[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10836-H10837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               REPUBLICANS WANT MORE SPECIAL ED TEACHERS

  (Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

[[Page H10837]]

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, we have heard here again this morning that 
this Congress and the Congress before it has not appropriated money for 
education when in fact we have appropriated more money every year than 
the year before. So much of the debate about education in the Congress 
is about who controls the money and about whether the Federal 
Government is going to keep its word to local school districts.
  Any time I am in the Seventh District in Missouri and ask an educator 
what is their biggest problem with the Federal Government, they always 
say, ``Special education mandates.'' When we mandated special 
education, we said we would provide 40 percent of the money. At the 
beginning of the 104th Congress, we were providing 6 percent. Now we 
are providing 12 percent.
  Part of the debate about teachers is whether some of those teachers 
could be special education teachers and help us get to what we have 
promised local districts we could do. But, no, that is not good enough. 
We have to tell local districts exactly what classes those teachers 
should be in and special education would not be one of them unless we 
prevail in this debate about education.

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