[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

[[Page S3048]]

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.

[[Page S3049]]

  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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