[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 56 (Tuesday, May 9, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3629-S3646]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
resume consideration of S. 2, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 2) to extend programs and activities under the 
     Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

  Pending:

       Coverdell (for Lott/Gregg) amendment No. 3126, to improve 
     certain provisions relating to teachers.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Connecticut is recognized to offer an amendment.


                           Amendment No. 3127

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask that amendment No. 3127, an 
amendment in the nature of a substitute to the bill, be called up at 
this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Lieberman] for himself, 
     Mr. Bayh, Ms. Landrieu, Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. Kohl, Mr. Graham, 
     Mr. Robb, Mr. Breaux, and Mr. Bryan, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 3127.

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.'')
  Mr. KENNEDY. Is it necessary to set aside the pending amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It was done under the previous order.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I am very proud to offer this amendment on behalf of 
the colleagues who have been mentioned, eight in number, and myself. We 
have worked for a very long time on the contents of this amendment. We 
have

[[Page S3630]]

spent a lot of time in our home States and elsewhere observing what is 
happening in our public schools today, and this amendment is a response 
to what we have seen.
  I would roughly categorize that in two ways, which I will describe in 
a little more detail.
  The first is, there remains an unacceptable gap in achievement levels 
between children in America's public schools who are disadvantaged 
economically and those who are advantaged, and that is unfair and 
unacceptable.
  Secondly, there is occurring, and has been occurring throughout our 
country over the last decade really, an extraordinary outburst of 
educational reform at the local level. Superior efforts are being made 
by teachers, by school administrators, by superintendents, by parents, 
by whole communities, to try to do everything possible to improve the 
status quo because when the status quo is not adequately educating our 
children, in this information age particularly, we are not achieving 
one of the great goals of our Government.
  This proposal we make today is an attempt to respond to both of those 
observations and to use the 5-year reauthorization of the Elementary 
and Secondary Education Act as an opportunity to leverage Federal 
dollars, perhaps small in percentage in the overall cost of public 
education in our country but large in absolute terms, to do better at 
educating the poor and disadvantaged in our country and do much better 
at encouraging, facilitating, and financially supporting the 
extraordinary educational reform efforts going on around the country, I 
am pleased to say particularly in States such as my own State of 
Connecticut.

  As we continue this debate on the ESEA, Congress itself is facing a 
major test, one that will likely be far more important to the future of 
millions of America's children than any of the school exams or 
assessments they have to take this year.
  Our challenge in Congress is to reform, and in some ways to reinvent 
in some fundamental ways, our Federal education policy to help States 
and school districts meet the demands of this new century and to help 
us fulfill our responsibility to provide a quality education for all of 
America's children.
  That is why I join today with eight of my colleagues, and perhaps at 
least one more, in offering this amendment to the bill before us that 
calls for a totally new approach to Federal education policy, one that 
we who cosponsor this amendment believe could also serve as a bridge to 
a bipartisan solution to this problem, to a bipartisan reauthorization 
of the ESEA. Of course, that has to be the goal to which all of us 
aspire. It may be an interesting debate on Federal education policy, it 
may be stimulating, it may be fascinating, it may even be educational, 
but if it is only a debate without a result, it does nothing for the 
children of our country.
  We hope this proposal we are making today can be a bridge to a 
bipartisan reauthorization of ESEA. Our approach will refocus our 
national policy on helping States and local school districts raise 
academic achievement for all children. That has to be our priority. It 
would put the priority, therefore, for Federal programs on performance 
instead of process, on delivering results instead of developing rules.
  I am asking not just how much we are going to spend on education or 
what specific pipes it goes through to the State and local districts, 
but on what comes out of the other end, which is to say how are our 
children being educated.
  Our approach calls on States and local districts to enter into a new 
compact with the Federal Government to work together to strengthen 
standards and to improve educational opportunities, particularly for 
America's poorest children. It would provide State and local educators 
with significantly more funding from the Federal Government and 
significantly more flexibility in using that funding to meet their 
specific local needs.
  In exchange, our proposal would demand real accountability and, for 
the first time, impose consequences on schools that continue to fail to 
show progress. You cannot have a system of accountability that winks at 
those who fail to appropriately educate our children.
  In order to implement effective education policy, I think we have to 
first acknowledge that there are serious problems with the performance 
of many of our schools and that public confidence in public education 
will erode seriously if we do not acknowledge and address those 
problems now.
  While overall student achievement is up, we must face the alarming 
achievement gap that still separates poorer minority Americans from 
better off white Americans.
  According to the State-by-State reading scores of fourth graders, in 
the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the achievement gap 
between African American and Caucasian American students actually grew 
larger in 16 States between 1992 and 1998, notwithstanding the billions 
of dollars we have sent back to the States and local districts to 
reduce that gap over the last 35 years. The gap between Hispanic 
American students and white American students became larger in nine 
States over the same period of time. Perhaps most alarming is the data 
that reveals that the average African American and Latino American 17-
year-old has about the same reading and math skills as the average 
Caucasian American 13-year-old. That is an unfair and unacceptable 
outrage. We must do something about it.
  One recent report states:

       Students are being unconsciously eliminated from the 
     candidate pool of Information Technology workers by the 
     knowledge and attitudes they acquire in their K-12 years. 
     Many students do not learn the basic skills of reasoning, 
     mathematics, and communication that provide the foundation 
     for higher education or entry-level jobs in Information 
     Technology work.

  One cause of this, I am afraid, is that we have not done a very good 
job in recent years of providing more of our children with high-quality 
teachers, a critical component to higher student achievement. After 
all, what is education? Education is one person, the teacher, conveying 
knowledge and the ability to learn to another person, a younger person, 
a student. We are failing to deliver enough teachers to the classroom 
who truly know their subject matter.
  One national survey found that one-fourth of all secondary school 
teachers did not major in their core area of instruction. And note 
this. In terms of the inequity in the current system, in the school 
districts with the highest concentration of minority students, those 
students have less than a 50-percent chance of getting a math or 
science teacher who has a license or degree in those fields. So we are 
putting them behind before they even get started.
  While more money alone will not solve our problems, we cannot 
honestly expect to reform and reinvent our schools without more money 
either. The reality is, there is a tremendous need for the additional 
investment in our public schools, not just in urban areas but in every 
kind of community, including, of course, poorer rural communities.

  Not only are thousands of crumbling and overcrowded schools in need 
of modernization, but a looming shortage of 2 million new teachers to 
train and hire faces our country. Add to this billions in spiraling 
special education costs the local school districts have to meet and we 
can see we cannot really uphold our responsibility without sending more 
money back to the States and local school districts.
  Trying to raise standards at a time of profound social turbulence for 
our poorest families means we will need to expend new sums to reach and 
teach children who in the past, frankly, have never been asked to 
excel, whose failure was accepted--in some senses perhaps even 
encouraged--who in the present will have to overcome enormous hurdles 
to do better.
  At the same time that schools are trying to cope with new and complex 
societal changes, we are demanding that they teach more than they ever 
have before. Parents and potential employers both want better teachers, 
stronger standards, and higher test scores for all our students as well 
as state-of-the-art technology and skills to match.
  It is a tribute to the many dedicated men and women who are 
responsible for teaching our children every schoolday across America 
that the bulk of our schools are as good as they are today in light of 
these broader contextual and sociological pressures. I believe--and I 
believe it is a fundamental

[[Page S3631]]

premise of our system of government in our education system--that any 
child can learn, any child. That has been proven over and over again in 
the best schools in my home State of Connecticut and in many of 
America's poorest cities and rural areas. There are, in fact, plenty of 
positives to highlight in public education today, which is something 
else we have to acknowledge, yet too often do not, as part of this 
debate.
  I have made a real effort over the last few years to visit a broad 
range of public schools and programs in Connecticut. I can tell you 
that there is much happening in our schools we can be heartened by, 
proud of, and learn from.
  There is the exemplary John Barry Elementary School in Meriden, CT, 
for instance, which has a very-high-poverty, high-mobility student 
population but, through intervention programs, has had remarkable 
success in improving the reading skills of many of its students.
  There is the Side By Side Charter School in Norwalk--1 of 17 charters 
in Connecticut--which has created an exemplary multicultural, 
multiracial program in response to the challenges of a State court 
decision, Sheff versus O'Neill, to diminish racial isolation and 
segregation in our schools. Side By Side is experimenting with a 
different approach to classroom assignments, having students stay with 
teachers for 2 consecutive years to take advantage of the relationships 
that develop. By all indications, it is working quite well for those 
kids.
  There is the Bridge Academy, which is a charter high school in 
Bridgeport, CT, formed, as so many of the most effective schools have 
been, by teachers from the public schools who wanted to go out and run 
their own schools to create the environment in which they believed they 
could best teach. It is a remarkable experience to visit this school in 
Bridgeport.
  I remember when I went to the students a second time a couple months 
ago. Some people criticize charter schools and say they skim off the 
best students from the other schools. The kids laughed. One of the 
young women there, high school age, said, ``I think you can say, Mr. 
Senator, that what you have before you is the worst students from the 
public high schools.'' She said, ``I will go one step further. If I 
remained at the high school I was attending, I would not be in the high 
school; I would have dropped out by now. I was going nowhere.'' But 
there was something about this school, the Bridge Academy, which, she 
said to me, maybe was the smaller class size, interestingly. ``Maybe it 
is the fact that we know the teachers here really care about us. We are 
like a family here. Whatever it is, I have worked very hard and I have 
done things I thought I was never able to do. I am going to college 
next year.''
  That is a remarkable story. I don't have the number with me, but a 
great majority of the students graduating there are going to college 
next year. They will probably have the acceptance letter on the central 
bulletin board in the school. But that is occurring. In Connecticut, we 
have the BEST program, which is building on previous efforts to raise 
teacher skills and salaries. It is now targeting additional State aid 
and training and, most importantly, mentoring support to help local 
school districts bring in new teachers and prepare them to excel. It is 
very exciting to see the more senior teachers--the mentors--committing 
time, with little or no extra compensation, to help the younger 
teachers learn how to be good teachers.
  I think you have to say that is one of the reasons why Connecticut 
scores on the national tests have now gone to the top. It is one of the 
big reasons why they have, and it is why this BEST program of mentoring 
is cited by many groups, including the National Commission on Teaching 
in America's Future, as a model for us to follow.
  A number of other States, including, by most accounts, North Carolina 
and Texas, have moved in the same direction, refocusing their education 
systems, not on process but on performance, not on prescriptive rules 
and regulations but on results. More and more of them are, in fact, 
adopting what might be called a reinvest, reinvent and responsibility 
strategy by, first, infusing new resources into their public education 
system; second, giving local districts more flexibility; and, third, 
demanding new measures and mechanisms of accountability to increase the 
chances that these investments will yield the intended return, meaning 
improved academic achievement by more students.
  To ensure that more States and localities have the ability to build 
on these successes around the country and prepare every student to 
succeed in the classroom, which has to be our national objective, we 
must invest more resources. The amendment my colleagues and I are 
offering today would boost ESEA funding by $35 billion over the next 5 
years. But we also believe that the impact of this funding will be 
severely diluted if it is not better targeted to the worst performing 
schools and if it is not coupled with a demand for results. That is why 
we not only increase title I funding for disadvantaged kids by 50 
percent, but we use the more targeted formula for distributing those 
dollars to schools with the highest concentrations of poverty. That is 
why we develop a new accountability system that strips Federal funding 
from States that continually fail to meet their performance goals.

  I wish to highlight for a moment our formula changes in title I on 
the hope that they will draw some attention to an area I believe is 
very worthy of debate, which is how best to target funds to the poorest 
children, the disadvantaged, who are still being left behind in great 
numbers in our education system.
  Our formula distributes more of the new funding through the targeted 
grant formula enacted into law by Congress in 1994, which has never 
been funded by congressional appropriators. It is progressive, but 
there is no money in it. It ensures that no State will lose funds while 
providing for better targeting of new funds with those States with the 
highest rates of poverty. In other words, it has a hold harmless in the 
current level of funding under title I, but it takes the new money and 
targets it to those who need it most. I am calling for this targeting 
to the school districts receiving the highest percentage of poor 
children.
  We must face the fact that title I funds today are currently spread 
too thin to help the truly disadvantaged. According to a 1999 CRS 
report, title I grants are provided to approximately 90 percent of all 
local education agencies--way beyond what we would guess are the truly 
needy--and 58 percent of all public schools receive title I money.
  Federal funds for poor children are currently distributed through two 
grants known as the basic grant and the concentration grant. In order 
to be eligible for the basic grants, through which 85 percent of title 
I money is now distributed, local school districts only need to have 10 
school age children from low-income families, and these children must 
constitute only 2 percent of the total school age population. I want to 
repeat that because it is so stunning. When I first read it, I went 
back to my staff and the documents to see if I had read it right. This 
is the result of, frankly, a political formula. In order to be eligible 
for basic grants, through which 85 percent of title I funds are 
distributed--it is supposed to help disadvantaged kids--local districts 
only need to have 10 school age children from low-income families, and 
those children must constitute only 2 percent of the school age 
population. You can see how that money, therefore, is being spread so 
thin that a lot of poor kids are not getting help and a lot of kids who 
are not so poor, from schools in which there are few poor kids, are 
receiving that money.
  Under the concentration grant, districts with a child poverty rate of 
15 percent are eligible to receive funding. That is a little better but 
still minimal. With those low thresholds, we have to ask ourselves are 
we really living up to the original intent of the ESEA, which was to 
ensure that poor children have access to a quality education on the 
same level as more affluent children. I think the answer has to be, no, 
we are not. That is what the facts say. In fact, another number, which 
unsettled me even more, is one out of every five schools in America 
that has between 50 and 75 percent of its student body under the 
poverty level doesn't receive a dime of title I money. One out of every 
five schools in America that has half to three-quarters of its student 
population under the poverty level doesn't receive a dime of

[[Page S3632]]

title I money, which is supposed to benefit exactly those children.
  I think we have to acknowledge that the current formula is not doing 
what it should be doing. It is a starting point and a way to draw our 
attention and resources back to the original intent of this act and the 
primary function of the Federal Government in education stated in 1965, 
which we are not fulfilling now, and that is to better educate 
economically disadvantaged children.

  In calling for a refocus of our Federal priorities, we who have 
sponsored this amendment agree with those concerned that the current 
system of Federal education grants are both too numerous and too 
bureaucratic, too prescriptive, and too strong on mandates from 
Washington. That is why this amendment eliminates dozens of federally 
microtargeted, micromanaged programs that are redundant or incidental 
to our core national mission of raising academic achievement. We also 
believe we have a great overriding national interest in promoting a few 
important education goals, and chief among them is delivering on the 
promise of equal opportunity. It is irresponsible, it seems to us, to 
hand out Federal dollars to the localities with no questions asked and 
no thought of national priorities. That is why we carve out separate 
titles in those areas that we think are critical to helping local 
districts elevate the performance of their schools.
  In other words, we consolidate almost 50 existing Federal categorical 
grant programs into the title I program for disadvantaged kids, the 
largest by far. And performance-based grant programs in which we state 
a national objective but give the local school district and the State 
the opportunity and the authority to work out their priorities are in 
meeting those objectives.
  The first of these is title I with more money, $12 billion--a 50-
percent increase in better targeting.
  The second--a performance-based grant program--would combine various 
teacher training and professional development programs into a single 
teacher-quality grant, increase funding by 100 percent to $1.6 billion 
annually--the quality of our teachers is so important--and challenge 
each State to pursue the kind of bold, performance-based reforms, if it 
is their desire and choice, and higher salaries for teachers, as my own 
State of Connecticut has undertaken with great success and effect.
  The third performance-based grant program would reform the Federal 
Bilingual Education Program and hopefully diffuse the ongoing 
controversy surrounding it by making it absolutely clear that our 
national mission is to help immigrant children learn and master 
English, as well, of course, as to achieve high levels of achievement 
on all subjects. We must be willing to back this commitment with more 
resources--the resources that are essential to help ensure that all 
limited English-proficient students are served better and are not left 
behind, and that the gap between their knowledge and that of the 
majority does not grow larger in the years ahead as it has in the years 
immediately past.
  Under our approach, funding for limited English-proficient programs 
would be more than doubled to $1 billion a year and for the first time 
be distributed to States and local districts through a reliable formula 
based on the number of students who need help with their English 
proficiency. As a result, school districts serving large LEP--limited 
English-proficient--and high-poverty student populations would for the 
first time be guaranteed Federal funding and would not be penalized 
because of their inability to hire clever proposal writers for 
competitive grants.
  The fourth performance-based grant title would provide greater choice 
within the public school framework by authorizing additional funding 
for charter school startups and new incentives for expanding local, 
intradistrict public school choice programs.
  The fifth performance-based grant program in this amendment would 
establish and radically restructure the remaining ESEA and ensure that 
funds are much better targeted while giving local districts more 
flexibility.
  In this new title VI, our amendment would consolidate more than 20 
different programs into a single, high-performance initiatives title 
with a focus on supporting bold new ideas, such as expanding access to 
summer school and afterschool programs, improving school safety, and 
building technological literacy, which is to say to close the looming 
digital divide in our country for our children before it gets deep and 
unfixable.
  We increase overall funding for these innovative programs by more 
than $200 million annually and distribute this aid through a formula 
that targets more resources for the highest poverty areas.
  The boldest changes we are proposing are in the new accountability 
title. As of today, we have plenty of rules and requirements on inputs, 
on how funding is to be allocated and who must be served, but little if 
any attention to outcomes on how schools ultimately perform in 
educating children. This amendment would reverse that imbalance by 
linking Federal funding to the progress State and local districts make 
in raising academic achievements. It would call on State and local 
leaders to set specific performance standards and adopt rigorous 
amendments for measuring how each district is faring and meeting these 
goals. In turn, States that exceed those goals would be rewarded with 
additional funds, and those that fail repeatedly to show progress would 
be penalized. In other words, for the first time there would be 
consequences for schools that perform poorly.
  In discussing how exactly to impose those consequences, we have run 
into understandable concerns about whether we can penalize failing 
schools and school systems without also hurting the children.
  The truth is we are hurting too many children right now, especially 
the most economically and sociologically vulnerable of them, by forcing 
them to attend chronically troubled schools that are accountable to no 
one--a situation that is just not acceptable anymore. Our amendment 
minimizes the potential negative impact of these consequences on 
students.
  It provides the States with 3 years to set their performance-based 
goals and put in place a monitoring system for gauging how local 
districts are progressing. It also provides additional resources for 
States to help school districts identify and then improve low-
performing schools.
  If after those 3 years the State is still failing to meet its goals, 
the State would be cut in its administrative funding by 50 percent. 
Only after 4 years of underperformance would dollars targeted for the 
classroom through the new title VI be put in jeopardy. At that point, 
protecting kids by continuing to subsidize bad schools honestly becomes 
more like punishing them.
  I want to point out that at no point would our proposal cut title I 
funding, or the largest part of ESEA--the part focused on the needs of 
our poorest children.
  Another concern that may be raised is that these performance-based 
grants are open-ended block grants in sheep's clothing. There are 
substantial differences between a straight block-grant approach and our 
performance-based grant proposal. First, in most block grant proposals, 
the accountability mechanisms are often nonexistent or, if they are, 
they are quite vague. Our bill would have tangible consequences pegged 
not just to raising test scores in the more affluent areas, but to 
closing the troubling achievement gap between them and students in the 
poor, largely minority districts.
  We believe our amendment embraces a commonsense strategy--reinvest in 
our public schools, reinvent the way we run them, and restore a sense 
of responsibility in our schools to the children who we are supposed to 
be educating and to their parents. Hence the title of our bill, ``The 
Public Education Reinvention, Reinvestment, and Responsibility Act,'' 
which we call RRR for short.
  I guess you could say our approach in this amendment is modest enough 
to recognize that there are no easy answers, particularly not from the 
Federal Government, for turning around low-performing schools, to 
lifting teaching standards, to closing the debilitating achievement 
gap, and that most of those answers won't be found in Washington 
anyway. But our proposal is bold enough to try to harness

[[Page S3633]]

our unique ability to set the national agenda and recast the Federal 
Government as an active catalyst for educational success instead of a 
passive enabler of failure.
  Finally, this debate raises again for all of us in the Senate the 
basic question: Did we come here to produce or to posture? Are we going 
to be practical or are we going to be partisan?
  At this moment, when our constituents seem to be telling us 
everywhere in the country that the deed they most want us to do is to 
help reform the public schools of this country, are we going to be 
content with a debate that does not produce a bill?
  At this moment, the apparent answers to these questions are not 
encouraging. But there is still time. And we hope this amendment can be 
the path to bipartisan discussions, compromises, and ultimately 
educational reform.
  I thank my colleagues who are cosponsors of this bill for the 
contributions that each and every one of them has made. I urge my 
fellow Members of the Senate in the time ahead to take the time to look 
at our proposal with an open mind--nobody will like every part of it--
and to see if there is enough here to form the basis of a bridge that a 
significant majority of us can walk across to achieve a bipartisan 
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
  I thank the Chair. I thank my colleagues.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from New 
Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, is there a time allocation under this bill?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is a time allocation.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, let me begin by saying I congratulate the 
Senator from Connecticut for bringing forward an amendment that has a 
lot of interesting, creative ideas, ideas that are attractive to myself 
and other Members on the other side of the aisle that find attractive 
the proposals presented; and the accountability proposals and the idea 
we should allow local communities and States to have more flexibility 
in the management of the funds which come from the Federal Government, 
with an expectation they produce a better level of achievement for 
their students.

  These are ideas which we think make sense. We have some reservations 
about some proposals within the amendment, but I hope we can work over 
time with the Senator from Connecticut and his cosponsors on his side 
of the aisle to evolve a bipartisan package. I think there is 
significant opportunity for that. I congratulate the Senator for his 
efforts.
  The amendment that was set aside, offered by Senator Lott, is called 
the Teachers' Bill of Rights. That amendment involves four items: 
First, a commitment that allows, under the underlying bill, S. 2, to 
make sure we use the dollars of the Teacher Empowerment Act, which is 
$2 billion, to hire high-quality teachers, teachers who have the 
qualifications to teach the subjects they are supposed to be teaching. 
In turn, it has accountability standards which we expect from the 
States for using the money to hire quality teachers, to show they have 
hired the quality teachers, and as a result student achievement has 
improved.
  The thrust is not directed at institutions or school systems but is 
directed at children and making sure children's achievement improves in 
the context of giving States more flexibility but expecting more 
accountability. This amendment tracks that proposal. It gives more 
dollars to the local districts and the States to hire quality teachers, 
but it expects the quality teachers to be able to show results. It 
specifically requires accountability in showing either student 
achievement is increasing or that the teachers who are teaching in the 
core curriculums they are assigned to--math teachers teaching math, for 
example--actually know the subject and are capable of teaching the 
subject to the children.
  In addition, the bill has an authorization of $50 million to 
encourage midcareer professionals to come into the teaching profession, 
a very important proposal that came forward with Senator Hutchison of 
Texas, Senator Frist, and Senator Crapo, a good idea that allows using 
dollars to attract folks who have gone through their professional 
career in the private sector and decided they wanted to give back a 
little bit to society and have decided to go into public education. 
This assists them in doing that. We are starting to attract a fair 
number of people from that career path. It is important to encourage.
  The fourth element of the Teachers' Bill of Rights is the very 
important proposal from Senator Coverdell limiting teacher liability as 
they pursue professional activities in teaching children. This is a 
problem for teachers. Most teachers say their big concern is they will 
get sued because a child is on the playground, gets injured, and they 
are held responsible. They are afraid of the impact on their family to 
have such a lawsuit occur. This is an attempt to try to mitigate that 
in a reasonable way. It is a good proposal.
  These are the four elements of the Teachers' Bill of Rights 
amendment. I hope my colleagues can support that amendment which is not 
overly controversial. It is a good proposal.
  Speaking about the general debate we have been involved in for the 
last week on the issue of ESEA, it has been an interesting and a very 
substantive debate. It has, however, involved clear distinctions on 
policy in how we approach the question of education in this country.

  On our side of the aisle, we believe very strongly that we should 
have an approach to elementary education that stresses the child and 
stresses the need for the child to do better, especially the low-income 
child, which is where the bill focuses.
  Third, it gives the State, the teachers, principals, and 
superintendents flexibility as they try to address that issue of how it 
gives low-income children a better education.
  Fourth, it expects academic accountability. We give flexibility to 
States and they have to produce academic accountability. Low-income 
children have to do better than in the past. We have spent, as I 
mentioned a number of times, over $130 billion in title I over the last 
35 years. Yet the academics of our low-income children have actually 
gone down over that time period. As a result, we are seeing the gap 
widen between the non-low-income child and the low-income child in the 
school systems. The statistics are stark. The Senator from Connecticut 
cited a number of them. The most stark is that the average low-income 
child reads at two grade levels below their peers by the fourth grade; 
that difference expands as they move into high school years.
  We believe strongly there has to be a different approach. We have to 
allow the local school districts flexibility and expect academic 
achievement.
  On the other side of the aisle, I have been interested by the tenor 
of the debate. A large percentage of the positions taken on the other 
side have been to attack the idea of giving flexibility and power to 
the States, subject to accountability standards in the area of 
achievement. There has been a clear and aggressive response and attack 
coming from the other side of the aisle on the leaders of our States 
and our school districts across this country. It has been focused to a 
large extent on the Governors. There seems to be a deep suspicion on 
the other side of the aisle about Governors, which I find discouraging, 
having been a former Governor. I think there are about 12 or 16 of us 
in this room. I see one other former Governor in the room right now on 
the other side of the aisle.
  Here are some of the quotes from Members on the other side of the 
aisle about Governors or State leadership. Senator Wellstone:

       But honest-to-goodness, Washington, DC, and this Congress 
     is the only place I've been where people say, ``Let's hear 
     from the grassroots, the Governors are here.'' I mean, 
     Governors are not what I know to be grassroots. Could be good 
     Governors, bad Governors, average Governors. But my 
     colleagues have a bit of tunnel vision here thinking that 
     decentralization and grassroots is the Governors.

  Senator Kennedy on the issue of local control:

       What priority do these children get in terms of the States? 
     They didn't get any priority when this bill was passed in 
     1965, even with requirements that the funds go down to the 
     local community. This legislation is going to effectively 
     give it to all of the States, as I mentioned. I think that is 
     basically and fundamentally in error. As I mentioned, what 
     are we trying to do?


[[Page S3634]]


  A little suspicious about what would happen if the money goes to the 
States.

  Senator Schumer:

       I understand the desire to keep schools locally controlled. 
     But a block grant, a formula for waste, and much of it going 
     to the Governors, so that money doesn't even trickle down.

  As an editorial comment, the evil Governors will get their hands on 
it.
  Senator Kennedy:

       We need a guarantee. We don't need a blank check. We want 
     to make sure the money's going to go to where it's needed and 
     not go to the Governors' pet programs and pet projects and 
     pet leaders in the local communities and their States.

  Once again, the evil Governors strike.
  Senator Murray:

       The Republican approach would take the things that are 
     working and turn them into block grants, and their block 
     grant does not go to the classroom. It goes to the State 
     legislatures and--it goes to the State legislatures and adds 
     a new layer of bureaucracy between the education dollars and 
     the students that is so important.

  There it is, the evil State legislatures.
  Senator Dodd:

       . . . What are we saying in this bill or trying to say is 
     back in that community I won't be able to make it absolutely 
     equal. But I would like to get some resources into that 
     school. Now I've got to trust--trust your good Governors.

  Said with a bit of sarcasm, the Governors, once again, are being 
pointed out as being inappropriate sources to be trusted in our 
institutions.
  Senator Reid:

       What Republicans are saying essentially is let's give the 
     money to the Governors; if they want to concentrate more 
     efforts on low-income students, they can, but if they don't, 
     they don't have to.

  The Governors are the force of evil, it appears, in the educational 
systems of America.
  It is very surprising language. I am tempted to say it is the 
Governors who actually have been doing the original thinking in the 
area of education. In fact, ironically, if you look at what has 
happened in education, you will see in the issue of class size 
reduction, which is such an important question we have debated on this 
floor, 22 States have implemented major class size reductions. In fact, 
most of those States implemented those projects before there was any 
class size initiative adopted at the Federal level.
  In the area of school accountability, 40 States have initiated report 
cards already. These have been initiated, I suspect, by the Governors 
in those States, as was the class size initiative, I suspect, initiated 
by the Governors in those States.
  In the area of charter schools, before there was any idea of a 
Federal charter school initiative, 2,000 charter schools had been 
initiated at the local and State level. Once again, it would be the 
Governors who initiated those charter schools; 2,000 of them have been 
initiated across this country. In fact, the National Educational Goals 
Panel, which is probably the most objective reviewer of what is 
happening in education, looking at it from a national perspective--they 
don't have too much of an agenda. They have a little agenda, but they 
have not too much, and the NEPA test is something that comes out of 
that agenda--said States such as North Carolina and Texas, which were 
cited by the Senator from Texas as States very effective in raising the 
scores of low-income students--they said in their studies they cannot 
attribute any gains to Federal activity. They attribute the gains to 
the fact that in the States, the local communities, the local policy 
has been the force for educational excellence.

  I am not here necessarily to defend, carte blanche, Governors, 
because I suspect Governors make mistakes. But Governors have as their 
primary responsibility the issue of education. A Governor is not going 
to stop halfway through the day, is not going to stop talking about 
education and suddenly go on to the African trade agreement and the 
Caribbean Basin agreement, which is exactly what we are going to do in 
a couple of hours. Then we are going to be on to an appropriations bill 
on military construction. Then we are going to be on to an 
appropriations bill on agriculture.
  Governors, for the most part, think about education probably 40 to 50 
percent of their time. Why? Because 40 to 50 percent of the dollars 
that are spent at the State level in most States--not New Hampshire, 
ironically, but in most States--are education dollars. That is the 
biggest item in their budget, so they spend almost all their time on 
that issue.
  It is not as if they come to this issue as some sort of force for 
darkness. But if you listened to our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle, you would think so. This bill gives more authority to the 
State Governors and to the local schools and to parents and to 
teachers--by the way, subject, however, to significant accountability--
and you would think the Governors were part of the Evil Empire, that 
they came from the dark side. Maybe you would think they are related to 
Darth Vader, if you listened to Senator Murray, Senator Reid, Senator 
Dodd, Senator Kennedy, Senator Wellstone, Senator Schumer.
  So I decided to make up a chart. It is very obvious to me, as I 
listen to the debate, the other side of the aisle has met the enemy and 
the enemy is the Governors. That is the problem with education 
according to the other side of the aisle. So I got pictures of all our 
Governors, our good Governors. I am sure they are all good Governors. A 
few of them are Democratic Governors. Surprisingly, a majority are 
Republican Governors. That was not the case when I was a Governor, but 
I am glad to see that is the case today. I am thinking to myself: All 
these good people, they are the enemy. I did not know that.
  Poor Governor Shaheen, she has some problems in New Hampshire, I have 
to admit. She is trying her best, but she has had some tough times. She 
got some tough cards dealt to her. But she is really interested in 
education. I know that. She is a Democratic Governor.
  I know some of our Republican Governors--John Roland, from 
Connecticut, he has dedicated an immense amount of thought and 
creativity to being a leader on education. I will bet there is not a 
Governor here, not one of these enemy Governors, who has not got a very 
creative idea on education moving in their State, an extremely creative 
idea, something we have not thought about here in the Federal 
Government but something that is actually producing academic 
achievement by the kids in that State, something that is actually 
producing results.
  That is an ironic concept for us in Washington. We don't necessarily 
work on results. We spent 35 years on title I, spending $130 billion. 
We did not care about results. We did not care if the kids did any 
better. We wanted to get them in the school systems, and that worked, 
but we didn't really care whether they did any better. So now we bring 
forward a bill which says we care about the kids and we want 
achievement, and how is it attacked? It is attacked on the grounds it 
is going to give more power to the Governors and the Governors are 
really not responsible people and should not be given that power.

  I have to say, I find that extremely disingenuous, just on the face 
of it. But I also find it inappropriate on the grounds that Governors 
really do care. They are pretty close to the people. They are elected 
just as we are. Some of them are elected more often than we are--in 
fact, I think most of them--so they are answerable to the people a few 
more times than we are.
  I do think this response, which is essentially: you can't do anything 
because it might be a block grant to the Governors, is inappropriate. 
By the way, nothing we have in here is really a block grant at all 
because there is tremendous accountability pressure. The fact is, we 
set this up as a cafeteria line so States can go through and pick out 
what program they think is going to work best for them. But that gives 
too much authority to the States, to choose something that might 
actually work, because the Governors cannot be trusted.
  This attack on this bill, which is quite honestly the gravamen of the 
opposition, is that we are taking the power out of Washington. Although 
I put it in humorous terms, that really is the gravamen of the 
opposition. We are taking the power out of Washington; we are taking 
the strings away from Washington; we are returning the authority back 
to people actually giving the education in expectation, with 
accountability standards, that we expect achievement.

[[Page S3635]]

  That is the difference here. There is a lobby in this city that wants 
to maintain control over these dollars at all costs, even if it means 
the dollars are not producing any results or any significant results 
that benefit the kids to whom they are directed. We have 35 years of 
record that show us these kids have lost out; we have lost generations 
of young children who were low-income, who were not able to pursue the 
American dream because they could not read and they could not write. We 
cannot tolerate that any longer.
  I believe, very strongly, we should give authority back to these 
folks subject to the conditionality that they produce achievement. That 
is a reasonable approach, in my opinion. I am interested that the other 
side has rejected this approach and basically looks at the Governors as 
the opposition.
  Another way you could look at this is, what do you get for Federal 
dollars that are controlled by the Federal Government versus what you 
get for State dollars controlled by State governments--these Governors, 
these people who do not know how to administer their programs and 
clearly are going to be inefficient?
  Let's look at it at the State levels. It takes 25 people in the State 
government in Georgia to administer $1 billion of Georgia's State 
money. It takes 116 people to administer the $1 billion that comes from 
the Federal Government--more than four times the number of people it 
takes to administer State dollars. That is people sitting at desks, 
answering mail, doing forms, who are not teaching, who are not helping 
kids get a better education but who are simply pushing paper through 
the system.

  It gets even worse for the State of Florida. For every $1 billion 
spent, it takes 46 State employees in Florida for Florida State 
dollars; for every $1 billion of Federal money spent, it takes 297 
employees to manage that money--46 to 297.
  So these terribly inefficient folks who really should not be given 
the authority to manage the money because they really do not know what 
they are doing, at least with their dollars they appear to know what 
they are doing. They are getting their dollars out to the kids. Their 
dollars go to the classrooms. They don't end up in some room in some 
big building in Tallahassee for filling out forms. Most of the people 
in the big room in Tallahassee filling out forms are doing it to 
fulfill Federal responsibilities.
  You do not have to look at just Florida and Georgia. The commissioner 
of education in Colorado said the involvement of the Federal Government 
has served ``only to confuse almost everyone.'' Actually, he used the 
words ``nearly everyone.''
  Lisa Graham Keegan, the superintendent of public education in 
Arizona:

       Every minute we spend making sure we're in compliance with 
     all those pages of Federal regulations means one less minute 
     we can spend to help teachers with professional development, 
     improving curriculum, developing our own testing standards 
     and insuring all the children are getting the help they need 
     to succeed.

  That pretty much sums it up. I think there is a good case you could 
make, and I believe we have made it, that the States, local school 
districts, the principals, the teachers, and the parents are just as 
concerned about education as anybody in this room, and maybe even more 
so because they have actually got the kid in the school in which they 
have to invest.
  The case can also be made--and I think we have made it--that these 
dollars will be effectively and efficiently handled because they are 
going to be subject to conditions which are reasonable, which basically 
require academic achievement to improve amongst our low-income 
children.
  I believe the case can be made, looking at the statistics, that the 
States are already doing the job better than we are doing; that they 
are not absorbing huge amounts of the dollars in bureaucracy but, 
rather, are putting those dollars into the classroom, which is where 
they should end up.
  When I hear the other side talk about the poor suffering Governors as 
being the problem, I shake my head and think, what can they be 
thinking, because clearly they are inaccurate. I believe our approach 
to this bill is the right approach. Let's give the Governors, the local 
schools, parents, and teachers some flexibility, and let's expect them 
to produce results.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I will take about 3 minutes because we do 
want to hear particularly from the cosponsors. Since I was mentioned in 
the remarks of my good friend from New Hampshire, I think I should 
respond.
  I have been listening for the last 4 days in the Senate to how the 
schools that are serving underserved children and disadvantaged 
children are in crisis in America. We have heard that in speech after 
speech on the other side of the aisle and many on this side as well as 
from myself because of the challenges we are facing. The fact remains 
today the Governors have 96 cents out of every dollar. Do my colleagues 
understand that? The Federal Government has maybe 6 or 7 cents out of 
the dollar. They have 96 cents. If the schools are not working well, I 
believe perhaps we ought to have educational recommendations in 
programs that have been tried and tested and are working. The Governors 
have had their chance, and they have come up short on this issue. We 
have been making that case.
  Finally, on title I funds, 98.5 cents out of every title I dollar 
goes to the local level; 1 percent is retained at the State level. I 
would like to hear from my friend from New Hampshire what the basis of 
his study is, but we have the GAO reports, studies, and allocations. I 
know, for example, with respect to the old block grants that used to go 
to the States in higher education, very little of that ever got out of 
the State offices because the Governors in those States, including my 
own State of Massachusetts, used that money to fund the departments of 
education for child and maternal care. I doubt a nickel of that ever--
also in my own State of Massachusetts--helped people because it was all 
absorbed as a result of the flexibility. We are trying to get away from 
that.

  I yield the floor. I thank the Senator from Indiana for his patience.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask the Senator for 10 seconds. My 
understanding is that following the Senator from Indiana, the Senator 
from North Carolina is going to speak. I ask unanimous consent that I 
follow the Senator from North Carolina.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. BAYH. Mr. President, I am somewhat disappointed that our 
colleague from New Hampshire has left the floor and taken with him the 
chart with the pictures of the 50 Governors of the States. For 8 years, 
my picture would have been on that chart, and, I must say, it is a much 
better looking group now that I am no longer there.
  All joking aside, if we are going to make progress on this very 
important issue, it is necessary for us to stop pointing fingers and 
instead work together to make progress.
  There was always a tendency, when we gathered as Governors, to point 
to Washington as the source of many of our problems. Now that I have 
the privilege of serving in this body, I see from time to time there is 
a tendency to look at the State and local levels in a similar spirit. 
The truth is, we need cooperation to make progress on this critical 
issue.
  I begin my remarks by giving credit to those who helped us lay the 
foundation for progress on the Lieberman amendment, which I believe 
very strongly offers our best chance for a bipartisan compromise and 
progress to help improve the quality of education for our students.
  I am pleased my colleague from Connecticut has returned to the floor. 
Without his courage, dedication, and devotion to this issue, we would 
not be here today, nor have the opportunity for the progress we now 
have. I publicly salute Senator Lieberman for his commitment to this 
very important issue.
  Secondly, I thank our colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, 
who is still with us on the floor, and Senator Daschle, our Democratic 
leader, for their cooperation in including our accountability 
provisions within the Democratic alternative that was voted on last 
week. Also, I thank them for their understanding of our commitment to 
the importance of targeting

[[Page S3636]]

resources to those children who are most in need and making progress on 
that very critical issue in the days and years ahead.
  I thank our colleagues on this side of the aisle, the moderate 
Democrats, the so-called new Democrats, cosponsors on this amendment 
with Senator Lieberman and myself who have now constituted a critical 
mass which has moved the discussion beyond stale partisanship and 
instead into a realm of reconciliation and progress that will enable us 
to make advancement in the cause of improving the quality of our 
children's education.
  Finally, to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I thank 
them for accepting our outstretched hands. We have had ongoing fruitful 
negotiations. They are not completed yet. There are still significant, 
outstanding issues that need to be resolved, but I hope we have helped 
clear the air around this place to create a climate in which real 
progress can be made and discussions can take place. We had cordial, 
substantive discussions on a bipartisan basis, leaving politics at the 
door and instead focusing on the challenge that concerns us all: 
providing a quality education for all of America's children, 
particularly those less fortunate.
  I care deeply about this issue because I believe improving the 
quality of education for all of America's children, along with the 
cause of keeping our nuclear arms under control and addressing the 
disintegration of the American family, is one of the greatest 
challenges of our time. It is one of the greatest challenges of our 
time because it is intricately tied up, bound up with addressing the 
important factors that face the American people today.

  First, the economy. In an information age, in a globalized world 
economy, premium upon knowledge, skills, and know-how is more critical 
to economic success than ever before. Money flows around the globe, 
technology flows around the globe, and information flows around the 
globe. People do move but not as much as those other factors I 
mentioned. If one looks at the long-term competitive advantage of 
nations, one of the very best things we can do to ensure the future 
economic vitality of our country is to guarantee that we have a 
workforce with the skills necessary to compete successfully with our 
competitors from abroad.
  I once heard Alan Greenspan speaking to the 50 Governors saying the 
single most important factor in determining the long-term productivity 
growth rate which, more than anything else, determines whether we are 
going to be prosperous as a country or not, is the skill levels of our 
workers today and the education levels of our children, the workers of 
tomorrow. So improving the quality of education is critically important 
to our long-term economic well-being as a society.
  What kind of society we will be will also be determined by whether we 
meet the education challenge today. The growing gap between haves and 
have-nots in our country is really an education gap, a knowledge gap, a 
skills gap, and if we are going to avoid, for the first time in our 
Nation's history, being divided into a country of haves and have-nots 
with an upper class and the lower class almost permanently shut out of 
opportunity, if we are going to avoid that, it will be because we give 
every child growing up in our country--even those from the wrong side 
of the tracks, even those growing up in homes less fortunate than 
others--the skills necessary to compete and succeed in the world in the 
21st century.
  Finally, the vitality of our democracy is at stake. I believe 
strongly in something Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of the 
Democratic Party, once said. Thomas Jefferson happened to be our very 
first education President as well. He was the founder of the University 
of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson once said that a society that expects to 
be both ignorant and free is expecting something that never has been 
and never shall be.
  Jefferson was right when he spoke those words in the early 1800s. If 
he were alive today, he would realize they resonate with more truth 
than even when he spoke them.
  The complexity of the issues we face today, the critical decisions 
that face the American people require an even greater level of 
understanding and knowledge than in Thomas Jefferson's day.
  Our economy, the nature of our society, and the very vibrancy of our 
democracy are all bound up in the way in which we resolve the 
educational challenges facing our Nation. This is why many of us have 
concluded we need to do better. The status quo is not good enough. The 
solutions of yesterday are inadequate to meet the challenges of 
tomorrow and the 21st century.
  My colleague from Connecticut spoke eloquently to many of these 
factors. I have behind me a chart representing some of the NAEP scores. 
As you can see, we must do better. Sixty percent of America's 
children--at least 60 percent--are below proficient when it comes to 
reading, the very gateway to opportunity and literacy. Seventy-five 
percent of America's children are below proficient in mathematics, the 
gateway to sciences and the hard disciplines.
  For America's less fortunate children, as the chart behind me 
demonstrates, the progress we need to make is even more significant if 
they, too, are to share in the fruits and the bounties that constitute 
the American dream.
  I used to be amazed at the number of freshmen entering college, 
particularly in our 2-year institutions and those that are not the 
flagship sites for our State universities, who, of course, had received 
high school diplomas but who had to go back in their first year of 
college matriculation to do high school work. Something had broken 
down. Something wrong had taken place that they received a high school 
diploma and yet had to go back and do high school work upon entering 
college.
  We are resolved we will do better. Our approach represents not only a 
significant break from business as usual when it comes to national 
education policy; it represents a significantly increased national 
commitment to the cause of improving America's education system for 
every child with a significantly stepped up Federal commitment.
  It is woefully inadequate that only one-half of 1 percent of Federal 
investment today goes into our schools. We must do better. Yet we do 
not want Federal micromanagement or intrusive Federal control. It has 
to be a cooperative effort with State and local communities.
  That is where our approach embodies what I would like to call the 
sensible center. Let's start with investment. We disagree with those 
who say no additional resources are necessary because we know we cannot 
expect our local schools to do the job unless we give them the tools 
with which to get that job done.
  Resources. Dollars are an important part of those tools to ensure 
that they can meet the challenge of giving every child a quality 
education. But we also disagree with our colleagues who say just more 
money is the only thing that needs to be done to meet the challenges in 
education.
  Instead, we combine significantly increased Federal investment in 
education with significant accountability and insistence upon results. 
We provide for a 50-percent increase every year in title I investment; 
a 90-percent increase in investment for professional development, to 
ensure that there are qualified, highly motivated teachers in every 
classroom; a 30-percent increase in investment for innovation, trying 
new ways to meet the challenges that confront us; and a 50-percent 
increase in investment for charter schools, magnet schools, and public 
school choice.
  We have struck the sensible center: Increased investment, yes, not 
just throwing more dollars on the problem but insisting upon better 
education for all of America's children.

  Accountability. We have also chosen the sensible center there between 
those who would have no additional accountability and those who would 
seek micromanagement from Washington, DC.
  Our approach focuses upon outcomes rather than inputs. We focus upon 
how much our children can read and write, add and subtract, rather than 
just how Federal dollars happen to be spent. Accountability is one of 
the linchpins in educational progress. It is at the heart of our 
approach.
  Streamlining. Some would call it consolidation. Again, we struck the 
sensible center between those who would seek no accountability for the

[[Page S3637]]

expenditure of Federal dollars whatsoever--block grants; that is not 
something we support--and those, on the other hand, who would seek 
Federal micromanagement.
  Ours is the solution for the information age. We get away from an 
industrial age model in which the Federal Government would seek to find 
one or two solutions that work and impose them upon everyone.
  Instead, in an era of flexibility and speed, to meet the necessity of 
rapid change and innovation, we provide for dollars to be targeted at 
less advantaged students, spent in five broad categories keenly related 
to academic success but then allowing for the flexibility to tailor-
make those investments in ways that will be most meaningful and most 
productive at the local level because every school district across 
America is not exactly alike, and, we, at the Federal level, need to 
recognize that.
  Senator Lieberman and I have spoken of the targeting. It is vitally 
important. Again, we need to target the additional investment at those 
children who are most in need. We provide a factor in our formula that 
will guarantee that no school district would see their title I funding 
cut. That, too, defines the sensible center.
  Finally, let me touch upon a couple of other factors.
  The importance of competition. We rejected the thinking of those who 
would go to a purely market-based system of vouchers because in a 
purely market-based system there are winners and losers. What of the 
losers? What of them? We have a national commitment to them to ensure 
that they, too, get the education they need because it would be a 
tragedy not only for them but for the rest of us if we allowed them to 
fall through the cracks of educational and lifetime opportunity. But at 
the same time, we embrace the forces of the marketplace in competition 
because we know that will provide for more parental choice, greater 
innovation, and, ultimately, more productivity within the public school 
system.
  So we have provided for the forces of the marketplace while retaining 
the genius of the public education system, which is a commitment to a 
better education not just for the few, not just for those who would 
succeed competitively in a marketplace but for everyone.
  Finally, let me say, once again, I am grateful for the progress that 
has been made. The seeds of progress have been firmly planted. We 
cannot yet tell whether they will bear fruit in this session of 
Congress or in the next. But I thank my colleagues who have brought us 
to this point, both within my own caucus and those on the other side of 
the aisle. If we are going to make progress on this important subject, 
it will be by working together, not pointing fingers or seeking to 
assign blame.

  So I will conclude by citing some words spoken by Winston Churchill, 
in a moment more dramatic than this, when he said: We have surely not 
reached the end, nor perhaps have we reached the beginning of the end, 
but at least--at least--we have reached the end of the beginning.
  So let us begin to make progress for America's schoolchildren. Let us 
agree, on a bipartisan basis, to increase our commitment to their 
academic future. Let us agree on the importance of accountability, the 
forces of competition within the public school system, and the need for 
professional development. Let us agree upon these things.
  Let us begin to move forward. If we do, it will not only improve the 
future for our children and the institutions of academic success across 
our country, but we will also begin to reinstill the confidence and 
trust of the American people in their ability to govern themselves. And 
that, perhaps, is the most important beginning of all.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I will take a second. While the Senator from Indiana 
and the Senator from Connecticut are here, I would like to state that 
there are ongoing discussions, on a bipartisan basis, to try to see if 
this can be brought together. While we do not know what the conclusion 
is, the beginning of the end is certainly here. They are fruitful, no 
matter what happens in the long-term nature of the debate.
  I compliment both Senators for the effort they have extended to reach 
out, along with Senator Gregg, Senator Gorton, and others, who have 
been instrumental in this ongoing work. I commend you to keep at it and 
see if we cannot come to a resolution.
  I thank the Senator from North Carolina for giving me a moment to 
compliment these two Senators.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous agreement, the Chair 
recognizes the Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair for recognizing me.
  I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to deliver my 
remarks seated.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, may I inquire of the Chair if it is in 
order for me to offer an amendment to the bill under the existing 
unanimous consent agreement? I believe it is not.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It would not be.
  Mr. HELMS. That is my understanding. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I genuinely regret that it is not possible for me to 
offer an amendment at the present time, but I do wish to raise an issue 
that continues to cause confusion and frustration and hard feelings in 
the schools and in the courts at all levels. It involves an issue that 
deserves careful consideration by the Senate, and it seldom comes up; 
but I have made the decision that I am going to bring it up from time 
to time and have the Senate vote on it. All of us should be willing to 
stop pussyfooting and take a stand, unequivocally, clearly and honestly 
on the issue of school prayer.

  There is no question about the absurdity of the Senate remaining 
silent while some judge somewhere says that a high school football team 
cannot even engage in a simple prayer before the whistle blows the 
start of the game.
  Equally absurd is the denial of a valedictorian of a high school of 
the right to include a brief invocation in her remarks. But that sort 
of thing is going on all over the country.
  I believe Benjamin Franklin and the other patriots, whom we refer to 
today as our Founding Fathers, made clear the power of--and the need 
for--prayer when they met at Philadelphia to set in motion this great 
land of freedom. It is very clear what Benjamin Franklin meant when he 
lectured his fellow colleagues. He said, ``We should close the windows 
and the doors and get down on our knees and pray for guidance.''
  I have lived a large part of my life believing there should never be 
any limits on the right of public prayer. I never heard of a high 
school student being debased or deprived of his rights, or having any 
problem as a result of school prayer. We had prayer every day in every 
school I attended, and my recollection is that all of us got along 
pretty well. No student was ever shot, or raped, or found to have drugs 
on his or her person, let alone a gun, in any school that I attended. 
But then along came Madalyn O'Hair and her crusade against school 
prayer. That was in 1962 when she stirred up a few atheists and 
agnostics, and ultimately some judges, who contrived out of the whole 
cloth a fanciful argument that somebody's rights might be violated if a 
simple prayer were allowed in school. It was always allowed every day 
in the schools of America until Madalyn O'Hair came along. Since the 
systematic removal of nearly all aspects of religious expression from 
the schools, there have been repeated disasters of all kinds, 
cataclysmic things we never believed would happen.
  From teen crime to teen pregnancy, so many young people are sinking 
in a quicksand of immorality. Would these heartbreaking events have 
occurred if prayer had not been banned from the schools? I don't think 
they would. When that question is raised, my response is that such 
things didn't happen before prayers and religion were banned from the 
schools.
  There is still time to fix this problem. We can restore prayer in 
school. By the way, the distinguished occupant of the Chair this 
morning may have recalled that I offered this same amendment I am 
discussing right now to the Senate in 1994. It passed overwhelmingly, 
with 74 other Senators agreeing that a more sensible policy regarding

[[Page S3638]]

prayer in schools is essential and necessary. But that amendment was 
gutted--gutted--at the eleventh hour for partisan reasons, which I am 
not going to get into now. On some occasion, I may describe exactly how 
that happened.
  In any event, the amendment I would like to have offered this morning 
allows students to exercise their first amendment prerogative of 
prayer.
  Under the amendment:

       No funds made available through the Department of Education 
     shall be provided to any State, or local educational agency, 
     that has a policy of denying, or that effectively prevents 
     participation in, prayer permissible under the Constitution 
     in public schools by individuals on a voluntary basis.

  I must say that once more my amendment clearly states that:

       No person shall be required to participate in prayer in a 
     public school.

  If a student doesn't want to pray, he or she, under no circumstances, 
will be required to do so. Therefore, I regret the parliamentary 
situation under which the Senate is operating this morning, which 
prevents my calling up this amendment for consideration.
  Let me say this: I steadfastly believe that any education bill that 
does not protect the first amendment rights of students to engage in 
voluntary prayer is incomplete, and I intend to raise this issue 
subsequent to this morning as often as it takes until the right to 
voluntary school prayer is guaranteed once and for all.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of my amendment, No. 3128, now 
at the desk, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the amendment was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                           Amendment No. 3128

       At the end, add the following:

     SEC. ____. FUNDING CONTINGENT ON RESPECT FOR CONSTITUTIONALLY 
                   PERMISSIBLE SCHOOL PRAYER.

       (a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the 
     ``Voluntary School Prayer Protection Act''.
       (b) Prohibition.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law, no funds made available through the Department of 
     Education shall be provided to any State, or local 
     educational agency, that has a policy of denying, or that 
     effectively prevents participation in, prayer permissible 
     under the Constitution in public schools by individuals on a 
     voluntary basis.
       (c) Special Rules.--No person shall be required to 
     participate in prayer in a public school. No State, or local 
     educational agency, shall influence the form or content of 
     any prayer by a student that is permissible under the 
     Constitution in a public school.

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, without losing my right to the floor, I 
yield for a moment to my colleague from Florida.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, for the purposes of a unanimous consent 
request, I ask unanimous consent that after the Senator from Minnesota, 
the Senator from Louisiana be recognized next, and then an intervening 
Republican, and then myself to be the next Democrat, and then Senator 
Lincoln be the next Democrat after that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I think 
I heard it correctly. The Senator from Florida said that following the 
next Republican he would be in order, and then Senator Lincoln would be 
the next Democrat following the next Republican; is that correct?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Senator Landrieu is the first, I will be the next, 
Senator Lincoln would be after myself, with the intervening 
Republicans.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The way the Chair understands the unanimous 
consent request, Senator Wellstone is the present Senator, and then 
Senator Landrieu, and then the Senator said there would be a 
Republican, and then there would be himself and Senator Lincoln; is 
that correct?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the idea would be that these would be the 
next three Democrats, and if there were Republicans, they would be 
intervening in order to maintain the alternating nature of the debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object--I will not object--
historically, although we get away from the history, those who are the 
principal proponents are generally recognized to make the case before 
opposition speaks. So we have tried to go back and forth. We have done 
pretty well. Since there are a number on our side who are prime 
sponsors, generally, as a courtesy, we have followed that historically 
and traditionally. We have gotten away from that.
  I think the proposal is eminently fair. If it is all right, we might 
let them go in order to make the presentation, and then I would be glad 
to hear from two or three on the other side. These are all prime 
sponsors. Generally, in order to be able to make the case, I think we 
ought to have a chance to hear from them, certainly before the noon 
hour. I ask that we extend the time a bit before going into recess 
because I think they ought to be heard in outlining the presentation on 
the agreement. I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I shall be brief because a number of 
Senators are here who want to get the floor. I want to respond briefly 
to Senator Gregg. Then I want to raise one question for Senator 
Lieberman. I wanted to speak to his amendment. I thought that was one 
way of being respectful. Then I want some Senators who are sponsoring 
this amendment, sometime after they make their presentation, to speak 
to the concerns I will raise in a moment.
  First of all, however, I want to respond to the Senator from New 
Hampshire because all of this is a matter of record. The Senator 
brought out pictures of Governors and talked about when he was 
Governor. I think that is sort of beside the point. I don't remember 
anybody using such language, and I don't know that anybody implied such 
a thing. But I will say that when I talk about grassroots, I kid around 
about the Governors. People say: Let's hear from the grassroots.
  Let me give you an example of what I consider grassroots--the 
National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support. This is a coalition of 
about 1,000 community groups, including faith-based and neighborhood 
organizations.
  I had a chance to speak at their gathering in Chicago. Most of them 
are of color, and many are of low- to moderate-income.
  They just released a study which I think speaks to one of the issues 
here. This is not, I say to Senator Graham and others, responding to 
his amendment but in response to Senator Gregg's comments.
  First of all, when we went through the debate on the welfare bill, I 
heard the discussion about this many times. Those who were for it said 
they didn't want the bill to be punitive. They talked about child care, 
food stamps, transportation, and health care. This study was just 
released this past weekend by this coalition. The problem, according to 
the study, is that many States are denying working poor families 
benefits to which they are legally entitled. That, of course, 
undermines the very incentives that Congress had in mind on behalf of 
the working poor.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article entitled 
``Fair Deal for the Poor'' by E.J. Dionne, Jr. be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From the Washington Post, May, 2000]

                         Fair Deal for the Poor

                           (E.J. Dionne, Jr.)

       It's fashionable to talk about poor Americans left out of 
     the economic boom. It's not fashionable to do much about 
     their problems.
       In Congress and on the campaign trail, a favorite pastime 
     for members of both parties is to brag about the welfare 
     reform bill passed in 1996. The bragging is over the sharp 
     drop in the welfare rolls brought about by a prosperity that 
     has created so many new jobs, and also by the bill's tough 
     welfare-to-work provisions.
       George W. Bush regularly boasts about the decline in 
     Texas's welfare rolls, while Al Gore trumpets his premier 
     role in pushing welfare reform against the wishers of some of 
     the leading voices in his own party.
       It's hard to oppose the core principle behind the welfare 
     bill: Public assistance should be temporary and the system 
     should help the poor find jobs and pursue independence.
       But supporters of the bill insisted they weren't just being 
     punitive. They said they wanted benefits--Medicaid, food 
     stamps, child care, transportation assistance and

[[Page S3639]]

     children's health insurance--to follow poor people off the 
     rolls and help support them as they found their footing in 
     the workplace. These benefits are especially important to the 
     children of the poor, and no member of Congress likes to look 
     mean to kids.
       The problem, according to a new study released this past 
     weekend, is that many states are denying the working poor 
     benefits to which they are legally entitled. That undermines 
     the incentives Congress pledged to put in place on behalf of 
     the working poor.
       ``Even if you're a proponent of welfare reform, you'd be 
     shocked at what's happening,'' says Lissa Bell, policy 
     director of the Seattle-based Northwest Federation of 
     Community Organizations. If the purpose of welfare reform is 
     ``self-sufficiency,'' that idea is ``not being adequately 
     reflected'' in actual administration of the programs, she 
     says.
       What Bell and her co-author, Carson Strege-Flora, found 
     were many cases of states and localities violating federal 
     rules by imposing waiting periods for programs that are 
     supposed to have none; creating cumbersome application rules 
     to make it hard for eligible people to get benefits; and 
     misinforming the working poor about what help was available 
     to them.
       Now, if there is good news in any of this, it is that 
     community groups around the nation are organizing to put the 
     cause of the working poor at the center of the national 
     debate. Paradoxically, those who were most critical of the 
     welfare bill when it passed may end up saving welfare reform 
     by insisting that those willing to labor hard for low wages 
     be lifted out of poverty.
       ``The people who are being denied access to these programs 
     are people who work,'' says Deepak Bhargava, director of the 
     National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, which 
     sponsored the study. The Campaign is a coalition of about 
     1,000 community groups, including faith-based and 
     neighborhood organizations. ``Its goal is to put poverty back 
     on the national agenda,'' he says.
       The devolution of power to the states, an idea associated 
     with conservatives, is unleashing a wave of activism by the 
     poor and their supporters. ``The interesting thing about the 
     devolution phenomenon,'' Bhargava says, ``is that it's really 
     put the ball in the court of the community organizations.'' 
     They are demonstrating ``a new level of sophistication about 
     public policy politics.''
       But in the end, he says, these groups will also look to 
     Washington to make sure states run programs for the working 
     poor by the rules. And Washington will necessarily play a 
     large role in any serious expansion of benefits for those who 
     work but are still trapped in poverty. Universal health care 
     would be a nice place to start.
       ``Poverty is the great invisible problem in the national 
     discourse,'' Bhargava says. ``. . .There hasn't been much 
     political pressure from the people affected. And the problem 
     is usually defined by the success of welfare reform in 
     getting people off the rolls, as opposed to the failure to 
     make much of a dent in the poverty rate.''
       This ought to be the most promising of times for programs 
     to alleviate poverty. Public coffers at all levels are 
     bulging, thanks to good economic times. The old welfare 
     system is dead, and most government assistance is now flowing 
     to those who work--meaning that the vast majority of voters 
     approve of the values now embedded in the programs.
       If we're not willing to do more to help the working poor 
     what does that say about our much-advertised commitment to 
     the value of work? And how devoted are we to that sentiment 
     now roaringly popular on the campaign trail compassion?

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I quote from the article:

       ``Even if you're a proponent of welfare reform, you'd be 
     shocked at what's happening,'' says Lissa Bell, policy 
     director of the Seattle-based Northwest Federation of 
     Community Organizations. If the purpose of welfare reform is 
     ``self-sufficiency,'' that idea is ``not being adequately 
     reflected'' in actual administration of the programs, she 
     says.
       What Bell and her co-author, Carson Strege-Flora, found 
     were many cases of states and localities violating federal 
     rules by imposing waiting periods for programs that are 
     supposed to have none; creating cumbersome application rules 
     to make it hard for eligible people to get benefits, and 
     misinforming the working poor about what help was available 
     to them.

  Here is my point to my colleague, Senator Gregg, and to others. The 
point is this: There are many fine Governors, but there is a reason why 
over 30 years ago we said there are certain core standards. We used the 
word ``accountability''--a certain core accountability when it comes to 
the poorest children in the country. And we are not about to support 
legislation that does away with a commitment to migrant children, a 
commitment to homeless children, a commitment on the part of the 
Federal Government that says to every State and school district there 
will be programs that will respond to the special and harsh 
circumstances of these children's lives. We are not going to leave this 
up to the States because even if there is some abuse and that is all 
there is, it is too much.
  That is the point, I say to Senator Gregg.
  Second, very briefly on the amendment that is before us, I thank my 
colleagues for their good work. I wanted to express the main concern I 
have. This is the one provision of this legislation which troubles me.
  Could I ask my colleagues to shut that door at the top, please.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sergeant at Arms will restore order.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. President.
  One of the provisions in this amendment says if there has not been 
adequate progress on the part of title I children--there is a 4-year 
period that you look at, and then we do this assessment, and if there 
has not been adequate progress, then 30 percent of the funds which are 
title VI funds, as I understand it, are withheld from these school 
districts.
  I just want to say to my colleagues that I think this is a mistake. I 
think we should have the assessment. I think we should know. But, as I 
see it, when you hold back the funds--and I think we can talk about how 
we may need to have different teachers; we may need to have different 
principals, but when we actually cut the funds in a variety of these 
different programs, I think the children are the ones who are paying 
the price.
  This is near and dear to my heart. I think this is a mistake.
  Here is the parallel that I would draw. I have been trying over the 
last month to come to the floor and say: Look, when we have these high-
stakes tests for third graders and whether they go on to fourth grade, 
for God's sake, let's also make sure they have the resources to be able 
to pass these tests and that each of these children has the same 
opportunity to achieve. If we don't do that, I think this will be 
punitive.
  I don't understand what some of my colleagues are doing. I think it 
is a big mistake to basically say to these schools and these school 
districts, especially when I see that they are the ones--I heard this 
debate this morning. I heard the Senator from Indiana. I thought it was 
kind of interesting. He said, you know, I heard the debate. Is it the 
Governors' fault or is it not the Governors fault?
  I think in many ways we are at fault. I think it is pathetic how 
little of the National Government budget--I heard anywhere from one-
half of 1 percent to 2 percent of our overall budget--goes to 
education. I still argue, look, we should be a player for 
prekindergarten, and we are not doing it. It is as if we forgot. It is 
as if we will jump on a bandwagon and get off of it quickly. A year ago 
all of us were talking about the development of the brain. You have to 
get it right by the age of 3. Some of these kids come to school way 
behind. They fall further behind. Let's get that right. Let's do that.

  We know from all of the research that has been done--whether we like 
it or not--that probably the two most important variables above and 
beyond a good teacher are the educational attainment and the income 
attainment of families. We are doing precious little, even with all of 
these surpluses and a booming economy, to change any of these 
circumstances that would so crucially affect how well children do.
  The assumption is, if you are not trying hard enough, we are going to 
cut off the money. I think it hurts the kids.
  I don't mind where Senator Bingaman and others are going on 
accountability. I think there are ways in which we can make it clear 
that there may have to be some reconstitution in terms of some of the 
personnel, albeit even there I am a little wary because I don't accept 
the assumption that the big problem is the teachers aren't trying hard 
enough or the principals are not trying hard enough or there isn't 
enough commitment. But, in any case, I don't like the sanction part. I 
think that is a big mistake because the kids are the ones who pay the 
price on this, as I understand this provision.
  That was one concern I wanted to raise. I want my colleagues to speak 
to it because that is the way this debate should take place.
  The only other concern I want to register, because there are plenty 
others who want to speak--some have said don't even raise it because we 
don't want to get into a big debate about it. But on paraprofessionals, 
I like some of

[[Page S3640]]

the changes that have been made with the language on this. There is 
language that I think says the only way you can hire paraprofessionals 
is to replace paraprofessionals.
  I know what you are trying to get at, which is we don't want 
paraprofessionals actually doing the teaching. The teachers should be 
doing the teaching, and we don't want poor school districts to have the 
paraprofessionals who aren't certified and other school districts to 
have more.
  On the other hand, it seems to me this may be a little bit too 
inflexible because as long as we make sure the teachers are doing the 
teaching, sometimes additional teaching assistants can make a huge 
difference in general above and beyond title I.
  The second point I want to make is if we are going to talk about 
professional development for paraprofessionals--this happened, I say to 
Senator Lieberman, about 3 weeks ago. I was back home. Sheila and I 
went to a gathering of cafeteria workers. We flew halfway across the 
State to be there. Sheila was a teaching assistant 19 years ago when we 
were married. She dropped out of school to put me through school. All 
the kids thought she was a librarian; she didn't have a college degree. 
She was a teaching assistant.

  In addition, there were food service workers, teaching assistants, 
custodians, and the bus drivers. One of the things they said: We don't 
mind more professional development, and we don't mind saying go back 
and get an associate degree, but please remember, many of us who have 
these jobs don't have a lot of income. We can't just give up a job to 
go back to school. We can't just take a sabbatical.
  We ought to be very careful, as we talk about this for these 
paraprofessionals. If we want them to receive more training, if we want 
them going back to school, make sure they are able to do so; many can't 
right now.
  Those are the two questions I raise. I am prepared to yield the 
floor.
  Mr. DODD. I know the sponsors are here. I know there is a limited 
amount of time. The sponsors of the amendment want to be heard.
  I rise to commend Senator Lieberman and the others--Senators Bayh, 
Graham, Lincoln, Landrieu, Bryan, Kohl, Robb, and Breaux--who have 
offered this amendment. I want to commend them on their commitment and 
their ideas in working toward the goal before all of us today--
accelerating the pace of reform in our schools.
  We have worked hard together on this issue for months, and in some 
cases, for years. Senator Lieberman and I are fortunate to come from 
the same state, Connecticut, which is a national leader in school 
reform and student achievement and a constant source of ideas for both 
of us--so we have worked together on this issue for some time.
  And contrary to what some may have heard, there is significant 
agreement among all of us about the direction of federal education 
policy. As is always the case, we hear more about the planes that don't 
fly and the issues that divide us than the planes that do fly and the 
issues that unite us.
  Our agreements are many and significant. First and foremost, we all 
agree the status quo is not good enough for our schools, our children, 
our nation, or for us. We agree that the federal government must be a 
leader, a partner and a supporter of local, public schools. We agree 
that federal dollars and efforts must be targeted on the neediest 
students and work to address the achievement gap that plagues too many 
of our schools and communities.
  Beyond policy goals, we agree on many specifics of this proposal--a 
strengthened, reform-oriented Title I program; accountability for 
federal dollars and for progress in increasing student achievement; 
public school choice; a clear class size authorization; targeting of 
dollars to needy children; and a significant reinvestment in the public 
schools. These are the core issues of the debate before us--and core 
areas of agreement that unite all Democrats.
  In particular, they unite us against the bill before us, S. 2. A bill 
which abandons the federal commitment to needy students, to high 
standards for all children, and to the goals and progress of school 
reform. We all stand against this vision for America's children.
  I do, however, differ with my colleagues on the extent of 
consolidation they propose in their substitute--the other issues can 
and were worked out in our alternative. On consolidation, I believe it 
is appropriate to carefully examine programs and focus our federal 
programs on areas that demand a national response. I supported many of 
the provisions of S. 2 which eliminate a significant number of 
programs--Goals 2000, School to Work--but I cannot go quite as far as 
my good friends go in their proposal.
  I think what is lost is that all-important support of local programs 
in areas like after-school, school safety, education technology, 
character education, school readiness, and literacy. The efforts that 
focus attention, attract dollars and produce results.
  Let me give you one example that I know well--after-school programs. 
The 21st Century Community Learning Centers program was created in 1994 
and was first funded at $750,000 in FY 1995; it has grown to $453 
million in FY 2000. It grew because it is focused on after-school, 
which we know is desperately needed, so we funded it, and funded it 
substantially. Thousands of grants of significant size flow to needy 
school districts to support strong, comprehensive after-school 
programs.
  The proposal before us would eliminate this strong program and 
instead have a small portion of the dollars that reach the local level 
go to support after-school programs. I believe this would not leverage 
change in this area; it would not attract the dollars needed and it 
would not meet our goals in as targeted a way. I believe we better 
leverage our dollars through our federal partnership directly with 
local schools in these areas than we would through a more generic 
funding approach such as offered in this bill.

  So I cannot support this substitute today. I want to continue to work 
with my colleagues on these issues--their ideas have contributed a 
great deal to this debate. We made substantial progress putting 
together the Democratic Alternative, which we all supported. Our 
schools need many voices, many supporters and I welcome my colleagues 
to these issues, to this debate and ultimately to the effort to better 
serve our children.
  We have had 25 or 30 hearings over the last year and a half or 2 
years on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, trying to get at 
the very issues and develop consensus. Participation is strongly 
welcomed. I look forward to an ongoing process.
  This does not end today, tomorrow, or the next day but will take some 
time to reach the level of success we want accomplished in our public 
education environment in this country.
  I thank my colleague for yielding, and my compliments to the authors.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to yield.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, briefly, if I may respond to the two 
questions, and I appreciate the comments of my colleague from 
Connecticut.
  It has been a pleasure, as always, to work with the Senator and 
others. We have made progress. I am grateful for his acknowledging 
that. I am also grateful for his long-time progressive leadership in 
this whole area of public education. I thank my friend from Minnesota 
for his kind words about the bill.
  I respond briefly to the two good and fair questions. We struggled 
with both of them, particularly the question that if we set up a system 
where we give more money for education, and we want to reorient the 
program so we are not just arguing about how much money we will send 
or, when the auditors come from Washington, they do not just ask if we 
are spending the money in the particular paths we were told to spend it 
in, but that somebody asks: What is the result? Are the kids educated?
  That is what we want to see happen, to put teeth into it. We believed 
we had to reward and punish. We have bonuses for schools and States 
that do well. How do we have answers without punishing the kids? That 
is a struggle. One answer is that the kids, particularly poor kids, are 
too often punished by the status quo because they do not get a good 
education and they are trapped by income. They have nowhere else to

[[Page S3641]]

go even though their parents clearly want a better way.
  We have set this out over a period of years and allowed the States 
themselves to set the standard of adequate, clear progress. We are not 
setting an absolute standard. We are saying: You set the standard for 
each school district, for each school. The standard is, how much do you 
want to improve each year from the base, where they are now--not where 
an idealized base might be but where they are now.

  Our first sanction: When a school fails to achieve its adequate clear 
progress for 2 years, it goes on to a ``troubled" list and extra money 
comes in to help the school. If after 4 years it does not get raised--
the kids are the victims, they are being punished--at that point, the 
bill says the school system has a choice: Radically restructure the 
school into a charter school, perhaps, or something similar within the 
public school system, or close it and give every child and their 
parents the right to go to a higher performing public school in the 
district.
  Beyond that, if the State continues not to make the adequate yearly 
progress, the Senator is right, after 3 years they get 50 percent taken 
from the State administrative budgets. That was our attempt to impose 
penalties without hitting the kids.
  Finally, after 4 years, if there is no adequate yearly progress, 
something is really wrong, then we take 30 percent of title VI, the 
public school innovation title. Yes, that reduces some programs that 
could be enrichment and improvement programs, but at some point we have 
to put teeth in the system to make it work.
  In no event, I stress to my friend from Minnesota, do we ever take 
any money away from title I for disadvantaged kids. That, we thought, 
would be unfair. We will not touch the basic program to help 
disadvantaged kids learn better.
  I was surprised that in my State of Connecticut when we introduced 
the bill, the area of the bill that got the most concern was from the 
paraprofessionals themselves who feared we were going to force them to 
get a college degree or put them out of jobs. Our aims are exactly what 
the Senator has said. I was surprised to learn that 25 percent of title 
I money around the country is spent on paraprofessionals. Some of that 
is very well spent because they supplement what the teacher is doing or 
they provide nonteaching support for children which can be critical to 
the child's ability to learn.
  Our basic aim is what the Senator from Minnesota said. Let's not 
shortchange poor kids by asking paraprofessionals who are not trained 
to be teachers to be their teachers. Suburban schools would not accept 
that. We shouldn't accept it for our poorest children. Let's try to 
help them upgrade themselves. Also, we provide State-adopted 
certification programs for the paraprofessionals.
  I hope my answers have been responsive.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, since the Senator was responding to my 
concerns, I have a couple of comments.
  First, I absolutely meant to thank the Senator for his effort. I 
don't want this to be a deal where I love you on the floor and then 
vote against your amendment. I want to make it clear I am thinking it 
through before the final vote. I appreciate what the Senator said, but 
I still think it doesn't speak to the concern I am trying to register.
  For example, if you don't get it right in terms of these kids, then 
you are going to be cut. The problem is, there are other kids in the 
schools who may not be title I kids but they also need the help. The 
reason for that is title I is funded at the 30-percent level. In 
Minnesota, in St. Paul, when you get to a school that has fewer than 65 
percent low-income kids, they don't get any of the money. All other 
schools get some of the money. There are a lot of other kids affected 
by cuts in the programs.
  I am all for putting ``teeth'' into this. Again, I think the Bingaman 
amendment goes in the direction of accountability, and he talks about 
reconstitution. There are some definite proposals that do have teeth 
that say, look, we have to be accountable. I think ultimately it is a 
mistake to have your sanctions and trigger the cuts in what little 
assistance we give. We will end up cutting some of the scant resources 
we do give to schools which help kids.
  I do not believe we should do that. I am going to make that point 
again, especially since I do not think we have in the Congress done 
anywhere close to what we should do to live up to our national vow of 
equal opportunity for every child. I believe this is a mistake. We are 
hurting the wrong people on this.
  On professional development, again I appreciate the sensitivity of my 
colleague's response, but I actually was saying one other point, which 
was I still think we can make it crystal clear. The Senator has the 
teachers doing the teaching when they should be doing the teaching, but 
I do not understand why we have such an inflexible requirement that the 
only additional paraprofessionals hired would be hired to replace 
paraprofessionals. Some school districts say they need additional 
assistants who can help them do more one-on-one work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I commend my colleague from Connecticut 
for his leadership on this issue, and I also commend my colleague from 
Indiana, whose insights as a former governor have been invaluable. A 
group of us have joined with them to call for a change in the role the 
Federal government plays in its partnership with our States and local 
governments in the area of education.
  Before I begin, I would also compliment our great colleague from the 
State of Massachusetts for his leadership over the years --actually 
over the decades and throughout his entire lifetime --for being a 
tireless champion for education, particularly the education of children 
who are poor, children out of the mainstream, and children who are 
disabled. I thank him for his leadership.
  There is a growing number of us in Congress who feel the need to 
stand up and say no to maintaining the status quo; that the status quo, 
while there is some incremental progress across the board in education, 
is not enough, is not happening quickly enough, and is leaving behind 
millions and millions of children, many of whom are least equipped with 
resources and families to help to educate them.
  As I said a few weeks ago, in 1965, when the Federal Government first 
stepped up to the plate, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as 
signed by President Johnson, was 32 pages long and contained 5 
programs. Today, the current law is 1,000 pages long--1,000 pages of 
instructions, prescriptions, unfunded mandates and micromanagement from 
the Federal level. It contains over 50 programs, 10 of which are not 
even funded.
  At that time, the world of education was much different. In 1930, 
there were 260,000 elementary and secondary schools. Today, there are 
89,000. Schools were smaller. Children were given more individual 
attention. Despite the tremendous increase in population, one can see 
the numbers of schools have declined.
  Years ago, there were qualified teachers in the classrooms, because, 
to be very honest, while teaching was and still is wonderful, the fact 
is, laws, customs, and traditions barred many exceptional women and 
exceptional minorities from any other line of work. So the profession 
of teaching was the great beneficiary.
  Today, that is no longer the case. Women and minorities are moving 
into different fields. Our schools have become larger and the demands 
on teachers have become greater. As a result we have less qualified 
individuals attracted to the field of teaching when the need for high 
quality teachers is even greater than ever before.
  Years ago--and not that long ago--school violence meant a fist fight 
on the school playground. Today, unfortunately, it means a loaded 
automatic weapon in a cafeteria. The use of drugs in schools is 
increasing. A lot has changed in education over the last 35 years.
  People say the prize belongs to those who are the quickest, the 
swiftest, and the smartest. I think the prize belongs to people most 
able to adapt to change, and that is really the argument. It is about 
change. It is about the status quo not working for the vast majority

[[Page S3642]]

of our children. It is about the fact the world has changed. The facts 
supporting public education have changed. Yet we find ourselves in 
Congress, at least too much to my mind, arguing for more of the same: 
more programs and more money, not recognizing these fundamental shifts 
that have occurred.
  The prize belongs not always to the swiftest and the smartest, but 
those most able to change. The Lieberman-Bayh amendment is about 
changing these 1,000 pages to give more flexibility to local 
governments to make better decisions about how to reach the children 
who need to be reached. It is about targeting the money to needy kids. 
When the first bill was passed by this Congress and signed by President 
Johnson, the intention was excellent, to bridge the gap between the 
advantaged and the disadvantaged. The intention was to use Federal 
dollars to invest in the education of poor children. This intention has 
been lost in these 1,000 pages. Under the present title I formula, a 
school need only have 2% of their children in poverty to be eligible 
for title I funding. As a result, 1 in 5 schools with between 50% and 
75% poverty receive no funding at all. Our formula would do what Title 
I funding was intended to do, serve poor children.

  Our amendment, the Three R's proposal, is about increasing 
flexibility and accountability at the local level. If we try to provide 
more flexibility to the States, but we also do not provide, along with 
that accountability, increased investments, at best it is an unfunded 
mandate, at worst it is a hollow promise.
  We are actually doubling the funding, as the Senator from Connecticut 
has pointed out, for title I and targeting the money to be sure the new 
money is getting to the poor children, the disadvantaged children, and 
the children for whom we need to close the educational gaps. Along with 
the increased funding comes real accountability. The taxpayers will 
appreciate the fact we are not just dumping more money into a growing 
problem, but we are securing our investment in education and rewarding 
states who make real strides in closing the achievement gaps are closed 
quickly and in a more appropriate fashion.
  Senator Bayh made reference to these numbers but did not focus on the 
specifics of this chart. I believe it is important for the American 
people to know the reason some of us refuse to accept the status quo. 
Mr. President, I am sure you will agree that test scores are quite 
startling; they are quite troubling.
  This chart shows, the performance scores of several minorities on the 
1996 NAEP. One will notice that under the status quo, under these 1,000 
pages, while there have been some improvements, only 26 percent of the 
white children are proficient level in math, only 8 percent of Native 
Americans, 7 percent of Latinos, and 5 percent of African American 
children.
  If we are not satisfied with these numbers--which I am not, and I do 
not think there are many in this Chamber on the Republican or 
Democratic side who are satisfied with these numbers--we need to do 
something different. Funding more programs with more money is not going 
to work.
  In response to something Senator Kennedy said--and I think he is 
accurate on this one point--money from the Federal Government 
represents only 7 percent. If these test scores are what is happening 
with 92 percent of the funding, then let's not continue to do the same 
things or give it all to the Governors. He is absolutely correct.
  Obviously, the money is not targeted to help these kids increase 
their student performance; the State dollars, the 92 percent, is not 
targeted, because if it was, these numbers would be improving 
significantly. The answer is not to sit by and do nothing; the answer 
is to lead by example. Let the Federal Government begin by taking its 7 
percent and targeting the poor children so these test scores can 
improve, and we hope the States, the Governors, and the local education 
authorities will take their money and do the same thing so we can 
improve these test scores.
  This next chart shows the eighth grade math scores: 23 percent of all 
children, at the eighth grade level, are scoring at the proficient 
level; only 4 percent of African Americans; 8 percent of Latinos; 14 
percent of Native Americans; and 30 percent of the Caucasian children.
  But I would like to do more than show you the numbers. Here is a 
chart showing an excerpt from the recent NAEP writing test. I have 
heard too much on this floor that you cannot test kids, that the tests 
are too high stakes. I want to share this with you so you can 
understand how dire this situation is. I am a strong believer in tests. 
I believe we have to have some objective measure to see how well our 
children are doing or how poorly they are doing.
  Perhaps the tests should not serve as 100 percent of what we use to 
judge whether a child should be moved forward or not, but clearly, we 
have to have, as well as parents and taxpayers have to have, some way 
to judge if the children are doing well or not.
  For those who say we cannot test them, let me just read from a real 
test. This is from a fourth grader whose writing is rated 
``unsatisfactory.'' I am going to read it for you because you can 
hardly interpret it. But this represents what the National Assessment 
of Educational Progress rates as ``unsatisfactory.'' This was written 
by a fourth grader. He was asked to communicate a minimal description 
of his room. He writes:

       My room is very cool it white I got wester picture I got a 
     king sides bed I have wester toys I got wester wall paper on 
     my wall. I got wester t-shirt on my wall. I got

  That is a writing sample of a fourth grader whose writing was rated 
``unsatisfactory.''
  Let me give you a sample of writing that is rated as ``approaching 
basic'' for a child in the fourth grade. This would be at a minimum. 
All States are different, but these are the kinds of tests we are 
talking about supporting in this amendment. This fourth grader is 
``approaching basic,'' is not at ``basic'' yet. But this fourth grader 
writes:

       there to the left is my jeep and my cat. there to the right 
     is my swimming pool and my dog and my waterguns. And to my 
     left of my bed is my trampoline and maid. And by the wall is 
     my roller blades and my nantendo--

  spelled N-A-N-T-E-N-D-O--

       60 four.

  These two samples represent the writing skills of over 50% of those 
in public schools. 50% of these kids can't master spelling or 
formulating sentences. We have to do better than this in our public 
schools.
  So I just want to argue that life is high stakes. We have to be 
supportive of tests--not a Federal test, not something mandated from 
Washington--but we have to be about accountability, about real testing, 
so we can tell whether our children are reading, whether they are able 
to compute. We have to be able to identify what schools are not 
performing, not so we can punish the children or punish the parents, 
but so we can help them.
  In conclusion, let me say, again, times have changed. The status quo 
is not sufficient. The amendment we have outlined, the Three R's, gives 
greater investment, greater accountability, greater flexibility, and 
more choice. Hopefully, it will spur greater outcomes faster so that 
children do not lose the only opportunity they have--one life, one 
chance at education--so they can graduate with a diploma that means 
something and go on to have a job, a career, and build a life they can 
be proud of in the greatest democracy on the face of the Earth. To do 
any less is falling down on our job.
  No system is perfect. I will only conclude by saying that perhaps the 
amendment we offer is not perfect, but it is offered with great 
sensitivity and great commitment and great dedication, to urge both 
sides to try to move away from the rhetoric and move to recognizing the 
failings of the current system.

  We do not want to abandon public schools and move to total block 
grants or total vouchers, but we want to move to a bill that creates 
the right kind of partnership, where kids can learn, parents are happy, 
taxpayers are happy to give money because the system is working, 
teachers are feeling fulfilled--most importantly, children are 
learning. That is what our amendment attempts to do.
  I urge my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, with all due 
respect to the other issues that have been talked about, to adopt our 
amendment, to move us in a new direction, away from the status quo, to 
a chance where children can actually learn to read, to

[[Page S3643]]

write, and to compute, and to take advantage of the tremendous, 
unprecedented, historic opportunities that exist in the world today.
  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous agreement, the Chair 
recognizes the Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Louisiana for 
her insightful remarks, and particularly with regard to what is too 
common, where our schools are not performing and our students are not 
performing at the level at which they need to perform.
  We have a responsibility to make sure what we do in this body 
facilitates improvement in the system we have today--a system that has 
been in place for 35 years and is producing the kind of results that 
have been shown.
  This is certainly a time for review and change, for altering and 
improving. To suggest we cannot do that is beyond credibility. We 
absolutely can improve what we are doing. We need to. We have to make 
sure that what the Federal Government does is a positive event with 
regard to actual learning in the classroom--which is what this is all 
about--and not a negative impact on learning in the classroom.
  In a minute, I am going to share some examples of a Federal law that 
is absolutely undermining the ability of local school systems to 
educate, to create a learning environment where kids can reach their 
maximum potential. Wouldn't it be awful if we passed a law in 
Washington that actually made it more difficult to create a learning 
environment in the classrooms of America? The truth is, we have. We 
need to change that.
  I appreciate what the Senator from Louisiana said about testing. 
There are limits to what testing can show, but when you test thousands 
and thousands of kids all over a State, you can know whether or not 
those kids are basically performing at the grade level at which they 
ought to be performing. We can learn that from a test.

  I do not believe in a Federal test. That would be the Federal 
Government saying to the 50 States, that provide 94 percent of all the 
money for education in America: This is what your students must learn. 
If they don't pass this Federal test, they are not learning adequately, 
and therefore we have in Washington this school board of 100 Senators 
who would have to decide what is important and crucial in America.
  I do not believe in that. I think that would be against our history. 
It would be against the policy of this Nation since its founding 
because schools have been a State and local instrumentality. The 
Federal Government has only been able to assist marginally. In some 
ways, we have contributed to its downfall in undermining education.
  The test scores are important. Over a large number of people--not for 
every child--they give us very accurate indications of whether learning 
is occurring. I support that. In fact, I have been on the Education 
Committee a little over 1 year. We have many debates about 
accountability. Our friends on the other side of the aisle say: We need 
more accountability. Your plan, Sessions--this idea of turning more of 
the money over to the schools so they can use it as they see fit within 
their system--lacks accountability.
  But I say to you, the present system totally lacks accountability. 
The system that has been proposed by the Members on this side has 
absolutely the kind of accountability that should be part of an 
education bill.
  For example, we have approximately 700-plus education programs in 
America. Do you think that is not true? Would you dispute that with me? 
We have over 700 education programs in America, according to the 
General Accounting Office. Isn't that stunning? If a school system 
wants some money out of a program, they have to have a lawyer and a 
grant-writing expert just to find out where the money is and how it 
might be available to them. Many of these programs are ineffective and 
should not be continued.
  We have all of these programs. What our friends on the other side of 
the aisle are saying, too often, is--I don't think my friend from 
Louisiana is saying this, perhaps--if you don't have strict rules about 
how this money is spent, and you can only spend it for a specific 
thing, you don't have accountability.
  What do we have today in America? We have the Federal Government 
spending billions of dollars on education. We are pouring that money 
into schools right and left, and many of the school systems have a 
total inability to create a proper learning environment, and education 
and learning is not occurring.
  Is that accountability? They may be following all the paperwork and 
spending the money just as they said, but the fundamental question of 
education is learning. If learning is not occurring, then we are not 
having accountability, are we?
  What this program says to every school system in America--at least 
the 15 that choose it, and perhaps others in different ways, but 15 
States in this country, if they choose it, would be able to have a 
substantial increase in their flexibility to use Federal money, with 
less paperwork, less rules, and less complaints about how they handle 
it. The only thing they would be asked to do is to create a testing 
system and an accountability system in their school system that can 
determine at the beginning of the year where children are academically, 
and go to the end of the year and see if they have improved.
  What else are we here about? What is education about if not learning? 
That is the only thing that counts. That is the product of all of our 
efforts. It is not how many teachers, how many buildings, how many 
textbooks, or how many football fields they have. The question is, Is 
learning occurring? This way we would have that. The school systems 
would basically say to the Federal Government: Give us a chance. You 
give us this money and let us run with it. Let us create a learning 
environment we think is effective. Give us a chance and we will put our 
necks on the line. We tell you we are going to increase learning in the 
classroom and we are going to have an objective test to show whether or 
not we are doing it. If we don't do it, we will go back under all your 
rules and paperwork.
  There is a myth here, and some have denigrated the role of Governors. 
But I don't know a Governor in America who isn't running for office and 
promising to lead and do better in education.
  I see the Senator from Georgia. Do we have a time problem?
  Mr. COVERDELL. We are under a little bit of a constraint.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I will finish up soon.
  In Alabama, our general fund budget, where all the funds are 
appropriated, is $1.2 billion. The education budget in Alabama is 
almost $4 billion. Do you hear that? In Alabama, we spent almost $4 
billion on education and $1 billion on everything else. Do you think 
the Governor isn't concerned about that? Do you think the State 
legislature is not concerned about that? The primary function of State 
government in Alabama, and in every State in America, is education. 
That is where the responsibility needs to be, and that is where we need 
to empower them to use creative ideas to improve the system.
  I have offered an amendment on the subject of special education; IDEA 
regulations are disrupting our classrooms. We have examples in our 
State of two people bringing a gun to school and one being put back in 
the classroom because he is a special student. The other was kicked out 
for the year as is every other student. We have created a separate rule 
of law, a separate rule of discipline, by a Federal mandate from 
Washington, in every schoolroom in America.
  I have been in 15 schools this year in Alabama. This is one of the 
top concerns I hear from teachers and principals everywhere. They are 
concerned about that. I think I will talk about that later. I talked 
about it previously. I will also talk about this regulation, this 
Federal mandate, that is clearly not a help to the States but a major 
detriment. It is bigger and stronger and more burdensome than most 
people in this country have any idea. I think we need to talk about it 
more.

  I yield the floor at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, to clarify the sequence of events, we 
had a unanimous consent agreement that recognized Senators back and 
forth. We got off of it. I am going to suggest this.

[[Page S3644]]

 I have talked to the Senator from Florida, and we will hear from 
Senator Collins for a few minutes, then Senator Graham, then a 
Republican, and then Senator Lincoln. Then we will be back in order.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, are we going to break at 12:30?
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I think we will try to accommodate 
another 5 or 10 minutes so these Senators can be heard. I think the 
appropriate recognition would now be the Senator from Maine, briefly.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Florida. I rise 
to commend the Senator from Connecticut, the Senator from Florida, the 
Senator from Arkansas, the Senator from Louisiana, and all of those who 
have been involved in putting together the Lieberman amendment, for 
their efforts. It is a typical approach taken by the Senator from 
Connecticut to so many legislative issues, in that he is looking for a 
responsible and responsive approach that is innovative and attempts to 
bridge the partisan gap.
  I don't support all of the provisions of the Lieberman amendment, but 
I commend the Senator and his cosponsors for recognizing that we do 
need to take a new approach, that we need to focus on whether or not 
our students are learning, rather than focusing on whether paperwork 
and regulations are complied with.
  I commend the authors of this legislation for their efforts to focus 
the debate on giving States and local school boards more flexibility in 
using Federal funds to meet the greatest need in their communities. I 
also commend them for focusing on accountability, for making sure our 
Federal education efforts bear the fruit of increased student 
achievement, and help to narrow the gap that troubles all of us in the 
learning of poor children versus those from more affluent communities 
and affluent families.
  One of the reasons we need more flexibility in using Federal funds 
can be found in Maine's experience under two Federal programs. Maine is 
fortunate in having small classes. In the classes in Maine, on average, 
the ratio is only 15 to 1.
  So our problem and challenge is not class size. Yet Maine had to get 
a waiver to use the Federal class size reduction moneys for 
professional development which is, in many schools in Maine, a far 
greater need than the reduction of class size. One school board chair, 
from a small town in eastern Maine, wrote to me that they have received 
$6,000 under the Federal Class Size Reduction Program. Clearly, that is 
not enough to hire a teacher. They did receive permission from the 
Federal Government to use that effectively for professional 
development.
  But my point is, why should this school system, or the State of 
Maine, have to get permission from the Federal Government to use those 
funds for the vital need of professional development?
  The second example I have discussed previously, and it has to do with 
Maine's effort to narrow the achievement gap between poor and more 
wealthy students in high schools. Maine has done an outstanding job--
and I am proud of this--in narrowing the achievement gap between 
disadvantaged and more advantaged children in the elementary schools. 
In fact, it has virtually disappeared. So that is not the need under 
title I funds for the State of Maine right now. We still, however, have 
a considerable gap when those title I children get to high school.
  Maine came up with a very promising approach that was put out by the 
Maine Commission on Secondary Education that set forth a plan for 
narrowing the achievement gap among high school students. But, here 
again, it required a waiver from Federal regulations for Maine to use 
its funding for this purpose.
  So, again, I do think we need more flexibility and accountability. I 
commend my friends on the other side of the aisle for their steps in 
that direction. I hope we can continue to work and see if it is 
possible for us to come up with a bipartisan package we could support 
that would help bridge the partisan gap and make a real difference in 
the futures of our students.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, with the consent of my friend, Senator 
Coverdell, I ask unanimous consent that immediately following the 
scheduled vote at 2:15 there be 2\1/2\ hours remaining for debate on 
the Lieberman amendment, to be equally divided in the usual form, and 
that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to 
vote in relation to the pending amendment without any intervening 
action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Florida.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Maine for her 
very thoughtful remarks. She focused on the large issues that are 
appropriate for the Senate, and she spoke in the spirit of the 
importance of what we are dealing with, the future of American 
children, and the necessity that we approach it with a level of 
seriousness and bipartisanship. I thank her for her very succinct, 
extremely valuable contribution to this debate.
  In that same vein, I wish to share an observation that some of us 
heard recently by a prominent American historian, Steven Ambrose. He is 
best known for his numerous books on military history, particularly on 
World War II, but he has also written a Pulitzer prize-winning book on 
the Lewis and Clark Expedition--an expedition which opened up much of 
America to serious study and exploration. It was an expedition that 
took place between 1804 and 1806. It comprised traversing some 7,600 
miles of the recently acquired Louisiana Purchase in the northwest 
corner of the United States. What Mr. Ambrose pointed out is that the 
average length of each day of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was 15 
miles. But the techniques used by Lewis and Clark between 1804 and 1806 
were exactly the techniques that Julius Caesar would have used if he 
had the same assignment, which is to say that for a period of over 
2,000 years their had been virtually no progress in man's mastery of 
the field of transportation. Since Lewis and Clark, in less than 200 
years, we have had an explosion of transportation advancement. We are 
now in the process of building in space an international space station 
which will become the platform for which we will explore the universe.
  That is how much progress we have made in 200 years after 2,000 years 
or more of stagnation. What is the explanation? What has happened that 
last allowed us to make this much progress?
  According to this eminent historian, the single most significant fact 
that has allowed the 200 years of progress has been the fact that we 
committed ourselves as a nation--and much of the world--to the 
proposition of universal education; that we are allowing, for the first 
time in the history of mankind and in the last 200 years of America, 
hopefully, every human to reach their full potential.
  He used the example of the Wright brothers. If the Wright brothers 
had been born 100 years earlier--just four generations earlier than in 
fact they were born--by all accounts, given the nature of their family 
and its economic and social standing, both of the Wright brothers would 
have been illiterate, and therefore the world would have been denied 
the ingenuity which played such a critical part in all of these great 
advancements which now benefit all of us.
  We are not talking about a trivial issue. We are talking about a 
fundamental issue that has reshaped America and reshaped the world in 
the last two centuries, and which will reshape us again in this new 
21st century and the centuries beyond. We are dealing with one of the 
most basic issues facing the world and America.

  I am pleased that the Senate's new Democrats, with much of the 
membership having spoken on the floor this morning, have taken on this 
issue as our first contribution to the policy today in the Senate. That 
is, I hope, illustrative of the seriousness of our group and its desire 
to be a constructive part of helping the Senate and the American people 
develop policy in basic areas such as education.
  I think we would all agree that there are certain important 
principles that

[[Page S3645]]

we should look at as we approach what the Federal role should be in 
education. Those would include words such as ``accountability,'' 
``reward,'' ``excellence,'' and ``resources.''
  On February 5, I asked a group of Florida educators to meet together 
in Tampa to discuss what they believe, based on their professional 
experience, to be some of the priorities the Congress should look at as 
it reauthorizes the fundamental education act for our Nation, the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
  Here are some of the responses from this group of educators.
  First, not necessarily in priority on their points, was the 
importance of additional resources; that if we are going to achieve our 
purposes, we must have a Federal commitment as well as a State and 
local commitment which is commensurate to the challenge that is before 
us.
  The RRR response to this request: It will increase the Federal role 
in education by more than $30 billion over the next 5 years, the most 
significant increase in funding since the program was established in 
1965.
  To underscore the importance of this, we talked about the 
implications of this chart. This chart is an attempt to indicate what 
has happened in America over the last 150 years in terms of the 
requirements for self-sufficiency by an older adolescent or young adult 
in America.
  In 1850, there was a relatively limited amount of knowledge required 
to be self-sufficient. Literacy was not such a requirement. Many 
Americans functioned very effectively at a high level of self-
sufficiency without being able to read or write in 1850.
  Today, there has been a four-time explosion in the requirements of 
knowledge for an American to be self-sufficient. That explosion has not 
been a straight line. It has been an explosion driven by technology. 
Note the major increase in the knowledge demands that occurred in the 
late and early 20th century commensurate with the movement of America 
from a rural economy to an industrial economy. But the big increase has 
come well within our lifetime.
  Coincidentally, it almost starts at the time the first Elementary and 
Secondary Act was passed in the mid-sixties with an explosion of 
knowledge requirements as Americans entering the workforce had 
significantly greater expectations of what their skill level would be, 
particularly in areas of mathematics and communication skills.
  Mr. President, the second aspect of this chart is an attempt to 
indicate that one of the fundamental relationships in the acquisition 
of knowledge by Americans has been the relationship between what the 
family can contribute to that knowledge and what is provided by a 
formal educational institution, which we typically refer to as a 
school.
  In the 1850s, the family provided more than half of the knowledge of 
their children. Typically, they were doing so by educating the children 
to be able to read and write to achieve that level of literacy.
  It was the development of science and technology that began to effect 
the relationship of what a family and what a school was expected to 
provide to children's education. As science and technology has become 
more pervasive and more complex, the relative proportion of knowledge 
provided by the school and that which could be provided by the typical 
family has altered.
  Whereas, in 1850 the family was providing two-thirds of the 
education, today the school is providing about two-thirds of the 
education.
  The significance to me of this chart is the challenge that we as a 
society have to assure that all American children have an opportunity 
to acquire this much greater level of education; that our schools which 
are being called upon to provide a larger and larger share have the 
necessary resources--human resources, financial resources, and 
resources of support by the community--in order to carry out their 
responsibility.
  We are going to be voting shortly on some major trade agreements with 
Caribbean countries--Central American countries, African countries, and 
China. One of the recurring realities of all of those trade agreements 
is that we are opening our markets broader and broader to countries 
whose standard of living and whose per capita annual incomes are 
dramatically lower by factors of 20, 30, 40 times what they are in the 
United States.
  The only way the United States is going to be able to compete and 
maintain our standard of living is to assure that all Americans are 
getting this level of knowledge so that they can be full participants 
in the most effective and most competitive economy in the world--the 
economy of the United States of America.
  Again, this chart underscores the seriousness of the issue we are 
considering.
  We spent a good deal of time at that Tampa meeting with educators 
discussing this chart and its implications. The educators told me in 
addition to resources, they wanted more flexibility, the opportunity to 
adapt to the specific needs of the communities and the children they 
serve. That is the approach taken in the RRR program. We focus on 
results more than process and, thus, allow more flexibility to achieve 
those results. The educators said they don't mind accountability if 
there are resources there to realistically achieve the goals that have 
been sought. RRR demands accountability but provides the resources 
needed to accomplish these goals.
  Not only do we increase the total amount of resources by some $30 
billion over 5 years, we also target these resources to the children 
who are most in need. When President Johnson talked about America's 
role in education, he was specifically talking about the chasm that 
existed between the abilities of poor children and more advantaged 
children to achieve what would be required to be competitive in the 
world.
  The Federal role has been targeted at these at-risk children. We need 
to refocus our commitment. I am sorry to say there has been a tendency 
for the formulas that distribute Federal education money to succumb to 
the temptation to have everybody get some piece of the Federal dollar. 
The consequence of that is the funds have been so diluted we have been 
unable to focus a sufficient quantity on those children who need it the 
most and who are most dependent upon that additional Federal support in 
order to be able to achieve their educational needs.
  Our very focused and stated position in the RRR legislation is that 
we believe, as a nation, this Congress needs to recommit ourselves to 
the proposition that the purpose of Federal assistance is to aid those 
children who are most at risk and that we should demonstrate that 
commitment by having a formula that targets the money to those children 
who are greatest in need. With that, we can then talk seriously about 
accountability.
  The Senator from Alabama talked about what I call process or product 
accountability where we count the number of books in the library. There 
are other forms of accountability that assess overall student 
performance. The type of accountability we are advocating is an 
accountability that focuses on what the school and what the local 
educational agency can do to contribute to a student's educational 
attainment. It is what I describe as a value-added approach. How much 
did the school experience add to the educational development of the 
child?
  I have been very critical of the educational assessment program which 
is currently being used by my State, by the State of Florida. The basis 
of my criticism is it does not assess the value added by schools; 
rather, it is an assessment of the total influences that have affected 
a student's performance. The most fundamental of those influences has 
nothing to do with what the school contributed but, rather, relates to 
the socioeconomic status of the family from which the child came.
  I spoke on an earlier date and submitted for the Congressional Record 
a very thoughtful analysis of the Florida plan by a professor at 
Florida State University, Dr. Walter Tshinkel. In that assessment, Dr. 
Tshinkel took the schools in Leon County, FL, which is the county of 
which Tallahassee, the State capital, is the county seat, and observed 
that if you looked at the affluence and poverty statistics of the 
various neighborhoods in Tallahassee and Leon County and assigned a 
letter grade based on that data alone without testing a single student, 
that 26 of the

[[Page S3646]]

33 school districts in the Leon County School District would have 
received exactly the same grade as they did when student test scores 
were taken into account.

  That says to me what we have been essentially testing in Florida is 
not what the school contributes, but the socioeconomic status of the 
children who come into that school.
  Professor Tshinkel went on to say if, in fact, you did assess on 
value added, what the school had contributed, you had almost a reversal 
of results. Schools that got F's actually should have gotten A's 
because they did the most to advance the students for which they had 
responsibility, and the schools that got A's should have gotten F's 
because they started with a very advantaged group of students and did 
not make that great of a contribution to their educational advancement.
  RRR provides accountability for what the schools can be held 
accountable for, what they can reasonably contribute to a student's 
development and hence a student's performance.
  Another topic discussed at our Tampa roundtable was professional 
development. It was very helpful that most of those who participated 
were current classroom teachers. These teachers are yearning for new 
avenues for professional development, for the time to be able to take 
advantage of these opportunities. The RRR will allow this to happen 
with a major new national focus on seeing that all of our teachers--
those who are entering the profession and those who are at an advanced 
position as professional educators--have an opportunity to continue 
their professional development and enhancement. We can only do this in 
a comprehensive manner.
  We believe strongly these principles are a key to achieving the 
challenge that America faces to provide the knowledge necessary for all 
Americans to be able to compete effectively in this rapidly changing 
world in which we live.
  If this line on the chart of the increased need for knowledge to be 
self-sufficient in the world as it exists today is a harbinger of where 
that line would go in the 21st century, the challenge for American 
education and the challenge for this Congress to be responsive to the 
Federal role in education is a stunningly great challenge that requires 
the most serious attention of the Senate.
  I thank all of my colleagues who have contributed to this debate, who 
have worked to bring forward to the Senate a proposal I believe is 
worthy of our task. Every 6 years we have a chance to analyze the 
programs that affect American children, from kindergarten to the 12th 
grade. This should be an opportunity not just to tinker around the 
edges, not just to make minor course corrections, but to look at the 
challenge we face to assure all American children, particularly those 
who enter the classroom with the least advantages, will have an 
opportunity to be successful, and through their success to contribute 
to the success of America.

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