[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 104 (Wednesday, July 29, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H6750-H6752]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




NEW STUDY ON EDUCATION IN AMERICA SHOWS NO IMPROVEMENT FOR OUR CHILDREN

  (Mr. GUTKNECHT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about education here 
in the United States.
  For the past year, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), who is 
the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the 
Committee on Education and the Workforce, has been conducting hearings 
all across the United States. They have been to 22 different cities. 
They have been to large cities, they have been to small towns, and they 
have been to rural communities. They visited 26 different educational 
institutions. They have had 200 expert witnesses, and they have talked 
about what is happening in education today.
  They are going to be coming out very soon with a report, and I invite 
all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get a copy of this 
report, because they have spent an awful lot of time and a certain 
amount of taxpayers' dollars to find out what is really happening in 
education in America today.
  Their findings are somewhat troubling. They find, for example, that 
there has been no real improvement in education in America since the 
report entitled ``A Nation At Risk.'' They found that Washington 
programs have done nothing to improve children's education; and, 
finally, they have determined that this is not acceptable to the 
Congress and certainly is not acceptable to the American people.
  So what do we have to do? An important thing about this report also 
is it has recommendations. We must focus on children by strengthening 
the role of parents. Now, that should not surprise many parents. We 
must restore local control by getting Washington out of the way. We 
must get dollars into the classroom instead of losing them to the 
bureaucracy; and, finally, and most importantly, we must emphasize 
basic academics rather than social experimentation.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope Members will get a copy of this report, and I 
hope they will all read it. I include for the Record a copy of same.


                The ``Education at a Crossroads'' Report

     Methods
       22 Congressional hearings across America and in Washington, 
     D.C.;
       26 educational institutions visited;
       200 expert witnesses.
     Major findings
       There has been no improvement in American education since A 
     Nation at Risk.
       Washington programs have done nothing to improve children's 
     education.
       This is not acceptable.
     Recommendationse
       We must focus on children by strengthening the role of 
     parents.
       We must restore local control by getting Washington out of 
     the way.
       We must get dollars into classrooms instead of losing them 
     in bureaucracy.
       We must emphasize basic academics rather than social 
     experimentation.
                                  ____


 Education at a Crossroads: What Works and What's Wasted in Education 
                                 Today


                              introduction

       The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, in 
     accordance with Rule X of the U.S. House of 
     Representatives,\1\ undertook an intensive review of the 
     federal role in education. This review, which included 
     extensive visits to schools across the country, is

[[Page H6751]]

     the only known such review ever performed by the Committee or 
     by Congress.
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     \1\ Footnotes at end of article.
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                           Executive Summary

       America's educational system is at a crossroads. Down one 
     path can be found the many successful schools and systems 
     that have emerged from the crisis of the 1980s to become 
     shining examples of educational excellence. Down the other 
     path are schools that are mired in failure or that have 
     implemented erroneous reforms, succeeding only in worsening 
     their already dismal performances. At the intersection of 
     these two paths are the vast majority of America's schools--
     stagnating in mediocrity--at the crossroads of excellence and 
     failure.
       The purpose of the Committee on Education and the 
     Workforce's Crossroads project was to identify the steps that 
     lead in the direction of either excellence or failure in 
     order to develop a positive vision for change. At a time when 
     the economy continues to grow and technological advancements 
     of the information age are fundamentally changing how we live 
     and work, our nation should not be willing to accept 
     mediocrity in education. America needs to develop a world 
     class education system that is second to none. In order to 
     succeed, our education system must have flexibility and 
     vision--a willingness to think and act ``outside of the 
     box''--for the sake of our children.
       Since the seminal report A Nation at Risk was released in 
     1983 describing the ``rising tide of mediocrity'' in 
     America's schools, there have been some improvements. More 
     students than ever are going on to college. SAT scores have 
     risen moderately and fourth grade students have performed 
     well on international comparison tests. However, despite 
     these few bright spots, current indicators paint a 
     disappointing picture overall of the preparedness of today's 
     students to continue our nation's economic strength well into 
     the 21st century.
       40 percent of fourth-graders do not read at even a basic 
     level,\2\
       Half of the students from urban school districts fail to 
     graduate on time, if at all; \3\
       Average 1996 NAEP scores among 17-year-olds are lower than 
     they were in 1984, a year after A Nation at Risk was 
     released;
       U.S. 12th graders only outperformed two out of 21 nations 
     in mathematics; \4\
       American students fall farther behind students from other 
     countries the longer they are in school; \5\
       Public institutions of higher education annually spend $1 
     billion on remedial education.\6\
       The factors behind stagnant scores and declining 
     international performance must be addressed to ensure that 
     U.S. students are competitive in a global marketplace when 
     they graduate.
       For more than 40 years, the federal government has been 
     increasingly influential in local schooling. Since 1957, when 
     the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite, federal 
     education spending and red tape has been expanding and 
     becoming more involved in the classroom. Since 1980, nearly 
     $400 billion has been spent by the federal government on 
     education.
       A Key decision at the crossroads: It is time for America to 
     take a careful look at what billions of federal education 
     dollars have purchased, and to make hard decisions about 
     whether to continue expanding the federal role, or to return 
     control to parents and teachers.
       The Crossroads project began in 1995 as a project of the 
     House Education and Workforce Committee's Subcommittee on 
     Oversight and Investigations, under the leadership of 
     Chairman Pete Hoekstra. Its mission was to answer the 
     following questions about education:
       1. What are the elements of a successful school?
       2. To what extent do federal education programs contribute 
     or detract from those factors?
       3. What works and what is wasted?
       After asking the General Accounting Office (GAO) to 
     determine the elements of successful schools, the 
     Subcommittee began a series of hearings around the country to 
     look at what works and what is wasted at the local level.\7\ 
     The Subcommittee traveled to 15 states and heard from more 
     than 225 witnesses. These hearings gave principals, teachers, 
     parents, students and state officials from around the country 
     a rare opportunity to share their experiences about what 
     works and what is wasted. Rather than relying on a small, 
     elite group of witnesses who could leave their work to come 
     to Washington and testify, the Subcommittee visited 
     educators, parents and students where learning takes place: 
     the classroom. From small towns to major cities, real people 
     discussed real successes and problems in education. Apart 
     from these hearings, these voices may never have been heard.
       Based on the findings of GAO and these hearings, the 
     Subcommittee found that successful schools and school systems 
     were not the product of federal funding and programs; but 
     instead were characterized by: Parents involved in the 
     education of their children; local control; emphasis on basic 
     academics; and dollars spent on the classroom, not 
     bureaucracy and ineffective programs.
     The current Federal role
       In addition to these findings, the Crossroads project 
     research the nature of the current federal role in education. 
     The Committee found a system fraught with failure and 
     bureaucracy:
       More than 760 federal education programs: For the first 
     time in the history of federal education funding, the 
     Committee assembled the most comprehensive list of federal 
     education programs to date. At least 39 federal agencies 
     oversee more than 760 education programs, at a cost of $100 
     billion a year to taxpayers. The Congressional Research 
     Service has confirmed that these numbers are accurate, and 
     even added additional programs to the 760 originally found by 
     the committee.
       The leviathan of federal education programs has actually 
     led to a cottage industry in selling information on program 
     descriptions, application deadlines and filing instructions 
     for each of the myriad of federal education programs. The 
     Education Funding Research Council identifies potential 
     sources of funds for local school districts, and sells for 
     nearly $400 the Guide to Federal Funding for Education. The 
     company promises to steer its subscribers to ``a wide range 
     of Federal programs,'' and offers these subscribers timely 
     updates on ``500 education programs.'' More recently, the Aid 
     for Education Report published by CD Publications advertised 
     that ``huge sums are available . . . in the federal 
     government alone, there are nearly 800 different education 
     programs that receive authorization totaling almost a hundred 
     billion dollars.''
       Mountains of Paperwork: Even after accounting for recent 
     reductions, the U.S. Department of Education still requires 
     over 48.6 million hours worth of paperwork per year--or the 
     equivalent of 25,000 employees working full-time.\8\ The 
     Subcommittee has attempted to quantify the number of pages 
     required by recipients of federal funds in order to 
     qualify for assistance. Without fully accounting for all 
     the attachments and supplemental submissions required with 
     each application, the Committee counted more than 20,000 
     pages of applications states must fill out to receive 
     federal education funds each year.
       A ``Shadow'' Department of Education: The Department of 
     Education touts that it is one of the smallest federal 
     agencies with 4,637 employees, and that it has a relatively 
     small administrative budget. What many people do not realize, 
     however, is that there are nearly three times as many 
     federally funded employees of state education agencies 
     administering federal education programs, as there are U.S. 
     Department of Education employees. According to GAO, there 
     are about 13,400 FTEs (full-time equivalents) funded with 
     federal dollars to administer these programs for state 
     education agencies.
       As little as 65-70 cents reaches the classroom: A recent 
     study found that for every tax dollar sent to Washington for 
     elementary and secondary education, 85 cents is returned to 
     local school districts. The remaining 15 cents is spend on 
     bureaucracy and national and research programs of unknown 
     effectiveness.\9\ The Department of Education has since 
     released a study, which also found that about 85 cents of 
     federal dollars reaches school districts for use in the 
     classroom.\10\ Although these studies provided information 
     not previously available on federal education spending, they 
     only examined what was returned to school districts, still 
     several layers of bureaucracy away from the classroom.
       To date, no studies exist to enable us to determine what 
     portion of federal education dollars actually reach the 
     classroom, or what schools and state education agencies must 
     spend to apply for education dollars and comply with their 
     requirements. However, audits of school district spending 
     indicate just how little in general reaches the classroom. A 
     recent audit of the New York City School District found that 
     only 43 percent of the district's total funds were spent on 
     direct classroom expenditures.\11\ Given the 48.6 million 
     paperwork hours required to receive federal education dollars 
     and the school district bureaucracies funds must pass through 
     to reach the classroom, it is not unreasonable to assume that 
     another 15-20 cents spent outside the classroom. This would 
     mean a net return of 65-70 cents to the classroom.
       The 487 Step Labyrinth: In 1993, Vice-President Gore's 
     National Performance Review discovered that the Department of 
     Education's discretionary grant process lasted 26 weeks and 
     took 487 steps from start to finish. It was not until 1996 
     that the Department finally took steps to begin 
     ``streamlining'' their long and protracted grant review 
     process, a process that has yet to be completed and fully 
     implemented. After the streamlining is complete it will only 
     take an average of 20 weeks and 216 steps to complete a 
     review.\12\
       Federal Dollars for Baywatch and Jerry Springer. The 
     Department of Education's Office of Special Education and 
     Rehabilitative Services Media and Captioning Services funds 
     closed captioning for ``educational'' programs such as 
     Baywatch, Ricki Lake, The Montel Williams Show, and Jerry 
     Springer. By funding captioning for these programs--funding 
     which could easily be provided by the television industry or 
     other commercial enterprises--the federal government is 
     demonstrating to the American people just how far away it is 
     from supporting what works and identifying federal education 
     priorities.
     Programs for every problem
       The massive array of federal education programs was not 
     created overnight, but developed slowly, as an attempt to 
     address specific problems. Each program received minimal 
     funding at the outset, and most have received additional 
     funds from one year to the next. The current arrangement of 
     federal

[[Page H6752]]

     education funding is as follows: local tax dollars go to 
     Washington, where they are allocated to a variety of 
     purposes, usually to address what someone in the federal 
     government sees as a problem. The money is then returned to 
     the states and school districts in the form of categorical 
     programs. This process puts smaller school districts at a 
     disadvantage: States and local school districts are highly 
     dependent on administrators and skilled grant writers to 
     obtain these federal dollars and comply with their 
     requirements, which places a greater burden on poorer and 
     smaller school systems.
       The effectiveness of these programs is seldom measured, 
     even as the problems continue to mount. Evaluations of 
     federal programs almost always measure process, not whether 
     or not they help children learn. For example, the largest 
     education program for disadvantaged children has spent more 
     than $100 billion over 30 years while producing hardly any 
     evidence of positive, lasting results. Congress must 
     ensure that such wasteful use of tax dollars is stopped.
       It is time for the burden of proof to shift to the federal 
     government. If it cannot be demonstrated that a particular 
     federal program is more effectively spending funds than state 
     and local communities would otherwise spend them, Congress 
     should return the money to the states and the people, without 
     any burdensome strings attached. This Subcommittee has found 
     little evidence proving the effectiveness of federal 
     programs, or that federal programs are more effective than 
     local efforts.
       Now is the time to act on what we've learned. The central 
     theme of what we learned is that the federal government 
     cannot consistently and effectively replicate success stories 
     throughout the nation in the form of federal programs. 
     Instead, federal education dollars should support effective 
     state and local initiatives, ensuring that it neither impedes 
     local innovation and control, nor diverts dollars from the 
     classroom through burdensome regulations and overhead.
     Empower parents
       Reduce the family federal tax burden;
       Encourage parental choice in education at all levels of 
     government;
       Create opportunity scholarships for poor children in 
     Washington, D.C., and other federal empowerment zones;
       Allow states to send Title I (Aid to Disadvantaged 
     Students) funds to impoverished parents as grants in order to 
     enable their children to receive additional academic 
     assistance.
     Return control to the local level
       Return federal elementary and secondary education funds to 
     states and local school districts through flexible grants;
       Expand opportunities for waivers from burdensome 
     regulations;
       Give states and school districts greater freedom to 
     consolidate program funds to more effectively address 
     pressing needs;
       Provide no-strings-attached funds for charter school start-
     up costs.
     Encourage what works in the classroom
       Federally funded education programs should only use proven 
     methods backed by reliable, replicable research;
       Research and evaluation should concentrate on measuring 
     outcomes and less on process--such as how many children are 
     served by a particular program.
     Send dollars to the classroom
       Streamline and consolidate federal education programs;
       Reform or eliminate ineffective and inefficient programs;
       Reduce paperwork burden.
       Fifteen years ago our nation was diagnosed as being at 
     risk--at risk of entering the 21st Century lagging behind 
     other industrialized nations economically and educationally. 
     Since then here has been little evidence of the federal 
     government effectively addressing this problem through its 
     hundreds of duplicative and uncoordinated education programs.
       In order to address the continued crisis, education policy 
     in this country needs to be re-oriented around ensuring that 
     children receive a quality education, not preserving programs 
     and bureaucracies. Significant progress needs to be made by 
     all levels of government: Solving problems at the federal 
     level is only one component.
       Congress has already begun to take action. The findings of 
     the Crossroads Project have underscored an education agenda 
     that has encouraged ``flex'' grants, parental choice in 
     education, education savings accounts, scholarships for low 
     income children, charter schools, and getting dollars to the 
     classroom.
       The federal government should only play a limited role in 
     education; It should serve education at the state and local 
     level as a research and statistics gathering agency, 
     disseminating findings and enabling states to share best 
     practices with each other. Local educators must be empowered 
     to teach children with effective methods and adequate 
     resources, without federal interference. Parents must once 
     again be in charge of the education of their children. 
     Schools should be havens for learning, safe from drugs and 
     violence.
       Much work remains. It is time for the federal bureaucracy 
     to move out of the way--to put children first--by supporting 
     what works. The Crossroads Report points the way.


                               Footnotes

     \1\ Robin H. Carle, Clerk of the House of Representatives, 
     rules of the House of Representatives, Effective for One 
     Hundred Fifth Congress, January 7, 1997.
     \2\ National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP 1994 
     Reading Report Card for the Nation and the States, U.S. 
     Department of Education, March 1996.
     \3\ Ibid.
     \4\ Ibid.
     \5\ Ibid.
     \6\ David W. Breneman, ``The Extent and Cost of Remediation 
     in Higher Education,'' Brookings Papers on Education Policy, 
     Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, April, 1998.
     \7\ U.S. General Accounting Office, Schools and Workplaces: 
     An Overview of Successful and Unsuccessful Practices, GAO/
     PEMD-95-28, August, 1995, p. 3.
     \8\ Marshall Smith, ``Paper Reduction Act Accomplishments and 
     Plans for Future,'' U.S. Department of Education, October 31, 
     1996.
     \9\ Christine L. Olson, U.S. Department of Education 
     Financing of Elementary and Secondary Education: Where the 
     Money Goes, (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation), 
     December 30, 1996.
     \10\ U.S. Department of Education, Planning and Evaluation 
     Service, The Use of Federal Education Funds for 
     Administrative Costs, 1998, p. 28.
     \11\ Jacques Steinberg, ``NYC School System Budget Analysis 
     Shows 43% Goes to Classroom,'' The New York Times, November 
     21, 1996. See also: Speakman, Cooper, Sampiere, May, 
     Holsomback, Glass, ``Bringing Money to the Classroom: A 
     Systemic Resource Model Applied to the New York City Public 
     Schools,'' Where Does the Money Go? Resource Allocation in 
     Elementary and Secondary Schools, Lawrence O. Picus and James 
     L. Wattenberger, eds., (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 
     1995).
     \12\ U.S. Department of Education Report, ``A Redesigned 
     Discretionary Grant Process''--Vice President Gore's National 
     Performance Review 1995. Redesigned process is due to be in 
     place in 1998.