[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 25 (Wednesday, March 8, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H747-H751]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION UNAUDITABLE DUE TO SLOPPY RECORDKEEPING
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk tonight about some of the
work that we have done in our committee over the last few months, and I
chair a subcommittee that has oversight responsibility for the
Education Department.
It was back in October, October 29, that me and some of my colleagues
from the committee, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) and the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Salmon), walked down Capitol Hill. We
walked to the Department of Education. We wanted to meet with some of
the people at the Department of Education, and we wanted to meet with
Secretary Riley to find out if we could help the Secretary find a penny
on the dollar of savings. It was when we were going through the budget
negotiations and a various range of activities. One of the things that
we were saying is, can we find some savings in our various departments
so that we can stay within the budget caps, make sure that we do not
raid Social Security and actually develop a surplus in the general
fund, as well as in the Social Security fund.
Well, when we went there that day, we found out some interesting
things. For 1998, the fiscal year of 1998, the Education Department had
just received their audit, the financial audit completed by Ernst &
Young, which is a report that Congress mandated that every agency go
through, that they bring in independent outside auditors to review the
books. What did we find out? We found out that for 1998, the Education
Department was 7 months late in meeting their statutory deadline. That
is the good news. The bad news that we found was that Ernst & Young was
not going to give them a clean audit. Actually, they did not render an
opinion on any of the 5 financial statements that the Education
Department was required to complete. So basically, their books could
not be audited.
What we also found out is we went and dug through this, and we found
that there was an account called the ``grant-back account.'' It had
$594 million. This is money that is recovered or supposed to be
recovered from schools and universities who have had some problems with
the grants that they are receiving. They returned this money back to
Washington; that is why it is called the grant-back account. It had
$594 million in it. The auditor stated that of this, only $13 million
could actually be attributed to grant-back activities, meaning that
over $580 million of that account could not be reconciled, that the
Education Department could not tell us how the money got there, what
accounts that this money had come from, or where this money was going
to be used. As a matter of fact, under law, most of this money should
have gone back to the Treasury, but it was still sitting at the
Department of Education.
Mr. Speaker, they receive $35 billion a year. As they were going
through the process, the auditors had found an instance where, in 1998,
as they were adjusting their books, they had made a $6 billion, that is
with a B, a $6 billion adjustment in their books. Now, this did catch
the attention of the auditors, and they went back to the Education
Department and said, could you please explain to us why in this
preliminary statement it was x amount, and why in this follow-up
statement you had made a $6 billion adjustment.
Can you perhaps explain to us and give us the paperwork and the
background so that we can understand how this first statement was so
totally inaccurate and where the documentation was and why it was not
there in the first place, and the answer coming back from the Education
Department is no, we do not have the backup data to explain exactly why
we needed to make this $6 billion adjustment.
We found out that in 1998 in the audit that there were $76.8 million
in improperly discharged student loans. These are young people who had
received student loans, but the Education Department, rather than
expecting these students to repay these loans, had improperly
discharged $76.8 million worth of student loans, a great deal for these
students. The problem is, we expected these students, and these
students had agreed, to pay us back and the Education Department
discharged those student loans. They said well, let it go. These are
kids that completed college, not a big deal. It is a big deal. The
$76.8 million could have funded 20,000 new loans for students.
There was $177 million in improper Pell Grant awards. That is enough
for Pell Grants for 88,500 students.
{time} 1745
There was $40 million, and this is one that is very interesting,
there was $40 million in duplicate payments in August of 1998 alone.
What does that mean, duplicate payments? It means that the Department
of Education has a list and says, hey, we have to cut checks. We have
to write checks to these students, to these organizations today. They
cut the checks, they cut checks for $40 million, and they run it
through again, and they run another set of checks for $40 million. In
many cases, they find these duplicate payments.
But the problem in this, and we will talk about what happened in
1999, is that these duplicate payments have now continued for a period
of over 13 to 15 months, meaning that on occasion after occasion after
occasion, the Department of Education continues to make duplicate
payments. I believe in most cases they are catching them, but we do not
know if they are catching them in all cases or not.
Again, it is gross mismanagement of taxpayers' dollars, of some of
perhaps the most important dollars we are spending in Washington: It is
the dollars we are spending and investing in our kids' education.
So what do we find now in 1999? There was a hearing, and probably one
of the more disappointing hearings that I have had since I have been
here in Washington. It was last week. We will also talk about a hearing
that we had on Friday, because it was one of the most exhilarating
hearings that I have had and have had the opportunity to participate in
since I have been in Washington, but it is a sharp contrast.
On Wednesday, we brought in Ernst & Young, the auditors. We brought
in people from the Department of Education. We brought in people from
the General Accounting Office and the Inspector General's office to
tell us about the results of the 1999 audit: Could the Department of
Education now account for where their $35 to $38 billion of money went
that the taxpayers gave them to invest in our kids in 1999?
That was on Wednesday. On Friday, we brought in some individuals who
are having an impact on education at the local level, three people who
are running charter schools in their local communities, one from the
Los Angeles area, one from Colorado, and another from Washington, DC.
What a sharp contrast between the answers that we got from the
Department of Education on Wednesday as to what they were doing with
their $35 billion, and these individuals who are running charter
schools in their local communities, in some areas going to some of the
toughest neighborhoods in the communities and reclaiming those kids,
those schools, and those neighborhoods through their activities.
[[Page H748]]
Obviously, what happened on Wednesday was not good news. The
Department of Education came in and said, well, we have made progress.
At least this year our report is not 7 months late. Actually, it is the
Inspector General who is responsible for doing the audit work. They
came back, and she hit the date. She was supposed to be done by the end
of February, and she worked with Ernst & Young, and the Inspector
General did a great job to inform Congress as to the status of the
Department of Education books for 1999.
The good news is they hit the target. The bad news is, the books
cannot be audited. They have to, again, do five statements. Four of the
statements have qualified opinions. The fifth statement the auditors
did not render an opinion on, meaning the fifth statement again cannot
be audited.
On the other four statements there were serious concerns about each
one of those statements that would lead one to question the accuracy of
the numbers as to what they represented, as to whether they accurately
represented what went on in the Department of Education in 1999.
They call these material weaknesses. Some might say, it is a material
weakness, but you have the statements. What are you worried about?
What I am worried about is that if this would happen in the private
sector, if there were a company that was listed on NASDAQ, a publicly-
held company, and they came back and said, here is what our auditors
say about our books, we asked the auditors what would happen.
They said, this would be a huge problem, because what you would be
telling your shareholders is, we cannot really tell you what your
investment is worth because your earnings per share, your costs, your
net worth, and all of those types of things, are not accurately
reflected in the statements. Most likely what would happen is that the
trading of the stock would be suspended until the company could get its
financial house in order.
In 1998, the books cannot be audited. In 1999, a failed audit. What
the Department and what the other people told us is that the reason
they are failing their audits is because they do not have systems,
automated systems, in place that provide protections that indicate
that the way you are spending the money is an accurate reflection of
actually what is really happening.
How does this then manifest itself? How does this make a difference
to the people back in Michigan, the people back in Colorado, or
whatever? It is kind of like, well, the money is coming out of
Washington. It is getting to my schools, right? If they are just a
little off on their numbers, what are you worried about?
Number one, I am worried about it because it is $35 billion. It is a
lot of money. The second thing that I am worried about is, coming from
the private sector background, we know that when we have an
organization that does not have the correct systems in place to manage
its business and its activities, we are creating an environment that is
ripe for fraud and abuse, inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and mistakes.
Do we see any of that in the Department of Education? Here are just
some recent examples: In 1998, duplicate payments. What did we see in
1999? In December, because their fiscal year starts on October 1 of
1999, they had duplicate payments in 1998, they had them in 1999, and
they have had them in this current fiscal year. They had them in
December and January of what would be their fiscal year 2000. Duplicate
payments are continuing.
Sloppy management leads to mistakes. The Department, for student loan
applications, printed 3.5 million forms incorrectly. They need to be
scrapped. We know there is fraud in the student loan program. The
auditors have reported that as they have tried to work with the
Department of Education to try to identify how this money got into this
grant back account, this $594 million, and they have asked for the
backup data. The Department of Education still cannot provide the
appropriate backup data to say how money flows in and out of this
account.
Fraud? In our hearing on March 1, the IG, Inspector General, and the
Department of Education indicated that they have, and we cannot go much
beyond this, but they currently have a vigorous investigation that is
ongoing to investigate the theft of computers within the Department;
that the controls for maintaining their capital assets, for the
purchasing of computers, technology, software, that the controls were
not in place to enable the Department to track and monitor its computer
equipment, so they currently have a vigorous investigation that is
ongoing.
Perhaps one of the most disappointing things that indicates how
sloppy management, failed audits for a $35 billion agency, translates
itself into having an impact on an individual within one of our
districts, here is an example of what happens when we have sloppy
management and we do not have good controls in place.
The Jacob Javits scholarship program, this is a program that is
awarded to students who are graduating from college and provides them
with the opportunity to continue their work in graduate school, it can
be up to a 3- or 4-year program, and in some cases providing benefits
to the students of up to $30,000 per year, because there is a living
stipend along with an agreement to pay for the student's tuition.
So we have these students out there. They see this Federal program
out there, a Federal scholarship program, the Jacob Javits scholarship
program. They are going to go out and compete for it. I know what is
going on because I have an 18-year-old at home who is looking at going
to college next year, and she is competing for some scholarships.
I know the excitement on her face when I call her at night and she
says, hey, Dad, I just got notified last night that if I go to XYZ
college, I have a $3,500 scholarship for each of the next 4 years. She
is excited. She feels great. I feel great because it means that maybe
my investment will be a little bit less, but she is excited because of
the recognition that institutions and others have made on her
achievements.
What happened with the Jacob Javits scholarship this year? Failed
audits, $35 billion, an agency that does not have proper controls in
place, how does it affect these students applying for the Jacob Javits
scholarship program?
It was not all that long ago, in the last few weeks, that 39
students, college students who had applied for one of the nicest and
most plum scholarships that one could get, 39 students were notified
that they won the Jacob Javits scholarship. The bad news is that two or
three days later, these students were notified and were told, sorry, it
ain't so. Really, you didn't qualify. You didn't win the award. You
have really just been selected as alternates, and if some of the real
award winners have gotten other scholarships or have decided they are
not going on to graduate school at this time or whatever, then you are
in line to be eligible for a Jacob Javits scholarship.
Can Members imagine these 39 young people and the excitement that
they must have felt on the day they got the call that said, you have
qualified for a 3- or 4-year scholarship of $30,000 per year? It is
like, yes, the work that I have done for the last few years has been
recognized and the dream that I have for the next 3 or 4 years of
continuing my education has been realized, and all of a sudden, you are
knocked off the pedestal and your dreams are shattered when someone
calls you back and says, I am sorry, we made a mistake. You really did
not qualify.
Now, the Department of Education is going to make it right. They are
going to provide these students with the scholarships that they
promised them. That is probably the right thing to do. But the problem
is, they do not have the money to do it. They award x number of
scholarships because that is how much money they have. If they are now
going to give 39 more, they are going to have to come up with this
money from someplace else. They are probably going to come back to
Congress and say, well, it is only $1 million.
Yes, for Jacob Javits, it is only $1 million. But how much have the
duplicate payments cost? How much have the 3.5 million forms that were
printed incorrectly, what has that cost us? What has the computer theft
within the Department, what has that cost us? What is the cost of the
fraud in the student loan program? What is the cost of the grant back
account?
[[Page H749]]
What we are finding here is that this is an agency that gets some of
the most important dollars and is focused on one of the most important
issues that we are dealing with in Washington, and they are not meeting
the basic test. They cannot keep their books, and they cannot even tell
the students which ones received a scholarship and which ones have not
qualified.
{time} 1800
The bottom line when one takes a look at the Department of Education
is that, what this is, and we ask ourselves the question, is this an
agency that educates kids? How many kids are enrolled in schools run by
the Department of Education? Zero. The Department does not educate
kids. The Department does not run any schools.
What the Department does is it distributes roughly $35 billion around
the country. What we are now finding is that, after the last 2 years,
and based on the feedback from the external auditors, that for at least
the next 2 years, there is a high probability that they will fail their
audit for 4 years in a row.
What the Education Department is, it is not a school educating our
kids, it is a bank, it is a financial institution; and it is not doing
that job very well. It is failing some of the basic tests. It is
failing some of the basic tests at a time when the Education Department
should be one of the most exciting places to work in in Washington.
Why do I say that? I say that because of the hearing that we had on
Friday. The hearing on Wednesday was an absolutely miserable hearing
where the Department of Education came in and told us that their books
could not be audited. On Friday, we met some people where the rubber
hits the road. These are the people who are running some public
schools, in this case, they were running charter schools, in Los
Angeles, in Colorado, and in Washington, D.C.
To listen to what they are doing in their communities, in Los
Angeles, this is a group of teachers and administrators that went out
and said, we are going to take this school, and we are going to turn it
into a charter school. It is going to free us up from some of the
bureaucratic red tape and the rules and regulations that just encumber,
at least in that case, encumber them from achieving what they wanted to
get done in their local schools.
What did they do? They went in, they formed their charter school, and
their kids' test scores have improved. They used to have a high
turnover rate. The families would move and the kids would just transfer
from one public school to the other. Families are still moving. But the
kids in some cases now are traveling an hour to go to this school
because of the results that they are getting. Significant improvement
in the test scores and in the performance of the students in these
schools.
It is the same story in Colorado, and it is the same story that we
have heard about Washington, D.C. Committed teachers, committed
administrators, committed parents, and committed communities going out
and making a difference in their kids' lives.
The other exciting thing is, in many cases, they are all breaking the
mold of education for their kids. In Los Angeles, again, they have
embraced technology. The computer-student ratio in this school is one
to one in the seventh grade. They are taking new models of learning for
their kids.
One can see the interaction as these individuals who are running
these schools, as they were talking to each other, and as they were
sharing with the panel, the excitement that they felt as the woman from
Los Angeles was talking about the one-to-one computer-student ratio, as
she was talking about the learning that was going on, as she was
talking about the improved test scores, and how kids were commuting up
to an hour to come to that school.
One could see the excitement and the enthusiasm in the other two as
they were saying, when we leave here, I have got to call her and find
out exactly what she is doing because I think there are some things
that I can maybe learn from her that I might want to take and put into
my charter school.
Then as the other two talked about the programs that they were
running, the woman here in Washington, D.C. talking about the 15, the
20, the 30 students that they take to Cornell in the summer because,
for many of these kids in this neighborhood, going to a prestigious
school never even was a dream that they could think about. It was the
impossible dream. It was the impossible dream because they could not
even think about escaping the environment they were in or believing
that, when they graduated from school, when they graduated, that those
kinds of opportunities would be available to them.
Now, what they are doing is they are going there for a week in the
summer, and they are experiencing it, and they are also learning that,
when they go, they are knowing they have got the background, the
knowledge that they have completed the learning that will enable them
to be successful when they graduate from high school, that they can
dream about going to Cornell, that they can dream about going to some
of our prestigious universities, or they can just think about going on
to college.
They will know that, when they get there, they will be successful.
That is what education is about. I think, as we take a look at the
Education Department and where it needs to go, I think there are some
things that we need to recognize, that there is a role for a Department
of Education.
But what the role of the Department of Education should not be is
distributing dollars and managing dollars. We do not need an agency
that is just distributing and trying to be a bank and not doing a very
good job.
What we need is we need a Department of Education that can be a
resource to the types of individuals that testified at our committee on
Friday, that they can be a resource so that, as people at the local
level either are dealing with challenges, opportunities, or have some
significant breakthroughs, that they can communicate with the
Department of Education and say, you know, we just did this great
program, we have got a great model for integrating technology into the
classroom for seventh graders, here is how we are doing it, you know,
please share this with other schools so that, if they have got some
questions or comments, we have got a great resource here.
Or if they have got a great challenge that they are facing, perhaps
the community, the face of the community is changing, and the school
board or the administrators are struggling with how do we change this
or how do we face this changing face of the community, how do we deal
with it in our schools, that they can go to the Education Department
and say, you know, have you got other school districts that have faced
these kinds of challenges or these kinds of issues that we can talk to,
not for them to tell us what to do, but that we can talk to them, and
they can tell us what they tried, what worked, what did not work, so
that, as we design a school and a school system that meets the needs of
our community, we can learn from others that have already done that. An
Education Department that funds basic research in to learning.
We see a lot of the people now talking about how technology can
impact the learning process. Have we fully researched the broad, new
avenues of learning that technology opens up for us? I do not think so.
But that is an area where Department of Education, perhaps through
grants to the private sector or whatever, can foster the basic kind of
research so that, as schools are contemplating integrating technology,
they can go somewhere and get the latest research that says, if you are
going to try to teach reading in this kind of environment, here is how
perhaps you can integrate technology. Here is how you can use
technology for math. If you have got a problem with class size, maybe
technology can deal with an issue of large class size.
So there is a wonderful role and a potential role for the Department
of Education to kind of like become the National Institutes of Health,
a research-based, a learning organization that is on the cutting edge
that others can learn from and that others can take the research and
apply to their learning opportunities in their local community.
What a different vision for a Department of Education that is a
cutting edge, research-based department that helps local parents and
school administrators learn, learn about how most effectively to teach
our kids.
That I think is a future vision for the Department of Education,
compared to
[[Page H750]]
a Department of Education today which has $35 billion per year going
through it along with another $80 billion to $85 billion in student
loans; and what they actually cannot do is keep their books. An
organization that consistently is failing their audits versus one which
is on the cutting edge, which is a breakthrough type of agency.
There is a role. It is time to reform that role. Why is it time to
reform that role? It is time to reform that role, number one, because
the current model is broken. The other is that we are not doing nearly
well enough with our kids' education.
The TIMS study, this compares our kids with kids on an international
basis in the 12th grade. How do our kids rank? In math, out of 21
countries, our proficiency, we are 19th out of 21. That is not good
enough. I spent a lot of time going to high schools and different
schools throughout the district over the last 9 months. Actually, I
have been doing it much of the time I have been here in Washington.
But when looking at these kids, they want to learn, they want to be
successful, and they are going to be competing against other kids from
around the world as they enter the job market.
What is their vision about their educational system? Being 19th out
of 21 is not good enough for them. Whether we are in the Bronx in New
York, and we have had hearings in 19 different States with our
Education at a Crossroads Project, whether one is in the Bronx, whether
one is in Cleveland, whether one is in Milwaukee, whether one is in
Muskegon, Michigan, whether one is in L.A., whether one is in
Albuquerque, these kids all have the same vision. They want to be
number one, not selfishly, but what they want to have is they want, as
they are going through the education process, they want to be the best
educated kids in the world; that when we put them through a battery of
tests on math or reading or any other kind of measurement, they want to
be at the top. Because they know that, if they are not at the top, they
may not be prepared to compete in a global economy.
The TIMS study for reading, how did we do in reading? We did better
than what we did in math. In math, we were 19th out of 21. In reading,
we moved all the way up to 16. We were 16th out of 21 countries.
What else is going on? We know that at the fourth grade in reading,
38 percent of our kids are below basic. In eighth grade, 26 percent are
below basic skills. At 12th grade, still 23 percent are below basic.
That means that they have not achieved what we consider the basic
skills necessary or required at that level.
How about in math? In the fourth grade, 36 percent of our kids are
below basic. In the eighth grade, 38 percent of our kids are below
basic. By the 12th grade, we are still at 31 percent, or roughly one
out of every three of our kids are below basic levels.
That means we are in danger of losing almost a third of our kids
because we have not provided them with an environment of academic
excellence that will allow them to achieve, not only at the basic, but
well beyond the basic. Thirty-one percent of our kids at the 12th grade
in math are still below basic.
Is it any wonder that, as we have gone around the country with our
hearings, Education at a Crossroads, that one of the fastest growing
programs in our colleges is remedial education. We talk to different
college administrators, and it struck me when we started this process
3\1/2\, 4 years ago, some of the first hearings that we had where the
college administrators came in and they said, you know, whatever you
do, do not cut out remedial education. If anything, we need more money
for remedial education. They told us that in California. They told us
that in Arizona. They have told me that in Michigan.
Finally, one kind of steps back and says, you know, why do you need
remedial education? These are kids that you have accepted into your
college programs. What is the need for remedial education for kids
going into college?
The answers come back reflecting the test scores. Well, 23 to 25
percent of the kids coming into college are not proficient in reading
at 12th grade proficiency when we get them. So we need to catch them up
in reading. A third of the kids coming in are not at 12th grade
proficiency for math. So what we have to do is we have to catch them
up. Those are roughly the numbers. Roughly somewhere between a quarter
and a third of the kids entering college have to go through some type
of remedial education.
{time} 1815
So we are seeing the standards. We are seeing how our educational
system and our students are stacking up. On an international basis, we
rank 19 out of 21 in math and rank 16 out of 21 in reading. And then,
as we compare our kids to a standard that we have established for
reading and for math, we consistently find that by the 12th grade we
are still having a quarter to a third of our kids leaving our high
schools without basic proficiency in reading or math.
It is not good enough. And the Washington response has been an
education department that does not give our people at the local level a
lot of information about how to improve their systems. It just funnels
money back and forth and ties a lot of strings and a lot of red tape to
it. It is not working.
Washington has hundreds of programs in the education area, each of
these going back to a local level, telling people at the local level
that if they want this money this is what they need to do. These are
the forms that need to be filled out so that we can see that you
actually did what we said had to be done. And, by the way, at the end
of the year we will send an auditor in to make sure your books are
auditable even though ours cannot be.
There is a better way to do it. We talked about one of the elements
of a new vision for an education department and a reformed education
department, which is that we have an education department that is a
leading-edge educational department; that it can identify best
practices so that it can be a resource to parents, teachers and
administrators at a local level.
What is another part of our vision? Another part of our vision says
that perhaps we can increase funding not by spending more but by being
more efficient in how we spend it. What if instead of having 200 or 300
K through 12 education programs in Washington that really control how
local schools are run, what about consolidating some of those programs
and giving States and local schools a tremendous degree of flexibility
in how they can spend those dollars and on what programs and in what
areas they will spend those dollars?
By consolidating, perhaps we can save 5 percent of the dollars that
we spend on education and ensuring, in the process, that rather than
spending this 5 percent here in Washington, we spend 5 percent where
the real leverage point is; that we spend 5 percent in the classroom,
with a teacher that knows our children's names. That is one reform that
we can make: getting more money out of Washington and getting it into
the classroom with a much higher degree of flexibility.
A second thing that we can do is eliminate some of the red tape. As I
said, when we have all these programs, local school districts have to
find out about the programs, they have to apply for the programs, then
they have to report back, and they have to be prepared to be audited.
What if we can cut out some of that red tape and some of that
bureaucracy through that process and give those local schools a whole
lot more flexibility.
And, really, what we are going to be focusing on will not be on the
process of how they spend the dollars; we will not focus on the process
of did they do the right reports at the right time and get the money
back and report everything correctly. But what we are going to do is we
are going to focus on whether they actually improved the learning of
the students in their school. Has their performance improved or has
their performance declined or has it stayed the same? Where we still
have young people at 31 percent below basic in math, where we have 23
percent below basic in reading, are we turning out students where we
have 95 percent at basic or above in both reading and math so that we
are not letting kids fall behind?
Let us focus not on the process. It is time to focus on the results.
We should not have a department focused, and we, as a Congress, should
not be focused on telling local schools what to do. We
[[Page H751]]
ought to be talking to States and local school districts and holding
them accountable for what they have achieved. Because this is not about
managing process. If it is, we know this education department cannot do
it. This is about something much more important. It is about educating
our children.
So we give the schools more flexibility, and we eliminate the red
tape, which gets more dollars into that local classroom. And from a
practical sense, what does this mean? It means that a school, rather
than getting money for class-size reduction or hiring teachers and
getting another pot of money for technology, getting another pot of
money for some school construction or school modification, getting some
other money for the arts, getting some other money for some other kind
of training and these types of things, it is giving the money to the
States and to the local schools and telling them that if they need to
focus on technology, if they think technology is the answer, that we
will give them the flexibility to improve the technology within their
school.
That may be exactly what some of the schools in my congressional
district would need, and they would have the flexibility to go out and
do that. For others, they might say that they have invested in
technology; but when they did, they found out that what they really
needed to do, in addition to that, but they do not have the money to do
it, is they need to invest in teacher training so that they could use
these tools to be most effective with our kids. Let them use the money
for teacher training.
If they need to use some of the money for school construction, let
them use the money for school construction. But allow them the
flexibility of designing the programs that are most effective for the
problems, the issues, and the opportunities that they have in their
local schools. Because this is about our kids. It is not about process.
It is not about the education department. This is about how do we get
the maximum impact in learning for our kids.
Are we going to get it by mandating from Washington and controlling
from Washington; or is it going to be by continuing to invest in
education through Washington, through an education department, but
allowing a great degree of latitude and flexibility to the people at
the local level? The local people know our kids' names, they are the
people that know the school, the problems, the opportunities, and the
issues that they face. The local people know the neighborhoods, know
the communities, knowing exactly, maybe not exactly, it is not a
science, but the local people will have the best idea as to how they
could improve education in their local community.
And if they then had a resource of a Department of Education where
they could go to for best learning practices or best teaching
practices, what a great partnership that might be. Local decision-
making; research-based data and information to empower people at the
local level to make the best possible decisions for our kids.
It is not an issue about money. We have spent and invested a lot of
money in education over the years. This is a question of how we invest
that money most effectively. Not even necessarily most efficiently,
although that would be nice, but how do we invest it most effectively.
Do we invest it through a Washington-based model or do we invest it
through a locally based model?
The difference was so striking last week. The Washington-based model,
with quality individuals working at the Department of Education, who
have the best interests of our kids in mind, but for the second year in
a row cannot even be held accountable for how they spent these
education dollars on our kids. Compare that picture with the education
department who cannot even take the time to put in place the policies,
the procedures and the practices to track $35 billion. Compare that to
the caring and the passion that we saw on Friday where we had these
individuals coming in and talking about what they were doing, improving
test scores; integrating technology; reclaiming their kids; reclaiming
their neighborhoods; and making a difference in their communities.
There was a concern demonstrated in attention to detail. A Department
of Education that does not have the right policies and practices in
place sends out erroneous information to 39 young people telling them
they have a scholarship, when they really did not and then has to call
them back, versus the local decision-making where the people that we
saw last Friday are concerned about each and every child in that school
and making sure that each and every one of those children is going to
be successful, and doing what needs to be done to ensure that that is
the result, forming the partnerships with business leaders, forming the
partnerships with parents to make a real difference in their
communities and these children's lives.
It is a really sharp contrast; a department that erroneously
identifies scholarship winners, a department that makes duplicate
payments, a department that prints forms wrong, a department that
currently has a vigorous investigation into computer theft, a
department that has fraud in a student loan program, and a department
that has an account with over $500 million in it, or at least in 1998,
that they cannot tell us how it got there or where it is going.
Then compare that to the passion that, in many cases where these are
charter schools, they are facing a lot of odds against their success.
They have to build those schools. They do not get construction dollars.
They just get their per-pupil funds. And in many cases they do not even
get all the Federal dollars. The Federal dollars do not follow these
students. But in each one of these cases, they are people passionate
for what they are doing in their communities.
I think the final element of a reform package in education is
reforming the Department of Education into a research-based learning
think tank that is a resource to the rest of the country, freeing up
dollars within the bureaucracy to invest in our kids. So taking money
out of Washington and putting it back in the classroom, that is the
second step. The third step is taking money out of the process and
moving it back to the local level, out of the red tape. And the fourth
part is investing more in education by providing parents and businesses
the opportunity to take credit, tax credits, for investing in
education.
There is a formula for improving education, but it is taking
decision-making out of Washington and moving it back to parents and
local school districts where we can really make a difference.
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