[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10562]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H10562]]
        ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF CONGRESS REGARDING EDUCATION MATTERS

  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, why all the political rhetoric on 
education this past week? And to make sure everybody understands, the 
people back home understand, that is exactly what it is, political 
rhetoric. But why all this political rhetoric in the last week about 
education?
  Well, I think there are probably four reasons. First of all, it is a 
diversionary tactic. I think no one would deny that. I suppose I can 
understand it, except it bothers me that children are used in this 
diversionary tactic.
  Secondly, I imagine it has something to do with polls. All the polls 
say education is a sexy topic. But you want to be careful. Yes, every 
parent, every grandparent, wants their child to have a quality 
education. But when you look at those polls and they ask the question, 
who do you trust least to reform public education at the elementary-
secondary level, the answer is almost unanimously the Federal 
Government. Who do you distrust second, the state government. And who 
do you most trust, it is local government, parents, school boards, 
administrators, teachers on the local level.
  I guess the third reason would be this administration seems to like 
to micro-manage elementary-secondary education from Washington, D.C., 
the old top-down method, which, of course, has proved totally 
unsuccessful.
  I guess the last reason is pride of authorship. Every President I 
have served with seems to want to be remembered as the education 
President.
  So in order to do that, you cannot fund existing programs that might 
be working well. You have to create new old programs. In other words, 
you take the old programs, give them a new name, and then say ``This is 
my program.'' As I said at the White House just last week, who gets 
credit is not important; the important thing is are we doing something 
to help all children receive a better education.
  Why do I say pride of authorship is so important? Well, obviously if 
the President wanted to have 100,000 new teachers for elementary 
grades, even though every study indicates we have 150,000 out there now 
who are not teaching, they are not teaching because they cannot get an 
elementary teaching job. In my district, depending on the school 
district, the waiting list is 50 to 200 applicants for every elementary 
teaching job. But if he wants 100,000 new teachers, then all he had to 
do was help me get more money for special education.
  Something I have said for 20 years in the minority when there was an 
overwhelming Democrat majority is fund the special education mandate 
that you sent out there. You sent a 100 percent mandate on special 
education to local school districts. You promised you would send them 
40 percent of the excess costs. And when I became chairman, you were 
sending 6 percent.
  Forty percent of the excess cost. In other words, 40 percent of what 
it costs to educate a special ed student beyond what it costs to 
educate a regular student. Sometimes that is twice as expensive, 
sometimes ten times as expensive.
  Well, let me show you what it would mean to school districts if as a 
matter of fact they got their 40 percent. Members representing large 
cities should have been on this year after year after year. The only 
person I could interest on the other side of the aisle over the years 
was the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), until about the last year 
or two, and I have gotten some help from the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey).
  Well, in the L.A. Unified School District, the Los Angeles Unified 
School district, they spend $600 million each year, each year, to fund 
the Federal 100 percent mandate on special education. $325 million of 
that has to come from the local tax base. We send them $19 million. If 
we sent them 40 percent, they would have an additional $60 million 
every year to reduce class size, to repair buildings, to do all of 
those things. More of this later on.

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