[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 10, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2465-S2478]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 EDUCATION FLEXIBILITY PARTNERSHIP ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be an 
hour for debate to be equally divided between the chairman and the 
ranking minority member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
and Pensions.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we will start off with 5 minutes for the 
Senator from Louisiana and try to get some additional time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished Senator 
from Massachusetts for his leadership on this issue. He is trying to 
communicate, and I think eloquently so, the issue before us. This week 
we want to do something good, something that is meaningful, something 
that will help in our education system in this country. We need to 
spend more than just a few days. It has been a little discouraging, I 
think, for some of us, on both sides of the aisle, in our evident lack 
of ability to come to some reasonable agreements about some of these 
amendments, so they are preventing this good bill from passing.
  I am a cosponsor of the Ed-Flex bill, along with Members of the 
Republican side and other Democrats who are supporting this bill. Why? 
Because our Governors at home are supporting this bill; our 
superintendents at home are supporting this bill.
  I had the great privilege of cohosting, with my Governor and 
superintendent of education, and our BESE, which is the Board of 
Elementary and Secondary Education, just Monday in our State, over 250 
education leaders from all over the State, from all of our 64 parishes. 
They came and expressed their support for the idea that the Federal 
Government should give the schools, the States and the districts more 
flexibility so they can combine programs to more efficiently spend the 
money, as long as the basic regulations of safety, health and civil 
rights are there. They really want the flexibility. I would like to 
give it to them, and I know the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts and our leader from Vermont wants to, also.
  So, I am hoping we can come to some agreement. If we could offer a 
few amendments on our side and other amendments could be offered on the 
Republican side, amendments that are meaningful, then we could get this 
bill passed with a couple of other things that will work and need to be 
done.

  One of those things is the reduction of class size. I don't believe 
there is an educator who would disagree. Whether you are from 
California or Vermont or Louisiana or Illinois, who doesn't know that 
having smaller classes at those earlier grades--particularly 
kindergarten, first, second and third grades--is so important?

[[Page S2466]]

  I could give this speech pretty well before I was a mom. Now I can 
give it very well. Frank and I have a 6-year-old who is learning to 
read this year. With 28 kids in his class, it is a struggle. He has a 
tutor. We help him at home. But the teacher does not have enough time 
individually.
  We want to be able to send some money down to the States, with very 
few strings attached, to help our school districts that are really 
struggling in this area, to give them some additional money to help 
them hire additional teachers. In doing that, as I was told this 
Monday--and I want to communicate this to my colleagues--it would be no 
use to send that money down to help reduce class size if we also do not 
send a companion amendment down for school construction and 
modernization. You cannot have a new teacher if you don't have a 
classroom or you don't have the space for that teacher to teach and to 
divide those classes into smaller units.
  We have a crisis in our country at this moment. That crisis is that 
40 percent of our youngsters at the second grade level are not reading 
at second grade level. Let me repeat that: not 2 percent, not 10 
percent, not 25 percent--but 40 percent. Unfortunately, in some places 
in Louisiana, in some demographic groups, that number is tragically as 
high as 70 percent.
  If this is not something the Federal Government should be concerned 
about, I don't know what is. I don't know of anything that is more 
significant than having second graders in this country--the strongest 
country, militarily, in the world, economically strong, leading the 
world in many areas--but lagging behind in this simple basic.
  Local governments can do some things. The State government most 
certainly is the big partner. But we need to be a junior partner, and 
we need to be a reliable junior partner by putting up some money where 
our mouth is, sending that money down to the States with as few strings 
attached as possible, and then insisting, in partnership with our 
locals, on accountability every step of the way.
  So, yes, this Ed-Flex bill is important, giving more flexibility to 
local governments. But if we would do that and not do our class size, 
our school construction, we would be--I know my time is running short, 
so let me just conclude--we would be shortchanging students who are 
already shortchanged by the numbers I have just suggested.
  I thank my colleague. Could I have 1 more minute?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, I yield 1 more minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. So I think we would be shortchanging these students, 
our students, our teachers, our parents, if we cannot get this bill 
straight by giving the flexibility, adding some additional money for 
class size reduction, adding some additional bonding capacity for 
school construction and modernization, so we can begin this next 
century with a real investment in the things that count, that is in our 
education system, K through 12 particularly.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's additional time has expired.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank those who have brought this bill to the floor. 
Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 6 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we are about to take our third and fourth 
cloture votes this week, the first on whether we will meet our 7-year 
commitment to help communities reduce class size and the second on 
whether we will prematurely end this education debate.
  While our Republican friends continue to block action on critical 
education issues for the sixth day in a row, communities are struggling 
to make decisions about their school budgets--they need and expect our 
help.
  We have an excellent opportunity to deal with key education issues 
that have been clear for many months--reducing class size, recruiting 
more teachers, expanding afterschool programs, bringing technology into 
the classroom, reducing dropout rates, modernizing school buildings. No 
bill on the Senate Calendar right now is more important than education.
  Nothing is more important on the calendar of local schools than their 
budgets. Over the next three weeks, schools across the country will be 
making major decisions on their budgets for the next school year. In 
many of these communities, the budgets are due by early April. In 
Memphis, school budgets are due on March 22. In Fayette County, KY, 
school budgets are due on March 31. In Boston, Savannah, Las Vegas, and 
Houston, school budgets are due the first week of April. In San 
Francisco, they are due April 1; Council Bluffs, IA, school budgets are 
due April 15. In Altoona, PA, school budgets are due in April.
  This is why the Murray amendment is so important to consider, so that 
schools will be able to say, yes, we want to use this money for new 
schoolteachers, for smaller class size, because we know for the next 6 
or 7 years, there will be a continuing commitment and enough resources 
to be able to do it.
  The Senate should keep its promise that schools will be able to hire 
100,000 new teachers over the next 7 years to help them reduce class 
size. Communities can't do it alone. They want the Federal Government 
to be a strong partner in improving their schools. We can't sit on the 
sidelines or allow this debate on education to stay in gridlock.
  A teacher from Kansas wants action by Uncle Sam. He writes:

       Even here in Kansas, many teachers struggle to provide 
     their students with a quality education because they have so 
     many students to reach. We have waited for years for the 
     State legislature to do something, but they haven't. Now is 
     the time for the Federal Government to step in and help. Your 
     support for this bill will speak loudly to myself and other 
     teachers that you truly believe in public education. Please 
     help reduce class size in our country.

  A teacher from Maine writes:

       It is becoming more and more necessary to reduce class 
     sizes to address the individual needs of a wider variety of 
     students. . . . Please support the initiative to hire more 
     teachers to reduce class sizes in U.S. public schools.

  A parent from North Carolina writes:

       I am a parent with 2 children in a public school and one 
     that will enter school soon. . . . I am very well aware of 
     the critical need for additional classroom teachers. Our 
     children, our future, and our Nation depend upon a strong 
     public school system.

  Mr. President, last year when we signed onto the first year on 
reducing class size it was done in a bipartisan way. Listen to what 
House Majority Leader Dick Armey said:

       We were very pleased to receive the President's request for 
     more teachers, especially since he offered to provide a way 
     to pay for them. And when the President's people were willing 
     to work with us so that we could let the State and local 
     communities use this money, make these decisions, manage 
     the money, spend the money on teachers where they saw the 
     need, whether it be for special education or for regular 
     teaching, with freedom of choice and management and 
     control at the local level, we thought this good for 
     America and good for the school children. We were very 
     excited to move forward on that.

  That was what the majority leader, Dick Armey, said about that 
agreement--just 5 months ago, Mr. President. That is why we find it so 
difficult to understand why we can't at least get to the point of 
consideration on this measure.
  Senator Slade Gorton said about the Class Size Reduction Act:

       On education, there's been a genuine meeting of the minds 
     involving the President and the Democrats and Republicans 
     here in Congress. . . . It will go directly through to each 
     of the 14,000 school districts in the United States, and each 
     of those school districts will make its own determination as 
     to what kind of new teachers that district needs most, which 
     kind should be hired. . . . We've made a step in the 
     direction that we like. We never were arguing over the amount 
     of money that ought to go into education. And so this is a 
     case in which both sides genuinely can claim a triumph.

  The Murray amendment is a continuation of what was agreed to last 
year, in which both sides claimed triumph, and there was a movement 
made towards smaller classrooms. That is what the issue is that we will 
be voting on at 1.
  The Senate should not turn its back on our promise to help 
communities reduce class size in the early grades. We should meet our 
commitment to parents, students and communities, and we should meet it 
now.
  We need to act now, so communities can act effectively for the next 7 
years.

[[Page S2467]]

Senator Daschle has made a reasonable proposal for an up-or-down vote 
on a limited number of amendments with limited time agreements.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 6 minutes have expired.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I hope his proposal will be accepted and we can move 
towards a vote on the issue of class size as well as the Republican s 
proposal on the IDEA.
  Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Nevada, Mr. 
Reid.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have more than 1 million people in our 
prisons around the country. Let us just round it off and say we have 1 
million people in prison. Eight hundred twenty thousand of those 
prisoners have no high school education; 82 percent of the people in 
our prisons today are without a high school education. That is why 
Senator Bingaman and I have offered an amendment to create within the 
Department of Education someone to specialize, to work on, to keep 
these kids in school.
  Every day 3,000 children drop out of school in America. Since we 
started the debate on this legislation, 15,000 children have dropped 
out of high school. Every one of those children dropping out of high 
school are less than they could be. I have heard statements here the 
last several days saying, well, why do we need to talk about kids 
dropping out of school? Why don't we talk about the children who are 
handicapped who need money?
  I acknowledge that. The fact of the matter is, we have tried on this 
side of the aisle to get more funding for special education and have 
been unable to do so because of not having enough votes on that side of 
the aisle. It is not an either/or situation. We need to help local 
school districts with more funding for handicapped children, and I 
recognize that. I will do that. If we had a vote on that today, I would 
vote for it.
  That does not take away from the fact that we need to do something 
about high school dropouts. I do not believe, personally, there is a 
more important problem in education today than kids dropping out of 
high school, half a million children each year dropping out of high 
school. I think we should go back and find out where we are.
  As the manager on the Democratic side of this legislation, Senator 
Kennedy, has said, we are not trying to eat up lots of time. We will 
agree to half hour amendments on five amendments. That takes 2\1/2\ 
hours, 15 minutes on each side, and vote on them, vote them up or down. 
The legislation, we feel, is important. If the other side doesn't want 
to vote for them, have them vote against them. I think it would be a 
very difficult vote, for example, on the Bingaman-Reid legislation to 
vote against keeping kids in high school, but that is a privilege.
  The majority leader of the U.S. Senate, on February 23, gave a speech 
to the National Governors' Conference at their annual meeting:

       Now when we bring up the education issues to the floor next 
     week, [there will] be some amendments and disagreements. . . 
     . That's great. Let's go to the Senate floor, let's take 
     days, let's take a week, let's take 2 weeks if it's 
     necessary. Let's talk about education.

  I respectfully submit to the majority leader that he must have left 
his remarks with the Governors and didn't bring them to the floor of 
the Senate, because after a little more than a day of debating Ed-Flex, 
we in effect have been gagged. It seems around here that we can only 
vote on amendments the majority wants to vote on; that we have no 
ability to bring up amendments we feel are important.
  The Ed-Flex bill is important legislation. We support that 
legislation. But we do not support the legislation without having the 
legislation made better. I am not going to talk about the afterschool 
programs and the new teachers we need and school construction; others 
can do that and do that well. I am here to talk about the Bingaman-Reid 
legislation which talks about children dropping out of school.
  The Ed-Flex bill would be made a better bill if we said within the 
Department of Education there would be $30 million a year--that's all--
$30 million a year out of this multibillion-dollar budget that we would 
use to work on keeping kids in high school. Think if the bill succeeded 
to the effect that we could keep in school every day 500 of those 3,000 
children--500 kids that would be what they could be. They would have a 
high school education. They could more easily support their families. 
They could go on to college and trade school. You cannot do that if you 
have not graduated from high school. We would only--and I underline 
``only''--only have 2,500 high school dropouts a day.
  Mr. President, I think we need to move forward and have a debate on 
education. A debate on education allows us to talk about what we want 
to talk about, and we would improve the Ed-Flex bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes have expired.
  Mr. REID. I ask that we have the ability to vote on keeping kids in 
school.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. ROBB. Thank you, Mr. President. And I thank my colleague from 
Massachusetts for his leadership on this bill as well.
  Mr. President, I would like to congratulate our colleagues, Senators 
Frist and Wyden, for their efforts to provide States and localities 
with greater opportunities to be innovative in their use of Federal 
funds.
  This bill provides States and localities with the flexibility and 
freedom from Federal regulations that is often necessary for States to 
best serve their children and parents in providing top-notch 
educational services.
  As a former Governor, I am particularly sensitive to the argument 
that too many Federal strings and regulations make Federal assistance 
seem more like a Federal burden. This legislation, while not a panacea 
for all of our educational needs, returns flexibility to the States in 
a way that is effective and helpful, but that still requires States to 
be accountable for positive results as they provide public education to 
our Nation's children.
  I thank the Senators for their insight and their sensitivity to the 
concerns of our Nation's Governors, legislatures, and school officials, 
and I urge my colleagues to support this bill--on final passage--if and 
when we get there. And I hope we will get to that point as soon as 
possible if we can reach some agreement on relevant amendments.

  Mr. President, I also thank Senators Harkin, Lautenberg, Kennedy, and 
many others for the opportunity to talk about an amendment that we 
still hope we will be able to offer in due course which recognizes a 
sad reality faced every schoolday by too many children and teachers 
across the country.
  We all say--here in Washington, in every State capital, and in every 
county, city, and town--that education is important. Indeed, it is 
critically important. But those words must ring hollow to the millions 
of children who walk through the doors of their schools to find leaky 
roofs, crowded classrooms, and woefully inadequate heating and air-
conditioning systems. The state of too many of our schools is 
deplorable.
  Mr. President, in spite of the relatively good economic times, many 
States are experiencing, many local governments are experiencing just 
the opposite, and they have not been able to meet the school 
construction and renovation challenges that are facing our Nation.
  This is an area where the Federal Government can and we believe 
should play a pivotal role without interfering with the longstanding 
preference for local control of education. The Federal Government can 
be a meaningful partner in contributing to the vital national interest 
that our students receive a good education in an environment that is 
conducive to learning.
  Mr. President, the General Accounting Office estimates our national 
school infrastructure repair needs total some $112 billion. That same 
GAO study also estimates that we, as a Nation, need $73 billion to 
build the new schools that are required to accommodate the rapid growth 
in our public school enrollments.
  In addition to all of the findings in the amendment that we still 
hope to have an opportunity to be able to vote on, I have similar data 
from my own State of Virginia which indicates not only tremendous 
infrastructure needs exist, but our State and local governments simply 
cannot afford to foot the bill by themselves.

[[Page S2468]]

  A 1998 report on school infrastructure, requested by the general 
assembly, found that while localities estimate that school construction 
investments of $4.1 billion will be made in the next 5 years, school 
construction needs in Virginia could exceed $8.2 billion. Virginia 
Governor Gilmore and the members of the general assembly approved a 
school construction repair plan this year which I applaud, but which 
only meets 3 percent of that unmet burden.
  While there is no question that every dollar counts, and helps, I 
have heard from students, parents, teachers, administrators, school 
board officials and legislators about the need to complement Virginia 
school modernization construction efforts.
  Earlier this year, the Thomas Jefferson Center for Educational Design 
at the University of Virginia issued a report which not only echoed the 
need for more school construction funds, but also detailed the 
alarmingly unsafe or inadequate condition of many schools in our 
Commonwealth.
  Classes are being held in over 3,000 trailers; 2 out of 3 school 
districts have held class in auditoriums, cafeterias, storage areas, 
and book closets; and 3 percent of Virginia school districts had to 
increase the size of their classes in order to accommodate their 
growing student population.
  While I don't let public opinion polls determine how I vote on issues 
I believe it is appropriate to note that there is overwhelming public 
support for Federal help in the area of school construction funding.
  In a recent poll conducted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, 83 
percent of Americans surveyed supported significant Federal school 
construction spending and indicated that it should be a top priority of 
Congress.
  Still, some believe that our nation's infrastructure needs in other 
areas are just as compelling as our school construction and repair 
needs.
  In a statement made to the Finance Committee last week a Public 
Finance Specialist with the Congressional Research Service concluded 
that the ``condition of America's school facilities may or may not be 
worse than the condition of other capital facilities of other State and 
local public services.'' This statement would seem to imply, Mr. 
President, that the Federal Government should not attempt to prioritize 
infrastructure needs.
  Last year, however, Congress approved $216 billion in road and 
transit funds.
  We were obviously willing to concentrate on transportation needs 
during our last session.
  Why shouldn't we concentrate on school infrastructure needs this 
session, particularly in light of the 1998 Report Card for America's 
Infrastructure issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers, which 
rates our public schools as being in the worst condition among all 
public infrastructure.
  The simple fact Mr. President, is that prioritization is our 
responsibility.
  Many years ago, when faced with enormous transportation needs as well 
as a large growth in our nation's student population, President 
Eisenhower proposed a massive national infrastructure project in his 
1955 State of the Union Address.
  This project resulted in the building of many of the nation's schools 
in existence today.
  Mr. President, Loudoun County in Northern Virginia has determined 
that, because of the enormous growth of their student population, they 
need to build 22 new schools.
  That figure doesn't even address their repair needs. And just down 
the road, at Chantilly High School, which I visited last spring with 
Education Secretary, Dick Riley, students are sharing lockers, 
attending classes in over a dozen trailers that have poor ventilation, 
and are so crammed in the hallways when they change classes that school 
officials were actually considering banning bookbags and backpacks.

  Mr. President, I received a compelling letter from the Superintendent 
of Schools in Caroll County, VA, about that county's school 
construction needs.
  Superintendent Oliver McBride outlined that the average age of the 
school buildings in Carroll County is 45 years. Carroll County school 
officials estimate that their school construction needs total $61 
million.
  Mr. McBride wrote,

       We have been particularly pleased with the interest and 
     response of the members of the Virginia General Assembly and 
     Governor Gilmore who have and are seeking to make additional 
     funds for school construction available to localities in the 
     State. We certainly would encourage the U.S. Congress to 
     become a participant in this effort as well . . . Simply 
     stated, we need your help.

  Mr. President, our efforts to help States and localities build and 
renovate schools in no way jeopardizes their autonomy with respect to 
education. It merely acknowledges the need for the Federal Government 
to complement the efforts of many States and localities that are now 
wrestling with the question of how to repair and equip old schools, and 
how to build new schools.
  Mr. President, it is our children who pay the price if we fail to 
acknowledge that Federal school construction funding is both imminently 
appropriate and critically important.
  And if my colleagues want to debate how we allocate school 
construction money, whether we target any funds to specific districts, 
how we avoid creating too many Federal strings, or how we can make it 
easy for States to take advantage of this type of funding mechanism, I 
am more than willing to do that.
  But the point is we need to engage in that discussion. And we need to 
begin now.
  Our children, their parents, and our States need our help.
  I urge my colleagues to support this sense-of-the-Senate amendment if 
we are permitted to offer it.
  Let's at least send the right message to this Nation: that we see the 
leaking roofs, that we see the cracked walls, that we see all the 
trailers--and that we are willing to help.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and thank again my colleague from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from California.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mrs. BOXER. I say to Senator Kennedy, thank you very much not only 
for yielding to me, but also for your great leadership on this 
important issue of education.
  I want to just bring us up to date on where we are, at least where I 
think we are. At 1 o'clock we are going to have a vote to basically 
allow us to take up the issue of the 100,000 new teachers in the 
classroom that Senator Murray has worked so hard on, and Senator 
Kennedy and others. Certainly, the President puts this as a priority in 
his budget. Where we are now is, if we do not vote to do that, this 
bill is effectively shut down. Ed-Flex alone--and it is a good bill--
turns its back on all the other education needs my colleagues have 
discussed.
  The Senator from Vermont keeps offering an amendment on IDEA to fund 
it; and he is right, and I am ready to vote for that. Why does he block 
my chance to vote on afterschool? Why does he block my chance to vote 
on 100,000 teachers? Why does he block my chance to vote on dropouts? I 
will support him in his desire to fund IDEA. He is right on that point, 
but he is wrong to go along with the strategy which blocks us from 
voting on issues of such importance to America's families.
  I want to share a couple of charts in my remaining few minutes with 
everyone. Here you see children involved in afterschool activities. We 
want a chance to offer our afterschool amendment which would open up 
afterschool to a million children. Look at the look on the faces of 
these children. They are engaged, they are learning, they are occupied, 
and they are happy.
  Another picture. Look at these children. They are not getting into 
trouble. They are engaging with a mentor and obviously, from the look 
on their faces, are very involved in this learning game.
  What happens if we do not have these afterschool programs? You do not 
have to be a genius to know that kids get in trouble after school. Look 
at this chart. At 3 o'clock, juvenile crime spikes and it does not go 
down until late in the evening and it starts to go down at 6 when 
parents come home from work. We know that children need to be kept 
busy. That is why we have the support of law enforcement for our 
afterschool programs.
  Let me show you the law enforcement who has supported afterschool

[[Page S2469]]

programs since we began this effort. Senator Dodd has worked hard on 
this; Senator Kennedy. Again, I do not want to sound like I am the only 
one that is pushing this. We have many, many Senators on our side of 
the aisle--and we hope some on the other, although it has not been 
tested yet--who support this.
  Here are the law enforcement that have written to us: National 
Association of Police Athletic Leagues, Fight Crime, Invest in Kids, 
National Sheriffs Association, Major Cities Police Chiefs, Police 
Executive Research Forum, National District Attorneys Association, 
California District Attorneys Association, Illinois Association of 
Chiefs of Police, Texas Police Chiefs Association, Arizona Sheriffs and 
Prosecutors Association, Maine Chiefs and Sheriffs Association, Rhode 
Island Police Chiefs Association.

  That is an example of law enforcement that supports afterschool 
programs.
  We just got a letter from the Police Athletic League in which they 
talk about the importance of adding an amendment such as the Boxer 
amendment which, in essence, says that law enforcement participation in 
afterschool programs is important. We mention law enforcement in our 
bill over and over again.
  A quote from the PAL letter:

       After-school youth development programs like those proposed 
     in your amendment have been shown to cut juvenile crime 
     immediately, sometimes by 40-75 percent.

  That is a quote from a letter to me.
  I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who often talk 
about law and order and the importance of going after criminals--and I 
share their concern--this is one thing we can do to stop crime after 
school.
  I close with this statistic: 92 percent of the American people favor 
afterschool programs. Let's do it.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). Who yields time?
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  First, I want to discuss very briefly the Boxer amendment. Back in 
1993, I offered--and it was endorsed in 1994, when we were 
reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--the basic 
amendment that Senator Boxer is talking about. We called it the 21st 
Century Schools at the time, though it was only minutely funded.
  This past year, the President decided that was a good program. He put 
$200 million into the program and I deeply appreciate this 
acknowledgment that it was a good program. Thus, we are talking about 
something which I agree with and that Congress did back in 1994. The 
time to review it, however, is when we're reviewing the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act, which has already begun with hearings and will 
continue.
  So the concept is one that is acknowledged by everyone as being 
important. The need for remedial education has increased dramatically, 
and the way that can be addressed is through afterschool programs. When 
we get to this issue later in the year, at the proper time, I will be 
endorsing the concept and welcoming amendments from either side to make 
the initiative more consistent with the current needs.
  I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Washington.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized for 
10 minutes.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I believe it appropriate to step back one 
or two steps from the debate over educational flexibility legislation 
and the 100,000 teachers proposal which is in front of us and look at 
the general philosophy of Federal education and the profound 
differences between the two sides.
  Perhaps the best place in which to determine the attitude of the 
Clinton administration and its supporters here in Congress with respect 
to the Federal role in education is the budget of the United States 
submitted by the President approximately 1 month ago.
  For a number of years, there has been one relatively modest program 
of unrestricted aid to school districts across the United States of 
America. It is called title VI, for innovative program strategies, the 
least rule-infested, the least bureaucracy-influenced of all of the 
forms of Federal aid to education. For the present year, 1999, it 
amounts to $375 million, a very modest amount of Federal aid to 
education.
  In the budget of the President of the United States for the year 
2000, it has zero dollars. It is simply wiped out. In its place are 
nine new specific Federal programs, many of which have been discussed 
by Democratic Members of this Senate, totaling almost $250 million, 
every one of which is aimed at a precise goal, every one of which says 
we in Washington, DC, know which school districts across the United 
States know better than do the parents, teachers, and school board 
members in those individual communities, and we are going to give you 
money with strings and rules attached.
  Now, there is another Federal program which gives money to certain 
school districts that they can use for any educational purpose. It is 
called impact aid, and it goes to school districts which encompass 
Federal military reservations or other large Federal presences or in 
which there are many students who come from such grounds where property 
taxes are not collected as the basic support for public schools. The 
money that comes to those school districts can be spent in the way 
those school districts deem most effective for the education of their 
kids.
  Impact aid in this budget from the President is cut by $128 million--
just slightly less than the $200 million earmarked almost solely for 
new teachers that is the subject of the debate right here right now. In 
other words, let's stop allowing these school districts to determine 
their own educational priorities and we will tell them what their 
priorities are here.
  Interestingly enough, the total of each of these disfavored programs 
is almost identical to the amount of money in the new, more categorical 
aid programs that the President has come up with.
  Dwarfing that, Mr. President, is the lack of support for special 
education for IDEA. The President disguises that lack of support by 
roughly the same number of dollars nominally for the year 2000 as he 
has for the year 1999. But almost $2 billion of that is the funding 
that will not go to the schools until October 1 of the year 2000. In 
other words, it won't be charged against any deficit in the general 
fund in the year 2000 itself, it will be forwarded to the year 2001. It 
will be a bill for the people of the United States to pay, a hidden 
bill.
  Now, that is balanced off by several billion worth of school 
construction bonds, the full cost of which to the Federal Government is 
only $150 million in the year 2000 but will be billions by the time we 
are all finished.
  Finally, there are a number of present programs--all categorical 
programs--in the budget which are increased about $750 million, but the 
pattern is overwhelming. This administration will cut or eliminate 
those programs in which the school districts have plenary authority to 
make choices in which teachers, parents, principals, and school board 
members set educational priorities. In every case--including the 
teachers amendments we are talking about here--the judgment by this 
administration and by those who support it is a very simple one: Local 
school boards, even State authorities, don't know how to spend their 
education money and we have to tell them how to do it.
  So this particular debate over one or two of these particular new 
programs--always aimed at valid goals, of course --really is a disguise 
for the statement that more and more control should be transferred from 
local school boards, from local entities, and even from the States, to 
the Department of Education and Washington, DC, and to all of the great 
educational experts here in the U.S. Senate who know how to run all 
17,000 school districts in the United States as a whole.
  The Senator from Vermont has a perfect alternative, it seems to me, 
to this proposition. That is, at the very least, let school districts 
determine whether they want to spend the money on this narrow teachers 
program or whether they want to cover the obligations we have already 
undertaken in the Disability Education Program, the special needs 
students, where just 2 years ago we passed, and the President signed, a 
bill stating that we would support 40 percent of the cost of that 
special education. We are at about 9 percent right

[[Page S2470]]

now. And when you take out the phony $1.9 billion, which won't even be 
charged against the 2000 budget, it will drop to about 6 percent. Why? 
In order to come up with all of these fine-sounding new programs in 
which the Federal Government tells each school district exactly how it 
should operate.

  The choice, Mr. President, is a dramatic choice. The choice is 
whether or not we will follow the course of this administration and 
reduce substantially the amount of money we allow school districts to 
determine the goals for themselves, or tell them more and more what 
they should do for themselves.
  Mr. President, that simply is not the right direction in which to go, 
and the increasing categorization of schools should be reversed. We 
should at least give the flexibility the Senator from Vermont has asked 
for in the spending of new money--money above and beyond the amount of 
money that we are devoting to education at the present time. I commend 
his arguments to my colleagues and hope we will act accordingly.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, first, let me review for a little bit 
where we are. As the Senator from Washington pointed out, we have on 
the floor, an alternative to what would be provided in the Murray 
amendment. Schools would be able to have some flexibility on the 
expenditure of money that intended for schools, if they want, to add 
more teachers--the new teachers are in the President's new 100,000 
teachers program.
  First, I will point out some of the problems with the President's 
program as it is presently drafted. The guidelines have just come out 
on it, and they still don't seem to cure this problem. I was on a 
national press hookup this morning, and at least two States who were on 
that hookup--Wyoming and North Dakota--have already reached the goal of 
18 children per classroom. They would not, under the current 
guidelines, be able to use the money for what they want to use it, 
professional development. Vermont is in that same category. The 100,000 
new teachers program would affect states differently, and some states 
would not benefit at all from. Those are just two problems with it.
  That is why we have the option I suggested, which is in amendment 
form. We will have a chance to vote on it. It would say that you would 
have the option of using these funds--which will be substantial; in 
many cases, $1.2 billion is involved--toward reaching the commitment we 
made back in 1975 and 1976, to provide 40 percent of the funding for 
special education. We are down to less than 10 percent at this point.
  The chart behind me shows that very well. The orange in that chart is 
what we should be paying to the schools across the Nation for special 
education assistance, and we are not. In addition to that, a recent 
Supreme Court decision has said that schools must not only take care of 
the educational aspects, but they must also take care of the medical 
aspects of a child who needs medical assistance in the schoolhouse. 
That is going to add hundreds of millions of dollars more in special 
education costs, I would guess, in the years ahead, and probably even 
this year.
  To refresh people's memory, the agreement on the $1.2 billion, 
100,000 teacher proposal happened in the wee hours of final passage of 
the bill, and I was not present. If I had been present, I certainly 
would have fought at that time what they did in the language of it. 
What we are trying to do is make sure the communities would have the 
option of using that money to defer some of their cost of special 
education, and then have other funds freed up to provide the kinds of 
changes or money expenditures they need.
  The amendment proposed by Senator Lott yesterday offers what I have 
been talking about. I believe it would be a good middle ground between 
those of us who are urging that we live up to our promises with respect 
to IDEA funding, and those who think we should undertake a massive new 
effort to hire teachers for local schools. The Lott amendment 
essentially permits local school officials to decide whether they need 
more money to educate children with disabilities, or whether they need 
to hire additional teachers. From what I am hearing from Vermont 
teachers, IDEA funding is the first, second, and third issue raised 
with me about education when I visit the State.

  We are fortunate in Vermont to have already achieved the small class 
sizes the President is trying to promote with his teacher hiring 
program. Reducing class size further is not a priority at this time. 
Meeting the needs of children with disabilities is. This is what is 
hampering our local schools from doing the things they need to do. We 
would like very much to see the flexibility include such things--which 
are a priority--as the ability of our teachers to be given additional 
training so they can perform better in the classroom.
  I realize that some localities in other areas may hold a different 
view. They could use their portion of $1.2 billion to hire teachers. 
The point is that it should be their choice, not ours. In listening to 
the debate over the past several days, one might get the impression 
that hiring more teachers is the silver bullet. Clearly, that is not 
the case. What is missing in the discussion is the quality of the 
teacher in the classroom. I think it is common sense that the most 
important aspect of teaching is to have a teacher that is a good 
teacher. The classroom size can go down to 10, but if the teacher is a 
lousy teacher, you are not going to have much quality education. On the 
other hand, if you have a qualified teacher, whether the class size is 
18 or 20 or 23, you will have quality education. The size is not going 
to make much difference. When I was growing up, our average class size 
was about 30, and I had good teachers. The biggest problem is making 
sure that we have professionally qualified teachers.
  In the last Congress, during the process of the reauthorization of 
the Higher Education Act, there was a great deal of concern about the 
quality of our teachers and the effectiveness of the various programs 
that existed to address these concerns. We thought that the programs 
that had never been utilized, or were not effective, could be changed 
to take care of what is the primary need of the Nation. This need is 
the need for fully qualified teachers--not only qualified in teaching, 
but in knowing what the standards are that have to be met. They must 
know how we can move kids into a situation where they have the math 
standards essential to perform in the international markets, and where 
the young people graduate from high school ready for jobs that pay $10, 
$15 an hour. We don't have that kind of thing in most areas of the 
country.
  In hearings on that subject, I believe every member of our committee 
expressed grave concerns that the quality of teaching was not at the 
levels to ensure that our students meet educational goals. As part of 
the higher education bill, we included an entire title devoted to 
teacher quality. And because we were dealing with higher education, we 
focused largely on the training of future teachers. I believe we 
developed a very positive and comprehensive approach for dealing with 
that issue.
  Another issue along those lines that we have to look at, is what we 
can do in the higher education areas to make sure the colleges and the 
universities that have teacher colleges understand the changes that are 
necessary to ensure that when they graduate people from the education 
departments, they are qualified teachers.
  I have examined many, many of the programs for teacher scholarships 
that are in existence and have found that they are missing a lot of 
important information for young people who are graduating. These 
graduates will be our teachers for the next century, and they really 
don't have the kind of education they should have to graduate and be a 
good teacher, a professional teacher, one who is qualified to go into 
the classroom. We have a lot to do in that regard. The money would be 
much better spent there, than it would be spent on classroom size. The 
place to do that, however, is in the context of the elementary and 
secondary education authorization, not piecemeal as we are doing now on 
the Senate floor.
  Until we get a better handle on the teacher quality issue, we are 
making a big mistake by sending local officials out to look for more 
teachers. Where are they going to come from? Are they

[[Page S2471]]

going to be good teachers? And, are they going to have a classroom? If 
you have 100,000 new teachers, where are they going to teach? That is a 
question that has not been answered. If you suddenly reduce the class 
sizes, you have to have someplace to put the students who are pushed 
out of the existing classrooms. You have to have classrooms to put them 
in.
  On Monday, it was suggested that the first question a parent asks of 
his or her child is, Who was in your class? I would suggest that the 
first question is, Who is teaching your class? If a locality has a 
plentiful supply of unemployed quality teachers and lacks only the 
funds to hire them, that locality will find the Class Size Reduction 
Program to be beneficial. If that is not the case, those funds will be 
put to much better use by supporting existing efforts to educate 
special education students.
  If, in the context of the ESEA reauthorization, we determine that 
helping to hire teachers is an important component of the overall 
approach to supporting teaching, then we can do that. I hope, if we do 
that, that we proceed in a thoughtful way to work through the real 
needs of schools and students. The 100,000 teacher program does not now 
adequately address the differences in needs of local schools around the 
country. Some schools may need more professionals while others need 
more professional development. I would say it is much more of the 
latter than the former.
  In the meantime, let's take Senator Lott's suggestion to allow 
schools to choose how they spend these funds made available for fiscal 
year 1999, the $1.2 billion. It is not too late to make this option 
available. Guidance on teacher hiring programs has been available for 
less than a week, and funds will not be provided until July.
  Mr. President, let me again go over the basic problem we have here.
  First, we had a wonderful bipartisan relationship last year. It 
really makes me sad to think that has broken down on the first 
education bill we have taken up this year. Last year we passed 10 good, 
sound, education bills out of my committee. They are now in operation, 
and we are looking toward improvement, even though we still have the 
appropriations fight to go through this year. But, we worked in a way, 
last year, that benefited all of us. We shared our ideas and worked 
them out in the committee.
  This year, this Ed-Flex bill was voted out of committee 10-to-1. The 
Democrats chose not to be present when it was voted out, and that is 
fine, because there didn't seem to be any conflict in it. It was 
basically the same bill we had voted out of committee 17 to 1 last 
year. So I thought, fine, that is all right; they have other things to 
do.
  But now this has turned into what is basically, I think, a political 
demonstration project to get political advantage by proposing various 
amendments to this bill. These amendments should be taken care of not 
on the Senate floor right now, but through the normal committee 
process, during the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, which we are already in the process of holding hearings 
on. We must examine each one of the programs that have been addressed. 
They should not be placed on this Ed-Flex bill and bypass the committee 
process.

  Certainly we have to worry about the issue after school programs. 
That is an incredibly important issue. The proposal in the amendment of 
the Senator from California, is a program that I put into the 1994 
reauthorization of ESEA. Perhaps the program needs to be modified--
although it is a pretty good program right now--to take care of the 
changing demands upon our educational system. However, that should be 
done during the reauthorization of ESEA, and there shouldn't be much 
controversy over it. The President has already endorsed it and has 
added funds to it, making it a substantially better program as far as 
funding goes. And through the reauthorization of ESEA, we will just 
improve it to make sure it is better as far as handling our young 
people. The others are also all worth taking a look at.
  I certainly agree that we have to end ``social promotion.'' That is a 
term that has just recently come into use. Let me explain a little bit 
about where that term came from.
  Literacy studies have shown that 51 percent of the young people we 
graduate from our high schools are functionally illiterate. That is a 
disaster. You ask any businessman. A potential employee says, ``Why 
don't you want to look at my diploma?'' The businessman says, ``It 
doesn't mean anything. I don't even know if you can do ordinary math or 
reading.'' So that is the social promotion that we have to end. We have 
to make sure that every child who graduates from high school meets 
certain standards or they don't get a diploma. That makes common sense.
  There are other amendments being offered which also ought to be 
considered, but they ought to be considered in the normal committee 
process, not just for purposes of politics, or whatever else.
  I am, though, encouraged to learn from the leadership that we have, 
apparently come to an agreement, which will be expressed in the not-
too-distant future. This will give us the opportunity to get on with 
the educational situation by passing the basic bill, the Ed-Flex bill. 
And we may agree on some amendments to be offered, and we will vote on 
those.
  So I am hopeful that before the afternoon is finished we will have 
the opportunity to move forward on this bill, and then get back to 
discussing education in the committee room, within the context of the 
ESEA reauthorization, where we should be, instead of on the Senate 
floor.
  Mr. President, I am now going to read a message from the leader, if 
that is all right.
  For the information of all Senators, negotiations are ongoing, and we 
are very close to an agreement with respect to the overall Education-
Flexibility bill. Having said that, the agreement would be vitiated on 
the scheduled cloture vote. But that agreement has not been fully 
cleared by all interested parties. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent, 
on behalf of the leader, that the pending vote scheduled to occur at 1 
p.m. be postponed until 1:30 p.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I then will continue to go forward and 
hope that maybe we are coming to an end. It s not that I don't like 
being on the Senate floor continuously day after day, starting in the 
morning and ending at night, but there are other things on my own 
schedule that sometimes suffer. Hopefully, we can reach agreement. 
Again, the status of our educational system is what we are talking 
about here generally. Hopefully, with this agreement, we will get back 
to an orderly process to examine the needs of this Nation.
  Let me reflect again, as I have before, upon the status of education 
in this country and why we are concerned about it.
  Back in 1983, under the Reagan administration, Secretary Bell at that 
time did an examination of our educational system and compared it with 
our international competitors. He took a look at where we stood with 
respect to our young people graduating from high school, and also those 
graduating from skilled training schools, and determined that we were 
way, way behind our international competitors--the Asian and European 
communities. In fact, the commission that was set up to do the 
examination was so disturbed that they issued this proclamation. To 
paraphrase, they said, if a foreign nation had imposed upon us the 
educational system that we had at that time we would have declared it 
an act of war. Well, we still have that education system. You would 
think that a tremendous change would have occurred, but it hasn't.
  I am on the goals panel, and we meet once a year to determine whether 
or not our schools have improved.
  Most recently, we took a look at the situation last year to see what 
had happened to improve our educational prowess and standards relative 
to the rest of the world. What we determined was there has been no 
measurable improvement since 1983. That was 15 years ago. We have not 
improved. That cannot continue, and that is why we are here today and 
will be working on this as we move forward.
  As shocking as that revelation was, we found that the only data we 
had to measure whether there had been improvement was 1994 data. We do 
not

[[Page S2472]]

even have a system which will provide us with current data to show us 
whether we have any improvement or not. That is a terrible situation. 
We cannot even measure our performance to determine whether or not we 
have had any improvement.
  Hopefully, as we move forward, that situation will be taken care of 
in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. A primary focus of what 
I will be doing this year, in order to address the situation, is to 
thoroughly review the Department of Education. Mr. President, $15 
billion is spent on elementary and secondary education, and it seems to 
me that one of the primary focuses of the Department of Education 
should be to find out whether we are improving. Does this program or 
that program work or not? Are the young people are influenced by this 
or not? Yet, with $15 billion, we have not been able to determine 
whether or not anything is happening.
  We have important changes to make in the Department of Education. We 
have to take a look at where our priorities are and take a look at 
where the $260 million is spent on research. I am frustrated as 
chairman of the committee to think at this point in time that we are 
spending all this money and we do not know whether the programs we have 
been using work or not. If we can't find out with $260 million whether 
our educational system is improving, we better take a good look at our 
research programs. That is one thing we will be looking at on the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
  It is certainly going to be an interesting year, and I am hopeful 
that in the next 25 minutes we will find that there has been an 
agreement that will allow us to go forward in an orderly process.
  Now, back to our educational system and the problems we have with it. 
To refresh the memories of Members as to what this means to our future, 
we have had terrible problems with finding young people with the skills 
necessary for this Nation to compete in the world.
  In fact, we are so short that we have somewhere around 500,000 jobs 
out there available that are not being filled. Actually, that is down 
somewhat, I should say. We made a significantly downward push. But why? 
How? By changing the immigration laws to bring in more people from 
foreign nations who have the skills to come in and help our businesses 
compete.
  That is not the way it should be happening. We should not be looking 
toward amending immigration laws to supply our businesses with the 
skilled workers they need to meet the demands of the present-day jobs. 
This is another area that is of deep concern to me.
  Several years ago, we set up a skills panel to establish standards to 
measure whether we were meeting the goals of our industry. I do not 
know how long ago that was, but it has been many years. We have yet to 
establish even one standard. Obviously, we have a long way to go if we 
are going to meet the needs of our businesses.
  The first thing we have to do--and I know the President endorses this 
also--is make sure that every student who graduates from high school is 
functionally literate and not functionally illiterate, as the studies 
show, and that is a big charge.
  We do have some things that are good news, though. Although, 
unfortunately, there is usually bad news connected with that good news. 
The good news is, we have all sorts of technology which has been 
developed over the years with various programs. The bad news is that 
these programs started to become available in the midseventies, and we 
are not yet in a position to determine how they could be better 
utilized in our school systems.

  You can also utilize software in your home computer where you can 
learn simple elementary math, algebra, and calculus by yourself if you 
want to. All of these things have been available for over 20 years, but 
they are not readily available, nor are they in any way coordinated in 
their use in our school systems.
  My own kids have caught up on matters by having it available to them 
individually. However, there is no coordination nor evaluation 
connected to the utilization of that technology in assisting young 
people who are having a difficult time or want to go ahead of their 
class in understanding calculus or other high standards of math, there 
is no coordination nor evaluation.
  I was at a conference recently in Florida where the technology people 
came in, and I was able to talk with them. There are wonderful programs 
out there, but there is no evaluation system, not even in the industry 
itself, to determine what works and what does not work. We have all of 
these wonderful programs--AT&T has a good one and many companies do--
and they are available, but there is no assessment of them. There is no 
evaluation of whether, one, an individual benefits from it; or, two, 
whether it can be used on a broad basis or how to fit it into the 
classroom to make sure the young people will be able to take advantage 
of this technology.
  That is another thing we have to look at with the ESEA 
reauthorization: First, how can we set up a situation where we can 
evaluate these programs? And second, how can we make sure that, in the 
afterschool area, we have programs available that will allow our young 
people to catch up and move ahead?
  I see the sponsor of the bill is present on the Senate floor. I 
congratulate him for the introduction of this bill and the hard work he 
has put into it. He has helped move it forward. I am sure he shares 
with me the glimmer of hope which will burst forth with a resolution to 
this problem.
  I yield to the Senator from Tennessee such time as he may need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). The Senator from Tennessee is 
recognized.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, first, I commend the manager of the bill 
for an outstanding job. It has been now several days that we have been 
on a bill that to me is a very exciting bill, because we know, based on 
how it has been used in 12 States, that it is an effective bill, a bill 
that works, a bill that helps our children learn, a bill that unties 
the hands of our teachers and our school boards and our local schools.
  It is a bill that costs not one single cent. How many bills go 
through here that really don't cost the taxpayer anything? Yet, the 
money we spend today is spent more efficiently, more effectively, with 
more local input, with the education of our children being the goal and 
demonstrated results which, if I have time, I will review some of those 
results that we know today.
  Let me, as background, refer to a chart that is so confusing. I do 
not want my colleagues in the room to even try to look at the details 
of this chart, but let me tell you what the chart is. Basically, I 
asked the General Accounting Office, which is an objective body that 
comes in and helps us evaluate existing programs, how well are we doing 
in terms of spending education dollars and resources today and how is 
it organized.
  I have a 15-year-old, a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old. If you take a 
child, a 13-year-old, we know the objective is to educate them, prepare 
them for a job, to have a fulfilling life, to prepare them for the next 
millennium. What are the programs we are putting forth since we are 
failing them--and let me make that point clear, we are failing our 
children today, when we compare ourselves to countries all over the 
world. We are failing them. What are we doing? We have to do better.
  If we take what we are doing today for, say, young children, look 
around the outside, the outside. The target here says ``young 
children.'' This says ``at-risk and delinquent youth.'' This says 
``teachers.''

  For young children, how many programs do we have focusing on young 
children today? And the answer is: Department of Justice has two 
programs, the Department of Labor has seven programs; ACTION has one 
program; the State Justice Institute, a program; the Corporation for 
National Community Service, six; the General Services Administration 
has a program; the Department of Agriculture, coming all the way down, 
has six programs. Again, the point of this--whether you are looking at 
at-risk and delinquent youth or teachers or young children--is that we 
have numerous programs, overlapping programs that are really all well 
intentioned, many of which start in this body as another good program 
just like many of the nongermane amendments to my underlying Ed-Flex 
bill. What is happening is we have another few blocks, another few 
programs

[[Page S2473]]

to add to this chart, and that is really not what we need today. What 
we need today is to have better organization, at least initially, and 
then have the debate about where resources should come in, how these 
resources should be spent; how we can coordinate, not duplicate, not 
have overlap.
  I say that because my simple bill is a bill that basically says let's 
give our local schools and schoolteachers and school districts a little 
more flexibility to innovate, to be creative, to take into account what 
they know are the needs of their school. It might be one-on-one 
teaching. It might be smaller class size, though let me just say I was 
on the phone this morning with three Governors: ``Class size is good, 
but the ratio in my State already is 18 to 1,'' said one of the 
Governors. Another said, ``The class size in my State is 19 to 1 right 
now. We have already solved the class size problem. Our real challenge 
is to have one-on-one tutoring for grades 1, 2 and 3 so they can at 
least learn how to read early on. Give us that flexibility to meet the 
same stated goals; that is, educating maybe a group of economically 
disadvantaged children--educating them but taking into consideration 
what my teachers say, what my parents say, what my principals say, what 
my school district says, and don't you, up in Washington, tell me how 
to use those resources because that is not what I need.''
  The point is, you can use them for what you want as long as you meet 
the stated goal in statute, what we have set out to use that money for.
  Real quickly, what do we have today? I am from Tennessee. Tennessee 
is not in yellow on this map. The States that are in yellow are those 
States that have Ed-Flex today, a demonstration program started in 1994 
with 6 States, 2 years later another 6 States added so we have 12 
States. We have data from these States. I will cite some of the data 
from Texas because they have had longstanding experience with it with 
very good data. I will show you some of that data. But the Senator from 
Massachusetts, who is on the floor, feels very passionately about 
adding more programs--and that debate has to take place and should take 
place, but just not on this bill. It is currently taking place in the 
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee as we speak. There are 
hearings ongoing, looking into all elementary and secondary education 
where we are looking at all of the resources. We are looking at that 
overlap that is there. We are looking at objectives and goals. All that 
is ongoing.
  What we are saying is, yes, all of these amendments are important to 
look at, but let's concentrate on this single Ed-Flex bill, get it to 
the American people, to their benefit, today. My Ed-Flex bill simply 
takes what is existing in these 12 States and expands it to all 50 
States, paying that respect to that local school, that local school 
district, those parents and those teachers.
  The Democratic Governors' Association--it has to be confusing to the 
American people because we have a bill that is supported by every 
Governor in the United States of America. It is supported by the 
population at large, hugely supported by the population. There are 
Democratic cosponsors in this very body. It is a bipartisan bill. Ron 
Wyden of Oregon is my cosponsor and we are out front fighting for this 
bill in a clean state, yet we have this filibuster that is going on, 
where we have cloture votes, procedural votes that say we are going to 
stop this bill. I am offended for that in part because of my children, 
and in part because I feel I am responsible to the American people to 
make sure the younger generation is educated well compared to school 
districts in a State or compared to around the country or compared 
globally, where we are failing today. That is our obligation.
  It has to be confusing because we have this body filibustering a bill 
that has broad support, that the President of the United States just a 
year ago recommended. A week ago he said pass that bill. Secretary 
Riley of the Department of Education says it is right on target, it is 
a superb bill--he has endorsed that bill. That is what is difficult and 
must be confusing.
  Let me show you what the Democratic Governors' Association said in a 
letter to us on February 22:

       Democratic Governors strongly support this effort to vest 
     state officials with more control over the coordination of 
     Federal and state regulatory and statutory authority in 
     exchange for requiring more local school accountability.

  I think that is an important point because you have the issue of 
flexibility, of innovation, of creativity. But we have to have tough 
accountability built in. Why? Because when you give anybody flexibility 
and give them a little more leeway to meet those stated goals, you want 
to make sure that they are held accountable for meeting those goals and 
if they are not, taking that flexibility away. That accountability is 
built in very strongly.
  The Democratic Governors--and remember that is where the filibuster 
is coming from, it is on the Democratic side--but the Democratic 
Governors tell us ``Most important, S. 280''--and that is this bill, 
the Ed-Flex bill, the bill we are debating today--``maintains careful 
balance needed between flexibility and accountability.''
  That balance was carefully crafted. I think that is why the bill has 
so much support; 17 to 1 out of the committee. It is rare for a bill to 
come out of a committee discussion, again, bipartisan, 17 to 1 this 
past year.

       S. 280 is common-sense legislation that we believe deserves 
     immediate consideration. We hope, therefore, that you will 
     join in supporting its prompt enactment.

  I guess this prompt enactment is what we are trying to achieve, what 
we are working to achieve. Right now we have not been successful in 
working toward that prompt enactment. As I said earlier, I believe the 
House will pass this bill today. And, again, if we can pass this bill 
sometime this week we can have it on the desk of the President to the 
benefit of all Americans and not just people in those 12 States.
  The National Governors' Association--again, I spent a lot of time 
with the Governors. People say, Why, as a Federal official, are you 
working with the Governors? The answer is straightforward: Because the 
Governors traditionally have been the people responsible for looking at 
education and education programs. Right now, in terms of overall money, 
about 7 or 8 percent of the education dollars spent across the State of 
Tennessee come from the Federal Government, and it is the Governors 
that typically oversee education and have a long experience with it.
  Just very quickly, on what the Governors have said--I won't go 
through this. This is a letter of endorsement: ``Expansion of the Ed-
Flex demonstration program to all qualified states and territories.'' 
Just one sentence:

       Ed-Flex has helped states focus on improving student 
     performance by more closely aligning state and Federal 
     education improvement programs and by supporting state 
     efforts to design and implement standards-based reform.

  I think that is the overall point. We are all working together, both 
sides are working together in a bipartisan way to improve education. It 
is bicameral--the House and the Senate have bills that are moving 
forward. It is State and it is Federal and local all working together 
for this particular bill.
  Mr. WYDEN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. FRIST. I will be happy to.
  Mr. WYDEN. I appreciate the Senator yielding. It has been a great 
pleasure for me to have a chance to work with him, on a bipartisan 
basis, for this legislation, and I feel it will be very helpful if he 
can just take a minute and outline the breadth of support for this 
legislation. Because, certainly, when we began this discussion, I don't 
think most Americans could have told you anything about Ed-Flex. We 
joked most people would think this was the instructor at the Y, the new 
aerobics instructor.
  But the fact is that just a few miles from this Senate Chamber, a 
school is using Ed-Flex and the existing dollars to cut class size in 
half. That is going on today using existing dollars. Not spending one 
penny more of Federal funds, we are seeing a school close to the United 
States Capitol cut class size in half.
  If you listened to this debate--and I happen to be for the hiring of 
the additional teachers--you would get the impression that the only way 
you could cut class size in America was to spend more Federal money.
  I happen to think we do need to spend some additional dollars, which 
is why I support the Kennedy and the Murray amendments. I also share 
the

[[Page S2474]]

view of the Senator from Tennessee that we can cut class size now, 
using existing dollars.
  I think it would be very helpful, given the fact that we are so close 
now to the agreement--I really commend the minority leader, Senator 
Daschle, and the majority leader, Senator Lott, because they have 
gotten us right to the brink of having an agreement so we can go 
forward with this legislation--if my friend and colleague could just 
outline for the Senate the breadth of support for this legislation. I 
appreciate him yielding to me for this time.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if the Senator would yield, we have a 
half-hour debate on this from 1 to 1:30. We have now used up 20 
minutes. I want to make some brief comments. Obviously, I want the 
Senator to conclude. We did not divide that time officially, but I hope 
at least we will have some part of that half hour to make our points, 
too.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, if I could just finish in 1 minute, 2 
minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is very generous, if we get 5 or 6 minutes 
at the end, that would be fine.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, let me make it clear, when I came to the 
floor there was nobody from the other side here, so that is one of the 
reasons I wanted to go ahead and use this opportunity to lay out where 
we are today.
  Let me take one more minute or so, because this accountability/
flexibility is very important. The broad support that my colleague and, 
really, cosponsor of the bill, Senator Wyden, has referred to is this 
broad support that we feel when we go back to our town meetings and we 
talk to people. The broad support starts at the level of those parents, 
people in the schools, the teachers, the educational establishment, who 
have said--and I have shown this on the board--this is a step in the 
right direction, up through the Governors and their strong bipartisan 
support. The difference in how we get there is, I think, where the 
debate is. That is what I am hopeful we can reach, working together 
with some sort of agreement.
  I again want to thank my colleague, Senator Wyden, because this bill 
came out of us working together in a task force, listening to the 
American people as we go forward.
  Let me just close and basically show again, without going into the 
details, that we have some demonstrated results from Ed-Flex and how 
beneficial it can be. That is why we feel so passionately about getting 
this bill through.
  This is from Texas statewide results. The categories: African 
American students did twice as well when they were in an Ed-Flex 
program. Hispanic students in Texas did twice as well in an Ed-Flex 
program. The economically disadvantaged students improved 7 percent 
versus 16 percent, again, in an Ed-Flex program.
  This essence of accountability and flexibility is part of this bill. 
I plead with my colleagues to pull back this inordinate number, 
excessive number, of nongermane amendments so we can pass this bill.
  I yield the floor.
  Senator KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we are in the process of trying to work 
through some kind of arrangement where we can address a reasonable 
number of amendments, on both sides. I do not want to characterize how 
close we are to it, but we are moving towards a vote at 1:30. It is 
really a question of whether the leadership and the other Members are 
inclined to do so.
  On the one hand, I find it quite objectionable to have to get into a 
situation where those in the minority are going to have to go hat in 
hand to the majority and say: Look, we are going to be limited to these 
number of amendments in order to get our amendments considered. The 
rules of the Senate permit us to offer amendments until there is a 
determination by 60 Members of this body to terminate or close off 
debate. Then there is also an opportunity for follow-on amendments, if 
they are germane.
  We are in a situation, nonetheless, where there are some negotiations 
being worked out and being addressed. We are inviting Members on both 
sides to give their reactions on it. It is a process which is done here 
in this body, and we will see what the outcome is.
  Barring that, we will be moving towards the vote on cloture on the 
Murray amendment, which we have talked about during these past days. It 
is a very simple amendment. It is a continued authorization for the 
next 6 years on class size for the earliest grades, K through 3. We 
had, as I mentioned earlier in the day, made an agreement which had 
broad bipartisan support. I read into the Record the very strong 
support for that measure when we worked it out just a few months ago, 
when the Republican majority leader, Dick Armey, said:

       We were very pleased to receive the President's request for 
     more teachers, especially since he offered to provide a way 
     to pay for them. . . . We were very excited to move forward 
     on that.

  This is the Republican majority leader in the House of 
Representatives. We also have included statements where the Republican 
chairman of the House committee, Mr. Goodling, stated similar kinds of 
expressions of favorable consideration.
  Now we are faced without the opportunity to consider this amendment. 
That is basically unacceptable, Mr. President--particularly when 
communities across this country have to submit their budgets, which 
includes the hiring of teachers for this coming September, in only a 
few weeks. If schools want to take advantage of this year's teachers 
and the follow-on teachers, they have to be able to make a judgment. 
Schools, communities and school boards are all inquiring about this 
funding--the school boards in particular. They are in such strong 
support of this funding--the school board associations, the parents 
associations, the principals associations, the teachers associations. 
They want a degree of certainty--what rules do they have to play by. 
That is why this legislation is so important.
  The GAO report states that when they asked local directors and 
principals and superintendents of schools what were the three things 
that they wanted most, they said: First, additional funding--no 
surprise. Secondly, they said, tell us about additional programs that 
can benefit the children. Thirdly, we want information on how to run 
the school. That is in the GAO report, not, ``No. 1, we just want the 
Ed-Flex.''
  We are for Ed-Flex. I want to see accountability, and we have made 
some progress. The House is dealing with that issue this afternoon--
they took some language and, I think, made some important progress in 
terms of accountability. The fact is, Mr. President, that the No. 1 
issue on school boards all across this country is plain and simple: Are 
we going to move ahead and give the kind of continued authorization for 
this legislation so we can get smaller class size for the next 3 years, 
or aren't we?
  At 1:30, we have the chance to vote on that issue here in the U.S. 
Senate. We can vote in favor of cloture, which effectively ties that 
particular provision into the legislation--it can still be modified, if 
the amendments are germane. Then we take the next step to go to the 
conference. That is what is really before us and why this vote is of 
particular importance and significance.
  I see 1:30 has arrived--my friend and colleague from Tennessee is on 
his feet. We will either vote, which I am glad to do, or accede to the 
majority leader, if he has a request.
  Mr. FRIST addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
  Mr. FRIST. We are close. Mr. President, we are very, very close. That 
makes me feel good, if we can come to an agreement. But in light of 
those negotiations, with respect to the Ed-Flex bill, and the fact that 
we are as close as we are, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture 
vote scheduled to occur at 1:30 be postponed until 2 p.m. today.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to, 
could we have the time divided to both sides?
  Mr. FRIST. And the time divided as part of the unanimous consent 
request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I see other Senators. We had several who wanted to 
speak.
  Mr. FRIST. I will defer.
  Mr. KENNEDY. If you want to proceed first, I will check with my 
colleagues.

[[Page S2475]]

  Mr. FRIST. I yield such time as is necessary to my colleague from 
Kansas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I thank my colleagues, Senator Frist and Senator Jeffords, and 
others, for the important work they have done on this piece of 
legislation. I think this is a marvelous piece of legislation.
  In my time in the Senate, which has not been long, I cannot recall 
seeing a piece of legislation that has been supported by all 50 
Governors. All 50 of them are supporting Ed-Flex. It seems like, to me, 
it is one of those provisions in bills that comes forward where people 
say, ``This is the right time, right place, right idea. Let's do it.''
  It is time we should move forward with this bill. It passed in 
committee 10-0. It passed last year out of committee 17-1. This ought 
to be something on which we could agree.
  I would just like to make a couple of points. My State is an Ed-Flex 
State. Kansas is an Ed-Flex State. We have had a number of school 
districts that have asked for and received the authority and the 
flexibility. This started down the same path that welfare reform did 
early on, when you finally had some States saying, ``Look, the 
situation has gotten bad enough. You have so many Federal strings and 
redtape on it that we can do a better job here if you'll just give us a 
little breathing room. Just let us have a little bit of help here, not 
telling us what to do and letting us decide.''
  That is what started welfare reform; you had some States starting to 
do that and asking for little provisions: ``Let us take this into our 
own hands and we'll do a better job.'' And you know what? They did do a 
better job. They did do a better job, and they were the laboratory of 
the experimentation of democracy in saying, ``Well, let's try it 
different here; different there.''
  And what has ended up taking place? We have in my State welfare 
reform today where you have had a reduction in welfare recipients of 50 
percent over the past 4 years--a 50-percent decline. And the people off 
welfare are saying, ``Thank goodness I'm working,'' and ``I feel better 
about myself.'' And I feel better about this program. This has worked. 
We are seeking to replicate that in education by saying, ``Let the 
flowers bloom in the States across the Nation.''
  The principle behind Ed-Flex is simple. You have heard about it. It 
allows local schools to implement creative programs that are custom 
tailored to the needs of their kids, enables State education agencies 
to waive State requirements, along with Federal mandates, so that local 
schools can innovate effectively.
  Listen to what we are doing in Kansas about these Ed-Flex programs 
that we have in our State. We have had several States where we have had 
a number of waiver requests. I think we have 43 waivers in my State 
that have been requested.
  One school district received a waiver in order to more better 
distribute title I funds to the neediest students. Leavenworth schools 
requested a waiver to provide an all-day kindergarten class and 
preschool programs to better serve the special needs of the children of 
our soldiers who are serving at Fort Leavenworth. Emporia used an Ed-
Flex waiver to implement new literacy programs and an intensive summer 
school program.
  Do those sound like good innovative ideas that are particular for a 
local school district meeting its needs? It certainly does. And that is 
what Ed-Flex is about; and that is what it is providing in my State.
  Take that and replicate that across the Nation to the 46 million 
schoolchildren in 87,000 public schools across this country. And does 
anyone really think--does anyone really think--that a one-size-fits-all 
approach would work with such incredible diverse needs, circumstances, 
situations across the country? Communities need the flexibility to 
address their unique needs, and given that opportunity they will 
educate the children better. They will do a better job than the one-
size-fits-all mandates out of Washington.

  I am surprised and dismayed that some people are filibustering this 
bill and saying: Well, we're not going to let it move forward on such a 
tried and true concept that is being tried and worked in so many 
States, that is supported by all 50 Governors, that provides for 
localized decision making on such an important decision as to how do we 
educate our children?
  We have examples in this thing that should be working, and we should 
allow this to take place. Unfortunately, some people are trying to kill 
this bill with amendments that, of all things, actually add--actually 
add--Federal mandates--which the whole point of the bill is to reduce 
Federal mandates, and a number of people are trying to add Federal 
mandates.
  Think about that. When the purpose of this is to allow schools 
flexibility in how they run their programs and spend their money, most 
of these amendments do exactly the opposite. They mandate that the 
schools spend a certain amount of money in a certain way no matter what 
their situation or their need. It just does not make sense.
  What is even stranger is that these amendments would require 
additional Federal spending on new mandates while ignoring the 
commitments we already made to children with special needs through 
programs like the IDEA. The way I see it, we should fulfill the 
promises we have made to disabled children before we create new 
entitlement.
  There are many reasons why we need Ed-Flex. I think it can create 
that innovative environment that can let our schools be as good as our 
children. Currently, our system is failing our children. What we need 
to do is get these obstructions of Federal regulations out of the way. 
We need to stop holding up the passage of these worthy initiatives and 
start doing the right thing by the American people and by our children.
  Let this bill move. Let it move forward so that we can give that 
innovative atmosphere, and we can have a system worthy of the children 
of America.
  Mr. President, I yield back the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, just to review 7% of the Federal budget 
goes to educational programs--the role of the Federal Government is 
exceedingly limited.
  So let's think for a moment what this is all about. This is a rifle 
shot program, Title I primarily. You have the Eisenhower Program, which 
is the teaching of math and science and the technology. Those together 
are maybe, $700 million nationwide, but that is a targeted program to 
the neediest children.
  Now, 90 percent of the waivers today go out of the formula providing 
the targeted help and assistance to the neediest children. That is why 
there is some caution about what is being included in the Ed-Flex. 
There have been attempts by my colleagues--Senator Wellstone and 
Senator Reid--and myself to make sure that we are going to get 
flexibility at the local community level to serve the neediest 
children, but not to do what we did 25 years ago and build swimming 
pools and buy football equipment--because the local people know best 
about how to spend the money. That is what happened 25 years ago, Mr. 
President. Many of us are not prepared to say we are going to recognize 
that as a matter of national policy.
  The most underserved children in this country need to be a part of 
our whole process in the education system. And they need additional 
kinds of help and assistance in terms of math, reading and other 
programs. We are going to have a limited amount of resources spread 
nationwide--2 to 3 cents out of every dollar locally--but it is going 
to go to the neediest children.
  It is important to understand what the debate is about. We want some 
flexibility in that local community if they are going to use these 
resources and use it more creatively to help and assist those children. 
That is where Ed-Flex makes some difference. But if you look where the 
waivers have been, they have not been, with all respect to my colleague 
from Oregon, creating smaller class size. That is not where the GAO 
report has been.
  It is moving past the formula from 50 percent to 43 percent. Under 
certain circumstances they have received the funds before and want to 
try and still carry forth the substance of the legislation because it 
is getting the most of

[[Page S2476]]

it, in terms of the neediest children for schoolwide programs.
  With all respect, that is what this debate is about. It is not a big 
sack of dough we are sending out there. The local community needs the 
additional resources and they can raise it or the States can. This is 
where the Targeted Resources Program developed some 35 years ago.
  I might say that the most important analysis of the effectiveness of 
this program has been in the last 2 weeks where we have the report on 
Title I which shows that there is measurable student improvement and 
advancement, with a series of recommendations. Part of the 
recommendations are what? The smaller class size, afterschool programs.
  We come back to a situation where we are being denied that 
opportunity to vote. We welcome the chance to see this move ahead. As I 
have mentioned and pointed out in a lead editorial today--we want a 
situation like we have in Texas where they have a described measurable 
goal; they measured the results of their investment against those 
goals, and they made progress on it. That is a very substantial and 
significant kind of improvement over what we are talking about here 
today. I kind of wonder why we are not going that way--I would like to 
see us go that way. However, that issue has been defeated in an earlier 
Wellstone amendment. We think there is still enough justification to 
provide support for this proposal.
  Let's not confuse this legislation, Ed-Flex, with doing something 
about smaller class size. We are talking about $11.4 billion--$11.4 
billion additional dollars--in local communities for smaller class 
size. There is not a nickel in this bill for smaller class size, not a 
nickel. So if we are concerned about smaller class size, the effort 
that we ought to be making here today should be in support of the 
Murray amendment. That is the one Senator Murray has advanced to the 
Senate, spoken to the Senate, pleaded with the Senate. She has been our 
leader on this issue. Hopefully, we can make some progress on this 
issue.
  I know time is moving along. I want to certainly cooperate with the 
leaders, but at some time we will have to have some evaluation.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend from Massachusetts, I heard our friend 
from Kansas saying we were trying to kill the Ed-Flex bill. Would you 
have a comment on the statement that we are trying to kill the Ed-Flex 
bill?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Senator, I support this legislation, as the author of 
the initial Ed-Flex legislation with Senator Hatfield, who deserves the 
major credit on this concept, when he came and spoke to the members of 
the Education Committee and we took that on Title I and also on the 
Goals 2000.
  But we also want to deal with smaller class size, and the Republican 
leader, Dick Armey, said only five months ago, ``We are very pleased to 
receive the President's request for more teachers, especially since he 
offered to provide a way for them. We are very excited to go forward 
with that.'' And Chairman Goodling made similar statements.
  We are now put in this situation where we are told that we cannot 
consider that, we have to just go ahead with Ed-Flex--we can't consider 
what the Republicans agreed to in a bipartisan way. I have listened to 
those who say let's put partisanship aside. We would like to put 
partisanship aside--we would like to follow on with what Dick Armey and 
Chairman Goodling said. They supported this proposal.

  It was bipartisan in October. Why was it bipartisan in October and it 
is now partisan in March?
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. Is it also true that one of the movers of the underlying 
bill has been the Senator from Oregon, Senator Wyden? Hasn't he been 
one that has been speaking out all across the country in the State of 
Oregon on the importance of Ed-Flex?
  I say to the Senator from Massachusetts, does it appear, based on 
that alone, when one of the prime movers of the Ed-Flex bill is a 
Democratic Senator from the State of Oregon, that we are trying to kill 
the bill?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Certainly not. One of our colleagues that we respect and 
admire most and has had a distinguished career not only in the Senate, 
but in the House of Representatives, and been long committed to 
education--- we certainly commend him for his constancy in terms of 
education reform.
  Mr. REID. I also say to the Senator from Massachusetts in the form of 
a question, isn't it true that each one of these amendments we have 
asked to have a hearing on, that we are being gagged on, isn't it true 
we would agree to a very, very short time limit of one-half hour on 
each amendment; isn't that true?
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is correct. Senator Daschle indicated that 
he would be willing to propose, and has proposed to the majority 
leader, a one-half-hour time limit on the various amendments. Now we 
are in our fifth day without having the opportunity to act on an 
amendment.
  This bill could have been history with votes on these various 
measures, but we are effectively denied that because the majority does 
not want to have their Members vote on a particular educational issue--
that is a new concept.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KENNEDY. How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The Senator has 4 minutes 15 
seconds.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.
  Mr. REID. Is it not true that the Senator has been to the State of 
Nevada on many occasions?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.
  Mr. REID. Isn't it true that the State of Nevada is the fastest 
growing State in the Union and Las Vegas is the fastest growing city in 
the Union?
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator knows that well.
  Mr. REID. This year, in a relatively small community of Las Vegas, we 
had to hire in one school district alone 2,000 new teachers.
  Now, we are talking about nationwide, as I understand this very 
important legislation that the Senator from Washington has pushed that 
we would hire over the years 100,000 new teachers to help places like 
Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City.
  Mr. KENNEDY. If the Senator will yield. The Las Vegas school board 
has to have their budget finalized by the first week in April. They are 
eligible for close to $4 million. That school board is meeting, I am 
sure, and looking at this debate in the Senate wondering whether they 
ought to move ahead and accept that $4 million in additional funds for 
the next year and the following year in order to provide those teachers 
in those new schools.
  The Senator from Nevada is being denied the opportunity to at least 
give assurances to his constituency as to whether the Senate will go on 
record on this.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I will.
  Mr. REID. Does the Senator think it rings hollow in the ears of the 
governing body of the Clark County school trustees that we will be able 
to debate these issues ``some later time'' with the budget facing them 
within a few days? That doesn't ring very clear in their ears--that we 
will debate this issue some other time.
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is correct. I hope we will do everything to 
certainly ensure that we will have a continuing opportunity during the 
session to consider education amendments. The fact is after this 
particular proposal we will move towards the Appropriations Committee 
or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--and there is no 
guarantee we will see that.
  So to those parents, those teachers, those school boards, this debate 
is the essential time for what will happen to that school board in Las 
Vegas, and that is in terms of class size. That is what we are 
battling. That is what this vote will be about.

  Mr. President, I withhold whatever time remains.
  Mr. FRIST. How much time does this side have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight minutes 49 seconds.
  Mr. FRIST. Has their time expired?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. They have 1 minute 17 seconds.
  Mr. FRIST. Hopefully, in a few minutes we will have word on some sort 
of final agreement as we move forward. I know we are making progress in 
terms of the negotiations. I hope we can advance this bill through the 
Senate. It is

[[Page S2477]]

very disappointing that we have all of the politics above and before an 
excellent, superb policy that has good evidence behind it.
  I want to respond to my colleague who talked about the waivers and 
the potential for abuse and money channeled to other populations. We 
have to make it clear that this is not a block grant. This isn't money 
that can be used for any purpose whatsoever. The great thing about this 
bill is the money that is being directed--that 7 percent of Federal 
dollars--still goes to the stated purpose, with the stated 
accountability guaranteed by the bill.
  This whole hypothetical that these States with waivers can take this 
money and rechannel it away from targeted goals is really absurd. If we 
look at the history, this isn't hypothetical policy. We can look back 
and see what the 12 States have done, including the great Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts. These waivers have not been abused. Regarding these 
States who have put the waivers forward, the GAO came back and told us 
in November 1998:

       The Department of Education officials told us they believe 
     the 12 current Ed-Flex States have used their waiver 
     authority carefully and judiciously.

  That is one of the rare pieces of legislation where we have a track 
record, and we can go back and even strengthen it, which is what we did 
in accountability. In the field of accountability, across the board, 
with great care, we built in accountability at the local level, the 
State level, and the Federal level. This tier approach on this chart--
at the bottom is the local level--outlines what we put into this bill 
to guarantee that the waivers are not abused in any way, and those 
goals are achieved at the State level and at the Federal level. I know 
we just have a few minutes.
  I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Maine.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the sponsor of this bill. I am 
pleased to be an original cosponsor.
  Mr. President, let's get on with the task before us. The Educational 
Flexibility Partnership Act is a straightforward bill. It is a 
bipartisan proposal. It has been endorsed by the Governors of all 50 
States. It will make a positive difference in the lives of students 
throughout this Nation. It will give to every State the flexibility 
that 12 States have had for the past 5 years--flexibility that will 
allow our States and our local schools to pursue innovative efforts to 
improve K-through-12 education. We should invoke cloture and take this 
important step toward improving our schools.
  In support of the need for this legislation, let me cite one example 
from my home State of Maine. Maine is one of the 38 States that are 
currently not eligible for Ed-Flex waivers. When Maine examined its 
educational system several years ago, the State found out that its 
schools had made significant progress in improving the achievement of 
Maine's students in K through 8. But in Maine, as in most of America, 
student achievement in secondary schools lagged far behind. Maine's 
schools simply were not sustaining the progress of the early years all 
the way until graduation. To the Maine commissioner of education, to 
local school boards, and to teachers and parents throughout the State, 
the need for change was clear. Maine needed to focus its efforts on 
improving secondary education; therefore, the commissioner of education 
applied to the Federal Secretary of Education for waivers from Federal 
requirements in order to use Federal education funding to address the 
true needs facing our State.

  Unfortunately, Mr. President, the Federal Department of Education did 
not share the conclusions of Maine's local educators; it resisted 
Maine's request for a waiver.
  Eventually, the waivers were indeed granted, but only after a lengthy 
battle between Maine and the Washington education bureaucracy. Time, 
effort, resources, and money were needlessly wasted. This should not 
have occurred. Passing the Education Flexibility Partnership Act will 
prevent other States from enduring the same frustration and delay that 
Maine experienced. It will allow us to use education dollars to address 
real needs and not the priorities set in Washington, DC.
  I thank the Chair and the sponsor of the bill.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I see one of the cosponsors of the 
legislation here. Since we will have a vote momentarily, I wanted to 
make a statement and then propound a unanimous consent request that 
will help facilitate passage of this bill.
  My colleagues, can't we even do education flexibility--this 
bipartisan bill that everybody is for? I don't direct this at the 
Democratic leader; he is working with me and we are trying to find a 
reasonable solution. But it seems to escape us. I just think it is a 
legitimate question. Why can't we find a way to agree to education 
flexibility, to give this opportunity to States other than the 12 that 
already have it and do what is best for education at the local level? 
That is why I brought it up, because I thought it was broadly supported 
and we could do it quickly.
  If we can't get an agreement, we will keep working on it, debating 
it. But it is going to affect the rest of our schedule. It is our 
intent when we complete the education bill to go to missile defense, 
and then, if there is time, to do the supplemental, keeping in mind 
that the week after next, the whole week would be spent on the budget 
resolution. So I am concerned about our ability to come to an 
agreement. I thought we had a legitimate one worked out, and I want to 
propound that request, hoping that maybe it can still be agreed to.


                       UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture 
vote scheduled to occur at 2 o'clock today be vitiated and that the 
cloture vote scheduled for Thursday be vitiated.
  I further ask that all amendments pending to S. 280 other than the 
Jeffords substitute be withdrawn and Senator Lott be recognized to 
offer an amendment relative to the Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act/choice and the amendments immediately be laid aside.
  I further ask that Senator Kennedy be recognized to offer an 
amendment relative to class size and that amendment be laid aside.

  I ask unanimous consent that Senator Lott, or his designee, have a 
chance to offer an amendment relative to the special education 
amendment, and it be immediately laid aside.
  I ask consent that Senator Bingaman be recognized to offer his 
amendment relative to dropout programs and it be laid aside.
  I further ask that I or my designee be allowed to offer another 
amendment relative to special education, IDEA, and that it be laid 
aside, and that Senator Boxer be recognized to offer an amendment 
relative to afterschool programs and that it be laid aside.
  I further ask that I or my designee be allowed to offer another 
amendment dealing with special education and that it be laid aside for 
a Feinstein amendment relative to social promotion, and that there be 5 
hours equally divided in the usual form for debate on the eight first-
degree amendments, and no additional amendments or motions be in order 
to S. 280, other than the motions to table.
  I emphasize that we are saying, basically, we have amendments by 
Senators Kennedy, Bingaman, Boxer, Feinstein, with amendments on this 
side of the aisle to match each one of those, and that we would have 
debate only, limited to 5 hours of debate, and so we would have an 
opportunity to debate and vote on those issues.
  Then I ask that at the conclusion of yielding back of that time, the 
Senate proceed to vote on or in relation to the eight pending first-
degree amendments in the order in which they were offered, with the 
first vote limited to 15 minutes and all others after that be limited 
to 10 minutes, and there be 5 minutes between each vote for 
explanation.
  Finally, I ask unanimous consent that following those votes, the bill 
be advanced to third reading and passage occur, all without any 
intervening action or debate.
  So, we could have these issues all debated, eight amendments, then go 
to final passage, and we could complete it at a reasonable time 
tomorrow and move on to the next issue.
  I think this is a very fair approach. So I ask unanimous consent it 
be agreed to.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.

[[Page S2478]]

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). The minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for making 
the offer that he has. He and I have been in discussions throughout the 
morning trying to find a way with which to resolve this impasse. I 
appreciate very much his willingness to have the up-or-down votes that 
we now have wanted for some time.
  We have 20 amendments that Senators want to offer. For the life of 
me, I don't understand. We had over 20 amendments offered, voted on, 
considered, and disposed of on the military bill a couple of weeks ago, 
and we resolved that bill within 3 or 4 days. We could have easily done 
that by now.
  I have offered to the majority leader the agreement that he has just 
articulated, with one minor change. We keep the time. We go to the time 
certain that the majority leader suggested in his unanimous consent 
request. But we would also accommodate four other amendments: Two 
offered by Senator Wellstone, an amendment offered by the Senator from 
Rhode Island, and the amendment offered by the Senator from North 
Dakota--all related to Ed-Flex, directly related to Ed-Flex, with the 
exception of Senator Dorgan's report card amendment. Those four 
amendments would not require any additional time beyond the 5 hours; 
that is, we divide up the time allotted to us in whatever amount is 
required for each amendment. But we would accommodate at least those 
three Senators who have waited patiently now for over a week to offer 
their amendments.
  So I hope the majority leader can modify his request with that simple 
outstanding caveat, that one additional change: No additional time, one 
additional change to accommodate three Senators who have waited 
patiently and who want to resolve this matter. I hope the majority 
leader will modify his request in that regard, and I ask unanimous 
consent to that effect.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would object to that modification.
  I would say that then we would have 14 additional amendments, but 
crammed into 5 hours on this noncontroversial bill that is broadly 
supported on both sides. I don't think that is an adequate solution.
  We can go forward with a cloture vote, and we can continue to have 
debate, and we can continue to work to come to conclusion on this in a 
way that everybody is comfortable with.
  I understand Senators want to offer amendments. There are Senators 
who want to offer amendments on this side. I understand there are 
Members who want to offer amendments who want a direct vote. There are 
other Members who would like to second-degree them. So we have made a 
very complicated process out of a broadly supported, simple bill that 
would help education.
  I would object to that modification at this time.
  But we will continue to work to see if we can come up with something 
later.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DASCHLE. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. LOTT. In light of the objection, the Senate will conduct two 
back-to-back votes on cloture motions relative to this bill.
  I regret that there are objections. The agreement is exactly what the 
ranking member and the whip had indicated they would support a few days 
ago. But we can continue to work on this, and hopefully we can get an 
agreement where we can complete it tomorrow so we can go to the other 
issue. Until we complete this bill, everybody else will have to wait.

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