Congressional Record, Volume 145 Issue 115 (Wednesday, September 8, 1999)

[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 115 (Wednesday, September 8, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H7983-H7990]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

AMERICAN PUBLIC PLACES EDUCATION AS A TOP PRIORITY

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we have just returned from recess and we are
about to enter the closing chapters of the first session of the 106th
Congress. The end of the first session will only take us halfway. We
can continue, and there are probably some things that will continue,
but we have a full plate here.
There is a great deal of speculation about exactly what is going to
happen with the appropriations bills and the fiscal plan which now is
made more exciting by the fact that there is a surplus. After we lock
the box and keep the Social Security funds in place, we still have a
projection of a 10-year period of a trillion dollar surplus, and that
has led to some radical proposals by the Republicans with respect to
tax cuts, and that has certainly charged the atmosphere.
I am interested in continuing the dialogue on education. I think that
we are in danger of making a great blunder if we do not use this great
window of opportunity to do something dramatic to improve education in
America. There is a need for a greater commitment from the Federal
Government which now only is responsible for about 8 percent of the
total expenditure on education. We need more federal support for
education.
There are a lot of things that have to happen to improve education in
America, but one of the things that has to happen is that we must have
more federal support. The Federal Government is where the money is. The
Federal Government's money is not made here in Washington; it all came
from the local level, so it belongs to the people out there in the
States and in the localities. This is no reason why we cannot resolve
to use funds from the Federal Government to help solve and resolve some
of the overwhelming problems that we are facing in education.
We can still win the war for education support. The status of
legislation here at this point does not preclude some major development
taking place either before we end this session, or certainly before we
end the 106th Congress in the fall of the year 2000.
Let us take a look at where we are at this point. As far as education
funding is concerned, we are in bad shape. A number of appropriations
bills have been stalled, and we have only passed two; but the education
appropriations bill, the Labor-HHS appropriation is further behind than
any of the other appropriations in the process. It has not even gotten
out of the subcommittee yet. The appropriations bill for education, it
seems, is being used as a scapegoat; and it will be the last one out
there, and it will have the greatest amount of reductions.
I am not on the Committee on Appropriations, but the rumors are that
for the overall Labor, Health and Human Services and Education
appropriations, the cut may range as high as 35 or 40 percent. And
certainly education is in danger of a 15 to 20 percent cut if we follow
the present process whereby there are budget caps. But they are not
following budget caps on some appropriations bills. They are leaving
the last ones to take most of the burden of the cuts. So education is
in deep trouble at this moment in history. But I think we can still win
the war.
What I want to talk about tonight is how the American public and
public opinion, the common sense of the voters, still is a determining
factor here. We need to hear that and know that. All of the polls still
continue to show that the American people place education as one of the
top priorities, either priority number one or priority number two, in
terms of federal assistance, or the use of federal resources to help
solve problems. They expect us to do something. They are concerned. And
their common sense is correct. Their common sense is on target. But
what they need to know is that there are a set of rules being followed
and a set of maneuvers underway that will lead to inevitable cuts in
education if those rules are followed.
The President is right when he says that not only do we face cuts in
this present year, in the present appropriation, but in the bigger
scenario that the Republicans have staked out, if they go ahead with a
gigantic tax cut of $790 some billion dollars over a 10-year period,
then the mechanics of that

[[Page H7984]]

tax cut dictate that there must be increasing cuts, escalating cuts in
education. It would be the greatest blunder this Nation has made since
it was first established if we were to fall into that pattern where a
tax cut and the momentum of a tax cut makes it absolutely necessary
that there must be cuts in the resources that the Federal Government
allocates for education.
The Republicans have made it clear that they do not care about
education at all. They ejected the portion of their tax bill that could
have covered a few of the problems with education construction. We
should not have, in my opinion, a great deal of authority invested in
the Committee on Ways and Means to deal with education, but it so
happens that that was the only vehicle that the administration felt
they could utilize. So in the Ways and Means bill, through the Tax
Code, the only initiative that is on the table to help with school
construction in Washington, is H.R. 1660, the bill sponsored by the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), and a bill which incidentally is
backed by the overwhelming majority of the members of the Democratic
caucus and by some Republicans.
H.R. 1660 is in the process of a discharge petition. And I understand
that more than 190 Members have already signed the discharge petition
for H.R. 1660, and it is projected that we are going to get above 218
to sign that discharge petition for this school construction bill via
the Tax Code. That is a process by which the Federal Government will
pay the interest on money borrowed by the States and the localities for
school construction.
It is a good beginning. It moves from zero to proposing that the
Federal Government authorize the borrowing of up to $25 billion over a
5-year period and the Federal Government would be responsible, through
tax credits, for paying the interest on the money borrowed, which is
expected to come to about $3.7 or $4 billion. Close to $4 billion of
federal commitment would be involved in that kind of approach.

{time} 2200

Now, that is the approach that is the pragmatic thing in the present
playing field. The President and administration do not see any other
way to move forward and start a process of involving the Federal
Government in school construction. And if we have to accept the present
playing field, the budget caps and the restrictions on the budget
process that were there before we found we had a surplus, then that is
a good move.
I certainly am a cosponsor of H.R. 1660, one of the persons who
signed the discharge petition. I think we should go full speed ahead
and try to make the discharge process add up to a discussion on the
floor of H.R. 1660. That is what is acceptable now on the present
playing field.
Beyond the present playing field, though, we have a new scenario. I
mean, in addition to the consideration of this year's appropriation and
maybe next year's appropriation, we have the majority of Republicans
projecting 10 years' worth of expenditures due to the fact that they
have estimated that the budget surplus will continue and over a 10-year
period, even after we subtract the portion of the surplus that relates
directly to Social Security, we will have close to $1 trillion in
surplus over a 10-year period.
They are projecting that they should go ahead and plan to use that
money primarily for a tax cut, more than $790 billion over a 10-year
period. If we go into that kind of scenario where we are talking about
10 years and we are talking about an umbrella of a trillion dollars,
then I think that we need another additional proposal on school
construction. And that proposal is the proposal that I have set forth
in H.R. 1820. That deals with $110 billion.
I am going to revise H.R. 1820 soon and take out the 5-year provision
which is in there now. It is $110 billion over a 5-year period. And in
order to make it harmonize and fit the scenario that the Republicans
have set forth, I will make it a 10-year bill, $110 billion over a 10-
year period and have it be the direct appropriations, of course, in
accordance with a number of school-aged children in each State.
Each State would be allotted money based on the number of school-aged
children. The money could be used for construction of new facilities,
for repair of existing facilities, for wiring to allow for technology
in the schools, for construction related to security, and for the
elimination of health threatening conditions and elimination of unsafe
conditions.
So it would be a bill with great flexibility allowing each State to
take the appropriation that it receives on the basis of the number of
school-aged children and apply them in the areas of greatest need for
their infrastructure problems.
I think probably every State and certainly probably every school
district also has some problems with infrastructure that would be
helped by such a bill.
As I said before, this is a scenario for the larger playing field,
the 10-year, trillion-dollar surplus playing field. So H.R. 1660 we
will support and should support if that is going to be the name of the
game. If it is going to be within the confines of the present budget
making and appropriation setting process, yes. But if we are going to
move to the 10-year scenario and we are going to have $794 billion on
the table for a tax cut, then we need on that same table to have $110
billion for school construction.
Or even if we are going to have $300 billion, which some say may be
the compromise, $300 billion, $400 billion for a tax cut, we still need
a substantial comparable approach and a comparable amount for school
construction. And I will talk in a few minutes about, among all the
education reform items, why school construction is definitely the most
important.
Public opinion has made it quite clear that they do want us to
address the education problem with more than lip service and rhetoric,
they want more than sound bytes on television, they do want some
resources to be applied to the problems.
We have had in the last month or so several reports on new public
opinion polls relating to education. And it is consistent, in fact, it
is increasingly the public outcry, the public demand for the action on
the part of Government with respect to education.
Recent polls show that people are willing to spend money, the
majority of people are willing to pay more taxes if necessary to get
some movement on the establishment of an education program that is
suitable for the 21st century, an education proposal, an education
system that fits with the coming cybercivilization that we have with
great demands for people who have intellectual capabilities and are
well-trained. And the only way we get them is through the process of
education.
In addition to these public opinion polls that have been cited
recently, there have been several other related developments or reports
related to education which I think are very significant. The New York
Times had an article on ``The Digital Brain Drain'' on Thursday of last
week, September 2. The New York Times article reads ``The Digital Brain
Drain.''
There are so many computers and so much interest in computers now at
the college level and the high school level that there is little
interest in the hard sciences. We have criticism now of computers
becoming more dominant as far as students are concerned with respect to
their choices as to what they want to do in life or what they want to
study, if they do not have to study chemistry and they do not want to
bother with chemistry and they do not want to bother with physics.
This article by Claudia H. Dorsch in the New York Times laments the
fact that the interest in hard sciences is waning, definitely
declining, decreasing.
One man, Jim Ivy, it starts fears that his son Jonathan, a freshman
business major at Pennsylvania State University, will graduate from
college without ever having taken a chemistry course.
Mottville High School, a New Jersey school, did not require chemistry
and his advisors at Penn State says he can skip it there, too.
On and on they go to talk about how young people are choosing to
focus on computer and computer science being where it is at and
biotechnology and physics and a number of other areas are suffering
already and are likely to suffer more.
We have more foreign students in graduate schools. The number of
people who are studying sciences in graduate

[[Page H7985]]

school has declined, the number of Americans has declined to the point
where the number of graduate level students who are foreign is greater
than the number who are American in our graduate schools science
programs.
Now, my answer to this is that what this is saying is that, in our
increasingly complex society, where more and more demands for people
with intellectual capabilities, whether it is science, law, medicine,
whatever it may be, the pool is too small.
What we are really confronting here is the fact that the number of
young people who are graduating from high school and going to college
is so small that we have to take a scarcity approach and pit one
profession against the other, one field of study against the other.
If the pool was larger, if we were keeping pace, then an education
system that was preparing an adequate number of students to go into
college more and more because we are going into a cybercivilization
where scientific competence and learning are required to a much greater
degree than ever before, let us recognize it and put the emphasis in
our resource allocation on education to get more youngsters into the
pool.

Now, to get more youngsters into the pool who are going to go to
college and study science, computers, or English or math, we need
people right across the whole spectrum. So we need people in social
sciences so that they can help keep our society on course.
Science will not save us. We have just seen that one of the
superpowers, the two great superpowers of the world, the Soviet Union,
very proficient in science. They almost beat us to the moon. They
certainly beat us into outer space. They have right now, as they had
before, the capability of delivering nuclear warheads anywhere in the
world with their vast rocket power.
The scientists and the engineering capability of the Soviet Union was
astounding. But the whole nation collapsed. Why did it collapse with
such brilliant scientists and systems that were able over a short
period of time relatively to produce a very sophisticated technical and
scientific society? It collapsed because something was missing.
So we do not want to have educated people, the people who are our
leaders who come out of the colleges, who are only proficient at
sciences, whether it is computer science or chemistry or physics. They
must also, right across the board, we must have a supply of people who
are competent and able to lead us politically and socially.
So the pool needs to be enlarged. We need to maximize the number of
youngsters who flow up from elementary school to high school, from high
school into college, and from college into grad school and life-long
learning, in the case of most of us, for the future.
In order to do this, we have to begin at the lowest level. President
Clinton's proposal for more teachers to the classroom in order to
decrease the ratio of pupils to teachers and have fewer pupils in a
classroom for teachers at the lowest levels will mean that the
youngsters will be more likely to learn to read. Because whatever we do
in chemistry or physics or computer science, however we may change the
classroom in terms of the addition of new technology, it all begins
with reading.
If kids cannot read, then they will not be able to survive, they will
not be able to benefit from all of the additional education
accouterments that we add. They must know how to add. They must know
how to do the basic math. They must get the basics at a very early age.
And we cannot touch the system at the top or doctor the system at the
top and hope to get the kind of results that we need. We need to have
the entire system in motion.
So we need to improve education in every way. And the President's
proposal for more teachers to the classroom, $1.2 billion, is on
target. We need much more than that, however. Because in order to get
smaller classrooms, we need more than the addition of teachers, we need
the addition of some more classrooms. We condition teach a first grade
class with one teacher at one side of the room and another teacher at
another side of the room. It will not work at lower levels.
It may work at higher levels you can have two classes in one room. I
recall when I went to school at Shelby County schools, a very poor
area, certainly the segregated schools for African-Americans were quite
squeezed and the 7th and 8th grades were in the same room, 7th grade on
one side and 8th grade on the other. And we made do.
If we had been younger levels, I do not think we would have ever been
able to have order on one side while there was complete order on the
other side and have been able to move in some kind of constructive way
with a room full of young children. I do not think it is possible.
We need more classrooms if we are going to have smaller sizes. We
need classrooms that do not send a message to children. We cannot take
the kids into the hall, as I have seen in a number of schools, where
they have got them at the end of a hall because there is no place to
put them.
In some cases they are in closets that have been enlarged, storage
rooms that have been enlarged. And people have said that it is not
happening, but there have been some converted restrooms. Boys and girls
restrooms have been converted and used as classrooms in some schools.
It is that bad.
School is about to start in New York City, and there will be more
crises in terms of finding a place to have these youngsters sit.
Finding a place to sit now is more complicated by the fact that we have
a new policy which everybody from one end of the Nation to the other
has applauded, ``no more social promotion.''
I do not subscribe to slogans like that, but that slogan has caught
on and everybody seems to believe it is true and it is positive. ``No
more social promotion'' means we have a lot of youngsters sitting in
schools and would have gone on to another school from elementary school
to junior high school, but with ``no more social promotion'' they are
sitting there in seats that already are scarce. And we are going to
have more of a problem because we do not have a construction program to
go with it.
I contend that if we really want to improve education, at the heart
of improving education is a school modernization construction program.
That is the role that the Federal Government can play best because that
is where we need the most resources. That is where localities are
stretched out and cannot meet those demands.
Let us face it, even in the parts of the country where construction
has the lowest cost, it still costs quite a bit to build our schools.
And certainly in the areas that are poorest they have deteriorating
schools because they have not had the funds to keep them going in many
cases and, therefore, there is some help needed from the Federal
Government.

{time} 2215

Even in areas like New York City and New York State which have
surpluses, it ought to apply those surpluses more to school
construction and we ought to put pressure on having the State and the
city apply part of their surpluses to school modernization and
construction and the people of the State and the people of the city
ought to wake up and demand that.
The Federal Government still needs to help. They can never meet the
demand with the amount of surplus, even if they applied the entire
surplus to school construction and modernization.
So we need to send a message to all the people in the education
family, to the children, the teachers, the administrators, that we
really care about education because we are going to deal with the
problem that they cannot deal with and that is give them a safe,
healthy, conducive place to study.
This is just one of the developments that I wanted to note. The
digital brain drain where we are talking about how horrible it is that
computer science now competes with physics and chemistry and how our
scientific endeavors, research capacity is going to suffer greatly
because so many people are being taken out of the hard sciences,
natural sciences, to go into computer science, I think this is a very
sad.
There is a very good article that brings to our attention a major
problem but the problem here is not that computer science is mean and
computer science is conducting raids on the other scientists, the
drama, that kind of nonsense we do not need. What we need to understand
is that we need a larger pool of people from which all

[[Page H7986]]

of the sciences and the nonsciences draw their students. We need more
students in college. We need more students who pass the SAT tests. We
need more students who are able to take us into this new cyber
civilization.
Another article appeared in the New York Times, the same day.
Calculators throw teachers a new curve, Thursday, September 2. This
article talks about students reprogramming powerful math aids to play
games and maybe get a leg up on the SAT.
Well, computers are being utilized in the most advanced classes via
calculators and doing all kinds of things not just with the usual basic
calculations but with equations and drawing graphs and all kinds of
utilizations of the calculator to advance the students' education to
solve problems, and many schools are now allowing these calculators to
be used during the tests, and I think some plans are being made for the
national tests to also allow calculators to be used.
The thing that struck me about the article, it is a long article and
a very positive article about how young people are able to master these
computers and come up with such original and creative ideas, but what
caught my attention most was an inset article by Jennifer Lee, which
talks about some schools cannot afford hardware and training. And the
fact that the digital gap between those who are rich enough to be able
to have the kind of school technology that is most up-to-date and most
relevant because it can connect up with the Internet, it can do all the
things that the most up-to-date computers and technology can do, these
schools cannot even afford the calculators. It points out that some
parents are now complaining about the fact that calculators are being
used in the classroom; their youngsters cannot afford them and they are
placed at a disadvantage.
A number of government and foundation grants are now available to
help schools purchase calculators, and other forms of technology, but
hardware in the poorest schools may be only a part of the problem
because they find that they do not have the teachers and the software
that can utilize the hardware that other schools have available. So it
is again another aspect of the digital divide between the poorest
schools and the more well to do schools with respect to being able to
afford the modern instruments that can improve their education and
enable them to pass the necessary requirements to move on to college
and to qualify for all of these many professions that need new
scientists and new information technology workers.
It is important to note that in a speech that President Clinton made
at Olney, Maryland, yesterday, he pointed out the fact that he had
visited one school and that they told him that the school could not
utilize the computers and the technology that they had because when
they hooked it all up it started blowing fuses. The wiring for the
school was inadequate and could not accept the modern technology. We
are back to the major problem of infrastructure, the great need for
construction, school construction, and the need for the Federal
Government to be involved in carrying school construction forward.
What are our chances? Why do I say that we can still win the war for
education support; we can still win the war to get a significant
appropriation for school construction? I think that even if we had some
decision-making in this session of Congress, this first half of the
106th Congress, there is time, if we wake up and understand the power
that is out there among the parents and the students, the public
opinion is there. On education, we have only the example of politicians
and elected officials ignoring the polls. It is an amazing phenomena
how we see the polls saying that education is important and we ignore
the fact that they keep asking for something more significant than we
are giving. Everybody proposes some nickel and dime education program
but the public keeps demanding something that is really going to deal
with the problem in a more basic way.
There are people who say that no major decisions are going to be made
about the trillion dollar, 10-year surplus in this session, that we are
not going to be able to deal with it; there is too little time; it is
going to be carried over to the next session.
That gives us more time. I think time is on our side.
There are other people who say that we may have some kind of unusual
coming together of the White House and the Republican leadership and
the Congress and we have a deal made this year. I hope not. I fear any
kind of rapid deal, because that tends to leave out public opinion. If
public opinion is allowed to operate long enough, if the common sense
of the people out there is allowed to stay in play, we are going to win
this war for education support. We are going to win this war to get
meaningful appropriations for education.
We may have a giant omnibus, continuing resolution. The continuing
resolution will mean that basic decisions about new programs such as a
multibillion dollar tax cut will not be made. It will be carried over
to next year. Let it be carried over, and remember that time is on our
side. The force is with us. We have truth. We have logic. We have
reason. We have so much on our side.
It is amazing how blind our leadership is not to understand that
school construction is a place where the Federal Government can make
the greatest contribution for the improvement of education.
So it will be carried over until next year, election year 2000. Next
year is an election year. That will be the battle ground. That will be
the place where the long-term fiscal plan, the 10-year allocation of $1
trillion will be decided. We will have time to catch our breath.
The Republican proposals have kind of overwhelmed us. They proposed a
$794 billion tax cut. The Democrats have not countered that with any
proposal of substance. We know that our leadership wants a diversified
package which will include allocations for Medicare, for education, for
a few other programs, but we do not know exactly how much. We do not
know whether they are going to be willing to change the formula or
change the approach with respect to school construction and place a
substantial, adequate amount, on the table for school construction over
the next 10 years.
We may not see the leadership move unless the public pressures the
leadership to come to its senses. Not to use this opportunity to
finance school construction on a meaningful basis would constitute one
of the most devastating blunders in the history of the Nation. It would
be a great blunder for us not to use the opportunity now, while we have
a surplus, to strike a blow against our deteriorating infrastructure
and a blow in favor of building up that physical infrastructure and
sending a message to the school boards and the teachers and the
administrators that we care; we care enough to take off their back the
problem of the physical infrastructure. Now they should take care of
the other problems.
Yes, the Federal Government can help with research. They can help
with curriculum standardization. They can help with experimentation and
the dissemination of information about what works and what does not
work. There are a thousand ways the Federal Government can help, but
the way it can help most is to foot the bill for a large part of the
school construction necessary; give the facility, give the
infrastructure, take away that burden from local and State governments
totally. They should not have the total burden, but local governments
and State governments certainly need to contribute more to school
construction and the pressure should be on the national basis and part
of the participation of the Federal Government can help to stimulate
that.
The window of fiscal opportunity is open now. We have a projection of
$1 trillion now. If we go ahead and allow that window to close, if we
allow a huge Republican tax cut to take place and the $1 trillion to go
primarily toward the tax cut, there is nothing left for us in order to
deal with the need for education funding and for construction.
Education is not just another nondefense expenditure. I think we need
expenditures in several areas: Child care programs, social programs,
but education is a key because it is investment. It is an investment in
the future for the coming generation. Education is going to help us
solve the problem of Social Security. The major problem that Social
Security faces is that the

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number of people who will be drawing down their Social Security
payments is going to be greater than the number of people working to
put payments into the Social Security fund. If we do not get a labor
pool out there that is going to fill the jobs that are going to be
available, or if we have to fill the jobs with foreigners or we have to
contract out and send the work overseas, we do not get the benefit in
our Social Security fund for that. Our economy does not get enriched by
the salaries that are paid to workers who are in another country. So
education is not just another nondefense expenditure.
Investment in the future of coming generations is best taken care of
via the education route. We cannot allow ourselves to blunder into a
situation where we do not provide out of this pool of a trillion
dollars a substantial amount of money for education.
School construction crystallizes the Federal commitment. It
crystallizes the commitment of elected officials for education. It
crystallizes the national commitment. If we do something on school
construction which is meaningful we can stimulate and accelerate all of
the other school improvement efforts out there. Without modernization
and construction, we are facing an abandonment of the public school
system.
A lot of the people who are against a meaningful school construction
program are really scheming to have the public school system scuttled.
If we do not build, if there are no buildings, we are sending a message
that we are abandoning the process. Why should teachers, why should
educators, principals, why should even students believe us when we say
that education is important if we are going to allow buildings to fall
down around them?
There are people that advocate vouchers, which is an extreme approach
to education reform. I am not going to be so blind as to say vouchers
are not a good idea for experimentation. Maybe they can tell us
something significant, but I think the vouchers ought to be funded out
of private sources. We have enough foundations, enough corporations,
who favor vouchers to fund a voucher system.
The capacity of private schools in this country right now is very
limited. The number of youngsters who are going to private schools
using vouchers is so limited until certainly there is enough money in
the foundation and corporation world to fund it and let us see how it
works via funding from the private sector instead of using public
school funds to fund vouchers.
To say we are going to experiment with the improvement of education
while having vouchers and pull the money out of the public school
system and definitely dooming the public school system to continued
mediocrity or a struggle to make ends meet, then we are not improving
education in an overall way. Part of the experiment requires that we
try to make the traditional system work, if possible, so we have
something to compare with. What is learned through a voucher program
may be utilized in the public school system.

{time} 2230

Certainly we must realize via common sense and simple logic that most
of the 53 million children in America who go to school are going to
have to go to public schools for a long time. No matter what kind of
legislation Congress passes or the State legislatures pass, there is
not a capacity out there to replace the public schools. We are going to
have to have public schools for another generation at least, no matter
what we do.
So improvement of public schools is a necessary part of any serious,
sincere reform effort. We must build in 2000, build schools and we will
set up a whole chain reaction.
I think that we ought to be positive about it and assume that we are
going to build in 2000. I have a hard hat here which is part of a
campaign that we are kicking off at the Congressional Black Caucus
weekend next week to wake up the African American community to the fact
that we must play a key role. It is a Congressional Black Caucus
weekend. The African American community must provide a leadership role
in stimulating efforts to gain more resources from the Government for
school construction.
There are people who have given up, and there are some public opinion
polls, and the Republican majority has certainly brought those to our
attention, which say that black parents, African American parents in
the big cities in large numbers opt to use vouchers or charter schools.
They want to abandon the public school system. They talk about more
than 50 percent.
So the people who are being used to tear down the public school
system certainly ought to be alerted to the fact that there are clear
alternatives.
I know what is happening. Most of us who are in leadership positions
know that African American parents have been disappointed by reforms;
they are disappointed by no movement in their schools. Certainly those
who are brightest and those who are most concerned about their children
become very restless, and they do not believe that there is a real
effort to improve public schools, and they have given up. They will
take any alternative, charter schools or vouchers. They do not make a
distinction, just any alternative to the public school system.
Now if we say we are going to not abandon the public school system,
and a lot of those problems related to reading, related to counseling
and a number of other very difficult problems that for years we have
been struggling with, we are going to give you the opportunity, let the
educators and the administrators have the opportunity and the
resources, because if we are devoting federal funds to school
construction and the physical infrastructure, then there are funds
available for other programs and other approaches to the local
education agency and the local schools.
So we ought to build. As my colleagues know, I think that we cannot
emphasize it too much. Every elected official, every leader in the
African American community ought to identify with the need for school
construction, school modernization. We ought to understand that the
chain reaction of hope can only be set off if we send a clear message
that we are going to do something different in a big way.
You know, there is a time when brick and mortar are considerations,
are the most important considerations in rallying people. What you do
in terms of concrete and bricks send a bigger message and a better
message and a more inspiring message than anything else you can do. If
you are willing to build, then that is a commitment.
Time is on our side. I think we can still win. As I said before,
reason is on our side, logic is on our side. When political expediency
continues to be blinded to the obvious, then common sense out there
among the voters and among the people that have to point the way.
We probably have a school facility problem in every district. There
is at least one school in every congressional district. So we ought to
be able to get the message through to the Members, but it will not
happen automatically. You have to be willing to devote time and energy
and communicate.
We are communicating in one way, through the polls and the focus
groups. We have let the Members of Congress know, let the White House
know; everybody knows that people want more resources devoted to
education. What we have not been able to understand is that the only
significant things that can be done, there are some significant things
that can only be done by the Federal Government, and the Federal
Government needs to accept its role in a very important and expensive
proposition such as school construction.
We should not think that it is impossible to do this. We are at a
point now where we have a proposal on the table by the administration.
President Clinton has been called the education president for good
reasons. Nobody else in Washington has provided over such a long period
of time a comprehensive program for the improvement of education.
Whatever the criticism one may have of it, at least there is a
comprehensive program and not just an attempt to raid the education
coffers in order to give money to the local level under some slogan, a
block grant slogan or dollars to the classroom slogan, but no real
program based on research, evidence. We have evidence that smaller
classrooms make a big difference. We have research to support that, so
the thrust of the administration's program is to get more money to
school districts to hire more teachers in the early grades.

[[Page H7988]]

There are other programs, after-school centers. There has been a lot
of attention paid by this administration; they paid a lot of attention
to the fact that you need new technology. They led the movement. The
President himself and the Vice President led the movement to wire
schools with volunteers when nothing else was working. The E-rate is a
result of this administration standing fast and insisting that the
telecommunications law be followed and interpreted in the most generous
way possible. So we have the E-rate.
There are a number of things that this administration has done that
we can applaud, but it has not gone far enough, and the playing field
has changed. If you are now dealing with a trillion dollar surplus over
a 10-year period, then let us have a program for that 10-year scenario.
Let us have a school construction program for that 10-year scenario.
As my colleagues know, there have been times when it seemed that we
could not win and things were impossible, and folks have said, as my
colleagues know, it is just reckless for you to stand on the floor and
ask for $100 billion dollars, $110 billion over a 10-year period. It is
impossible. Well, there were days when we faced other impossibilities.
In the early days of the 104th Congress, shortly after the Republican
majority took control in the days of the Contract with America there
were proposals to abolish the Department of Education. We had two
former Republican Secretaries of Education come to the House and
testify before committees calling for the abolishment of the Department
of Education. That was a major item on the agenda of the Contract with
America, to get rid of the Department of Education.
That same Congress in those years proposed that we cut education
drastically. We cut in 1995 a proposal on the table called for almost a
$4 billion cut in education programs including Head Start, including
Title I. Those are days where things seemed almost doomed in terms of
federal, the federal commitment and federal aid to education.
But we kept fighting. We fought a good battle in school lunches where
school lunches were also cut.
There are some people who are worried about protocol, and they say my
hat is against the rules; is that what you are saying? Well, I will
hold it here; is that all right? We have some arcane rules, and we
worry about the wrong things. But the important point was made. We need
to understand that school construction has to be pursued relentlessly,
and while they worry about where you wear the hat here, any kind of
hat, even a demonstration hat on the floor, while they worry about
that, let us worry about the real problems out there, and remember that
in the darkest days of the 104th Congress when they proposed to cut
school lunches, Head Start, et cetera, we kept fighting, we kept
fighting.
As my colleagues know, as a matter of levity let me just remind you
of some of the things that we did to get our message across. We had to
sometimes be a little humorous with it. On April 4, 1995, I recall an
item I put in the Congressional Record which included a poem about
school lunches. It was very serious, and we were very upset about the
fact that they were proposing to cut school lunches. You might have
forgotten, so let me just read from the item that I entered into the
Record in 1995 on April 4.

Mr. Speaker, a final word has not yet been said about the Republican
swindle of the children who receive free lunches in the schools across
our Nation. But the final, most authoritative figures have been
established by the Congressional Budget Office. The very conservative
but thorough Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the
Republicans will capture slightly more than $2 billion from their block
granted school lunch program. This will be $2 billion more to go into
the tax cut for the rich.
See, the present concern about tax cuts for the rich is not the only
attempt to give big tax cuts to the rich. We had one before.
This is a scenario filled with horror. It conjures up the image of a
poster, that poster that was famous during the war where the finger of
Uncle Sam was pointed out at you, and it said: I need you. That kind of
image is now being conveyed to the children of America. They are
saying: this Nation needs your lunch.
And I put together a small rap poem that goes as follows:

This Nation, the Nation, needs your lunch.
Kids of America, there is a fiscal crunch.
This great Nation now needs your lunch.
To set the budget right,
Go hungry for one night.
Don't eat what we can save.
Be brave.
Patriots stand out above the bunch,
Proudly surrender lunch.
Kids of America, nutrition is not for you.
Sacrifice for the rich few.
Be a soldier and play dead.
The F-22 might rescue you.
The seawolf sub might bring some hot grub;
Now hear this: There is a fiscal crunch.
This Nation needs your lunch.
Pledge allegiance to the flag,
Mobilize your own brown bag.
The enemy deficit must be defeated.
Nutrition suicide squads are desperately needed.
Kids of America, there is a fiscal crunch.
This great Nation now needs your lunch.

Mr. Speaker, it is ridiculous for the Republican majority to call for
cutting school lunches. Let it happen, and we overcame that. We woke up
the American public. It did not happen automatically that we moved from
1995 proposals by Republican majority for a $4 billion tax cut,
education cut, to a 1996 position in the closing days of the same
Congress where they proposed a $4 billion increase.
The difference was public opinion, common sense. The people of
America stood up to the nonsense and said education is important, do
not abolish the Department of Education, do not cut school lunches, do
not cut Head Start. If you come out here and try to run on that kind of
platform, you are doomed to defeat.
The focus groups and the public opinion polls told the Republicans
they were off course, and they did an about face that was 360 degrees.
Instead of a $4 billion cut, we got a $4 billion increase, the largest
increase in education funding in the last few decades, since the Great
Society entered the whole area of elementary and secondary education.
So we have difficult roadblocks placed in front of us in the past,
and we have overcome it. The enemies of education have been forced to
retreat in other cases. The E-rate last year, just a few months ago we
were fighting the battle of the E-rate. What is the E-rate all about?
The E-rate was a promise made by the corporations and
telecommunications leaders to help education in exchange for some
amazing concessions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. After they
had gotten all these concessions and all the deregulation they wanted,
they begin to renege on the agreement; and when the FCC proposed to
provide discounted funding to schools and libraries, and that is what
Congress had asked them to do, discounted funding, they got opposition
from a wide number of corporations and some Members of the House and
Members of the Senate, and I came to this floor at that time and made
an appeal to the schoolchildren of America.

{time} 2245

I happened to be speaking early in the evening on that day, so I made
a special appeal to children, and between the school children and their
parents and all the ordinary citizens who might not have children but
have common sense out there, this thing has been turned around.
On Sunday, August 15, in a New York Times there was a report which
reads as follows: ``Phone fee for school Internet service seems to be
too popular to overturn. Phone fee for school Internet service seems to
be too popular to overturn.''
Certain corporations were opposing the E-Rate. A simple matter. The
FCC passed the regulations which required that money be paid into a
fund. It is a universal fund that already exists for other purposes, so
they expanded that fund to include money that would go into libraries
and schools to pay a part of their costs for telecommunications. Up to
90 percent of the cost would be paid in the poorer schools, but all
schools would get about 20 percent. Even the most wealthy schools would
get a 20 percent discount.
This would help them to continue on an ongoing basis to pay the costs
of having technology in their schools. The on-line services, the
telecommunications services would be partially paid out of this fund.

[[Page H7989]]

The FCC proposed $2.4 billion. There was such a hue and cry here in
Congress and by the corporations who took them to court, and all the
muscle was brought into play behind the scenes. Forget about the
American people and school kids who would benefit from this.
So much muscle was brought into play that the FCC backed down. They
cut the $2.4 billion in half. It became $1.2 billion. They moved for
their first funding at 50 percent of the amount that they had
originally decided.
Well, we appealed to the ordinary people and the children of America
to counterattack; and, as a result, this report now says that nobody in
high places now is willing to fight the battle against the E-Rate. We
raised it back now to $2.25 billion, up from the $1.7 it had been cut
down to.
I know, because I went with members of the Congressional Black Caucus
to the hearing where the final vote was taken to raise it back to the
amount of $2.25 billion. That hearing was a great event, where we
restored the promise that had been made to the schools and libraries of
America.
Now they are saying nobody is waging war in any significant way.
There are still some court suits being brought. I don't know where MCI
is now on this whole matter, but MCI was one of the huge corporations
that brought a suit, and I will include for the Record this article.

[From The New York Times National, Aug. 15, 1999]

Phone Fee for School Internet Service Seems To Be Too Popular To
Overturn

(By David E. Rosenbaum)

Washington, Aug. 14--Two years ago, when the Government
imposed a new fee on long-distance telephone companies to
raise money for Internet connections at schools and
libraries, the reaction from some quarters was ferocious.
Republican politicians, assuming that people would be
outraged by the extra charges showing up on their phone
bills, called it the ``Gore tax'' because Vice President Al
Gore had championed the program.
Conservative academics accused the Clinton Administration
of distorting the marketplace, quietly expanding the Federal
role in education and creating a new, expensive entitlement
program.
The long-distance carriers were quick to put new line items
on phone bills identifying the extra charges they were
passing along to customers, and they screamed that costs
would skyrocket.
But the program, officially called the E-rate, has proved
to be so popular that even the harshest critics now agree
that further complaints are futile.
What happened was that pork barrel trumped political,
ideological and commercial concerns.
In the new school year, 80,000 schools and libraries across
the country will have new or improved high-speed Internet
access because of the program, and a total of more than one
million individual classrooms, in every state and presumably
every Congressional district, will be wired.
While a tight lid has been imposed on almost all other
Government programs, spending for the E-rate, which appears
nowhere in the Federal budget, has been increased by one-
third to $2.25 billion in the coming school year. That makes
it one of the Federal Government's largest education
programs--much larger, for example, than the $1.5 billion the
Government is allocating this year to vocational and adult
education.
``Once you have large sums of money pouring into every
school district in the country, it's impossible to turn off
the spigot,'' said a lobbyist who has worked against the
program.
Another opponent of the program, Adam Thierer, a
communications policy specialist at the Heritage Foundation,
agreed there was no turning back. ``Pork barrel has won out,
no doubt about it,'' he said.
``This technology has such appeal,'' Mr. Thierer added.
``If you're against this, you're viewed as being against
children. The political dynamic at play here is very
powerful.''
In his State of the Union Message in 1996, President
Clinton set the goal of connecting every classroom and
library to the Internet by the turn of the century. Now,
because of the E-rate, it appears as if that goal will
essentially be met, and the President often speaks of the
success.
At a political fund-raiser a week ago in Little Rock, Ark.,
with Vice President Gore at his side, Mr. Clinton declared:
``Al Gore led the fight to make sure that the Federal
Government required all the schools in this country to have
affordable rates so that every classroom in the poorest
schools in America can be hooked up to the Internet. He did
that, and he deserves credit for it.''
Administration officials seize every opportunity to point
out the local benefits. In a speech in Houston last month,
William E. Kennard, the chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission, said, ``This week we were able to
send nearly $12 million to schools and libraries right here
in Texas.''
Everyone agrees that schools and libraries should have
access to modern technology. Mr. Thierer, for example, said
he would not want his children to go to a school that was not
connected to the Internet.
The controversy has been over whether the way to accomplish
the goal is through the back door. The Federal Communications
Commission, not Congress, decides how much money should be
spent under the E-rate program and who should receive it. And
rather than raise the money through general taxes, it all
comes from the fee on long-distance telephone service.
``I do not doubt that there is a benefit to wiring our
classrooms and libraries today,'' said Senator Kay Bailey
Hutchison, Republican of Texas. ``But to require captive
consumers to pay the full cost does not pass the fairness
test.''
From the Administration's perspective, the problem is that
the Republican Congress would never have approved money
directly for Internet connections.
The E-rate program grew out of the sweeping 1996
legislation that rewrote the nation's 62-year-old
communications law. The measure, a product of countless
compromises and tradeoffs, instituted a new era of
competition in telephone and data services.
One section of the legislation requires telephone companies
(and providers of cellular phone and pager services) to pay a
fee to the Federal Communications Commission so that all
Americans can have access to affordable telephone service and
so that schools, libraries and rural hospitals and clinics
can receive discounts on telephone service and Internet
access.
The size of the fee and the exact nature of the services it
would cover were left up to the commission to determine.
Ever since telephones became a central part of American
life early in this century, some telephone users have
subsidized others. Businesses have subsidized residential
users. Urban customers have subsidized those in rural areas.
The affluent have paid more so that poor people could afford
telephones.
The theory has been that everyone benefits from universal
access to telephones, just as everyone benefits from a
national highway system and mail service that reaches
everywhere in the country.
Reed E. Hundt, who was Mr. Gore's prep-school classmate and
the F.C.C. chairman from 1994 to 1997, saw the communications
law as the path toward the Administration's goal of wiring
classrooms and libraries. Under the policy that he developed
and that has been followed by his successor, Mr. Kennard,
long-distance companies pay a fee of slightly less than 1
percent of their revenue into a universal service fund.
Two-thirds of the money raised by the fee is spent on
telephone service for rural communities and poor people. The
other third, $2.25 billion a year, is earmarked for the E-
rate program. This covers 20 percent to 90 percent of the
cost of wiring and paying the monthly bills from Internet
service providers. The poorer the schools' students or the
libraries' neighborhood, the higher the percentage of the
cost that is covered.
The companies pass along the cost of the fee to their
customers. AT&T, for instance, charges residential accounts
99 cents a month. MCI World-com charges customers 7.2 percent
of their long-distance bill. Sprint charges 6.3 percent. One-
third of this fee pays for the E-rate.
The cost of the E-rate program to most consumers is 30 to
40 cents a month--about the cost of a postage stamp, Mr.
Kennard frequently says.
The program had a rocky start. Faced with criticism in
Congress and a report of poor management by Government
auditors, Mr. Kennard cut back the financing last year to
$1.7 billion from the original $2.25 billion.
But across the country, from the biggest cities to the most
remote communities the response from schools and libraries
has been enthusiastic. Complaints from long-distance
customers who are footing the bill have dwindled.
Joseph Salvati, coordinator of the E-rate program for New
York City public schools, said 7 to 12 classrooms in every
school in the city would be wired for high-speed Internet
service when school opens for the new year. The city received
about $70 million for the program through last June and
expects another $70 million in the new school year, Mr.
Salvati said
Elva Scott, the volunteer librarian in Eagle, Alaska, an
isolated community with 500 residents near the border with
the Yukon Territory, said her library's grant allowed her to
offer residents 30 minutes of free time on the Internet every
month and more time at a charge of $3 for every 30 minutes.
``Before this,'' Ms. Scott said, ``we were really out of
the loop.''
Republican opponents clearly misjudged the public's
willingness to pay a small amount of money to accomplish what
is seen as an important social goal. Encouraged by the
political support and a new management structure, Mr. Kennard
returned in May to the $2.25 billion annual level.
His position was bolstered last month when the United
States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected a
challenge to the program on the ground that the fee imposed
by the F.C.C. was an unconstitutional tax.
But in Washington, even the strongest supporters of
universal access to the Internet still worry about whether
the communications commission should be running a major
education program rather than Congress or the Department of
Education or the education authorities in the states and
cities.

[[Page H7990]]

``It's a wonderful program,'' said Patricia Aufderheide, a
professor of communications at American University here and
the author of a book on the 1996 telecommunications law.
``But it's certainly making education policy in a backward
way.''

Mr. Speaker, I think people ought to know that the phone fee for
school Internet service seems to be too popular to overturn.
Mr. Speaker, I will also enter into the Record another entry that I
made on July 17, 1998, in the Congressional Record already. I think it
is time to look at it again. It is called ``The Massacre of the E-Rate
Continues.'' At that time I thought some humor would help wake children
up to what was really going on. It is called ``The E-Rate KILLER.''

THE MASSACRE OF THE E-RATE CONTINUES

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the massacre of the infant E-Rate
continues. Certain greedy corporations have chose to
persecute and betray the children of America by denying them
vital access to education technology in their schools and
libraries. After the Telecommunications Act of 1996 enriched
these giant corporations by removing certain regulations and
allowing an unprecedented increase in their profits, MCI and
others have chose to renege on the deal. The
telecommunications corporations gave their word that they
would support an earmarking of a portion of the Universal
Access Fund just for Schools and libraries. Now corporations
and misguided political leaders have forced the Federal
Communications Commission to cut the original funding goal by
fifty per cent. On behalf of the 30,000 schools and libraries
that applied for funding, and all of the children of America
we demand that full funding for the E-Rate be restored
immediately. The children of America have a message for
corporations like MCI:

The E-Rate Killer

MCI
Wants E-Rate to die
Children cry
Big shots lie
Pigs kidnap the sky
MCI
Wants E-Rate to die
Deadbeat dinosaur
Monster Corporate Idiots
MCI
Never shy
Greedy grinch
Stealing all the pie
MCI
With justice no civil tie
MCI
Filthy sty
In the star spangled eye
MCI
Wants E-Rate to die
MCI
Makes children cry.
I think we ought to be reminded that that kind of appeal was
necessary to bring common sense back to the policymakers who were
rallying against MCI, as well as the big corporate powers.
So we can win some of these battles. My point is we can win. Let us
remember these battles that we have won. There was a point where they
wanted to cut the Public Broadcasting funds. I think we came and talked
about Big Bird and Sesame Street, and they backed down on that. We have
won battles. We have forced retreats.
In this situation it may not be a situation of forcing a retreat or
winning a battle. It is a matter of getting it on the table,
construction for schools, school construction, school modernization,
funds to facilitate greater school security, funds to eliminate
unhealthy and unsafe conditions. If that gets on the table when the
discussion takes place about the $1 trillion surplus, then we will have
won the battle.
I propose $110 billion over a 10-year period to keep pace with and be
comparable to the Republican tax cut proposal, but if you get less, we
still have won the battle. But let us go forward and understand that we
cannot give up. The force is with us; the education president is with
us. This education president can be persuaded, as he has in the past,
he can be persuaded to expand his horizons, and we hope we can help
persuade him to expand the school construction proposal.
The working families and unions are with us. I have here, the hard
hats are with us, so we want the hard hats and all the forces combined
to fight harder and understand this is a battle we can win, this is a
war we can win. The force is with us. Education is an investment that
America needs. It will be a great blunder not to have all possible
effort to improve education taking place.

____________________