[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 143 (Sunday, October 11, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10519-H10520]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                WHAT REPUBLICANS HAVE DONE FOR EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, today I want to talk a little bit about what 
the Republicans have done for education. We have heard a lot about how 
we were trying to eliminate public education. Nothing could be further 
from the truth. We want to make strong public schools with local 
control, local authority.
  Now if my colleagues compare what the President is proposing with his 
hundred thousand teachers, we have heard that number before. We heard 
about the Cops On The Street Program which promised 100,000 police on 
the streets. Well, according to Attorney General Janet Reno, we never 
did get 100,000 police to the street. In fact, we only got 18,000 
police to the street, and for those 18,000, they were only partially 
funded. The first year they got 75 percent, the second year they got 50 
percent, the third year they got 25 percent, and the fourth year the 
local governments had to completely fund those 18,000 policemen. Well 
they only got partially funded. They went ahead and hired the policemen 
on good faith. Then the amount of funding from the Federal Government 
got reduced, and the portion of the local funding continued to 
increase. So what happened in all these local governments that were 
trying to do the right thing by hiring these police is they ended up 
raising their taxes. So they got fewer policemen that they were 
promised and higher taxes than what was anticipated. Now we have the 
plan for 100,000 teachers, again partially funded, and over the next 
few years the funding goes down, down, down while local government 
taxes go up, up up, and along with that comes the bureaucracy.
  Now the average employee in the Department of Education here in 
Washington, D.C., makes $52,000 a year. Go home and ask the children's 
teacher if they make $52,000 a year. They do not make that in Wichita, 
Kansas, not the average teacher, but yet that is what the average 
bureaucrat does here, and they do not educate any children. All they do 
is demand more paperwork, more paperwork, more paperwork.
  Well, let us just go over a little bit what we have done just this 
year, in the 105th Congress what the Republicans have done. First of 
all, we put some common sense into the concept of national testing. 
This fast track nature of what the White House had initiated was 
unverified. It took a long process, it started many educations on an 
alarming rate of trying to do things that they had, that they could not 
put a final bottom line on. It was like hitting a moving target.
  Now we have done testing in Kansas. We have a program called QPA. It 
measures progress. It has testing requirements. Other States are 
already doing it. So here we have a duplication of effort in 
Washington, D.C., on education standards. Well, we put some common 
sense to that in the Republican Congress.
  The next thing we did is put dollars into the classroom. The purpose 
was to consolidate 31 top-down programs into block grants to the 
States, and under this bill at least 95 percent of the money coming 
from the Federal Government had to go into the classroom for classroom 
activities or services. Now for Kansas that meant an extra $2\1/2\ 
million going into the classroom. Well, it is not being spent here in 
Washington, D.C., which is the big difference in philosophy between 
what happens between the Republicans and the liberals. The Republicans 
and conservatives would like to see the money get into the classroom, 
not being spent here in Washington, D.C. on a bloated bureaucracy.

                              {time}  1430

  Another thing that has occurred here is we have the Higher Education 
Amendment of 1998. The purpose of this is to reauthorize the Higher 
Education Act of 1965 with the lion's share of the Federal funding 
going for higher education. This year it is in excess of $40 billion a 
year, where the Republican Congress wants to get money into higher 
education.
  Another program was the Community Service Block Grant and Low Income 
Housing Energy Assistance Program, LIHEAP, to help some of the local 
communities revitalize their high poverty neighborhoods and empower low 
income individuals and communities to become self-sufficient. It had 
new initiatives in it for literacy, youth development, fatherhood and 
community policing.
  Another program was the Reading Excellence Program. This legislation 
developed in response to the President's America Reads Program to use 
volunteers to improve the reading skills of children, where we would 
reform the way reading is taught in our Nation's schools. Working 
together, we perfected a program.

[[Page H10520]]

  Another program was the English Fluency Act. This legislation is 
directed at reforming the current Bilingual Education Act to provide 
funds to states to address the needs of English language learners and 
ensure that they learn English as soon as possible.
  Another program, the Juvenile Crime Control and Delinquency 
Prevention Act. The purpose of this legislation is to help local areas 
have safer schools.
  I could go on for another 10 or 12 programs, but the bottom line is 
the Republicans believe in local schools and local empowerment. We 
think you can spend your money more wisely than any government agency 
and that you will love your children more than any government program.

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