[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 26, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S6050]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. COVERDELL (for himself and Ms. Collins):
  S. 1127. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to 
eliminate the 2-percent floor on miscellaneous itemized deductions for 
reasonable and incidental expenses related to instruction, teaching, or 
other educational job-related activities; to the Committee on Finance.


             teacher deduction for incidental expenses act

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, today, Senator Coverdell and I are 
introducing two bills that will help teachers who spend their personal 
funds in order to improve their teaching skills and to provide quality 
learning materials for their students. I am going to discuss the first 
of those bills, the Teachers' Professional Development Act.
  I am very pleased to be joined by my colleague from Georgia, Senator 
Coverdell, in presenting this response to the critical need of our 
elementary and secondary schoolteachers for more professional 
development.
  Other than involved parents, a well-qualified teacher is the most 
important element of student success. Educational researchers have 
repeatedly demonstrated the close relationship between well-qualified 
teachers and successful students. Moreover, teachers themselves 
understand how important professional development is to maintaining and 
expanding their level of competence. When I meet with Maine teachers, 
they tell me of their need for more professional development and the 
scarcity of financial support for this worthwhile pursuit.
  In Maine, we have seen the results of a strong, sustained 
professional development program on student achievement in science and 
math. With support from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. 
Department of Education, the State of Maine, private foundations, the 
business community, and colleges in our State, the Maine Mathematics 
and Science Alliance established a statewide training program for 
teachers. The results have been outstanding.
  While American students, overall, performed at the bottom of the 
Third International Science and Mathematics Study, Maine students 
outperformed the students of all but one of the 41 participating 
nations. The professional development available to Maine's science and 
math teachers undoubtedly played a critical role in this tremendous 
success story. Unfortunately, however, this level of support for 
professional development is the exception and not the rule.
  The willingness of Maine's teachers to fund their own professional 
development activities has impressed me deeply. For example, an English 
teacher who serves as a member of my Educational Policy Advisory 
Committee told me of spending her own money to attend a curriculum 
conference. She then came back to her high school and shared the 
results of this curriculum conference with all the other teachers in 
her English department. She is typical of the many teachers throughout 
the United States who generously reach within their own pockets to pay 
for their own professional development to make them even better, even 
more effective at their jobs.
  I firmly believe that we should encourage our educators to seek 
professional training, and that is the purpose of the legislation I am 
introducing today. The Collins-Coverdell legislation would help 
teachers to finance professional development by allowing them to deduct 
from their taxable income such expenses as conference fees, tuitions, 
books, supplies, and transportation associated with qualifying 
programs. Under the current law, teachers may only deduct these 
expenses if they exceed 2 percent of their income. My bill would 
eliminate this 2 percent floor and allow all of the professional 
development expenses to be deductible.
  I greatly admire the many teachers who have voluntarily financed the 
additional education they need to improve their skills and to serve 
their students better. I hope that this legislation will encourage 
teachers to continue to take courses in the subject areas that they 
teach, to complete graduate degrees in either their subject area or in 
education, and to attend conferences to get new ideas for presenting 
course work in a challenging manner. This bill would reimburse our 
teachers for a very small part of what they invest in our children's 
future. This would be money well spent.
  Investing in education is the surest way for us to build one of our 
most important assets for our country's future, and that is a well-
educated population. We need to ensure that our nation's elementary and 
secondary school teachers are the best possible so that they can bring 
out the best in our students. Adopting this legislation would help us 
to accomplish this goal.
  I urge my colleagues to support these efforts, and I look forward to 
working with my colleagues in assuring enactment of this legislation.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
                                 ______