Congressional Record, Volume 145 Issue 33 (Wednesday, March 3, 1999)

[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 33 (Wednesday, March 3, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2160-S2177]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

EDUCATION FLEXIBILITY PARTNERSHIP ACT OF 1999--MOTION TO PROCEED

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 280, which the
clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

Motion to proceed to the consideration of S. 280, a bill to
provide for education flexibility partnerships.

The Senate resumed consideration of the motion to proceed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 3
hours 30 minutes under the control of the Senator from Minnesota, Mr.
Wellstone, and 30 minutes under the control of the Senator from
Vermont, Mr. Jeffords, or his designee.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I make a point of order a quorum is not
present.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that that time be charged to
Senator Wellstone.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Privilege of the Floor

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ben
Highton and Elizabeth Kuoppala be allowed to be on the floor during the
duration of the debate on Ed-Flex.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me, first of all, explain to my
colleagues and for those in the country who are going to now be
focusing on this bill, the Ed-Flex bill, why I started out yesterday
speaking in opposition to this motion to proceed and why I will be
taking several hours today to express my opposition to this piece of
legislation. There are a number of different things I am going to
cover, but at the very beginning I would like to spell out what I think
is the fundamental flaw to this legislation, the Ed-Flex bill. Frankly,
I think my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, would have had an
opportunity to carefully examine this legislation if we had a hearing,
I mean a thorough hearing, or if we had waited to really examine in
some detail and some depth what has happened in the different Ed-Flex
States.
The General Accounting Office gives us a report in which they say it
looks like some good work has been done, but we don't really have a
full and complete understanding of what has happened in these Ed-Flex
States. I think what this piece of legislation, called Ed-Flex--and I
grant it is a great title, and I grant it is a winning political
argument to say let's give the flexibility to the States and let's get
the Federal Government out of this--but what this piece of legislation
is essentially saying is that we, as a national community, we as a
National Government, we as a Federal Government representing the people
in our country, no longer are going to maintain our commitment to poor
children in America. That is what this is all about.
What this piece of legislation essentially says to States and to
school districts is: Look, when it comes to the core requirements of
title I, core requirements that have to do with qualified teachers,
that have to do with high standards for students, that have to do with
students meeting those standards and there being a measurement and some
result and some evaluation, these standards no longer necessarily will
apply. What this legislation says is, when it comes to what the title I
mission has been all about, for poor children in America--that is to
say that we want to make sure that the money, first and foremost, goes
to the neediest schools--that standard no longer will necessarily
apply.
As a matter of fact, in 1994, one of the things that we did in the
Elementary/Secondary Education Act reauthorization was we sought to
concentrate title I funds by requiring districts to spend title I on
schools with over 75 percent poverty-stricken students first. That
restriction has had the desired effect. Only 79 percent of schools with
over 75 percent poverty received title I funds in 1994. Today, over 95
percent of those schools receive it.
So, Mr. President--and I want to make it clear that I will have an
amendment--one of the amendments that I will have to this piece of
legislation, if we proceed with this legislation, is an amendment that
says that the funding has to first go to schools that have a 75 percent
or more low-income student population.
I cannot believe my colleagues are going to vote against that. If
they want to, let them. But if they do, they will have proved my
point--that we are now about to pass a piece of legislation or a good
many Republicans and, I am sorry to say, Democrats may pass a piece of
legislation that will no longer provide the kind of guarantee that in
the allocation of title I funds for poor children that the neediest
schools will get served first. I cannot believe that we are about to do
that. I cannot believe this rush to recklessness. I cannot believe the
way people have just jammed this bill on to the floor of the Senate. I
cannot believe that there isn't more opposition from Democrats.
Mr. President, the second amendment that I am going to have, which I
think will really speak to whether or not people are serious about
flexibility with accountability, is an amendment which essentially
says, look, here are the core requirements of title I.

[[Page S2161]]

The reason we passed title I as a part of the Elementary/Secondary
Education Act back in 1965--that was almost 35 years ago--the reason we
passed title I was we understood, as a nation, whether or not my
colleagues want to admit to this or not, that in too many States poor
children and their families who were not the big givers, who were not
the heavy hitters, who do not make the big contributions were falling
between the cracks.
So we said that, as a nation, we would make a commitment to making
sure that there were certain core requirements that all States had to
live up to to make sure that these children received some help. Thus,
the core requirements of title I: Make sure they are qualified
teachers; make sure low-income students are held to high standards;
make sure there is a clear measurement of results.
Let me just read actually some of the provisions that would be tossed
aside by Ed-Flex in its present form: the requirement that title I
students be taught by a highly qualified professional staff; the
requirement that States set high standards for all children; the
requirement that States provide funding to lowest-income schools first;
the requirement that States hold schools accountable for making
substantial annual progress toward getting all students, particularly
low-income and limited-English-proficient students, to meet high
standards; the requirement that funded vocational programs provide
broad education and work experience rather than narrow job training.
These are the core requirements. I will have an amendment that will
say that every State and every school district receiving title I
funding will be required to meet those requirements, will be called
upon to meet those requirements.

Mr. President, right now this legislation throws all of those core
requirements overboard. This legislation represents not a step forward
for poor children in America; it represents a great leap backwards.
This piece of legislation turns the clock back 35 years. It comes to
the floor of the Senate without a full hearing in committee; it comes
to the floor of the Senate without any opportunity to see any report
with a thorough evaluation of what those Ed-Flex States have done; it
comes to the floor of the Senate with the claim being made that Ed-Flex
represents a huge step forward for education and for the education of
poor children in America. It is absolutely ridiculous.
I will talk over the next couple of hours about what we could be
doing and should be doing for children if we are real. This piece of
legislation does not lead to any additional opportunities for low-
income children. This piece of legislation does not dramatically
increase the chances that they will do well in school. This piece of
legislation does absolutely nothing by way of making sure that we have
justice for poor children in America.
To the contrary, this piece of legislation does not call for--and I
am pretty sure that it will not happen, although I will have
legislation that will try to make it happen--for an additional
expenditure of funds for title I programs. This piece of legislation
does nothing for the schools in St. Paul and Minneapolis that have over
50 percent low-income students and still don't receive any money
whatsoever because there isn't enough money and there aren't enough
resources that are going to our school districts.
This piece of legislation does nothing to make sure children, when
they come to kindergarten, are ready to learn, that they know how to
spell their names, that they know the alphabet, that they know colors
and shapes and sizes, that they have been read to widely, that they
have been intellectually challenged. This piece of legislation does
nothing to assure that will happen. This piece of legislation does not
do anything to dramatically improve the quality of children's lives
before they go to school and when they go home from school. And I want
to talk about that as well.
I will tell you what this piece of legislation does. This piece of
legislation says, we, as the U.S. Senate, are no longer going to worry
about whether States and school districts live by the core requirements
of title I. We are just going to give you the money and say, Do what
you want to do. What this piece of legislation says is we are no longer
going to worry about whether or not States and school districts provide
funding first to those schools with a 75 percent or more low-income
student population, the neediest schools. We are just going to say, Do
what you want. And this is being passed off as something positive for
poor children in America?
Again, I will have two amendments--I will have a number of
amendments, quite a few amendments--but two amendments that I think are
going to be critical by way of sort of testing out whether or not we
are talking about accountability or not: One, an amendment that says,
again, the allocation of funding by States and school districts means
that those schools that have 75 percent or more low-income students get
first priority, and, second of all, an amendment that says, here are
the core requirements of title I. This is what has made title I
a successful program. And this is fenced off, and in no way, shape or
form will any State or any school district be exempt from these core
requirements.

Why would any State or school district in the United States of
America not want to live up to the requirements that we have highly
qualified teachers, that we hold the students to high standards, that
we measure the results, and we report the results?
Mr. President, before talking more about title I, let me talk a
little bit about context. And it is interesting. I am going to do this
with some indignation. And I want to challenge my colleagues. I want to
challenge my colleagues not in a hateful way, but I certainly want to
challenge my colleagues.
We are a rich country. Our economy is humming along. We are at peak
economic performance. But fully 35 million Americans are hungry or at
risk of hunger. Every year, 26 million Americans, many of them
children, go to food banks for sustenance.
Last year, the requests for emergency food assistance rose 16
percent. Many of those requests were unanswered. I would like for
everyone to listen to this story. A Minnesota teacher asked his class,
``How many of you ate breakfast this morning?'' As he expected, only a
few children raised their hands. So he continued, ``How many of you
skipped breakfast this morning because you don't like breakfast?''
Lots of hands went up. And how many of you skipped breakfast because
you didn't have time for it? Many other hands went up. He was pretty
sure by then why the remaining children hadn't eaten, but he didn't
want to ask them about being poor, so he asked, How many of you skipped
breakfast because your family doesn't usually eat breakfast? A few more
hands were raised. Finally, he noticed a small boy in the middle of the
classroom whose hand had not gone up. Thinking the boy hadn't
understood, he asked, And why didn't you eat breakfast this morning?
The boy replied, his face serious, ``It wasn't my turn.''
Do you want to do something for children and education of poor
children? Don't eliminate standards and accountability with title I.
Make sure those children don't go hungry. The U.S. Senate, 2 years ago,
put into effect a 20-percent cut in the Food Stamp Program, which is
the single most important safety net nutritional program for children
in America, and my colleagues have the nerve to come out here with
something called Ed-Flex and make the claim that this is going to do
all these great things for poor children in America.
Let me repeat it: We have entirely too many children that are not
only poor but hungry in America. We put into effect 2 years ago a 20-
percent cut which will take effect 2002 in food stamp assistance, which
by all accounts is the single most important safety net program to make
sure that children don't go hungry. I will have an amendment to restore
that funding before this session is out.
Children don't do real well in school when they are hungry. They
don't do real well in school when they haven't eaten breakfast. If we
want to help those children, this is the kind of thing we ought to do
to make sure that these low-income families have the resources so that
they can at least put food on the table. I can't believe that in the
United States of America today, as

[[Page S2162]]

rich a country as we are, we can't at least do that.

Instead, we have something called Ed-Flex. For all of the families
with all of the hungry children, for all of the children that are poor
in America--a quarter of all children under the age of 3 are growing up
poor in America; 50 percent of all children of color under the age of 3
are growing up poor in America--Ed-Flex doesn't mean anything. Ed-Flex
means absolutely nothing.
The New York Times told the story of Anna Nunez and of hundreds of
thousands of families like her. Up a narrow stairway, between a pawn
shop and a Dominican restaurant, Anna Nunez and her three children live
in a single, illegal room that suffocates their dreams of a future. It
is a $350-a-month rectangle with no sink and no toilet, that throbs at
night with the restaurant's music. Ms. Nunez' teenagers, Kenny and
Wanda, split a bunk bed, while she squeezes into a single bed with
little Katrina, a pudgy 4-year-old with tight braids. Out of the door
and down the linoleum-lined hallway is the tiny bathroom they share
with five strangers.
Last winter, tuberculosis traveled from Kenny to his mother and
younger sisters in a chain of infection as inevitable as their
bickering. Inevitable, too, is the fear of fire: Life in 120 square
feet means the gas stove must stand perilously close to their beds.
Kenny, at age 18, is a restless young man in a female household. Ask
him what bothers him most, and he flatly states that he has the only
way to get some privacy--``I close my eyes.''
At night, Anna said, when the mice crawl over us in bed, it feels
even more crowded.
What should we be doing on the floor of the U.S. Senate if we are
really committed to children in America, and if we are committed to
poor children in America? We would be making a dramatic investment in
affordable housing, which is receiving crisis proportion. But these
children and these families are not the ones who march on Washington
every day.
We want to talk about what will help children in school. If we want
to talk about family values, we ought to talk about making sure that
these children don't live in rat-infested slum housing, but have some
decent shelter. But we don't. Instead, we have Ed-Flex. Ed-Flex will do
absolutely nothing for these children.
I have a close friend that many staffers know well and I think many
Senators know well because of his brilliance and also because he is
sort of a perfect example of someone who really lives such an honest
life. He treats all of us, regardless of our political viewpoint, with
such generosity--Bill Dauster. My friend, Bill Dauster, wrote something
which I think applies to this debate:

We need to restore the family values that put our children
first, for if we do not advance the interests of those who
will inherit the future of our society, then we have no
vision. And if we do not protect the most helpless of our
society, then we have no heart. And if we do not support the
most innocent of our society, then we have no soul.

I think he is absolutely right.
Mr. President, I will talk more about the concerns and circumstances
in children's lives in a while, but I did want to give some context
before returning to title I, and then I am going to develop my
arguments about what we should be doing specifically in education.

I will say one more time that I find it very interesting that we have
a piece of legislation on the floor that purports to be some major step
forward for poor children. As a matter of fact, most of the Ed-Flex
waiver requests have dealt with title I, which deals with poor
children. That is why I am talking about poor children. At the same
time, this is the U.S. Congress that not only has no positive agenda to
make sure that poor children aren't hungry and therefore able to learn,
doesn't have any positive agenda to make sure that poor children live
in decent housing and therefore can come to school ready to learn, but
actually has cut nutrition programs for children, and now brings a
piece of legislation out which, all in the name of flexibility, is
supposed to do all of these great things for poor children.
Now, let me return to title I. Let me explain my indignation. My
indignation about this particular bill goes further than what I have
said. Not only does it represent a retreat on the part of the U.S.
Senate from a commitment to poor children in America, not only does it
represent a retreat from any basic accountability so that the core
requirements of title I--I will repeat it one more time--that have to
do with highly qualified teachers and high standards and those
standards being met--no longer apply if a State or local school
district doesn't choose to comply, not only does this piece of
legislation abandon what we did in 1994 with positive effect, that is
to say some assurance that the money would first go to the neediest
schools. In addition to adding insult to injury--I don't even know why
this bill is on the floor--to add insult to injury, this piece of
legislation does absolutely nothing by way of, not even one word,
calling for more funding.
I will tell you what people in Minnesota are telling me. I am
assuming--but I am not so sure it has happened--I would like to believe
that my colleagues who are in such a rush to pass this piece of
legislation have spent a lot of time with principals and teachers and
teacher assistants who are working with the title I program. I have to
believe that. Well, if you have, I want to find out--when we get into
debate, I would like for my colleagues to identify for me a specific
statute in title I right now that is an impediment to reform. Tell me
what exactly we are talking about.
I will tell you what I hear from people in Minnesota. They are not
worried about flexibility. What they are worried about is, they don't
have enough money. What we hear from those men and women who are
working with poor children in the title I program is, ``We don't have
enough resources.'' That is what they are telling us. In that sense,
this particular piece of legislation is a bit disingenuous. We talk
about flexibility, that is the sort of slogan here, but we don't
provide any additional resources.
Examples: St. Paul. I talked about some of this yesterday, but I
think it is well worth presenting this data. There are 20 schools
altogether--there are 60 K-through-12 public schools in St. Paul, MN.
There are 20 schools in St. Paul with at least a 50 percent free and
reduced lunch--that is the way we define low-income--that receive no
title I funds at all--one-third of the schools.
Let's talk about urban schools. I would like to ask my colleagues,
have you been in the urban schools? Did the principals and the teachers
and the families in these urban schools--was the thing they were saying
to you over and over again, ``We need to have Ed-Flexibility''? Or were
they saying, ``We need more resources to work with these children''?
What were they saying to you? I will tell you what they were saying to
me: ``We don't have the resources.'' One-third of St. Paul's schools
have significant poverty, a low-income student body, and receive no
title I funds to eliminate the learning gap. At Humboldt Senior High
School, on the west side of St. Paul, 68 percent of the students are
low-income; no title I funding. I visited the school. I try to be in a
school about every 2 weeks.

For those listening to the debate--and I am taking this time because
I want to slow this up. I want people in the country, and journalists,
people who cover this or who write and cover it--so people in the
country will know what is going on. I can be put in parentheses and
keep me out of it, but I want the people to know what is going on. I
don't think legislation like this that has the potential of doing such
harm to low-income children should zoom through the U.S. Senate.
As I say, at Humboldt Senior High 68 percent of the students are on
free and reduced lunch; no title I. So the question is, How can that
be? The answer is that in Minnesota, altogether, this year, we had $96
million for title 1 programs. We can use double that amount of funding,
triple that amount of funding. What happens is that after we allocate
the money in St. Paul to the schools that have an even higher
percentage of low-income students, there is no funding left. And we
have Ed-Flex that is such a ``great response'' to the challenges facing
these families and these children, which isn't even talking about
providing more funding.
My prediction is that, come appropriations, don't count on it. Don't
count on it. It won't happen, though some of us will fight like heck to
try to make it happen.

[[Page S2163]]

Several middle schools receive no title I funding. Battle Creek
Middle School has 77 percent low-income students and no title I funds.
By the way, I argue that I have often believed--since I have some
time here today, I can go a little slower--I have often believed that
the elementary school teachers just do God's work. I think it starts
there. I was a college teacher, but I know that elementary school
teaching is more important; I am sure of it. If I had to do it over
again, I think I would have been an elementary school teacher, if I
could be creative enough. I was a wrestling coach, but I would have
liked to teach elementary school. I did coach the junior high school
wrestling team in Northfield. Those are difficult years. I think any
kind of support we can give kids who are middle school or junior high
school age, we ought to do so.
What is the kind of support we can do with title I? It is a good
program. That is why I am on the floor. This is a good thing we did in
1965. This was a good thing we did in reauthorization in 1994. It means
there are more teacher assistants, more one-on-one instruction, more
community outreach, and more parental involvement. It is not easy
because a lot of not such beautiful things are happening in the lives
of many children in America today. I know that. I am in the
communities. But this makes a difference. I will tell you, we could do
a lot at Battle Creek Middle School if we had the funding. Frost Lake
Elementary School has 66 percent low-income children and no title I
funding.
So can I ask this question: What exactly are these schools going to
be flexible with? Are they going to be flexible with zero dollars? What
are they going to get to be flexible about? Do they get to choose
between zero and zero? Is that the flexibility? Let's get real. Let's
get real. The U.S. Congress, a couple years ago--because it is so easy
to bash the poor--cut the Food Stamp Program by 20 percent. We have
done next to nothing by way of pre-K. That is where the Federal
Government is a real player in education. I will talk about that in a
moment. We have done next to nothing by way of getting resources to
families so there could be decent child care. And we are not talking
about increasing the funding for title I, but we are talking about
flexibility.

Some other schools: Eastern Heights Elementary, 64 percent low-
income, no title 1. Mississippi Magnet School, 67 percent low-income
students and no title I. They get to be flexible between zero and zero.
They get to choose how to spend no money. They get to imagine and
dream. But do you want to know something? They need to do more than
that. I am not going to let this piece of legislation go through this
floor like this. I am sure some of my colleagues will be angry, but I
am not going to let this zoom through the Senate without a lot of
discussion. I want people to know exactly what it is.
Now, it could be--I have to be careful because it could be that
people say: Well, you know what, all right, case made; we know what it
doesn't do; but, nevertheless, in terms of what it tries to do, let's
have more flexibility. These are two different things. I don't, first
of all, want this to go through as the ``big education initiative.'' It
is not. It is not. I don't want this piece of legislation to go through
as the sort of legislation that represents the ``bold response'' on the
part of the United States of America to the concerns and circumstances
of poor children. It is not. And I certainly don't want this piece of
legislation to go through with the slogan of ``flexibility,'' unless we
have real accountability.
When we get to our amendments, I will have an amendment on
accountability. I know Senator Kennedy will have an amendment on
accountability. I know that Senator Reid will have an amendment on
accountability. We will see if people are ``real'' about that.
By the way, what I hear from the St. Paul School District is that if
they had another $8 million in title I funding, they would use it to
reduce class size. They would use it to increase parental involvement.
They would use it to hire additional staff to work with students with
greatest needs. There are a lot of ways they could use it. But we are
not providing for the funding that they need. This is one of the things
that I just hate about this vicious zero sum game, especially in
greater Minnesota, which is rural. Here is what happens.
Don't anyone believe I am giving only urban examples somehow about
the problem of children that need additional support. The whole goal of
getting it right for all the kids in our country is not just an urban
issue. It is suburban, and it is rural. But see, here is what happens
when we don't provide enough funding. I don't know why we don't call
this an unfunded mandate. It may not technically be, but in many ways
it is.
We talk a lot about IDEA. We should. I say to the Chair, who is a
former Governor, that the Governors make a good point. And I am in
complete agreement that we ought to, when it comes to children with
special needs, be providing for funding. I don't know why we don't talk
about this, because you know what happens, I say to my colleague from
Vermont. There is strong rural community as well in Vermont. What
happens is that in those schools in the rural areas where maybe there
is a 35 percent, low-income, or 30 or 20 percent, they say, ``Listen.
We need some funding.'' But we get into this zero sum game with not
enough funding. It gets divided up in such a way that it makes sense
that the funding goes first to the neediest schools. And there isn't
any. And there isn't any.
Minneapolis--this is just looking at estimates for next year. K
through 12 schools in Minneapolis: 31 schools will receive no title I
funds; 14 schools with at least 50 percent free and reduced lunch
recipients will receive no title I; 14 schools that have 50 percent
low-income student population will receive no title I funding.
Burroughs Elementary School, 43 percent low-income, no title I funding.
The school would be eligible, if we had funding.
For almost $100,000 in title I next year, they would use the money to
buy computers for special reading software, additional assistance in
reading and math, work for students in small groups, and to close the
achievement gap. But they can't do it. We are going to give them Ed-
Flex. We are going to give them Ed-Flex. Anthony Elementary School, 43
percent free and reduced lunch, again, the operational definition of
low-income, receive no title I. The school would be eligible if we got
funding we needed--$154,000 next year--and they would use the money for
afterschool tutoring, that is what we should be doing, if we are
``real.'' We will have an amendment on that before this debate is all
over.
They would use the money for afterschool tutoring to improve math and
science, to improve technology, to increase staffing, and to improve
parental involvement.
Marcy Open Elementary School, 44 percent low-income, they are going
to lose their educational assistance if they don't get the funding they
need. Kenny Elementary School, 39 percent low-income, no title 1. If
they were going to get the funding that they deserve, they would have
about another $9,000 that they would be eligible for, and they would
use that to hire tutors who are trained to tutor small group
instruction, to buy certain computer-assistance instruction, to make
the Read Naturally Program available to more students, and to focus on
students who are English language learners. I think this whole issue of
students who are English language learners is the key issue here.
One of the things that is so unconscionable to me about all of this
and the way we give title 1 the short end of the stick is that we have
a lot of students right now who are from families--Minneapolis, MN--I
think I am right. Don't hold me to these figures. But, roughly
speaking, in Minneapolis students come from families where there are 90
languages and dialects spoken. That is Minneapolis, MN. That is not New
York City. In St. Paul, it is about 70 languages and dialects spoken.
It is not uncommon. I remember being in a Jackson Elementary School
meeting with fourth grade students, and there were five different
languages spoken in that class of 25 or 30. For a lot of those
students, they need additional help. We know why. That is a big
challenge.
Title I really helps if the funding is there. But we are not talking
about--I haven't heard any Republican colleagues talking about
dramatically increasing the funding for title I. I haven't heard the
President talk about it. He has talked about $110 billion

[[Page S2164]]

more for the Pentagon over the next 6 years, and $12.5 billion next
year. And the President of the United States, a Democrat, says
education is his highest priority, and he doesn't even call for an
additional $2 billion for education for the whole Nation. You would
think that he would call for as big of an increase, I say to my
colleague from Vermont, for the Education Department and education as
he would for the Pentagon, if education was his No. 1 priority. I think
that is part of the problem. I think the White House has absolutely
caved on this issue. I cannot believe their silence. I cannot believe
it.

Mr. President, I would like to talk a little bit about some success
of title I. I think I read a couple of these letters last night. But I
think it is worth talking about again.
Let me start with Annastacia Belladonna Maldonado from the
Minneapolis Chicano-Latino Council who says:

I am very concerned about the hurried fashion in which
Congress is handling S. 280. Given that ESEA is up for
reapproval, it seems reasonable, more appropriate, and
certainly a more dramatic way of addressing issues and
concerns that Ed-Flex has written. At the very least I would
expect a series of responsible considerations of all aspects
of S. 280 be addressed by the committee before proceeding to
an open debate.

Well, it is too late. We are on the floor. Secretary Riley, who I
personally think is probably the gentlest and kindest person in
government--I can't fault him for his commitment to education. I can't
fault him for his courage as Governor of South Carolina who called for
an increase in taxes to fund public education. He came to our
committee, I say to my colleague from Vermont, a couple of weeks ago,
and he said we believe that since title I represents really a big part
of what the Federal Government does here, we would prefer that when you
go through your reauthorization of the Elementary Secondary Education
Act, that you put off this Ed-Flex legislation, which has such huge
consequences, until then. But we didn't. While I appreciated the words
of Secretary Riley, I don't see a lot of fight on the part of the
administration on this question.
A constituent of mine, Vicki Turner, says:

The title I program of the Minneapolis public schools
provided not only help for my two children, but the parental
involvement program was crucial in helping me develop as an
individual parent and now a teacher for the program.

Gretchen Carlson Collins, title I director of Hopkins School
District, a suburb of Minneapolis, says:

There is no better program in education than title I, of
the ESEA. We know it works.

She didn't say, ``Oh. We are just strangled with regulations. It
doesn't work.'' In fact, I haven't heard that. I haven't had people in
Minnesota say this is the statute that has been changed. As a matter of
fact, I would say to my colleagues, if there is something right now in
the title I statute that is an impediment to the kind of steps we need
to take to improve educational opportunities for low-income children,
please identify it, and then we will change it. But what you want to do
is throw out all of the accountability.
You want to basically have the Federal Government, which represents
the Nation, a national community, you want us to remove ourselves from
any kind of protection for these low-income children. You want to say
that the very core requirements that have made title I so important and
so positive in the lives of children, albeit we have enough funding, we
no longer will require that States and the school districts live up to
these requirements. That is what you want to do. That is not
acceptable. I don't care if you call it ``Ed-Flexability.'' I don't
care if you have all of the political arguments, 10-second sound bites
down pat. Give the power back to the States, get the Federal Government
out, get rid of all of the Washington rules and regulations.
You can say that over and over and over again, and I will tell you,
even though some of you won't like it, that I am all for flexibility. I
was a community organizer. I am all for people at the local level
making a lot of the decisions in terms of how they design programs and
what they do. But I will tell you something else. There is a whole
history of all too many States not making poor children and their
families top priorities when it comes to commitment.
I am not about to let this piece of legislation just fly through here
without pointing out what we are doing, which is we are abandoning a
35-year-old commitment on the part of the Federal Government that we
will at least have some minimal standard that will guarantee some
protection that poor children will get the assistance they need in the
United States of America.
That is what this legislation does. And this legislation could be
different legislation if strong accountability measures were passed--
strong, not wishy-washy language. And we will see. We will see, because
I am, again, all for the flexibility part, but I am not for abandoning
this commitment to low-income children in the country.
John and Helen Matson say:

How could anyone question the need for a strong ESEA? Ed-
Flex waivers are an invitation to undermine the quality of
public schools.

That is an e-mail I received.
High school senior Tammie Jeanelle Joby was in Title I in third
grade. She says:

Title I has helped make me the hard-working student that I
am. My future plan after high school is to attend St.
Scholastica--

Which is a really wonderful college in Duluth, MN--

I may specialize in special education or kindergarten.

And I think that is great.
Then here is something from Claudi Fuentes from the Minnesota Urban
Coalition. He opposes Ed-Flex. And you know what he says instead:
``Focus on all day, every day kindergarten.''
People in the communities, they have the wisdom. I will come back to
some of their wisdom a little while later, but it is pretty
interesting. The whole idea of Ed-Flex is let's get it back to the
local communities. You know what. Why don't we listen to people in the
local communities?
Did we spend any time, I would love to find out--I can't wait for the
debate. Here is the question I am going to ask of the authors of the
legislation: How much time did you spend with low-income parents? How
many meetings did you have with the parents? How many meetings did you
have with the children? How many meetings did you have in communities
with those students and those families who are going to be most
affected by this legislation? I will be very interested in hearing the
answer. I will be very interested in what they say because, frankly, I
don't even hear anybody talking about it. When I go into cafes in
Minnesota, nobody comes up to me and says, Are you for or against Ed-
Flex? They don't even know what it is. They will tell me that I am a
single parent or we are two parents and we have an income of $30,000 a
year and we can't afford child care. Child care costs us as much as
college tuition now. Can anything be done about that?
They will say what about a tax credit? How about we pass today a
refundable $2,000-a-year tax credit for child care, for families with
incomes up to $50,000 a year? Why don't we do something real?
That is what people talk about. Or they talk about--and I will talk
about early childhood development in a moment--or they talk about
working and their kids are home after school and they are very worried
and what about afterschool care? Can something be done by way of
providing some adults to look after our kids when school is over
because we are both working?
Or they will talk about how their daughter has a really--she has an
abscessed tooth, and I don't have any dental care; we can't afford it,
and she goes to school in pain. She can't learn when she is in pain.
The language is very concrete. I don't hear community people--as long
as we are saying the case for Ed-Flex is to decentralize, I don't hear
community people saying it. Sometimes I think Washington, DC, is the
only city I have ever lived in where when the Governors come to town
everybody says, The grassroots is here; let's hear from the grassroots.
I have never lived anywhere else where that happens. ``The Governors
represent the grassroots of America.''
Well, I would suggest to you, since most of what Ed-Flex is really
about is waivers and title I, that grassroots goes down to a little bit
lower level. It goes to the community level and starts with the
children and the parents who

[[Page S2165]]

will be affected by what we do or by what we don't do.
Mr. President, let me talk about what would make a difference as
opposed to this piece of legislation, which represents at best a great
leap sideways and at worst a great leap backwards. And let me talk
about equity in education, which is just another way of talking about
the kind of inequality that exists right now. Let me talk about
learning gaps.
And by the way, I don't have any evidence of this. A friend of mine,
Colin Greer, who is head of the New World Foundation, told me--I think
Senator Jeffords would be interested in this. I haven't seen the data.
It would be interesting. I think this is what Colin said. He said that
actually the United States of America measures up well against any
other country in terms of our educational attainment, educational tests
if you take title I students and put them in parenthesis for a moment.
In other words, the learning gap is essentially, these are issues of
race and gender and poverty in children. That is really what the
learning gap is about. These are the kids who come to school behind and
fall further behind.
So let me talk about the learning gaps. They are prevalent at all
education levels. In general, the poor and minorities do worse on just
about any measurement of achievement, be it the Federal Government's
national assessment of educational progress or real-world outcomes like
high school and college graduation rates
Boy, I hope I didn't read this the right way, but I think I read the
other day that in California there are five times as many African
American men ages 18 to 26 or 30 in prison than in college. I think I
read that the other day, that in California there are five times as
many African American men ages 18 to 30 in prison than in college.
And, by the way, there is a higher correlation between high school
dropout and winding up in prison than between cigarette smoking and
lung cancer. So we should be doing everything we can to make sure that
kids do well in school and don't drop out. And Senator Bingaman will
have an amendment that speaks to that.
The disparities that we see--if you think that where I am going is
blaming the children, no, I am not. Now, let me be clear about this
because we have a lot of this going on, too, and I would like to talk a
little bit about the White House again.
When I say that in any measure of achievement the poor and
``minorities'' fall way behind, I am not now about to engage in blaming
those children and blaming those families because a large part of these
disparities are caused by unequal educational opportunities. These
students have unequal access to key resources that strongly affect
their achievement levels. Preparation to begin schools, teacher
quality, class size, curriculum content, school infrastructural
quality--and I will talk about all of that. Let me just jump ahead now.
I am sorry to be speaking with some anger here today. I don't know,
maybe the President got it from a poll--you know, be against social
promotion. I am a Democrat. Say you are tough on social promotion
because everybody says, boy, I tell you what, you are right; those
students, they just shouldn't be promoted if they haven't reached an
educational attainment. That is just terrible. Well, you know what it
is. But here is what is so outrageous about this latest given.
You have a White House that sends a budget over here--and I will be
talking about it--that does precious little by way of making sure the
children come to school ready to learn. We know that is the most
critical time. It does absolutely nothing by way of really investing
resources in afterschool care. We have this huge disparity that I am
about to go into, where all too many kids go to schools where the
toilets don't work, where the heating doesn't work, where there is no
air conditioning, where the buildings are crumbling, when they are
hungry, where there are not enough textbooks, where there aren't
computers, where there aren't adequate lab facilities. They don't have
the same opportunity to do well. So, now, all in the name of
educational rigor--I was a teacher--now what we are going to do is
flunk them again. It is outrageous.
We don't do anything to make sure that they have the same chance to
do well on these tests, but we will give them the tests and flunk them.
That's great. These kids come to school way behind, we don't make the
investment in the schools, they don't have the same opportunities to
learn, and then we give them the tests, and then we say you don't go
on. And then, come senior year, we give them another test, and if they
don't pass it, then they don't graduate.
We failed the students who have been failing. If you don't do
anything to make sure that these children have the same chance to do
well, then this is just blaming these children. This is cowardly. Why
don't you blame the school systems? Why don't you blame the adults? Why
don't you blame Senators? Why don't you blame mayors and
representatives and school boards? No, you blame the children.
By the way, a lot of our educational experts, if anybody wants to
listen to them, say: Listen, you know what, we want to do additional
one-on-one tutoring, we want to do summer school, we want to do
everything we can to help these kids to do well. But if the only thing
you are going to do is flunk them, what happens is they will drop out
of school. Pretty soon you will have 17-year-olds who will be in, I
don't know, 10th grade, 9th grade, they will be flunked 2 or 3 years,
and they drop out or they cause trouble for other kids. Not many
educational experts are very high on this idea, especially given the
tin cup education budget that the President gives to us, with my
Republican colleagues probably not even wanting to support that. But we
blame the children.
Let's talk about what we should be putting the focus on.

It is not unusual for economically disadvantaged students
in these poor districts to enter school without any preschool
experience, to be retained in the early grades without any
special help in reading, to attend classes with 30 or more
students, to lack counseling and needed social services, to
be taught by teachers who are inexperienced and uncertified,
and to be exposed to a curriculum in which important courses
are not taught and materials are inadequate and outdated.

That is Bill Taylor, ``A Report On Shortchanged Children, the Impact
of Fiscal Inequity on the Education of Students at Risk,'' U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1991.
May I repeat this quote? And then I would like to, later on in
debate, ask my colleagues how you intend to rectify this through Ed-
Flex.
There is probably not a more serious and important scholar on this
question than Bill Taylor.

What does Ed-Flex do? What does Ed-Flex do to address any of these
disparities? Do you know what the answer is? Nothing. Zero. What is the
U.S. Senate doing to address these disparities? Nothing.
Mr. President, let me start off--and this is hard to do--by reading
excerpts from a book by a man who has probably contributed more to
raising the consciousness of people about children in this country than
anyone else, Jonathan Kozol. The last thing he wrote was a book called
``Amazing Grace, Poor Children and the Conscience of America.'' It is
set in the Mott Haven community in the Bronx. I recommend this book.
For all who are listening, I recommend this book, it is so powerful. It
is called ``Amazing Grace, Poor Children and the Conscience of
America.'' Here is what Jonathan Kozol said. Basically, what he is
saying is: No country which truly loved children would ever let
children grow up under these conditions. But we do.
By the way, I had a chance to meet with these children. The heroine
of this book is a woman named Mother Margaret, who is an Episcopalian
priest. She has done incredible work with these kids. She came down to
D.C., and Jonathan said, ``Would you host the children?'' I said,
``Great. I read the book and I read about the kids.'' They came down
here, and I think Jonathan

[[Page S2166]]

Kozol thought they would be impressed, meeting in the office, but the
only thing they really talked about was the swimming pool in the hotel,
and the other thing they talked about was beds. It was a very big deal
to them to be able to sleep in a bed.

Mr. President, this book is called ``Savage Inequalities.'' Let's
just talk about what Ed-Flex does and what it does not do.
A 14-year-old girl, with short black curly hair says this:

Every year in February we are told to read the same old
speech of Martin Luther King. We read it every year. ``I have
a dream.'' It does begin to seem, what is the word--she
hesitates and then she finds the word--perfunctory.
Perfunctory? I asked her what do you mean?
We have a school in East St. Louis named for Dr. King, she
says. The school is full of sewer water and the doors are
locked with chains. Every student in that school is black.
It's like a terrible joke on history.

It startled Jonathan Kozol to hear her words, but I am startled more
to think how seldom any press reporter has noted the irony of naming
segregated schools for Martin Luther King. Children reach the heart of
these hypocrisies much quicker than the grownups and the experts do.
A history teacher at Martin Luther King School has 110 students in 4
classes but only 26 books. What is Ed-Flex going to do for this teacher
of these students?

Each year, [Kozol observes of East St. Louis High School]
there is one more toilet that doesn't flush, one more
drinking fountain that doesn't work, one more classroom
without texts. Certain classrooms are so cold in the winter
that the students have to wear their coats to class while
children in other classrooms swelter in a suffocating heat
that cannot be turned down.

You know, we have all these harsh critics of our public schools. Some
of them are my colleagues in the U.S. Senate. They couldn't last 1 hour
in the classrooms they condemn. They couldn't last 1 hour in these
schools.
I am going on to quote the teachers:

These kinds of critics willfully ignore the health
conditions and the psychological disarray of children growing
up in burnt out housing, playing on contaminated land, and
walking past acres of smoldering garbage on their way to
school.

Mr. President, let me go on to read from this book:

In order to find Public School 261 in District 10, a
visitor is told to look for a mortician's office. The funeral
home which faces Jerome Avenue in the North Bronx is easy to
identify by its green awning. The school is next door in a
former roller skating rink. No sign identifies the building
as a school. A metal awning frame without an awning supports
a flagpole, but there is no flag. In the street in front of
the school, there's an elevated public transit line. Heavy
traffic fills the street. The existence of the school is
virtually concealed within this crowded city block. Beyond
the inner doors, a guard is seated. The lobby is long--

And there is a sign, by the way, on the outside of the school: ``All
students are capable of learning.''

Beyond the inner doors, a guard is seated. The lobby is
long and narrow. The ceiling is low. There are no windows.
All the teachers that I see at first are middle-aged white
women. The principal, also a white woman, tells me that the
school's capacity is 900, but there are 1,300 children here.
The size of classes for fifth and sixth grade children in New
York, she says, is capped at 32, but she says the class size
in the school goes up to 24. I see classes as large as 37.
Classes for younger children, she goes on, are capped at 25,
but a school can go above this limit if it puts an extra
adult in the room. Lack of space, she says, prevents the
school from operating a prekindergarten program. ``Lunchtime
is a challenge for us,'' she explains. ``Limited space
obliges us to do it in three shifts, 450 children at a
time.'' Textbooks are scarce.

And it goes on:

The library is tiny, windowless. There are only 700 books.
There are no reference books.

And it goes on and on and on. These are the conditions of the
schools.
Let me just read the conclusion. I could go on for an hour from this
book. Here is the conclusion where he concludes his book:

All our children ought to be allowed a stake in the
enormous richness of America. Whether they were born to poor
white Appalachians or to wealthy Texans, to poor black people
in the Bronx or to rich people in Manhattan or Winnetka, they
are all quite wonderful and innocent when they are small. We
soil them needlessly.

Mr. President, I have tried to develop my case. We are not talking
about providing more funding for title I. We talk about abandoning
basic core requirements of title I--we are talking about abandoning the
Federal Government, holding States and school districts accountable and
making sure that the money gets to the neediest schools. We are talking
about abandoning the very essence of accountability, that these
standards are lived up to to make sure that there are good teachers, to
make sure that the kids are held to high standards, to make sure there
is testing.
And we know the results. We have not done a darn thing to make sure
we make a commitment to pre-K so kids come to kindergarten ready to
learn. We do not do much by way of afterschool care. We do not have the
money, we say. We are a rich country. The economy is booming, but we do
not have the money to do any of that?
In addition, the reality is that some schoolkids go to schools,
because of the property tax, wealth of the school districts, that can
give them the best of the best of the best--the best of computers, the
best of technology, the best of labs, the best school buildings, the
best teachers, the best band and music and theater and athletics, the
best of everything. Other kids in America, who come from different
school districts, or come from communities where there is not the
commitment to them or they do not have the resources to make the
commitment, go to schools that are burnt out--I mean, how would any of
my colleagues do, as U.S. Senators, if you walked into this Chamber --
this is a beautiful Chamber, thank God--how would you do if you walked
into this Chamber and it was the summer in DC and there was no air-
conditioning or it was winter and there was no heat or we did not have
staff to help us, we did not have pages to help us, we weren't able to
have the materials we needed, we were hungry, and maybe 20 percent of
us had a gun, which is not unusual in a lot of schools in our cities?
Would you learn? Would you do well?
What kind of message do you think we communicate to children in
America when they go to school buildings that are decrepit, where the
roofs are leaking, where the toilets do not work, where the buildings
are just grim? What kind of atmosphere is that for children? What kind
of encouragement do you think we give these children to learn?
You think these children are fools? You think these children think
that the Ed-Flex program is going to do anything for them? They are a
lot smarter than you think they are. They know it is not going to do
anything for them, because we are not doing anything for them. As a
matter of fact, we are going to pass a piece of legislation, unless
there is some strict accountability measures in this bill, amendments
that are passed, that is going to do harm to them. That is what we are
doing. And I cannot believe that this bill just came to the floor of
the Senate and there has been so little opposition.
Mr. President, let me talk about some of the inequalities that exist.
First of all, the inequality in participation in early childhood
programs, like nursery school and prekindergarten: Three-year-olds from
better-off families are more than twice as likely than those from less-
well-off families to be in these programs, like the nursery school
programs and prekindergarten programs.
Among 4-year-olds, there remains substantial disparities. Barely half
of the children with families of incomes of $35,000 or less have
participated in early childhood learning programs compared to three-
fourths of the children from families with incomes over $50,000. So if
we wanted to do something about this, Mr. President, what we would do
is we would make sure that we would invest the resources in early
childhood development.
I am going to talk about some really shocking statistics in a moment.
But let me just say it again--whether it be Arkansas or whether it be
Minnesota or whether it be Vermont, the Federal Government--what the
education community tells me in Minnesota is you all are real players
when it comes to making sure that children can come to kindergarten
ready to learn. You could make a real commitment of resources.
We have in the President's budget--you know, we have a White House
conference on the development of the brain. The evidence is
irrefutable, it is irreducible. I am going to talk about it at some
length a little later on in my

[[Page S2167]]

presentation. But we know that if you do not get it right for these
kids by age 3, they may never do well in school and may never do well
in life.

What is really interesting about the literature that has come out is
that--we have always known--we have always known that if a 7-year-old
comes to school and she has not received dental care, she is not going
to do well. We have always known that if children do not have an
adequate diet, they are not going to do well. We have always known if
women expecting children do not have a good diet, that at birth that
child may have severe disabilities and may not be able to do well. But
what we did not know--although I think all of us who are parents and
grandparents; I am a grandparent as well--what we did not know is that
actually literally the way the brain is wired, and whether or not a
child will do well in school, whether or not a child will behave well
is highly correlated to whether or not--is my mike working or not? Is
the mike working?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. HUTCHINSON). Senator, I do not know
whether your mike is working. You can be heard very well.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, my good friend from Arkansas, what is
really astounding about this literature is that literally the key part
of it is whether or not there is real intellectual stimulation for
these children. It isn't a question of whether they have had a proper
diet or have been immunized; that has a huge impact on whether they can
come to school and do well.
Anyone who is a parent or grandparent knows this. I like to tell the
story, because it is absolutely true. Our children are older and I had
forgotten what it was like. But now we have three grandchildren: 3-
year-old Josh; 4-year-old Keith; Kari is 7, she is older. They visit us
and every 15 seconds these children are interested in something new.
When they are 2 and 1, it is the same way. It is a miracle. It makes me
very religious. It is as if these small children are experiencing all
the unnamed magic of the world that is before them.
We know that if we would make an investment in these children, we
make sure that there is good child care, and we make sure when they
come to kindergarten they are ready to learn. I will say it again: Our
national goal ought to be that every child in the United States of
America, when he or she comes to kindergarten, they know how to read,
they know how to spell their name, they know the alphabet; if they do
not know how to read, they have been read to widely. Can't we make that
a national goal? These are all God's children. But the fact of the
matter is, we don't. There is a huge disparity. The fact of the matter
is that many children, by the time they come to kindergarten, are way
behind, and then they fall further behind. And then they wind up in
prison.
This Ed-Flex bill does absolutely nothing to make a difference for
these children.
Point 2: Reading levels are not where they need to be. In early
February of this year, the National Center for Education Statistics
released the 1998 reading report card for the Nation. These results are
based on the national assessment of education progress data collected
in 1998. These results tell us how our children are doing, what their
reading levels are, and whether they need improvement.
There are two sets of findings I want to emphasize. First, as a
country, too few of our children have the reading skills necessary to
succeed. At all grade levels, 40 percent or fewer of the Nation's
students read at a level that is proficient for their grade. This
figure is unacceptably low. What can we do?
Second, and even more disturbing, are the tremendous disparity levels
in reading levels by family income, race, and ethnicity. For example,
children who are eligible for the free and reduced lunch program, title
I or title I-eligible children, are more than twice as likely to be
below the basic reading level than those who are not eligible for the
program. In addition, fourth- and eighth-grader white students are
three times as likely as black students or Hispanic children to be
proficient readers.
Part of what these figures are telling us--in fact, they are
screaming at us--is that we have a long way to go. This is a crisis.
Now, may I ask the question: Does Ed-Flex do anything to help these
students? Are there additional resources that we are calling on? Are we
doing anything to make sure that kids come to school ready to learn?
Are we doing anything to improve their nutritional status? We cut
nutrition programs for these children. Are we doing anything to make
sure each and every one of those children is healthy? Are we doing
anything about the housing conditions? Are we doing what we should do
to reduce some of the violence in the communities, some of the violence
in the homes? Are we doing anything to provide some additional support
services for these kids?

A woman is beaten up every 15 seconds in her home. Every 15 seconds
in the United States of America, a woman is battered in her home. A
home should be a safe place. Those children, even if they are not
battered themselves--although many are--see it. They essentially suffer
from posttraumatic stress syndrome.
My colleague from Arkansas works with veterans. I have done a lot of
work with Vietnam vets. I see it all the time, PTSS. We have children
who suffer from that. Do we have anything in Ed-Flex that talks about
additional services to these children? No. The only thing we do in the
Ed-Flex bill is essentially wipe out any kind of accountability
standard that would make sure the money goes to the neediest schools
first, and we wipe out the accountability standards that make sure
title I children have good teachers, are held to high standards, that
we have testing and results, and we know how we are doing. And this
legislation purports to be a step forward for poor children in America?
There have been a number of lawsuits filed. It is too bad, but that
is the way we have to go to affect these conditions. Since Ed-Flex
doesn't have anything to do with the reality I am describing, I think
the lawsuits are necessary. Let me cite a lawsuit that came out of
Hartford, CT, in the early 1990s. The Hartford School District had a
substantially higher percentage of minority students than the
surrounding suburbs. The Hartford school enrollment was more than 92
percent minority, whereas contiguous suburbs such as Avon, East Granby,
and Wethersfield were less than 5 percent minority. Although
Connecticut had the highest per capita in the United States, Hartford
was the fourth-poorest of the United States cities, with the second
highest rate of poverty among children.
At the same time, not surprisingly, the Hartford school system had
substantially inferior educational resources than other school systems.
Hartford students were shortchanged in a broad range of educational
inputs. For example, school systems across the State spent an average
of $147.68 per student per year on textbooks and instructional
supplies; in Hartford, it was $77 dollars, only 52 percent of the
statewide average.
Or consider East St. Louis, IL, in 1997. Here are some of the
problems that the students in the East St. Louis school system faced:
Backed up sewers, flooding school kitchens; faulty boilers and
electrical systems, regularly resulting in student evacuations and
cancelled classes; dangerous structural flaws, including exposed
asbestos; malfunction of fire alarms; and emergency exits that were
chained shut; instructor shortages that usually meant students did not
know in advance whether or not they even had a teacher; and school
libraries that were typically locked or destroyed by fire.
How can we expect our children to achieve or be able to learn to
develop and realize any, let alone all, of their potential as human
beings when faced with such an outrageous environment as this? What
does Ed-Flex do to change this environment? Nothing, zero. This is what
we ought to be talking about on the floor of the U.S. Senate. That is
why I am trying to slow this bill up.
Here is a final description from Louisiana, although you can pick any
State. In preparing for a lawsuit in Louisiana, the ACLU staff
discovered a pitiful lack of the most basic resources. Besides having
to deal with leaky roofs and broken desks, students often had to share
textbooks among the entire class, negating any possibility of doing
homework or building out-

[[Page S2168]]

of-class research skills. What few books existed in school libraries
were typically torn, damaged, or outdated, a particularly riling
problem for subjects like technology, science, and history. At one
school, students posing for a class photo in the auditorium had to keep
their coats on because of the lack of heat in the building. I repeat
that: At one school, students posing for a class photo in the
auditorium had to keep their coats on because of the lack of heat in
the building.
Here is the reaction of one of the staff attorneys. ``It was
impossible to imagine that any serious education could go on in these
decrepit schools. In some schools children had to go to the principal's
office to get toilet papers. The overwhelming impression left on us
[the lawyers] was sadness.''
Mr. President, let me talk about Federal standing on elementary and
secondary education. Now, I am going to try--some of this is off of the
top of my head. These statistics will be close, but they might be off
just a little bit. We have had reports, like Nation at Risk in the
early 1980s, and we have had politicians of all stripes give speeches
about children and education. We all want to have photo opportunities
next to children. We have talked about it as a national security issue.
Do you want to know something? The percentage of the Federal budget
that goes to education is pathetic. It is pathetic. It amounts to about
2.5 percent of total Federal budget outlays--2.5 percent.
By the way, on title I, since this Ed-Flex is supposed to represent
some great step forward, according to the Rand Corporation study, we
would have to double our spending on title I to really even begin to
make a difference for these children. I said this earlier and I will
say it again. Here is what I am not quite sure of. Then I will tell you
what I am absolutely sure of. What I am not quite sure of is, I think
that during the sixties--this was where title I became part of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act--we were at maybe 10 percent
that we were devoting as a percentage of the Federal budget to
education. That is what we say is a priority.
When Richard Nixon was President, it was higher than it is with the
Democratic President. And then it was Ford and Carter, and I think it
stayed about the same level. With Reagan, it went way down. And then,
with President Bush, it went up some. It never got back to the
percentage it was during Nixon's Presidency. With President Clinton, it
is about the same as it was with President Bush, maybe even a little
less; I am not sure.
Here we have a Democratic President who says that education is the
No. 1 priority, and we are spending less as a percentage of our Federal
budget on education than under President Nixon, a Republican. I am
going to talk about Head Start in a while. Here we have a Democratic
President and we don't fully fund the Head Start Program. I can forgive
my Republican colleagues; I didn't expect a Republican President to
fully fund Head Start. I just expected a Democratic President to fully
fund Head Start. How naive of me.
Mr. President, it is just unbelievable. I point out these
disparities, and a lot of K through 12 is at the State level. But you
would think that we would make a difference where we could make a
difference. Yet, we don't, and we have all this discussion about
education being the No. 1 priority.
Frankly, the President has presented us with a ``tin cup budget.''
The President wants to increase the Pentagon budget next year by $12.5
billion and by $110 billion over the next 6 years, and he calls for
barely a $2 billion increase in the Department of Education budget.
Pretty unbelievable. You would think that if education was a big
priority, we would see the same increase in funding for education as we
would see for the Pentagon. Not so.
Mr. President, I now want to turn my attention to what we ought to be
doing as opposed to what we are doing. Before I do that, however--and I
will finish up on this--I want to point out one more time--and I will
have an amendment that deals with this part of the bill that makes it
crystal clear that this title I program is severely underfunded. And I
will have a vote on it. I spend a lot of time in these schools with
these principals, teachers, and these families. They all tell me--
before my colleague came here, I was saying that I went to the schools
in St. Paul-Minneapolis with 65 to 70 percent poverty that don't
receive any title I funding because by the time we allocate the money,
there is no more money left. And we do very good things with this money
for these children that need additional help. But we are not calling
for any additional investment of money for our schools to work with. In
addition, what we are not doing is, as a national community, we are no
longer saying to the States and school districts there are certain
core, if you will, values, that we want to see maintained.
There is a mission to title I. We know why we passed title I in 1965,
because we took a look around the Nation and it wasn't a pretty
picture. In quite a few States, whether anybody wants to admit it or
not, these poor children fell between the cracks. So we, as a Nation,
will at least have a minimal standard that will say, with title I,
there will be certain core requirements; there will be qualified
teachers; there will be high standards; there will be some testing and
some results and some evaluation, and this will apply to title I
programs everywhere in our land, to make sure that some of these
children have a real opportunity. And now, with this legislation, we
are going to toss that overboard. I will have an amendment that says we
can't.
The second thing we said in 1994--and I don't know what my colleagues
think, and I will have an amendment and we will have a debate and vote
on it--was that in the allocation of the money, those schools with a
higher percentage, 75 percent low-income students or more, should have
first priority for funding. That makes sense to me. For some reason, my
colleagues want to toss that overboard.

By the way, I made a third point, which is that I understand--I know
my colleague from Arkansas comes from a smaller town, a rural
community, and that is a big part of Minnesota. I understand the zero
sum game we are in, because the crazy part of it is that we don't get
enough funding and, therefore, say--I could pick any community in
Minnesota, but in any number of our greater Minnesota communities,
people are saying, ``Paul, we have 20 percent or 30 percent low-income
or 35 percent low-income''--in some rural areas it is much higher--
``and we don't get any funding.'' So it becomes a zero sum game. What
do you do with a limited amount of money? I would like to see something
real out here on the floor of the U.S. Senate when we talk about
getting more resources to our States and school districts.
Now, here is what we should be talking about on the floor of the U.S.
Senate: early childhood development. This is the most pressing issue of
all. If you talk to your teachers, they will tell you this. The best
thing we can do as Senators is to get--by the way, it would be $20
billion over the next 4 years minimally. If we really wanted to make a
difference, it would be about $20 billion over the next 4 years. Well,
listen, we are going to do $110 billion to the Pentagon over 6 years--
more subs, more nuclear warheads, more missiles.
If we were serious about this, we would make the commitment to early
childhood development. That is what all of our teachers are telling us,
and that is what our experts are telling us. It is the best thing you
can do. By the way, those of you for flexibility, I agree, don't run it
from Washington, DC. Get the resources back to the local communities
and, like NGOs and nonprofits and all sorts of folks who meet the
standards, set up really good development child care centers and also
family-based child care and give the tax credits, but make sure they
are refundable and that the low-income aren't left out, or families. Do
it. Get real. Do the best thing we can do. But that is not on the floor
today. We have Ed-Flex. Ed-Flex means nothing to these families.
Mr. President, I have already talked some about the kind of science
literature--my colleague, I am trying to remember the name of the
book--Dick and Ann Barnett. Dick is at the Institute of Policy Studies,
and Ann is a pediatric neurologist. They have written a wonderful book.
I can't remember the title. But there are many books that have come
out.
Let me talk about the disparity. Listen to this 1990 study. Looking
at the

[[Page S2169]]

hours of one-on-one picture book reading kids have experienced by the
time they started first grade, low-income children average 25 hours. By
the time they come to first grade they have altogether, with picture
book reading, been read to 25 hours. Middle-class children average
between 1,000 and 1,700 hours. It is unbelievable.
By the way, as a grandpa, I know that reading makes a difference. Now
this gets tricky, because I can read my colleague's face here about the
responsibility. Let's talk about this a little. I just said this. I now
have to figure this out a little bit.
First of all, let me make the case that we could do so much better. I
am for combining the commitment to child care. That is what we should
be talking about today, and investing some resources in this, and
getting community level volunteerism. I am for doing whatever can be
done in the families, and I want parents to take the responsibility. I
wish more would. I think sometimes it is brutal. People work different
shifts, and two or three jobs working their heads off. And they hardly
have the time to have a common occasion with their children; even to
sit down and eat dinner together. All too many of our families are
under siege.

It is not that people aren't working. It is that people are working
entirely too many hours. But both have to work. But I wish that parents
would read more to their children before they are in kindergarten. But
I also think this is all about whether there is good child care. This
is also true with volunteers. I would be, for all of us who no longer
have children that are young, getting the books out of our homes, and
older computers out of our homes, and do it through veterans halls, do
it through union halls, do it through the religious community, and
invite volunteers, get tutors and mentors. We could do a lot. But I
will tell you something. It makes a real big difference in terms of
whether these children are ready to learn. And they are needy.
The needy--50 percent of the mothers of children under the age of 3
now work in our country outside of the home; 50 percent. There are 12
million children under the age of 3, and one in four lives in poverty.
One out of two of color live in poverty--half of the children of color
today in our country--and under the age of 3 are needy, the richest
country in the world.
Compared with most other industrialized countries, the United States
has a higher infant mortality rate portion of low-birth weight babies
and a smaller portion of babies immunized against childhood diseases.
This critically affects education. This critically affects the
educational payment of children. Full day care for one child ranges
from $4,000 to $10,000. That is comparable, as I said earlier, to
college tuition, room and board at our public universities.
Half of the young families in our country with young children earn
less than $35,000 a year. A family with both parents working full time
at minimum wage earns only $21,400 a year.
I want to tell you something. More than just about any other issue
when I am in cafes in Minnesota, people talk to me--working families.
They say, ``We can't afford this. We both work. We both have to work. I
am 30. My wife is 28. We have two small children. Isn't there any way
we can get some help for child care?''
That is what is really critical, if we are going to be talking about
education. Ed-Flex means nothing to these families.
Drawing on some reports, I am sorry to report these statistics. Six
out of seven child care centers provide only poor to mediocre care. One
out of eight centers provides care that could jeopardize a child's
safety in development. One out of three home-based care situations
could be harmful to a child's development--the Children Defense Fund
study.
Although approximately 1,500 hours of training from an accredited
school is required to qualify as a licensed hair cutter, masseur, or
manicurist, 41 States do not require child care providers to have any
training prior to serving children. The annual turnover rate among
child care providers is about 40 percent. Do you want to know why? I
love to take my grandchildren to the zoo. If you work at the zoo, you
make twice the wage that women and men make with small children in this
country.
One of the worst things we have done in the United States of America
is to have abandoned too many poor children. This legislation takes us
in that direction. And we have devalued the work of adults that work
with these children. Most child care workers earn about $12,000 a year,
slightly above the minimum wage. And they receive no benefits. That is
unbelievable--unbelievable.
When I was teaching, I would have students come up to me, and they
would say, ``Look. You know, do not be offended, but we want to go into
education. But we don't want to teach at the college level. We think we
could really make a difference if we work with 3 and 4-year-olds.''
Then the next thing they say is, ``But we don't know how we can afford
it. We have a loan to pay off. How do you make a living?'' Why in the
world do we pay such low wages? So the families can't afford the child
care. The families can't afford the child care. And those adults that
want to take care of children can't afford to provide the care.
What we have on the floor of the U.S. Senate instead is Ed-Flex. We
could make a huge difference, but we don't, and we will not.
There was a woman, Fannie Lou Hammer--I have quoted her before--a
civil rights activist. She was, Senator Hutchinson, I think, one of 14
children, the daughter of a sharecropper. Her immortal words, where she
was once speaking, were, ``I am so sick and tired of being sick and
tired.''
I am sick and tired of the way in which we are playing symbolic
politics with children's lives. If we were serious about doing
something on the floor of the U.S. Senate that would make a difference
for children, we wouldn't have this Ed-Flex bill on the floor. We would
be talking about the ways in which we are going to provide money,
dollars, resources for local communities to provide the very best of
elemental child care so that every child, by the time he or she is of
kindergarten age, is ready to learn. That is the most important thing
we could do. And we don't even make it a priority.

Now, Senator DeWine and I passed an amendment that we are proud of;
it is the law of the land, but we don't have the funding yet, which
says that we will at least have loan forgiveness for those men and
women who get their degree and go into early childhood development
work. But that still doesn't do the job. We ought to pay decent wages.
I don't understand this.
Senator Hutchinson is, I guess, what Governor Bush would call a
compassionate conservative. He is certainly passionate; he is certainly
conservative. I don't understand this. We have two groups of citizens
that are the most vulnerable that deserve the most support and the
adults that work with them make the least amount of pay with the worst
working conditions.
Nursing homes, my mother and father both had Parkinson's disease, and
we fought like heck to keep them at home, and we did. We kept them at
home for a number of years. We kept them at home, between Sheila and I
and our children spending the night, as long as we could until we could
not any longer. And then toward the end of each of their lives, toward
the end of their lives they were in a nursing home.
Well, I don't think I could do that work. It is pretty important. You
have people who built this country on their backs. They have worked
hard. They are elderly. They are infirm. They need the help, and we pay
the lowest wages. We have a lot of people in these nursing homes who
don't even have health care coverage.
Congratulations, Service Employees International Union, for your
victory in California in LA organizing home health care workers. The
other thing we ought to do is to try to enable people to stay at home
as long as possible to live in dignity and provide help. But why do we
pay people, why do we pay adults so little to do such important work?
And then the other group of citizens that is the most vulnerable, the
most in need of help that we should provide the most support to is
small children. We devalue the work of adults. I don't get it. If you
are some advertising executive--I don't want to pick on them, but if
you are some advertising executive who figures out some clever way

[[Page S2170]]

to sell some absolutely useless product or you have got all sorts of
ads that the Senator from Arkansas and I both would not like, just
think it is trash, it should not be on TV, exploitive in all kinds of
ways--and I think the Senator from Arkansas knows what I mean--such a
person probably gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then
you have child workers who are working with children, and they get next
to peanuts. Boy, I think our priorities are distorted.
Let me tell you, Ed-Flex doesn't do anything to deal with this
problem of priorities.
Mr. President, I am going to just mention two other areas. I have
really covered Head Start already. I was going to read from some
Minnesota stories, but I am going to move on, some huge success stories
just to simply mention the well-known Perry study on the benefits of
Head Start. It is pretty interesting. They did a sort of a control of
two different groups.
Head Start participants, they did a followup through age 27. This
program was started in 1965. Criminal arrests: 7 percent Head Start, 25
percent control group--those kids that weren't in Head Start,
controlling for income and family background and all the rest. Higher
earnings, 29 percent of Head Start kids, 2,000 plus per month, only 7
percent control group; 71 percent Head Start kids graduated or received
a GED, only 54 percent control group. And 59 percent received
assistance, they did receive some assistance, still poor, but 80
percent of the control group. And fewer out-of-wedlock births across
the board.

For kids who have really grown up under some really difficult
conditions, the Head Start Program has helped them with a head start.
And we have a budget that the President presents that will get us to 2
million children, I think, covered, but that is about half.
About 2 million children will be eligible. The President's budget
gets us a million. Half. So our goal--talk about a downsized agenda,
talk about politics of low expectations--is to provide funding for only
half these children.
Now, this isn't even early Head Start because really what we have to
do well is before the age of 3. I noticed when Governor Whitman was
testifying before, she was talking about her program in New Jersey,
which sounds to me as if it is a very important program that deals, I
think, with 4 and 5-year-olds or 3 and 4-year-olds, and I said to her,
what about preage 3? I know she nodded her head in agreement.
Why aren't we providing the resources? In all due respect, if we want
to do something really positive, the most important thing we can do is
invest in the health care and intellectual skills of our children. Ed-
Flex doesn't do that, and we are not going to do it.
So I am not going to let my colleagues put this bill forward as if it
is a great big, bold step forward for poor children in America. It is
not. As a matter of fact, it will do damage to children unless we have
the strengthened accountability language. And we will see whether or
not we can get a vote for that.
Might I ask a question, Mr. President? I wonder how much time do I
have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 hour 31 minutes remaining.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have a few things I would like to lay
out, but I want to ask my colleague from Vermont--he has had to sit
here and listen to some of which I don't think he agrees and some of
which he might agree. I wonder whether or not--I could take another 15
minutes and then reserve the remainder of my time if my colleague wants
to speak, or does he want to wait, or how would he like to proceed?
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I have no intention at this time to
speak. I will obviously at a later time. I will do it when it is
appropriate. But I desire to expedite our situation so that we can get
to the bill as soon as possible.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague.
Mr. President, I say to my colleague from Vermont, on my time, if he
chooses to assent or disagree or remind me where I am wrong, please
feel free to do so. I extend the invitation. I was a teacher. I can
easily fill up the next hour without any trouble.
Mr. President, before I go to afterschool care, I would like to just
one more time focus on why I think this Ed-Flex bill shouldn't even be
in the Chamber. I have talked about what I think the flaws are with the
legislation, but I also want to talk about what I think we should be
talking about. I would like to just draw, if I could, on two
experiences that I have had traveling the country that I think apply to
this debate.
One of them which I have talked about once or twice before--it is
very positive. It is not a putdown of anybody--took place in the delta
in Mississippi, in Tunica, MS. I had traveled there because I wanted to
spend some time in low-income communities around the country--South,
North, East, West, rural, urban. And when I visited Tunica several
years ago now, there was a teacher, Mr. Robert Hall, who I will never
forget. It was at a town meeting, and he stood up and said it is hard
to give students hope, and he talked about how--I don't know--I think
maybe about 50 percent of the students graduated.
By the way, this young African American woman that I quoted I think
in East St. Louis, who was talking about her school being segregated,
actually in Tunica the case is that the public school is all black or
African American, the private school is all white.
Anyway, at the end of this he asked me whether I would come back to
speak, would I come next year for the graduation? I said yes, and I
said yes not realizing that I had made a prior commitment. What are you
going to do, you know, when you make a commitment like that? So I
called and I said could I come the day before graduation, to at least
get a chance to meet with the seniors, because I wanted to live up to
my commitment. And he said yes. So I flew from Minneapolis down to
Memphis and then was met, I think by Mr. Erikson, who was driving me to
Tunica. This is one of my favorite stories.
I said, ``Are we going to the high school?''
He said, ``No. You are going to be addressing the third and fourth
graders.''
And I said, ``I am going to be giving a policy address to the third
and fourth graders?''
And he said, ``Well, yes.''
And I said, ``Is this the last day of school?''
He said, ``Well, yes.''
I said, ``So I am going to be giving a policy address to third and
fourth graders on the last day of school?''
He said, ``Well, yes.''
I said, ``I'm in trouble.''
So we go to the elementary school. There are, I don't know, a hundred
kids, third and fourth graders, thereabouts, sitting in the chairs,
waiting for me to give a policy address. And there is the PA system on
the stage, which is high above where the students are, and the
principal gives me a really nice introduction, and I am supposed to go
up there and look down at these students and give them a policy
address.
So I was trying to figure out what to do. I asked the principal,
``Can I get down in the auditorium where the kids are?''
He said, ``Sure.''
So I got down there, and this little girl, thank God, made my class
for me. I said, ``Is this the last day of school?''
Everybody said, ``Yes.''
I said, ``Well, what have you liked about school?''
And this one little girl raised her hand and she said, ``Well, what I
like about school is, if I do good in school, I can do really good
things in my life.'' Something like that.
And I said, ``Well, what do you want to be?'' And I said to all the
students, ``What do you want to be?''
There were, Senator Hutchinson, 40 hands up. It was great. They had
all sorts of dreams. I mean, quite a few of them wanted to be Michael
Jordan--not a surprise. I heard everything: Teacher, writer,
psychiatrist, Michael Jordan, on and on and on. But the thing of it is,
there was that spark. It was beautiful. I know, as a former teacher,
that you can take that spark of learning in a child, regardless of
background, and if you ignite that spark of learning, that child can go
on to a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment. Or you can pour cold
water on that spark of learning. We are not doing anything here in
Washington, DC, to help ignite that spark of learning. We are not.

[[Page S2171]]

Now, I feel a little uncomfortable saying that. Maybe I should say
``precious little.'' We are doing precious little. I feel uncomfortable
saying that, because Senator Jeffords is a Senator who is committed to
education. I know that. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him.
But I am talking, I say to my colleague, Senator Jeffords, in a more
general way. I don't understand our priorities. I just don't understand
our priorities. I am just sick and tired--to sort of again talk about
Fanny Lou Hammer--of bills that are brought out here, people get the
impression there is some big step forward, and when it comes to the
investment of resources--some of which you fight for, this investment
of resources--we do not do it. I just tell you, it is tragic.
For these kids and these schools all across the country, they are not
saying: Give us Ed-Flex, give us Ed-Flex, give us Ed-Flex. They are
saying: We want to have good teachers and smaller classes. We want to
have good health care. We want to have an adequate diet. We want to go
to schools that are inviting places. We want to have hope. We want to
be able to afford college. That is what they are saying. They are not
talking about Ed-Flex.
The second point, and last one of my stories--true. I am going to
shout this from the mountaintop. I get this time on the floor of the
Senate because I insist this is what we should be talking about, and I
will do everything I can, with amendments and bills, to bring this out
here and force debates and votes and all the rest.
I hear this in the law enforcement community. We should hold kids
accountable when they commit brutal crimes. We should hold people
accountable when they commit brutal crimes. But we will build a million
new prisons on present course. That is the fastest growing industry in
the country. And we will fill them all up and we will never stop this
cycle of violence unless we invest in the health and skills and
intellect and character of our children. And we are not doing that in
the U.S. Senate or in the U.S. House of Representatives. Certainly not
with Ed-Flex.

Where do these kids wind up? They come to school way behind, they
fall further behind, they don't have anywhere near the same
opportunities to learn, and then they wind up in prison. I talked about
this before. I think this will be the last time I will talk about it,
except when we debate a bill which I introduced, the mental health
juvenile justice bill. I visited a ``correction facility'' called
Tallula Correction Facility in Tallula, MI. But I say to my colleagues
from Arkansas, Louisiana, south--this could be anywhere in the country,
anywhere in the country. And the Justice Department has had a pretty
hard report about conditions in Georgia and Kentucky and some other
States.
I see there are some young people here today in the gallery. What did
I find in Tallula? The Tallula facility is a corrections facility for
kids ages 11 to 18. I went to Tallula because I had read in the Justice
Department report that there were kids who were in solitary confinement
up to 7 weeks at a time, 23 hours a day, and I wanted to know what they
had done for this to happen to them.
One young man, Travis, he is now 16, he went to Tallula when he was
13 for stealing a bike. He wound up there for 18 months, and he was
beaten up over and over again. Tallula has had some lawsuits filed
against it.
I went to the Tallula facility, and the first thing I noticed about
the 550 kids was about 80 to 85 percent of them were African American.
And then, when I met with some of the officials, I wanted to go to the
solitary confinement cells and they wanted to take me to where the
students were eating lunch--students--kids--young people. So we first
started out to where they were eating lunch and then we were going to
go to these cells.
When I walked in, even with all these officials there, I asked some
of these kids, ``How are you doing?''
I will never forget, this one young man says to me, ``Not well.''
I say, ``What do you mean?''
By this time, there were 30 officials looking at this kid. He said,
``This food, we never eat this food. It's because you are here.'' He
said, ``These clothes? We never had clothes like this. They just gave
us these shorts and T-shirts. We have been wearing the same smelly,
dirty clothes day after day.''
He said, ``The tables are painted--smell the paint. It has just been
painted.''
Then I went outside and this one young man made a break from the
guards, jumped onto a roof, and ran across the roof. It was about 100
degrees heat. And I said, ``Why are you doing this? You are going to
get in a lot of trouble.'' I looked up at him, walked up to the roof.
He said, ``I want to make a statement.''
I said, ``What's your statement?''
He said, ``This is a show, and when you leave here they are going to
beat us up.''
Well, the State of Louisiana has taken some action. This was
privatized. There are lawsuits. There have been editorials about
anarchy at Tallula. I will just tell you this. I will tell you this: 95
percent of these kids at Tallula had not committed a violent crime. I
met one kid who had stolen a bike. I met one kid who was in there for
breaking and entering. I did meet one kid who cut a kid in a fight with
a knife. I forget the fourth kid. Mr. President, 95 percent of
nonviolent crimes--that is about the case in all of these juvenile
detention facilities.
I will tell you, Senator, I would be pleased to meet almost any of
those kids at 10 o'clock at night before they got to Tallula. I would
not want to meet any of them when they get out.
So let's not kid ourselves. These State budgets and Federal budgets
that go to prisons and jails are just going to continue to skyrocket,
and that is where a lot of young people are going to end up unless,
from the very beginning of their lives, we figure out--at a community
level, not a Federal Government level--how we are going to make sure
that we make the investment in these kids. And that is something we
should be doing in the Senate. But this bill does not do that.
Before I return to the final case I want to make on this specific
bill, let me just read some figures. Mr. President, I would like to
read a little bit about some facts on what is going on with kids after
school. Twenty-two million school-aged children have working parents;
that is, 62 percent of these children have parents who are working.
Children spend only 20 percent of their waking hours in school. The gap
between the parents' work schedule and the students' school schedules
can amount to 20 to 25 hours per week. That is from the Ann E. Casey
Foundation.
Experts estimate that nearly 5 million school-aged children spend
time without adult supervision during a typical week. An estimated 35
percent of 12-year-olds care for themselves regularly during
afterschool hours when their parents are working.
What happens during out-of-school hours? Violent juvenile crime
triples during the hours of 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. And 280 children are
arrested for violent crimes every day. Children are most likely to be
the victims of violent crime by a nonfamily member between 2 p.m. and 6
p.m.
Children without adult supervision are at a significantly greater
risk of truancy from school, stress, receiving poor grades, risk-taking
behavior, and substance abuse. Children who spend more hours on their
own and begin self-care at younger ages are at increased risks. And I
could footnote each and every one of these findings.
Children spend more of their discretionary time watching television
than any other activity. Television viewing accounted for 25 percent of
children's discretionary time in 1997, or 14 hours per week on average.
Facts about out-of-school programs: Almost 30 percent of public
schools and 50 percent of private schools offered before- or
afterschool care in 1993-1994. It is going up. But the General
Accounting Office estimates that, for the year 2002, the current number
of out-of-schooltime programs for school-aged children will meet as
little as 25 percent of the demand in urban areas.
Mr. President, I could actually go on and on, but here is the point I
want to make. The point I want to make is that if we want to pass
legislation that makes a positive difference in the lives of children
and helps parents raise their children decently--you know, what
families are saying to us is: ``Do what you can do to help us do our
best

[[Page S2172]]

by our kids.'' They are not talking about Ed-Flex.
What I am hearing from families in Minnesota--and I think it is the
same for around the country--is: Look, we both have to work, or, I am a
single parent, and I am working, and I am worried sick about where my
child is after school. Can't you provide some funding?
Why doesn't the Ed-Flex bill talk about flexibility for schools and
communities to have more resources for afterschool care? There is
something positive we can do. I assume that maybe Senator Boxer or one
of my colleagues will have an amendment and we will have a vote on
this. Now, there is an educational initiative that will make a huge
difference.
There is nothing more disheartening to a parent or parents than to
know that both of you have to work but to also know that your second
grader or your third grader or your 12-year-old or your 13-year-old is
going home alone. Why don't we do something about that? We have all the
evidence we need. We have all the evidence we need.
We know that this is the time when kids get into the most trouble. We
know that in more and more of our working families both parents are
working. We know this is one of the biggest concerns parents have,
right alongside affordable child care. What we all ought to be doing by
way of ed-flexibility is providing the resources for communities and
for schools to make a difference.
By the way, Mr. President, I was mentioning television. For my
colleagues who are worried about the violence that kids see on TV--and
it is awful--you should just think about what they see in their homes.
Every 15 seconds, a woman is battered. One of the things we ought to be
doing, if we really want to do something that will make a difference
for kids--and I have a piece of legislation I am introducing on this
that I hope to get a lot of support on--is to provide some funding for
partnerships between the schools and the other key actors in the
community that will provide some help and assistance to kids who have
seen this in their homes over and over and over again. That would make
a big difference. That would make a big difference.

I said this last night. I think I need to say it again. I do not
think I am being melodramatic when I say that we have two problems. We
have a huge learning gap. That is what it is all about. And it is
highly correlated with income and race and poverty and gender. But we
also have--and I do not know what the right label is for this, but we
have a lot of kids who, by the time they come to kindergarten or first
grade, have seen so much in their lives, that children should not have
to see and experience, that they are not going to be able to learn at
all, even with small class sizes, even with really good teachers, even
with really good facilities--none of which Ed-Flex deals with--unless
there is some help for them. They need additional help. And you know
what? They deserve it. They deserve it.
Mr. President, I am going to, I think, finish up where I started.
Before I do that, I want to just read one other quote that is kind of
interesting. This is from a woman Jonathan Kozol is talking to in his
latest book he has written called ``Amazing Grace.'' And I say to my
colleague, I am not sure I should quote this because of the current
circumstances, but I think it should be read. This woman lives in the
community, South Bronx, the Mott Haven community. And here is what she
has to say. She is saying this to Jonathan Kozol, the author:

Do you ever turn on C-SPAN? You can see these rather
shallow but smart people--

This is just her perspective--

most of them young and obviously privileged, going on and on
with perky overconfidence about the values and failings of
poor women, and you want to grab them in your hands and shake
them.
It is like this young man I met at Center School, which is an
alternative school in Minneapolis, in the Phillips neighborhood, about
a month ago. This is kind of his last chance; he is a young African
American man. I was having a discussion with 30 or 40 kids. There are a
lot of Native American students there, as well. Actually, there are
more Native American students. I was trying to be very honest with
them. I said, I would like for you to answer one question for me. I am
here because I really do care about you and I respect your judgment. A
lot of these kids don't believe anybody values their opinions. They
have very little self-confidence. I said to this one young African
American man, a senior, ``A lot of people say that you don't really
care. The problem isn't the poverty of your family, the problem isn't
the violence in the neighborhoods, the problem isn't that you haven't
had the funding or the opportunities. The problem is you don't care.
And that if you really cared, you would be able to do this. How do you
respond to that?'' He looked at me and he said, ``Tell them to walk in
my shoes.''
I think that is what this woman was saying about her observations
about what she sees on C-SPAN.
I conclude this way: I came to the floor of the U.S. Senate last
night and I spent half an hour speaking. I have come to the floor of
the U.S. Senate today and I have spent several hours speaking about the
Ed-Flex bill. I have been strong and maybe harsh in my comments. I do
not mean them to be personal at all. I have gone out of my way to say,
because I think it is true--I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it was
true.
It happens that the Senator from Vermont is out here managing the
bill, and I consider him to be a Senator who cares a great deal about
education and children. I know what he has done right here in
Washington, DC.
What deeply troubles me about what is going on here in the U.S.
Senate, which is why I have tried to the best of my ability--and I will
have amendments, as well--to say, wait a minute, we have a piece of
legislation, and I can see the spinning and I can see the hype. It has
a great name: Ed-Flex. It has a great slogan: ``Get the bureaucrats
out, let the States decide.'' But I can see this piece of legislation
represented as a piece of legislation that is a major educational
initiative for children in our country. I have tried to make it crystal
clear that is quite to the contrary.
I say to my colleague from Arkansas that I will be finished in a
minute or two. If he chooses to debate, I will be glad to do that. Is
he standing to speak?
Mr. HUTCHINSON. You earlier said you might yield for a question.
Mr. WELLSTONE. If I could finish this thought, I am pleased to yield
for a question. In fact, that might be a welcome relief from hearing
myself speak. I am pleased to take a question or whatever criticism
that the Senator might want to throw my way.
This piece of legislation isn't going to do anything that is going to
make a significant difference in assuring educational opportunities for
all of our children in our country. It won't. This particular piece of
legislation is not going to meet the standard, which is the most
important standard that I believe in more than anything else. I say to
my colleague from Arkansas: I think every infant, every child, ought to
have the same chance to reach his or her full potential.
This legislation doesn't make any real difference. This legislation
doesn't point us in the direction of making a commitment to early
childhood development, to making a commitment to communities so that
kids can come to school, ready to learn. This piece of legislation
doesn't fully fund Head Start. This piece of legislation doesn't
provide the funding for nutrition programs for children, many of whom
are hungry. Quite to the contrary. We put into effect a 20-percent cut
in the Food Stamp Program by the year 2002. This piece of legislation
doesn't do anything that will change the concerns and circumstances of
these children's lives before they go to school and when they go home.
This piece of legislation doesn't do anything to effect smaller class
size, to repair or rebuild our crumbling schools, to help us recruit
over the next 10 years 2 million teachers, who we will need, as the
best and the most creative teachers. This piece of legislation does
absolutely nothing that will in a positive way affect the conditions
that have the most to do with whether or not each and every child in
our country will truly have the same opportunity to be all he or she
can be.
Moreover, to summarize, this piece of legislation turns the clock
backwards. This piece of legislation takes the good

[[Page S2173]]

work of the 1994 reauthorization bill, which will assure that the
allocation of funds first goes to those schools with a 75 percent low-
income population or more, and tosses it overboard. This piece of
legislation in its present form--and to me this may be the biggest
issue of all about this piece of legislation. I think other bills
should be on the floor that make a difference, but if we are going to
pass this piece of legislation, at least let's make sure we have
flexibility with accountability. That means that the basic core
requirements of title I on well-qualified teachers, high standards
testing, measuring results and knowing how we are doing are fenced in.
In no way, shape or form, with all the flexibility in the world, will
any State or school district be exempt from meeting those requirements.
I say to my colleague from Arkansas, I am pleased to yield for a
question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. I did have a question for the Senator from Minnesota,
but if the Senator is about to conclude, I know there will be plenty of
debate and time to debate, so I don't want to further hold up
proceeding on the bill. I thank the Senator for yielding.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I will yield the floor in just a moment. I appreciate
my colleague's courtesy. The C-SPAN quote, just so it is in the Record,
was from a Mrs. Elizabeth Washington of the Mott Haven community in the
South Bronx.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield.
Mr. JEFFORDS. The Senator from Oregon is desirous of speaking for 15
minutes.
Mr. WELLSTONE. How about if I reserve the remainder of my time? I
will reserve the remainder of my time, and if the Senator from Oregon
wants to speak, that would be fine with me. How much time do I have
left?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 57 minutes.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Would the Senator mind yielding his time to the
Senator?
Mr. WELLSTONE. Fifteen minutes of my time? I would be pleased to do
that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized for 15
minutes.
Mr. WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I am sure that many Americans who are watching this
debate hear the words ``Ed-Flex'' and wonder what in the world is the
U.S. Senate talking about? My guess is that we probably have some folks
thinking that Ed-Flex is the new guy who has been hired to run the
aerobics class at the local health club. But since my home State of
Oregon was the first to receive an Ed-Flex waiver, I would like to take
a few minutes to tell the U.S. Senate why Ed-Flex makes a real
difference and especially why it has been a valuable tool to improve
the lives of poor children.
To begin with, Ed-Flex represents a new approach in Federal-State
relations. Right now, there are two schools of thought on the
relationship of Washington, DC, to the States. One side says everything
ought to be run at the Federal level, because folks locally can't be
trusted to meet the needs of low-income people. The other side says the
local folks ought to be able to do it all, because everything the
Federal Government touches turns to toxic waste.
Ed-Flex represents a third-wave approach, and we have pioneered it in
a variety of areas, including health, welfare and the environment, and
now in education, in addition.
We told the Federal Government in each of these areas that we will
meet the core requirements of Federal law. The Federal Government ought
to hold us accountable, but, at the same time, the Federal Government
ought to give us the flexibility to make sure that we can really meet
the needs of our citizens--in this case, the poor children--rather than
building up bureaucracy.
Ed-Flex has been good for students, but especially good for poor
students. There are no examples of abuse, Mr. President--not one. We
have asked the opponents of this legislation to give us even a
scintilla of evidence of an abuse, and they cannot cite one example for
a program that has been used in 12 States. But I will tell you there
are plenty of examples where this program has worked for poor children.
In Maryland, one low-income school used Ed-Flex to reduce class size.
Class size dropped under this Ed-Flex program from 25 students to 12.
And the last time I looked, a fair number of Members of the U.S. Senate
wanted to see class size drop.
In our home State, Ed-Flex helps low-income high school students take
advanced computer courses at the community college. Before the waiver,
Federal rules would only allow high school students to take computer
courses offered at the high school. If a student wanted to take an
advanced computer course, but the school didn't have the equipment or
the people to teach advanced computing, those poor kids were out of
luck. But we found a community college that was just a short distance
away with an Ed-Flex waiver where we could take the dollars that would
have been wasted because there were no facilities at the high school,
and the poor kids learned at the community college. No muss, no fuss.
But we did what the Federal Government ought to be trying to do, which
is to help poor children.

In Massachusetts, a school with many low-income kids who are doing
poorly in math and reading received title I funds in 1997; but they
were denied title I funds the next year because of a technicality. This
meant that low-income children who were getting special help with title
I funds in 1997 could not get those funds in 1998 for one reason, and
that was bureaucratic red tape. But when they got an Ed-Flex waiver,
they could use the dollars to serve low-income children and make sure
that they could use that help until they had addressed the mission of
the program.
Ed-Flex doesn't serve fewer poor kids; it serves more of them, and it
serves them better.
In the State of Texas, the State has used Ed-Flex, and the
achievement scores confirm that Ed-Flex has improved academic
performance. After only 2 years under the waiver, statewide results on
the Texas assessment of academic skills shows that schools using Ed-
Flex are outperforming the districts that aren't. These are poor school
districts with low-income children, and reading and math scores are
rising using Ed-Flex. At one high-poverty elementary school, student
performance improved almost 23 percent over the 1996 math test scores;
82 percent of them passed. The statewide average was only 64 percent.
Poor kids did better. Poor kids did better under Ed-Flex.
Now, this legislation protects the poor in other important ways. The
civil rights laws, the labor laws, safety laws, all of the core Federal
protections for the vulnerable, are not touched in any way. The
Secretary of Education has complete authority to revoke a waiver if
title I requirements are not met. Under current law, a State must have
a plan to comply with title I. This legislation requires a plan as
well.
Let me outline a number of specific protections that pertain to the
poor in this legislation. First, under current law, title I funds can
only be used in school districts that are for the low-income. Our
legislation keeps this requirement. You cannot get an Ed-Flex waiver
and move it out of a low-income school district to somewhere else. You
have to use those dollars in a low-income school district. They can't
be moved elsewhere.
Second, not only does the legislation keep the core requirements of
title I, it strengthens them. For example, under current law, States
are not required to evaluate whether they are meeting title I goals
until 2001. Ed-Flex says to the States: Why should you wait for 2 years
to show that you are serving the poor and disadvantaged? Develop high
standards for serving the poor now, demonstrate that you meet the
accountability requirements, and put more education dollars in the
classroom to serve poor kids and their families now, rather than
waiting until 2001.
Now, opponents of Ed-Flex have not been able to offer any examples--
not even one--of how the flexibility waivers have been abused, and that
is because the Secretary of Education has watch-dogged these Ed-Flex
waivers; and we can cite examples of how it works, and they can't cite
any examples of how it has been abused. That is why the Education and
Labor Committee in the last Congress approved this legislation by a 17-
1 bipartisan vote.

[[Page S2174]]

Senator Kennedy, the ranking member of the committee, said,

Under Ed-Flex, the Secretary of Education allows
Massachusetts and other States to waive Federal regulations
and statutory requirements that impede State and local
efforts to improve learning and teaching. With that
flexibility comes stronger accountability to improve student
achievement.

Since that time, since those eloquent words of Senator Kennedy, in a
17-1 vote in the Labor Committee, after lengthy debate, the sponsors
felt that it was important to work with those who have had reservations
about this legislation, and we have made six additional changes in the
legislation to strengthen a bill that had virtual unanimous bipartisan
support. We have strengthened the requirements for public participation
so that there is public notice. We put in place a requirement that
States include specific, measurable goals, which include student
performance, a requirement that the Secretary report to the Congress
after 2 years on how Ed-Flex States are doing. The Secretary must
include how the waiver is affecting student performance, what Federal
and State laws are being waived, and how the waiver is affecting the
overall State and local reform efforts.

There is a requirement that the Secretary review State content and
performance standards twice, once when deciding if the State is
eligible to participate and again when deciding whether or not to grant
approval for a waiver. This is to make sure that there is no
compromising title I. The Secretary of Education reviews twice whether
or not to go forward with an Ed-Flex waiver.
We have always altered the legislation to ensure that local review
cannot be waived under Ed-Flex; that is, any school or school district
receiving title I funds is still subject to punishment and still has to
answer to a local review board. Those provisions that protect the poor
cannot be waived.
Mr. President, it is no accident that every Governor, every
Democratic Governor, believes this will be a valuable tool to them to
make existing programs work better.
I think the Senator from Minnesota has made an important point in
talking about how additional dollars are needed for some of these key
programs to serve the poor. But the best way to generate support for
that approach is to show that you are using the dollars that you get
today wisely. That is what Ed-Flex allows. It is a fresh, creative
approach to Federal-State relations, one that has enormous potential
for improving the delivery of services to the poor and all Americans.
So I say to the Senate that we have a chance to take a new, creative
path with respect to Federal and State relations where one side says
all the answers reside in Washington, DC, and the other side says, no,
they all reside at the local level. The third path that is being taken
by Ed-Flex, that is being taken by my State in health, in welfare, in
the environment, says to the Federal Government: At the local level, we
will meet the requirements of Federal law, Federal education law. We
will be held accountable. But in return for holding us accountable,
give us the flexibility so that we can ensure that we come up with
solutions that work for Coos Bay, OR, and The Dalles, OR, and you don't
take a ``one-size-fits-all'' cookie-cutter approach and say that what
is done in the Bronx is what is going to work in rural Oregon.
Before I wrap up, I would like to pay a special tribute to our former
colleague, Senator Hatfield. I served in the House when Senator
Hatfield took the lead in 1994, working with Senator Kennedy and
others, to promote this approach. In my view, his record alone,
standing for years and years for civil rights laws, for health laws and
safety laws, would suggest that there is a commitment by the sponsors
of this legislation to ensure that this helps the poor, not hurts the
poor.
If there was one example, Mr. President, even one, of how an Ed-Flex
waiver has harmed the poor, I know I would immediately move to address
that and to ensure that our legislation didn't allow it. But we have no
examples of how in any of those States the poor have been exploited or
taken advantage of. We have plenty of examples of how Ed-Flex has
worked in Texas where the scores have gone up, in Maryland where it has
reduced class size, in Oregon where poor kids who couldn't get advanced
computing under the status quo were able to use Ed-Flex dollars to get
those skills that are so critical to a high-skill, high-wage job.
So I urge the Senate today to vote for the motion to proceed, vote
for the bill, empower the communities across this country to earn the
right to use Federal education dollars to serve the vulnerable in our
society most effectively. This is not the sole answer to what is needed
to improve education, public education, in our country, but it is an
important step, because it shows the people of the country that we can
use existing Federal funds more effectively, that we can be more
innovative in serving poor kids. It seems to me that step does a
tremendous amount to lay the foundation to garner public support for
areas where we need additional funds.
We are going to need additional funds for a number of these key areas
that the Senator from Minnesota is right to touch on. But let's show
the taxpayer that we are using existing dollars effectively, as we have
done in Oregon, as we have done in Texas, as we have done in
Massachusetts, in line with objectives that, as far as I can tell, are
widely supported on both sides of the aisle.
I see the Senator from Tennessee has joined as well, and the Senator
from Minnesota was kind enough to give me time from his allocation. I
would just wrap up by thanking the Senator from Minnesota and also say
that I very much appreciated working with the Senator from Tennessee on
this legislation. I think it is clear that the country wants to see the
U.S. Senate work in a bipartisan way on this legislation.
This bill had exhaustive hearings in the Senate Budget Task Force on
Education. It was debated at length in the Education and Labor
Committee, where it won on a 17-to-1 vote in the last session of the
Senate. Since that time, as I have outlined in my presentation,
additional changes have been made to promote accountability.

I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will take about 5 or 10 minutes, and
then I will yield back the rest of my time. I have had several hours. I
say to my colleague from Tennessee that I will yield back my time
because I have to give a talk with law enforcement people in Minnesota
via video.
There are some students from Minnesota who are here. Welcome. We are
glad you are here, and teachers and parents.
Let me just make three points.
First of all, although we will have tougher debate later on, I say to
my colleague from Oregon, we certainly didn't have any lengthy debate
on Ed-Flex this Congress. We never had a hearing--not one hearing at
all. When my colleague says they can't talk about any abuses, the fact
of the matter is that both the Congressional Research Service and GAO--
I am not prejudging one way or other, but it is difficult to talk about
what is going on--both have said we don't have the data in yet. We
don't have the data in. What is the rush? I might have a different
judgment about this on the basis--I don't know whether I will
generalize 12 States to 50 States, but I certainly might be less
skeptical if in fact we had the data and if we had the reports in. We
don't. But we are rushing ahead.
The second point I want to make is that my colleague talks about the
``core'' requirements. Certainly it is true that, with IDEA, the core
requirements are kept intact. But as a matter of fact, we will see that
the truth will be very clear with this amendment. I will have an
amendment on the floor, and it will simply say that the core
requirements are that title I students be taught by highly qualified
professional staff, that States set high standards for all children,
that States provide funding to the lowest income schools first, that
States hold schools accountable for making substantial annual progress
toward getting all students, particularly low-income and limited-
English-proficient students, to meet high standards, and that the
vocational programs provide broad education and work experiences rather
than their own job training. I will have an amendment

[[Page S2175]]

that says those core requirements will be fenced off and no State or
school district will be exempt.
Can my colleagues tell me that that is the case right now? If so,
then that amendment will pass with overwhelming support. Right now,
that is not in the bill. Do you have language in the bill that
guarantees that all those requirements will be met?
Mr. WYDEN. Yes. I think your amendment is OK.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Do both my colleagues agree? Lord, we don't even have
to have a debate on it.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I would be happy to respond.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, clearly, we would like to get to the bill,
and we can actually talk about what is in the bill. The bill has not
been, as you know, introduced in the managers' package. And I hope
that, although the morning hour has been reduced, we can get to the
bill and discuss what is in it or not.
For a State to become a title I State, in both existing law as well
as what we will have in our bill, you have to have the full complement
of title I requirements, which will be spelled out.
You can't be an Ed-Flex State both today and in the future law. So is
it in the bill? Because you can't be eligible unless they are actually
in. For the very specific things, if we could introduce it, there is a
whole list of accountability clauses I would like to get to after we
introduce the bill formally, if we could do that, talk about the core
principles and the protections and the accountability.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague, this amendment will say that
States cannot waive the following core requirements. These have been
the core requirements of title 1.
Would my colleague agree that States will not be able to waive these
core requirements?
Mr. FRIST. I have not seen the core requirements. I didn't hear what
the core requirements are specifically. But if you would allow us to
proceed to the bill at some point, at the appropriate time--right now,
as you know, we have given the Senator the last 3 hours so he can make
these points. We are ready to go to the bill, introduce to America a
great Ed-Flex bill, as soon as the Senator is finished.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Just to be clear, I get a different message from my
two colleagues here. This is where the rubber meets the road. I spent a
lot of time on what Ed-Flex doesn't do and what we should be doing. My
point right now is that every single person I know who has worked on
title I and knows what it is all about is absolutely committed and
insistent that the core requirements be fenced in, remain intact, and
no State can get a waiver, no school district can get a waiver. I am
asking the Senator whether he agrees. If the Senator agrees, this
certainly makes it a far better bill than it is right now.
And my second question is, What about the 75 percent rule? That is a
core requirement right now. We worked that in in 1994. Would both of my
colleagues agree that schools with 75 percent low-income students or
more should be first priority in funding and that we keep that in as a
requirement, so that we don't lessen the financial aid to the neediest
schools? Would you agree? Could I get support for that right now?
Mr. FRIST. I would respond to my distinguished colleague from
Minnesota, that if we could introduce the bill and discuss the bill
before specific amendments--right now we have not had the opportunity
because of these delaying tactics, which is what they are, so the
Senator would have the opportunity to have 3 hours to lay everything
out--if the Senator would just allow us to at least bring this bill to
the floor at some time so we can discuss and formally debate and read
the amendments--he is talking about an amendment which I have not seen.
I haven't had the opportunity to see it. The Senator hasn't presented
it. It is a little bit strange to be debating specific amendments and
principles to amendments before the bill is introduced.
So let me just make a plea to the Senator to allow this bill to be
formally introduced, debated, amendment by amendment, if the Senator
would like, and I think that is appropriate, but we can't do it unless
the Senator allows consideration of this bill. Right now it is
important for the American people to understand that we, because of
what is going on right now and what we are hearing, cannot proceed
until the Senator from Minnesota allows us to proceed with the
underlying bill.
So I will just ask, Is the Senator going to allow us to proceed to
address the Ed-Flex bill?
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, my colleague, first of all, well knows
that we are going to be allowed to proceed, because I asked for several
hours and I have about used up my time. So we are going to proceed.
My colleague already knows that, so there is no reason to press, to
make the case. With all due respect, we could have a discussion about
these issues right now. We can have the discussion about them later on.
I have spent a considerable amount of time pointing out right now that
in the bill, as it reads, States can receive a waiver from these basic
core requirements of title I. I want to make sure we have the strictest
accountability measures to make sure that will not happen. I have
pointed out that right now, as the bill currently stands, States can
receive a waiver from the 75-percent requirement.
Mr. WYDEN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. WELLSTONE. I want to make sure that doesn't happen.
I will be pleased to yield. In fact, I literally have to leave in a
minute
Mr. WYDEN. This will be only 30 seconds.
On page 12, line 12 of the bill, it states, and I quote:

The Secretary may not waive any statutory or regulatory
requirement of the program.

Point blank. You cannot waive any of the core requirements. I thank
the Senator for yielding.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would say to my colleague from
Oregon, that if we have the same interpretation--and we will see; I get
a somewhat different reaction from my colleague from Tennessee--I will
have an amendment with clear language that lists those core
requirements and makes it crystal clear that they are fenced in and
that no State or school district can receive any waiver on those
requirements, in which case that will be some good accountability, in
which case I would expect full support for it. My interpretation is a
different one. If you are right that we already have the ironclad
guarantees, then this amendment should pass with 100 votes.

Mr. President, let me simply thank my colleagues. We don't agree, but
I think it was important to have the opportunity to speak about this
bill and give it, I think, a wide context and to speak to what I think
are the flaws. We are going to have a spirited debate with any number
of amendments, and I hope ultimately this ends up being a very positive
piece of legislation that will make a positive difference in the lives
of children. In its present shape and form, it does not do that. And we
will have a major debate.
I will yield back the remainder of my time, and I say to my
colleagues, I will not be asking for the yeas and nays. We can just
have a voice vote.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I would like to very briefly respond to a
couple of points that have been made over the course of this morning.
The distinguished Senator from Minnesota has made a number of points
in outlining his view of what needs to be done with education in this
country as we go forward. His time was delegated to him so that he
would have that opportunity, although a lot of us are anxiously waiting
to get to the bill itself, the Ed-Flex bill, which is the subject of
our debate over the course of today, tonight and tomorrow, and probably
the next several days.
First of all, he has outlined many of the challenges that we do have
in education today. The great thing about this whole debate is that
whether it is his intentions or my intentions or the intentions of the
Senator from Oregon,

[[Page S2176]]

it really is to address the fundamental issues of education, of really
making sure that our children today, and in future generations, are
best prepared. And they are not today. We all have come to that
conclusion. Parents recognize that and principals understand that, and
teachers and school boards and Governors, and all the various groups
that we will hear about.
That is the great thing, that as the No. 1 agenda item coming out of
this Congress and the Senate, we are addressing education. Let me say
that the approach is going to be different. There won't be a lot of
heated debate. What needs to be protected, which programs to address,
how to address them, how much control does the Federal Government have,
how much control do the local communities have or do parents have or do
Governors have, that will be the subject of much of the debate that we
will hear.
A second big issue is flexibility. People on both sides of the aisle
are so well intentioned, and we all have our favorite education program
and we think that that program might be the silver bullet, but we all
know that there is no single silver bullet as we address this whole
issue of educating our young people, preparing them for that next
century.
Let me say that right coming out of the box, before we even introduce
this bill formally, which I think will be done early this afternoon:
This bill is no silver bullet either. It does address the basic
principles. It is not a series of programs that are well intended that
may cost money, that may be very good in and of themselves, but it sets
that principle that does allow more flexibility, more creativity, more
innovation in accomplishing the goals that most of us agree to. This
bill does not change the resources going in, nor does it change the
goals, but it does reorder our thinking of how to get from those
resources to those goals. And what it does, it drops the barriers with
strong accountability.
When we talk about flexibility and we talk about accountability, that
is what this bill does. Not the resources, not yet; we are going to
have that argument over the course of the year with what is called--we
will all become very familiar with it--the ESEA, the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act. There is an ongoing discussion right now in
Senator Jeffords' committee, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee. That is ongoing and hearings will be held and that is where
we will be looking at all these multiple well-intended programs. We
will be looking at all the resources going into education. Is it too
little? Is it too much? Should we divert certain of those resources to
certain programs?
That is not what we are doing today or tomorrow in the Ed-Flex, the
Frist-Wyden Ed-Flex. That is not what we are doing. We are looking at
how to streamline the system, make more efficient use of those
resources, trust our local schools and local teachers and local
principals who can identify specific needs in order to improve
education, and make sure those resources are used in the appropriate
way to meet the goals that we all lay out. That is an important
concept, because a lot of these amendments that are being proposed,
principally on the other side of the aisle and maybe solely on the
other side of the aisle, will be to make some good, strong points that
this program is great. You will hear me and others say let's consider
all of those issues, but we need to consider them in the context of
what we are doing with education totally and that is not what this bill
is all about. This is about the Education Flexibility Partnership Act,
the Ed-Flex Act.
I want to begin with that because it does set the overall environment
in which this debate can most intelligently be carried out. Without
that, we are going to drop into these whirls of rhetoric: Although this
program will really turn things around--and we all should recognize
right up front we cannot look just at rhetoric.
I heard three points over the last 3 hours that my colleague from
Minnesota mentioned. No. 1, we are rushing through this thing and we
are trying to jam it through the U.S. Senate and thrust it upon the
American people. You hear these words ``rushing it through, rushing it
through.'' The second point he seemed to make this morning was that in
some way Ed-Flex hurts poor children. And then he said there is no
data, there is no evidence, there is no information; let's wait until
we generate some information before we go forward. In some way it hurts
poor children, that was almost the theme. So I think we need to respond
to that and move on and look at the great things this bill does.
The third point he made is that our bill does not address a lot of
specific programs that he would like to address, and it is nutrition
needs and it is Head Start and a lot of afterschool programs and a lot
of programs which are very important to education and need to be
discussed. We need to go back and evaluate. But that is not what Ed-
Flex is intended to do. That is not what the Ed-Flex bill is all about.
What we have is a bill that was generated by myself and Senator
Wyden, who just spoke on the floor, that is a bipartisan bill that
represents strong support with all 50 Governors--every State Governor
is supporting this piece of legislation. It is bipartisan,
symbolically, because it is Ron Wyden and Bill Frist out there who have
been working on this bill for the past year.
We will talk, after the bill is introduced, about the broad support
that it has. But we all know the President said last week: Let's pass
Ed-Flex this week. The Department of Education has been very supportive
of this bill throughout. Unfortunately, I think what we heard this
morning may be a prelude to what we can expect, and that is going to be
a series of programs which have billion-dollar price tags, million-
dollar price tags, that will be billed as the best program out there.
And some of those programs are really going to appeal to our colleagues
and to people listening to this debate. They will say: Yes, things like
more teachers and construction and all would be good, and they are very
concrete and real. Again, we are going to look at those later.

Real quickly, as we go through, are we rushing this through? Let's
make very clear that we are not rushing this through. We addressed this
in the committee, the appropriate committee of Health, Education,
Labor, and Pension, which is the former Labor Committee. Senator
Jeffords will be managing this bill with me. He has been very
thoughtful, and over the period of time through a number of different
discussions, we have debated the bill, we marked this bill up--again,
that is terminology inside this room--but that means we have discussed
this bill, we have debated these amendments, many of them, both last
year when it sailed through the committee we debated each of these
issues and then again this year.
It is important for the American people to understand that, yes, this
particular bill passed last year 17 to 1; that one person, that
colleague we have heard from this morning and I am sure we will hear
from again and again. But recognize it passed 17 to 1. We ran out of
time at the end of the last Congress. It came back through the
committee and was marked up just several weeks ago and, again, was
passed out and sent to the floor.
The General Accounting Office study which has been cited, which will
be referred to--again, I will have to turn to my colleague, Senator
Wyden, and say thank you. He is the one who initially requested that,
the initial request to GAO which came back with the report, and out of
the report we have been able to see great benefits and also some of the
areas in which we need to strengthen our legislation, which we have
done so we can go ahead and move ahead with that flexibility and
accountability.
Then ``rushing this through,'' when you think about most of the
education we address here, we have not had an experience of 5 years.
Remember, this is a demonstration project today. There are 12 States
that have Ed-Flex--passed in 1994 with six States; another six States
added on to that. So we have a 5-year experience in 12 different States
with this program already. So, yes, we know that it works. So, are we
rushing it through? You can just move that argument right to the side.
No. 2, it hurts poor children? This is remarkable because it was
really the theme of this morning: In some way, Ed-Flex hurts poor
children. Let me just look to some outside groups who have looked at
this.
If you refer back to the chart behind me, it is the report of the
Citizens'

[[Page S2177]]

Commission on Civil Rights, a wonderful report that may be referred to
several times in the course of the next several days, issued in the
fall of this past year, and they hit right at the heart. Really, I
think we can just move on, almost:

In the Citizens' Commission's judgment, these waivers did
not seriously undermine the statute's intent to target aid to
poor children.

Then, if we look for hard data, again we have heard all this rhetoric
about, ``Oh, we have a potential for hurting poor children; we have the
potential for this.'' Clearly, you can create hypotheticals in any
piece of legislation, in any statute, any regulation, and politicians
are pretty good at it. We can create hypotheticals and say if this were
to happen it would destroy education and so forth. My approach is a
little bit more the scientist.
Before coming to the Senate, I spent time looking at data and that
scientific, analytical mind may interfere with some things, but it does
cause me to ask the question: What data do we have? What is the hard
data and what is the evidence? And let me just look at some of the
areas that were mentioned.
Texas, which has a very successful Ed-Flex program, has accumulated
some representative data which looks at three different areas. It is
going to be hard to read, but at the top it looks at African American
students; beneath that it looks at Hispanic students; and beneath that
it looks at economically disadvantaged students.
The far left column shows 1996, the next column over shows 1997. The
column I want to concentrate on is, ``Actual change.'' Remember, this
is hard data, looking at a State that compared Ed-Flex to non-Ed-Flex.
If you look at that middle column--let me just drop right down to the
bottom where it says ``Economically Disadvantaged Students.''
In 1996--this is for mathematics. This is a statewide comparison of
selected campuses in title I, part A. Title I is the disadvantaged
students element which we heard so much about this morning. We see in
those States, like Westlawn Elementary, La Marque ISD, with the title I
schoolwide waiver, in that column we see an improvement of 16.8
percent. These are just with the disadvantaged students. The statewide
average was an improvement of 8 percent.
Thus, for those disadvantaged students, if you compare the Ed-Flex
program, we see that students improved twice as much in the very
population that we hear this rhetorical concern about. Again, this is
hard data, representative data.
We look at African American students compared to the statewide
average. In the Ed-Flex, African American students at Westlawn
Elementary, we see they improved by 22 percent; statewide average, 9
percent--again, more than a doubling of improvement in the Ed-Flex
schoolwide waiver program.
Halfway down you see Hispanic students. Again, if you take the entity
of Westlawn, you see an improvement of 16 percent versus 7.9 percent--
again, that Ed-Flex school doing twice as well under a schoolwide
waiver as they would otherwise do. And this is representative data.
Again, once we get to the bill, you will see.
So we see that the Commission on Civil Rights--we see hard data.
There are other examples from Massachusetts we will hear about.
And then I guess really the fundamental thing I will come back to
later is, our bill can't hurt poor children, because the dollars have
to be used. Going back to my earlier comments, we do not change the
dollars and we did not change the ultimate goals in the targeted
population. Our bill does not do that. So by law, if you are targeted
for this population, the money and the programs have to go there. How
you get there is where the flexibility comes in.
One last point I referred to, which was his last point, was that we
are not addressing nutrition and other well-meaning programs, again,
that we will hear paraded out. Let me just say that is not the intent
of this bill. We can discuss them. We can introduce them. Those sorts
of issues will be discussed in the chairman's committee appropriately,
where they can be debated, where we can consider all of the resources,
all of the programs, recognizing there is not one single silver bullet
to cure education, the challenges of education. The Elementary and
Secondary Education Act is the appropriate forum that this body has to
consider these issues.
With that, I thank you for this opportunity to speak and thank the
chairman for yielding time.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Oregon
desires some time.
Mr. WYDEN. I thank the Senator from Vermont. I could wrap up very
briefly, even in, say, 5 minutes.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield to the Senator 5 minutes.
Mr. WYDEN. I thank the chairman.
Senator Frist has said it very well. Mr. President, and colleagues,
all we want to do under Ed-Flex is to make sure that these dollars get
into the classroom to help poor kids and not get chewed up by
bureaucratic redtape.
Ed-Flex is not a block grant program. It is not a voucher kind of
scheme. The people who are advocating Ed-Flex in my home State of
Oregon do not want a Federal education program to go away. Quite the
contrary, they want those programs. They know that we need those
dollars to serve low-income students. What we want is, we want some
freedom from some of the Federal water torture and bureaucratic redtape
that so often keeps us from using those dollars to better serve the
poor.
I would just hope, Mr. President, and colleagues, that during the
course of the afternoon colleagues look at the requirements that
protect the poor families and the poor children that cannot be waived
under the Ed-Flex statute. Specifically, it is not possible to get a
waiver if you are trying to waive the underlying programs of each of
the critical services that is made possible under title I. You cannot
do it. And as I stated earlier, you can only use those dollars in a
low-income school district; you cannot move those dollars out of a low-
income school district and take them somewhere else.
So there is a reason for the Governors and all of the Democratic
Governors supporting this legislation. I happen to have some sympathy
for the Senator from Minnesota about the need for additional dollars
for a variety of human services. But the best way to win support for
that additional funding is to show that you are using existing dollars
well and effectively. That is what Ed-Flex does.
I am very pleased to have had a chance to team up with Senator Frist
of Tennessee who has worked very hard to bring both parties together.
And I thank the Senator from Vermont for the time.
I yield the floor, Mr. President.
Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield back all our remaining committee time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
The question is on agreeing to the motion to proceed.
The motion was agreed to.

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