[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 145 (Tuesday, October 13, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10810-H10811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 WILL THE PRESIDENT'S EDUCATION PROGRAMS IMPROVE EDUCATION OR IS IT AN 
                        ELECTION YEAR PROPOSAL?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask a question: 
Will the President's education programs improve education or is it an 
election year proposal?
  Last night I shared my thoughts on school construction. I will review 
them quickly. The school construction program, as proposed by the 
President, takes half of the money and designates it to 100 urban poor 
districts, but does

[[Page H10811]]

nothing to designate to rural poor districts.
  I found out today that the 100 urban poor districts can even go back 
for more money. They are not prohibited from getting two bites at the 
apple.
  Let us say they do not. So we fund 200 or 300 school construction 
projects across America. That leaves 15,300 school districts with no 
help. That is not fair.
  Now we have a proposal for what I call temporary teachers. Several 
years ago, we had a proposal for temporary cops. We funded 100,000 
cops, and although I never really read whether we ever had 100,000 cops 
and there was a lot of discussion whether we ever met that goal, then 
when they hired them, we pulled the money back and stuck them with the 
bill.
  That is the way this proposal is. It is not ongoing funding for 
teachers. It is temporary funding for teachers, and when they hire 
them, in a couple short years the money is pulled back and they have to 
pay the bill.
  Is this fair, that the Federal Government entices spending at the 
local level and then pulls the money back? Who will get the money? Will 
it be another complicated, convoluted grant program? You bet it will. 
It will take consultants. They will make lots of money; grantsmen, they 
will make lots of money, but we will only have temporary teachers and 
we will only have construction in a few urban districts.
  If the Federal Government wants to help basic education, we should 
send money in a fair and evenhanded way that treats urban, suburban and 
rural on an equal basis, because there is poor all the way up and down 
the ladder in size.
  How do we do that? It is pretty simple. Forty years ago, this 
Congress, some Congress, passed special education and they said that 
all of the excess costs for this program, 40 percent of it will be paid 
for by the Federal Government. When we took over Congress in 1994, 
Congress was providing 6 percent instead of 40 percent.

                              {time}  1945

  That is a huge shortfall. Now with this year's proposed budget, where 
we increased it half a billion this year and half a billion last year, 
we will be up to 12 percent. But that is not 40 percent. If we fully 
funded special education, the Los Angeles school district would get $60 
million of additional money, the St. Louis school district would get 
$25 million of additional money, the York school district, a small 
rural district in Pennsylvania, would get $1 million.
  But we are $10 billion short. Instead of paying the bill we promised, 
instead of funding the program that we started, we want to do new ones, 
because it is an election year. We want to send some money in some new 
convoluted way that will only reach a few of our school districts. We 
can more adequately fund vocational education, where we only spend $1 
billion and we are passing laws to allow more immigrants to take the 
technology jobs which come from vocational education. Or we could get 
some Democrat support for Dollars to the Classroom, that only does away 
with state and Federal bureaucrats and puts the money in the schools, 
$800 million, no new taxes. We could expand loan forgiveness programs 
that help put teachers where they are most needed.
  We do not need new programs. We need to fund the ones that work, that 
do not cause more Federal bureaucrats, that you do not need grantsmen 
to apply for, that you do not need some complicated, convoluted process 
where the money can be funneled into the President's friends.
  There are 15,600 school districts across America. They need a fair 
and evenhanded treatment. The President's proposal will reward his 
urban political friends and leave rural America with no school 
construction, with no new teachers, with no help, and not even a 
promise. That is not fair.
  Tonight, I ask us to support funding education in an evenhanded, fair 
way, that funds education all across America, not just to the 
President's friends.

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