[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10994-H10995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  REPUBLICAN EDUCATION ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gutknecht). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I think it is a great day for American 
children today. The debate the last couple of weeks should have had 
nothing to do with show and tell. It should have had nothing to do with 
who better understands how important education is to the future of this 
country. The whole issue, of course, was one of who knows better how to 
bring about quality education, people on the local level, the teachers, 
the administrators, the parents, or we in Washington, D.C.? And as I 
have said to my committee so many times, if all of those programs from 
Washington, D.C., down would have worked, we would not have a problem 
with literacy in this country. We would not have a problem with drugs 
in this country. We would not have a problem with dropouts in this 
country. We would not have a problem with people graduating who cannot 
do math and cannot do science very well. If they had worked. They did 
not work. The reason they did not work was because nobody paid any 
attention about quality. We said one size fits all. ``Take it from us, 
we know better than anybody else.'' We also said, ``Let's cover 
numbers. Don't worry about whether you're covering them with quality. 
Just cover numbers.'' And so we did a lot of different things. As a new 
majority we said in our higher education bill, no longer universities 
and colleges who support pupil-teacher preparation. We want you to 
produce quality teachers. It does not matter whether your pupil ratio 
is 1 to 2, 2 to 2, 20 to 1, if you do not have a quality teacher in the 
classroom, it does not make any difference. So we are telling those 
institutions that prepare teachers, ``It is the 21st century. You must 
prepare them for the 21st century.'' We told them in special ed, 
``Don't just say, `We're going to continue to tell you exactly how to 
do it and not send you any money.' '' I am very proud of our operation 
in the last 2 years as far as our help to local districts to deal with 
the special ed costs. Keep in mind 30 years ago the former majority 
said, ``Here is a 100 percent mandate from Washington, D.C., in 
relationship to special ed. We will send you 40 percent of the excess 
cost.'' Excess cost, the difference between educating a regular student 
and a special needs student. When I became chairman, we were sending 6 
percent. Now who do you think is funding our 100 percent mandate? I can 
tell you who is funding it, the local school district. The city of 
York, they have to spend $6 million. Only 49,000 people in the city of 
York. They must spend $6 million in special ed because it is a 100 
percent mandate from Washington, D.C. and we send them $37,000. Where 
do they have to get the rest of the money? They have to take it away 
from every other child, they have to take it away from maintaining 
buildings, they have to take it away from pupil-teacher ratio, because 
we set the mandate, promised the money, and did not send the money. The 
last 2 years, we said, ``We're going to send you money.'' In fact, this 
year will be the first that the local school district will be able to 
reduce their expenditures on special ed so that they can put it into 
maintenance, so that they can put it into pupil-teacher ratio for all 
the other students.
  Head Start. Whoever sold Head Start has to be the greatest 
salesperson in the world. That person certainly could have sold, no, I 
will not say that, I may offend somebody. But nevertheless, a great 
salesperson. But what they did not talk about was study after study 
after study said it was not doing what we wanted it to do in the early 
years. Why? Because the weakest part of the program should have been 
the most important part of the program and that was the education 
component. So that we should have had children reading ready by the 
time they got to first grade, so that they do not fail first grade and 
so that they do not get socially promoted. But the whole effort, and 
they tried to do it again this year, they said, numbers, numbers, 
numbers. The President said, I want more numbers, I want more numbers. 
We said, ``Oh, no. Not until quality becomes the most important 
thing.'' And so we said the large percentage of any increase will go to 
improve the quality of Head Start. We want to make sure every child has 
an equal opportunity to succeed by the time they get to first grade. 
Higher ed, highest Pell grants ever. In higher ed, the lowest interest 
rates ever. All of these things are accomplishments that we brought not 
because of any leadership outside of this body but because we said that 
we are going to change things and we are going to change things to make 
sure that quality becomes the issue.

[[Page H10995]]

  One hundred thousand new teachers. That $1 billion, I think, buys 
about 40,000. But keep in mind, we had to fight the battle then to make 
sure that we are talking about all teachers, we are talking about 
special ed teachers, we are talking about teachers of special needs. We 
are saying it all goes down to the local level. ``Washington, Mr. 
Secretary, you don't take any money off the top. You don't send any 
rules and regulations out there so they have to spend most of their 
money filling out application forms.'' And then we go one step further. 
We say, ``State, nothing off the top, no rules and regulations from you 
down to the local level.'' They know what is best. They know what is 
most important, the people, the parents, the children, the teachers and 
the administration on the local level. That is what we are all about.

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