[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 54 (Thursday, May 4, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3470-S3471]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES ACT--Resumed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this has been an interesting and certainly 
a thoughtful debate about education. This is exactly the topic we ought 
to be discussing in the Senate. We have a lot of folks in this country 
who care about the state of education and the condition of America's 
schools. They say America's schools are failing its children. What 
shall we do about that?
  Before us is the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act. We debate this law every 6 years, and at that time we 
talk about what kind of policies we believe will work for America's 
schools and what kind of policies will give us the kind of education 
system we can have pride in. Are our children walking through classroom 
doors that give them the best opportunity for a good education?
   Let me also say that I am a little tired--not only in Congress but 
in politics and in discussions generally--of the notion in this country 
of blaming America's teachers first.
  I visit a lot of classrooms. I see a lot of teachers and a lot of 
students. In most cases, the teachers I see in America's classrooms are 
extraordinary men and women who do a wonderful job with our children in 
America's schools. They have a very tough job. Their students come to 
schools all over this country with problems that affect how well they 
will learn. There are children who are hungry, without a caring parent, 
who are regularly faced with violence, guns, behavior issues. All sorts 
of issues come to school with children. We have to respond to those and 
deal with those issues. But this notion of somehow blaming America's 
teachers is wrong.
  Let me talk for a moment about who has new ideas. I was listening a 
while ago to a speech that I thought was interesting. But the notion 
was that only the majority party had new ideas, and somehow the 
Democratic caucus in the Senate was offering proposals that are just 
the same old thing.
  The majority party offers, as its version of how to fix our education 
system, to provide block grants. Is there anything new about block 
grants? Block grants aren't new. In fact, this is the oldest idea in 
politics, and it is an idea that doesn't work.
  We have very serious problems with our schools that we need to help 
solve. A lot of schools are in radical disrepair.
  I was at a school Monday in North Dakota. It is a school whose 
student population is almost exclusively Native American. These young 
Indian children are attending a school that is not in good repair. They 
know it. I know it. The teachers know it. The school board knows it. 
This is a school that doesn't have much of a tax base because it is on 
an Indian reservation. It is a public school district, but does not 
have much of a tax base.
  This is a school that doesn't even have an athletic field. Is there a 
place for these children to go out and run? Is there a place for them 
to play football or to practice soccer? No. This is a school without an 
athletic field.
  As we were going through the classrooms in this school, the principal 
said to me: Senator, is there any chance you could help us try to get 
an athletic field for these kids? They have too much energy. They have 
so much energy and want the opportunity to go out on an athletic field 
to play football, or play soccer, or perhaps run track. But we don't 
have the money.
  Again, this is a school without a tax base so they don't have the 
money.
  As I was touring the school, the teacher said: Now, children, are 
there any questions you would like to ask the Senator?
  One little kid in the third grade raised his hand real high, and he 
said: Yes. Mr. Senator, I would like to know how many bathrooms there 
are in the White House.

  I thought: Gosh, that is a funny question. How many bathrooms are 
there in the White House?
  One little kid on the other side of the room said: I think there are 
18.
  Another little boy said: I think there are 46.
  I said: You are both probably right. It is probably between 18 and 
46.
  Do you know in that school, with 150 kids, they have only two 
bathrooms, a boy's bathroom and a girl's bathroom? I guess he was 
thinking it would be a luxury to have a lot of bathrooms.
  That is the sort of question that comes from a third grader. But it 
relates to the condition of the school. The third grader knows that he 
is not walking into the same kind of school that other kids are. This 
school needs repair.
  One of the new ideas we proposed--that has been opposed, 
incidentally, by the majority party--is to provide the opportunity to 
repair, renovate, and rebuild America's schools that are in disrepair 
all around this country. But there is not much interest in that. 
Instead, the response is, let's send them block grants, and then pray 
that someone will use it for the right thing.
  We have some experience with block grants. In fact, title I started 
out as a block grant a long time ago. However, Congress quickly learned 
that the funding was not helping the poor children who were intended to 
be the beneficiaries.
  Let me give just a couple of examples of what title I was used for: 
They bought three tubas in one school. Another one used it for band 
uniforms. Another bought 18 portable swimming pools. That is block 
grants.
  Of course, these block grants won't go directly to the schools. The 
block grant funds will go to the Governors. Then the school districts 
are going to have to go begging to the States asking: Can we get some 
of that Federal money you have back there in block grants?
  We think maybe a new idea would be to say, let's renovate, remodel, 
and rebuild those schools that are in disrepair around this country, 
and let's help the local governments that do not have the resources to 
accomplish that task. We think a new idea might be to say, let's help 
those schools that are radically overcrowded, with kids sitting with an 
inch between their desks in a classroom, with 35 students taught by 1 
teacher. We know better teaching goes on in the classroom when you have 
1 teacher and 15 students or 1 teacher and 20 students, so let's decide 
to help schools reduce the size of their classes.
  When someone says there are no new ideas, it is just that they have 
not heard them. We have talked about them. They have not heard them. 
They have not been willing to vote for them.
  There are a lot of things we can do to improve education. I agree 
that we cannot throw money at problems, but I also believe we cannot 
withhold the resources necessary to fix this country's schools. We 
cannot send kids to inferior schools and ask why we didn't get a good 
student out of that school. We

[[Page S3471]]

cannot send kids into crowded classrooms and wonder why test scores are 
not higher.
  As I said before, some of the most wonderful, dedicated people I have 
met are the teachers in classrooms, spending their days with our 
children. We can and should make some changes on the question of the 
teacher certification process. We ought to have alternative 
certification programs for people who later in life want to go back 
into a classroom and teach kids. They shouldn't have to go through a 
teacher's college or a curriculum that is long and difficult.
  Let me give an example. There was a rather wonderful major league 
outfielder who played ball for the Baltimore Orioles who was going to 
teach physical education at a school in New York. Wouldn't you want 
your kid being taught how to hit by a major league outfielder? But he 
didn't have the proper teacher certificate so he wasn't kept in the 
school system.
  What if Bill Gates decided he wanted to come into your school and 
teach a class on computers? He doesn't have the certification. What if 
Michael Jordan was willing to teach your child to play basketball in a 
physical education program? Do you think Michael Jordan and Bill Gates 
are not qualified? Of course they are.
  We can find mechanisms by which we provide alternative certification 
for professionals and others who want to go into the classroom to help 
in this country. We can and should do that.
  But to those people who spend all of their time beating up on 
America's schools, I wonder how they think we got to where we are in 
this world with our education system? How on Earth did we do that? Is 
there a place in the world anyone wants to trade places with? I don't 
think so. Do we want to trade our education system for the one in 
Haiti, Zambia, or Bangladesh? I don't think so. How about Germany? How 
about France or Italy? Do we want to trade it? I don't think so.
  This country has invested a substantial amount of money in something 
called universal education. We did it because we don't believe in 
segregating kids and deciding some kids have talent to go here and 
other kids have the talent to go there. We decided all kids ought to 
have the opportunity to make the most of their education.
  I have two children in school this morning. They are both the most 
wonderful children in the whole world. I love them to death. I want 
them to have the best education possible. I don't know what they will 
be when they grow up. My son, when he was 10 years old and we were 
going over an English lesson together, that he didn't need to study 
English because he was going to be a miner. I said: A miner? He said: 
I'm going to mine gold and I don't need to read and spell. I said: When 
mining gold, you have to be able to read and sign contracts. Over time, 
he changed his occupation choice, and he has had several other choices 
since then. We spend time every night with our children doing homework 
because we believe education is a priority for them. I want them to go 
through a classroom door I am proud of. I want them to go into a school 
I am proud of. I want them to have teachers I am proud of.
  Dating back to my great-grandmother who homesteaded on the prairies 
of North Dakota and raised children who raised children who raised me, 
this education system has been a wonderful boon to most Americans, 
including our family. My father had to quit school in the sixth grade 
because his mother died and his father was in an institution for 
tuberculosis. In sixth grade, he quit school in order to go to work to 
help his uncles raise his sisters. The proudest day of his life, it 
seems to me, is one day when, without ever having given us a hint, he 
told us at the supper table that he had, at age 55, just passed the GED 
test. Then he gave us a big smile. He didn't even tell us he was taking 
it. This meant a lot to him.

  Education has enormous value. Every American family who cares about 
its kids understands that. This debate is not about two sides, one of 
which has new ideas and the other which has no ideas. It is a 
discussion about a range of approaches with respect to the education 
system and how we make it better.
  I don't think our public school system is awful. I disagree with 
those who do. Go to school. I have been to schools that are awful 
schools, but do you know why? Because of all the other influences from 
which those kids come. I have been to schools with metal detectors at 
the front door. Shortly after I visited one of those schools, a kid was 
shot at the water fountain because another kid bumped him. The student 
who shot him got a gun through the metal detector, even though a 
security guard was sitting there.
  That school has a crowd control problem as much as it has education 
problems. It is not because they are bad people running the school. It 
is because that school inherits all of the other problems of its 
surroundings. I think we need to understand that and help change it.
  We can do better in education. I am not suggesting everything is 
great. We can do better in education. But I know my kids do more 
homework than I did. I graduated from a tiny high school class of nine 
in Regent, North Dakota. I am enormously proud of the education I 
received in that school. Are the kids there getting a better education 
today than I did? Yes, of course they are--more homework, more 
opportunities, bigger libraries, the Internet. They have access to any 
library in the world through the Internet.
  As we look at what we do to improve our schools, I think the most 
important thing is to improve those crumbling facilities, reduce class 
size, and then require accountability. I am all for accountability.
  There is a provision in Senator Daschle's substitute, which I will 
also offer as a separate amendment, to provide parents with a school 
report card. I get a report card about how my son and daughter are 
performing. I want a report card for the public school they attend, a 
report card that every parent and every taxpayer in this country should 
get, comparing their school to other schools in their district, in 
their state, and in other States. How is that school doing? Is it 
passing or failing based on a series of criteria--student performance, 
graduation and retention rates, professional certification of teachers, 
average class size, school safety, parental involvement--which is 
critically important--student dropout rates and student access to 
technology. How is that school doing? We deserve a school report card 
as parents and as taxpayers.
  That ultimately will provide the accountability we should get. Yes, 
we ought to hold our education system accountable. We will have an 
opportunity to vote on school report cards as part of the Bingaman 
amendment, and if the Bingaman amendment fails, on an amendment I will 
offer separately.
  The secret to education is not such a secret. Successful education 
comes from teachers who know how to teach, students who want to learn, 
and parents who are involved in their child's education. When all three 
of these elements are present, education works and works well.
  Evaluate this country--where it has been, where it is now, and where 
it is going--and ask yourself if we have accomplished things through 
our education system of which we are proud? You bet we have. We have 
spliced genes, we have invented plastic silicone and radar, built 
rockets, and developed vaccines to prevent polio and small pox. Have we 
done something significant, all of it coming from our education system? 
You bet your life we have. Can we improve it? Sure. But we will improve 
it with new ideas--not tired old ideas called block grants.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Wisconsin is 
recognized.

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