[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10880-H10881]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           SCANDAL IN WASHINGTON CONCERNING PUBLIC EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about scandal in 
Washington. The scandal in Washington really is what the Democrats and 
the former majority party did to public education in 40 years.
  In 40 years, when they controlled the House and the other body, they 
nearly destroyed public education. If you ask anyone, any teacher, any 
high school principal or elementary principal in our public schools 
what is wrong with our schools today, they will tell you, very simply, 
it is not just a need for more teachers and better teachers, it is a 
question of some fundamentals.
  We have lost control of our classrooms, they will tell you. There is 
no discipline in the classroom. Why is there no discipline? Because the 
liberal policies of the other side for 40 years has eroded the 
principles of discipline, the power to the teacher, the power to the 
local school board, the power to the parent. That is one of the major 
problems facing our public schools today. So the scandal is what they 
have done to public education in the United States.
  Let me tell you about the other scandal that they have committed in 
education. The scandal is they have created a bureaucracy that is 
unparalleled

[[Page H10881]]

in any civilization in education. Now, listen to this quote from 
Investor's Daily, just an observation they made: ``School funding in 40 
years has quadrupled. Teachers' salaries have only increased during 
that same period 43 percent.''
  Teachers only account now for barely half the personnel in public 
schools. That is because they have built an unparalleled bureaucracy. 
That bureaucracy starts right here in Washington, DC. There are 5,000, 
count them, full-time employees in the Department of Education; 3,600 
of them are in Washington, DC.
  Now, we may need a Department of Education, I do not want to get into 
that debate, but I do not have in my school district teachers who are 
making the $50,000 to $100,000 that these 5,000 bureaucrats are making 
in the Federal Department of Education.

                              {time}  1545

  This is about control, this is about bureaucracy. What do 5,000 
Federal bureaucrats and 10,000 more contract bureaucrats that they have 
hired to hide, what do they do with education, public education today? 
They regulate. It is unbelievable. Talk to a teacher, talk to a 
principal, I beg the Members. They will tell us the scandal that has 
been committed by the other side of the aisle. They have passed so many 
rules, so much red tape, so many regulations that our teachers cannot 
teach.
  We see here that most of our school budgets now are going for 
bureaucracy, administrators, regulators, and all the myriad obligations 
that have been mandated from Washington, because they control and they 
want to maintain power. They have created 788 Federal education 
programs, dozens and dozens, and bureaucrats. They all have their 
programs, so a teacher cannot have control of the classroom. Ask any 
teacher. A teacher is inundated with paperwork, and school boards and 
even State agencies are mandated to create this huge bureaucracy.
  What we need is 100,000 less bureaucrats in education. That is what 
this battle is about. That is why we are here. That is why I am almost 
hoarse, because I got up the other night and tried to explain this to 
my colleagues and the American people.
  They want to pass regulations. They want to make certain that 
teachers do not teach. They want to have the most expensive approach to 
education. They have ruined public education. We are trying to take 
that back. It is simple: We want the money to go to the classrooms. We 
voted 95 percent, that it should go to the classrooms, to the teachers, 
for basic education, not for the bureaucracy that has been created.
  We said that we want the teacher and the parent to have control. That 
was the foundation of public education. My wife was an elementary 
teacher. I have a degree in education. I did not want to teach because 
of the conditions in our classrooms. That is the same reason that we 
have this. We need to keep control with the parents and we need to stop 
the control of Washington. That is what this is all about.

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