[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 50 (Thursday, April 27, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2950-S2953]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES ACT

  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, next week we begin the debate on the 
Education Opportunities Act. I had the opportunity yesterday to come to 
the Senate floor and talk about one aspect of that bill. That had to do 
with the whole issue of supporting our teachers, attracting the best 
teachers to education. Today I would like to talk about a second 
component of that bill having to do with safer schools. Good teachers, 
safe schools: It is really getting back to basics.
  We have a drug crisis in this country. Drugs are readily available 
and, tragically, children are using them. In fact, more children today 
are using and experimenting with drugs than 10 years ago--many, many 
more. Let's look at the facts.
  According to the 1999 Monitoring the Future study, since 1992, 
overall drug use among 10th graders has increased 55 percent. Marijuana 
and hashish use among 10th graders has increased 91 percent. Heroin use 
among 10th graders has increased 92 percent. That is just since 1992. 
And cocaine use among 10th graders has increased 133 percent.
  With an abundant supply, drug traffickers are looking to increase 
their sales by targeting younger and younger children, creating a whole 
new generation of addicts. Drug dealers are now targeting children not 
only in our urban areas but in every community in our land.
  The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia 
University issued a disturbing report earlier this year. It had to do 
with the rapidly rising rate of drug use among youth in the rural areas 
of our country. The figures are astounding. If anyone thinks it cannot 
happen in your community--``it can't happen in my community''--take a 
look at these figures.

  Their study found that eighth graders in rural America are 34 percent

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more likely to smoke marijuana than those in urban areas; 50 percent 
more likely to use powder cocaine; and 83 percent more likely to use 
crack cocaine.
  These statistics represent an assault on our children, on our 
families, and on the future of our country. Let me point out what is 
happening on the streets of Cincinnati in my home State. In 1990, there 
were 19 heroin-related arrests in Cincinnati, OH. Last year there were 
464 arrests. Law enforcement officers in Cincinnati understand the 
reason for this surge. Colombia produces low-cost, high-purity heroin, 
making it more and more the drug of choice. And because of our 
Government's inadequate emphasis on drug interdiction and eradication 
efforts, that Colombian heroin is making its way across our borders, 
into our country, and into Cincinnati, OH, and Cleveland, OH, and 
Detroit and Los Angeles.
  Sure, this is just one urban area we are talking about, Cincinnati, 
but if there is a heroin problem in Cincinnati, there is a heroin 
problem in New York and LA and every metropolitan area across our great 
country.
  I believe what is happening in Cincinnati and across all parts of 
America is a result of a national drug control approach that has not 
emphasized the importance of a balanced attack against drug use. To be 
effective, our drug control strategy needs to be a coordinated effort 
that directs and balances resources and support among three areas of 
attack: domestic law enforcement, international drug interdiction, and 
demand reduction.
  When we talk about demand reduction, we are talking about several 
things. Demand reduction needs to consist of drug prevention, drug 
treatment, and drug education. We need to involve all levels of 
government in this three-pronged attack--the Federal, State, and 
local--as well as nonprofit private organizations, charitable groups, 
community groups.
  What all this means is that to effectively stop our kids from getting 
and using illicit drugs we must balance the allocation of resources 
towards efforts to stop those who produce drugs, those who transport 
illegal drugs, and those who deal drugs on our streets, and, yes, even 
in our schools.
  Because the threat of violence and drug abuse in our schools is all 
too real, we must get to our kids before the drug dealers do. We can do 
this. We can give America's kids a fighting chance through coordinated 
efforts between our schools and our communities. Next week, when the 
Senate begins debating the education reform legislation that I 
referenced a moment ago, we will have a great opportunity to enhance a 
very important program designed to educate our kids and our communities 
about the dangers of drug use.
  This bill includes a section that I helped write to make much needed 
improvements, the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Program. 
This program, which was originally part of Ronald Reagan's 1986 Drug-
Free Schools and Communities Act, is intended to assist every single 
school district in the country to develop an antidrug program in their 
respective schools. While well intentioned, this program has been far 
from perfect.
  I had the opportunity a few years ago when I served in the House of 
Representatives to be on the National Commission for Safe and Drug-Free 
Schools. We looked at how this program had worked. We found many 
problems connected with it. The bill we have written and will be on the 
floor next week I believe will go a long way to solving the problems 
that the national commission pointed out in 1990 and that we have seen 
since then. These problems need to be corrected, and I believe this 
bill will go a long way to do that.
  Since the inception of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities 
Program in 1986, we have pumped $6 billion into this program, despite 
the fact the program has lacked accountability, giving us no real 
mechanism to determine its effectiveness. Instead, we have seen some of 
our tax dollars pay for questionable drug use ``prevention'' and 
``education'' activities, such as puppet shows, tickets to Disneyland, 
dunking booths, and magic shows. No matter how well intentioned, these 
are not effective antidrug education tools. Because there has been 
little effort to ensure program accountability through research-based 
measures, the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program has not been as 
effective as it could have been, or as it should be.
  It is critical the Senate pass education reform legislation that 
includes improvements to the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities 
Program, improvements that will empower America's families and 
America's teachers with the information, with the training, with the 
resources they need to help our children resist the temptation of 
drugs. That is why our section in this bill would, first and most 
importantly, increase accountability measures to ensure that assistance 
is targeted to effective research-based programs. That means programs 
that actually work and have been tested and measured and we know work. 
My language will make sure schools and communities assess local 
problems accurately, apply research-based solutions, measure outcomes 
with reliable tools, and evaluate program effectiveness.
  Second, my language would improve the effectiveness of the Safe and 
Drug-Free Schools Program by requiring schools to directly work with 
parents, with local law enforcement agencies, local government 
agencies, local faith-based organizations, and other community groups 
to develop and implement antidrug and antiviolence strategies.
  As we all know, drug abuse and violence among young people is a 
community problem, it is a local problem, and it requires a local 
community-based solution. That is why the entire community needs to be 
involved in the creation and execution of programs to fight youth drug 
abuse and violence. Our bill requires the schools to reach out to the 
local community, to work with other people who are fighting drugs, to 
have a true community-based approach.
  Speaking of fighting youth drug abuse and violence, no one is 
fighting harder than the first lady of the State of Ohio, Hope Taft. 
Hope has been very instrumental in the creation of this section of our 
bill. I publicly thank her for her great work. She was really 
instrumental in creating a voice for community-based antidrug 
organizations. Hope Taft's efforts have raised awareness of the dangers 
of youth drug abuse and violence in our schools.

  Also, I am pleased several community groups have indicated their 
support for our provision in title IV of the bill we will be debating 
next week. I will name a few: The American Counseling Association, the 
American School Health Association, the Community Antidrug Coalition of 
America, the National Network for Safe and Drug Free Schools and 
Communities, and Ohio Parents for Drug Free Youth. These are just a few 
of the organizations that have helped us craft this bill.
  Third and finally, our language in title IV would give States greater 
flexibility on targeting assistance to the schools particularly in 
need. Each State has unique drug prevention challenges, and this bill 
provides the States with flexibility to target funds to all of their 
schools but focus on those schools with the greatest drug violence 
problems. This flexibility is very significant and very important.
  Contrast the administration's proposal with our proposal: They want 
each State to cut by half the number of school districts that benefit 
from the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Communities Act. Let me make it 
clear; under the administration's proposal which they sent up to 
Capitol Hill, half the school districts in the country would lose their 
funding. I think that is a mistake. Reinvesting in an improved Safe and 
Drug-Free Schools and Communities Program is a critical part of 
restoring effectiveness and purpose to our national drug policy.
  Ultimately, if we do not restore effectiveness, more and more 
children will use drugs, leading to greater levels of violence, 
criminal activity, and delinquency. Unless we take action now, unless 
we take the necessary steps to reverse these disturbing trends, unless 
we restore balance to our drug control policy, we will be sacrificing 
today's youth and our country's future, and that is just plain wrong.
  Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I yield the remainder of my 
time to my colleague, Senator Gorton.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized for 
the remainder of the leader's time.

[[Page S2952]]

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, next week when the Senate takes up the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it will be dealing with the 
most important single issue, with the most vital single goal with which 
it will deal during the course of this session of Congress. That debate 
will be about our children, about their education, and about their 
future.
  There is unanimous recognition in this body that a good education, an 
education for the 21st century, will help our children and our 
grandchildren have an economically independent future, to understand 
the history of their tradition and their culture, and will open to all 
of their lives an opportunity for lifetime learning and personal 
enrichment.
  At the same time, as citizens, we recognize that the future of our 
democracy depends upon an educated citizenry and that we will need more 
and better educated people in an ever more complicated future.
  This year alone, I have had an opportunity, both in person and 
through video conferencing, to visit dozens of schools in individual 
school districts in my own State, an experience I know many of my 
colleagues have shared. More than a year ago, we developed a system of 
recognizing on almost a weekly basis an outstanding educator or an 
outstanding program someplace in the State of Washington, to both 
recognize and reward the innovation, the new thinking we all approve 
but sometimes find difficult to discover.
  Educators in my State--teachers, principals, superintendents, school 
board members--and thoughtful and involved parents are proud of their 
successes, but that pride is mixed with frustration, a frustration from 
the limitations placed on their ability to do what they think best for 
schoolchildren under their care because of the massive rules and 
regulations emanating from Washington, DC. Massive, I say, out of all 
proportion to the amount of money that comes to facilitate that 
education from sources in the District of Columbia.
  With all the good will in the world, we now, for 35 years, have 
attempted to reduce the gap between underprivileged and normally 
privileged children through title I. The Federal Government has spent 
more than $100 billion to reach that goal. But, bluntly, the goal has 
not only not been reached, it has not even been approached.
  We find in the country as a whole that two out of every three African 
American and Hispanic fourth graders can barely read. We find that 70 
percent of children in high-poverty schools score below the most basic 
reading level. We find that fourth graders in high-poverty schools 
remain two or three grade levels behind their peers in low-poverty 
schools.
  For these kids, and for the future of our country, we can do better. 
We must do better. How can we possibly argue that maintaining the 
present system, or by adding to its complexity by increasing the number 
of rules and regulations coming from Washington, DC, we can help these 
disadvantaged students in the light of this history, or help any of our 
other students, for that matter?
  The status quo in the future will mean what the status quo in the 
past has meant. I am convinced--I hope all of us are convinced--that no 
child should be left behind.
  For the last 3 years, I have worked on, spoken for, and proposed to 
this body, new and better approaches that are now a part of the bill we 
will be dealing with next week called Straight A's, to allow innovation 
in States and in local communities in school districts across the 
United States, and to serve those children who are left behind by the 
present system.
  Straight A's would change the present pattern--unfortunately, in the 
form in which this bill appears before us in only 15 States; but in 15 
very fortunate States--by giving them far more flexibility to use the 
money that comes from the Federal Government in the best interests of 
their children, without the blizzard of forms and paperwork that 
plagues our schools at the present time but with one overwhelmingly 
important underlined requirement: that the academic achievement of our 
children demonstrably improve on the basis of objective tests imposed 
by each of the States that take advantage of Straight A's.
  Under Straight A's, States and local communities could target more 
dollars to high-poverty areas if they believe that is an effective use 
of the money. In a very real sense, they would be encouraged to do so 
or to change the system for the better because, for the first time, 
States and local school districts would be rewarded--tangibly 
rewarded--by receiving an increased appropriation if, and as, they 
reduce the gap between disadvantaged students and other students in 
their systems.
  Right now there is no such incentive, simply hundreds of different 
categorical aid programs, many of them highly duplicative in nature, 
creating all kinds of bureaucracies that have succeeded in either 
getting dollars through to the classroom or in the far more important 
goal of raising student achievement.
  Yesterday, at a news conference, the State superintendent of schools 
in Georgia said 50 percent of the money that her schools received from 
the Federal Government went to administrative costs--50 percent--a 
terrible indictment of the present system. That money should be found 
in our schools educating our children, not creating more paperwork and 
more forms.
  The most dynamic forces in our schools today, in our education system 
today, are found in our States and in our local communities, not here 
in Washington, DC. Parents want a better education, and, Lord knows, 
those men and women who dedicate their entire lives to teaching our 
children--teachers and principals and superintendents--wish for exactly 
the same thing.
  I am convinced that we can enable them, we can empower them, to 
provide a far more effective education system for all of our children 
than we are doing at the present time.
  The way that we will provide that power, the way we will enable them, 
will be to trust them to make the right decisions, but in an expression 
borrowed from the cold war: Trust but verify. And we will verify. The 
only valid method of verification: A set of tests under which their 
actual objective achievement will be measured and reported here to 
Washington, DC, and to this Congress.
  This should not be--and I hope will not be--a partisan issue. I am 
convinced that working together we can significantly improve our system 
of public education in the United States and significantly increase the 
participation--the constructive participation--that this body, the 
Congress, and the President, make to that. I hope next week will be the 
advent of debate that will have exactly those results.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, every young person in our country should 
have the opportunity to grow and learn in an environment that is free 
of drugs and violence. This is the type of environment Safe and Drug 
Free Schools promotes.
  With the recent results of the annual Monitoring the Future study, it 
is obvious that we need to continue to provide our young people with 
effective programs, such as Safe and Drug Free Schools, to assure 
positive learning environments. This year Monitoring the Future 
reported that nearly 55 percent of our high school seniors have used an 
illicit drug in the past month. In addition, the study found that 
nearly 50 percent of high school seniors have used marijuana in 1999 
and this percentage has remained unchanged in 1998, as well as 1997. 
Sadly, the study also found that the percentage of 10th graders who 
reported use of marijuana increased from 39.6 percent in 1998 to nearly 
41 percent in 1999. With these discouraging drug use and abuse trends, 
it is clear that we need to use every resource available for anti-drug 
efforts.
  Safe and Drug Free Schools provides our state and local education 
agencies with the funding necessary to implement effective, research-
based programs that prevent and reduce violence and substance abuse in 
our schools. Studies show a high correlation between drug use and 
availability and school violence. We need to create a drug-free 
environment to promote a safe environment.
  In fact, many states have reported decreases in incidents of violence 
and drug use because of Safe and Drug Free Schools funds. It is 
imperative that we continue to provide our communities with the 
resources necessary to protect our children from violence and drugs.

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With our leadership and support, it is certain that these disturbing 
trends of drug use and increasing school violence will be reduced. I am 
committed to providing our young people with a positive learning 
environment free of drugs and safe from harm.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bunning). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in 
morning business for 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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