[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 135 (Thursday, October 1, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1870-E1871]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 6, HIGHER EDUCATION AMENDMENTS OF 1998

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. CHAKA FATTAH

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 28, 1998

  Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, I cannot overemphasize the importance of the 
passage of the High Hopes/GEAR UP program as a part of the Higher 
Education Reauthorization legislation adopted by the House today. This 
program is the embodiment of all that is right about our legislative 
process and about the fundamental American creed which unites us as a 
people. I want to take the time to recount the history of this idea so 
that the record will show the difference that can be made when we are 
true to the process and to that creed.
  The challenge which the High Hopes/GEAR UP program addresses is 
insuring that all American children have the opportunity to go to 
college. For the children of most middle class families, that college 
is an option after high school graduation is taken for granted. For 
most poor children, college is not even in the picture. No one they 
know has gone to college. If the thought ever occurs to them, it is 
dismissed as an unattainable fantasy. Often these attitudes and 
conclusions are based on misinformation about the cost of college, or 
about the availability of financial aid and other sources of support, 
or perhaps it's just that the notion of college is so remote from their 
experience that nothing in their lives has prepared them to take 
advantage of opportunities that might be right before their eyes.
  Whatever the underlying dynamic, the end result is that children in 
poor neighborhoods often make life-changing decisions that deal them 
out of the mainstream game before they get their first chance at bat. 
Because the vision of their future is inevitably defined solely by what 
they see and what they know, they are too often drawn off onto the 
various side roads of life--high school dropout, teenage pregnancy, 
truancy, delinquency, and other anti-social activities. These outcomes 
serve no one. They destroy the young people's potential, they tax our 
society, and they waste our precious human capital.
  The High Hopes/GEAR UP Program will elevate the vision of millions of 
young people to let them see that college is possible for them. It will 
give them a future to focus on that will help pull them successfully 
through their high school years in a way that prepares and positions 
them to go on to college. As is done for children of middle class 
families, the program is designed to surround them with the expectation 
that they will pursue this goal, give them the complete spectrum of 
information that they need to conclude that this goal is achievable, 
and strengthen the support systems needed to get them from here to 
there.
  The High Hopes/GEAR UP Program will provide certainty to students and 
their families that they will be able to afford college. Beginning in 
middle school, the Secretary of Education will send children in high 
poverty neighborhoods, 21st Century Scholar Certificates that notify 
them annually of the financial aid that will be available to them for 
college when they graduate from high school. It will support 
partnerships between universities, businesses, and community-based 
organizations that will insure that these ``21st Century Scholars'' 
will have the mentoring, educational enrichment, social services and 
academic supports they need to stay in school, work hard, and graduate 
prepared for college. The unprecedented success of private programs 
such as Eugene Lang's ``I Have a Dream'' in New York, and Ruth Hayre's 
``Tell Them We Are Rising'' in Philadelphia, gives us every reason to 
believe that these approaches will have a huge impact on high school 
graduation, college attendance, and college completion rates.

[[Page E1871]]

  The High Hopes/GEAR UP Program began as the 21st Century Scholars Act 
(HR 777) which I introduced in the House of Representatives in May, 
1997. It was given a truly long term lease on life by Sara Goldsmith 
who was an AAAS Fellow in my office at the time. Sara made it the 
primary goal of her Fellowship to secure at least 100 cosponsors for 
this legislation. By the time her Fellowship ended a year later, she 
had secured 120 cosponsors with strong representation from both sides 
of the aisle. This gave us the credibility and the impetus we needed to 
succeed in our efforts to move the bill through the other venues that 
must be cleared before a bill become law. Thank you, Sara.
  The 21st Century Scholars Initiative was initially designed to 
provide low income children with the assurance that financial aid would 
be available for them to go to college, and to connect them with the 
mentoring and support services they need to succeed. As the legislation 
gained steam in the House, it captured the imagination of the White 
House, and a strong partnership emerged between my office and the 
office of Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council. Our 
staffs, principally Bob Shireman of the NEC, Claudia Pharis, my Chief 
of Staff, and Pauline Abernathy of the Department of Education, worked 
to incorporate into the bill, provisions of interest to the Clinton 
Administration. What emerged from this process was the High Hopes 21st 
Century Scholars Program which continued the commitment to providing 
assurances regarding financial aid, and greatly improved and 
strengthened the mentoring and support services provisions of the bill. 
These four people, Gene Sperling, bob Shireman, Claudia Pharis, and 
Pauline Abernathy, also deserve our thanks.
  The next hurdle was the markup in the House Committee on Education 
and the Workforce of HR6, the Higher Education Reauthorization bill. 
Our objective was to add the High Hopes 21st Century Scholars 
Initiative to the HR6 as an amendment in Committee. Led by Lydia 
Sermons, then my Press Secretary, who was followed by Rebecca Kirszner 
and Philecia McCain, my staff had launched a major communications 
campaign that had penetrated every office in the House of 
Representatives, the education advocacy organizations affected by the 
program, the higher education community, and through the media, the 
general public. Thank you, Lydia, Rebecca, and Philecia. By the time we 
reached markup, the support for this program was broad and deep, and 
the amendment which attached the bill to HR6 passed in Committee by a 
strong bi-partisan vote of 24 to 18. It should be noted that this 
incredible 6 vote margin was created with the cooperation of four of my 
Republican colleagues on the committee: Congressman Greenwood, Souder, 
McIntosh, and Scarborough. Committee staff, David Evans, Sally Stroup 
and Marshall Grigsby, and my legislative Director, Neil Snyder, were 
particularly helpful at this stage, and to them, I also extend my 
thanks.

  Passage of the Higher Education Act by the House was virtually 
unanimous. We then faced the high hurdle of gaining Senate approval. 
There were already provisions in the Senate bill which addressed some 
of the same concerns addressed by the High Hopes 21st Century Scholars 
Initiative, however, the underlying program, called the National Early 
Intervention and Scholarship Program, or NEISP, served a much smaller 
population through a much different delivery system. As designed, it 
was not able to address the targeting, motivational, and institution 
building objectives of the High Hopes program. Senators Jeffords and 
Kennedy, the NEC and Treasury Department team, my Chief of Staff, and 
the staff of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor worked 
intensely over an extended period of time to iron out the differences 
between these two programs and forge a compromise for incorporation 
into the Senate bill that retained the best and most crucial features 
of each. Our hand was strengthened in this process by the fact that my 
staff orchestrated a process that resulted in bipartisan letters of 
support for High Hopes signed by over 150 Members of Congress being 
sent to the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee. In 
addition to the people I have already mentioned, special recognition at 
this stage goes to the other members of my staff, particularly Michelle 
Anderson, my Executive Assistant, and to Jennifer Smulson and Marianna 
Pierce of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor.
  Next came the House and Senate conference where all the differences 
between the House and Senate bills had to be resolved. The NEC and 
Treasury staffs remained involved, as did my Chief of Staff, but 
importantly, at this point, we added the strong, committed, and vocal 
leadership of Congressmen Souder and Andrews to the process, both of 
whom served as Members of the Conference Committee. Their staffs, Amy 
Adair and Audrey Williams respectively, were highly responsible, 
professional and focussed in their commitment to provide strong 
representation for the bipartisan interests of the House of 
Representatives in preserving the integrity of the High Hopes Program. 
That mission was accomplished in Conference, and what emerged from the 
Conference Committee for presentation to the House of Representatives 
as the GEAR UP Program is very true to my original vision, to the 
vision of the President, and to Senator Jeffords' vision that all 
American children be surrounded with the expectation that they can and 
will go to college, and be provided with the support and encouragement 
they need to get there.
  Department of Education Secretary, Richard Riley, and Leslie 
Thornton, his Chief of Staff are also unsung heroes of this process. 
The staff resources and informational support they provided were 
invaluable in the development of the concept, and I understand that 
Secretary Riley mentioned High Hopes in every public speech he made 
while Congress was working on the legislation.
  But I have saved the best and most important recognition for last. I 
extend my heartfelt thanks to my colleagues in the United States 
Congress, both the Senate and the House of Representatives. I 
particularly need to thank Senators Kennedy and Jeffords again, and to 
thank as leaders of the process in the House, Congressmen Goodling, 
Clay, McKeon, and Kildee. The brilliance of the American system of 
government, a strong spirit of bipartisanship, and an underlying 
commitment to creating opportunity were all evident in the way we 
rallied in support of the High Hopes/GEAR UP program. An ingrained 
belief in and commitment to fairness undergirds the American character. 
Congressman Souder offered as his motivation for supporting the 
program, that we cannot both, in good conscience, continue to dismantle 
our systems of social and economic support, and at the same time fail 
to provide people with the support they need to become self-sufficient. 
This attitude augurs well for the reduction of educational disparities 
in our society, and for the emergence of a Nation in which a higher 
percentage of our people are fully engaged in creating and enjoying its 
prosperity.
  Education is the great equalizer. Our democratic society cannot 
sustain itself if we continue to create a larger and larger dependent 
population through our failure adequately to educate our people. It is 
important to America's future that we field our best team in the 
globalized, high tech economy of the next century. We can only do that 
if we make sure that everybody gets a chance to play.

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