[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 51 (Monday, May 1, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3045-S3051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE REPUBLICAN AGENDA ON EDUCATION
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise this morning to talk about
education. It appears that we will spend most of our time this week
talking about the importance of our public education system to
America's children and to our Nation's future.
Long ago, the United States recognized the value of an educational
system that is available and accessible to everyone. We knew the
tremendous sophistication of a democracy or a representative republic,
and that to sustain it we would have to have a well-educated populace--
not only to understand it and to believe in it but to further it. That
was part of the genesis of the public school system in our country,
along with the tremendous value to our citizenry, to be able to say
they were educated. That was our goal.
As we start a debate on the Educational Opportunities Act this week,
that will continue to be the ultimate goal of the Republicans--the
assurance of a strong, growing, reliable, and capable public school
system to provide the very best education and the very best educational
system to all of our citizens and to all of their children. Though it
appears this is the number
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one issue in the minds of the American people--and everywhere you poll,
you find education is--I am saddened that at least here on the floor
this week it will become a decidedly partisan issue.
Accusations will fly from the Democrats' side; they will claim that
the Clinton-Gore administration has done its job in the promotion of
its policies, and that they care more about children than we do. But I
think the debate this week, if listened to, will become very clear.
Every Senator, either Democrat or Republican, should have the same goal
in mind, and that is to provide to our children the very best education
possible. The very foundation for that is our public education system.
What this debate this week is really about, though, if you listen
closely is a difference in philosophies about how we get to the best
system in the world. Or how do we improve what is already good and make
it better?
The Democrats are going to tell you they want more of your tax
dollars to stay in Washington to pay for another Federal bureaucrat to
do another study, to construct a one-size-fits-all national policy, or
to ensure that only 65 cents out of every dollar actually gets to the
classroom in America. That is what this debate is going to be about, in
part. They will defend the status quo in an ever-increasing Washington,
DC, involvement in our children's education. They will defend the
increasingly intrusive Federal involvement in State and local
educational systems.
We, at the Federal level, have always believed the responsibility of
educating was at the State level. That is why every State has a
department of education or an educational system. It has only been in
the last few years that we have increasingly begun to put more Federal
dollars into the public school system. Even as we have done that by the
billions of dollars over the last decade, still only about 7.5 cents to
8 cents out of every Federal dollar are spent in the classroom. So even
with our increased involvement, we still historically have erred on the
side of the local community and the State government to be the primary
providers of public education.
The same system I talk about now, is the system in which the Clinton-
Gore regime has denied many students the basic education they deserve
by stifling some of our creativity.
Republicans say it is time for a change, and we are taking action.
This week, on the floor of the Senate, we will be considering S. 2,
the Educational Opportunity Act, which does just that. It offers a
fundamental change in the way the Federal Government involves itself in
public education. Republicans say it is time to put decisions back in
the hands of parents and back in the hands of teachers. Our bill
includes provisions that give States and school districts more
flexibility in how they spend their Federal tax dollars. If you go to a
principal's office or superintendent's office today and ask what the
Federal tax dollar means to them, while they say it is important, they
will say: Look around you; 45 to 50 percent of our staff is here to
fill out the Federal forms to get the 7.5 cents out of every dollar we
get.
That is part of the bureaucracy that has been allowed to build, that
the Clinton-Gore administration has aggressively perpetuated over the
last eight years.
Republicans say every school is different and has different needs,
and Washington, DC, should not decide how to spend the money in
Midvale, Idaho. I happened to pick Midvale because that is the small
rural school from which I graduated. While I graduated 37 years ago,
and there were only 10 in my high school graduating class, there aren't
many more than that today. In fact, the public school I grew up in has
fewer students in the whole school than in one grade level at one
Washington, DC, school. It is a small, rural school. That school does
not need money to reduce its class sizes. That school needs money to
connect itself to the Internet or to buy books, to improve its library,
to improve the ability of students to research in a much broader arena
than modern technology allows today. We don't need more teachers, and
we don't need smaller class sizes. Yet that is the single loudest
mantra you have heard coming from the lips of Al Gore or Bill Clinton.
Our bill doesn't do that. Our bill allows school districts with fewer
than 600 students to combine funds to improve student achievement.
Republicans believe it is wrong to let even one child slip through the
cracks, be it an urban crack or a rural countryside crack. That is why
our bill gives schools and teachers increased authority to meet the
needs of the disadvantaged students while requiring accountability.
Republicans believe our children deserve the best qualified teachers
available. Our bill helps school districts hire and retain the best
qualified teachers and empower those teachers to continue to learn and
improve so they can increasingly become better educators.
Republicans believe schools should be among the most safe places in
the United States. Our bill strengthens the Safe and Drug Free School
Program. Why should our schools not be a sanctuary and a haven in which
all students can feel safety and trust? I think they will not learn
well unless they see their schools in that light.
Republicans recognize the value of speaking multiple languages and
the importance of being fluent in English. Our bill gives a helping
hand to those whose first language is not English. Republicans
recognize the presence of the Federal Government is a drain on the
local infrastructure. Our bill fortifies programs designed to meet part
of the Federal Government's responsibility to local communities.
Republicans believe we have a special commitment to native students,
whether they are in the lower 48 or Alaska or Hawaii. Our bill gives
these students a helping hand to help them compete in our modern world.
Again, the real debate this week is not who cares most about
educating our children. It is a fundamental, philosophical debate about
the best ways to allow our children to achieve. It talks about the
stark contrast of a large Federal bureaucracy and new Federal ideas
being thrust upon the States and local communities because Washington
knows every child, and Washington knows better. I am afraid Democrats
are going to continue to preach about the failed policies of the
Clinton-Gore administration by keeping tax dollars within the beltway,
saying that is the way you educate a child in Midvale, Idaho.
This week we will say enough is enough. It will be a debate about a
different approach: returning the money to the local school districts
and to the States and empowering them to make those choices.
Let's get that hard-earned tax dollar out of the beltway, out of the
hands of the bureaucrat, and into the hands of the well-meaning
teachers and parents. Let's tie the money to the child so the parent
and the child can seek out and find the very best education that child
deserves.
Those are the differences I think will be a part of the baseline of
the debate this week on the floor of the Senate.
I hope America listens, because we need the best public school system
in the world. It is a good one, but it is not the best. To make
something good better or best is to empower people at local levels to
make decisions for their children--the kinds of decisions that parents
instinctively know, but bureaucrats in Washington somehow have never
understood.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, later today the Senate will officially begin
the debate on S. 2, the Educational Opportunities Act. I am pleased we
will finally have the opportunity to discuss our ideas for improving
elementary and secondary education. Of course, one of the reasons we
are discussing elementary and secondary education this year is that the
ESEA, the statute authorizing most of the Federal Government's
education programs in this area, is expiring. I should assure everyone
that even though there is no reauthorization bill, it is possible to
continue the ESEA programs through the annual appropriations process.
The time has come to act. The American people have been sending us a
message to do something to improve America's schools. I agree with the
American people about the importance of this issue. If we can get
education
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right in this country, almost everything else should follow. A better
educated citizenry will give us an advantage in technology and national
defense, better trade and economic opportunities, better citizenship
and stronger values, a reduction in crime, and, of course, more
personal fulfillment for our citizens. This is an important debate, one
of great significance for our Nation.
The bad news is that in the coming days there will be so much
politics and partisan acrimony emanating from the floor and that many
people who watch us might wonder whether it is worth the trouble. The
good news is that if concerned Americans listen closely to this debate
and have the patience to endure the political sound and furry, I
believe they will see their concerns are taken seriously by the
majority.
It is important to keep in mind that the Federal Government's share
of America's total education expenditures is quite small, about 7
percent. As a result, Federal attention has been focused on a few
specific objectives:
First, providing a quality education that can help offset the effects
of poverty and social distress that many of our students experience. It
is wrong to expect less of minority and poor students. They can do very
well.
Second, improving teacher quality and accountability is critical--
teaching the English language to students who do not know it well,
particularly in my State and other States in which we have had a real
upswing in immigration with students coming to this country who are not
as fluent in English as the others.
Third, promoting familiarity with technology, which is the future.
And, of course, providing a safe school environment.
These are the things on which we will focus.
Unfortunately, after some 35 years, the record of progress toward
these objectives at the Federal level is not impressive. I believe this
record of failure stands as an indictment of the traditional ESEA
strategy, which is to establish a new division of the Federal
Government in Washington, DC, and put a small army of people to work
writing regulations and processing paperwork from the States.
A promising alternative approach has emerged, and this new
alternative is known as Straight A's. The idea behind the Straight A's
phrase is very similar to the idea that led to our success with welfare
reform. It is a concept of a Federal-State performance partnership as
in welfare. We do not measure the success in welfare by how many people
we have on welfare or how much money we spend on welfare. We decided to
begin measuring success on how few people we had to have on welfare and
how little we had to spend.
We have to get to the same kind of performance-based criteria with
respect to education, not how many kids we have in some remedial
program but how few we have in those kinds of programs because our
education system is working to educate our young people. This is the
concept of accountability at the State and local level.
When Congress took on welfare in 1995 and 1996, the prerequisite for
our success in passing significant reforms was a recognition that very
promising ideas were being developed by leaders at the State and local
government level. We rejected the old premise that ``Washington knows
best,'' and we allowed these innovators outside of what we call the
Washington beltway to actually pursue some bold, innovative ideas
without a lot of strings attached from Washington.
We have all seen what the result can be. We all understand how
welfare reform has been working now to get people off welfare and into
a productive capacity in our society. It is time to consider the same
possibilities with respect to education.
The HELP Committee's bill permits as many as 15 States to enter into
Straight A's performance contracts if they choose to. These contracts
will allow significant flexibility for innovation by these States. My
guess is, as we saw with education flexibility, the bill we passed
earlier--the Ed-Flex bill--the other States will want to participate in
this, so it will quickly move from a 15-State demonstration project to
one in which all 50 States want the right to participate.
I am sure we will hear objections from the same folks who posited
objections to welfare reform. They will say it is a risky scheme: you
cannot trust the States and local leaders to do this; Washington knows
best. Given the Federal Government's record over the last 35 years,
this reactionary posture is impossible to sustain. We cannot keep doing
things the same old way and expect different results.
I expect, just as with welfare reform, the American people will come
to agree with the majority and at least some members of the minority
who have now concluded that flexibility, combined with accountability,
can bring needed change to education, where control by the bureaucrats
in Washington has failed.
I also look forward to debating proposals aimed at enhancing parents'
influence over the decisions affecting their children, especially when
a student must overcome poverty or a language barrier. The stakes are
very high, and we should not tolerate a system that ignores the views
of the people with the keenest appreciation of that fact--parents.
The committee-passed bill recognizes that choice must be available to
children in failing or unsafe schools, and I welcome this recognition
and urge the greatest possible expansion of choice and competition.
In fact, I am proud that my own State of Arizona has provided
leadership in this area by establishing an open enrollment policy that
allows parents to enroll a child in any public school of their choice,
undeterred by artificial geographic boundaries, and that this latitude
has led to the creation of hundreds of new charter schools in Arizona.
That has, in turn, improved the traditional public schools with which
these charter schools compete.
In fact, I was buoyed to see in the big newspaper at home in August a
couple of years ago one of our better public school districts put a
full-page ad in the newspaper saying to the parents: We are having to
compete with these charter schools. We were losing enrollment to these
schools. We figured out what we were doing wrong, and we have improved.
Come back to our public school system and see what a great program we
have.
That kind of competition and innovation has caused improvement, and
we have seen it in our own State of Arizona.
As the author of the Dollars Follow the Students Act, which is the
first piece of Federal legislation to advance this idea of making these
aid dollars portable, I am heartened the bill we are going to consider
will provide unprecedented portability for students aided by title I,
which is our largest Federal education program.
There are those who will resist the idea of choice and competition in
education. But I am looking forward to this debate.
No American child should be trapped in a school that cannot guarantee
a quality education and a safe education. We have an obligation to
provide a lifeline for families whose schools are failing, particularly
those families who live in our country's most disadvantaged areas.
So once again, I urge the American people to follow this debate
closely. If they do, I think they will find that we have been listening
to their calls for change and for real reform. That is what the
legislation we will be bringing to the floor today will provide. I am
looking forward to this debate.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to continue in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. THOMAS. I am excited that we are launching ourselves into what
may be a week or more of debate and discussion and, hopefully, success
in the area of education and educational funding.
Looking back over time, I think there is probably no other issue we
have talked more about than education. I think polls and discussions in
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town meetings would indicate that education is probably the highest
priority issue in the country.
Everybody knows the future of our children--and of the country--
depends on education. We will be talking about that during debate of
this bill, and I hope we can agree on some positive results.
Unfortunately, I think it is fair to say that when we enter into a
year of this kind, particularly with the Presidential election, we find
ourselves faced with more emphasis on creating issues than creating
solutions. I hope that is not the case during this education debate.
I am sure there is nothing to which we have more commitment or in
which we have more intense beliefs than our schools--by ``we'' I mean
all of us: Parents, communities, people all over the country. We are
all involved in educating our children. It is a most important part of
our lives.
This weekend, I met with the alumni association of the University of
Wyoming. It caused me to reflect on the things that were basic to my
life and reminded me of changes that need to be made.
I think most of us are proud of our schools. I am especially proud of
the schools in my State of Wyoming. They are rural schools, generally,
that are relatively small. The population in our State is low. But when
those kids come here to visit, through programs such as Close Up or
others, when they come here to serve as interns or come here to serve
in the Senate, I am very proud. Our education system must be doing well
for these young people to be here.
Can we make it better? Of course. That is what we are challenged to
do, to make an even better opportunity for our children. We need to be
able to help our schools to be flexible enough to change, as the world
changes, as our economy changes.
Again, going back to this weekend, we were talking about the
relatively small number of young people who have graduated from the
University, or even from our high schools, who are equipped with the
kind of technological expertise they'll need as we enter this new
economy. We need to make sure they're ready to answer the call.
As the Presiding Officer has said so eloquently, we are coming forth
this week with an educational agenda. I think it is a very strong
agenda. It is the product of much work on the part of the committee
that is bringing it forth. It tends to emphasize moving controls to
parents. After all, that has really been the controversial issue we
have addressed in all of our conversations; that is: Where should the
decisions be made? Who really should fit the educational program to the
community and their needs?
By all means, we need to reflect on it and measure it against the
rest of the country, especially since our population is becoming much
more transient. For example, a person living in Cody, WY, as I did, may
not live there forever. We have to have some relative comparison
between schools, which we do have. But we need to tailor those
programs, particularly Federal assistance, to fit our specific needs.
Educational needs in Meeteetse, WY, are much different from those in
Pittsburgh, PA. We need to make sure the Federal dollars--and it has
already been pointed out it is a relatively small amount, about 7 or 8
percent of the total--are used in the classroom and not set aside for
the bureaucracy.
We need to give families more of a role in education with greater
educational choice.
This morning, we had a visit from a RespectTeen group. I brought them
onto the floor. There was one student from each State. A young man who
had been chosen to come here had done a study and a paper on education.
His paper focused on the importance of family involvement in schools. I
was very impressed with the ideas about ways to get parents more
directly involved with the education of their children.
We need, of course, to support exceptional teachers. We need to help
teachers be prepared to teach. We need to encourage people to come into
that profession. We need to provide attractive opportunities for them
to stay in that profession. I guess I am especially interested in that
since my wife is a teacher.
But it is very important to focus on basic academics.
That is what we aim to do. We have an opportunity to make some
changes, to set some goals and some objectives. I am afraid that, too
often perhaps, individually, and certainly institutionally, we become
wrapped up in doing the things we are doing and, as a result, do not
sit down regularly and ask ourselves: Where are we? Where do we want to
go? What are our objectives? What do we need to do to get there?
I think we can fairly easily define the goals we want to accomplish
in education. But I am not sure we define very well how to make the
process of achieving them more effective.
We also need to address the issue of accountability. We spend a great
deal of money in education, which we need to do. However, frankly,
money alone does not ensure a good education for our children. We have
seen the results of simply throwing out money and not having some
system of accountability.
What we have had in this administration is a commitment to a whole
series of Federal mandates and programs--for example, 100,000 Federally
funded teachers. It has already been pointed out this morning that
there are school districts in which providing additional teachers to
reduce class size is unnecessary. The needs are in other places. That
is why priorities need to be decided locally. Sometimes the mandate is
for Federal construction. Again, that need may exist in one place but
not in another.
So what we are really talking about is having some accountability,
having some local flexibility, helping disadvantaged children meet
higher standards, improving teacher quality, enriching the incentives
for students to be prepared for a life of success, having safe and
drug-free schools--we can do more in these areas.
Increasing educational opportunities is what this bill is all about.
This is not a proposal for private school vouchers, but it does give an
opportunity for mobility. If these kids are in a school that is not
adequate, they can go to another public school and possibly improve.
I think it is exciting that we are moving ahead. I hope we can do so
with the objective of passing a bill that will strengthen education in
this country.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, since we have a few more minutes before we
have to end this morning's session, I will take a moment to comment on
a few things the Presiding Officer said a little while ago. There are
two points I will make.
The first has to do with the percentage of funds the Federal
Government spends on primary and secondary education. The second is
more general.
The Senator from Wyoming made the point that about 7 percent of the
money spent in local schools comes from the Federal Government. It is
also true that the average proportion of paperwork imposed on State and
local schools by Federal mandates is about 50 percent. In my State of
Arizona, it is about 45 percent. Why is that and what is the effect of
that? That goes to the heart of what we are proposing to change.
We understand it is not a good economic bargain to give the States $7
for education and to make them spend $3.50 of that on administration.
Yet that is exactly what is happening.
Why is this so? States and school districts see pots of Federal
money. There are over 100 different Federal programs for which States
and local school districts can qualify. Sometimes they have to have
matching funds. In most cases, they have to submit a lot of paperwork
in order to get this money from the Federal Government. So even if it
is only $20,000 or $30,000, a school district will hire an
administrator to apply for the money, to fill out the forms, to provide
the follow-up information, and then to administer that money when it
finally comes. The net result is that about half of the money in
administration is spent to get this 7 percent.
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There is no surprise, therefore, that so many of the people the
school districts hire are not teachers. That has an impact on
education. It is one of the reasons why over the last many years, as
the Federal Government has dangled these relatively small chunks of
funding out to the schools, the schools, in order to get that funding,
have jumped through more and more hoops, have spent more and more time
and effort and more and more dollars chasing after that relatively
small amount of Federal money.
This is inefficient. It is uneconomical. That is not to say the
original ideas for the Federal programs were bad ideas. We are smart
people in Washington. We come up with all kinds of great ideas.
Therefore, we provide funding to implement those ideas. We say: If you
will only jump through these various hoops, you can get some Federal
funding for this particular great idea. The problem is, that is a very
inefficient way to use taxpayer dollars.
It makes a lot more sense to say to the States: We have about 7
percent of the funding for your schools. If you will figure out how you
can best spend that money on your own, let us know, set your own goals
and make sure you meet those goals at the end of the year--in other
words, there still has to be accountability--we will send the money to
you without having to have these armies of bureaucrats filling out the
forms and administering the Federal programs based upon the ideas we
think are great.
It will probably turn out that a lot of those great ideas are
implemented by the local schools but they won't always be implemented
in every place. As the Presiding Officer noted, one school may need
that money to decrease class sizes, to hire more teachers. Another may
need that money to hook everybody up to the Internet. Another may want
to focus on some kinds of remedial programs in math or reading, for
example, tutorial kinds of programs. There are all different kinds of
specific needs in specific school districts.
We, in Washington, should not suppose we know best what each school
needs, nor should we assume that if we just throw money at the
problems, we will get better education.
It turns out that the States that spend the least amount on education
are among those with best test scores. There are a lot of different
reasons for that. It is also true that where we spend the most money,
we have the worst test scores--right here in Washington, DC. So there
is no direct correlation between the expenditure of money and a good
education. It is where you put your funds, how you make use of those
funds, how you prioritize.
That is what we want to address with this change in policy. No longer
will everybody have to apply for these little grants and go through all
of the hoops that it takes, fill out all of the paperwork, and then
follow that paperwork throughout the years. Rather, we are hoping, at
least for some States, we are going to create a contract whereby they
can apply for the funds at the beginning on the basis of a very general
set of goals that they establish, without all of the paperwork required
to meet the Federal goals. They can set their own goals and, at the end
of the year, demonstrate to us by a good accountability of how they
have done whether or not the expenditure of those funds has worked to
achieve their goals. If it has, then they can continue to apply for
these funds in the future. If not, then they have to be relegated to
the same old program they are under today, where they have to continue
to apply for each individual program, spend all of the money to do
that, and be relegated to this very inefficient way of getting the
Federal dollars to them.
That is the essence of what we are trying to do--free up those
dollars so people at the local level who know best what to do with them
can put the money toward the goals they establish and not have to spend
half of the money on administering the programs so that none of that
money gets down to the kids we are trying to teach.
The second point is--I mentioned this earlier--if we get education
right in our country, almost everything else will follow. Let me
illustrate.
First of all, we will have an advantage in national defense. Why did
I mention that first? We are the only superpower in the world right
now, and we have the technology in our defense to beat anybody in the
world should they challenge us. That technology is not static. It is
dynamic. If we don't train the young people to continue to innovate, to
continue to invent new things which will enable us not only to progress
as a civilian society but also to have the capability to defend
ourselves with new types of defense technology, we will not stay on
top. The history of the world is littered with countries that at one
time were on top but did not maintain their edge.
I was talking to some astronauts one day. I said: ``What is the
difference between you and your Russian counterparts who go up in space
with you?'' They said: ``There isn't any difference; they are just like
we are.'' I said: ``Well, surely there has to be something.'' One of
them said: ``Well, I can tell you a story. When something goes wrong up
there, we immediately get on our computers and try to figure out how to
fix it.''
``Our Russian friends get out their tablet of paper and pencil and
they start doing the math, the algorithms, long division, calculus,
whatever it takes, to figure out what to do.''
I think there are two lessons in that. First of all, it is wonderful
that, as a society, we are all trained in the use of computers, and we
have everything so computer-literate that we can quickly figure out the
answer. But the second lesson is that we also have to have people who
understand what the Russian scientists do--the long math, the
calculus--to be able to figure all of this out, because it is only by
knowing that that you can program the computers to do the things we can
do with computers.
Somebody has to understand the fundamental science. People in other
countries are still being educated the old-fashioned way, using the
fundamentals. We have to have enough people in this country who are
educated in the fundamentals to maintain our technological superiority,
while at the same time making the calculations from computers available
to all of society to enable us to rapidly advance in all the different
areas in which we have advanced.
But if we lose this technological edge because we are no longer
educating our citizenry--at least the best and brightest--in the
fundamentals of math and science, we will lose this edge. That is why I
said we can maintain an edge in defense only if we continue to have the
best educated citizenry in the world. Today, we have to import many
scientists and computer specialists from other countries, and it
demonstrates to us that we are not doing a good enough job of educating
our own citizenry.
The same thing applies to better trade and economic opportunities. If
we continue to be the inventors of the world and to take those
inventions and create applications that make our lives better, we will
continue to have the best products in the world that others want to
buy, and we will maintain our general superiority in trade. But if we
don't provide the education to our students to be able to continue to
put out these kinds of products, if we become mostly a service-oriented
society, other societies will take up the slack and will gain the
advantage in trade and economic opportunities. As I said, we would have
a better citizenry.
We have to continue not only to train people in science and math, but
also in history, in learning the lessons of life from other subjects
that enable us to work better as a society as we become more and more
diverse, and to remember the key lessons of our Founding Fathers who
understood that our democratic-republican form of government could not
continue in perpetuity without a well-educated citizenry--a citizenry
understanding the issues of the day because they had to make the
decisions.
This is a do-it-yourself government, America. Our people vote on
things; they have to be well enough informed to elect good
representatives to represent them in the places of our representative
government--the legislative branches of government, for example. If
they are not engaged enough in the issues of the day to make
intelligent decisions, then obviously the people they send here will
likewise not be so educated. The quality of decisionmaking and public
policy will falter.
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Moreover, the understanding of their role in our government will
gradually diminish.
Abraham Lincoln was very concerned about this. He said often that one
of his big fears was that, little by little, each generation would lose
some understanding of the ideas of the Founding Fathers and why the
perpetuation of those ideas was so critical to the continuation of our
democratic-republican form of government--the notion of citizen
participation, the understanding of the checks and balances of our
government, why we set the government up the way we did.
Frankly, I was distressed during the time of the impeachment trial of
the President--whatever you think of the outcome of that trial--about
the lack of understanding of a lot of my fellow citizens about what
that was all about, why we had such a procedure, why it was important
to maintain the rule of law, and so on. These are subjects that our
great-great-grandparents were well versed in from their education. They
studied them long and hard. I am distressed that today our kids and
grandkids don't take the humanities courses in college that we took,
which brought us a real knowledge of the underpinnings of the
philosophy of our government, our society, our civilization.
Our students today are caught up in all kinds of studies of
minorities of one kind or another and in other fads of the day. They
are not as well educated about the traditional concepts. In fact, some
even assault these concepts as inapplicable to today's world, when in
point of fact, the lessons of the great philosophers are totally
applicable. You will find philosophers on every side of every issue. If
you study them well, you will appreciate and understand the problems of
today, the kinds of choices we should be making in our society today.
History is relevant and, as has been noted many times, those who
ignore history are bound to repeat it. That was said in the context of
the bad times of history--primarily the wars that have to be fought--
because we don't understand that history. So a better education
provides better citizenship.
It can provide stronger values because we study the great books and
the philosophers who wrestled with the questions of what is the meaning
of life and how we should conduct ourselves. There is a difference
between right and wrong. There are truths and there are values. Young
people today are not reminded that in the Declaration of Independence,
our founders said there are ``inalienable rights,'' and ``we hold these
truths to be self-evident.'' There were some things that are so true
and we understand that. They were self-evident. But today, relativism
has begun to teach our kids that there is no real truth, there is no
definite right and wrong; there are only shades of gray.
If society comes to believe that and bases decisions upon that
misunderstanding, then we cannot long survive as a free society, as a
society founded on the principle that there are certain truths, and
that part of those truths are that there are inalienable rights that
are given to us by our Creator--not by some government. We then begin
to rely upon government to do things because it is the benevolence of
government that is the basis for our rights. Wrong. Government doesn't
give us any rights. The best we can expect from government is the
protection of our God-given rights. But if generations are not taught
that, then we won't be able to make public decisions on the same
foundation that our Founding Fathers understood were so important to
future generations.
A reduction in crime. If we have a well-educated citizenry, we are
going to have less crime. I think it is absolutely wrong to believe
that people from disadvantaged backgrounds have to be relegated to a
life of crime, that they somehow aren't as capable as everybody else at
learning and improving their lives and staying free from a life of
crime. It is so at odds with the fundamental precepts of our country
that I can't believe people would still expect less of students in
these kinds of communities.
Our proposal, as the Presiding Officer noted, is to recognize that
everybody is entitled to an equal opportunity for education, and we
cannot expect less of those in our most distressed areas. But if we
don't give them the same opportunity to go to areas where they can get
a good education and have safe schools that provide a quality
education, then we are, in effect, saying: You are second class, you
just can't make it, and we are not going to bother to give you the
tools to make it. That is fundamentally wrong and un-American.
Finally, a good education--if we get it right--will allow for more
personal fulfillment. We all want to make the very best of our God-
given talents, to do the very best we can in life, because most of us,
toward the end of our lives, begin reflecting on why we are here and
what was so important about our life and what we want to leave behind.
We speak in terms of legacies. The reality is that most of us begin
saying, well, did we make the most of what we had? We all have
wonderful talents given to us, and we feel very good about ourselves
and our lives if we have been able to take advantage of those talents,
if we have fulfilled our expectations. Yet we know today we are not
challenging our young students as much as we could be. It is a crime to
me that we don't challenge them to the ultimate, the maximum, so they
can make the most of what God has given them. We fail them if we don't
do that. If we are so lazy and so wrong about the way we provide an
educational opportunity that we don't challenge them to be the very
best they can be, that is the worst thing we can do for our young
people today. That is why I said if we get education right, everything
else will follow in our society, and that is why I think it is the most
important thing we can do.
I was asked by a journalist: If you could do one thing in public
policy as a member of the Federal Government, what would it be? I said:
Well, other than ensuring our national security, which we have to put
that first because that is the difference between life and death for
all of our people, I would allow real choice in education so that
people would be able to go to the place where they thought they could
get the best education for their kids wherever that might be, and that
the Federal Government not stand in the way of the exercise of that
choice. And the very exercise of that choice would ensure a quality
education and a safe education because the people who provide the
education would have to rise to the challenge. They would have to
understand that they would no longer be in business if people didn't
come to them. If students didn't come, they wouldn't be able to
educate. But if they did a good job, the students would come. It can be
done.
I visited a school district in Arizona not long ago--the Alhambra
School District--not a wealthy school district. There are a lot of
minorities there. Carol Peck is the superintendent. She told me there
are 39 different languages and dialects spoken at that school. Yet they
have achievement at that school because they have innovative
administrators and teachers and the kids learn.
We can learn lessons from that if we will allow innovation at the
local level--if we will not bind them by all of these Federal rules and
regulations. If we will lay those aside and at least let the small
amount of Federal money that goes to local schools be used in an
innovative way, we will begin to remove the barriers to innovation, and
we will provide quality education for our kids.
As I said in the beginning, just like welfare reform, we can succeed
if we will just throw off the old ideas and allow innovation to prosper
at the local level and at the parental level--and among our teachers,
who, after all, are on the front lines of this wonderful opportunity we
have.
I appreciate the indulgence of the Chair. I thought since we had a
little extra time I would embellish a little bit on the remarks I made.
I thank the Presiding Officer for setting aside this time for us to
focus on this particular subject, and for the great job he has done
over the many months in which he has been in charge in the effort to
take some morning business time like this so we can all express
ourselves on subjects that we are about to debate. I think the upcoming
education debate is the most important debate we can engage in as a
Senate.
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