[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 84 (Wednesday, June 24, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H5288-H5294]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H5288]]


                         CONSTITUENTS' CONCERNS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McInnis). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Bob 
Schaffer) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, first of all tonight, 
Wednesday night, is one of the nights that is a traditional night for 
the freshman class on the Republican side to take to the floor.
  I, being the President of the class, reserve the hour for Members, so 
I would like to extend an invitation to anyone who might be monitoring 
tonight's proceedings, whether you are Republican freshman or any other 
member of the conference, to come on down if you have any items you 
would care to discuss tonight and any issues that you would care to 
raise this evening.
  The invitation is open for at least another hour.
  Let me say though tonight one of the things that I intend to speak 
about and some others who suggested they may be here to join us is the 
topic of obtaining constituent input from the people that we represent 
back home. Now many of us travel throughout our districts and hold a 
number of town meetings, and it was this topic that we were discussing 
just this afternoon at a freshman meeting.

                              {time}  2145

  A couple of my colleagues were discussing some of the comments that 
they had received at recent town hall meetings, and it kind of occurred 
to us that many people really do not believe that Members of Congress 
listen, that Members of Congress are willing to take the time to listen 
to constituents, to any of the messages that come up at town meetings 
and other public forums and so on, that they are acted upon. I thought 
it might be a good idea to discuss how many of those conversations are 
in fact discussed and carried on in other meetings that we have here, 
as was the case of the meeting this afternoon.
  I hold a number of town meetings throughout my district in Colorado. 
My district is 21 counties large. It is the entire eastern half of the 
state, and generally all the Great Plains on the eastern side of 
Colorado. It is a district that is a little bit larger than the State 
of Indiana.
  In order to cover a lot of territory in that district, we do hold a 
lot of town meetings. We do hold a lot of gatherings at coffee shops, 
at restaurants, at city hall meetings, at schools, all kinds much 
places. Recently I also conducted a wheat tour with the Colorado 
Association of Wheat Growers, and many of the wheat growers out on the 
Eastern Plains. The Colorado Wheat Administrative Committee was the 
other organization that helped organize that event. We went through 
three different towns on that wheat tour. We went through Kiowa County 
on the Eastern Plains, we went through Cheyenne County and we also went 
through Kit Carson County, looking at wheat farms.
  This is a very challenging time right now for wheat growers. One, 
many of these farms are dry land farms, and their wheat fields are not 
irrigated, so they are heavily reliant upon suitable weather 
conditions. It was a pretty good year so far to get the crop planted 
and to get a good start on this year's wheat crop. The wheat crop 
looked pretty good. But farmers were concerned about a number of 
issues.
  One is getting enough moisture to put a good finish on the wheat 
harvest. Even though the crop is expected to be pretty suitable this 
year, the bigger issue is wheat prices. Right now farmers are looking 
at $2.40, maybe as low as $2.25, $2.35 a bushel on wheat costs. There 
is an estimated 40 percent carry-over in wheat surpluses from last 
year. So the farmers that I spoke with were concerned about making sure 
that Congress put sufficient resources into efforts to expand export 
markets overseas.
  I am delighted to say that as a result of those conversations and the 
message I was able to convey, along with many of my other colleagues 
from wheat producing states to the Committee on Agriculture and 
Committee on Appropriations, that earlier today we were successful in 
putting sufficient funding into the export enhancement program and 
other export-related programs that help our farmers expand markets 
overseas.
  The real problem, however, has been that the Clinton Administration 
has not been aggressive, I should say, has not been aggressive at all 
in fighting hard for our farmers overseas and trying to expand markets 
where opportunities exist. In fact, because of many official policies 
of the administration, wheat producers are shut out of about 11 percent 
of the export markets in other countries, and they are thinking about 
that pretty frequently these days as they are looking at low wheat 
prices and willing purchasers throughout the world that we just need to 
reach.
  What I want to share with those folks that I met on that particular 
tour and that particular series of town meetings is that I did listen, 
and there are many other of my colleagues here in Congress that have 
heard similar pleas from the other farmers and growers throughout the 
rest of the West and the rest of the country who have joined me and 
been fighting very hard here in Congress to expand export markets and 
trying to increase the prices of commodities, and to do this within the 
context of a thriving free market.
  I also do a number of other types of visits. I do a number of radio 
call-in shows throughout my district. Again, being a rural district, 
many of the people on the Eastern Plains of Colorado listen routinely 
to talk radio shows. They get a lot of information over the radio, 
spend a lot of time in their farm vehicles or traveling the great 
distances they have to go to get from one town to another, so call-in 
shows on radio stations is a great way to reach people, and I received 
several comments about that.
  People have brought up the topics of Social Security. They wanted to 
see their Congress find some way to try to rescue the Social Security 
System, and particularly address the declining returns that we have 
realized in the Social Security Trust Fund.
  They always seem to bring up the issue of tax policy and trying to 
find ways to reduce the effective tax rates on the American people.
  One of the things I also do back home in my district is I publish my 
home phone number, and do that pretty frequently. A lot of people do 
call me at home, which is okay. I think when you run for office, that 
you should not give up your neighbor status by any means. So I take a 
lot of phone calls at home. A lot of times I am here in Washington, but 
I take those messages off of the answering service. When I am there, we 
get to answer the phone and talk to a lot of people at home. So I 
encourage anyone concerned about issues taking place in Washington and 
Congress, anyplace at the Federal level, or even at a state or local 
level, to get hold of those elected officials that you have in fact 
have hired to represent you in Washington.
  Well, one of the other things that I did, Mr. Speaker, just a few 
months ago, was sent out a public opinion survey with respect to the 
topic of education in the district. I received, oh, several thousand 
responses to that public opinion survey. I want to go through some of 
those today.
  I am going to respect the anonymity of those who have written, 
because, with the exception of a few, these folks did not intend for 
their names to be mentioned before the whole Congress. But I do know 
that they feel very passionately about some of these topics that they 
have written about. I want to share those with the House tonight and 
with colleagues, and also suggest if others have constituent letters or 
constituent concerns that they have been hearing from back home, 
tonight would be a good night to join me on the floor and let folks 
know we are listening and responding and that we are letting people 
know back home that we are carrying their message forward for them.
  Here is one, again, on this education survey. It says, ``We live in 
Fort Collins and send our children to a private school in Fort 
Collins.'' It says, ``Public school is not an option for us. I am an 
attorney here and my husband, a microbiologist. We moved here four 
years ago from Silver Spring, Maryland. Our children were in private 
school there as well. I think that it is appalling what the NEA,'' 
which is the National Education Association, ``the Teachers Union and 
the Department of Education, have done to public schools.

[[Page H5289]]

I saw the article recently regarding the amount of money spent per 
capita on children in the District of Columbia school system. It 
absolutely amazing. I can still remember driving to my office at 13th 
and K,'' not too far from here, ``when we lived there, and see the 
rundown schools and kids on the street. I appreciate your efforts and 
the efforts of your staff. We will continue to support you.'' These are 
folks from Fort Collins.

  Here are some other comments. This one was a particularly interesting 
one. Again, all these first few are on the topic of education. ``Dear 
Congressman Schaffer, I would like to comment on your opinion survey. I 
would like to see money spent on education concentrated in the 
following areas. One, classroom basics, especially reading programs at 
all levels and for all needed learning styles of the individual 
student. If a student cannot read, they will never be successful. If 
assistance dollars are continued, 75 percent should be targeted toward 
the average working poor. It is the middle income taxpayer who supplies 
the money. They seldom are able to help their own children.''
  This writer, a woman, goes on to say, the third priority, she 
strongly supports increases in vocational and technology programs in 
junior high school and in high school as well as in two year community 
colleges.
  ``We are forgetting the constant losses of skilled tradespersons, 
plumbers, educators, electricians, auto repair, carpenters, 
seamstresses, et cetera, chefs, appliance repair, et cetera.'' This 
person did not excel at penmanship here apparently.
  A ``good reasonably priced washer repairman is hard to find, but 
continued support of welfare moms is still in place. Thank you for your 
time and interest.'' That is another person from Fort Collins, 
Colorado.
  Here is one individual who sent a ratings list of what tuition costs 
in private schools in the area, and just wrote a brief note. 
``Congressman Schaffer, this is what we are paying for our son's 
schooling. Vouchers would be a great help. For one child to spend an 
entire year in a private school costs $2,375.'' This is in Loveland, 
Colorado, and this individual makes some other notations as to why it 
costs almost $6,000 per pupil at a public school, and it seems 
reasonable to this writer that individuals ought to be able to have an 
opportunity to take an education voucher and purchase a high quality 
education service at a lower cost when it is certainly available.
  Here is an interesting one. It says, let's see, ``I am retired from 
the Poudre School District,'' a school district in my hometown of Fort 
Collins, the district that my children currently attend.
  ``I am retired from the Poudre School District with 33 years 
experience in the classroom. I am not impressed with what goes on in 
schools today. Of course, kids can use a computer and do math with a 
calculator, but those I tutor are lacking in good old multiplication, 
facts and so on. They don't have the mechanics. Their geography and 
history is missing. They can fly to Hawaii, but they can't locate it on 
the globe. I am disturbed when a 9th grader can't write a paragraph, 
let alone spell the word he uses. The trouble as I, a 90-year-old see 
it, is teachers today are the generation that were cheated by the 
system in the first place. So now what can we expect when teachers do 
not have the old-fashioned foundation I had? It is true, I am a life 
member of the NEA,'' again, the National Education Association, or the 
teachers union.
  ``I thought the NEA would make me a better teacher. How naive I was. 
Their periodicals still arrive with little about better teaching 
methods, but much about teachers' rights, raises and salaries, more 
benefits, plus reports on cases of fired teachers and their legal 
problems. I am convinced NEA's money helped a great deal in electing 
Clinton in 1992. Teachers paid their union dues to elect that man. 
Thanks for listening. I hope the bill passes.''
  The bill she was speaking of was a piece of legislation that just 
came out of the Education Committee today that deals with trying to get 
more dollars to the classroom, and she makes a notation that too much 
of our education money is spent on administration.
  I would like to let the woman know and others who are of a similar 
opinion that the House Committee on Education and the Workforce did in 
fact today act on that very issue, a measure designed to try to direct 
more of the money that is currently being spent to the classroom.
  You see, today anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of the education 
dollars spent by the Federal Government is estimated to be soaked up by 
various administrative costs and other bureaucratic expenses associated 
with the United States Department of Education, sometimes the state 
administrations in various states, sometimes local communities as well. 
But we are making a very conscious and very bold effort here in 
Congress to try to direct those dollars to the classroom.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this has become a partisan issue. That 
bill passed primarily with Republican votes. In fact, I am not certain 
that there was a single Democrat vote for moving more dollars to the 
classroom. I am hopeful that by the time that measure comes to the 
floor, that we will see more folks on the left side of the aisle to 
join us on the Republican side in trying to make sure that the dollars 
that we spend actually help children and not help increase the comfort 
level of bureaucrats.
  Here is another person who wrote in their opinion survey, it says, 
``This opinion survey is a great idea.'' It says, ``Get the Federal 
Government out of our local schools, do away with tenure, give merit 
raises and give reviews for teachers regarding the ability to teach.''
  This person thinks it is important for us to go back to the basics 
and teach our children skills, not how to feel.

                              {time}  2200

  This woman wrote all over the place and in the margins. She said, 
``We need discipline back in the schools. We are pouring in more money 
now than ever, and we still have to fork over so much more money just 
to get kids registered. There is nothing provided, and the kids aren't 
learning anything. I am sick of the Federal Government running 
everything as we lose more and more of our freedom.''
  This is an individual who, just based on some of the other notations 
here in the column, it is very obvious she has some experience in 
education. She suggests that she cares very deeply about public 
education and want to see public schools thrive and succeed, and views 
the Federal regulations, the Federal mandates and the Federal red tape, 
as being a particularly burdensome impediment to educational progress.
  These comments really do get at, I think, one of the dividing themes 
that separate the two prevailing camps of political taught with respect 
to the Federal involvement in public education. There is the side that 
believes that we ought to liberate schools and focus on the freedom to 
teach, to begin to treat teachers like real professionals in an 
environment where the truly great teachers are able to thrive and able 
to rise to the top, to be able to be paid on a professional basis, and 
with professional style contracts that reward success, that reward 
performance, and do away with this whole notion that the worst teacher 
in the district is paid the same as the best. That happens too often, 
and in fact is the case in most schools today.
  What many of these writers have expressed is a real sense of trying 
to free up public education at the local level in a way that will 
guarantee excellence and guarantee success.
  It is interesting, we really rally around many areas of our economy. 
There are many industries here in the United States that are the 
world's best, that are the world's best because they are competitive, 
because they define every day new heights with respect to quality. They 
are able to offer services and products at the lowest costs and with 
the greatest convenience.
  In America we enjoy these attention routinely, and we expect those 
kinds of attributes because we live in a free market society, where 
competitiveness is, in the end, something that is of the greatest 
benefit to consumers. This is something that has been discovered 
throughout the world and has been proven throughout history, that free 
markets always work best. They work far better than a centrally 
controlled economy and a heavily regulated economy.

[[Page H5290]]

  If we are willing to brag about our financial markets, if we are 
willing to brag about the goods and services and the manufactured 
products that are produced right here in the United States, if we are 
willing to brag about the professional services that exist, whether it 
is legal services, real estate services, insurance services, if we are 
willing to brag about these because of the level of competition, 
because of the high level of quality, the greatest advantages with 
respect to low costs, and the full amount of convenience, why is it 
that we are timid about applying these same characteristics to the 
public education system?
  Why is it that we find so many here on the floor of the Congress, the 
floor of the House, who regard competitive models for education reform 
as somehow being negative when it comes to reforming public schools?
  It does not make a lot of sense. If we cared as much about our 
schools as we do every other important industry in our country, every 
other industry that is a model of success, then we would begin to apply 
some of the most excellent characteristics of competition to education, 
as well.
  We are beginning to see bits and pieces of that reform effort moving 
across the floor, and today's event in the Committee on Education and 
the WorkForce was another one of those milestones, being able to pass a 
bill to the floor that cuts out the education bureaucracy at the 
Federal level and moves real authority back to the States and to the 
local level.
  Competition is another issue that the next writer writes about. This 
is on a different topic altogether. This is an individual that I have 
met down in Lamar, Colorado, a woman who runs a bus plant. There are 
only two original bus manufacturing facilities in the United States, 
one in Colorado and I think the other is in California.
  From this woman, we extract her fuel taxes every time she hops in a 
motor vehicle and drives somewhere, take those fuel taxes, send them 
here to Washington, D.C., and many of those dollars are spent in mass 
transportation systems throughout the country.
  Many of the cities and municipalities who purchase buses have an 
opportunity to, again, take advantage of the lowest cost, the greatest 
quality earnings, and the highest level of convenience. But 
unfortunately, there is an additional advantage to foreign competitors 
in the American market.
  This woman simply wants a level playing field when it comes to 
competing right here within her own country, the ability to sell buses 
on fair and equitable terms. Laws apply to her that do not apply to 
some of other foreign competitors. They do not pay workers' 
compensation rates, unemployment insurance. They do not pay high taxes, 
have visits from the OSHA inspectors, the Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration. Her competitors do not have the EPA kicking the 
doors down and coming in and doing spot inspections and driving up the 
costs of her product.
  Yet, when those foreign competitors bring their product across the 
American line, the costs of that product is far lower than what she is 
able to provide. What she writes about is simply demanding a level 
playing field, making sure that American producers are able to do well 
in the United States and not be faced with unfair competitive 
advantages for foreigners.
  I see the gentleman from Florida is here and joining me, and I am 
glad that he is here tonight. I yield to the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Mr. 
Speaker. I was sitting in my office going through some mail, and as 
well, I was listening to the gentleman's comments about education. 
That, of course, is a very important issue for me and the people of my 
district.
  Indeed, it is a personal issue for me, as well. My mother was a 
schoolteacher, and some of the sentiments the gentleman was were 
sharing in the letter that he was reading were sentiments that my 
mother had shared with me; that though she was a member of the NEA when 
she taught, she thought that the NEA had lost its focus and had moved 
away from quality education, and simply had become a labor union 
pursuing the traditional goals of most labor unions, which is higher 
wages and benefits for their members and job security, and that quality 
education for children is a side issue for the NEA.
  I think some of the things that we have seen going on in Washington, 
particularly regarding issues like dollars to the classroom, I want to 
thank the gentleman for his leadership on that issue and the work that 
he does to promote that issue. I think the people in the gentleman's 
district should be proud of freshmen like the gentleman, and the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Joe Pitts), who have been really 
trying to push that legislation through.

  We spent here in Washington, I think we spent over $30 billion on 
education, but a disproportionately large amount of it does not end up 
in the classroom. It does not end up helping the kids. It gets sucked 
up by bureaucracy. This legislation I think is a piece of legislation 
that is long overdue, because it directs the dollars away from 
bureaucracy in Washington and in our State capitals and to the 
classrooms.
  I do not know what the gentleman's experience has been in visiting 
his schools in his district or talking to his teachers, but my 
experience has been it is just very, very tight at the classroom level. 
We have a lot of classroom teachers in my district who use their 
personal monies, these are their post-tax dollars coming right out of 
their wallets, to buy things like supplies, papers, and special 
materials that are not offered by the school district. I really think 
that is a shame.
  Let me furthermore add that the decline in education in the United 
States and the falloff in performance I think is a great tragedy. It is 
a testimony to the fact that Washington's involvement in education has 
not been helpful at all.
  Specifically, SAT scores have declined over the past 30 years. Many 
colleges and universities have had to institute remedial courses, 
teaching their students the basics of composition and mathematics, 
arithmetic, because those subjects were not taught in school, and very 
often it is in the public school systems where the failures are the 
greatest.
  Might I add also that I think one of the greatest tragedies is to see 
the National Education Association opposing any effort to implement 
school choice for parents. Specifically, we have tried repeatedly since 
I have been here in the Congress, and I know the gentleman has taken 
part in this debate, and I want to thank the gentleman for his help in 
this, to try to set up a school choice program in the District of 
Columbia.
  There are many people who argue that we in the Federal Government 
have no role in setting up school choice programs out in the States and 
at the State level. I think those are legitimate arguments. I am from 
Florida, and I think what we are doing in Florida should be the 
responsibility primarily of parents and our county and local officials 
and the State officials, and the Federal Government should not be 
involved.
  But we have jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. It is very 
clearly spelled out in the Constitution. To set up a school choice 
initiative in the District of Columbia to give parents, specifically 
low-income parents, I am talking about here, the ability to choose a 
school for their children I think is a very reasonable thing to do.
  To see the NEA and to see so many of our colleagues on the Democrat 
side of the aisle opposing these initiatives year in and year out, I 
think the last proposal was 2,000 students. If the public school system 
in the District of Columbia was outstanding, you could perhaps make 
some legitimate arguments that this is not necessary. But in reality, 
it is one of the most expensive school districts, something like $8,000 
a student, and yet the dropout rate is sky high. There is an extremely 
high number of students who cannot perform on basic, remedial testing. 
The system is failing.
  The thing that bothers me the most about this issue is rich people 
have school choice. I used to practice medicine before I came here to 
the House, and all my doctor friends exercised school choice. Yes, some 
of them enrolled their kids in the public system, but some did not. 
Some enrolled their kids in private and parochial schools.
  But it is those very low-income families in the inner cities of many 
of our

[[Page H5291]]

cities in the United States, particularly here in Washington, those 
low-income families that have no choice, and those are the places where 
the schools are the worst; and to set up a pilot program, 2,000 
students, give these low-income families the ability to choose an 
educational environment that will better serve their kids, and to see 
the NEA consistently opposing this, all I can conclude is that it is 
out of fear.
  Because if school choice is not going to work, if the parents are not 
going to like it in the end and if it is not going to improve academic 
performance, why will they not let us find out? FDR said, ``We have 
nothing to fear but fear itself.'' If school choice, a pilot school 
choice program for the District of Columbia, is so bad, why do they not 
let us test the hypothesis and see if it will work?
  I would assert to the gentleman, my good friend, that the reason they 
do not want us to test it, it gets right back to what the gentleman was 
talking about 10 minutes ago, which is, they know it will work. They 
know if it works, there will be demand for more of it in the city of 
Washington, and then the city of Milwaukee will be demanding more, 
where they already have it; and then they will be demanding it in L.A., 
New York, and Philadelphia. The NEA is afraid of that. They are afraid 
that it is going to work. That is why they oppose it year in and year 
out.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. School choice and a competitive 
approach to school reform really does threaten the union mentality that 
the National Education Association has come to represent.
  At one time the NEA was a legitimate professional organization that 
was designed to try to assist teachers and to help them become more 
professional at their job, to help them to become more proficient, and 
to provide kind of a continuing education agent for its members.
  Over time it really has evolved into a full and complete union. They 
file taxes as a labor union. They act as a labor union when they get 
involved in the political process. They act upon this Congress and 
State legislatures throughout the country on a political basis. Their 
goal really has become to preserve the status quo to the greatest 
extent possible, to preserve these union wage scales, where the worst 
teacher in the district receives the same pay as the best teacher in a 
district.
  Within that context, it is hard to imagine that there are too many 
teachers who are able to, year after year after year, just bring their 
own energy and their own enthusiasm to the classroom to rise above that 
kind of system. Yet, remarkably, many of them do. But it is through a 
sense of altruism, a sense of compassion for their profession, a sense 
of real zeal to educate youngsters and realize that these children are 
the future of the country.
  But successful, thriving teachers are not there by design of the 
system, by any means. They are only there because of the compassion 
that they carry with them in the door when they become new teachers.

                              {time}  2215

  Hopefully they will be able to hang on to it and sustain it for 4 or 
5 or 6 years. Some manage to sustain it longer. But year after year 
after year, I have heard from teachers. They write letters. When I go 
to schools, I visit them and they speak to me and they tell me that 
after 10 or 15 years in a system, it becomes very clear that there are 
no greater rewards financially, professionally, or organizationally for 
those teachers who truly thrive.
  And, again, my heart goes out and my hat goes off to those teachers 
who are truly great teachers, because we can find them throughout the 
country. We can find them in my school district and the school district 
of the gentleman from Florida, I presume. But I submit they are not 
there by design. They are there out of the passion for teaching that 
they bring with them.
  We ought to reform schools so that we reward good teachers and treat 
them like professionals. I love the response I get back home when I say 
that I think teachers ought to be treated like physicians. They ought 
to be treated like basketball players and football players, the things 
that we care about, so that the truly great teachers can become wealthy 
if they are the best in their industry and craft. They have a huge line 
of potential customers outside their door who want to get in and 
receive their services. That teacher ought to be paid a heck of a lot 
more than the teacher who runs the classroom where people are trying to 
escape because they are not learning anything or because they are in a 
dangerous environment.
  Yet in today's model, that kind of comparison does not exist. The 
worst teacher in the district under the NEA's union contract rules are 
treated exactly the same as the best teacher. That is not a model for 
success. That is what school choice allows us to get around, treating 
parents like customers to reform a system that looks more like every 
other great industry and every other great delivery system in our 
country.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I 
wanted to comment on the point, which is an excellent one, which is 
making education more of a free marketplace.
  It is amazing that we here in the United States, the Nation that has 
championed the value of the free market and how the free market has the 
ability to do a better job than the government, and how the free market 
has the ability to provide better services than in a socialized system, 
indeed that was the great battle of the Cold War which was whether a 
market system built on freedom was better for the common man, or a 
command and control, government-run economic system which, of course, 
was the Soviet, Marxist Leninist model. Yet in the United States, we 
have relegated education to the government sector exclusively.
  Now, as I said earlier, that is not true in that wealthy people can 
exercise choice and, therefore, there is a limited market. But I am 
talking about the common working man.
  Might I digress to say that I have met a lot of working class 
families in my district, families that are struggling to make ends 
meet, who specifically sacrifice personally to send their kids to 
private or parochial schools.
  But one of the big arguments that the NEA and the left has made 
against school choice, which I think is an argument totally without 
merit, is that it will destroy public schools. We hear that over and 
over and over again that Republicans, because we want school choice, 
want to destroy the public school system.
  They are the champions of the public school system and, therefore, 
their position is right; that school choice should not be allowed.
  Well, first of all, I think this is about educating our kids and what 
is the best educational environment for our kids. I thought the debate 
was not about preserving a socialized public system run by the 
government, but about making sure our kids get the best education they 
need so that they can go on to make sure that the United States 
continues to be the greatest country in the world and continues to lead 
the world in science and technology and medicine. It is not preserving 
this institution because we have gotten used to it.
  Now, I would assert that if we have school choice in the United 
States, that our public schools will survive. Indeed, I think our 
public schools will get better, because we will have a real competitive 
marketplace at that point and the public schools will have to compete 
with the private sector more effectively. They will no longer have a 
monopoly.
  I think that some of the public schools in my district will succeed 
fabulously. One of the towns in my congressional district, Sebastian, 
has a brand-new high school with all the latest high-tech facilities 
and the greatest teachers we could ever find anywhere in the United 
States are in that high school.
  I would wager that if we implemented school choice more broadly 
across the United States, and if it were implemented in my district, 
that Sebastian High School, Sebastian River High School would succeed 
fabulously. A public school. Why? Because I think they will be able to 
compete.
  So let us not argue that implementing school choice is going to 
destroy public schools. Public schools are not that bad. I mean, to 
make that argument is almost to admit they are bad.
  Now there will be some public schools that will not survive. But 
those

[[Page H5292]]

are the public schools that should not survive. I am reminded of a 
speech Newt Gingrich gave this morning about New York City, about how 
last year in New York City there were 500 restaurants that closed and 
went out of business. Sounds ominous. Sounds bad. But there were 1,300 
new restaurants that opened.
  Now, I would wager that some of those 500 restaurants that closed, 
closed because they did not serve very good food. Most people would 
probably say they should have closed.
  So if we institute school choice in America, yes, we will have some 
public schools that will close. But I would argue that those are the 
public schools that should close and those are the public schools that 
should close because they are not educating our kids. That is the core 
of the argument.
  Most public schools in my district, and I would wager that most 
public schools in the gentleman from Colorado's district, will succeed 
and thrive and they will be able to be competitive and the people who 
will benefit from this will not be the people who occupy the NEA 
headquarters in Washington, D.C. And that is because that is not what 
this argument is about. It is about our kids and making sure our kids 
gets the best education.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, the failures that are 
exposed through choice, whether it is school choice or the choice of 
restaurants as in the case of the New York example, does not mean that 
the opportunity leaves, that there is not an eating establishment at 
that old restaurant or that the opportunity to learn will leave the 
neighborhood.
  What we mean when we talk about bad schools being exposed and 
sometimes closing usually means that we have a changeover of 
management. That the old management is fired and a new team is brought 
in to try to meet the need of a neighborhood or a community. The need 
for education certainly does not go away.

  As we know in the United States, whenever there is a high need for 
some service or some commodity, there is an entrepreneur waiting in the 
wings to fill it and to meet that need or provide that service. I 
believe that the same is true in education.
  We really have not even broken the surface on unleashing the 
entrepreneurial instincts of teachers in America. They really have been 
suppressed by this mechanized union mentality that says if a student 
grows up in neighborhood or lives in neighborhood, that they are 
assigned to attend school which is in the neighborhood. Or if they move 
to another neighborhood, that they go to the school that is associated 
with that neighborhood. That is the model that we have today where 
nobody chooses, where nobody selects the curriculum they want, the 
management style they would prefer, or even some of the other ancillary 
benefits of a particular school site.
  But I believe that if we are able to get beyond that, if we of able 
to allow teachers to compete on a professional basis, that we will see 
education in this country turn around and thrive like we can not even 
imagine today.
  Again, we have a tremendous need in our Nation for a strong system of 
quality public education. Appealing to the entrepreneurial instincts of 
education professionals in my mind is the way to meet that demand. 
Those demands exist especially in inner city areas and poor 
neighborhoods where some believe that school choice will leave those 
children abandoned. I say that is nonsense. I think those are the areas 
where we will see the greatest challenge and I think we will see some 
of the best teachers moving into those particular opportunities to 
serve communities and to teacher.
  So I am like the gentleman from Florida, I think those of us who I 
believe truly have a passion for improving public education, we do not 
look to the free market as a way to suppress educational growth and 
educational excellence. We look to free markets as a way to help 
schools thrive.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would again 
yield, I just wanted to add one more point. In talking to a lot of 
parents in my congressional district who have serious concerns about 
the quality of education in the United States, one of the big issues 
that I find comes up more and more is an area where I think a lot of 
our schools are failing, and that is it is not just in the academics. 
It is not just in the ABCs, but in the basic fundamentals of character 
development.
  As many people know, we threw that issue out the school house door 30 
years ago and we are reaping a lot of the benefits of that, or the 
negative benefits of that.
  There is more to educating a kid than just teaching them how to read 
and write and to do arithmetic. There is more to being a good citizen. 
And that is really what it is about. We want to raise up people to be 
good citizens. We want them to be involved in their communities. We 
want them to be good parents. We want them to grow up to be hard-
working people, people who will succeed in the marketplace.
  Our schools, particularly many of our public schools, are failing in 
that element of education in the area of teaching character and virtue. 
And at least what I hear from a lot of parents, particularly some of 
our inner-city communities, is that they want school choice for that 
reason. They not only want to find a school that will better teach 
their kids academically, but they also want an educational environment 
where their kids will be positively influenced as citizens, as 
individuals, in areas of character and virtue.
  That is one of the other big, big reasons why I would like to see a 
real marketplace. Now, how we go about doing that, we can debate this 
issue, whether it is through a tax credit or school voucher or 
something along those lines. But after all, is not it the people's 
money anyway?
  We tax them, we take their money, property taxes, income taxes, and 
then we create this government-run system. And in many communities, 
that government-run system, we take the money from them, we set it up, 
but it is failing their kids. And the parents are saying I would like 
to take my money and go elsewhere. The way it works out is only the 
wealthy people who have the money to go elsewhere can go elsewhere. But 
many of the working families, poor families, they are locked into 
schools that are failing their kids.
  So I am really happy the gentleman brought up this issue tonight. I 
think it is a critical issue. I think it is an issue that we as 
Republicans need to continue to push. Education in my opinion is going 
to be a more and more critical issue in the years ahead. We are moving 
from this industrial-based society to this information-based society 
which is very, very computer dependent. Where knowledge and ideas are 
going to be critical for success. And how we educate our kids in the 
areas of science and technology is going to be critical. We need an 
educational system for the 21st century.
  A new age is dawning. We are leaving the 20th century and moving into 
the 21st century. Do we want to keep this educational system that has 
served us well up until now, and is not serving us well now, at least 
in many of our communities? Are we willing to be bold and to be brave 
and to move ahead and try something new?
  So, I thank the gentleman for bringing this issue up and I have been 
very pleased to be able to join with the gentleman this evening to 
discuss this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, being the son of a schoolteacher, it has always been an 
issue that has been very dear to me. My mom taught school and, indeed, 
we were talking about public schools for a while. I am a product of 
public school education, not only for elementary and secondary school, 
but as well for college. I went to a public college.

                              {time}  2230

  I think what we are talking about is improving education in America, 
helping our kids to be smarter, but, as well, helping our schools to be 
better. The best way to do that, the best way to do that is to create a 
real bona fide marketplace where we have competition.
  Whenever anybody talks about competition in an environment where 
there is no competition, those who have the monopoly will always scream 
and yell and say no, no, no, we do not want that competition. It is 
going to hurt the system. It is going to make things worse.
  I would assert that the fear of change is all we are seeing there. We 
need to harken back to the words of FDR: ``We have nothing to fear but 
fear itself.'' If

[[Page H5293]]

we are willing to make the changes necessary, we can see that we have 
an educational system that will carry our Nation boldly into the 21st 
Century so that we can continue to lead the world in the future.
  I want to thank the gentleman for joining him in this special order. 
It has really been a pleasure for me to be here with him.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
joining me. My parents are teachers as well, retired. My father spent 
his whole career teaching in the Cincinnati public school system. My 
mother, as well, finished her career working in the Cincinnati public 
school system.
  This issue tonight was raised because of the volume of letters. I 
just grabbed the six or seven that were on the top of the pile before I 
headed over here today. I did not really check to see what was in them. 
It was remarkable how similar they are in their criticism. But these 
letters are also long on suggestions as well, opportunities for 
improvement, commendations, too.
  There are plenty of teachers who view themselves as professionals, 
who communicate with me, with the gentleman, and with other Members of 
the Congress; and I encourage them to continue to do more of the same. 
I am confident in saying that they are not well represented, 
professional teachers, that is, not well represented by this teachers 
union that we mentioned earlier.
  The interests of the union are very, very different than the 
motivations of real professional teachers who care about children. This 
union is a large insurance conglomerate, for example. They profit 
handsomely from selling professional liability insurance policies to 
teachers. That is the reason many teachers joined the national union in 
the first place.
  This particular union has the ability to offer a product that is 
lower in cost because of the volume in which they deal. So they offer 
low-cost professional liability insurance. Many teachers believe that 
they need to purchase that insurance from the union in order to teach 
in a classroom. That is not really the case.
  I find that, just walking classroom to classroom in public schools in 
my district, as I frequently do, or when teachers show up at my town 
meetings, or there are several that live in my neighborhood as well, 
when they stop by, their attitudes and opinions and beliefs about where 
we need to go with education reform is very different than the union.
  I ask them, well, why are you sending your money to Washington, D.C.? 
It is something like $400 a year or something along those lines just 
for the Federal dues. That is not even the local regiment of this 
national union that exists at the State and local level. You pay 
additional dues for those folks.
  I ask them why they pay, why they keep forking over all the hundreds 
of dollars every year, which amounts to billions of dollars on a 
national level. Why do they keep sending their cash that way? They 
frequently say it is because of the professional liability insurance, 
but they do not really believe all that nonsense the union perpetuates 
out of Washington and tries to move forward.
  But it really does matter, because this union is very powerful and 
persuasive here in the halls of Congress. They hand out millions of 
dollars in cash at campaign time for elected officials and candidates 
who wish to preserve the status quo and maintain that union model on 
the union's terms.
  The unions do not like people like the gentleman and I who speak 
about free market approaches to public schooling, because it really 
does show the difference in fundamental beliefs on what education ought 
to be about nationally.
  There are those on the union side that believe that we measure 
fairness by the relationship between one school building and another 
school building or maybe one school district and another school 
district or maybe even one State school system and another State school 
system.
  But the gentleman and I and those who gravitate toward the free 
market have a very different belief, and that is that we measure 
fairness and education on the relationship between individual children.
  We believe that wealthy children in America ought to have full 
opportunity to a great education. But poor children ought to also have 
that same opportunity. That is what school choice is all about. Whether 
it is vouchers or charter schools or tuition tax credits or school 
choice or all of the different mechanisms that we have explored and 
proposed and discussed are about is moving us in that direction of 
trying to provide broader opportunity, more liberal opportunity with 
respect to choice to all children, whether they are wealthy, whether 
they are poor, whether they live in a nice neighborhood, whether they 
live in a poor neighborhood. No matter what part of the country they 
happen to live in, we fundamentally believe that we, that they will 
have greater opportunity at a lower cost and higher quality by 
eliminating the waste when we move to a free market approach to 
education.
  When we do that, we have a provider, a professional teacher who 
provides a service to a legitimate purchaser, somebody with purchasing 
power that is empowered by cutting bureaucracy and red tape.
  When we can restore that relationship between provider and recipient 
and make that bond stronger, that is the way that we can allow 
educational services to be delivered more succinctly, more directly, 
with fewer impediments and intrusions from bureaucracies and so on.
  This really is a debate about fairness and a debate about whether we 
want to see all children in America thrive and enjoy a higher quality 
education at the same right.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with everything 
the gentleman is saying. It is also a debate about empowering parents. 
I believe and I trust the gentleman believes the same way, that the 
person who is most concerned about the child and the child's education 
is the mom and dad.
  It is not necessarily the bureaucracy here in Washington or the 
Members of this body or the National Education Association president 
located in Washington, D.C., but it is actually the mom and dad.

  When you empower parents to be able to select an educational 
environment that is best for their kids, they will do that. I trust 
moms and dads to select the best education for their kids.
  I think a certain amount of the opposition that comes from the left 
on this issue, this critical issue of school choice, is a lack of trust 
of parents. Do we trust the moms and dads of America to select the best 
educational environment for their children or do we not.
  I would assert that, if we could overcome the obstacles of the 
education bureaucrats and the National Education Association and the 
left wing elements within the Congress of the United States and we 
could just learn to trust parents and give parents the power, the 
ability to select an educational environment for their kids that is 
best for them, they will do so. Academic performance will improve. SAT 
scores will go up because kids will be in a better academic 
environment.
  As I said earlier, the place where this is most critical is in our 
poor communities. The place where it is most critical is in many of our 
minority communities. The place where it is most critical is in many of 
our inner city communities.
  I dare say that, many of the communities that people like the 
gentleman and I represent, the public schools are good. But there are 
many communities in the United States where the public schools are 
failing, and they are failing miserably.
  There are some people who would argue that they need more money. We 
have been hearing that for many years. But one of the most amazing 
facts is that the amount of money that goes into these schools 
correlates poorly with the quality of educational performance of the 
students.
  Indeed, there is a considerable amount of data that some of the most 
poorly funded schools in the United States frequently have some of the 
best academic performance. Specifically what I am talking about is I 
have seen data out of places like South Dakota where I think they are 
one of the lowest levels of the Nation, but academic performance is 
extremely high.

[[Page H5294]]

  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Utah is another State.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Utah as well. So it is not money. Of course, 
then, we can always just point to Washington, D.C. and the simple fact 
that it is one of the highest in the Nation, $8,000 a student. It has 
some of the worst schools with some of the worst academic performance 
that we can find anywhere in the United States.
  It is not an issue of money. I reiterate, I come back to this 
essential point that we are debating or discussing here tonight, we are 
both on the same side of this debate, which is that if we can give 
parents that ability, and if the opposition will stop fighting this and 
it will allow us to try to test this hypothesis, I believe it will work 
very successfully.
  Again, I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this issue up 
tonight. It is a critical issue. It is a very, very important issue.
  There are lots of indicators out there that, in the United States, 
our kids are not able to compete as well as they should. We used to 
lead the world in education. Our kids were coming out of school the 
best educated in the world.
  One of the interesting facts in all of this is that, at the college 
level, we continue to lead the world. At the university level, we are 
leading the world. But at the college and university level, we have a 
marketplace. We have choice. Everybody knows that.
  Once you get to that stage in life, you select the environment you 
want and the place where you want your kids to go to school. But up 
until that point, for many parents, they are locked into a public 
system frequently because of financial issues.
  So lo and behold where you have the marketplace in a higher 
education, we lead the world. I say if we can get a marketplace at the 
K through 12 level, we will again lead the world in education, and all 
of America will benefit for that. I believe the world will benefit for 
that because, when America leads, the whole world prospers.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Very well said. I appreciate the 
gentleman from Florida joining me tonight.

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