[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 88 (Monday, June 21, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7331-S7332]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. Bingaman, and Mr. Byrd):
  S. 1252. A bill to provide parents, taxpayers, and educators with 
useful, understandable school reports; to the Committee on Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions.


                  standardized school report card act

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I am introducing today a piece of 
legislation called the Standardized School Report Card Act, along with 
my colleagues, Senator Bingaman and Senator Byrd.
  Every 6 to 9 weeks every parent in this country who has children in 
our public schools gets a report card to tell him or her how that 
student is doing in school.
  Rarely, however, do parents get a report card telling them how the 
school is doing for the students.
  A number of States already do have school report cards--about 36, 
actually--but they vary around the country. Some have almost no 
information. Others are hundreds of pages long and very difficult to 
understand. Regardless, however, most parents never see a report card 
for their child's school.
  I think it would be useful, and my colleagues do as well, to ask that 
there be a uniform or standardized school report card that will allow 
parents to understand what they are getting for the dollars they are 
investing in that school. What is their school doing versus the 
neighboring town's school? How are the schools in one State doing 
versus schools in another State? How can you compare what the parents 
and taxpayers are getting with respect to the dollars invested in 
education?
  The Standardized School Report Card Act will require schools to 
report on eight key, basic areas in their report card and do so in an 
easily understandable manner.
  The eight areas graded in the report cards would be: students' 
performance, attendance and graduation rates, professional 
qualifications of teachers, average class size, school safety, parental 
involvement, student drop-out rates, and access to technology.
  Some might say this legislation is unnecessary because there are 
already some States that do have school report cards. As I have already 
indicated, that is true. However, the content varies widely, so they 
are not good tools for comparison.
  In my home State of North Dakota, the State Department of Public 
Instruction has designed a school district profile that is published 
for each school district. It does include a lot of interesting 
information, but a numbers of areas that are required under this 
legislation are not covered at all.
  My point is that we have a public education system in this country on 
which we spend a great deal of money. We send our young boys and girls 
to the classroom door, and we invest money, we build the schools, pay 
teachers, and buy the books. The question is, What do we get for all of 
that?
  Most of the classrooms I have visited are led and taught by wonderful 
teachers. I am very impressed by many of the schools I have had an 
opportunity to visit across the country and especially in North Dakota. 
As a nation, when we spend $350 billion a year to provide an education 
to elementary and secondary students, parents and taxpayers need some 
uniform way to understand how there school is doing versus other 
schools. How is our State doing versus other States relative to the 
investments we are making in education?
  That is the basis for the school report card legislation which I am 
introducing today. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Bingaman and 
Byrd in introducing this bill, and I hope others of our colleagues will 
join us in cosponsoring it.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my distinguished 
colleagues, Senators Dorgan and Byrd, in introducing the Standardized 
School Report Card Act. This bill would require States and schools to 
distribute an annual, easy-to-read report card to parents, taxpayers, 
educators, and the public. One of the top issues facing the nation's 
education system is the need for greater accountability and the need 
for greater parent involvement in schools. The bill we are introducing 
today will go a long way in helping to achieve these goals.
  In our efforts to make schools accountable for the resources they are 
given, we must develop better means for measuring and communicating 
progress in our schools; if we cannot measure progress, we cannot 
attain it. Our bill would require each school to report several key 
measures of progress. The bill would require reports of student 
performance in language arts and mathematics, as well as any other 
subject areas in which the State requires assessment. The report cards 
would breakdown student data by gender, major racial and ethnic groups, 
English proficiency, migrant status, disability status, and economic 
status. In this way, we can ensure that our schools are meeting the 
needs of all students and that all students are being taught to the 
same high standards. I also requested that the bill require reporting 
of dropout rates, because our educational system needs to do everything 
possible to keep our children in school until graduation. Many States 
with report cards do not currently report this measure of educational 
progress. Obviously, we are not making much progress if our children 
are giving up prior to graduation. We need to target our efforts to 
ensure that our children stay in school and an important step in 
achieving that goal is to monitor and raise awareness of the problem.
  The report cards required in this bill also would provide parents and 
taxpayers with valuable information regarding the resources available 
and environment at each school. Our bill would require schools to 
report average class sizes and student access to technology, including 
the number of computers for educational purposes, the number of 
computers per classroom, and the number of computers connected to the 
Internet. In addition, schools would be required to report measures of 
school safety, including the safety of school facilities and incidents 
of school violence, and measures of parental involvement. Based on this 
information, parents--as consumers of public education--can make 
informed decisions about their children's education and monitor how 
public resources are being used in their community.
  Last session, I introduced an amendment to the Higher Education Act--
which was ultimately passed and signed into law--which requires 
colleges of education to report their performance in producing 
qualified teachers. That effort will help to ensure that teachers 
coming into a school system have been properly prepared to teach. The 
bill we are introducing today will build on that legislation, by 
holding states and schools district accountable for the training, level 
of preparation, and proper placement of new teachers as well as 
teachers already in the system. Under the Standardized Report Card Act, 
schools would be required to report the professional qualifications of 
its teachers, including the number of teachers teaching out of field 
and the number of teachers with emergency certification.
  I have spoken with many parents in my home state of New Mexico about

[[Page S7332]]

their role in the public education system. These parents are eager to 
support their local schools and participate in their children's 
education. But in order to do this, they need to be better informed 
about how schools are performing and what resources are being devoted 
to each school.
  With over $350 billion spent each year on education, parents and 
taxpayers deserve to know how their schools are performing. We owe it 
to them and to ourselves to provide public measures of progress which 
will assist our communities in their efforts to improve our systems of 
education. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me by supporting 
the standardized School Report Card Act.
                                 ______