[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 23, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H1483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        DOLLARS TO THE CLASSROOM

  (Mr. METCALF asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. METCALF. Mr. Speaker, we must send 95 percent at least of the 
Federal funds for education to the classroom. This will result in an 
additional $800 million to be taken from the grasp of the bureaucrats 
and into the hands of teachers and parents.
  Congress needs to give parents and school boards even greater control 
without increasing the bureaucracy. It takes about 18,000 Federal and 
State employees to manage 780 Federal education programs in 39 Federal 
agencies, boards and commissions that cost nearly $100 billion a year 
annually. It is not surprising that approximately 70 cents per dollar 
makes it directly to the classroom. If it does not happen in the 
classroom, nothing much is happening. I am a former schoolteacher and I 
can tell my colleagues that.
  Parental involvement, not bureaucracies, must be central in any 
proposal to reform our education system.

                          ____________________