[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 33 (Wednesday, March 3, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H928-H935]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gutknecht). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Etheridge) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to thank 
my Democratic colleagues for joining me here today to talk about one of 
the most vital issues that faces this Congress, I think, and certainly 
this country over the next several years, and that is education.
  So that you and others will not think that I am just standing talking 
about education, because I have found in this great deliberative body 
called the People's House, we talk about a lot of issues, and we can 
talk endlessly on issues if someone will provide us data. But prior to 
my being elected to the People's House in 1996, I served 8 years, or 
two terms, as the elected State Superintendent of Schools in my home 
State. I have made education a top priority, public education for our 
children, not only at the State level but I have done that also since I 
have been here in Congress.
  Throughout my service as Superintendent and to this day as a Member 
of Congress, I have spent a great deal of time in the classrooms of the 
schools of my State to observe firsthand the exciting educational 
innovations that are taking place in my home State. I would say that is 
true all across America. As my colleagues join me this afternoon, I 
trust they will talk about some of the exciting things that are 
happening in their State, also. Too many times, all we do is we talk 
about the problems, and it is important to acknowledge we have 
shortcomings and that we work on those shortcomings to make them 
better, because young people only have one chance to get a good 
education in their first 12 years and so it is throughout the rest of 
their lives. But sometimes it is important to acknowledge our successes 
as well as our shortcomings.

[[Page H929]]

  Recently, I had the opportunity to visit a school in Wake County, 
which happens to be the largest county in my district and that also is 
the capital city county. The school I went in was Conn Elementary and 
it is really now called Conn Global Communications Magnet Elementary 
School. That is a mouthful. But what it really means is that these 
young people are wired through the Internet and through a special 
innovative program that the leadership in that county has put together 
in a partnership with the Federal Government to do some creative and 
exciting things for these young people. They really are on the cutting 
edge of education reform in America. The buzzword in Washington these 
days is accountability. I would say to you, as strongly as I possibly 
can, that an effective accountability or assessment mechanism is 
absolutely essential to sustain educational achievement, and I will 
talk about that later on today as I talk because we have done that in 
North Carolina on a statewide basis.
  But now let me continue to talk about Conn Elementary, because they 
can teach us here in Washington a great deal about this whole issue of 
accountability and what you do to excite and energize young people and 
make them really love school all over again and love this thing we call 
learning.
  Let me share with my colleagues and read, if I may, Mr. Speaker, the 
mission statement of Conn Elementary School. Let me say that Conn is 
not an exception in my State of a school having a mission statement. 
Every school has one.
  ``Conn Global Communications Magnet Elementary School will prepare 
students for successful citizenship in a global society. The learning 
environment created at Conn will provide an educational experience that 
will emphasize heightened communications skills via reading, writing, 
mathematics, science technology, and the arts as a means of connecting 
and interfacing with the world.''
  I would read that again, but let me just paraphrase it very quickly 
to say they understand that education is broader than what some have 
said, reading, writing and arithmetic. It has gone long past the three 
Rs. There are a lot of other things that need to be interfaced and 
integrated in a good, sound public education these days.
  ``Conn will ensure success for all students.'' Underlined ``all 
students.'' Not just the bright students, not just the students that 
come from parents who have money, not just from parents who have the 
time to interface and work with the schools, but all students.
  Now, let me share with you why they say that and how they get to that 
point, because I think it is important to as we emphasize that this 
innovative public school focuses on achieving for all their students 
and how they do it.

  To achieve these goals, Conn has set out the following expectations 
for their students and, yes, for their staff and for the parents:
  ``Motivational global studies will accomplish a narrowing of the 
achievement gap between minority and nonminority students.'' This is 
true not only in my State, it is not just true in Conn, it is true in 
every school in this country. How do we narrow that gap between those 
students who are achieving at a high level and those who are not and 
how do we make sure they all achieve at a much higher level because we 
need all of them participating in this new economy of the 21st century.
  ``Cultural diversity will provide opportunities for children to 
recognize and appreciate the value of cultural differences in their own 
communities and beyond.'' Let me tell you why that statement is so 
important. We have the most diverse population in our public schools 
today we have had in the history of this republic. Yet there are those 
who want us to believe that we can educate the same way we have 
educated historically. That is absolutely not true. We have to 
recognize the cultural diversities and backgrounds from which our 
children come, accept those, and then help them achieve at a high 
level. That may mean that they need more time on task in some areas 
than others and it may mean that they need smaller class sizes. This 
Congress is going to be about that, and I will talk about that more in 
just a moment.
  ``Technological resources will enable students to communicate with 
the world around them.'' Many times when we talk about technology, some 
of us talk about technology as if it were just a computer. That is not 
the whole view of the issue. Computers are just one piece of a total 
mass communication world that we live in that children must have access 
to in our public schools. If they do not have access to that total view 
of technology, how in the world can we expect them to walk out of 
school one day and engage and interface in a world that is changing so 
rapidly? We talk on this floor of the House about the changing world 
and talk is awful cheap. It is easy to talk about changing education 
and making it better. I have often said, money is not the only issue 
but the last time I checked, without a certain amount of money very 
little happens. Even though here at the Federal level we only put in 
about 7 percent of the resources that our public schools use, we can 
have a tremendous impact if we will encourage, provide leadership, help 
and be a partner. Because we are a partner. We are not the senior 
partner but we are a major partner and we ought to be a partner that is 
about helping rather than throwing impediments anywhere along the way.
  ``Communication skills will be the key to meaningful connections 
between students' education and their understanding of individuals, 
groups and countries.'' Now, understand when I use this, this is a 
special school that has access to the Internet and other things that a 
lot of schools do not have. Every school should have this. But it gives 
them a chance to understand what they are about.
  ``Integrated, project-based learning will ensure active participation 
and in-depth understanding of global concepts.'' When we talk about 
education sometimes, many of us talk about education in the framework 
of our own background, of how schools were when we were in school. If 
we have not been in the classroom in the last 10 years and we go in and 
visit, we would recognize the school, we would recognize the hallways, 
we might even recognize the classroom, but I will guarantee you if you 
look at the curriculum and the things that a lot of teachers are doing 
in these creative classrooms, it would sure be different.
  ``Integrated project-based learning will ensure active participation 
and in-depth understanding of global concepts.'' I want to repeat that, 
because I think that is important as we move in this world economy. We 
stand on this floor and we talk about the issues of trade. We talk 
about the issues of money moving, et cetera. All this is in the 
perspective of the world that has changed in the last 10 years with 
global communication.
  ``Lower student-teacher ratios will encourage more active involvement 
in the learning process, more developmentally appropriate teaching, 
differentiation of instruction, and focused applications to improve 
student performance.'' The last bullet I read is so important to this 
whole concept of what we talk about when we talk about total education 
for every child, so that it is geared to that student, that that 
student understands what is expected, that teachers have class sizes 
small enough that they can deal with. In a diverse population that we 
have when a teacher has to go in the classroom and have 30 students, it 
is a very, very difficult task when the range is so great with those 
students.
  I have said many times, my wife and I have three lovely children of 
whom we care very deeply, and I love them dearly. But I would be less 
than honest if I did not say today, it would be very difficult if we 
had 30 of them and we were trying to instruct them around the house and 
to direct traffic. I think that is true in most households. Too many 
times we ask our teachers to do the impossible task of doing what we 
could not do, what we would not do, and yet we talk a lot, and I have 
often said when it comes to education, we all have lots of answers and 
very few solutions. In the political arena, we need to become better 
partners. As those partners, we need to be sort of like the managing 
partner. We are willing to help where we can and push where we need to 
and be less critical of the children and teachers who I think are 
working awful hard.
  Let me close on Conn Elementary with one other point, and then I am 
going to yield to one of my colleagues.

[[Page H930]]

This vision is a prescription for excellence for Conn Elementary and 
really for education in Wake County. I think that would be somewhat 
true of all the schools in my State of North Carolina. Conn is a richly 
diverse, inner city magnet school, and they really are laying a 
foundation for lifelong learning and citizenship for these students. In 
a situation where in many cases we would say those students could not 
do it, they are measuring up and they are achieving at very high levels 
and they are closing the gap between minority and nonminority students. 
They are doing it because teachers care, students are focused, parents 
are engaged, and they are also disaggregating data for both minority 
and nonminority students.
  Let me tell you what I mean when I say disaggregating, because so 
many times we talk about averages, average students. Very few of us are 
average. We are special in our own way. If you take that data and break 
it down in individuals and individual groups, pretty soon you will find 
out which student really needs the help, where you need to give more 
time for math, where you need to give more time for reading.

                              {time}  1445

  All of us learn differently and at different levels, and Conn 
Elementary is doing that to make sure that every child reaches their 
full potential. Mr. Speaker, to meet the needs they are making sure 
that some of these students have smaller class sizes, and they can only 
do it, my colleagues, because they have some additional money in a 
partnership with the Federal Government, and the State is putting some 
extra in it. That is why I say when you say it does not take extra 
money we are deceiving ourselves and misleading the public. It takes 
additional dollars.
  Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Green) who really does understand how important it is, how important 
education is to the future of this country. He is close to it. Not only 
has he been a fighter here in Congress, but every weekend when he goes 
home, his wife reminds him.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from North 
Carolina for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to share in the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Etheridge's) special order because not only am I 
privileged to have a wife who teaches high school algebra, without her 
I could not have made it through college algebra, Mr. Speaker. So she 
tutored me to make sure I can have my gentleman's C, but every weekend 
when I go home, I try to spend time in our public schools.
  Just recently, I was at Stevens Elementary in the Aldine School 
District. Last Monday, I was actually at Aldine 9th Grade Center, 
Aldine High School 9th Grade Center, because this week is Texas Public 
School Week in Texas, and so to recognize the value of public 
education.
  Last Saturday, I was at Burnet Elementary in Houston Independent 
School District, not necessarily for an education program, although 
there was students there and their parents, but it was for a Fannie Mae 
home buyer seminar. So, using the public school facilities also for 
home buying in an inner-city school in Houston.
  Recently, I was at R.P. Harris Elementary and H.I.C. to read to the 
students and talk about what I do. But this Friday that school will be 
having their Career Day that I will be there, and also we are hosting a 
job fair for people in the community.
  Public education is working, and all we need to do is go to our 
districts, to go to those schools and see it happening. You see the 
success. I like to spend time in my schools because it recharges my 
batteries for the debates we are having like today on Federal funding 
for education and things like that, but it also provides a great role 
model for Members to go in and sit down and read to their students and 
also to talk about the job we do.
  Mr. Speaker, we have quality education in every one of my public 
schools in my district. And, again, I have lots of different school 
districts in Houston Harris County, a very urban district, 
predominantly minority children, both African American and Hispanic, 
but there is quality education going on, and that is why I want to talk 
about the Democratic Families First agenda that was just announced 
today by the President and the Democratic Leader, the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), and Senator Daschle where we talk about school 
modernization and providing Federal tax credit to States and school 
districts to modernize and renovate 6,000 local public schools. The 
Houston Independent School District, who recently passed a bond 
election, a scaled-back bond election, by the way, is providing the 
local funds.
  Now, on the Federal level, we need to try and help because of the 
deteriorating situation of not just urban schools like I represent, but 
rural schools, smaller class sizes. Texas now has a law since 1984 that 
is 20-to-1 for elementary schoolchildren from kindergarten through 4th 
grade, and that is great. The President announced we would like to see 
18-to-1. Of course, that will not help my wife who teaches 30 and 32 
children in high school algebra class, but we know that we need to put 
our resources into elementary schools.
  So the Families First agenda, the Democratic agenda, also builds on 
additional teacher training and recruitment.
  My wife told me a story a few weeks ago, and I know the gentleman 
from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) can relate to this. She said:
  You know how long it took us to get overhead projectors out of the 
bowling alleys and into the public schools? It took us years. The 
technology was in the bowling alleys before we could use them in our 
public schools. I hope we are not waiting for that long before the 
computers are really utilized in our public schools.
  Teacher training and educational technology, there is so many things 
that is part of this agenda, and I know we share the same goals. The 
Federal Government cannot dictate what goes on in our local schools, 
but we can help. We can provide a little extra help for our school 
board members, our administrators, our teachers, our parents and the 
State legislators who provide most of the funding, and we can help to 
make sure that we pave the way for the 20th century, 21st century, so 
our children will be prepared to stand here on the floor of the House 
and want to get their children and their grandchildren prepared for the 
next century.
  I thank the gentleman for asking for this special order and allowing 
me to participate today.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. I thank the gentleman from Texas, because he is 
absolutely correct, and the Families First agenda at this time with the 
educational package in it is just a tremendous piece with the 
President's initiative for more teachers, for modernizing our school 
facilities.
  Every State has needs, and every State is doing some things to make a 
difference, and yet at the end of World War II, when our men and women 
came home from fighting the war that many in history said would end all 
wars, which it did not, they put their shoulder to the wheel, and they 
said: We are going to build schools, and we will make sure that 
children have an opportunity.
  We now have an obligation, and I want to yield to my friend, the 
gentleman from Mississippi's 4th district (Mr. Shows), for some 
comments on what is happening in his area as it relates to this whole 
education agenda that we are working on.
  Mr. SHOWS. Mr. Speaker, what I would like to say, too, as an educator 
myself that has spent a long time ago, we appreciate the opportunity to 
speak on behalf of the gentleman from North Carolina's bill. As an 
educator back in Mississippi back in the 1970s when we had a tremendous 
problem of overcrowding in schools then and some of the facilities were 
not what they needed to be, and still today, as I went through the 
district during the campaign and visited some schools that I thought 
have been outdated years ago, they are in terrible need.
  Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that a lot of times we look at what we do 
to create a good environment around a business place where we do build 
new buildings to increase business, and it increases learning, and 
the same thing could be said for education.

  But, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for giving me the opportunity 
to express my support for the efforts to improve the education of 
America's children. In the past few months in

[[Page H931]]

Mississippi, and especially in my district, we have had several plants 
that employed thousands of hard-working people in my district shut 
down, and in rural areas like mine in southern Mississippi a plant 
closure can devastate an entire community and county.
  The international marketplace is here today. A new technology 
continues to change the face of business and employment opportunities. 
American jobs continue to migrate across our borders. We cannot stand 
idly by and let honest, hard-working Americans suffer because we are 
not preparing them for this reality. We must work together to do 
whatever it takes to make sure that our young people have the education 
and training to perform good jobs at competitive wages.
  One obvious way to accomplish this is to build new schools that make 
the most of modern technology available to our students. The Etheridge 
School Construction Act provides tax credits to help finance school 
construction bonds. This legislation would provide almost $30 million 
in school construction bonds from Mississippi alone, and we can use 
every bit of it, and we need that help. For children in Mississippi's 
4th District this would mean the opportunity to move out of old and 
overcrowded schools that are in need of repair and to new schools with 
new technologies in their classrooms. It would mean having classes in 
actual classrooms and not in temporary trailers.
  I feel like this is a bipartisan bill and a cost-effective way to 
help our States meet their educational needs, and we need to pass this 
bill quickly. It is for the future of not only Mississippi, but for 
this great country.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, now to my friend from the 19th District 
of Illinois (Mr. Phelps). He understands how important quality 
education is, how important it is, how the assessment, what growth 
means and the need for new school buildings. He has been a hard worker 
since he has been in here in Congress. I had the occasion when our 
Chief State School Officer worked with his Chief, so I yield to the 
gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. PHELPS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to 
participate in this discussion on a very valued issue to all of us, 
education; and, Mr. Speaker, today I rise to support the Democratic 
initiatives to improve education for our children through better 
schools and smaller classrooms.
  As a former teacher and a husband of a teacher, I have always 
believed that the single most important challenge we face as parents 
and as the citizens of this Nation is the education of our children. I 
have seen as a teacher and later as a State legislator the problems our 
schools face and the limitations as States and local school districts 
struggle to overcome them on a daily basis.
  As a teacher, my first year I taught school in Harrisburg, Illinois, 
Unit 3 District. I walked into a classroom of 42 children. What a 
challenge. We had them lined up in what we used to call the old 
cloakroom, as my colleagues know, where you would have students even 
out of my sight. It was then that I learned to realize that the quality 
of education is so much compromised when you cannot look that child one 
on one in the eye and get their undue attention and the respect first 
because everything after that, not very much can be accomplished 
without that.
  Mr. Speaker, I valued those first years in knowing that, however we 
invest in education, we can help parents and communities work together 
to provide better learning environments for our children through school 
modernization and construction. That is really the key and, of course, 
more specifically, smaller classrooms, as I alluded to from the 
problems of a large classroom.
  Our commitment today to funding for more teachers will help the local 
school districts provide a smaller, more enriching learning experience 
for our kids. It was almost impossible, as many kids that I had that 
first year and my wife has in high school English class in Eldorado, 
our hometown now, to really relate to the kids in an individualized 
way. I believe that it is impossible to have a mentorship, if my 
colleagues will, for kids. This is how they relate. They get involved 
with a teacher. If the teacher is allowed to get to know them 
personally, and I believe that that is a value beyond description, it 
is hard to put a value on, because I personally feel that some of our 
problems that we are experiencing throughout the Nation with our kids 
rebelling in one way or another in the most vicious way is violence, 
that we see the school shootings, the dropout situation, the lack of 
attendance. The whole attitude is because many teachers do not get a 
chance to know those children, know those kids and the problems that 
they are having in their home life.
  In the small rural areas, such as Eldorado, Illinois, a town of 4,000 
people, my wife has made it a point to find out what is troubling the 
child when they seemingly are not caring what is going on, or missing 
school, or have a different attitude from one day to the next. She has 
found, to get to the heart of the matter, what is troubling that child. 
Smaller classrooms will afford us to do this, possibly even avoiding 
the most extreme expression of violence.
  I really believe that. So it goes to the heart of discipline.
  I know we talk about quality of instruction in the classroom, but 
smaller classrooms can be one of the major tools of discipline because 
most kids are really saying: Give me your attention. And many times 
their misbehavior is out of getting attention.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. If the gentleman will yield for a moment, because I 
think he is on to something. Let me raise a question with him because 
he talks of the 42 students he had when he started, and I think every 
teacher in America can identify with the statement he just made. 
Without dating him, and I will not do that, but he was talking about 
when he started teaching.
  The diversity of the student population in our schools have changed 
dramatically in recent years, and the home life of so many of our 
students have changed because we have two-parent households, both are 
working, or even if it is a single-parent household, and I thought his 
point as it relates to the children having someone to really identify 
with, to let that teacher or in that classroom be their friend today as 
it was years ago when they had some time.
  Let me ask this question because I think it is important. As we 
reduce the class sizes, as we have started to do and we need to 
continue, and provide for the good learning environment where when one 
goes to school, if it is the nicest place one goes to that day, that is 
what it ought to be.

                              {time}  1500

  Then certainly that is not only going to help the discipline problems 
we see that we are spending money on, but more importantly, as the 
gentleman just alluded to, discipline and achievement go hand-in-hand. 
We will see achievement go up dramatically.
  Mr. PHELPS. The gentleman's expertise is much beyond mine in 
education, and I value the gentleman's opinion, so he can relate to 
what I am saying.
  But just as one who has had formal experience in a classroom, and 
coming from a family of educators, I have two brothers that are public 
school administrators, similar to the gentleman's capacity in his home 
State before he came here. So I learned from not only them but my own 
experience.
  I can only tell the Members, the way I relate to what we were talking 
about, mentorship, is in fact a coach's success. Let us take coaches, 
for example. It is not so much from one coach to the other, that they 
do not have the key plays, because they are pretty much passed from one 
school or university to another, but it is the way the coach motivates 
his team or his or her team to accomplish the end result to win.
  That motivation only occurs when the coach takes that student aside 
and says, hey, how are things going? Do you want to meet me out for a 
round of golf? Let's go fishing Saturday. Because they can identify 
where some child may have a lack of attention, and just take that buddy 
under their wing.
  I have seen myself, in my short tenure, in talking to coaches and 
teachers that have had that individualized partnership, friendship, 
that has made the difference to kids excelling who may not have had the 
support at home to begin with, to try to overcome that, or reinforce 
what is there.
  Another matter that really, as a State legislator, I bring here, and 
I

[[Page H932]]

want to talk more on this later about school infrastructure and our 
needs there, but it has always astounded me and I am still bewildered 
why we as a society are so willing to fund the building of prisons, and 
yet not only hesitant but stubborn to fund building schools.
  I guess we react to it; we all want to reduce crime, and get to the 
heart and the source of crime. We do not want to have fear in our 
neighborhoods. I think that is why in my area we have risen to the 
occasion to fund prisons, but at the expense of schools, in many 
regards, in Illinois, I can attest to that.
  To me, if we invest in education, or usually an investment of any 
nature in the private sector or in our own lives or homes, we expect to 
benefit, to reap benefits. When we invest in education, I think the 
benefits from the governmental standpoint of expenses to taxpayers will 
be less for crime, for prisons, less for welfare, and unemployment will 
be reduced, to benefit productive society members.
  That is what the value of education is. I hope to be part of this 
106th Congress, and in solving these problems.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois. He 
has well stated the foundation that I think that we all can agree with 
as it relates to improving the educational opportunities for all of our 
children in this country, to make sure that the 21st century will be 
bright for all students, and ultimately, as he has indicated, make sure 
that our social security system is sound, that everyone is productive 
and working and paying into it, and will make a difference.
  Let me touch on a couple of points, and then I want to turn to my 
good friend, the gentlewoman from Connecticut, for a couple of comments 
on this educational piece.
  I talked earlier about the Conn experience. There are a couple of 
other points that I would like to make, especially on a school that is 
in the inner city, they are working hard, they have formed what they 
call CONNections, advisory committees, where each group has to work 
together to bring the parents in; or if they happen to be in a foster 
care home, whomever is responsible for the child, they have a 
responsibility to come and work with the individual assessment of those 
teachers, so that every child can get extra care and extra time on 
those core subjects.
  They are working to reduce class sizes, where they are getting more 
individualized attention and a feeling of belonging on the part of each 
student. My friend, the gentleman from Illinois, just talked about 
those advisory groups that are showing up as hard evidence and data on 
results for children.
  I think sometimes we tend to forget that. It is not in isolation. We 
have to do it altogether. Their assessment measures are working. They 
are on track on a year to year assessment that has been going on long 
enough now that this absolutely is working. They have documented their 
performance in a systematic way. That has enabled them to show what 
they are doing.
  Let me say that it is happening in a school and in a county that is 
seeing some of the most rapid growth in student enrollment population 
in the Nation. As a matter of fact, North Carolina is the fifth fastest 
growing State in the Nation over the next 10 years, as documented by 
the U.S. Department of Education, for student enrollment in high 
school. Wake County alone has added over 30,000 students in the past 14 
years, and gained anywhere from 3,500 to 4,500 students every year, 
this is the size, and larger than some school systems.
  When we start talking about building buildings, they have an ongoing 
project that they have not gotten out of. They are bursting at the 
seams. They cannot get enough space. We can imagine what that does to 
each individual school.
  Since 1990 alone, Wake County has seen 29.9 percent growth in student 
population, but every county that touches Wake County in my district 
has grown over 20 percent in the last 8 years. That is why Congress I 
think needs to step up this year and follow through on the proposal the 
President has talked about for providing school construction for our 
students.
  I have a bill that I will be introducing later this week called the 
Etheridge School Construction Act. We now have 55 sponsors, and I hope 
to have more before it goes in tomorrow. It will provide for $7.2 
billion in school construction bonds for growing States and localities 
that are hurting.
  Now, some of my colleagues will say, that is not the Federal 
government's responsibility. I would ask them, what did we decide when 
we did not have electricity and we did not have telephones? There was a 
time we did not have canals in this country, and we put in a system in 
the Federal Government to make sure we had water transportation. 
Finally we got to the interstate system, thank goodness for Eisenhower, 
who pushed us into it. There are a lot of things we have gotten into in 
recent years that we were not in.
  I will say to the Members, our soldiers who came home from World War 
II decided we needed to build some schools. They put their shoulders to 
the wheel. It is now our responsibility as we move towards the 21st 
century to make sure that the baby boom echo does not have to be taught 
in lean-tos and in shacks and in rundown buildings.
  We need to build some school buildings to make sure these children 
have a good place to go to school. They need to have as good an 
environment to be taught in as my colleague, the gentleman from 
Illinois, talked about that we are sending our prisoners to. When we 
talk about sending children to school, and they ride by a $30 million 
prison to go to a $4 million school, they are not very dumb. They can 
figure that one out. Our priorities are misdirected.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), who is a champion if ever there was one, for 
education, to share with us some thoughts she has on this subject.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I want to 
commend my colleague for the leadership role he has taken on the issue 
of education. It is not just this evening, but it has been since he 
arrived in the Congress, he has made this a principal part of what his 
efforts are here. I congratulate him for that.
  I am delighted to join with the gentleman. Just on the point he was 
mentioning, I think it is interesting to note that the gentleman is so 
right, this is not about the Federal Government getting into the school 
construction businesses, nor about just bricks and mortar and bells and 
whistles and newfangled buildings and all of this.
  I will just tell Members about my part of the country. I am from the 
Northeast, from Connecticut. We did a school survey. We found that in 
my community the age of the school buildings is rather staggering. The 
average age of the elementary school buildings is 50 years old. More 
than half of the elementary schools regularly hold classes in areas not 
designed to be classrooms, including cafeterias, hallways, mobile or 
temporary rooms, and storage areas. The average class size is 23 
students. So that I happen to live in the part of this country where 
the infrastructure, and whether that is the roads, the bridges, 
whatever it is, including our schools, are old.
  What does that mean in terms of the future? If we just take one small 
aspect of that, that is technology, we have some buildings where the 
thickness of the walls is so big and so dense that to wire these 
schools up so that we can really be connected with the Internet, and 
put in the kind of computer and advanced technology that our young 
people need today, is either prohibitive, or there are some places 
where the computers are stored in boxes in rooms because they do not 
have the ability to get them wired up.
  What are we talking about with school construction? It is 
modernization, it is providing the kinds of facilities that are going 
to lend themselves for that future opportunity for our young people.
  I am going to use myself. I am old. My kids are computer literate. My 
grandkids will be computer literate. We have little tots that know more 
about computers than I probably will ever know. I want to talk about a 
classroom that I went to this past week.
  But the fact of the matter is, what was a textbook to me, to my 
generation, and the importance of that, is what the computer is to our 
kids today, so looking at modernizing our schools so we can deal with 
this new technology is critical.

[[Page H933]]

  Now, that having been said, school construction. What we are offering 
here is not to build the schools, not to say where they are going to 
get built, not to preempt any local control of this effort. But what we 
will try to do as a proper role for the Federal Government is to say to 
the locality, you have to float bonds to be able to modernize or to 
build.
  What we want to do is to provide you with a tax credit. Use the tax 
code to help to pay the interest on those bonds. Therefore, you can 
float the bonds, you can get some financial resources to pay the 
interest, thereby cutting down the costs to local communities and 
taxpayers and what they have to pay in terms of modernizing or building 
those classrooms.
  It is good for the community, it is good for the tax relief and local 
property taxes, and we get to where we want to be in modernizing 
facilities for advancement for our young people. It makes perfect 
sense. It makes sense to use the tax code in a way that facilitates the 
direction we want to go in in trying to meet a goal and a value, 
because education is about values and who we are as a country. 
Secondly, it is to provide the kinds of tax relief to struggling local 
communities in this effort.
  So this is one of the most logical pieces of legislation that has 
come along, with the perfect match between local control and Federal 
government partnership in an effort. No one is suggesting that the 
Federal Government get into the business of constructing schools.
  I just want to make one more point on computers and teacher training, 
which we allow for in this families first agenda and our budget. I did 
go into a classroom, and I watched a first-rate teacher who takes every 
opportunity that she can to avail herself of information and learning 
herself to be skilled, and then transmitting these kinds of skills to 
young people today.
  As I said, we can provide and we can get involved in getting all of 
the hardware into these schools, and if we do not have competent and 
qualified teachers who can teach our youngsters about how to use the 
machinery, then they are just going to stay in the boxes and it is not 
going to amount to a hill of beans. It really will not.
  So that the training, that we have competent and qualified teachers 
to train in this area, is critical to where we want to go. In addition 
to which, it says to parents and says to local taxpayers, we want to 
make sure we are keeping our kids up to date, that the standards rise, 
that there is accountability on behalf of the schools and the children 
and the teachers, so that we make sure that our children are competent 
and qualified for those opportunities of a new century that we do not 
know what of, it is going to have so many promises and opportunities 
for young people. We would be foolish to squander these opportunities.
  That is why I am excited about this families first agenda that we 
have embarked on, with education being at the center of it. I know the 
gentleman is going to continue to make this battle in the next year and 
a half, and I look forward to joining that battle with him. I thank the 
gentleman for letting me participate with him tonight.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut, 
because she has been on the forefront of this issue. She understands as 
much as anyone in this Congress that education, public education for 
our children, is the one thing that levels the playing field for all 
people. It makes no difference what their economic or ethnic background 
is, when they get an educational opportunity, it is very difficult to 
ever close that door again. I thank the gentlewoman for her time.
  Now let me turn to my friend, a new Member of Congress, and yield to 
the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley), from the First District, who 
has taken on this issue of education again, because she fought for it 
in her home State before she came here.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Yes. I thank the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, for giving me 
the opportunity to speak with him about an issue that I have a great 
passion for.
  I believe that the Democratic agenda, which puts families first, is 
absolutely pivotal to the success of my district. I would like to tell 
the Members a little bit about the district that I represent, because 
in order to understand how important educational issues are to the 
people of southern Nevada, Members need to know a little bit about the 
district that I represent.
  I have the fastest growing district in the United States. We have the 
fastest growing school-age population in the United States.

                              {time}  1515

  There are 5,000 new residents that come to Las Vegas, Nevada, every 
single month, and there is no end in sight to the growth. We have to 
build a school a month in order to accommodate the growth, in order to 
make sure that our students have a place to go to school. So the issues 
that we are discussing in our education agenda are absolutely pivotal 
to the success of our schoolchildren in southern Nevada.
  There are certain areas that are of particular importance, and I 
would like to highlight those. The fact that I do have the fastest 
growing school age district in the United States and one of the largest 
school districts in the United States, with 210,000 students going to 
school in Las Vegas, Nevada, that means that school construction is 
absolutely necessary in order for us to make sure that our kids have a 
place that they can go to school.
  We need to get them out of the portables, get them out of the 
trailers and get them into a classroom environment where they can 
thrive. So the school construction component that has been proposed by 
the Democrats is very, very important for our needs in southern Nevada.
  Also, the fact that we want to modernize our schools. What is the use 
of having a belief that we need to have computers in every classroom 
and connect everybody in the United States to the Information Highway 
if we have schools that are obsolete and do not have the ability to 
bring in the technology that is so important? This is especially true 
for a community like southern Nevada where we have some schools that 
are a little bit older.
  In order to accommodate the technology which is going to take us into 
the 21st century and that our children absolutely must be trained to be 
educated on, that is a very, very important issue for us.
  Mr. Speaker, another important issue is the hiring of new teachers. 
Next school session, when our schools open up next September, we are 
going to be 700 teachers short of the amount that we will need in order 
to teach the number of students that we have in southern Nevada. So the 
President's initiative to hire an additional 100,000 teachers, that is 
very important for southern Nevada and I suspect for many school 
districts across the United States.
  The two perhaps most important issues in my mind are the after-school 
programs and the summer school programs. For a large number of my 
school population, they are going home to empty houses. They are 
latchkey kids, because their parents are working, and we have a working 
class environment in southern Nevada. So these kids are coming home to 
empty homes with nobody to help them, nobody to take care of them.
  If we can provide after-school programs for these kids, it actually 
satisfies two needs that we have in southern Nevada. One is that it 
gives them a wholesome place to come after school, but the second thing 
is it gives them an opportunity to get additional mentoring so that 
they can learn the material that they have to learn in order to pass to 
the next grade.
  Mr. Speaker, we are opposed to social promotion, but if we are 
opposed to social promotion we are going to have to do something to 
help these kids so that they can, in fact, be promoted with the rest of 
their class. That is why summer school programs are so important as 
well.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman would yield at this 
point for a moment, let me ask a question. It sounds like Nevada is 
doing some creative things, and North Carolina has done some of these 
same things. I assume that they are doing after-school tutoring in some 
areas right now for those students who need extra help to stay up with 
the other students, and probably some early morning tutors, too.
  Ms. BERKLEY. We are doing some, but not half enough. And if we could

[[Page H934]]

get some help from the Federal Government in order to do that, that 
would be absolutely wonderful.
  Another important thing is, of course, the summer school programs. 
Because the very students that need the summer school programs are 
often those who can ill afford them, and if they have to pay for the 
summer school program then those students who actually need it might 
not have the opportunity.
  Those are the issues that I find very, very important and compelling; 
and those are the reasons that I came to Congress, in order to make 
sure that the people of southern Nevada are protected.
  Mr. Speaker, if I may have one more minute, the education that I 
received in southern Nevada was wonderful. It was wonderful for the 
life that I am leading today. It will be obsolete for the life that my 
children are leading.
  It is important for us as the leaders of this country to make sure 
that the students that are going through school now will have the tools 
and the opportunities that they need in order to succeed in the 21st 
century. We have a golden opportunity in this country to make a 
difference, make a difference in the lives of millions of children that 
are crying out for help, crying out for quality education, crying out 
for a good life.
  I, for one, am going to join with the gentleman from North Carolina 
to do everything I can to make sure that these students are taken care 
of so that they can take our places in the 21st century and lead this 
country to a new horizon and new beginning and greater heights.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Nevada. She 
understates her hard work, because she has worked hard since she has 
been here. She had a record of support for education before she came, 
it preceded her, and she is doing an excellent job.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the point that the gentlewoman made, that 
education is no longer a K-12 or K-16 through four years of college or 
master's or doctorate. It is a lifelong process. All we need to do now 
is talk about the new technologies and recognize those of us that are 
rusty with computers have to get up to speed on those computers because 
most of our children are ahead of us.
  The gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) just talked about it, 
but the truth is that is the way of life for all of us now, and we have 
to do a better job.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Mr. Speaker, with the help of the gentleman from North 
Carolina, and hopefully with the help of those across the aisle, we can 
work together in a bipartisan way to make sure that all of these 
children in our great country have the same opportunities that the 
gentleman and I had when we were growing up.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. The point the gentlewoman makes is absolutely correct. 
If we think about it, when most of us were growing up, our world was 
much smaller in the sense that we thought about the competition being 
maybe the community next door, the county next door, or maybe even the 
State next door. For our young people today, that is not so. It is the 
whole world.
  We talk about the world having shrunk. It has only shrunk in that 
time has shrunk. Because if something happens today on the far side of 
the world, within seconds it is front page news in Washington, D.C., or 
hometown, U.S.A. This means that for our children and for us as adults, 
we have to learn to deal with issues differently. That puts an extra 
burden on our public schools and on our teachers.

  When we were talking earlier about the teachers and having training 
to deal with computers, it really means that the teacher has to be able 
to integrate their teaching techniques on that computer. Otherwise, the 
computer is a tool that will not be used.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Interestingly enough, I go home every weekend. Last 
weekend I was home, and I had an opportunity to read. It was Reading 
Readiness Week, and, of course, in Las Vegas we are working very hard 
to read to our children and give parents an opportunity to read to our 
children as well.
  I was one of those people who went into the classroom to read to a 
group of kindergarten students, and I can say that not only were the 
kindergarten students absolutely superb to read to, but I was 
particularly impressed with their teachers and the amount of training 
necessary in order to be able to pass on the skills that these children 
are going to need.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I am very, very excited. When I look at those 
kindergartners, when I look at my own children, I can only imagine what 
a magnificent life they have ahead of them. But before they can have 
any life at all, we need to make sure that they have the tools to 
prepare them to lead the life that they are going to be leading in the 
21st century.
  And as the gentleman has so correctly demonstrated in his comments, 
that technology component is so vital. In order to not only succeed in 
the 21st century, but merely to survive in the 21st century, they are 
going to need to have those skills. And if we do not give them to our 
students while they are in school now, I am afraid they are going to be 
terribly disadvantaged and unable to compete in the global world that 
we now live in.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments, 
and she is correct. Education is the key to opportunity in the future. 
We have worked at it in North Carolina, and she has worked in Nevada, 
and all of us have to work at it in this country because of the 
mobility of our population.
  For a child in North Carolina today, they may be going to school in 
Nevada next week or California or New York. We have to work our system 
together so we have some parity across the country.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield now to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
McIntyre), my colleague from the Seventh District, to share with us 
some of his thoughts on education.
  Mr. McINTYRE. Mr. Speaker, we know that education is the key to the 
future of this country. And when I think about the words of Robert H. 
Jackson, the Supreme Court Associate Justice, who once said that, 
``Education should be a lifelong process, the formal period serving as 
a foundation on which life's structure may rest and rise.''
  We realize when we talk about this foundation and the structure of 
life we have to ask ourselves what kind of message are we sending to 
our children? What are they learning now that will make them the 
leaders of tomorrow?
  Mr. Speaker, I think there are three important ingredients that we 
here in the Congress and we here in the Nation should consider, that it 
does take the people, the purpose, and the partnership in working 
together.
  First of all, the people. We realize that it is not just up to the 
educators alone. They need our help and support. But it is also up to 
the people of the community and the people in government, the people in 
business, the people in all sectors of society who will come together 
and provide that positive example of commitment. People who are willing 
to go and help the teacher, call up a teacher and say, I want to know 
how I can come help.
  And when we decry the lack of role models for our children today and 
we wonder what are they seeing? Are they just seeing the athletic 
heroes and the movie stars? But where are the future businesspeople and 
the future nurses and doctors and the future teachers, the future 
people that will be working in the communities?
  Mr. Speaker, they are out there in the communities now, and our 
children are looking at us, and they are wondering, are we going to 
provide some kind of example for them? Are we volunteering our time to 
go into the schools and help?
  I know the last 18 years that I have been spending as a volunteer in 
the school, I continue to do so even now in Congress when I am home 
during a recess, to spend time with kids, to volunteer personal time, 
to show support for our teachers and, most of all, support for our 
children.
  With the people working together, we can share a common purpose, a 
purpose that instills and inspires in our children the idea that they 
can become what they dream they might become one day because they see 
in us an example of coming to them. Why would that person come and 
spend time in our schools? He is too busy. He is a doctor. Or why would 
that businessperson take time to come talk to us about marketing?

[[Page H935]]

  Mr. Speaker, when we take time to invest ourselves, we set an example 
that pays more than money could buy.
  Third, we put together with that a partnership. We here in Congress 
are looking at issues affecting school construction. We are looking at 
issues affecting the reduction of class size. We are looking at issues 
that will affect private business being able to donate computers and 
being able to get tax deductions for doing that, much like they can for 
other charities and other organizations now.
  So the question is, will we be willing to work together in that 
partnership? I know it is a challenge for us here in Congress, but it 
is a challenge that we are well up to and that we can do on both sides 
of the aisle.
  Mr. Speaker, I know that Robin Cooke once wrote that, ``Education is 
more than a luxury, it is a responsibility that society owes itself.'' 
Education is something we cannot just leave up to one group or one 
organization and expect them to handle it for us. It is an investment 
that has to come from the heart and from the hands and from the heads 
of all of us putting ourselves into the educational process to work 
together to strengthen the foundation of the future of this society.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina 
for his comments, and certainly education is that critical linchpin 
that fuels our economy, gives us opportunity, and the reason we are the 
kind of society we are to reach out and help the people around the 
world.
  Any of us that travel any places know how people admire Americans, 
and part of it is because we have a system that says everyone who shows 
up will have an equal opportunity.
  Today we have talked about a number of issues of the Family First 
agenda of education, and one of them being the linchpin of school 
construction. Too many times when people want to talk about education, 
they fail to talk as our colleagues have today and have reminded us, 
that the teacher is the heart of that issue and the students are why we 
are there.
  But the truth is, if we ask teachers what is most important to them 
in having the opportunity to teach children, it is not always salary 
first. Recognizing that certainly they pay the same for food or shelter 
as we do, but they need a good environment to teach, and children 
should have a good place to learn.
  Also, they need the latest in technology, simply because the young 
people that leave those classrooms are going to be coming into the 
workforce. And if anyone wonders why business has stepped up and 
decided that education is the most important issue on their agenda 
besides making a profit, all we need to do is look at our public 
schools. They are going to be employing these young people; and, 
secondly, they are also going to be their consuming public.
  Finally, as we talk about the staff shortage we are going to be 
facing, we are going to be facing some, we have to recognize if we are 
going to keep some of these people longer than the years after their 
retirement, we have to make sure that we change our retirement policies 
for them and make sure that their employment opportunities are where 
they ought to be, and they get the ample training to make sure that 
they can deal with our young people.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina for a 
comment.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. McINTYRE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say two other things 
briefly. We in the Congress can also support our local school districts 
where we have military bases. As a member of the Committee on Armed 
Services, I hope that we will challenge ourselves to support impact aid 
for direct appropriations to school districts with military children.
  Secondly, I hope all of my colleagues will do something that we did, 
and that is host an education summit in your district. I have held two 
over the last 2 years. We even had the U.S. Secretary of Education come 
down. Listen to the parents and the children themselves talk about 
their needs, and that way we will know that what we are doing is making 
a difference back home.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, let me close by saying thank you for this 
opportunity to share with you, with our colleagues and with the 
American people hopefully an issue that is so critical to the future of 
this country, educating our young people, providing a rich opportunity 
for each one of them, making sure that we have teachers in front of 
those classrooms who are well trained, who are well equipped, and they 
have an environment in which to teach effectively, and for children to 
have a place to learn the way they should learn in this place we call 
America for the 21st century.

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