[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 141 (Friday, October 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12233-S12236]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     A PLAN TO EDUCATE OUR CHILDREN

 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, countless hours will be spent in 
this country, and even on this Senate floor, debating the issues that 
today fill the front pages of our newspapers. Some of the talk 
titillates, some of it disgusts--and Mr. President, it's clear that 
some of it requires the very serious attention of this Senate.
  But the tribulations of public life in America today do not provide 
us sufficient excuses for inaction when it comes to addressing the 
crises in this country that don't make the front pages, but should. And 
there can be no excuses for any of us--or for anyone in this country--
for our failure to do something to help the 50 million children in our 
public schools today--children whose reading scores show that of 2.6 
million graduating high school students, one-third are below basic 
reading level, one-third are at basic, only one-third are proficient 
and only 100,000 are at a world class reading level; children who edge 
out only South Africa and Cyprus on international tests in science and 
math, with 29 percent of all college freshmen requiring remedial 
classes in basic skills.
  Mr. President, we know that public education is in trouble--so much 
trouble that some argue it could implode from the weight and pressure 
of bloated bureaucracy, stagnant administration and inadequate 
classroom resources.
  These statistics speak not just of a crisis--they speak of our 
collective failure to come together and do what it takes to give every 
child in this country a real chance at success. We are stuck both 
nationally and locally--unable or unwilling to answer the challenge, 
trapped in a debate that is little more than an echo of old and 
irrelevant positions with promising solutions stymied by ideology and 
interest groups--both on the right and on the left.
  Nowhere more than in the venerable United States Senate, where we 
pride ourselves on our ability to work together across partisan lines, 
we have been stuck in a place where Democrats and Republicans seem to 
talk past each other. Democrats are perceived to be always ready to 
throw money at the problem but never for sufficient accountability or 
creativity; Republicans are perceived as always ready to give a voucher 
to go somewhere else but rarely supportive of investing sufficient 
resources to make the public schools work. It's the reason why we spent 
weeks debating a bill this past spring--the major elementary and 
secondary education legislation of this 105th Congress--that would put 
$7 into the pocket of the average public school student in this 
country--and we called that reform.
  No wonder parents are losing faith in our ability to reform public 
education. No wonder they're looking elsewhere: in too many of our 
debates, whichever side wins, on whichever bill, our children continue 
to be the losers. We all need to change that outcome and I respectfully 
suggest there is a different road we can meet on to make it happen.
  That is why I will be introducing in the next Senate the kind of 
comprehensive education reform legislation that I believe will provide 
us a chance to come together not as Democrats and Republicans, but as 
the true friends of parents, children, teachers, and principals--to 
come together as citizens--and help our schools reclaim the promise of 
public education in this country. We need to ask one question: ``What 
provides our children with the best education?'' And whether the answer 
is conservative, liberal, or simply practical, we need to commit 
ourselves to that course.
  As we being to chart that new course, I would remind this body of a 
conviction shared by all of us: no one in America wants the federal 
government trespassing on a cherished local prerogative. But the 
federal government can and should leverage resources to schools 
everywhere; it can help teachers, parents, administrators, and 
community leaders take up the work they all agree is so badly needed. 
To say that there is no federal role in education is to call upon the 
federal government to abandon 50 million children.
  I believe this Senate will reject that notion and accept instead 
legislation to help every school make a new start on their own, an 
invitation to all parties in the name of saving public education in 
America. My bill will be built on challenge grants for schools to 
pursue comprehensive reform and adopt the proven best practices of any 
other school funds to help every school become an accountable charter 
school within the public school system; the incentives to make choice 
and competition a hallmark of our school systems; and the resources to 
help schools fix their crumbling infrastructure, get serious about 
crime, end social promotion, restore a sense of community to our 
schools, and send children to school ready to learn.
  My legislation will begin the Voluntary State Reform Incentive Grants 
so school districts that choose to finance and implement comprehensive 
reform based on proven high-performance models can bring forth change. 
We will target investments at school districts below the national or 
state median and leverage local dollars through matching grants. This 
component of the legislation will aim to make every public school in 
this country essentially a charter school within the public school 
system--giving them the chance to quickly and easily put in place the 
best of what works in any other school--private, parochial or public--
with decentralized control, site-based management, parental engagement, 
and high levels of volunteerism--while at the same time meeting high 
standards of student achievement and public accountability. I believe 
public schools need to have the chance to make changes not tomorrow, 
not five years from now, not after another study--but now--today.
  And my legislation will help us restore accountability to public 
education by injecting choice and competition into a public school 
system badly in need of both. We are not a country that believes in 
monopolies. We are a country that believes diversity raises quality. We 
wouldn't accept one source, one company, one choice of food, or 
clothing or cable television. It is time we end a system that restricts 
each child to an administrator's choice and not a parent's choice where 
possible. It is time we adopt a competitive system of public school 
choice with grants awarded to schools that meet parents' test of 
quality and assistance to schools that must catch up rapidly. That is 
why I'll be proposing that we create an incentive for schools all 
across the nation to adopt public school choice to the extent 
logistically feasible.

  So if schools will embrace this new framework--every school a charter 
school in the public school system, choice, competition, and 
accountability--what then are the key ingredients of their excellence?
  My legislation will allow our schools to strip away the bureaucracy 
that stifles creativity and remember that what counts in any public 
school is how our students fare academically. You don't identify a good 
school by the number of administrators you hire. In fact, we impose so 
many rules and regulations on our schools ``from above'' that we forget 
teaching happens ``on the ground''--in a school building, in a 
classroom. But you won't find accountability there because it's been 
fractured and scattered in hundreds of different offices and titles. We 
need to restore leadership and accountability and

[[Page S12234]]

put our faith in our principals--holding them accountable for the way 
their teachers teach and the way ultimately, their students learn.
  That means we need to do better in guaranteeing that every one of our 
nation's 80,000 principals have the capacity to lead--the talents and 
the know-how to do the job; effective leadership skills; the vision to 
create an effective team--to recruit, hire, and transfer teachers and 
engage parents. Without those abilities, the title of principal and the 
freedom to lead means little. I'll be proposing an ``Excellent 
Principals Challenge Grant'' which would provide funds to local school 
districts to train principals in sound management skills and effective 
classroom practices. This bill helps our schools make being a principal 
the great calling of our time.
  But as we set our sights on recruiting a new generation of effective 
principals, we must acknowledge what today's best principals know: 
principals can only produce results as good as the teachers with whom 
they must work. To get the best results, we need the best teachers. And 
we must act immediately to guarantee that we get the best as the United 
States hires 2 million new teachers in the next ten years, 60% of them 
in the next five years. I will be offering legislation that empowers 
our states and school districts to find new ways to hire and train 
outstanding teachers: a Teacher Recruitment Incentive Grant, to raise 
teachers' salaries and attract a larger group of qualified people into 
the teaching profession; a Ongoing Education Grant to provide continued 
training for our nation's teachers.
  This legislation will allow states to reconfigure their certification 
policies and their teaching standards to address the reality that our 
standards for teachers are not high enough--and at the same time, they 
are too rigid in setting out irrelevant requirements that don't make 
teaching better; they make it harder for some who choose to teach. We 
know we need to streamline teacher certification rules in this country 
to recruit the best college graduates to teach in the United States. 
Today we hire almost exclusively education majors to teach, and liberal 
arts graduates are only welcomed in our country's top private schools. 
My legislation will allow states to rewrite the rules so every 
principal has the same right as headmasters at private schools--to hire 
liberal arts graduates as teachers and measure their competency; while 
at the same time allowing hundreds of thousands more teachers to 
achieve a more broad based meaningful certification--the National Board 
for Professional Teaching Standards certification with its rigorous 
test of subject matter knowledge and teaching ability.
  My legislation will build a new teacher recruitment system for our 
public schools--providing college scholarships for our highest 
achieving high school graduates if they agree to come back and teach in 
our public schools.
  I hope to build support for this legislation around the consensus 
that we share a common obligation to build a system where every 
principal and every teacher in every school can be held accountable. 
Every parent wants that; every child deserves it. And we should all be 
held accountable if we are unwilling to make those changes. But I also 
hope to build a consensus in this Senate that recognizes that you can't 
hold someone accountable if they don't have the tools to succeed.
  I also want to help our schools close the resource gap in public 
education: helping to fix our crumbling schools with a federal tax 
credit so that 5,000 school districts can rebuild and modernize their 
buildings; helping to eliminate the crime that turns too many hallways 
and classrooms into areas of violence by giving school districts 
incentives to write discipline codes and create ``Second Chance'' 
schools with a range of alternatives for chronically disruptive and 
violent students--everything from short-term in-school crisis centers, 
to medium duration in-school suspension rooms, to high quality off-
campus alternatives; helping every child come to school ready to learn 
by funding successful, local early childhood development efforts; and 
making schools the hubs of our communities once more by providing 
support for after school programs where students receive tutoring, 
mentoring, and values-based education--the kind of programs that are 
open to entire communities, making public schools truly public.
  Mr. President, I am not just asking Democrats and Republicans to meet 
where our students are and where our children are educated. I will be 
offering legislation that helps us do it, that forces not just a 
debate, but a vote--yes or no, up or down, change or more of the same. 
Together we can embrace new rights and responsibilities on both sides 
of the ideological divide and admit that the answer to the crisis of 
public education is not found in one concept alone--in private school 
vouchers or bricks and mortar alone. We can find answers for our 
children by breaking with the past in every respect--breaking with the 
instinct for the symbolic, and especially the notion that a speech here 
and there will make education better in this country. It can't and 
won't. But our hard work together in the coming year--Democrats and 
Republicans together--can make a difference. Education reform can work 
in a bi-partisan way. We know that Congressman Obey and Porter in the 
House have succeeded in establishing promising demonstration projects 
on comprehensive reform--they know this isn't a partisan issue. And 
there is no shortage of good ideas or leadership here in the Senate--
tireless leadership from Senator Moseley-Braun on the question of 
crumbling schools; bi-partisan creativity from Senator Coats and 
Senator Lieberman with regard to charter schools; and the leadership 
and passion, of course, of the senior Senator from my state, Senator 
Kennedy, who has led the fight in this Senate to reauthorize the Higher 
Education Act and has provided this body with over 30 years of 
unrivaled leadership and support for education. I have already begun 
talking about this legislation with colleagues from both sides of the 
aisle and the response thus far has been positive. Today I will release 
a detailed outline of the legislative proposals I am developing, and I 
look forward to working with all of my colleagues here in the Senate to 
shape legislation that we can all support--bold legislation that sends 
the message--finally--to parents and children struggling to find 
schools that work, and to teachers and principals struggling in schools 
simultaneously bloated with bureaucracy and starved for resources--to 
prove to them not just that we hear their cries for help, but that we 
will respond not with sound bites and salvos, but with real answers.
  Mr. President, I ask a brief summary of my education plan be printed 
in the Record.
  The summary follows:

                  A Plan to Educate America's Children


            title i--voluntary state reform incentive grants

       If education reform is to succeed in America's public 
     schools, we must demand nothing less than a comprehensive 
     reform effort. The best public school districts are 
     simultaneously embracing a host of approaches to educating 
     our children: high standards and accountability, sufficient 
     resources, small class sizes, quality teachers, motivated 
     students, effective principals, and engaged parents and 
     community leaders. We must not be half-hearted in our efforts 
     to make reform feasible for every school in this country. We 
     cannot address only one challenge in education and ignore the 
     rest. We must make available the tools for real comprehensive 
     reform so that every aspect of public education functions 
     better and every element of our system is stronger.
       So let us now turn to a bold answer: Let's make every 
     public school in this country essentially a charter school 
     within the public school system. Let's give every school the 
     chance to quickly and easily put in place the best of what 
     works in any other school--private, parochial or public--with 
     decentralized control, site-based management, parental 
     engagement, and real accountability.
       Several schools across the country have devised ways to 
     accomplish this by raising standards to improve student 
     achievement, lowering class size, improving on-going 
     education for teachers, and reducing unnecessary middle-level 
     bureaucracy. Numerous high-performance school designs have 
     also been created such as the Modern Red Schoolhouse program, 
     the Success for All program, and the new American Schools 
     program. The results of extensive evaluations of these 
     programs have shown that these designs are successful in 
     raising student achievement. Studies show that these many of 
     these successful programs cost less than the national median 
     of basic education revenues per pupil for K-12 school 
     districts. If we brought all schools up to the spending level 
     of the national median, all schools could finance these high-
     performance school designs. Therefore, we should raise 
     spending to the

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     state or the national median, whichever is higher, thereby 
     allowing every school district to finance and implement 
     comprehensive reform based on proven high-performance models 
     and teach students to the highest standards (58 percent of 
     school districts are below either the national or their state 
     median). Although money alone will not solve the problems in 
     poor school districts, it is impossible to solve without 
     adequate resources. Rather than piecemeal, fragmented 
     approaches to reform, the Comprehensive School Reform program 
     is intended to foster coherent schoolwide improvements that 
     cover virtually all aspects of a school's operations.
       To ensure that the vast majority of school districts could 
     engage in comprehensive school reform, Title I of the 
     Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) should also be 
     fully funded. Title I is the primary federal help for local 
     districts to provide assistance to poor students in basic 
     math and reading skills. Title I currently provides help to 
     local school districts for additional staff and resources for 
     reading and math, curriculum improvements, smaller classes, 
     and training poor students' parents to help their children 
     learn to read and do math. However, Title I only reaches two-
     thirds of poor students because of inadequate funding. Since 
     90 percent of school districts receive at least some Title I 
     funds, fully funding Title I and allowing school districts to 
     use these additional funds for comprehensive reforms would 
     give schools the ability to implement comprehensive reforms 
     so that all students reach the highest academic standards.
       Most poor school districts lack the resources to meet the 
     vital educational needs of all of their students. A well-
     crafted program with the federal and state governments 
     working in close cooperation with one another could make 
     major studies in closing these gaps and improving student 
     performance.
       Comprehensive school reform will help raise student 
     achievement by assisting public schools across the country to 
     implement effective, comprehensive school reforms that are 
     based on proven, research-based models. No new federal 
     bureaucracy would be established--the program would be 
     implemented at the state level. Furthermore, no funds could 
     be used to increase the school bureaucracy. School districts 
     would implement a comprehensive school reform program and 
     evaluate and measure results achieved. Schools would also 
     provide high-quality and continuous teacher and staff 
     professional development and training, have measurable goals 
     for student performance and benchmarks for meeting those 
     goals, provide for meaningful involvement of parents and the 
     local community in planning and implementing school 
     improvement, and identify how other available federal, state, 
     local, or private resources will be utilized to coordinate 
     services to support and sustain the school reform effort.
       The funding for the program would move towards the goal of 
     providing every school district in the country enough funds 
     to implement a high quality, performance-based model of 
     comprehensive school reform at a cost of $4,270. This would 
     mean providing enough funds to bring every district up to the 
     state or the national median, whichever is higher (it is 
     estimated that $30 billion annually would be needed to bring 
     the per-pupil expenditure of every school district up to the 
     national or state average). To move towards this goal, the 
     federal government would provide funds and states would match 
     this money (states would provide 10 to 20 percent with poorer 
     states providing a smaller match). To receive these funds, 
     states would have to provide a minimum spending effort based 
     on state and local school spending relative to the state's 
     per capita income. Funding would be $250 million in FY99, 
     $500 million in FY2000, $750 million in FY2001, $1 billion in 
     FY2002 and $4 billion in FY2003.
       Fully fund Title I so almost all school districts would 
     receive some funds to implement compressive school reform (90 
     percent of all local school districts receive Title funds). 
     Funding would be $200 million in FY99, $400 million in 
     FY2000, $600 Million in FY2001, $1 billion in FY202, and $4 
     billion in FY2003.


       Title II--Ensure That Children Begin School Ready To Learn

       Recent scientific evidence conclusively demonstrates that 
     enhancing children's physical, social, emotional, and 
     intellectual development will result in tremendous benefits. 
     Many local communities across the country have developed 
     successful early childhood efforts and with additional 
     resources could expand and enhance opportunities for young 
     children. We must enhance private, local, and state early 
     successful support programs for young children by providing 
     resources to expand and/or initiate successful efforts for 
     at-risk children from birth to age six.
       Provide funds to States to make grants to local early 
     childhood development collaboratives. States would fund 
     parent education and home visiting classes and have great 
     flexibility to decide whether to also support quality child 
     care, helping schools stay open later for early childhood 
     development activities, or health services for young 
     children. Communities would be required to document their 
     unmet needs and how they would use the funds to improve 
     outcomes for young children so they begin school ready to 
     learn. Funding would be $100 million in FY99, $200 million in 
     FY2000, $300 million in FY2001, $400 million in FY2002, and 
     $1 billion in FY2002.


            Title III--Excellent Principals Challenge Grant

       Principals face long hours, high stress, and too little 
     pay. To overcome these obstacles, principals in successful 
     schools must have effective leadership skills. However, too 
     few principals get the training they need in management 
     skills to ensure their school provides an excellent education 
     for every child. Attracting, training, and retaining 
     excellent principals is essential to helping every local 
     school district become world class.
       Establish a grant program to states to provide funds to 
     local school districts to attract and to provide professional 
     development for elementary and secondary school principals. 
     Activities would include developing management and business 
     skills, knowledge of effective instructional skills and 
     practices, learning about educational technology, etc. 
     Funding would be $20 million per year. States and local 
     school districts would contribute 25 percent of the total 
     although poor school districts would be exempt from the 
     match.


  Title IV--Establish ``Second Chance'' Schools for Troubled Students

       Parents, students, and educators know that serious school 
     reform cannot succeed without an orderly and safe learning 
     environment. The few students who are unwilling or unable to 
     comply with discipline codes and make learning impossible for 
     the other students need behavior management programs and high 
     quality alternative placements. Suspending or expelling 
     chronically disruptive or violent students is not effective 
     in the long run since these students will fall behind in 
     school and may cause additional trouble since they are 
     frequently completely unsupervised; these students need 
     alternative placements that provide supervision, remediation 
     of behavior and maintenance of academic progress. Although 
     some may resist this program for fear that it will be used to 
     isolate disabled students, the purpose is to provide 
     additional interventions for troubled students, not to change 
     disciplinary actions against disabled students.
       Add a new title to the Elementary and Secondary Education 
     Act (ESEA) to establish a competitive state grant program for 
     school districts to establish ``Second Chance'' programs. To 
     receive the funds school districts must enact district-wide 
     discipline codes which use clear language with specific 
     examples of behaviors that will result in disciplinary action 
     and have every student and parent sign the code. 
     Additionally, schools may use the funds to promote effective 
     classroom management; provide training for school staff and 
     administrators in enforcement of the code; implement programs 
     to modify student behavior including hiring school 
     counselors; and establish high quality alternative placements 
     for chronically disruptive and violent students that include 
     a continuum of alternatives from meeting with behavior 
     management specialists, to short-term in-school crisis 
     centers, to medium duration in-school suspension rooms, to 
     off-campus alternatives. Funding would be $100 million per 
     year and distributed to states through the Title I formula.


  Title V--Teacher Recruitment and On-going Education Incentive Grant

       Approximately 61,000 first-time teachers begin in our 
     nation's public schools each year. Since the average starting 
     salary for teachers is a little more than $21,000 per year, 
     we need to raise their compensation to attract a larger group 
     of qualified people into the teaching profession. Since the 
     average student loan debt of students graduating college who 
     borrowed money for college is $9,068, the most effective way 
     to provide federal assistance to states to raise teachers' 
     salaries is to provide loan forgiveness. In addition, 
     scholarships ought to be available to the most talented high 
     school students in every state in return for a commitment to 
     teach in our public schools (North Carolina has successfully 
     recruited future teachers from within public high schools 
     with the lure of college scholarships).
       States would be given funds to provide poor school 
     districts the ability to raise teacher salaries to attract 
     and retain the best teachers. Funding would be provided 
     through the Title I ``targeted grant'' formula (the minimum 
     threshold would be 20% poor children or 20,000 poor 
     children). Funding would be $500 million for FY 99, $500 
     million in FY 2000, $1 billion in FY 2001, $1 billion in FY 
     2002, and $2 billion in FY 2003. Additionally, full-time 
     state certified public school teachers who teach in low-
     income areas or who teach in areas with teacher shortages 
     such as math, science, and special needs would have 20 
     percent of their student loans forgiven after two years of 
     teaching, an additional 20 percent after three years, an 
     additional 30 percent after four years, and the remaining 30 
     percent after five years. The program would be funded at $50 
     million each year. Finally, an additional $10 million would 
     be provided as grants to states that wish to provide signing 
     bonuses for first-time teachers who teach in low-income areas 
     or areas with teacher shortages.
       Provide $10 million in grants for states to establish a 
     program to provide college scholarships to the top 20 percent 
     of SAT achievers or grade point average in each state's high 
     school graduating class in return for a commitment to become 
     a state certified teacher for five years. States would 
     contribute 20 percent of the funds for the scholarships. Five 
     percent of the total funds could

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     be used by local school districts to hire staff to recruit at 
     the top liberal arts, education, and technical colleges 
     (districts would be encouraged to establish a central 
     regional recruiting office to pool their resources). One 
     percent of the total funds would be used by the Secretary of 
     Education to create a national hotline for potential teachers 
     to receive information on a career in teaching.


              Title VI--Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants

       We need to provide on-going education in teaching skills 
     and academic content knowledge, establish or expand 
     alternative routes to state certification, and establish or 
     expand mentoring programs for prospective teachers by veteran 
     teachers (according to the National Commission on Teaching 
     and America's Future, beginning teachers who have had the 
     continuous support of a skilled mentor are more likely to 
     stay in the profession).
       Establish Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants, a competitive 
     grant awarded to states to improve teaching. The grants would 
     have a matching requirement and must be used to institute 
     state-level reforms to ensure that current and future 
     teachers possess the necessary teaching skills and academic 
     content knowledge in the subject areas they are assigned to 
     teach. In addition, establish Teacher Training Partnership 
     Grants, designed to encourage reform at the local level to 
     improve teacher training. One of the uses of these funds 
     would be for states to establish, expand, or improve 
     alternative routes to state certification for highly 
     qualified individuals from other occupations such as business 
     executives and recent college graduates with records of 
     academic distinction. Another use would be to mentor 
     prospective teachers by veteran teachers. Provide $100 
     million per year for these new teacher training programs so 
     that states can improve teacher quality, establish or expand 
     alternative routes to state certification for new teachers, 
     and mentor new teachers by veteran teachers.


   Title VII--Invest in Community-based Schools and Community Service

       As many as five million children are home alone after 
     school each week. Most juvenile involvement in crime--either 
     committing crime or becoming victims themselves--occurs 
     between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Children who attend quality after-
     school programs, however, tend to do better in school, get 
     along better with their peers, and are less likely to engage 
     in delinquent behavior. Expansion of both school-based and 
     community-based after-school programs will provide safe, 
     developmentally appropriate environments for children and 
     help communities reduce the incidents of juvenile delinquency 
     and crime. In addition, many states and localities such as 
     Maryland and the Chicago public school system require high 
     school students to perform community service to receive a 
     high school diploma. The real world experience helps prepare 
     students for work and instills a sense of civic duty.
       Expand the 21st Century Learning Centers Act by providing 
     $400 million each fiscal year to help communities provide 
     after-school care. Grantees will be required to offer 
     expanded learning opportunities for children and youth in the 
     community. Funds could be used by school districts to 
     provide: literacy programs; integrated education, health, 
     social service, recreational or cultural programs; summer and 
     weekend school programs; nutrition and health programs; 
     expanded library services, telecommunications and technology 
     education programs; services for individuals with 
     disabilities; job skills assistance; mentoring; academic 
     assistance; and drug, alcohol and gang prevention activities.
       Provide $10 million in grants to states that have 
     established or chose to establish a state-wide or a district-
     wide program that requires high school students to perform 
     community service to receive a high school diploma. States 
     would determine what constitutes community service, the 
     number of hours required, and whether to exempt some low-
     income students who hold full-time jobs while attending 
     school full-time. The grants would be matched dollar for 
     dollar with half of the match coming from the state and local 
     education agencies and half coming from the private sector.


    Title VIII--Expand the National Board Certification Program For 
                                Teachers

       The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 
     which is headed by Gov. Jim Hunt, established rigorous 
     standards and assessments for certifyuing accomplished 
     teaching. To pass the exam and be certified, teachers must 
     demonstrate their knowledge and skills through a series of 
     performance-based assessments which include teaching 
     portfolios, student work samples, videotapes and rigorous 
     analyses of their classroom teaching and student learning. 
     Additionally, teachers must take written tests of their 
     subject-matter knowledge and their understanding of how to 
     teach those subjects to their students. The National Board 
     certification is offered to teachers on a voluntary basis and 
     complements but does not replace state licensing. The 
     National Commission on Teaching for America's Future called 
     for a goal of 105,000 board certified teachers by the year 
     2006 (since the exam began recently, only about 2,000 
     teachers are currently board certified). Since the exam costs 
     $2,000, many teachers are currently unable to afford it.
       Provide $189 million over five years so that states have 
     enough money to provide a 90% subsidy for the National Board 
     certification of 105,000 teachers across the country.


       Title IX--Help Communities to Modernize America's Schools

       More than 14 million children in America attend schools in 
     need of extensive repair or replacement. According to a 
     comprehensive survey by the General Accounting Office (GAO) 
     requested by Senator Moseley-Braun, Sentor Kerry and others, 
     the repair backlog totals $112 billion. Researchers at 
     Georgetown University found that the performance of students 
     assigned to schools in poor condition fall by 10.9 percentage 
     points below those in buildings in excellent condition.
       To help rebuild modernize, and build over 5,000 public 
     schools, provide federal tax credits to school districts to 
     pay interest on nearly $22 billion in bonds at a cost of $5 
     billion over five years.


                Title X--Encourage Public School Choice

       Many public schools have implemented public school choice 
     programs where students may enroll at any public school in 
     the public school system. In contrast to vouchers for private 
     schools, public school choice increases options for students 
     but does not use public funds to finance private schools 
     which remain entirely unaccountable to taxpayers.
       Provide $20 million annually in grants to states that 
     choose to implement public school choice programs. School 
     districts could spend the funds on transportation and other 
     services to implement a successful public school choice 
     program. Up to 10 percent of the funds may be spent by a 
     school district to improve low performing school districts 
     that lose students due to the public school choice 
     program.

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