[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 140 (Friday, October 15, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12688-S12689]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FEDERAL MANDATES AND SCHOOLS

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the Senator from Washington has, once 
again, succinctly and clearly stated a circumstance and situation in 
this country that is almost beyond belief. I have had a number of 
complaints about that. I used to be a Federal prosecutor. One of my 
good friends who has been a prosecutor for a very long time personally 
came to Washington to talk to me about the abuses of this law. It 
actually resulted in a full-page article in Time magazine. The title of 
it was, ``The Meanest Kid In Alabama.''
  It is probably not an accurate statement, but it indicated what we 
were dealing with. My friend, David Whetstone, told me of the 
circumstance in which a very violent, disruptive young man was kept in 
the classroom, under these Federal laws, beyond all common sense, all 
reason, beyond anything that can have any basis in connection with 
reality.
  Americans may not know what is occurring, but this is happening in 
other schools. I want to tell you what happened to this young man. He 
had an aide who got on the school bus with him alone in the morning, 
sat with him alone through the classroom day, and went home with him at 
the end of the day because of his disruptive behavior. That had to be 
paid for by the school board, the taxpayers of that community. Can you 
imagine what it would be like trying to be a teacher, trying to teach 
in a classroom with that kind of problem? He used curse words to the 
principal on a regular basis, and it was very disruptive. But our law 
said, basically, he had to stay in that classroom. It was just 
remarkable.
  Eventually the young man, going home one afternoon on the school bus, 
attacked the bus driver, it has been reported. The aide tried to 
restrain him, and he attacked the aide. My friend, the prosecutor, 
brought a criminal action or some legal action against him to try to 
deal with it. He was shocked, stunned, and amazed that this goes on, on 
a regular basis. He wrote me that in that County, Baldwin County, AL, 
there are at least six other incidents of a similar nature of which he 
was aware.
  This may sound unbelievable, but I suggest anybody who thinks what 
the Senator has just said is not true, the kinds of things I am talking 
about are not true, ask your principals and teachers. Just ask them. It 
is Federal law that is mandating it.
  We were supposed to pay for it when we passed it, and we never even 
paid for it. We were supposed to pay 40 percent of that unfunded 
mandate on the school systems. I think we are paying 15 percent now. 
This administration, President Clinton, opposes our getting it up to 40 
percent. Why? I will tell you why I think the President opposes it. Not 
because it is not necessary; it is because the school systems, by this 
law, are having to do it anyway. They ran polling data that said maybe 
it strikes a better chord to have more teachers than to have funding 
for the Federal mandate we put on the schools, so we want to get more 
teachers and get more political credit or something; I don't know. We 
ought to finish funding this mandate. We ought to go back and look at 
this requirement and change it. It is not sound.
  We want to keep disabled children in the classroom as much as 
possible. That is a worthy goal. But to go to the extent that we cannot 
remove children who bring guns to school, who consistently disrupt the 
school system, is beyond my comprehension.
  In the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, we had 
testify the superintendent of a school system in Vermont. I was 
stunned. He said 20 percent of his budget goes to IDEA students, these 
kids with disabilities. In Vermont, 20 percent of the system's money 
goes for that. Somehow we are out of sync. You wonder why we cannot get 
more good education? Teachers cannot maintain discipline. They can only 
remove them, what, 40 days from a classroom in the face of the most 
outrageous behavior, even where there is violence involved. We have an 
obligation to the classrooms and to our teachers to help our teachers 
maintain order. If we are not going to do anything, then we don't do 
anything, but the worst thing for this Congress to do

[[Page S12689]]

is to pass laws that make it worse, make it harder for a teacher to do 
his or her job.
  I know teachers who have quit; they say they cannot take it anymore. 
A friend of mine, who is 6 feet 4 and played college basketball, told 
me he taught junior high school and he didn't feel safe a lot of days.
  I think we can do better. We ought to help our school systems do 
that. The Senator from Washington and a number of us, including the 
Presiding Officer, are working on some proposals that would allow us to 
empower school systems to receive funds with a minimum of restrictions 
as long as they have a firm plan that they know will work in their 
community to actually improve education.
  We need to give the people elected to run our school systems more 
authority and give them the money so they can use it of the Federal 
money we are spending on schools, we know now only 65 cents out of 
every Federal dollar for education actually gets down to the classroom. 
We need to get our dollars to the classroom. We need to get that money 
down to the people who know our children's names. They need the money, 
not Washington. We cannot be a super school board for America. That 
would be so silly.

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