Congressional Record, Volume 145 Issue 38 (Wednesday, March 10, 1999)

[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 10, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2478-S2500]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

EDUCATION FLEXIBILITY PARTNERSHIP ACT OF 1999

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 280) to provide for education flexibility
partnerships.

The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
Pending:

Jeffords amendment No. 31, in the nature of a substitute.
Bingaman amendment No. 35 (to amendment No. 31), to provide
for a national school dropout prevention program.
Lott (for Jeffords) Modified amendment No. 37 (to amendment
No. 35), to provide all local educational agencies with the
option to use the funds received under section 307 of the
Department of Education Appropriations Act, 1999, for
activities under part B of the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act.
Gramm (for Allard) amendment No. 40 (to the language in the
bill proposed to be stricken by amendment No. 31), to
prohibit implementation of ``Know Your Customer'' regulations
by the Federal banking agencies.
Jeffords amendment No. 55 (to amendment No. 40), to require
local educational agencies to use the funds received under
section 307 of the Department of Education Appropriations
Act, 1999, for activities under part B of the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act.
Kennedy/Daschle motion to recommit the bill to the
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions with
instructions to report back forthwith with the following
amendment: Kennedy (for Murray/Kennedy) amendment No. 56, to
reduce class size.
Lott (for Jeffords) amendment No. 58 (to the instructions
of the motion to recommit the bill to the Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions), to provide all local
educational agencies with the option to use the funds
received under section 307 of the Department of Education
Appropriations Act, 1999, for activities under part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Lott (for Jeffords) amendment No. 59 (to amendment No. 58),
to provide all local educational agencies with the option to
use the funds received under section 307 of the Department of
Education Appropriations Act, 1999, for activities under part
B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

cloture motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, pursuant to rule XXII,
the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the
clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the Kennedy-
Daschle motion to recommit S. 280.
Max Baucus, Jeff Bingaman, Ernest F. Hollings, Max
Cleland, Tom Harkin, Daniel K. Inouye, John Breaux,
Carl Levin, Patrick Leahy, Byron L. Dorgan, Tom
Daschle, Edward M. Kennedy, Patty Murray, Harry Reid,
and Paul Wellstone.

call of the roll

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the quorum call has been
waived.

vote

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate
that debate on the Kennedy-Daschle motion to recommit S. 280, a bill to
provide for Ed-Flexibility partnerships, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are required under the rule. The clerk will call
the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray)
is absent because of a death in the family.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
who desire to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 44, nays 55, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 36 Leg.]

YEAS--44

Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Byrd
Cleland
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Graham
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Mikulski
Moynihan
Reed
Reid
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Torricelli
Wellstone
Wyden

NAYS--55

Abraham
Allard
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Cochran
Collins
Coverdell
Craig
Crapo
DeWine
Domenici
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Helms
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Roberts
Roth
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Voinovich
Warner

NOT VOTING--1

Murray

The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 44, nays are 55.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is rejected.

[[Page S2479]]

Cloture Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will
report the motion to invoke cloture.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on amendment No.
37, as modified, to Calendar No. 12, S. 280, the Education
Flexibility Partnership bill:
Trent Lott, Judd Gregg, Sam Brownback, Jeff Sessions,
Paul Coverdell, Bill Frist, John H. Chafee, Craig
Thomas, James M. Jeffords, Michael B. Enzi, Mike
DeWine, Rick Santorum, Spencer Abraham, Jim Bunning,
Wayne Allard, and Jon Kyl.

Vote

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate
that debate on amendment No. 37, as modified, to S. 280, a bill to
provide for education flexibility partnerships, shall be brought to a
close?
The yeas and nays are required under the rule. The clerk will call
the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Washington Mrs. Murray, is
absent because of a death in the family.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
who desire to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 55, nays 44, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 37 Leg.]

YEAS--55

NAYS--44

NOT VOTING--1

Murray

The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 55, the nays are
44. Three-fifths of the Senators not having voted in the affirmative,
the motion is rejected.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from
Alabama.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senators Jeffords and Frist and
those who have worked so hard on the Ed-Flex bill. This is an
outstanding piece of legislation. It has the support of our Nation's
Governors, the National Governors' Association. They strongly support
this legislation. Most of the educational leadership in the States and
local communities support this type of legislation. My Governor of
Alabama, a Democrat, Don Siegelman, supports this legislation. Mr. Ed
Richardson, the State superintendent of education in Alabama, supports
this legislation.
The Ed-Flex bill came out of Labor Committee last year with a 17-1
vote. Democrats and Republicans supported it. Now this year, the
President indicates that he will support it and sign this legislation.
The strength of it is that it is a clean bill. Basically, what it says
is that we learned a lot from the historic welfare reform debate during
the 104th Congress. We learned if you give State and local officials
some flexibility and the ability to do things differently than the
Federal regulations have mandated, they will find ways to be better.
They will find ways to do a better job. It is an affirmation of them.
I'd also indicate that a GAO report in 1998 said that the Department
of Education officials have told the GAO that they believe that 12 Ed-
Flex States, the 12 States that now have this legislation as a pilot
project, have used their waiver authority carefully and judiciously.
Mr. President, It simply goes against reason that people duly elected
to run the school systems in our counties and States would abuse
flexibility and should be denied creativity because those of us in this
body believe we know how to run their school systems better. The
Federal Government provides only 7 percent of the money for State and
local education, but it mandates over 50 percent of the regulations.
Let me read you a letter I received from the Montgomery public
schools in Montgomery, AL. This is what I was told with regard to
paperwork that has to be done for the Federal Government.

Personnel in the schools of the Montgomery Public School
System and three Central Office assistants are estimated to
spend this year 16,425 hours in Title I program
documentation, bookkeeping, etc. What this boils down to
moneywise, is that the system spends $860,833.48 for the
personnel to take care of the paperwork. This is a
conservative estimate and does not include such programs as
HIPPY and other programs funded by Title I not housed in
schools.

This is the kind of thing that is happening. This is the kind of
money we need to get down to the classroom. I taught in public schools
one year. My wife has taught in public schools a number of years. Our
two daughters graduated from a large public high school in Mobile, AL.
We have been involved in PTA. To suggest the principals and teachers
and school superintendents do not care about their kids and are not
trying to do better to get more bang for their buck every day is to
demean them and put them down, while we have this idea that we have to
protect the system by mandating what they do.
I think the Ed-Flex bill is a wonderful bill. It is a clean bill. It
is not a radical bill. It allows applications for waivers and that sort
of thing.
Mr. President as a teacher, as a spouse of a teacher, and as a parent
of children in the Alabama public schools, I know that the most
important event is that magic moment in a classroom when learning
actually occurs. That magic moment is not enhanced by micromanaging
regulations from Washington, DC. It simply does not help education.
Mr. President, I care about education. I want to see our education
system improved. I will support--as Congress has done for the last 10
years--increased Federal funding for education. But I want to be sure
it is used wisely and efficiently so that learning is enhanced, and not
creating a bureaucracy that takes 35 cents out of every dollar before
it ever gets down to the States. That is what we have learned. In fact,
after this modest bill, I will be supporting a bill that will have even
greater impact which will require that 95 percent of every Federal
education dollar that is expended actually goes to the local classroom.
Let me share with this body a response to a question I proposed to a
principal of a Title I elementary school in Alabama, Mr. Thomas
Toleston. He was asked what would he do if he had less Federal mandates
which would help free up some extra money for his school; if the
Federal Government would eliminate the regulations, how would he spend
the freed up funds. This is what he said he would like:

I would ensure that Southlawn would implement a
comprehensive summer school program in reading and math for
all students who score below average on the Stanford
Achievement Test 9.

No one here even knows what the Stanford Achievement Test 9 is. He
does; this is his career. That is what he would like to spend more
money on--not building a new classroom or 100,000 new teachers.
He said:

This would include sufficient faculty, hardware and
software in an effort to bring those poor performing students
up to average performance.

So you could take your year-long teachers and pay them extra to work
in the summer school program.

If additional funds were available, I would also attempt to
bring more faculty to our extended day program [afterschool
programs] to offer more exposure to our students. These
exposures would be in the areas of music, i.e. violin and
other musical instruments that are available in the
Montgomery

[[Page S2480]]

Public School System, but are not being utilized.

They would take extra funds to have teachers come down after school
to do this, not new teachers.

Another area of interest to me would be the ability to
provide students with scholarships of additional exposure.
This would include paid trips to the Huntsville Space Center
to increase students' interest in science and math.

Now, we have been talking about building classrooms and adding
100,000 teachers and all these ideas that people in this body, who have
been doing some polling, and they think the polls are good so they
offer to mandate it all over the country. Mr. Toleston never mentioned
any of those ideas, yet we here in Washington want to force them on him
and his school?

The earlier we expose students to these hard core areas the
greater the chances for them to develop an interest.
I would also like to expand our present extended day
program to begin classes in computer program at the 4th and
5th grade level. This is a career that will allow one to have
a fairly good paying job without a college degree. This
program would provide a net for some of the students who we
know will never make it to college. But, again, I think that
the interest must be presented at the elementary level to
make a significant difference.
Since we all know that the greater the parent involvement
the better students do in school, I would like to have more
money set aside for parent programs. Presently, I have one
teacher who volunteers one night a week to teach parents how
to use computers. I would like to compensate her but the
funds are not available.

Under this bill, if we have Federal mandates, they still won't be
available.
He goes on to say:

Most of the planning for the school year takes place during
the summer months. The stipend paid to teachers is $50.00 per
day. I would like to have the flexibility to offer my teacher
an additional $50.00 per day. This still seems like a small
price to pay but it would be a worth while incentive for them
to give up one of their summer vacation days. I feel that
this would encourage more teachers to be apart of the
planning process during the summer. Once school starts it is
time to execute our plans--no time for planning.

Mr. President, those are just some of the points that I would make.
I would just say this: People are asking, Why won't this bill pass? I
think they have to look at those on the other side of the aisle who say
often that they are for returning control to the local people, to
people we have elected in our communities to run our school systems.
But when the chips are down, there is always some reason not to.
I hope that we can work through some of these amendments, all of
which ought to be debated during the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act that we will be taking up later this year, not on this bill. This
is a clean bill, and should be kept clean. If we will do that, we can
pass this important bill, and then we can deal with many of these
issues later.
Mr. President, I thank you for the time. I d also like to again thank
Senators Frist and Jeffords for all of their hard work on this bill. I
agree wholeheartedly with the premise of this legislation which is
that, if given more flexibility, our local school systems can improve
their ability to educate our children.
I notice that the majority leader has arrived on the floor. I am
pleased to yield.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. LOTT. I thank the Senator from Alabama for yielding so we can get
this consent agreement before Members change their minds.

Unanimous-Consent Agreement

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture
vote scheduled to occur on Thursday be vitiated. I further ask that all
amendments pending to S. 280 other than the Jeffords substitute be
withdrawn and I be recognized to offer an amendment relative to IDEA/
choice and the amendment then be immediately 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 I or my designee be recognized to offer
an amendment relative to the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act 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 ask that
myself or my designee be recognized to offer an amendment relative to
the Individuals with Disability Education Act and it be laid aside and
Senator Boxer be recognized to offer an amendment relative to
afterschool programs, and it then be laid aside.
I further ask that I or my designee be recognized to offer an
amendment relative to IDEA and it be laid aside for Senator Feinstein
and Dorgan to offer their amendment relative to social promotion and it
be laid aside. I further ask that I or my designee be recognized to
offer an another amendment relative to the Individuals with
Disabilities Act and it be laid aside for Senator Wellstone to offer an
amendment relative to accountability, and there then be 5 hours equally
divided in the usual form for debate on these 10 first-degree
amendments and no additional amendments or motions be in order to S.
280, other than motions to table. I further ask that at the conclusion
or yielding back of time the Senate proceed to vote on or in relation
to the 10 pending first-degree amendments in the order in which they
were offered, with the first vote limited to 15 minutes, with all
succeeding votes limited to 10 minutes, and there be 5 minutes between
each vote for explanation.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent that following these votes the bill
be advanced to third reading and passage occur, all without any
intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I
shall not, did the majority leader say between the votes tomorrow there
will be 5 minutes equally divided?
Mr. LOTT. That is correct.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. REED. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. There was
discussion previously with respect to my amendment. I wonder if the
majority leader has anything to say with respect to my amendment?
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, we have discussed the Reed amendment, and I
believe there has been a good deal of work done on that amendment. An
agreement has been worked out, and it will go into one of our
amendments that will be put into the bill. So it will be included. It
would not be necessary to consider it separately.
Mr. REED. I thank the majority leader for that information. It would
have been cleaner to have done it up or down, but the substance is
important, and I am pleased that it will be included in the
legislation.
Mr. LOTT. I appreciate the Senator's attitude on this. Obviously, he
has worked on it, he cares about it, and he would have liked to have it
highlighted and considered individually. We were trying to craft an
agreement, and the attitude he had was that he wanted to get it done;
that was more important. I wish we had more Senators who were willing
to make such a concession. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for
that approach.
Mr. REED. I thank the majority leader and the Democratic leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I
shall not. Is the order which listed the amendments the order of the
votes or the order in which the amendments would be laid down? Is there
flexibility--to use that word--about how we might proceed this
afternoon, for those of us who are here and ready to do our amendments?
Mr. LOTT. I believe they would come up in the order identified and
votes would occur in that order, too. However, I presume that if there
is a scheduling problem, the managers would be flexible and we could
get an agreement to change that order. But that was the agreement that
was asked for.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank Senator Daschle for his cooperation
in this effort, too. We found, a few moments ago, that we were very
close to an agreement, even though it might not have appeared so. I am
sure Members on both sides would have liked to have done it
differently, but I believe this will allow us to get to a conclusion on
this bill. It has broad support. We

[[Page S2481]]

can then move on to other very important national issues. So I thank
Senator Daschle for his help in working out this modification.
One last thing, and I will yield the floor. In light of the
agreement, then, there would be no further votes today. The Senate will
debate the amendments to S. 280 for the remainder of the session today,
and up to 11 back-to-back votes will occur tomorrow morning. I hope
maybe it won't be necessary to have all 11, but it could be 11, with
the 10 amendments and final passage. All Senators will be notified of
the exact time of the votes. I thank my colleagues for their
cooperation. We did get the unanimous-consent agreement, correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. We did.
Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I want to briefly thank those Senators on
both sides of the aisle. This is a very important procedural agreement
we have reached, after some deliberation and a great deal of
willingness to cooperate on the part of many Senators. There were many,
many Senators who had expressed the hope that they could offer their
amendments; they were precluded from doing that. Frankly, I am
disappointed that they were precluded. But I will say this: I am also
grateful to the majority leader for agreeing to have up-or-down votes
on the class size amendment, on the dropout amendment, on the social
promotion amendment, on the amendment with regard to report cards, and
on the amendments Senator Wellstone will be proposing on the
accountability.
This represents, I think, a compromise that we hoped we could reach.
It represents an extraordinary amount of good-faith effort on both
sides. I think the Senators from Oregon and Tennessee ought to be
commended as well for their patience and tolerance in working with all
of our colleagues in bringing us to this point.
It goes without saying, the managers of the bill, the Senator from
Vermont and the illustrious and extraordinary ranking member, Senator
Kennedy, deserve a great deal of credit. We have come a long way. We
have reached a point now where we are going to be able to finish this
bill--a very good bill that deserves support. This also allows us to
deal with the amendments that a number of Senators have been fighting
to have votes on now for several days.
I thank all Senators for their cooperation.
Mr. President, there have been a number of questions about how we are
going to be proceeding under the unanimous consent request. We
consulted with the majority leader and with the manager of the bill.
I ask unanimous consent that all but 1 hour of time allotted under
the unanimous consent agreement be consumed today, allowing 1 hour
under the arrangement anticipated by the unanimous consent agreement to
be used tomorrow. I then ask unanimous consent that those who might
wish to express themselves on the bill or on amendments be allowed as
if in morning business to speak later on this evening.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we want
to check with our leadership on this side.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, it is our
intention that we use up the 4 hours for those members who have
amendments to introduce and speak to them this evening. And that we
have 1 hour evenly divided tomorrow for Members on either side to
address the Senate, as if in morning business. That is what we had
hoped to be able to do.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it is my
understanding that under the previous unanimous consent order that the
amendments should be offered at this time.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I anticipate that the amendments would
all be offered.
Mr. KENNEDY. That would be fine.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I modify my request to clarify that it
would be my expectation that all amendments would be offered, and that
there would be a period of 1 hour simply to discuss and further
consider these amendments tomorrow. I withdraw the request at this
point, and I certainly defer to the managers to renew their request at
such time as the majority leader clears the request. But I don't
anticipate an objection. I appreciate the indulgence of both managers.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The request is withdrawn.
Who seeks time?
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 1 minute.
I want to indicate to our colleagues on this side that have
amendments, that we expect those to be offered in the very near future.
It is 3:15 now--we have 2 hours on each side. We are going to try to be
in touch with those Senators that have amendments and work out a shared
time to accommodate Senators' schedules.
Senator Feinstein will take the first half hour, followed either by
Senator Dorgan or Senator Wellstone for 15 minutes. Then we thought 45
minutes on the other side, one-half hour on this side, one-half hour on
the other side, and then those that either wanted to talk on the
amendments or that wanted to be able to talk on the bill would be able
to do so using up the time that has been allocated by the leader--that
was our intention. We want to make sure all of our Members understand
that we expect that those amendments are going to be offered this
evening. We want them included in the Record so that those tomorrow
morning are able to look at the exact wording. That was our intention.
So we will proceed in that way, and we will be in touch with the
sponsors of these amendments to work out with them appropriate time
allocations.

Amendment No. 60 To Amendment No. 31

(Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding flexibility to
use certain Federal education funds to carry out part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and to provide all local
educational agencies with the option to use the funds received under
section 307 of the Department of Education Appropriations Act, 1999,
for activities under part B of the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act)

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I offer an amendment on behalf of
Senator Lott on the IDEA/choice amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Vermont (Mr. Jeffords), for Mr. Lott, for
himself and Mr. Abraham, proposes an amendment numbered 60 to
amendment No. 31.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

At the end, add the following:

SEC. . SENSE OF THE SENATE.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds that the amount appropriated
to carry out part B of the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411 et seq.) has not been
sufficient to fully fund such part at the originally promised
level, which promised level would provide to each State 40
percent of the average per-pupil expenditure for providing
special education and related services for each child with a
disability in the State.
(b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate
that any Act authorizing the appropriation of Federal
education funds that is enacted after the date of enactment
of this Act should provide States and local school districts
with the flexibility to use the funds to carry out part B of
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

SEC. . IDEA.

Section 307 of the Department of Education Appropriations
Act, 1999, is amended by adding after subsection (g) the
following:
``h) Notwithstanding subsection (b)(2), and (c) through
(g), a local educational agency may use funds received under
this section to carry out activities under part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411
et seq.) in accordance with the requirements of such part.''.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield one-half hour to the Senator from
California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator from
Massachusetts.
I believe, Mr. President, that I have one-half hour.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. The Senator is recognized for
30 minutes.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair.

Amendment No. 61 To Amendment No. 31

(Purpose: To assist local educational agencies to help all students
achieve State achievement standards, to end the practice of social
promotion, and for other purposes)

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

[[Page S2482]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), for herself,
Mr. Dorgan, and Mr. Bingaman, proposes an amendment numbered
61 to amendment No. 31.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under
``Amendments submitted.'')
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, this is an amendment which does two
things. One of them is it deals with the practice, either formal or
informal, of social promotion, and authorizes a remedial program of
$500 million a year for a program of competitive grants.
The second part has to do with school report cards.
Senator Dorgan will be speaking on the second half, and I will
address my comments to the first part.
This amendment would authorize $500 million a year from the year 2000
to 2004 for competitive grants to school districts to help provide
remedial education for afterschool and summer school courses, for low-
performing students who are not making passing grades.
Mr. President, the purpose of the amendment is to provide Federal
incentives and Federal help to those school districts that abolish and/
or do not allow social promotion. As a condition of receiving these
funds, school districts would have to adopt a policy prohibiting social
promotion for students; require that all K through 12 students meet
minimum achievement levels in the core curriculum defined as subjects
such as reading and writing, language arts, mathematics, social
sciences, including history, and science; test student achievement in
meeting standards at certain benchmark grades to be determined by the
States for advancement to the next grade; and, finally, provide
remedial education for students who fail to meet achievement standards
including tutoring, mentoring, summer, before-school and after-school
programs.
School districts would be authorized to use funds to provide academic
instruction to enable students to meet academic achievement standards
by implementing early intervention strategies or alternative
instructional strategies; strengthening learning by hiring certified
teachers to reduce class sizes, providing professional development, and
using proven instructional practices and curricula aligned to State
achievement standards; providing extended learning time such as
afterschool and summer school; and developing intensive instructional
intervention strategies for students who fail to meet State achievement
standards. The amendment also addresses the special needs of children
with disabilities by allowing school districts to follow the child's
individualized education plan.
Why do we need this amendment? Perhaps nothing better describes why
we need this amendment than an article which appeared in the Los
Angeles Times five days ago about the largest school system in the
United States--California's--and I want to read the headline:
``California Ranks Second to Last in U.S. Reading Test.''

California ranks second to last among 39 States in a new
Federal assessment of fourth grade reading skills. The study
revealed Thursday that only 20 percent of the students are
considered proficient readers.

Mr. President, California has 5.6 million students, more than the
population of 36 other States, and only 20 percent of them are reading
proficiently at the fourth grade level.
That is an incredible statement of what the practice of social
promotion has done.
I truly believe that the linchpin to educational reform is the
elimination of the path of least resistance whereby students who are
failing are simply promoted to the next grade in the hopes that
someday, somewhere they will learn.
This practice alone, I believe, after visiting literally dozens of
schools, is the main reason for the failure in the quality of public
education today. It is largely responsible, in my view, for its
decline.
Achievement standards must be established--and enforced. To promote
youngsters when they are failing to learn has produced a generation
that is below standard and high school graduates who can't read or
write, count change in their pockets, or fill out an employment
application. It is that bad. And California is just about the worst.
It is such a shame to hand a high school diploma to a youngster whom
you know cannot fill out an employment application for a job. In my
State, a state that is restructuring its economy and seen the emergence
of a new high-skilled, high-tech work base, this means doom for the
ability of these youngsters to sustain themselves with gainful and
fulfilling employment in the future.
This same article, discussing this assessment of reading skills, also
shows that 52 percent of our fourth graders scored below the basic
level, meaning they failed to even partially master basic skills.
The news wasn't much better for California's eighth graders, who
ranked 33rd out of 36 States, and only 22 percent were proficient
readers. In December 1998, a study by the Education Trust ranked
California last in the percent of young adults with a high school
diploma--in other words, students are not even finishing and getting
their diploma--37th in SAT scores, and 31st of 41 States in eighth
grade math. Nearly half of all students entering the California State
University system require remedial classes in math or English or both.

The news is also grim nationally. I start out with California to say
that this all begins right at home. But the news is also grim
throughout the rest of the United States where our students are falling
far behind their international counterparts. The lowest 25 percent of
Japanese and South Korean eighth graders outperform the average
American student. In math and science, United States 12th grade
students fell far behind students in other industrialized countries,
which is especially troubling when we consider the skills that will be
required to stay ahead in the 21st century. United States 12th graders
were significantly outperformed by 14 countries and only performed
better than students in Cyprus and South Africa. We scored last in
physics and next to last in mathematics.
What is social promotion? Simply stated, social promotion is the
practice, either formal or informal, of a school's advancing a student
from one grade to the next regardless of that student's academic
achievement. In some cases, it is even regardless of whether they
attend school or not. It is a practice which misleads our students,
their parents and the public.
The American Federation of Teachers agrees. Let me quote from their
September 19, 1997, study:

Social promotion is an insidious practice that hides school
failure and creates problems for everybody--for kids, who are
deluded into thinking they have learned the skills to be
successful or get the message that achievement doesn't count;
for teachers who must face students who know that teachers
wield no credible authority to demand hard work; for the
business community and colleges that must spend millions of
dollars on remediation, and for society that must deal with a
growing proportion of uneducated citizens, unprepared to
contribute productively to the economic and civic life of the
Nation.

That is well said. But merely ending social promotion and retaining
students in the same grade will not solve the problem. We cannot just
let them languish without direction in a failing system. Instead, we
must provide ongoing remedial work, specialized tutoring, afterschool
programs, and summer school. All must be used intensively and
consistently, and that is what this amendment is designed to create. It
is designed to create both the incentive and also the help to
accomplish this.
I know it can work. Last June, I led a delegation of California
leaders to Chicago. We saw a dominantly poor, dominantly minority
school district turned around, social promotion abolished, and the
remediation, summer school, and tutoring put in place. And now test
scores and grades are improving.
How widespread is this practice, ubiquitous as it is? It is
widespread. Although there are no hard data on the extent of the
practice, authorities in schools and out of schools know it is
happening, and in some districts it is standard operating procedure. In
fact, 4

[[Page S2483]]

in 10 teachers reported that their schools automatically promote
students when they reach the maximum age for their grade level. And the
September 19, 1998, AFT teacher study says social promotion is
``rampant.''
It found most school districts use vague criteria for passing and
retaining students. They lack explicit policies of social promotion,
but they have an implicit practice of social promotion, including a
loose and vague criteria for advancing students to the next grade. And
they view holding students back as a policy of last resort and often
put explicit limits on retaining students.
Also the study found that only 17 States have standards--only 17
States have standards in the four core learning disciplines: English,
math, social studies, and science. Only these four have standards which
are well grounded in content and are clear enough to be used, says the
AFT study.
In July of last year, I wrote to 500 California school districts and
asked about their policies on social promotion. I must tell you, their
responses are vague and often misleading, and they include the
following: Some school districts say they don't have a specific policy.
Some say they simply figure what is in the best interests of the
student. Some say teachers provide recommendations, but final decisions
on retention can be overridden by parents. And some simply just promote
youngsters, regardless of failing grades, nonattendance, or virtually
anything else. In short, the policies are all over the place.
Last year, in California the legislature passed and the Governor
signed into law a bill to end social promotion in public education, a
giant step forward. In California now, this could affect fully half of
California's students because 3 million children in California perform
below levels considered proficient for their grade level. The grant
funds authorized in this amendment can be very helpful in providing
ongoing remedial and specialized learning and provide necessary help
for these 3 million children in my State, and the millions of children
in other States as well.
President Clinton called for ending social promotion in his last two
State of the Union speeches. Last year, he said: ``We must also demand
greater accountability. When we promote a child from grade to grade who
hasn't mastered the work, we don't do that child any favors. It is time
to end social promotion in America's schools.''
I will never forget, in 1990, when I was running for Governor of
California and I appeared before the California teachers association, I
said we must end social promotion, and I was roundly booed. How things
change. We now have the President of the United States, and a Democrat
to boot, saying we must end social promotion.
I believe just as firmly in 1999 as I did in 1990 that the practice
of social promotion is the Achilles heel of public education in the
United States of America.
The seven States that have a policy in place which ties promotion to
State-level standards today are California, Delaware, Florida,
Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. I really want to give
them my kudos and say congratulations and right on.
I mentioned that the Chicago public schools have ditched social
promotion. After their new policy was put in place in the spring of
1997, over 40,000 students in Chicago failed tests in the third, sixth,
eighth, and ninth grades, and then went to mandatory summer school.
Chicago's School Superintendent Paul Vallas has called social promotion
``educational malpractice.'' He said from now on his schools' only
product will be student achievement. What welcome words those are.
In my own State, the San Diego School Board in February adopted
requirements that all students in certain grades must demonstrate
grade-level performance, and they will require all students to earn a C
overall grade average and a C grade in core subjects for high school
graduation, effectively ending social promotion for certain grades and
for high school graduation.
For example, San Diego schools are requiring that their eighth
graders who do not pass core courses be retained or pass core courses
in summer school.
Let me conclude. A January 1998 poll by Public Agenda asked employers
and college professors whether they believe a high school diploma
guarantees that a student has mastered basic skills. In this poll, 63
percent of employers and 76 percent of professors said the diploma is
not a guarantee that a graduate can read, write, or do basic math. What
a failure.
I first got into this because I also serve on the Immigration
Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. Every year I had California
chief executive officers, particularly in high tech companies, come in
and say: ``We can't find high school graduates we can hire. Please
increase the quota of people from foreign countries who can come to us
as temporary workers and work for us, because we can't find qualified
Americans.'' What a condemnation.
California employers tell me consistently that applicants are
unprepared for work and the companies have to provide basic training to
make them employable. High-tech companies say they have to recruit
abroad. For example, last year MCI spent $7.5 million to provide basic
skills to their employees. On December 17, a group called California
Business for Education Excellence announced they were organizing a
major effort to reform public education. These major constituencies--
the California Business Roundtable, the California Manufacturers
Association, the American Electronics Association, companies like
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Pacific Bell--had to organize because they see
firsthand the results of a lagging school system.
So I offer this amendment today. It can provide the money to help
teachers teach and students learn. It is estimated that this year the
budget will have $4 billion more in it for public education. I say
let's authorize the expenditure of $500 million for the kind of
remedial and summer school programs that in fact can help us abolish
social promotion and really have excellence and accountability in both
our teachers and our students.
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 9 minutes 53 seconds.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I will reserve the remainder of my time, if I might.
I see Senator Dorgan on the floor. I know he wishes to speak.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first let me ask consent to yield myself
15 minutes of the time allocated to our side, that I might be able to
present my amendment.
Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Does the Senator intend to offer an amendment this
afternoon?
Mr. DORGAN. I would say to the Senator from Vermont, the amendment
Senator Feinstein has offered is an amendment that combines her
amendment and my amendment. We have done that at the request of the
majority leader. So rather than having two amendments, we will have
only one and we will have only one vote on it.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I appreciate that information.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. I am pleased today to join my colleague from California.
I was listening to her explain the first portion of the amendment which
deals with social promotion and remedial education. It reminded me that
the last time we joined forces here on the floor of the Senate was also
on an education amendment. We worked on a very simple amendment called
the Gun-Free Schools Act. This is now the law in this country and has
been for a number of years because we decided there ought to be a zero
tolerance in this country for a student who brings a gun to school. You
ought not have to worry, no matter where you are in the country, about
guns in schools. Everywhere in this country, we ought to understand
that guns and schools do not mix, and every student and every parent
ought to understand there is a penalty of expulsion for one year for
bringing a gun to school.

I am pleased to have joined with my colleague from California to make
that Federal law, and I wonder how many tragedies may have been avoided
where guns were not brought to school because a student now understands
there is zero tolerance with respect to guns in schools.

[[Page S2484]]

Today we are here for a different purpose on the same subject:
education. The first part of the amendment we have offered deals with
social promotion. The second part is a piece that I have written with
Senator Bingaman from New Mexico regarding the issue of a school report
card. Let me explain that amendment.
Every 6 to 9 weeks in this country, a parent with a child in school
gets a report card that tells the parent how that child has done.
Parents are able to see grades that describe how their child is doing
in school, an A, a B, a C, or God forbid, maybe a D or even worse.
Students are graded and parents know what grades those students are
achieving in their school.
But I raise a question: What does it mean when your child brings home
the best grades from the worst school? Does that tell you much as a
parent? You see, we grade students, but there aren't any grades for
schools. There are no report cards for schools. Even though we spend
over $300 billion on a system of elementary and secondary education in
our country, parents and taxpayers have no way of knowing how that
school is performing. We grade the children who are in that system, but
we do not require a report card on how well our schools are doing so
that parents also know how well their school is doing compared to other
schools, how well their State is doing compared to other States.
A number of States already have school report cards, but very few of
them have report cards that provide a range of information on school
quality indicators important to the public. And more notably, very few
states get that information to the parents themselves. So the parents,
as the taxpayers who own that school, who provide the resources to run
that school, have very little information about how well that school
does. Again, I return to the question: What does it mean for your child
to be the best student in the worst school?
With this amendment, we propose to offer a Standardized School Report
Card Act, which would say to all the schools around the country that,
most of you are already preparing some kind of report card, but let's
all do it all in the same general way so that we can make some
reasonable comparisons, school to school and State to State.
We want the report card to grade a school on six areas: 1, student
performance; 2, professional qualifications of the teachers; 3, average
class size; 4, school safety; 5, parental involvement; and 6, student
dropout rates.
As I mentioned, more than 35 States now have some form of a school
report card. My State does, although my State's report card doesn't do
anything more than simply to ask the school to look ahead to prepare
for changes in enrollment in the years ahead. It is not a very
substantive report card, and most parents in my State have never seen
this report card. I would like, at the end of this process, to provide
virtually every parent in this country who has a child in school with a
report that says, here is how your child is doing, and another report
that says, here is how your school is doing related to other schools,
other communities, other States. That would be good information for the
taxpayers and the parents of our country to have.
I was thinking, as I was listening to my colleague from California,
about a young girl named Rosie Two Bears. She is likely in class this
afternoon in Cannon Ball, ND. I toured that school some while ago. I
don't know what a report card will say to the parents of Rosie. That
school is unsafe and in desperate need of repair.

I have described on the floor on previous occasions the condition of
that school. They have 150 students, one water fountain, and two
bathrooms, kids cramped together in classes without an inch between
their desks and no place to plug in a computer to get to the Internet,
because the school won't accommodate wiring of that sort. In the
downstairs area where they have band and chorus, the room frequently is
evacuated because sewer gas backs up and the students can't learn in a
room full of sewer gas backing up into the school. It is an awful
situation.
What would a report card say about the school of Rosie Two Bears?
Perhaps if there were a report card that drove home to parents and
taxpayers the unsafe conditions of their children s school, there would
be a public outcry to improve that school.
The Ojibwa school, up on the Turtle Hill Mountain Indian Reservation,
is another example of a tragedy waiting to happen, with all of these
kids learning in detached trailers, going back and forth between
classes in the winter. I have been there and seen exposed wiring. I can
show you the reports that show that school is unsafe. Everybody knows
it, and there is no money to build a new school for those children.
Addressing this problem will be part of an another debate that we want
to happen, but right now, this amendment is about four or five good
ideas on education that won't break the bank, that represent good
investments in our kids, represent good approaches to improve and
strengthen education in this country. If we can do these things
together, we will have done something very important for our children.
When we consider a report card that all parents could receive, I go
back to the point that wouldn't it be nice for the parents of
students--whether they go to your school or my school or to the Cannon
Ball School or the Ojibwa school--to be able to see what their child is
getting from that school? What are we getting for our tax investment in
that school? Are we proud, as parents, as the teachers who teach in
that school, of the building we have housed our children in, of the
textbooks we have provided? Are we doing the right things?
That is what Senator Bingaman and I and others would like to achieve
with this standardized report card for schools.
The Senator from California knows, because I have heard her speak of
it, that the American people view education as one of their top
priorities. Often people talk about how far ahead of politicians the
people are. Well, that certainly is true with respect to education.
People know what is important. When people sit around the dinner table
at night and talk about their lives, what are the first things they
talk about? They talk about what their children are learning in school,
are we proud of that school? Are our folks getting good health care? Do
we have a good job? The central things in life. Children and school
represent a priority for many of us. It is why I am pleased that one of
the first bills on the floor of the Senate following impeachment is
about education. It is why we have pushed so hard to be able to offer
amendments to it. Our purpose is not to be destructive, but to focus on
a number of steps we can take to improve education. I think Ed-Flex is
fine. With this bill we are saying give the States some flexibility,
but that is not all there is with respect to education policy. There
are other ideas, good ideas.
The attempt around here all too often is to get the worst of what
both sides have to offer rather than the best of what each has to
offer. We have some good ideas. Ed-Flex is a fine idea. Let us add some
other good ideas to it: dealing with class size, a school report card,
ending social promotion, addressing the problems of students dropping
out. Those are good ideas and are central to what the American people
believe could strengthen education in this country.
I hope that, when we have offered these amendments--some good ideas,
I think, from both sides--there will be some positive votes on these
ideas, so that this Ed-Flex legislation will leave the Senate in a much
stronger position to positively influence the lives of young Americans
and families. I will have been proud to play one small part of that
with my colleague from California.
Mr. President, I retain the remainder of my time, and I yield the
floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from North
Dakota, because I think, between us, we really have struck at the
linchpin of reform.
One is in the report card situation, to provide an ability for every
parent to know some of the basics about the school that his or her
children attend, and to be able to make some judgments on their own
whether that child is in the best learning environment. And what the
report card could do is spur competition, I think, I say to the
Senator, among students, among schools,

[[Page S2485]]

among school districts, if they have a way to compare one to the other.
When you were talking about Cannon Ball, North Dakota, I was thinking
about Los Angeles, and going into a school that had 5,000 students K
through sixth grade. Everything was in shifts. You can imagine the
cacophony of sounds with 5,000 small children in this school. I had
never seen a school this size before.
As we debate social promotion, I am troubled by the size of some
schools. I have read the views of educational experts and what they
said about the size of the school. I read they advised that elementary
schools be no bigger than 350 students to have that teacher-student
quality relationship; middle schools, 750 students; and high schools
maybe a maximum of 1,200 students.
Because of the lack of money and the inability to do some of these
things, schools just diminish their quality. Like you, I am very
hopeful that there will be an additional amount of $4 billion for
public education in this year s budget. I think the American people
want it, I think our students need it.
I just want you to know that I am very pleased to join with you on
this amendment. I hope it can stay in. I hope it will survive
conference. I hope people will realize that we have to make major
structural changes in public education. Certainly a report card for
schools to benefit parents, the elimination of social promotion, and
the provision of remedial programs and summer school can help. Ongoing
and consistent programs, in which children can be brought up to their
grade level, are critical to helping these students learn and become
productive citizens and are critical to ending this ``educational
malpractice.''
I urge my colleagues to vote for the Feinstein-Dorgan amendment.
Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. How much time remains on the 15 minutes?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota has 4 minutes
remaining.
Mr. DORGAN. I will not use all of that, but I did want to say to
Senator Feinstein that the ending of social promotion is an opportunity
to invest in young lives in a way that will solve problems now, rather
than deferring them until much, much later. By ending social promotion
we can prevent much bigger problems later in a young person s life.
I happen to have, as most parents do, a profound conflict of interest
here. I have two children in public elementary school: one in fourth
grade and one in sixth grade. I do homework most evenings with them,
and the homework is getting tougher these days. My children are in
public schools, and I don't know what people are talking about when
they talk about failing scores and how the public school system does
not work.
I am enormously proud of our public school system and what we have
accomplished through public schools in this country. But I also know
that the only way a public school system works is with parental
involvement. If the parent is not involved in the child's education, it
is not going to work very well. There are three things you need for
education to work: a teacher who knows how to teach, a student willing
to learn, and a parent involved in the education of that student. When
those three things are present, education works.
The Senator from California, in the first part of this amendment,
offers a proposal that I think has great merit and is long overdue. I
did not speak about it when I spoke about my half of the amendment, but
I just want to tell her that I think what she is offering has great,
great merit and will be profoundly important to children in this
country.
I yield the floor.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator.
I yield the remainder of my time, and yield the floor, Mr. President.
Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Inquiry. I don't know whether we are finished with
this amendment. If so, I am ready to send an amendment to the desk. I
do not know whether my colleague from Vermont--
Mr. JEFFORDS. I would like to proceed to explain very briefly the
position that we will have on the amendments that have been offered
here.
This is an agreement, unanimous consent agreement, that was made to
enable us to get through this bill. And I appreciate all those that
have entered into this agreement.
I would like to explain to my colleagues, however, that because these
are all--these two that are being talked about right now, the school
report card and the ending of social promotion, are both amendments
within the purview of the committee dealing with elementary and
secondary education. It is my intention to listen very carefully and
carry forward the information that is provided on these until such time
as we are marking up the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
However, it will be my procedure, in order to have an orderly hearing
process in going ahead on these matters, to probably table the
amendment of the Senator from California. But I do understand and
believe that a great deal of what she says, if not all, is very
relevant to our educational system but should be done in the orderly
committee process. I want to make that clear so everybody understands
when we vote on these things it is because they should be done in the
proper order under an orderly committee process.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

Amendment No. 62 to Amendment No. 31

(Purpose: To provide accountability in Ed-Flex)

Mr. WELLSTONE. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its
reading.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone] proposes an
amendment numbered 62 to amendment No. 31.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 15, between lines 2 and 3, insert the following:
``(F) local and state plans, use of funds, and
accountability, under the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and
Technical Education Act of 1998, except to permit the
formation of secondary and post-secondary consortia;
``(G) sections 1114b and 1115c of Title I of the Elementary
and Secondary Act of 1965;''.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Do we have a copy of the amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Vermont wish to object?
The Senator seeks a copy of the amendment.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have an extra copy. Might I ask
whether I could also get one Xeroxed while I am speaking?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, this amendment, which I have talked to my colleagues
about, speaks to the central issue with this legislation that a lot of
colleagues, I think, are trying to step around, dance around; that is,
accountability. In other words, this amendment says we are for
flexibility, but we are also for flexibility with accountability.
It is absolutely acceptable for school districts and States to make
all kinds of decisions on the ground about whether or not you want more
teaching assistants or more computers or more community outreach. All
of that makes sense and is within the framework of flexibility.
I say to my colleague from Vermont, this amendment combines two
amendments, so let me start and devote maybe about 5 minutes or less to
the Perkins program--a very important vocational education program.
What this amendment essentially says is, look, there are certain kinds
of core requirements, core accountability requirements, of the Perkins
program--vocational ed, high school, college--that must be protected--
that must be protected.
The requirement that school districts and vocational schools meet
their States' performance standards, who can object to that? The
requirement

[[Page S2486]]

that schools and districts provide professional development to
teachers, counselors and administrators, who can object to that? The
requirement that schools must provide programs of sufficient size,
scope and quality to bring about improvement, what is objectionable
about that? The requirement that schools and districts must evaluate
the programs, including the assessment of how the needs of special
populations are being met, what is objectionable about that? And
finally, the requirement that schools and districts must tell the State
about their process for local evaluation and improvement of the
program.
That is the Perkins Vocational Education Program. And the only thing
I am saying, on the basis, I say to my colleague from Vermont, of the
good work that we have done together on vocational education, why in
the world, understanding the importance of flexibility, would we want
to not at least protect this program and make sure that in every State
all across the country that at least these core requirements are met?
Let everybody be flexible as long as they meet these core requirements.
Let's not sacrifice the quality of this program.
Mr. President, the other part of this amendment is what troubles me
the most. This is what troubles me the most about Ed-Flex. And let me
just say to my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, I am quite
sure that this amendment is going to pass overwhelmingly. For all I
know, it may get 99 votes. But let me tell you one unpleasant truth
that you have been unwilling to face up to. It is this: When the
original title I program first passed in 1965, a lot of sweat and tears
went into this program. We had some basic protections for poor children
in America and we said there were going to be certain core requirements
and in no way, shape, or form would those requirements ever be violated
because this went to the very essence of what we are about as a Federal
Government, which is making sure there is protection and quality of
education for all our children.

Here is what the core requirements are all about. This amendment is a
different version from the amendment I had on the floor, because this
is trimmed down and it refers specifically to sections 114(b) and
115(c) of title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
I am just saying we wrote this into this legislation in 1965,
colleagues. This was over 30 years ago. What did we say? We said let's
make sure that no State will ever be in a position of being able to
give a school district a waiver from the following requirements: That
for all of the title I children, low-income children, there will be
opportunities for all children to meet challenging achievement levels;
that they will use effective instructional strategies which will give
primary consideration to extending learning time, like an extended
school year; that we will serve underserved populations, including
women and men, or girls and boys; that we will address the needs of
children, particularly those who are members of the target population,
who need additional help; that we will provide instruction by highly
qualified professional staff; that we will minimize removing children
from the regular classroom during regular school hours; and that we
will provide the professional development for teachers and aides to
enable the children in school to meet the State student performance
standards.
What is going on here? I came out here and spoke for almost 4 hours
the other day and I never heard anybody give me a substantive argument
about why they are opposed to this amendment. What is going on here? I
am not going to use Senators' names, but one Senator with considerable
stature here in the U.S. Senate said, ``Senator Wellstone, if your
amendment passes, it will gut this bill.'' If that is what my colleague
is saying, that is exactly what makes me worry about this legislation.
How could this amendment gut Ed-Flex when this amendment just says we
are going to do with Ed-Flex what the proponents of Ed-Flex say Ed-Flex
does?
Then my colleagues say, ``Don't you trust the Governors? Don't you
trust the school districts across America?'' My answer is yes, I trust
most of them, and therefore you should trust most of them, and
therefore surely no one who is involved in education with children in
our country would be opposed to the idea that for title I children, for
poor children, there will be certain core requirements which will be
the essence of accountability.
How can you be opposed to it? I don't know of any Governor or any
school board member who would say, ``Senator Wellstone, we don't want
to live by the standard of making sure that our teachers are highly
trained for title I children. Senator Wellstone, we don't want to live
by the standard that there should be high standards for these children.
Senator Wellstone, we don't want to have to give special help to kids
who are falling behind.''
What are you afraid of? Why is there not support for this amendment?
This amendment, in a slightly fuller version, received about 45 votes
last time. I am hoping, now that I have sort of refined this amendment
and narrowed the scope, that it will receive a majority vote. Because
if this amendment does not pass, this piece of legislation, I want to
say to people in the country, this will not be a step forward. This
piece of legislation is not a step forward for several reasons.
Let me just make one point that I made earlier as well, that right
now, with title I, we are spending about $8 billion a year, and
depending on who you listen to--whether it is the Congressional
Research Service or whether it is Rand Corporation--this program is
severely underfunded. In my State of Minnesota, when I meet with school
district officials, especially in our urban communities, they tell me,
``Paul, what happens is we get money for schools with 65 or 75 percent
poverty''--my amendment says schools with 75 percent poverty population
should have first priority; that passed; I am glad it did--``but then
we run out of money.''
If we are serious about helping these kids, we ought to be providing
the funding to our school districts so they can provide the support to
the children who are behind. Many of our schools all across the country
scream at us and tell us: ``Because you haven't provided us with the
resources, we can only help half the students,'' or a third of the
students. So if we want to do something significant, we ought to
provide the funding.
What we certainly should not do is turn our backs to what was so
important about title I as a part of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act. What was so important about title I--this is a big
Federal program; this is a Federal program that matters to K-12. What
was so important was, we knew way back in 1965 and we know today that
we as a National Government, we have a responsibility to make sure
there are certain standards which apply to the education that poor
children receive, and so we made sure there were certain standards,
certain core requirements, which would be part of accountability. We
would say that every school district in the land and every school in
the land which was serving title I children would never be able to
violate these core requirements. That is what we as a Congress were
doing for poor children. We were for school districts having
flexibility. We are for school districts having flexibility.

However, this piece of legislation strips away the most important
accountability feature to title I. This piece of legislation does not
any longer give these children the protection. This piece of
legislation, therefore, in its present form, is not a step forward, it
is a great leap backward. I am surprised there is not more opposition.
I know it is called Ed-Flex. Great title. I know everybody can say
this is what the Governors want and we just sort of give all the
decisionmaking power to the States. Politically, it seems to be a
winning argument. Maybe I am the only one in the U.S. Senate who feels
this way. I am for flexibility and I am for some of these other
amendments that deal with smaller class size and rebuilding crumbling
schools, and I am for spending a lot more money on education for
children that comes out of the President's budget, that is for sure.
But as a U.S. Senator, I will not be on the floor of the U.S. Senate
and not speak against a piece of legislation which strips away some
core protection for poor children that makes sure these children also
get a decent education, and that the title I program which deals with
these children meets these core requirements.

[[Page S2487]]

For any other Senator to say this amendment guts Ed-Flex troubles me,
because I think if everybody thought Ed-Flex was such a good bill, they
would want to at least make sure we had this elementary, basic
protection for these children. How can we pass this piece of
legislation without this accountability?
This amendment improves this legislation, Senator Jeffords. This
amendment makes it a better bill. Without this amendment, we don't have
this protection for some of the children in this country. I will oppose
it even if I am the only vote in opposition.
How much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 7 minutes remaining.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I reserve the remainder of my time, assuming that my
colleague on the other side who disagreed may want to make some
arguments.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I believe I was asked a question. I
would be happy to answer. I prefer that the Senator finish his
presentation.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will, although I say, in the spirit
of debate, it would probably be better if I had a chance to get some
sense of why there is opposition to this amendment. Then I could maybe
respond to that and we could have a little more of a give-and-take
discussion.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I will wait until the Senator finishes.
I yield the floor.
(Mr. SESSIONS assumed the Chair.)
Mr. WELLSTONE. Well, Mr. President, I have an amendment that is
similar to the amendment colleagues voted on last time. I have tried to
meet some of the objections that were made to that amendment. It now is
based literally on sections 114(b) and 115(c) of title I of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. It is the same language
which deals with the core requirements of title I and makes it clear
that we want to make sure no State is allowed to give any school
district an exemption from these core requirements.
Again, let me just list these requirements:
To provide opportunities for all children to meet challenging
achievement levels--the Senator from New Mexico is on the floor, and I
will bet he would not object to that.
To use effective instructional strategies that give primary
consideration to providing extended learning time like an extended
school year, before- and after-school, and summer programs;
To use learning approaches that meet the needs of historically
underserved populations, including girls and women;
To address the needs of all children, but particularly the needs of
children who are members of the target population through a number of
means, including counseling, mentoring, college guidance, and school-
to-work services;
To provide instruction by highly qualified professional staff;
To minimize removing children from the regular classroom during
regular school hours;
To provide professional development for teachers and teaching
assistants to enable all children in the school to meet State student
performance standards.
I listed the basic requirements on the program as well.
I am thinking out loud while I am speaking. Let me try to figure this
out. The Chair is a lawyer, and maybe I should be a lawyer at this
moment. But it seems to me that this doesn't do any damage to the idea
of flexibility. It seems to me that anybody who would argue that this
somehow damages Ed-Flexibility, or any State or school district that
makes that argument, must have in mind that they want to waive these
core requirements. If they want to waive these core requirements--and
we are now about to pass a piece of legislation that will enable them
to do so--that is what is flawed in this legislation. That is the flaw
in this piece of legislation. That is the problem.
There is a reason we made these core requirements part of title I,
which has been such an important program to low-income children. The
reason, I say to the Chair, is that while many school districts in many
States have done a great job--and I have seen great work done in
Minnesota--the fact of the matter is that sometimes these children fall
between the cracks. Sometimes these children's parents, or parent, are
the ones without the prestige and clout in the community. Therefore, we
want to make sure there is some protection for these children. We want
to make sure they receive instruction from highly qualified teachers.
We want to make sure that if they fall behind, they get some help. We
want to make sure they are asked to meet high standards.

I hope somebody is watching this debate. Why in the world is this
amendment unacceptable? Why is this amendment unacceptable? Because, I
am telling you, if what Ed-Flex is all about is to sort of say, on the
part of the Federal Government, we are giving up on this core
accountability and, State school districts, you do whatever you want,
you don't have to worry about meeting these core requirements that deal
with low-income children, I am against it. Do you know something? A lot
of Senators should be against it.
So, Mr. President, I hope we can go over 50 votes today, and I hope
this amendment will pass. If it does, I think it will make this Ed-Flex
bill a much better piece of legislation.
There is one other thing we should do: Fund it. Fund it. I would say
that in all the discussions I have had with people--I hope all of my
colleagues have visited schools with title I communities in urban and
rural communities. I will tell you, I have heard little discussion
about how ``we don't have enough flexibility.'' I have heard a lot of
discussion about not having adequate funds. Fund it.
Fully fund title I. Then we would be doing something to help these
children. Fully fund Head Start, and then we would be doing something
to help the children. Fully fund pre-K, preschool, early childhood
development, and make child care affordable for families. Then we would
be really doing something to help these children. Lower class sizes.
Now we are helping these children. Make sure we do something to help
children who drop out so that they don't drop out. I say to Senator
Bingaman, I was told by a judge in Minnesota that there is a higher
correlation between high school dropouts and incarceration than between
cigarette smoking and lung cancer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I will soon yield the floor.
I hope there are 100 votes for my amendment, because then I will
believe the Ed-Flex bill is a good piece of legislation. Without this
amendment, you don't have the accountability. You have given up on the
Federal role of protecting poor children. That is a huge mistake.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, what is the state of the business in the
Senate?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has a right to offer an amendment.

Amendment No. 63 To Amendment No. 31

(Purpose: To provide for school dropout prevention, and for other
purposes)

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask
for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Bingaman], for himself,
Mr. Reid, Mr. Levin, Mr. Bryan, and Mrs. Boxer, proposes an
amendment numbered 63 to Amendment No. 31.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under
``Amendments Submitted.'')
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, before I start, let me just indicate my
support for the amendment that the Senator from Minnesota is offering.
I agree with him. I favor the Ed-Flex bill, and I intend to vote for
the Ed-Flex bill. I also, though, believe we need to be sure the funds
we provide at the Federal level get to the students who most need those
funds, and to the programs that will benefit disadvantaged students. So
I favor that amendment.
The amendment I have sent to the desk here and that I will speak on
right now relates to what I consider perhaps the most severe problem
facing the

[[Page S2488]]

educational system in this country today--at least in my State, and I
believe throughout the country--and that is the problem that too many
of our students are leaving school before they graduate from high
school.
For an awful long time, this was a problem that people sort of
ignored, and education policy wonks here in Washington and around the
country essentially looked the other way and talked about other aspects
of the educational issue. But more and more I have come to believe that
this amendment I am offering on behalf of myself and Senators Reid,
Levin, Bryan, and Boxer deals with a crucial issue for our young people
and for our educational system. We can deal with the dropout problem.
We can provide assistance to States and local school districts that
want to reduce the dropout rate, and we can do that at the same time we
are adequately funding special education. We can do it at the same time
we are providing this additional flexibility in the Ed-Flex, which is
what the Ed-Flex bill calls for.
Last week, when I offered the amendment, it was plain that there was
some sort of contest between the proposal to adequately fund dropout
prevention and the needs of special education. I do not see that as the
case. That is a false choice. There is no rule and there is no
limitation or requirement on those of us in the Senate to deal with one
and not the other. We can deal with both of these issues. I favor
dealing with both of these issues. Special education is extremely
important. In order to address this, I put a couple of provisions in
the amendment that I just sent to the desk. Two key provisions relate
to special education.

The first says that there is a sense of the Senate that there is a
great need to increase funding for special education. I support doing
that. And the amendment makes it very clear that that is what we intend
to it.
A second provision I have added says that any funds that are
appropriated for dropout prevention above the $150 million annual
amount that is called for in this bill shall go to special education
rather than to this dropout prevention need.
So it is not an either/or decision. And I don't think we should see
it that way.
This legislation on dropout prevention was offered last year. It was
adopted here in the Senate by a vote of 74 to 26. Its main provisions
are very well known to the Members of the Senate. Let me just go
through them.
There are five main provisions. First, it provides better
coordination and streamlining of existing Federal programs which serve
at-risk students. We have several programs intended to serve at-risk
students. This bill would try to bring those together and coordinate
them.
Second, it sets out a national plan to address the dropout crisis
that exists at the State, local and national levels.
Third, there is $150 million authorized in grants to schools with
high dropout rates in each State.
Fourth, there is a requirement for uniform dropout data to be
provided so that parents will know where the problem exists most
severely, and for policymakers to have that information so that we can
make good decisions.
Finally, it calls for what we designated here as a ``dropout czar,''
or a person who will have a full-time job working in the Department of
Education to try to work with local school districts and States to deal
with this issue. We ought to have at least one person in the Department
of Education who comes to work every day with the responsibility of
trying to help solve this problem. That is not too much to ask in a
country of our size.
So that is what the bill tries to do.
The problem is serious. It warrants our attention.
Since we have been debating this bill, there have been over 20,000
young people drop out of our schools. There are over 3,000 young people
who drop out of our high schools and our middle schools before
graduation each schoolday. So the problem is severe. There have been
over 400,000 students who have dropped out since last April when we
last approved this amendment here in the Senate. These new dropouts
join a large pool of unemployed, most of them unemployed adults who
lack high school degrees.
We have a serious problem here. I think many Senators and many people
in this country would be shocked to know the extent of this problem.
Let me give you some figures that came out of ``Education Week''
recently. According to ``Education Week,'' which is a very respected
publication that does good research on education-related issues,
according to their study, there are 30- to 50-percent dropout rates
reported over the 4-year high school period in communities around this
country.
Let me give you some specific statistics which they reported.
In Cincinnati, ``Education Week'' claims that 57 percent of students
in Cincinnati's high schools do not complete high school, who drop out
before the completion of high school; in Philadelphia, 54 percent; Salt
Lake City, 39 percent.
Everybody, at least in my part of the country, in the Southwest,
looks to Utah, and says: ``Oh, they have a better educational system
than we do in New Mexico, and they always do everything right in
Utah.'' The truth is that 39 percent of their students don't complete
high school--in Salt Lake City, not in Utah, but in Salt Lake City--47
percent in Oklahoma City; in Dallas, according to ``Education Week,''
61 percent of students do not complete high school.
I hope that Senators will come to the Senate floor and contradict
these statistics and tell me that this is crazy, that they do not agree
with these statistics. I hope they can do that, because, in fact, I
find these statistics to be very startling.
But I know for a fact that in my State the percentage of people not
completing high school is very high. It is particularly high among
Hispanic students in my State. We have a great many Hispanic students
in my State, and way too many of them leave school before they complete
high school and middle school. There currently is no Federal program
that is intended to help solve this problem.
We have a TRIO Program. People point to the TRIO Program. It is an
Upward Bound Program. But less than 5 percent of the eligible students
participate in those programs.
There is a program just now getting started called GEAR UP. This is
for middle school mentoring. The unfortunate thing about this is that
it doesn't reach ninth or tenth graders. That is where the problem
really occurs most severely.
Then title I--title I, unfortunately, does not usually get any funds
to the high school level. Most of the title I funding goes to
elementary schools where the need is great. But what I am talking about
is middle school and high school. And those schools see very little
title I funding.
One of the main reasons this bill is needed is to restore some
balance to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which, at
present, is heavily weighted toward the younger grades. I favor the
assistance to the early grades, but I believe we need to do something
at the middle school and high school levels as well.
A lot of what needs to be done is reforming our high schools. Our
high schools are too big. That is where the dropout problem is most
severe. You get a 2,500-student high school, and, frankly, it is too
anonymous. Too many of the young people come to that school; nobody
knows whether they come in the morning or not. I have talked to high
schools in my State, the large high schools, and I ask, ``What do you
do if a student doesn't come to school?'' They say, ``After 3 days of
them not coming to school, we send them a letter. We send a letter to
their home address and ask them why they are not coming to school and
complain to the parents.'' Well, the reality is you need a more
personalized response and a more immediate and effective response when
students start dropping out of school. This legislation can help us
accomplish that.
United States graduation rates are falling behind other
industrialized countries. When the Governors met and President Bush met
in Charlottesville in 1989 and set the National Education Goals, the
second goal was that we want to have at least 90 percent of our
students complete high school and graduate from high school. The
reality is we have made virtually no progress towards achieving that
goal since 1989. We are now in 1999, and we have made

[[Page S2489]]

virtually no progress. Clearly, we need to deal with this issue.

Some have said: ``Well, let's put it off. Let's deal with it later on
in this Congress. This is a 2-year Congress. We are going to eventually
get around to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
reauthorization. We can deal with it then, maybe not this year. But
surely next year we will get around to it. So just relax. We will get
around to it.'' I believe we have a crisis with our high school dropout
rates, and I believe we need to deal with it now.
There is no logical reason why we can't do the Ed-Flex bill, which I
support, and do whatever this Senate wants to do with regard to special
education, and do something to assist local schools in dealing with the
dropout problem. We can do all three of these things.
As our former President, Lyndon Johnson, was famous for saying, ``We
can walk and chew gum at the same time'' here in the U.S. Senate. This
is not too much for us to take on.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I hope we get the
same kind of strong vote this time that we got in the last Congress--at
least have the 74 votes that we got in the last Congress. I hope we can
get even a stronger vote.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 hour 57 minutes.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
previous agreement with respect to the Ed-Flex bill be modified to
allow 1 hour of the 5-hour debate limitation to be used on Thursday
prior to the vote with respect to the pending amendment, and, further,
that hour of reserved time be equally divided.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield the floor.
Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.

Amendment No. 64 To Amendment 31

(Purpose: To reduce class size, and for other purposes)

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Murray and a long
list of additional Senators whose names I will put in the Record, I
send an amendment to the desk to help communities reduce class size for
the youngest children in the school.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New Mexico, [Mr. Bingaman], for Mrs.
Murray, for herself, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Durbin,
Mr. Harkin, Mr. Torricelli, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Levin, Mrs. Boxer,
Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Lieberman, Mr.
Robb, Mr. Sarbanes, Mr. Reed, Mr. Akaka, Mr. Wellstone, Mr.
Kerrey, Ms. Landrieu, Mr. Bryan, Mr. Biden, and Mr. Bingaman,
proposes an amendment numbered 64.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Amendments
Submitted.'')

Amendment No. 65 To Amendment No. 31

(Purpose: To improve academic and social outcomes for students and
reduce both juvenile crime and the risk that youth will become victims
of crime by providing productive activities during afterschool hours)

Mr. BINGAMAN. Also, on behalf of Senator Boxer, I send an amendment
to the desk to expand afterschool opportunities for children
nationwide.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Bingaman], for Mrs. Boxer,
for herself, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Mikulski, Mr.
Lieberman, Mr. Sarbanes, Mr. Torricelli, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr.
Kerrey, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Hollings, Mr. Johnson, and Mr.
Kerry, proposes an amendment numbered 65.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Amendments
Submitted.'')
Mr. BINGAMAN. I yield the floor.
Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

Amendment No. 66 To Amendment No. 31

Mr. JEFFORDS. I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator
Lott, Senator Jeffords, Senator Gregg, Senator Collins, Senator Frist,
and Senator Sessions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Jeffords], for Mr. Lott, for
himself, Mr. Jeffords, Mr. Gregg, Ms. Collins, Mr. Frist, and
Mr. Sessions, proposes amendment numbered 66.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

At the end, add the following:

SEC. . IDEA.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds that if part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act were fully
funded, local educational agencies and schools would have the
flexibility in their budgets to develop dropout prevention
programs, or any other programs deemed appropriate by the
local educational agencies and schools, that best address
their unique community needs and improve student performance.
(b) Amendment.--Section 307 of the Department of Education
Appropriations Act, 1999, is amended by adding after
subsection (g) the following:
``(h) Notwithstanding subsections (b)(2), and (c) through
(g), a local educational agency may use funds received under
this section to carry out activities under part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411
et seq.) in accordance with the requirements of such part.''.

SEC. . AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

In addition to other funds authorized to be appropriate to
carry out part B of the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411 et seq.), there are authorized
to be appropriated $150,000,000 to carry out such part.

Amendment No. 67 To Amendment No. 31

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I now send to the desk an amendment for
Mr. Lott on behalf of himself and Senator Jeffords, Mr. Gregg, Ms.
Collins, Mr. Frist, and Mr. Sessions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Jeffords], for Mr. Lott, for
himself, Mr. Jeffords, Mr. Gregg, Ms. Collins, Mr. Frist, and
Mr. Sessions, proposes an amendment numbered 67.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

At the end, add the following:

SEC. ____. IDEA.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds that if part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411
et seq.) were fully funded, local educational agencies and
schools would have the flexibility in their budgets to
develop after school programs, or any other programs deemed
appropriate by the local educational agencies and schools,
that best address their unique community needs and improve
student performance.
(b) Amendment.--Section 307 of the Department of Education
Appropriations Act, 1999, is amended by adding after
subsection (g) the following:
``(h) Notwithstanding subsections (b)(2), and (c) through
(g), a local educational agency may use funds received under
this section to carry out activities under part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411
et seq.) in accordance with the requirements of such part.''.

SEC. ____. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

In addition to other funds authorized to be appropriated to
carry out part B of the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411 et seq.), there are authorized
to be appropriated $600,000,000 to carry out such part.

Amendment No. 68 to Amendment No. 31

(Purpose: To provide all local educational agencies with the option to
use the funds received under section 307 of the Department of Education
Appropriations Act, 1999, for activities under part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and to amend the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act with respect to alternative
educational settings)

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask on behalf of Senator Lott and
others I send an amendment to the desk.

[[Page S2490]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Jeffords], for Mr. Lott, for
himself, and Mr. Ashcroft, proposes an amendment numbered 68.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

At the end, add the following:

SEC. ____. IDEA.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds that if part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411
et seq.) were fully funded, local educational agencies and
schools would have the flexibility in their budgets to
develop programs to reduce social promotion, establish school
accountability procedures, or any other programs deemed
appropriate by the local educational agencies and schools,
that best address their unique community needs and improve
student performance.
(b) Amendment.--Section 307 of the Department of Education
Appropriations Act, 1999, is amended by adding after
subsection (g) the following:
``(h) Notwithstanding subsections (b)(2), and (c) through
(g), a local educational agency may use funds received under
this section to carry out activities under part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411
et seq.) in accordance with the requirements of such part.''.

SEC. ____. ALTERNATIVE EDUCATIONAL SETTING.

(a) In General.--Section 615(k)(1)(A)(ii)(I) of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C.
1415(k)(1)(A)(ii)(I)) is amended to read as follows:

``(I) the child carries or possesses a weapon to or at
school, on school premises, or to or at a school function
under the jurisdiction of a State or a local educational
agency; or''.

(b) Application.--The amendment made by subsection (a)
shall apply to conduct occurring not earlier than the date of
enactment of this Act.
On page 13, line 14, strike ``and''.
On page 13, line 15, strike ``all interested'' and insert
``parents, educators, and all other interested''.
On page 13, line 17, strike the period and insert ``, shall
provide that opportunity in accordance with any applicable
State law specifying how the comments may be received, and
shall submit the comments received with the agency's
application to the Secretary or the State educational agency,
as appropriate.''.
At the end, add the following:

SEC. ____. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, at this time I would just like to make
some brief comments on the amendments which have been presented by the
minority. I would like to again reiterate for my colleagues that the
process we are going into was an agreement reached in order to move
this bill along. This bill, which is known as the Ed-Flex bill, is
relatively noncontroversial. I think the only vote in opposition in
committee, and may well be in the Chamber, was by Senator Wellstone.
But we are in the process to move this bill along, to move it along
with the House bill, which I believe was passed, or will be passed
today in order to get it into law in time so that States may have a
maximum benefit from its passage. It is a bill with which all 50
Governors agree, a bill with which the President agrees, and the
Department of Education has been sending the guidelines out for its
utilization. All of this is ongoing.
However--and it is understandable--the minority has a desire to be
able to put amendments on the bill because they feel strongly that
these initiatives ought to be put into law. However, as chairman of the
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I must say that we
are in the process now of reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act. That act is where most of these amendments should be.
Some of them are perhaps relevant. For example, part of the Wellstone
amendment is relevant to the Ed-Flex bill.
If we are going to assure that the committee system works--where
evidence is presented at hearings, where we have people from the local
schools all the way up to the States' Department of Education testify,
where we can be absolutely sure of what we are doing in this incredibly
important bill, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which has
some $50 billion in Federal dollars, I believe it should not be done in
this kind of ad hoc process of attaching amendments. Well-intentioned
as the amendments may be, some of which I would agree to, some of which
I have even offered in the past, we can not offer them in a way that
does not make sense when you are trying to be more effective with the
expenditure of Federal funds.
There is $50 billion included, and yet, as I mentioned earlier, over
the last 15 years, ever since we understood we had some serious
problems in education in this country, we have seen absolutely no
measurable improvement in the test results of our young people.
That is an intolerable situation. It does not make any sense to
reauthorize a bill, which has obviously not had much impact on
improving education in this country, without holding hearings or before
fully examining it.
I am put in the very difficult position of having to allow these
amendments to be presented in order to move the bill along, and then I
will be the one to have to move to table. A motion to table means you
do not allow the amendment to be voted on, and I will do this because
the amendment should be offered when the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act is before us. But, my move to table will give the
political argument that I killed all these amendments. I am just trying
to help this country's education system improve and not to do it in
this ad hoc, messy way.
Therefore, I must oppose the amendment offered by my colleague from
California, Mrs. Feinstein. I have long advocated that we, as a Nation,
need to address, head on, the issue of social promotion. In fact, we
made some progress in this area last Congress. Funds made available for
title II of the Higher Education Act, teacher quality enhancement
grants, may be used by States to develop and implement efforts to
address the problem of social promotion and prepare teachers to
effectively address the issues raised by ending the practice of social
promotion.
``Social promotion'' is a term which educators know, but I am not
sure everyone does. It simply means that we sort of gave up on young
people saying, well, it is not really that important that they know how
to read because there are jobs that you can get without having to read.
That situation has changed. We are going into the next century, and
we know that unless a child has an excellent education when they
graduate, they are not going to be able to get a good job. The literacy
studies show that 51 percent--this is an incredible statistic--of the
young people who graduated from high school, when measured for their
performance, were functionally illiterate. We have to stop that. Ending
social promotion is what that is all about.
However, the amendment by Senators Feinstein and Dorgan is one I will
reluctantly have to move to table, in order to make sure that we can
move on in an orderly process on the ESEA reauthorization.
The other amendment, by Senators Bingaman and Reid on school
dropouts, is in a similar situation. We all know that we have to do
something about school dropouts. We know that the so-called forgotten
half in our educational system for years has been ignored, and when
they get to sixth, seventh, and eighth grades they do not see any
relevance to education in their lives. Everybody is pushing: You have
to go to college; You have to go to college. And now we know there are
many high-paying, skilled jobs that young people can get, and that
young people would have the ability for if they had the proper
schooling efforts in order to learn those skills that are necessary.
And so we have to accommodate that. We have to make sure that the
young people in the sixth and seventh grades understand that if they do
things to get the education, they will be able to get a good job.
There has been a tremendous move in that direction in some States. In
Mississippi, with one of the worst records in the sense of educational
performance, they are spending millions of dollars making sure that
young people start looking at careers in the sixth grade so that they
know there is a relevancy to the education and they won't drop out. It
is very important. But it should be considered on the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act, which is now before the committee,

[[Page S2491]]

and on which we are holding hearings. I certainly agree with Senator
Bingaman in what he is doing.
There is another amendment that has to do with report cards that we
have listened to, and that is fine, as well. But that is an issue for
the States to address, not for the Federal Government to mandate.
In many cases, the States are ahead of us in addressing the quality
of their schools. Mr. President, 36 States already require report
cards. We need to also remember that funding for education is primarily
a State and local responsibility. So, again, that is another good
approach, but it is something we should do in the orderly committee
function.
Senator Wellstone has amendments. I have to say at least one of them
is relevant to the underlying act. He is on the committee. He had an
opportunity to offer it, but did not. Under the present situation, Ed-
Flex demands accountability of States that are participating. It is
important to keep in mind that accountability has been part of Ed-Flex
since its inception, and the managers' package builds on those strong
accountability provisions. So, again, this one could have been offered
in committee. He chose not to offer it in committee, so I must oppose
that one as well.
Mr. President, I again want to put everyone on notice that I have the
responsibility to protect the ability of this committee to work in an
orderly fashion. Because of that, I will have the unpleasant duty of
probably moving to table these amendments when they come up, or to
oppose them.
I would like to also refer to the Boxer amendment. This is another
one that is very familiar to me. The 21st Century Community Learning
Centers is a program that I created back in 1994 as part of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I fought hard to include this
program in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and was
successful, in spite of opposition from the very same administration.
Getting the program funded was not easy in the face of the
administration's opposition to this program. In fact, the
administration proposed rescinding the fiscal year 1995 funding for the
21st Century Community Learning Centers. All of a sudden, the
administration woke up and said: Hey, Republicans sometimes have a good
idea. It is an amazing thing for this administration to recognize. But
anyway, all of a sudden they put $750,000 into the program--I am sorry
they asked to rescind it at another time.
More recently, the administration decided that they now like this
program, and in fiscal year 1997 they recommended $15 million for this
program. Now they are increasing it even more. So, obviously, I am a
great friend of that one. It was a bill I got passed back in 1994 in
the last reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
I have enormous interest in changes to any of this legislation,
certainly changes as dramatic as proposed by this amendment. This
amendment almost completely rewrites the 21st Century Community
Learning Centers. It changes its purpose, use of funds, and other
aspects of the legislation. Last year, the administration, through the
competitive grants process, substantially changed the focus and,
indeed, the very nature of it by rewriting regulations. That was an
unfortunate matter. Overnight, an act to expand the use of existing
school facilities became an afterschool program--retracted it.
All these other things are just as valuable. Certainly I understand
the desires of Senator Boxer to work on that bill. We will have plenty
of opportunity. She will have all the opportunity she wants when the
bill comes out of the committee later this year.
So, I could go on and on. But right now I again want to reiterate, in
order to get this bill through we have been forced to go into this kind
of amendment process, which some will say gives them the opportunity to
do something constructive, knowing full well at the end of the day they
on the other side of the aisle will not prevail because they do not
have the votes. Fortunately, I believe my colleagues in the Senate, at
least the majority of them, will say: Yes, let's use the orderly
process, the one this institution was designed to utilize, in passing
out legislation, passing out bills. And the process of offering
amendments should be done first in the committee where they can have a
good review after hearings and then secondly done on the floor.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am pleased to have the opportunity to
discuss my support for the Education Flexibility Partnership Act or Ed-
Flex as it has become known. Ed-Flex provides much needed relief to the
schools of 12 states currently included in a demonstration project
begun in 1994. Like many of my colleagues, I believe it is time to give
this relief to the other 38 states who suffer from government over-
regulation.
In preparation for each new school year, teachers and school
administrators throughout the country face the challenge of providing
the highest level of education with a limited amount of resources. This
has always been the case and will remain the true for generations to
come. I know this from personal experience. My wife was an educator in
the Tulsa Public School District for many years and both of my
daughters are current teachers. In my conversations with them, I have
seen first hand the problems associated with bureaucratic mandates
handed down from Washington.
Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Over the last
three decades, the Federal Government has piled on mountains of
bureaucratic redtape on local school districts. Between 1960 and 1990,
the average percentage of school budgets devoted to classroom
instruction declined from 61% in 1960 to 46% in 1990. The most
significant reason for this decline is traced to the explosion of
administrators and non-teaching support staff while the overall number
of teachers has reduced. One primary reason for the growth in
administrative personnel is the growth in regulations, both state and
Federal.
Let me show you just one example of how this is evidenced in
Oklahoma. In my hometown of Tulsa, the Tulsa Public Schools have
approximately 42,600 students. In order to provide quality education to
those 42,600 students, there are approximately 225 administrative staff
employed by the Tulsa Public Schools system. Now, I realize that some
of these are essential managerial and administrative staff, however,
how many are doing nothing more than trying to keep Tulsa schools' in
compliance with Federal regulations? How many of those staff could be
better utilized in classrooms across the district instead of spending
their time dedicated to paperwork? And, this is just one example of one
public school system in my state. The problem is the same in every
single school system.
Mr. President, it is clear, the more people and resources it requires
to comply with government regulations, the fewer people and resources
dedicated to teaching our children.
Each time we create a new Federal program, with it comes numerous
forms and reports. The schools must understand, complete these forms
and reports and submit to the appropriate departments within the
appropriate agencies, by the appropriate deadlines. Whether schools use
teachers and administrators, or support staff and volunteering parents,
to fulfill this obligation, valuable time and resources are used for
Washington's paperwork, not student education.
Let me illustrate this point further. Currently, the Federal
Government provides approximately 7% of overall school funding.
However, Federal paperwork accounts for upwards of 50% of all school
paperwork. It is estimated that completing this paperwork requires
about 49 million hours each year. Mr. President, that is the equivalent
of 25,000 employees working full time for an entire year. According to
one expert, it is estimated that it takes six times as many employees
to administer a Federal education dollar as it does to administer one
state education dollar. Again, these people are not teaching or
educating our children, but completing bureaucratic red tape.

Earlier, I discussed the number of administrative positions in the
Tulsa Public Schools; but the problem is more pronounced in the state
as a whole. There are approximately 5,950 administrative and other
certified staff performing non-teaching duties in Oklahoma. Those 5,590
people represent

[[Page S2492]]

about 10% of the total public school personnel. That is 10% doing
something other than teaching children. That concerns me greatly. I
have to wonder whether we are using our resources in the best way
possible to meet the educational needs of our children.
Now, some of my colleagues, and the President, believe that we need
the Federal Government to hire an additional 100,000 teachers in order
to reduce class size around the country. However, I have to wonder if
that is really the answer to the problem. As I have just demonstrated,
we have too many professional and certified staff in my state that are
not educating children. Instead, they busy themselves attempting to
comply with government regulations. If we can unburden school districts
of cumbersome regulation, the local districts can shift some of their
resources back to educating our children. If the Federal Government
does require the states to hire additional teachers, it will simply be
one more mandate handed down from Washington for the states to comply
with once the dedicated Federal funds expire. You can be sure that if
there are additional Federal mandates there will be additional non-
teaching certified staff required to administer the program and that
means another professional staff member not in the classroom teaching
our children.
As the bureaucratic mandates from Washington have increased, states
needed a way to gain some flexibility to address their individual
concerns. Our answer to the states was the Education Flexibility
Partnership Demonstration Act of 1994, an effort I was proud to support
while I was in the House of Representatives. First authorized in 1994
for six states, and expanded in 1996 for six additional states, Ed-Flex
has given 12 state legislatures the freedom to identify the most
efficient and effective means possible to meet the needs of students
and schools in their states. Under Ed-Flex, the Department of Education
gives to states and local districts the authority to waive certain
Federal requirements that interfere with state and local efforts to
improve education. In exchange for this flexibility, the state and
local districts must agree to comply with certain federal core
principles and agree to waive its own state regulations. The states
must also agree to use the affected federal funds for their original
purpose.
Mr. President, I think it says something about the nature of our
current bureaucracy that we have to give states the power to waive
Federal regulations. If there were fewer onerous regulations in the
first place, we would not have to pass legislation to give states the
power to ignore federal regulations. Wouldn't it make more sense to let
the states be responsible for the education of our children, not
bureaucrats in Washington?
In my State of Oklahoma, we have great diversity in our education
needs. We have schools of all kinds; urban schools, rural schools,
inner city schools, and suburban schools. In my conversations with
educators and administrators, I hear them tell unique stories about the
challenges they face in trying to educate their students. All of these
educators tell different stories. However, not surprisingly, almost to
a person, they tell me of the problems they have in complying with
government regulations. It does not come as a surprise to me that the
education challenges presented at urban schools like Tulsa McClain High
School differ widely from the needs of smaller rural schools like
Weatherford High School. Yet, they all have to comply with the same
Federal regulations. Given the failings of the public schools today, it
is little surprise that the cookie-cutter approach of the Federal
Government has been a disaster.
The time has come to move beyond a one-size-fits-all Federal approach
in educating our children. As I look around our country, I see the
great successes that our Governors are having in making progress in
education reform. I am continually amazed at the policy innovations
going on in State legislatures all over the country with regard to
education. However, now, it is the Federal Government's responsibility
to join with those Governors and give them more flexibility to continue
to innovate and improve our public schools. I understand the need for
accountability. However, I believe accountability is best when it
closest to home and vested in Governors, State legislators, and local
school board officials than with faceless Federal bureaucrats in
Washington. State leaders understand this. That is why groups like the
National Governor's Association and the National Conference of State
Legislators have endorsed this legislation.
As I have watched and listened to the debate on Ed-Flex, I have been
surprised by many amendments offered by some of my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle. Many of the proposed amendments seem
counterproductive to the central purpose of Ed-Flex. Ed-Flex is about
easing government mandates and regulations. However, many of the
amendments we have debated would add to the mountain of Federal
mandates applied to State and local school districts. As much as I hate
to say this, it appears that many of my colleagues would rather have a
political issue than have meaningful education reform.
Mr. President, the results Ed-Flex prove the effectiveness of the
demonstration program. Whether it is giving local districts the
resources to provide one-on-one reading tutoring or lower the teacher
to student ratios in classrooms, Ed-Flex has been a tremendous success.
These are all things we can agree upon. Based on its proven track
record, the time has come to expand Ed-Flex to the rest of the country.
We need to continue to identify programs that work and expand them,
while eliminating the programs that are ineffective.
In closing, Mr. President, I want to thank Senators Frist and Wyden
for their leadership on this issue. Their efforts prove that we can
work together to the benefit of our children when it comes to educating
our children. As the Senate proceeds with the reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act later this year, I look forward
to working with them to continue to progress we have begun here today.
Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity to discuss my views on
Ed-Flex and I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator from Vermont.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, for the convenience of all Members, I
would like to let them know that, as far as I know, at least on the
majority side of the aisle, there are no speakers desiring to come to
the floor. I put them on notice that if I do not hear from them within
10 minutes, we may end up drawing the session to a close. As far as the
other side of the aisle, I also inform them. I believe we have notified
the minority that if they have no further speakers, we would appreciate
knowing that. If we hear from no one within 10 minutes, we will presume
they have no further people to be heard and then yield the remainder of
the time back so that tomorrow we can start on schedule.
I also notify Senators that the order of the amendments tomorrow will
be the order that was originally delineated and not as they may have
been presented, so that Senators will know exactly when their
amendments will be coming before us.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous
consent that it be charged equally to each side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to share a few remarks. I
have had the pleasure to be able to preside over this body for the last
hour and hear some excellent remarks from Senators who are concerned
about education. I thought, as we heard some

[[Page S2493]]

good remarks from one of our brother Senators about an amendment to
deal with the dropout rate, that this is how we have gotten where we
are today in large part.
The remarks were good. I personally am concerned about the dropout
rate. I have been involved in youth programs in my hometown of Mobile,
AL. We had a meeting with the police and the school boards on how to
deal with truancy, dropout problems, and what we could do to confront
that. That is happening, I suspect, all over America right now. Some
schools have good dropout programs, others do not.
The question was, are these numbers--showing 50 percent in many
schools dropping out before graduating--are they accurate? I am not
sure that they are, frankly. We questioned that in our community,
because sometimes when people transfer from one school to another, they
are counted as a dropout. But we do have higher dropouts than we need.
And good school systems are identifying them at the earliest possible
time in dealing with them.
But I thought to myself as it was suggested--this amendment would
suggest and mandate that we have a dropout czar in America--so this
U.S. Senate now is going to take it upon itself to have a czar to deal
with dropout problems. And that will be the 789th--if I am correct in
my numbers--Federal program Congress would have adopted and that is now
in effect, all to be added to a bill called Ed-Flex that is suppose to
give more flexibility to the school systems, to allow them to use the
resources we are sending to them now effectively to deal with the
problems as they know they exist and they would like to deal with them.
Yes, I wish I could wave a wand and create a program that would
instantly eliminate the dropout problem in America. I would be tempted,
as all of us are, to think we could appoint a czar in Washington who
would stop the dropout problem. But I really do not think it is going
to happen.
What we have to do is strengthen our school systems in the classroom,
where teaching occurs, making those schools more friendly, more
motivating, more interesting, more challenging, educating the young
people who are there, because really the only thing that counts is that
magic moment in a classroom when the learning occurs between teachers
and pupils.
One of the Senators said our problem is schools are too big. Well, I
guess next we will have a czar to set the sizes of schools in America.
My daughters both graduated from a large high school in Mobile, AL.
Bill Bennett came down and gave them an award as one of the best high
schools in America--racially balanced--a big high school, Murphy High
School, an outstanding high school. It is a large school. All large
schools are not bad. In fact, our dog was named Murphy, named after the
high school. We loved that school. My wife and I participated in the
PTA and were most interested in what went on there.
When I graduated, my senior class had 30 members. It was a public
high school. The one who finished third in my class of 30 is now dean
at the University of Alabama. And I finished below her. And the one who
finished two below me--seventh--graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy.

I do not think we need in this body to be saying what the sizes of
schools ought to be and how school systems ought to run their programs.
We need to help them in every way we can and to eliminate this problem,
as I noted earlier today, where a system like Montgomery, AL, spends,
according to the letter I got, $860,000 to comply with Federal
regulations. The Federal Government gives 8 percent of the funding and
over 50 percent of the regulations.
So our chairman, Senator Jeffords, has presented a commonsense,
reasonable, modest step toward allowing local school systems to
petition for the right to have flexibility in how many of these
governmental programs are ordered. That is so rational, it makes so
much sense, and it in fact was proven effective in the welfare reform
bill. That is all we are talking about.
There is no doubt Senator Jeffords will conduct hearings on any of
these matters. He will take testimony and receive it and consider
matters to deal with truancy, matters to deal with drug problems,
matters to deal with special education. We want to deal with that. But
that will come up in the education bill that will come along later.
This bill needs to remain a clean bill designed to create flexibility
for our school systems in America. That is what it ought to be. We
ought not to allow it to be clogged up with every Senator's view of
what would be wonderful if they just ran schools in America, because
that is how we have gotten in this fix. That is what we are trying to
make some progress toward completing.
I care about education. I care about public education. I taught. My
wife has taught. Our children have participated in public education. We
want to make it better. But I am not at all persuaded that the Members
of this body have studied the problems of the Mobile, AL, or Vermont
school systems. They have not studied those problems. They do not know
how to fix them. They read a study somewhere that says something, and
they feel obligated to come down here and present the next program, the
789th program, Federal Government mandate, to fix it. Then they can go
back home and say, ``I fixed truancy, I fixed dropout problems,'' or
whatever.
I just say to my colleagues that this is not the way to do it. We
have elected school board presidents, school board members. We have
superintendents of education. We have principals. We have teachers.
They know our children's names. We need to put as much power and as
much money into the hands of the people who know our children's names
as we possibly can. If they do not care about our children, we need to
make sure we have someone there who does. But I submit to you they do
care about them. They are better trained than we are in education. They
are seeing kids every day in their classrooms. They know what
facilities are in existence. Do they need more teachers? Do they need
more classrooms? Do they need more computers? Let them decide
that. That is what we should do; give them the flexibility to make the
decisions needed.

I think we will find, if we pass this bill, that instead of just the
12 States indicated in the chart from the GAO report this past
November--the GAO studied this Ed-Flex bill that gave 12 States the
right to have more flexibility in their educational programs. They
concluded that they have used their authority well, the flexibility
given to them, and that the waiver authority has been used carefully
and judiciously.
Why would we expect otherwise? Why would we expect that the people we
have elected and hired to take care of our children, who know our
children's names, are not going to use freedom and financial support
from Washington carefully and expeditiously? I feel very strongly about
this.
I see the Senator from Arkansas has come to the floor. I will be
anxious to hear his remarks, because he has served on this committee,
that I have just joined this January, for the past 2 years. He is
passionately concerned about improving education. He has a bill that I
am proud to support--Dollars to the Classroom. That bill goes much
further than this Ed-Flex bill. I believe it would be a historic step
toward empowering our local education system to get out from under
Federal regulations and be able to focus entirely on educating our
children, get that money and authority to the classroom where it can be
used wisely.
I thank the Chair for the time and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I want to associate myself with the
remarks of the Senator from Alabama and thank him for his kind remarks
concerning the Dollars to the Classroom proposal. I look forward to
working with him on the committee.
I am dismayed that a bill that has the kind of bipartisan support--
support in this Chamber, support across the country among educators,
support among our Nation's Governors--would have been held up as long
as this has been held up and would have had the kind of amendments,
many of them worthy of debate but that would have been far more germane
to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which, as the chairman
has said, will be debated and will be marked up in committee later this
year. I think it is

[[Page S2494]]

unfortunate that we have had all of these amendments filed.
As Senator Sessions said, I have a bill, that I feel very strongly
about, that would go further than Ed-Flex. I have resisted offering
that as an amendment. We could have brought that to the floor. We could
have offered that to the Ed-Flex bill. However, it is important that
this piece of legislation move forward uncluttered, clean, with the
support of both parties, and be presented to the President for his
signature.
I want to especially address in the next few minutes one of those
amendments which has been offered, an amendment that sounds so good:
The 100,000 teachers funded at the Federal level over the next 7 years.
I think it is kind of a cotton candy amendment: It looks good, it is
sweet, it tastes good, but it is not very filling, it is not very
satisfying, and it is not very good for you. The 100,000 teachers--when
you say that at first blush to the average American, that sounds very,
very appealing, but I think when you look in greater depth and you look
more closely at what that amendment would do, then, I think in fact it
is not worthy of our support.
We have already decreased class size across this country. At the same
time we have seen a dramatic reduction in class size across the United
States, we have not seen a comparable improvement in achievement.
Between 1955 and 1997, over 42 years, school class size has dropped in
the United States from 27.4 students per classroom to about 17 students
per classroom, according to the National Center for Education
Statistics--a very dramatic drop, from 27 to 17. At the same time, the
number of teachers has grown at a faster rate than the number of
students. This chart illustrates that very clearly. We see a very
dramatic increase in the number of teachers and the student ratio
decreasing appreciably.

While public school enrollment has decreased in Arkansas, in my home
State, going from the broad international statistic to what it looks
like in Arkansas, we have seen our public school enrollment drop
slightly, by 1.3 percent, during the last quarter century. The number
of teachers during that same period of time has dramatically increased
in Arkansas, from 17,407 in 1965 to 29,574 in 1997. Now, that
represents a 70-percent increase in teachers in the State of Arkansas.
At the same time, we saw a slight decrease in the number of students in
our public schools. What that represents is a very dramatic improvement
in classroom size. We have smaller classes, we have more teachers
teaching those classes, but studies have shown that unless the class is
very, very large to begin with, modest reductions in the size of the
class do not correlate with gains in student performance.
Here is the point: Effective teachers can generally handle, studies
indicate, an ordinary class of 19 students as easily as they can handle
a class of 14 students.
I want teachers to have smaller classes. I think that is a desirable
goal. It is a goal that is being achieved in States all across this
country. But I do not believe it is something we should mandate from
Washington, DC, nor fund from Washington, DC. Senator Sessions said it
better than I can: I don't believe we need the 100 Members of the U.S.
Senate to become some kind of super school board making those kinds of
decisions as to what schools need most.
At the same time teacher-student ratio has dropped in Arkansas from
21.9, almost 22, in every class in 1970, to 17 per class in 1995,
student achievement has failed to show a measurable increase during
that same time period. I want to say that again: We have seen classes
drop from about 22 per class to 17 per class over the last 25 years in
Arkansas. It has dropped more dramatically nationally, but in Arkansas
we have seen it drop from 22 to 17. We have not seen student
achievement show comparable improvement during the time that classes
got smaller.
Now, the initiative that has been presented by Senator Kennedy, the
amendment offered by Senator Kennedy and Senator Murray, is expensive
indeed, and there is no demonstrable evidence that for what we will be
paying for this new program, we will see a corresponding improvement in
academic performance. If enacted, the President's teacher initiative
will provide enough money to hire only 361 additional teachers in the
entire State of Arkansas in the first 2 years. All of the hoopla, all
of the excitement about the 100,000 new teachers--which sounds like
such a dramatic number--over the next 2 years in the entire State of
Arkansas, it means 361 additional teachers.
Now, we have in Arkansas 314 school districts. Many have argued we
need fewer. Perhaps that is true; perhaps we need to consolidate some.
But we have 314 school districts. We are going to receive 361 new
teachers. That is 1.15 new teachers per school district. If we want to
break that down a little more, it amounts to about half a teacher per
elementary school. Since the focus of the amendment and the initiative
is supposed to be grades 1 through 3, when you calculate that, it means
.18 new teachers.
Here we have that clearly outlined: In the State of Arkansas, 1.15
new teachers per school district; a half a teacher per elementary
school; or .18 new teachers for each grade 1 through 3.
It is simply not enough of a commitment if that is what we are trying
to do, it is not enough of a commitment on reducing class size, to make
an appreciable difference in Arkansas or the Nation. If this initiative
were carried out for the full 7 years, Arkansas would be able to hire
only 939 new teachers for the whole State over the whole 7-year period.
That equals 3 new teachers per school district, or 1.4 teachers per
elementary school, or half a teacher in grades 1 through 3, to do the
whole program for the whole 7 years. For such an expensive proposal, I
believe Americans expect more results than that.
This will do little to actually reduce the student-teacher ratio when
there is only one new teacher in an entire school district, which is
the result we would have under this initiative.
Lisa Graham Keegan, one of the most innovative directors of public
instruction in the country, superintendent of public instruction for
the State of Arizona states:

In the first year of the President's new program, Arizona
will receive more than $17 million. $17 million is a lot of
money; what do we get for that kind of investment? At $30,000
per year--a good, but not great wage--we can pay for a little
over 500 new teachers, as the program asks. In Arizona, that
comes to a bit under 2 teachers per school district. Not per
school, but per school district.

They would average two new teachers per school district in the State
of Arizona. Not every school district--and I think this is so
important--finds that their greatest need is having more teachers or
smaller classes. Many school districts do not need more teachers. They
may need more books or more computers. Maybe they just need better-
trained teachers. A one-size-fits-all approach is not what States and
school districts need or want.
Again quoting Lisa Graham Keegan, she states:

President Clinton made it abundantly clear that he had
decided that smaller class sizes are a good thing, even
though research has provided no clear indicators of the
impact that class size has on a child's ability to learn.
Nevertheless, because class size had been a good thing in
some of the classrooms the President had visited, then
smaller class sizes had to be a good thing for every
classroom in America.

Well, that is a pretty strong allegation. But I think it is accurate
on the basis of effectively anecdotal evidence. The President concluded
this sounds good, looks good, this is appealing, and this was going to
be his education initiative: 100,000 new teachers, paid for by the
Federal Government, without having the research to demonstrate that, in
fact, it correlates to better academic performance.
This program requires that the money be used for new teachers. Yet,
many States have already implemented class size reduction programs on
their own. At least 25 States, including California, Florida, Nevada,
Tennessee, Wisconsin, Virginia, and Maryland, have either tried a class
size reduction program or are currently considering a class size
reduction program.
What about the 25 States that, on their own, many times at the
expense of their constituents and their school patrons, have
implemented their own class size reduction programs? What about those
who are ahead of the curve

[[Page S2495]]

and have sought to address this at the local level? Are we now going to
say we are imposing this upon you, that you have to hire these new
teachers if you want the benefit of this Federal program?
In his testimony before the Senate Health and Education Committee, on
February 23, Michigan Governor John Engler said this. I know our
Presiding Officer, the Senator from Michigan, will concur with this.
Governor Engler has been one of the most creative and innovative
Governors both in the area of welfare--pushing welfare reform a number
of years ago and seeing a tremendous revolution in the welfare system
in Michigan--and he has now been pushing hard for greater flexibility
for the schools in Michigan and the schools across this country. He
said in his testimony before our committee:

Many Governors feel so strongly that the bureaucracy is the
problem that we cannot imagine being unable to improve
education with greater funding flexibility.

He didn't say send us more money. He might not turn that down, I
don't know; but he didn't say that was the greater need. He said the
problem is the bureaucracy. Give us greater flexibility and we will
improve education.

Governor Ridge of Pennsylvania said in his testimony before our
committee:

We all care about teacher competency, social promotion and
class size and many other things, yet, we must recognize that
the States themselves are designing programs that meet their
unique needs.

The States themselves are designing programs. Once again, it is a
matter of trust. Who are we to conclude in the U.S. Senate that we can
be trusted to know what is best for local schools in Michigan,
Arkansas, Vermont, and Washington State, but the Governors don't, the
school superintendents don't, or that the local elected school boards
can't be trusted? I think that is a misconception and an insult to
those local leaders who care as much about the welfare and the
education of children as we do here in the Senate.
Reducing class size simply does not necessarily mean we are going to
have improved performance. It does not deliver the results. States
performing exceptionally well on achievement tests do not have an
extraordinarily high number of teachers per student. For example, the
State of Minnesota ranked third in the 1996 NAEP test scores for eighth
grade mathematics. They ranked third on the NAEP test in eighth grade
math. They rank 42nd in students per teacher.
If lowering class size were the panacea, then Minnesota, I think,
would have a hard time explaining why they rank third in the Nation in
eighth grade math and 42nd in class size. There simply is no clear
correlation. Without the research, without the hearings, without the
evidence, why would we want to pass it? Is it because, like cotton
candy, it looks good and sweet?
On the other hand, schools that have a low student/teacher ratio do
not necessarily have a high achievement score. Example: The District of
Columbia has the lowest number of students per teacher--13.7--of any
State or Federal jurisdiction. It is 13.7. Yet, it ranked 41st in its
1996 NAEP test scores for eighth grade math. In contrast, we have
Minnesota. I know there are a lot of factors that can be involved, but
that tells me there is not a clear correlation between class size and
academic performance.
Eric Hanushek, an economics and public policy professor at the
University of Rochester, maintains that teacher quality ``has 20 times
the impact of class size. Teacher quality just swamps all the evidence
we have on class size. If I had a choice between a large class with a
good teacher and a small class with a lousy one, I'd take the large
class any day.''
The teacher quality is far more critical in ensuring the quality of
the education of our children than the student/teacher ratio, the class
size.
I remember, vaguely, when I was in the second grade we had too many
second graders; we had 37. And so the superintendent decided we were
going to take 7 of the second graders--me being one of them--and put
them in a joint class with second and third grade. Mrs. Hare was the
teacher. Some of the parents expressed concern that we were going to
have a combined class because the class was too big. But we had an
extraordinary teacher, a quality teacher, in a combined class of 7 from
one grade and 20 from another grade. But it worked. It worked not
because the class size was perfect, or because the student/teacher
ratio was perfect, but because, as Senator Sessions referred to it, the
magic of learning in a classroom was taking place. We had a quality
teacher who cared about the kids and instilled in us students a desire
to learn. That is what we can do about education--improve the quality
of teachers in the classroom, not some feel-good measure of hiring
100,000 teachers, whether that be the need or not.
Mr. President, about 1,100 studies have been made of class size. Out
of those 1,100, only a very small few made any link at all between
small classes and improved achievement. The research and the evidence
is simply not there.
The proponents of this measure keep mentioning that we need to
fulfill the promise made last fall in the omnibus appropriations bill,
which funded the Class Size Reduction Program, at a price tag of $1.2
billion.
What I would ask is this: What happens at the end of the 7 years when
this authorization expires? We then have a new mandate that must be
funded, or the States and localities will bear the burden of continuing
the program which we started. Hiring 100,000 new teachers with the
spending schedule to expire at the end of 7 years will result in one of
two things: Either a new heavier tax burden upon our States in trying
to pay for these teacher salaries, or a permanent entitlement
established at the Federal level, and another step in nationalizing
education control in this country.
What happens with new Federal education programs? Once in place, they
grow. They grow. Year after year, they grow. And this will become a new
prescriptive program that places more regulations on the localities and
further contributes to a Federal oversight of what should be and has
always been a local issue.
Some Members have been talking about the urgency with which we must
enact class size legislation. But, before we create a new Federal
program, shouldn't we, I ask my colleagues, fully fund the mandates
that Congress has already placed on school districts?
Every time I meet with parents, teachers, principals and local school
board members from across Arkansas, they have one common theme and one
common complaint. And it is this: Senator Hutchinson, please fully fund
special education.
When we placed that mandate upon the schools, we made a commitment
and a pledge that we were going to provide 40 percent of the funding of
that mandate at the Federal level. Now, before we have even gotten
close to meeting that commitment, we start a host of new programs,
including the initiative to hire 100,000 new teachers.
During the 1995-1996 school year, 53,880 students in Arkansas were
served under IDEA. That is about 12 percent of all students in the
State served under IDEA special education.
Funding for special education affects all schools and all school
districts. It is not a problem limited to Little Rock, or Rogers, AR,
or to the State of Arkansas. Every State has to deal with this critical
funding problem.
We are failing to miss a critical point: If we provide more funding
for special education, then schools will have more money available to
hire more teachers, create afterschool programs, or build new schools,
whatever the need is at the local level.
If we would, rather than funding 100,000 new teachers ``one size fits
all'', whether that is the need at the local level or not, if we would
instead take that funding, place it in IDEA special education funding,
it then would allow the local school districts to determine with the
resources that are now free where the greatest need is--computers,
books, tutors, or even school construction. But the decisions would be
made locally.
In 1975, Congress first mandated a free appropriate public education
for school-age children with disabilities. We have, Mr. President, not
fulfilled the responsibility to which we committed.
The formula for providing grants to States is authorized at 40
percent, the national average per-pupil expenditure. Congress has never
provided more than 12\1/2\ percent of IDEA funding, and that

[[Page S2496]]

was back in 1979, 20 years ago. For fiscal year 1999, allocations to
States represented only 11.7 percent of average per-pupil expenditures.
Schools get only 11 percent of the funding, but 100 percent of the
Federal mandates, and what an expensive mandate it is.
This shortfall in funding does not just affect special education
students. Because schools are mandated by Federal law to provide a free
and an appropriate public education, they must provide these services.
As Fort Smith public schools superintendent, Dr. Benny Gooden, wrote
in a letter last week--one of our outstanding superintendents in Fort
Smith, AR, who writes regularly about the burden that IDEA places upon
local resources:

For almost 25 years, local elementary and secondary schools
and their governing boards of education have attempted to
deliver essential educational services to children with
disabilities under these Federal guidelines. During this time
period, the costs associated with providing these services
have escalated dramatically, while the level of Federal
support has never approached the promised 40 percent of
applicable costs which accompanied the initial passage of the
legislation.

While providing an education to disabled students is necessary and
desirable, we must recognize the effect of imposing unfunded mandates
on our school districts.
The more that we fail to pay our fair share of the cost of educating
disabled students, the more we force local school districts to take
money away from other programs to fulfill their duty to special
education students.
With all of the talk about the importance of enacting class size
reduction programs now when school districts are working on their
budgets, it is important to fully fund IDEA and allow school districts
to free up more money for other uses.
The costs for educating a special education student can be 5 to 10
times the district average.
In addition, as we all are aware, the U.S. Supreme Court recently
ruled that the related services provision in IDEA includes medical
services. This is going to dramatically increase this figure even more.
Whether this was the intent of Congress or not, we made a commitment
to fund 40 percent of IDEA costs. And we simply have not kept our
promise.
How can we in good conscience make more promises? We are going to
give you 100,000 new teachers across this Nation. In Arkansas, it is
about one per school district. How can we think of making more promises
when we have not fulfilled the ones we already made to them in regard
to special education? We are imposing an undue burden on school
districts. And, if school districts had to spend less money on special
education, they could use the available funds in the way they see fit.
If that is entirely for teachers, so be it. If it means professional
development, so be it. If it means buying new computers, we ought to
let those local districts make those decisions.

I see Senator Coverdell, who has been one of the great leaders on
educational reform in meeting our Republican vision for education, and
I have spoken quite a while on this at this point.
I hope my colleagues know how strongly I feel about this. This is an
important bill. It is an important step that we are taking.
Senator Jeffords did an outstanding job. I can't say enough about the
leadership of Senator Frist on this. We need not clutter this bill with
amendments. We certainly don't need to start a new mandate on our
schools. I hope that we will pass the bill quickly, pass a clean bill
and send it to the President.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I think we are down to two speakers. We
have agreed that Senator Coverdell will speak for 5 minutes, and then I
believe Senator Baucus will speak for about 6 or 7 minutes.
I want to commend the Senator from Arkansas for his very eloquent
discussion of the differences on how money ought to be spent. I
appreciate him coming and sharing those with us.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I want to associate myself with the
remarks of the Senator from Arkansas. His eloquent statement delineates
what is at stake here. I will expand upon it just briefly. As Senator
Jeffords said, I will limit this to 5 minutes.
I would like to make three points with regard to what we will begin
voting on tomorrow.
First, I want to make it very clear that from my perspective the
amendment suggests that we should have a Federal program that envisions
100,000 Federal teachers, which is a bad idea. It is just not a good
idea.
Mr. President, it envisions, or it suggests, that some Washington
wizard wonk has some better idea about what ought to happen in
Arkansas, Georgia and your State of Michigan. I just have to suggest
that most of those wonks have never been to any of these locations.
They have no idea--none--as to what that school board requires or
needs. Some will require teachers. Some will require transportation.
Some require construction. Some require a playground. And every
American in the country knows that the needs of all of these school
districts all across the Nation are all different. The Senator from
Massachusetts would have us believe there is only one requirement, that
only Washington knows what it is, and you are going to do it our way,
the old Frank Sinatra song.
You are going to fill out this zillion-page application, and you are
going to do it our way.
I suggest that if most Americans had a chance to evaluate whether the
wonk from Washington should do it or the local school board should do
it, they are going to go with the local school board.
That takes me to my second point. This idea that Washington is going
to do it after you fill out the 15-20 page application is going to lead
to systems that have not met their responsibilities being weighted to
the advantage of this program. It will tend to reward those who have
not yet done the job they were supposed to do. If you talk to the
Governors of the States, many, including mine, have already expanded
their numbers of teachers to reduce class size--all across the country,
Texas, California, to Georgia. So a system that has one solution is
only going to be weighted to those school districts that didn't do
anything about it. True, maybe they need some assistance because they
had a harder time meeting that standard, but mark my word, you will
tend to reward systems that have not stepped up to the bar with this
kind of program.
My third point. The fact that Washington bureaucrats, guided by the
administration, are going to decide who is a winner and who is a loser
suggests that it is going to be politically correct, that political
correctness will suddenly weigh in on this. If you look at the record
of decisionmaking about who the winners and losers are during the
course of these last 6 years, it will substantiate the assertion I
make. In department after department, agency after agency, the town is
aswirl with politics getting in the way of policy. A program that picks
winners and losers in Washington is already susceptible to it but
particularly so now.
So the point that the Senator from Arkansas made that we should fully
fund our previous commitments, which will have the effect of freeing up
funds in local school districts all across the country to make their
own decisions about what their priorities are, is a better idea; it is
a better idea than having a bureaucrat who has never been on the scene,
could not name one school superintendent, one school board member, or
even the name of the communities to be affected, deciding what the
priorities are all across the country. It makes no sense. It is a bad
idea. It should be defeated so that we can proceed with this
legislation that has been endorsed by 50 Governors. And I might point
out those 50 Governors have not endorsed the amendment of the Senator
from Massachusetts.
Mr. President, I thank the manager for granting me this time, and I
yield back whatever of the 5 minutes might remain.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I will yield time as he may consume to
the Senator from Montana.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.
Mr. BAUCUS. I thank the Chair. I thank my good friend, the Senator
from Vermont, for yielding time.

[[Page S2497]]

Mr. President, I am very strongly in favor of the Education
Flexibility Partnership Act. That is very simply because if there is
any investment that makes sense in this country, it is investing in
education, pure and simple, full stop, end of subject.
At all levels--whether it is Head Start, whether it is the early
years zero to 3, whether it is after Head Start, whether it is
kindergarten, whether it is elementary and secondary, whether it is
college, whether it is postgraduate education, whether it is continuing
education, whether it is technical skills development--education is the
investment which is going to make the difference in our country and
assure our future as Americans, the time we spend continuing to educate
our people in a very thoughtful, constructive way. Of course, we do not
want to just throw money at the problem but, rather, we want to invest
wisely; and this legislation, S. 280, is very much, in my judgment, a
step in that direction.

Let me address Ed-Flex, that is, the basic underlying bill, and tell
you why I am so proud to be a cosponsor of the bill and why I think it
is important legislation.
The name of the bill basically explains it--Ed-Flex. It is
flexibility for educational programs, and particularly at home. It is
very simple. The Federal Government, I believe, ought to trust parents,
trust teachers, and trust local school boards. We should do everything
in our power here in Washington to liberate our children from Federal
Government rules that might make sense in Manhattan, NY, but perhaps do
not make sense in Manhattan, MT.
I was a little surprised at the previous speaker, my good friend from
Georgia, saying an amendment on this bill is Washington wizard wonk
stuff telling local governments what to do. That is just not true. This
is Ed-Flex. It is giving more flexibility to local communities to
decide more on their own what makes most sense. For example, let's talk
a little bit about computers. Right now, for example, a well meaning
but distant Federal bureaucracy does too often stand in the way of a
school district.
For example, let's talk about Federal funds allowed to a small
Montana school, or even a large New York City school, to purchase
computers for students with disabilities. We know those computers
probably will not be used all day long, that is, computers, mandated by
Washington, for students with disabilities. It obviously makes sense
that these computers should be utilized to help other students when the
disabled students do not need them. But there is a rule, a Washington
rule, that prevents this from happening, preventing other students from
using those computers.
That is the point of this bill, more flexibility. Under Ed-Flex, the
underlying bill, States can get a waiver to use these computers to
educate our kids. In short, the bill makes eminent sense. It is the
next logical step to help our kids be better educated.
Let me address an amendment that has been under discussion, the
amendment offered by the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, and
the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, an amendment to lower class
size in our country.
This is pretty basic stuff. There aren't many things we can do to
help students more than lowering class size. I hear some Senators in
the Chamber say the opposite; they at least are very strongly implying
that lower class size does not help kids, does not help the quality of
education.
If we just think about it intuitively, Mr. President, that just
doesn't make sense. But what is the evidence? One Senator recently
mentioned Minnesota, a State that ranked third in recent national test
scores but apparently, according to the Senator, has high average class
sizes.
I cannot speak about Minnesota, but I can speak about my State of
Montana. Our teacher-to-student ratio is much lower than the national
average, but we are very proud of the quality of education in our
State. Montana's fourth graders and eighth graders placed among the top
four States in three of the four categories, again, with class sizes
that are lower than average. I can tell you from at least my experience
years ago going to Montana schools that we had smaller classes, and it
made a big difference. I have very vivid memories of very good teachers
in classes that were not too large.
I also want to relate an experience that is not directly relevant to
this discussion, but I think it does have some bearing on the basic
underlying point.
Mr. President, like a good number of other Senators, I have what I
call a ``workday.'' About 1 day a month I work at some different job. I
might wait tables, work at a sawmill, work in a mine. I show up at 8 in
the morning with my sack lunch and I am there to work. I am not there
to watch, I am there to work. My good friend, Senator Graham from
Florida, has been doing this for many, many years. Frankly, I got the
idea from him about 6, 8, or 10 years ago. It is a great idea and it is
one of the best parts about this job, frankly--to be able to do things
like that.
One day on my workday in Helena, MT, I was assigned to a health care
center. In the morning I helped an Alzheimer's patient. This patient
was obviously in great need of care and I learned a lot, I must say,
about the problem of Alzheimer's disease--both for the person who has
it and with respect to the care giver.
But in the noon hour, for 2 hours the center assigned me to the Meals
on Wheels Program. They gave me a little van loaded up with hot lunches
and a list of names and told me which part of town to go to, to drive
around and deliver these meals. This is the basic hot lunch program.
About the second or third name on the list was a name that seemed
familiar. It rang a bell; I wasn't sure what. It was Mrs. Foote.
I asked myself: Why is that familiar, that name, Mrs. Foote? I didn't
think a lot about it. I knocked on the door and the lady said come in.
She opened up the door, and way back in this hot little kitchen,
sitting at the kitchen table, was a lady. Then it dawned on me.
I said, ``Mrs. Foote, by any chance did you ever teach
kindergarten?''
She said, ``Why, yes, I did.''
I said, ``Did you teach kindergarten in the basement of the First
Christian Church, at the corner of Power Street and Benton Street?''
``Why, yes, I did.''
That was my kindergarten teacher, whom I had not seen since
kindergarten.
Why did I have such a strong memory of Mrs. Foote? One, I do vaguely
recall, I must say we didn't have a large class. I must be honest and
say I don't remember much about that. I do remember Mrs. Foote being a
super teacher. She didn't remember me from Adam, as I must confess, but
as I was talking to Mrs. Foote she then pulled out some newspaper
articles about her.
I then realized why in many respects Mrs. Foote meant so much to me.
Mrs. Foote had a master's degree in art history, she had a master's
degree in English literature, yet she was teaching kindergarten. She
was one of these wonderful Americans who was sacrificing her time to be
a teacher, a high-quality teacher, and also a teacher, as I recall, who
did not have an awful lot of kids in her class.
Not too long ago, in fact about a half-hour ago, I heard a Senator
here on the floor saying, ``Gee, you give me a choice between a high-
quality teacher and a large class size and I'll make the choice every
time for the quality teacher.'' Obviously, that is a false choice. That
is not what we are talking about here. We want high-quality teachers.
But we also want small class sizes, because smaller classes--all things
being equal--do help provide a better education.
This amendment, the Murray-Kennedy amendment, is an additional sum of
money for teachers. We in Montana will get about $4 to $5 million. In
addition, the amendment has a 15-percent provision, which is that 15
percent of the funds can be used to train teachers. It gives that
additional flexibility.

I must say, this is a no-brainer, to me. I just don't know why school
districts and teachers and parents would not like to have a little
extra help, some extra help to hire a few more teachers, a little extra
help to train a few more teachers. That is all this is. This is not
rearranging the categories, the boxes. This is not taking money from
one program to give to another. This is an add-on. This is additional.

[[Page S2498]]

So I hope some of the viewers and listeners--who earlier heard other
Senators speak--realize this is not Washington telling State and local
district school boards what to do. Rather, it is saying: Here is some
additional money for some teachers, for some training, because we want
to help you. We want to form a partnership with you to make sure our
kids get the best quality education they could possibly get. That is
all it is. It is that simple.
I strongly urge when we do vote on this tomorrow that the amendment
pass. I know the bill is going to pass. It is a very important step we
will be taking to help invest in our Nation's future.
I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 60, As Modified, To Amendment No. 31

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I have a modification at the desk for
amendment No. 60, which I offer on behalf of Senator Lott.
I ask unanimous consent the amendment be modified.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bunning). Is there objection?
Without objection, so ordered.
The amendment (No. 60, as modified, to amendment No. 31), is as
follows:

At the end, add the following:

SEC. IDEA.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds that if part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Act (20 USC 1411 et seq.) were
fully funded, local educational agencies and schools would
have the flexibility in their budgets to design class size
reduction programs, or any other programs deemed appropriate
by the local educational agencies and schools that best
address their unique community needs and improve student
performance.
(b) Amendment.--Section 307 of the Department of Education
Appropriations Act, 1999, is amended by adding after
subsection (g) the following:
``(h) Notwithstanding subsections (b)(2), and (c) through
(g), a local educational agency may use funds received under
this section to carry out activities under part B of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411
et seq.) in accordance with the requirements of such part.''.

Mr. JEFFORDS. I ask unanimous consent to add as cosponsors to
amendment No. 60, as modified, Senators Gregg, Collins, Frist, and
Sessions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I make a point of order that a quorum is
not present and ask the time be charged equally to each side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, first I wish to compliment my colleague
and friend, Senator Jeffords, for his leadership on this bill. I am
confident that tomorrow we will pass this bill.
Also, I wish to compliment Senator Frist and others on the Labor
Committee who have worked very, very hard to put together a good
package, a responsible package, to allow the States to have more
flexibility in dealing with Federal education programs so they can
deliver a better product, and that is basically improving the education
of our kids. That is a very noble goal.
By doing so, they are saying we want to set up a program, which we
have already done in a pilot program in a few States, and make it
available to all States. All State Governors, Democrats and
Republicans, say we want to have that flexibility, give us the ability
to ask the Federal Government for a waiver from a lot of the rules and
regulations in managing these programs so we can do a better job.
Frankly, they are telling us they can do a better job, without Uncle
Sam's rules and regulations, in trying to manage their schools. They
did not need so much Federal help. It is really what the States were
telling us.
Democrats as well as Republicans were saying that. I think they are
exactly right in doing so. I compliment the sponsors of this
legislation, and I am going to be pleased tomorrow when we pass it.
Unfortunately, there are a few amendments that are circulating around
that I think would be very detrimental to this bill. As a matter of
fact, I believe if they are adopted, we shouldn't pass this bill.
The main amendment I am going to address is the one that maybe has
received more attention than others--the so-called 100,000 teachers
that Senator Kennedy, Senator Murray and others have been so laudatory
about, saying, ``This is exactly what we need to improve the quality of
education.''
A couple of comments: One, I think if schools need more teachers, the
schools should be able to make that decision. That decision should not
be made in Washington, DC. When I say ``the schools,'' I am talking
about the school board administrators, the parents, the teachers, the
local officials, the school board officials, the Governor. They should
be making that decision. I do not think that is Senator Kennedy's
decision to make. I do not think that is the U.S. Senate's decision to
make. Nor do I think it should be made by President Clinton. That is
not our responsibility. That is a State responsibility. That is a local
responsibility.
Frankly, the local government knows best what they can do to improve
education, not Washington, DC. It may be a school in the Northeast
needs more insulation because of the cold or maybe they need more
computers, maybe they need a new building, maybe they need building
repair, maybe they need more teachers. I don't know. I wouldn't think
that we have the guts or the gall to say we know best, the government
knows best, but when I look at Senator Kennedy's amendment, that is
exactly what it says.
Here we have a national program. We are going to have 100,000
teachers. It is going to be paid for by the Federal Government. Keep in
mind, almost all teachers, K through 12, are paid for by State and
local governments, yet now we have an amendment on the floor of the
Senate that says, We want 100,000 teachers at a cost of over $11
billion, to be paid for by the Federal Government--100 percent paid for
by the Federal Government. In some of the districts, the teachers will
be paid for 65 percent by the Federal Government and 35 percent by the
State government.
It is interesting. I have asked, What is the impact? Somebody said
that we did part of this last year. We passed a bill last year that
cost $1.2 billion, and we increased the number of teachers 30,000. Boy,
that has really done a wonderful job. I looked at my State. As part of
the bill that we passed last year, part of this 30,000 teachers,
Oklahoma is going to get 348. Big deal. For the life of me, I do not
think that is a Federal responsibility. Oklahoma is going to get $13
million to help pay for 348 teachers. Big deal. Is that really what the
Federal Government is supposed to do? Is that our responsibility? I
don't think so. At least Republican amendments are saying, ``Instead of
teachers, let's at least allow the States to have the option. If we are
going to have Federal money, let's have the money go to give the
schools the option for teachers or for meeting our responsibility with
kids that have special needs, giving States the flexibility to use the
money either for schools or students with special needs,'' which we
already have a Federal law stating the obligation for the States to do
it, an unfunded mandate. So at least we give the States some
flexibility. That is not in Senator Kennedy and Senator Murray's
amendment.
I am looking at this amendment. There are lots of things in here that
deal with regulations and how the money is going to be used, basically
telling the States here is how to do it; we know best. The Federal
Government knows best. Senate Democrats know best. President Clinton
knows best.
For the life of me, I just think that is a serious mistake--the
Federal Government passing a bill last year that says Oklahoma gets 348
more teachers paid for for 1 year. I might mention, if we don't pay for
it next year, what happens to that Federal teacher? I hate to say it,
but we have 1,800 schools in the State of Oklahoma. We are going to get
348 teachers. That is about one-fifth or one-sixth of a teacher for
each school, not each class, each school. Does that really make sense?
I don't think it makes any sense. Which school is going to get a
teacher? Which school is not going to get a teacher?

I know my colleagues on the Democrat side have an amendment that says
we are going to have a Federal school building program, and the
President proposed billions of dollars, I guess $11

[[Page S2499]]

billion, for more teachers and several billion dollars for more school
buildings. Which school buildings are going to be replaced? Which
school building is going to be repaired? We are going to be making
those decisions in Washington, DC? Is that the proper use for
incremental dollars? Do they get more bang in educational value out of
buildings or in teachers? We are saying we don't know. We are saying
why don't we free up some of the resources that we are now spending
from the Federal Government to the States and let the States make the
decision? Let the local school boards make the decision. Let the
teachers make the decision. Let the parents make the decision.
Instead, my colleagues that are offering the amendment are saying,
no, no, we will decide; the Federal Government is going to decide we
need 100,000 teachers. I disagree.
It is interesting. Somebody said, well, we really need lower class
size. For a little bit of history, most States have already been
reducing the average sizes of their classes. That trend is expected to
continue. My guess is that President Clinton feels, since he has
promoted this, class size has really declined. In 1955, the average
public school class size in the United States was 27 students. In 1975,
it dropped to 21. Today it is down to 17.3. If you are talking about
only elementary schools, the numbers are slightly higher, but they
still show a decline, from 30.2 in 1955 to 18.5 today, 18.5. ``Well, it
ought to go to 18.'' Well, it looks to me like demographically we are
going to 18 anyway. That will happen whether the Federal Governments
gets involved in hiring 100,000 teachers or not. We have spent $1.2
billion last year to hire 30,000 teachers. That money is only good for
1 year. Then under this bill, it says, well, let's spend more than
that. Let's just spend billions every year.
It has amounts allocated: $1.4 billion for the year 2000; $1.5
billion for 2001; $1.7 billion for 2002, and on; I see $2.8 billion for
the year 2005. This says here is a recipe where we can have the Federal
Government spending more money, and it stops at the year 2005. We are
going to pay for these Federal teachers only up to the year 2005 and
then stop? Sorry, States, now it is your responsibility.
I just think that is a serious mistake. In my State of Oklahoma, I
don't know exactly the number of teachers that we have, but 348
teachers, when we have 1,800 schools and lots and lots of teachers in
each school. I just fail to find the wisdom in doing it.
There is a difference in philosophy between the Democrats and
Republicans on this issue. We have basically said the States and local
school districts should make a better decision. Senator Kennedy and
some of my colleagues on the Democrat side seem to think that they have
the answer. They are going to dictate 100,000 teachers. They are going
to dictate billions of dollars of the Federal Government building
school buildings. I think that is a mistake.
I had my staff--this is almost 2 years old, a year; it was done May
15, 1997, so it is a little obsolete--I asked them, How many Federal
programs are involved in education right now? I know there are a lot,
but I don't know them all. I haven't served on the Labor and Education
Committee for a long time--I was on it for several years--but I know
there are a lot. As a matter of fact, there are a lot more than I
imagined.
I will put this in the Record and maybe somebody can update it for
me. According to this, in May of 1997, there were 788 Federal education
programs, 788 Federal education programs that were spending at that
point $968 billion. That is a lot of money. That is about one-
seventeenth of all the Federal spending that we are spending today.
Someone can't say we do not have any emphasis in education. What we
have is a lot of Federal programs, probably 700-some, too many Federal
programs, and we are spending billions of dollars, almost $100 billion,
probably if this is updated it is over $100 billion, because I know we
had significant increases in the last couple of years in education.
Just in the Department of Education alone, there were 307 education
programs, totaling $59 billion. Again, this is 1997.

So it shows you there is a lot of Federal input. I personally think
we need to consolidate most of those programs, get rid of them, and
give the money and the power back to the States and to the local school
boards. What I think is, we do not need to have another program. ``Here
are 100,000 teachers. Let's make this, instead of 788 programs, 789.''
I think President Clinton has proposed 8 or 9 new education programs
alone.
We do not need more education programs. What we need to do is free
the States and local school boards to where they can do a better job
with the resources they now have without all the strings and redtape
and bureaucracy they now have to comply with.
So I hope that will be what we will do. I hope that tomorrow when we
are voting on this series of amendments, when we have amendments that
are trying to micromanage how States spend money, run their schools,
that we will table those amendments, that we will defeat those
amendments, and we will pass the Ed-Flex bill which will give more
flexibility to States and local school boards in actually administering
Federal programs. They can do a better job in educating our kids, to
improve the quality of education for the children of America.
So I encourage my colleagues to vote against these amendments that
try to micromanage education from Washington, DC, and pass the Ed-Flex
bill to give the flexibility to the States and to the local school
boards to do a better job for our kids.
I yield the floor.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for an excellent
statement. He has certainly put in perspective what we are trying to do
here. We started out with a very simple bill, and now we have--well, we
have the monster pared down somewhat by getting agreements on both
sides. But I just remind everyone that we will be voting tomorrow on
these amendments. There will be some debate time tomorrow morning for
that purpose.
Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator will yield for just a second?
Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield.
Mr. NICKLES. One, I compliment Senator Jeffords for his management on
this bill. I am delighted we have an agreement and we will get it
completed. I compliment him for his leadership in the Labor Committee
in putting this bill together. I somewhat regret the fact that the
Democrats failed to show up at his markup. They want to amend the bill
on the floor. They did not want to amend the bill in committee.
With the chairman's indulgence, I ask unanimous consent to have
printed in the Record the table showing the number of departments,
programs, and funding for the various education programs throughout the
Federal Government.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

DEPARTMENT, PROGRAMS AND FUNDING
[Number of programs in parentheses]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Department Federal dollars
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appalachian Regional Commission (2)................... $2,000,000
Barry Goldwater Scholarship Program (1)............... 2,900,000
Christopher Columbus Fellowship Program (1)........... 0
Corporation for National Service (11)................. 501,130,000
Department of Education (307)......................... 59,045,043,938
Department of Commerce (20)........................... 156,455,000
Department of Defense (15)............................ 2,815,320,854
Department of Energy (22)............................. 36,700,000
Department of Health and Human Services (172)......... 8,661,006,166
Department of Housing and Urban Development (9)....... 81,800,000
Department of Interior (27)........................... 555,565,000
Department of Justice (21)............................ 755,447,149
Department of the Treasury (1)........................ 11,000,000
Department of Labor (21).............................. 5,474,039,000
Department of Transportation (19)..................... 121,672,000
Department of Veterans' Affairs (6)................... 1,436,074,000
Environmental Protection Agency (4)................... 11,103,800
Federal Emergency Management Administration (6)....... 118,512,000
General Services Administration (1)................... 0
Government Printing Office (2)........................ 24,756,000
Harry Truman Scholarship Foundation (1)............... 3,187,000
James Madison Memorial Fellowship Program (1)......... 2,000,000
Library of Congress (5)............................... 194,822,103
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (12).... 153,300,000
National Archives (2)................................. 5,000,000
National Institute for Literacy (1)................... 4,491,000
National Council on Disability (1).................... 200,000
National Endowment for the Arts/Humanities (13)....... 103,219,000
National Science Foundation (15)...................... 2,939,230,000
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (3)..................... 6,944,000
National Gallery of Art (1)........................... 750,000
Office of Personnel Management (1).................... 0
Small Business Administration (2)..................... 73,540,000
Smithsonian (14)...................................... 3,276,000
Social Security Administration (1).................... 85,700,000
State Department (1).................................. 0
United States Information Agency (8).................. 125,558,000
United States Institute for Peace (4)................. 3,371,000
United States Department of Agriculture (33).......... 13,339,630,410
U.S. Agency for International Development (1)......... 14,600,000
Total number of programs (788).
-----------------
Total funding..................................... 96,869,343,420
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. NICKLES. I thank my colleague.

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on Thursday evening, March 4 and Friday,
March 5, I was necessarily absent because of several long-standing
commitments in Bismarck. It was important

[[Page S2500]]

that I be in North Dakota for a conference I cosponsored, Women's
Health-Women's Lives, to join Secretary of Energy Richardson for
meetings on a range of energy issues, and for a meeting with the
Governor and other state leaders about the state's water resources.
Had I been present for rollcall vote No. 32, to table the Jeffords
amendment to S. 280, the Ed-Flex legislation, I would have voted
``nay.'' On rollcall vote No. 33, to table the Gramm amendment to
prohibit implementation of the ``Know Your Customer'' banking
regulations, I would have voted ``nay'' had I been present.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, on Tuesday, March 9, 1999, I missed
the second cloture vote on S. 280, the Education Flexibility Act.
I fully intended to be in the chamber for the vote yesterday, and had
I been there I would have voted against cloture. While I support the
concept of flexibility for education, I also believe that Democrats
deserve right to offer education amendments on key priorities such as
reducing class-size, providing after-school care, addressing the
concern of crumbling schools, and a few other major priorities.
Senate Democrats have offered in good faith to accept time agreements
and limited debates on our education priorities.
It is disappointing that instead of voting on education priorities
for American students, teachers, and parents, we are debating
procedural motions and closure petitions. Instead of using the time
wisely to discuss the major education issues facing our schools, we are
facing gridlock on procedure. That is not what the American people sent
us to the Senate to do. We are willing to have our debate and cast our
votes to reduce class sizes, to fix crumbling schools and to provide
after-school care for children that need it to learn and be safe while
parents work. If our Democratic amendments prevail, we strengthen the
Education Flexibility Act and help schools. If our amendments do not
get a majority, then we had the opportunity to debate and we can move
forward on the underlying bipartisan legislation.
I wish I had been here on Tuesday to participate. Unfortunately, I
got trapped in Charleston, West Virginia when the Ronald Reagan
National Airport closed at 11 a.m. on March 9, 1999 due to the snow
storm in Washington, DC. I had been in Charleston, West Virginia to
vote in the mayoral election and to participate in the United Airlines
announcement of two Mileage Plus Service Centers in my state which will
create 600 new jobs. The new centers will be located in Charleston and
Huntington. This is exciting news for my state, and I have been in
touch with officials for months about this economic opportunity. At the
time, I felt that I could personally vote in the local election, attend
this exciting announcement and return in plenty of time for the 2:45
vote on the Senate floor. Due to the snow storm, I missed the vote.

____________________