[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S12358]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               EDUCATION

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, it has been interesting to listen to the 
Senator from Massachusetts beating so industriously upon a dead horse. 
But the issue before the Congress, I suspect, in these last few days is 
not going to be on the level of support that the Congress and our 
appropriations bill provides for the education of our children in all 
50 States across the country.
  The debate now between the President and the leadership who are 
working on this budget is over who gets to spend it. The President 
believes, and the Senator from Massachusetts has outlined in his 
remarks a whole series of categorical aid programs--money for this 
specific program, money for that specific program--each of which 
carries with it its own bureaucracy here in Washington, DC, and, 
generally speaking, a bureaucracy of the State and always 
administrators in each school district to fill out all of the forms and 
to make all of the applications for assistance from the Federal 
Government. To that extent, an individual school district is lucky if 
60 cents or 70 cents out of every dollar supposedly devoted by the 
Federal Government to education, in fact, ever gets to the classroom 
and to the students.
  No, the battle in these last few days is not going to be over whether 
or not we shouldn't supply perhaps another billion dollars or more than 
a billion dollars above what we are already appropriating for the 
education of our children. It is going to be over whether or not we 
trust the teachers, the parents, the principals, the superintendents, 
the elected school board members and thousands of school districts 
across the United States to determine how that money can be most 
effectively spent on their students.
  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator from Washington yield?
  Mr. GORTON. He will.
  Mr. CRAIG. About a year ago, the Senator from Washington came to the 
floor and offered an amendment that would dramatically change the way 
money flows out of Washington back to local schools, local units of 
education. And as I remember, there was a resounding vote here on the 
floor in favor of that.
  Mr. GORTON. The Senator from Idaho exaggerates a little bit. It was a 
winning vote; it wasn't quite resounding.
  Mr. CRAIG. It was a dramatic vote in the sense that Senators were 
voting their conscience about where the public wanted the educational 
dollar to go, not to get bound up in the Federal bureaucracy and have a 
lot of it spun off here, as the President apparently would want, but 
for that money to move right back to local units of education. Is that 
not true, and was that not the goal of this Congress?
  Mr. GORTON. This Senate voted for just such a program last year. This 
Senate voted for just such a program this year. This Senate did so, I 
am convinced, because while the Federal Government, in spite of all of 
the speeches on the floor of the Senate and of the House of 
Representatives, comes up with only about 7 or 8 percent of the money 
that is spent in our schools that are, of course, primarily locally and 
State-operated, it comes up with 50 or 60 percent of the rules and 
regulations that must be met by our school districts, by hiring 
administrators, not teachers, people to fill out forms and read Federal 
regulations rather than librarians and new equipment for our students.
  It was our attempt last year, and has been our attempt this year, and 
I hope and trust will be our policy when we finish an appropriations 
bill in a few days, that we trust the people in the States and in our 
communities and in our schools to come up with better judgments about 
the varying priorities of their students than can President Clinton or 
a Department of Education bureaucracy here in Washington, DC.
  The thrust of the point that I have been attempting to make for a 
couple of years now is just exactly that: Where should this money be 
spent? Are we the experts here in this body on how each of 14,000 
school districts should go about educating its children? Or is the true 
expertise in those school districts themselves?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Under the previous order, the Senator from Kentucky is recognized to 
speak for up to 15 minutes.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, will the Senator yield me just 2 
minutes?
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I would like to give everybody some time, 
but I don't have but 15 minutes myself.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I might have 20 minutes 
so I can yield to the Senator from Maryland.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). Is there objection?
  Mr. CRAIG. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator restate his unanimous consent request?
  Mr. FORD. I say to my friend from Idaho, I have 15 minutes. The 
Senator from Maryland would like to have a couple of minutes. I ask my 
time be extended so I can give him up to 5 minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. FORD. I yield 5 minutes to my friend from Maryland.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

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