Clearly, those families, or 
what comes out of the accounts, the $5 billion saved, is directly 
proportional to what the families are willing to put into the account.
  The families who have children in private schools understand they 
have a higher hurdle. They are paying public school taxes, and they 
have to pay the private school costs over and above that. What this 
reflects is they are going to put more money in their accounts because 
they have more costs to cover. Nevertheless, $2.5 billion of the $5 
billion will go in support of children in public schools, and about 
$2.5 billion will go in support of children in private schools.
  The chart is nothing more than a function of which families are 
saving what. The entire cost, to cause all these billions of dollars to 
be saved, is $500 million over the next 5 years. So the entire bill, in 
support of private education, is about 7.5 percent of all this 
investment to children in private schools and the balance to children 
in public schools.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired. All time has 
expired.
  Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.
  Mr. LEVIN. May I make a unanimous consent request?
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I yield--well, reserving the right----
  Mr. LEVIN. I ask the Senator from Missouri if he will yield for a 
unanimous consent request to have printed a document from the Joint 
Committee on Taxation that supports this chart.
  There being no objection,the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                    U.S. Congress,


                                  Joint Committee on Taxation,

                                    Washington, DC, March 2, 1998.
     To:  Maury Passman and Nick Giordano
     From:  Lindy L. Paull
     Subject:  Revenue Requests
       The attached tables are in response to your request dated 
     January 28, 1998, for revenue estimates of H.R. 2646 as 
     passed by House of Representatives and as modified by Senator 
     Lott's second degree amendment as well as the corresponding 
     number of taxpayers estimated to benefit from H.R. 2646.
       Additionally, you requested information regarding the 
     utilization of educational savings accounts for public versus 
     private education. We estimate that approximately 38.3 
     million returns would have dependents in schools at the 
     primary or secondary level in 1999. We estimate that, of 
     those eligible to contribute, approximately 2.9 million 
     returns would have children in private schools, and that 
     approximately 2.4 million of these returns would utilize 
     education IRAs.
       We estimate that the proposed expansion of education IRAs 
     to include withdrawals to cover primary and secondary 
     education expenses would extend approximately 52 percent of 
     the tax benefit to taxpayers with children in private 
     schools. We estimate that the average per return tax benefit 
     for taxpayers with children attending private schools would 
     be approximately $37 in tax year 2002.
       Conversely, we estimate that of the 38.3 million returns 
     eligible, approximately 35.4 million returns would have 
     dependents in public schools, and that approximately 10.8 
     million of these returns would utilize education IRAs.
       We estimate that the proposed expansion of education IRAs 
     would extend approximately 40 percent of the tax benefit to 
     taxpayers with children in public schools, with an average 
     per return tax benefit of approximately $7 in tax year 2002.

  Mr. ASHCROFT. I have no objection.
  Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a 
letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation that explains this chart.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.


                Amendment No. 2300 to Amendment No. 2299

  (Purpose: To prohibit spending Federal education funds on national 
           testing without explicit and specific legislation)

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I offer a second-degree amendment to the 
pending amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Missouri [Mr. Ashcroft] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2300 to amendment No. 2299.

  Mr. ASHCROFT. 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 text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 15 minutes in 
support of his amendment.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, the Senator from Missouri thanks the 
Chair.
  The first thing the second-degree amendment which I have offered will 
do is restore the Coverdell IRA language which has been stricken from 
the measure by the first-degree amendment offered by the Senator from 
Michigan.
  I think that debate has been pretty clearly conducted. I believe it 
is clear that the Coverdell amendment is a virtuous amendment. The 
suggestion that individuals in public schools don't get as much benefit 
in terms of the tax break here, it seems to me, overlooks one thing: 
That virtually the entirety, of the public school cost is already tax 
underwritten and funded by the Government. Those who are in private 
schools are not only paying that rate, but as taxpayers they are also 
seeking to provide education for their children on a secondary and 
alternative track. To suggest that we should ignore the fact that the 
totality of the educational experience, virtually the totality of it, 
has already been paid for governmentally in the public school

[[Page S3404]]

system is, I think, failing to take into account a very important 
point.
  In addition to restoring the Coverdell language, which would provide 
a basis for an IRA for individuals who would save for their children's 
education, my second-degree amendment adds a permanent ban on Federal 
funding for national testing of students in our schools unless there is 
explicit congressional authority for such funding.
  Any movement toward the national control of education, I believe, 
savages educational principles that we as Americans hold dear. Parental 
authority and control, local control of schools, school board control, 
community control, teachers who are free to teach core subject matters, 
and school boards that are responsive to their communities, not held 
captive by distant bureaucrats, are a fundamental commitment of this 
Nation.
  When President Clinton proposed national testing for our children, it 
was an example of a Federal power grab. The President wants to move 
power out of the hands of parents and out of the hands of school boards 
and away from communities and begin, through national testing, to 
direct the way the schools are operated all across the Nation. It 
doesn't take an educational expert to know that when you dictate the 
test, you describe the curriculum.
  I visited lots of schools during my time as Governor, and I have 
since I have become a Senator. I asked a group of 5th graders not long 
ago when I was in their school, ``If I were to tell you that I was 
going to test you on the first 50 words in the dictionary this 
afternoon, what would you study this morning?'' It didn't take any of 
them any trouble to know that they would study the first 50 words in 
the dictionary. The test dictates the curriculum.
  Last fall, 36 other Senators joined with me to threaten a filibuster 
of the Labor-HHS and Education appropriations bill unless there was a 
ban during the fiscal year on Federal funding for the President's 
national testing proposal. We won an important victory when Congress 
and the administration agreed to provisions banning deployment of any 
tests or field testing activities during the year in which we are now 
operating. However, that 1-year ban is not enough. Congress must 
permanently ban Federal funding for national testing in order to 
protect parental involvement and local control of education.
  Why do I oppose national testing, this description of what has to be 
taught by what you are going to test? First of all, I think we should 
hold our children to the challenging academic standards that will lead 
them to greatness. However, any such standards should be set at State 
and local levels where parents, teachers and school boards are 
fundamental participants in making the critical decisions that will 
relate to the children's educational experience.
  Federalized tests mandated from Washington will hurt education in the 
Nation. First, because the No. 1 indicator of student achievement is 
parental involvement. Whenever we say to parents, ``We're going to 
decide what is tested, therefore we will decide what is taught, you're 
not going to be relevant anymore,'' we dislocate parents from the 
process.
  All the data indicate that the most important factor in student 
achievement is parental involvement. Study after study has proven this. 
I refer you to a 1980 study reported in Psychology in the Schools. It 
showed that family involvement improved Chicago elementary school 
children's performance in reading comprehension.
  Here is the conclusion: 1 year after initiating a Chicago citywide 
program aimed at helping parents create academic support conditions, 
students in grades 1 through 6, intensively exposed to the program, 
improved a half to six-tenths of a grade equivalent more in their Iowa 
test of basic skills over students less intensively involved in the 
program.
  Parental involvement boosts student achievement. We should not have a 
national program which disengages parents. We should not say to 
parents, ``parents need not apply.'' We should not be telling parents 
that we do not care what you think and that we in Washington know 
better what ought to be done.
  Let me just indicate that there are a number of other similar 
studies. I ask unanimous consent to have material about them printed in 
the Record, including the California and Maryland elementary schools 
studies.
       California and Maryland elementary schools achieved strong 
     gains in student performance after implementing 
     ``partnership'' programs, which emphasize parent involvement.
       A 1993 study describes how two elementary schools 
     implemented a ``partnership'' program which emphasized two-
     way communication and mutual support between parents and 
     teachers, enhanced learning at both home and school, and 
     joint decision making between parents and teachers.
       Students at Columbia Park School in Prince George's County, 
     Maryland, ``who once lagged far behind national averages, now 
     perform above the 90th percentile in math, and above the 50th 
     percentile in reading,'' after implementing the partnership 
     program.
       ``In its fourth year of the [partnership] program, the 
     Daniel Webster School in Redwood City, California, shows 
     significant gains in student achievement compared to other 
     schools in the district. Webster students have increased 
     their average California Test of Basic Skills math scores by 
     19 percentile points, with all grades performing above grade 
     level. In language, most classes improved at least 10 
     percentile points.''
       Source: Developing Home-School Partnerships: Form Concepts 
     to Practice, Susan McAllister Swap. New York: Teachers 
     College Press, Columbia University, 1993.

  Mr. ASHCROFT. These studies show the amazing impact that parental 
involvement has on children's educational performance.
  I think there is a clear understanding that when parents are actively 
involved and engaged, students prosper. Why should we have a situation 
in which Washington begins to dictate what happens in our schools?
  Former Governor George Allen of Virginia, a State that developed 
widely acclaimed standards of learning, indicates that the most 
impressive gains happen when we emphasize the grassroots. Governor 
Allen states:

       If there is one important lesson we have learned during our 
     efforts to set clear, rigorous and measurable academic 
     expectations for children in Virginia's public school system, 
     it is that effective education reform occurs at the 
     grassroots, local and State levels, not at the Federal 
     Government level.

  This confirms the experience I had as Governor and, of course, as an 
individual who had an intimate responsibility for being helpful to 
local school districts. I learned firsthand that local control is 
needed to create educational programs that respond to the needs of 
local communities. A local community should be able to decide whether 
it is going to teach with phonics or whether it is going to use some 
other measure.
  A local community should be able to decide that it wants to teach the 
new math or the whole math or any method it wants to use to teach 
basic, fundamental mathematics and arithmetic skills that focus on 
computation.
  When our military, for example, responded to the Federal Government's 
demand that they initiate the new math--or what some people called 
``MTV'' math or ``fuzzy'' math, as one Member of this Chamber on the 
other side of the aisle referred to it--we saw precipitous declines in 
student performance.
  I believe when you start saying from the national level that you are 
going to provide tests that will dictate what is taught, and frequently 
how it is taught, there is a real threat to the ability of local 
schools, parents, community leaders and the culture to shape the 
educational experience that is so fundamental and important.
  Perhaps that is why the Missouri State Teachers Association, which is 
comprised of 40,000 members--by far the largest teacher association in 
my State--warned: ``The mere presence of a Federal test would create a 
de facto Federal curriculum as teachers and schools adjust their 
curriculum to ensure that their students perform well on the tests.'' 
The mere presence of a Federal test begins to direct everything toward 
the Federal Government instead of toward what parents, teachers and 
community leaders want.
  In fact, when Jimmy Carter was President of the United States and was 
considering a national test proposed in this Chamber, Joseph Califano, 
Carter's Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, warned, ``Any set 
of test questions that the Federal Government prescribes should surely 
be suspect as a first step toward a national curriculum.'' He went on 
to say, ``In its most extreme form, national control of curriculum is a 
form of national control of ideas.''

[[Page S3405]]

  I think it is time for us to make permanent the funding ban on 
national testing by the U.S. Government. There are plenty of other 
instruments that help us understand how our students are doing. It is 
important that we say that this Congress is on record as prohibiting 
the utilization of tax resources to undermine schools in determining 
what should be taught and how it is to be taught at the local level. We 
do this because, at bottom, students learn best when parents, local 
officials, school officials, and community leaders make decisions about 
the schools and participate in them so that student achievement is the 
No. 1 objective and goal.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Will the Senator from Missouri yield for 1 minute?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 5 minutes.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I will be pleased to yield.
  Mr. COVERDELL. If we are in a national debate about the condition of 
elementary and secondary education, would one be nervous, given the 
forces that want to protect the status quo, that testing could be 
designed to protect the condition we are in?
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Certainly. And dumbing down the test would be an easy 
way to make it look like we were making great progress.
  I will just state that a few years ago, when there was an effort to 
set national history standards, we watched the politically correct 
movement overtake school officials as they demanded that we delete 
people like Robert E. Lee, Thomas Edison and other notables from the 
history standards and, instead, insert people like Madonna. I think the 
last thing we need is dumbed-down national standards. We need real 
academics, not politically correct education. The threat of politically 
correct curriculum and politically correct tests is something America 
should not endure.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes, and then I will 
yield the remainder of time to the Senator from Massachusetts to 
control.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, on the amendment that I offered 
before, I just want to read very briefly from the memorandum from the 
Joint Committee on Taxation which supports the chart I have used. This 
memorandum, which is now part of the Record, says that they estimate 
that ``2.4 million of the returns [who have children in private school] 
would utilize education IRAs'' and that those returns would utilize 
``52 percent of the tax benefit. . .''
  On the other hand, this letter says that the ``35.4 million returns 
[with] dependents in public schools'' would utilize 48 percent of the 
tax benefit.
  That is a direct quote from the Joint Committee on Taxation.
  Relative to the amendment of the Senator from Missouri, I will just 
speak briefly because I will turn the remainder of the time over to the 
Senator from Massachusetts on this issue. But I will say this. I do not 
disagree with his point that local school districts, communities, and 
parents should control the curriculum. I happen to be a strong believer 
in local control.
  Whether or not a school district wants to use new math or old math is 
something they ought to be able to decide. But one of the things they 
also should be able to decide is whether or not they want to utilize a 
national test which will give them some idea as to where their students 
stand relative to other students.
  If they do not like that idea, they should not have to give that 
test. That should be a local option. It is a local option under the 
President's proposal. It is not a mandatory test. It is voluntary as he 
proposes it. School districts can use it or not use it. The question is 
whether or not, then, we should deny a school district the option, 
whether we should deny a local community an option to use a tool if 
they see fit to use it. That is the issue.
  That tool may not be a useful tool. The Senator from Missouri may be 
correct. A school district may decide they do not want any part of it 
for the reasons that he gives. That should be the right and is the 
right of the local school district under the President's proposal.
  But it should also be an obligation available to a local school 
district if they think there is a benefit from utilizing a national 
test. Why deny a community? Why deny a local government, a local school 
district, a tool which they believe is useful?
  That is the issue. That is what would be denied under this second-
degree amendment. I don't think we ought to deny that opportunity here 
for local school districts to make that choice.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous I be allowed to yield the remainder of 
my time to be under the control of the Senator from Massachusetts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Massachusetts has 11 minutes 48 seconds.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 8 minutes.
  Mr. President, I strongly oppose the Ashcroft amendment to prohibit 
the administration from developing voluntary tests for academic 
achievement. Schools need clear-cut standards of achievement. Realistic 
tests to measure achievement are an essential part of good education. 
The same voluntary tests that received broad support in the Senate last 
year, the testing compromise, had a vote of 87-13.
  Voluntary national tests based on widely recognized national 
standards makes sense. They give parents and communities and schools an 
effective way to improve education and to chart the progress they are 
making. The voluntary national tests will be designed to assess fourth 
grade reading and eighth grade math. They are basic subjects and basic 
stages in each students' academic development. The assessments are 
timely and worthwhile.
  Every student, parent, and school will benefit from them. The 
Ashcroft amendment will keep them in the dark. Parents want to know how 
well their children are doing and how well their schools are doing 
compared to other students in other schools across the Nation. Today, 
too many schools in communities across the country are attempting to 
educate their students without the kind of assistance and guidance that 
ought to be available. They have no way to compare the performance of 
their students with students in other schools and other communities in 
other parts of the country.
  We know by every current indicator the performance of American 
elementary and secondary school students falls far short of the 
performance of students in many other nations. We have to do better. 
Knowing where schools and students now stand is an essential part of 
helping them do better.
  As the Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin, pointed out, the tests 
will be entirely voluntary. I repeat, entirely voluntary. States and 
local districts will have the opportunity to participate if they choose 
to. Nothing is mandated by the Federal Government. Nothing is mandated 
by the Federal Government. There is no Federal control of local 
education. What is being made available on a voluntary basis is a long 
overdue opportunity for schools across the country to have realistic 
guideposts to measure the academic progress of their students. The 
tests will be based on national and international standards that will 
show whether students are meeting widely accepted criteria for 
achievement in reading and math.
  No current test is available to provide this essential information to 
students and parents and teachers and school administrators. Families 
have no way to measure the performance of students in their community 
on a comparative basis with students in other schools and other 
communities and other States.

  Mr. President, 87 of us agreed last year that the National Assessment 
Governing Board, which is a bipartisan group, is well equipped to 
oversee the tests. It is a time-honored bipartisan group of skilled 
educators, made up of

[[Page S3406]]

different representatives of the educational community. Voluntary 
national tests do not undermine local efforts on school reform. They 
enhance them. We need to do what we can to support local efforts to 
improve teaching and learning, especially in such vital areas as 
reading and math. Voluntary tests are an important way to support local 
school reform. I urge my colleagues to oppose the Ashcroft amendment.
  Finally, I think this is an empowerment issue for parents. Basically, 
we are permitting on a voluntary basis, the States and then again the 
local communities, to make a decision about whether they are going to 
have these tests in the various communities and then to permit, 
obviously, the parents to know how their children are doing. By knowing 
how they are doing, then the parents can make judgments and decisions 
about what additional steps ought to be taken to try to improve the 
academic achievement and accomplishment of their children.
  These kinds of tests are in the interests of the parent, so they know 
how their children are doing in schools, it is in the interests of the 
school board member to know whether they are making the correct 
judgments in terms of allocating resources and priorities, and it is in 
the interests of the community so they will know how they are doing in 
comparison with other communities.
  All of these issues were debated at very significant length in the 
last Congress, and steps were taken to make sure that the bipartisan or 
virtually the nonpartisan education group was going to be developing 
these tests. They are in the process of doing so at the present time. 
They are not going to go into implementation until the year 2002. We 
are in 1998 at the present time and they are going into effect in 2002. 
So we are approaching this issue very modestly. They are going to be 
tested before they will be accepted. We will have ample opportunity to 
review the results of both the tests, the testing results as they give 
application to the tests, long before they go into effect.
  The question is whether we will take this step by step and make 
judgments that will ultimately enhance the power of parents in knowing 
how their children are doing. If the Ashcroft amendment goes into 
effect, we are terminating that and denying a very important ingredient 
to parents and local communities. Parents in local schools want to know 
how their children are doing. Too often they have been kept in the 
dark. If there is a local decision, a local judgment, a State judgment, 
to put these into effect, they ought to have that opportunity to do so. 
Under the Ashcroft amendment, they will be denied that opportunity to 
do so.
  I think this is a very modest program that is being put into the 
process at the present time and we should not undermine it this early 
in the process.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. COVERDELL. How much time remains on both sides?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri has 3 minutes 50 
seconds remaining and the Senator from Massachusetts has 5 minutes 6 
seconds remaining. If neither side yields, time will run equally.

  Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coverdell). The Chair recognizes the 
Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. President, earlier in debate on this, I attempted to offer a 
compromise amendment partly because I believed, and still do, that the 
assessment of achieving reading and math standards is important 
information for parents, school boards, and others involved in 
education to make appropriate decisions about how changes should be 
accomplished so that we can achieve better results.
  There was a lot of complication with that because of the concern 
about the influence of the Department of Education over the design of 
the tests, the fact that some of this information assessment might not 
be accurately assessed.
  What I was attempting to accomplish was to give parents more 
knowledge so they could put more pressure on their local public schools 
to do a better job, to accept reforms. In many instances I was 
concerned because State departments of education are deceiving parents 
in an effort, from a political standpoint, to convince their 
constituents that their schools are doing just fine, that their 
students are doing as well as anyone. They are not administering tests, 
I think, or interpreting those tests in the way that gives parents 
adequate reflection of that.
  If we could structure this in a way to get an independent, outside 
the Department of Education test, voluntary on a State basis, it could 
be helpful. Well, we weren't able to do that. I think it is now 
entirely appropriate that the Senator's amendment, which essentially 
says set this aside until we authorize it, debate this thing, work it 
through, is the way to go. So I am going to support his amendment. I 
thank the Senator for the time.

  Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 5 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 3 minutes. Before the Senator from 
Indiana leaves the floor, I was very persuaded by the logic and 
eloquence of the Senator on the reasons he supported the compromise 
last time. I was under the impression that we still had NAGB doing that 
test at the present time. The independent board has already taken, as I 
understand it, several steps to address the key concerns that were 
raised during the debate and discussion. I understand they are doing 
the test at the present time. Is the Senator's information different?
  Mr. COATS. No. The Senator is correct. There seems, however, to be 
some considerable degree of confusion in the Congress about how that 
test is going to be structured and what the process is and an 
expression on the part of many Members that Congress ought to be 
involved in the process. So let's just temporarily put that on hold so 
that the Congress can engage in terms of a better understanding and 
defining how that ought to be put together. I have agreed that perhaps 
that is the best way to go, because unless we really have some better 
understanding and assessment of that, I am not exactly sure we are 
going to accomplish what we want. I think the basic principle that I 
tried to propose earlier, which the Senator supports, I still retain 
that. I am going to work toward that end.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator. I wonder why we are going through 
this, because I am strongly committed to achieving the compromise that 
was worked out with the leadership. The Senator from Indiana and, I 
believe, Senator Gregg were interested in this. We had a great deal of 
debate and discussion. I thought that giving the assurances in terms of 
the integrity of the test should be the tough kind of criteria that the 
Senator from Indiana established in terms of the makeup of these tests. 
I understood this was in the process now. That is why I think it is 
premature to wipe all of that out. I hope that if there are 
differences, we can try to work those out in a way that is consistent 
with that agreement rather than just halting the whole process now. As 
the Senator knows well, we are not going to have this go into effect 
until 2002. We have a long way to go. Rather than stop it and start it, 
it might be wise if we can sort of measure it at the present time 
rather than end it.
  Mr. COATS. In response to the Senator, I would not describe it as a 
stop; it is just a temporary pause while we better discuss the matter 
with our colleagues to make sure they understand exactly what we are 
trying to do. Apparently, I have been unsuccessful with that to this 
point. I am hoping to do better.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senator from 
Massachusetts that his 3 minutes have expired. The Senator from 
Massachusetts has 1 minute 57 seconds. The Senator from Missouri has 1 
minute 42 seconds.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as we heard from the Senator from 
Indiana, the reasons for these kinds of reviews are basically that 
there is nothing wrong with setting high standards for the achievement 
for the Nation's children and giving parents the opportunity to know 
how their children are doing. I think that is the basic policy issue.

  The Senator from Indiana and the Senator from New Hampshire insisted

[[Page S3407]]

that this is being done in a nonpartisan, bipartisan way, and I agree 
completely. I believe that is the way it is being done. It should be a 
national priority to do all we can to help the children meet these high 
standards.
  Under the existing proposal, that would be done voluntarily. The 
States would make a judgment, local communities would make a judgment. 
I think we ought to retain the current system and try to adjust it if 
it needs to be adjusted rather than to effectively stop it in its 
tracks. Therefore, I oppose the Ashcroft amendment.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. How much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). The Senator has 1 minute 46 
seconds remaining.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I find it novel that individuals would allege that 
there are no tests to tell us how we are doing now, but then they can 
tell us how far behind we are. The truth of the matter is, there are 
lots of privately generated, academically appropriate tests. There are 
no politically proper tests that come from Government. The Iowa Test of 
Basic Skills and the Stanford Inventories are there. That is the reason 
we know where we are and parents can find that out.
  The leadership is clear on this. I have talked to Senator Lott and 
his staff. He is going to be strong for this. Representative Goodling 
has led an overwhelming vote of 242-174 in this direction in the House 
of Representatives. Senator Coverdell, who is leading this matter on 
this bill is a part of this effort. It is an important effort. There 
are lots of national tests. It is said that this would be a voluntary 
test. Here is what President Clinton said about the voluntary nature of 
the test: ``I want to create a climate in which no one can say no.''
  So much for Federal voluntary programs. ``. . . a climate in which no 
one can say no.''
  Incidentally, that was made in remarks to a joint session of the 
Michigan Legislature in Lansing, MI, on March 10, 1997. We don't need 
politically imposed, politically correct things in education. We need 
academically appropriate, strong things that local communities trust 
and can mandate and enforce. We don't need direction from Washington, 
DC. I think we have a clear opportunity here to reinforce local control 
of schools, parental involvement in the education of their students. I 
am delighted that the occupant of the Chair has said we should take 
additional time here to make sure we don't do something that is 
inappropriate.
  I urge this body to vote in favor of this second-degree amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time yielded to the proponents of the 
amendment has expired. The Senator from Massachusetts has 54 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, there is no question that there are tests 
that are out there, but quite clearly the hearings demonstrated they 
would not provide the kind of information to the parents across this 
country that this kind of initiative would provide. It seems to me that 
we want to challenge the young people of this country, setting the high 
standards for the Nation's children and giving the parents the 
opportunity and responsibility to know how their children are doing and 
then taking action at the local level on how they are going to deal 
with it. That was the principle that was accepted by the Senate and the 
strong bipartisan vote last year. Let's continue with that and give 
that a try before effectively stopping it in its tracks.
  I yield the remainder of the time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, just an update here. It appears that on 
our side we have one amendment that has been set aside for some 
resolution. On the other side, it appears that there are four 
amendments that are yet to be considered. We, of course, would 
encourage any Senator that has amendments to come forward. The aircraft 
that has taken a delegation to the funeral of a former Member of the 
Senate from North Carolina was scheduled to land, and voting was to 
begin at approximately 3 o'clock. It has been confirmed that the 
aircraft will probably be a little late. So this will alert the Members 
of the Senate that the stacked voting will probably more likely occur 
around 3:45 this afternoon.
  Mr. KENNEDY. If the Senator will yield. I will be glad to inquire on 
our side of those who desire to speak or offer an amendment and request 
their presence so that we can move along and not in any way hold this 
process up.
  I will do that. I see our friend, the good Senator from Wisconsin. 
Maybe he could be entitled to speak for some time. I will inquire from 
our colleagues on our side about Senators who still have amendments so 
that we can move this process along.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I appreciate that consideration from the Senator from 
Massachusetts. We will do the same.
  I ask the Senator from Wisconsin about how much time he will need.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I will ask for 15 minutes in morning business.
  Mr. COVERDELL. On another subject?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. On a different subject.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I have no objection.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for fifteen minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Feingold pertaining to the introduction of S. 
1966 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. GRAMS. I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to speak up to 10 
minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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