[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 88 (Tuesday, July 11, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H5827-H5831]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE GREATEST PROBLEM FACING AMERICA--ILLITERACY AND FUNCTIONAL LITERACY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Taylor of North Carolina). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I took this hour because I want to try to 
make sure that all the American people and all Members of Congress 
understand the greatest problem facing this Nation, and I repeat, the 
greatest problem facing this Nation. It is illiteracy and functional 
literacy. There are those in the chamber and out in the public who will 
say, Well, that is a local problem. There are others that will say, 
Well, that is a State problem. I want Members to understand it is 
neither a local problem nor a state problem, it is a national problem. 
Our survival as a great Nation will depend on whether we can attack the 
problem and whether we can solve the problem.
  Let me just point out a few statistics from the National Adult 
Literacy Survey. This goes back to 1992, and therefore these figures 
are much higher even today. Forty to 44 million out of 190 million 
adults demonstrate the lowest basic literacy skills. Approximately 50 
million adults have skills on the next higher level of proficiency. 
Forty-two percent of all adults who demonstrate the lowest basic 
literacy skills are living in poverty.
  Does that not sound like a national problem? It surely does to me.
  Adults in prison are far more likely than those in the general 
population to perform in the two lowest levels of literacy. Seventy 
percent of prisoners scored in the two lowest levels. This means they 
have some reading and writing skills. They are not adequately equipped 
to perform simple necessary tasks to survive in the 21st Century. Only 
51 percent of prisoners have completed high school or its equivalent, 
compared to 76 percent of the general population.
  I show the next chart simply to point out that many of those of us 
who serve in the Congress do not have the opportunity to serve large 
center city populations, and I show some of those large city 
populations: Los Angeles in 1997, 680,000 people; this city, 
Washington, D.C., 77,000; Miami, almost 346,000; Chicago, 477,000; New 
York, over 1 million; and on and on the list goes.
  Now, even though we do not have the opportunity to represent some of 
these larger populations, we also realize that many in these larger 
populations are in those low levels of literacy, and so we should make 
every effort to understand the obstacles they face, such as 
unemployment, or the inability to be their child's first and most 
important teacher.
  I want to repeat that: Inability to be their child's first and most 
important teacher. We found out a long time ago, unless some adult in 
that child's life can be that child's first and most important teacher, 
obviously you are not going to break the cycle of illiteracy. It will 
be too late by the time they get to first grade. Of course, their 
dependency on Federal assistance programs is well documented.
  Now, the future of the great Nation depends on our ability to 
understand these problems facing illiterate adults, and then to find 
ways to correct the

[[Page H5828]]

problems so they, too, can achieve the American dream.
  During the Sixties, Congress enacted a variety of programs to 
alleviate these problems stemming from illiteracy. The legislation was 
very well intended. Unfortunately, it was badly designed and badly 
formulated.
  For example, the emphasis of the program was on covering the largest 
number of children possible and making sure money got to the right 
place. There were no oversight provisions and little emphasis on 
program quality. As a result, as the Federal Government we spent a lot 
of Federal tax dollars with no measurable success in improving the 
literacy skills of those most in need during the first 10 years 
particularly of those programs.
  Head Start is one example. It started out as a program where they 
tried to see how many children they could cover, and used most of the 
money for that purpose. Unfortunately, there were very few early 
childhood people to be hired. There were none at $10,000, so the 
program became a baby-sitting program. The program became a poverty 
jobs program. Even today, with all the quality features that we have 
added in the last two reauthorizations, the Head Start teacher's salary 
is about $19,000 compared to the average K through 12 teacher's salary 
of $35,000.
  These programs were programs that were rightfully thought of in 
relationship to what are we going to do to save this Nation, because 
all great nations fall from within, and one of the ways for us to fall 
is to continue this large number and growing number of illiterate and 
functional literate.
  Being illiterate and functionally literate is nothing new. The 
difference, however, is at one time you could get a job, you could 
support a family. That is gone forever in this high-tech society that 
we now live in. A functional literate is no longer someone that can 
read and comprehend at 6th grade level. A functional literate is 
someone who cannot read and function well at a 12th grade level. This 
will just continue to grow and grow.
  Chapter I, the same story. It was certainly the right idea to try to 
make sure that you closed the achievement gap between the advantaged 
and the disadvantaged. Unfortunately, again, very little effort was 
made to design a program that could do that, and the auditors only 
looked to see whether the money got to the right place. They did not 
look to see whether there was quality in the program. So we did not 
close that achievement gap.
  Yet it was a block grant. I repeat, particularly for my side of the 
aisle, it was about as pure as it could be, a block grant, as long as 
you used the money for the children for which you were to use that 
money. How you did it was entirely up to you, and, as a superintendent, 
of course, we never knew how much money we were getting until October 
or November, when all the plans should have been made long before 
school began.
  In one of the recent reports, it said that in relationship to Title 
I, in the period covered by the study, children in high poverty schools 
began school academically behind their peers in low poverty schools and 
were unable to close this gap in achievement as they progressed through 
school. When assessed against high academic standards, most students 
failed to exhibit the skill and mastery in reading and mathematics 
expected for their respective grade levels. Students in high poverty 
schools were by far the least able to demonstrate the expected levels 
of academic proficiency.
  We got the same results from the 1998 NAP test, again, pointing out 
that a large number of children in poverty schools, in low performing 
schools, with low expectations, were doing very, very poorly on the NAP 
reading test, scored below basic on all of these tests.
  I realized as a superintendent that I was not using Title I money 
very well. No one was, because, as I said, half the time we got the 
money long after school began. No one said what it was we were to 
accomplish, so I did what most did, we decided somehow or other we are 
going to teach junior high school and senior high school children how 
to read. We did not know how to do that. Little or no research was 
there to help us, and no one equipped to do it.

                              {time}  1945

  So we said, well, we will bring first grade teachers in, our best 
reading teachers in first grade. Of course, that was a disaster 
primarily because, first of all, they were not used to dealing with 
teenagers. They did not understand, first of all, that the one thing 
that these teenagers did not want to admit was the fact that they could 
not read. Secondly, they really did not see the necessity of this order 
to be able to read. So that did not work either.
  I finally said to an early childhood staff member, an outstanding 
member on my staff, we know every parent that did not graduate from 
high school. We know every older brother and sister that did not 
graduate from high school. Is there not something we can do to prevent 
that from repeating itself with all of the rest of the members of the 
family and their children and their grandchildren? And she said, yes. 
We can make very, very sure that every child who comes to first grade 
is reading-ready. I said, good. How are we going to do that? Well, we 
will take our Title I money and we will work with 3 and 4 year olds, 
but we will also work with their parents because, as she said, it is 
very, very important that the parent can be the child's first and most 
important teacher.
  It was amazing to not only watch what happened to these children, but 
to watch what happened to the parents, parents who would never come to 
a PTA meeting, who would have been embarrassed. When they got the 
necessary literary skills and when they understood what it is one can 
do to help a preschool child to become reading-ready, they not only 
became participants in school activities, PTA, et cetera, but they 
became leaders.
  That is an experience that encouraged me to introduce the Even Start 
program which I introduced many, many years ago as a member of the 
minority. I was told at that particular time that as a member of the 
minority, you are not going to get any program, I will guarantee you. 
Then when I got the program, they said, now I will guarantee you you 
will never get any funding, but we got funding, because we convinced 
enough people that if we are going to break the cycle of illiteracy, we 
have to deal with the entire family. I do not know why it took us so 
long in this country to understand that, but it has taken us a long, 
long time.
  Looking at the next chart, I have critics who say, well, the program 
has not worked very well. I want to point out, when we look at a study 
of intensive, high-quality Even Start programs and we do it in a 
scientific manner, we will discover the following: 62 percent of those 
seeking certification from the program got their GED, got their high 
school certification. Fifty percent of those not currently enrolled in 
an education or training program are now employed. Forty percent of the 
parents continue to seek employment and enroll in education and 
training programs. Forty-five percent of the families reduced or 
eliminated their reliance on public assistance. I would say that is a 
pretty effective program. How nice it would be to duplicate that over 
and over again all over this country.
  Children are ready to enter kindergarten, as indicated by their 
teachers. Eighty percent of the Even Start youngsters rated as class 
average or above. Seventy-five percent of third grade children from 
Even Start continue to perform average or better in their classes as 
judged by their teachers, which is something we have never been able to 
accomplish before, because there never seemed to be a carryover with 
any of our preschool programs. Children perform well on formal 
assessments, 60 percent at average or better in reading, 80 percent in 
language, and 70 percent in mathematics.
  Looking at the next chart, because it deals with what I just talked 
about, as to what the benefits are for the children, if we could just 
wait for the next chart, but first, this is what I just indicated is 
how we have helped the children in the Even Start program.
  Now, looking at the next chart, what has it done for parents? We will 
discover that parents spend more time supporting the education of their 
children at home, including helping with homework, reading, and 
playing, helping that parent become the child's first and most 
important teacher.
  So many of us in the Congress do not understand that that is not the 
typical family that we think is out there. They

[[Page H5829]]

need this kind of help. Parents are more active in their children's 
schools after attending Even Start programs; parents become 
contributors to their communities through working in schools, 
neighborhood development organizations and neighborhood improvement 
projects. Additionally, 4 years after exiting the Even Start program, 
the average savings to the taxpayer each year in welfare costs is 
enough to pay the cost for one family for one year in the program. In 
essence, the program pays for itself.
  Now, to make sure that we do not get trapped in the same trap we were 
caught in as far as Head Start was concerned where we did not go out 
early on and talk about quality and make sure that, as a matter of 
fact, there were quality programs helping children, and did not insist 
that in Head Start they deal with the parents, in order to make sure 
that that does not happen in Even Start, we have developed the Literacy 
Involves Families Together Act, the LIFT Act. As I said, we put the 
improvements in there to make sure that all of these programs that I 
talked about in these surveys, programs of excellence, will be the 
program all over the United States. We will not have weak programs.
  But it was amazing when I read this weekend an article in my local 
newspaper and it was about Even Start. Now, one editor of one 
publication who is supposed to be totally concerned about families did 
not believe that the Federal Government should be involved in Even 
Start because that means getting involved in family lives. What a 
tragedy. If one is really a supporter of families, if that is one's 
aim, if that is what one's group does, then it seems to me the first 
thing one can do to help preserve that family is to make sure that one 
has a literate family, to make very, very sure that one has literate 
adults in that family, so again, that they could keep the family 
together, because they can get the jobs in order to move up the scale, 
so that they can provide for their families. But, most importantly, so 
that they can be the child's first and most important teacher.

  If one is involved in one of these family groups, one has to get 
behind these kinds of programs. Because, first of all, why should these 
people not have the same opportunity to home school as anybody else? Is 
that not what we say oftentimes as a family group, how important that 
home schooling is? Why should these parents not have the same 
opportunity? They do not, until they get the literacy skills that they 
need in order to do that.
  Unfortunately, what I worry about is that so many of us, our concept 
of a family, the traditional nuclear family of 2 loving parents and 
grandparents, is for 50 percent of the youngsters in this country, a 
pipe dream. That is all it is to them.
  Now, I do not understand why that editor does not understand that, 
and I surely do not understand why her boss does not understand that, 
who is much older, because I learned 60 years ago that my idea of what 
a family was and is was not quite right in relationship to many other 
children in this country. Sixty years ago I left, after 8 years in a 2-
room country elementary school, finished 8th grade and therefore I had 
to go on then to Center City for junior high school and then senior 
high school. When I arrived in Center City, and this was a small city, 
and that was 60 years ago, I discovered that there was not a loving 
mother and father for every one of these children that I am now 
attending school in Center City with. There is not a loving grandparent 
living next door. There is not a parent home who is literate enough to 
be the child's first and most important teacher. The reality is that 
many children today do not have such a family, and anybody who is out 
there promoting families and who constantly talk about the importance 
of the family, and that is what their organization is all about, 
certainly has to understand that.
  Mr. Speaker, similar arguments were made when we tried to consolidate 
over 60 job training programs spread over every agency downtown. The 
left-hand did not know what the right-hand was doing, and people were 
not getting the proper job training for the programs and the jobs that 
were available in the 20th and now the 21st century. But we got the 
same argument again, that somehow or another, we are going to place 
these children in little cubby holes from the day they are born, and I 
suppose they believe that every child should be a 4-year college 
graduate. What would they do? We only need 25 percent of our population 
as 4-year college graduates to do the jobs that are available and will 
be available.
  Now, this article also quoted in one of the local newspapers that 
Members of Congress were saying, well, there are mixed reviews about 
the success of Even Start. Of course, what they were talking about was 
there was a question in relationship to the evaluation of these 
programs, and I agree there was a question about the evaluation. That 
is why we had an evaluation done that met all of the requirements that 
we need if we want to have a legitimate evaluation. And we used the 
evaluations that the gentleman is talking about to improve the Even 
Start program and, as I indicated, our LIFT legislation does.
  For example, one of the evaluations pointed out the need for 
intensive services in Even Start projects. The law was modified to 
require intensive services for participants. So again, the current 
Literacy Involves Family Together Act continues to make modifications 
to Even Start to improve the program quality and strengthen the 
evaluation. In each area, scores for participants at the end of 1996 
were compared to those at the beginning of that year with Even Start 
participants showing significant improvement in each area.
  Looking at chart 6, Members occasionally say, but we need to spend 
this money on other programs, and one of the things that I hear 
constantly is that we need to get to the 40 percent of excess costs 
when we fund special education. I am glad to have these converts in the 
Congress. For 17 years I stood here myself, and about the only help I 
got was from the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) from the other 
side of the aisle, and later on, from the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer), saying that one does not mandate IDEA, but we pass laws that 
would tell local districts that if they do not do what we say they must 
do in Special Ed, they are going to be in trouble because of civil 
rights laws, et cetera. So the districts, of course, said, well, if we 
are going to have to do it, then we might as well do it exactly as the 
Federal Government says so that we do get some support. Because, after 
all, the Congress, when they passed it, said, we will give you 40 
percent of the excess costs to educate a special needs student. 
Sometimes, that is 10 times, 15 times, 20 times greater than when it 
costs to educate a nonspecial needs child. If we take the average cost 
over the United States several years ago to educate a K through 12 
child, it is about $6,300. If we gave 40 percent, we are talking about 
every Special Ed child should get $2,500 from the Federal Government 
for that purpose. Well, that did not happen. It did not happen. The 
last couple of years, I am happy to say, we are now beginning to work 
toward that mandate.
  This chart, for instance, will show, first of all, that this is what 
the President requested in 1997 in yellow, this is what the Congress 
did in 1997 in red, and on over, 1998, the same, yellow is the 
President, red is the Congress; 1999, and the year 2000.

                              {time}  2000

  So Members can see, we are finally working towards that. But I have 
told them every time I have spoken on the issue that unless we stop the 
overidentification, we can never get to 40 percent. There is not enough 
money in the world to get to 40 percent.
  Where does overidentification come from, primarily? It comes from the 
fact that children are in special education, and many times the only 
special need they have is the fact that they were not reading ready 
when they came to school. So there they are, at the end of first grade 
and they cannot read. They are either socially promoted or failed, and 
it pretty much ends really their enthusiasm and interest in school. 
Even though they cannot drop out until much later, they really dropped 
out, as far as improving academically.
  Well, do not then take the money from an Even Start program that is 
working and say that we are going to take it in order to fund special 
education. We are just complicating the

[[Page H5830]]

problem. If we cannot stop the overidentification because of reading 
problems, then we can never get to 40 percent. There is not sufficient 
money to do that.
  But it is much, were cheaper to make sure that children are reading 
ready. Again, I go back to the fact that that can only happen if some 
adult in their preschool life is able to be their first and most 
important teacher.
  So we have dramatically increased, 19 percent in 1997, 17 percent in 
1998, 13 percent in 1999, 16 percent in the year 2000, funding for 
Special Ed. The reason that is important is because the local school 
districts must take their money to fund the Special Ed programs, and 
they must take it away from all other students in order to do that.
  Looking at the next chart, I would point out, as I said, if we cannot 
stop the overidentification and if we cannot stop the number of new 
children coming in each year, these increases that I just talked about 
in money evaporate because the increases in numbers into the program 
continue to go up.
  So if we look at this chart, we will notice that in school year 1996, 
1997, we had $5.796 million in Special Ed Part B of IDEA, but if we 
look on, it was almost $6 million in 1997-1998; again, higher as an 
estimate in 1998-1999, because we do not have the exact figures. This 
coming year we are looking at $6.262 million as an estimate.
  So we have to stop increasing the numbers. One of the ways we stop 
increasing the numbers is to make sure that children are reading ready 
by the time they come to first grade. I again repeat that will be if 
some adult, their parent or some adult in their life, is functioning 
well as their first and most important teacher.
  Looking at the next chart, because in this newspaper article, 
remember, also, how many families can we help with $150 million? We get 
the argument all the time with the Job Corps. I had to fight to 
preserve it over and over and over again, because they said, it is 
expensive. Yes, it is expensive, but Job Corps is the last chance these 
young people will have. From that point on it becomes really expensive, 
because we are the victims of their crimes. They are incarcerated, and 
it becomes very, very expensive.
  But looking at this chart, when we talk about what can we do with 
$150 million, my answer is, a lot, a lot. We only had $14 million in 
1989, but we were able to serve almost 6,000 families: 6,000 families 
that were going to break this cycle of illiteracy, 6,000 families that 
were going to be able to get off of welfare, 6,000 families that were 
going to be able to climb the ladder of success and get out of poverty.
  In 1990, we got $24 million. That took us up to 16,000 families. In 
1999, we got to 49 million, and we were up to 38,000 families. The last 
figure we have is 1996, and we are up to almost 91,000 families; 91,000 
families, again, 91,000, many able to get their high school diploma, 
many went on to higher education, many went on to training programs so 
they could get a piece of the American dream. Many became that first 
and most important teacher in their child's life.
  See, the beauty of the program is that that is not the only funding. 
The program encourages significant financial contributions from States, 
from local businesses, and from the private sector for a very small 
Federal investment.
  This article also said that this Member wanted to make sure that we 
had an audited Department of Education. I do not know what this has to 
do with this, because we passed in the House of Representatives 
legislation and said we want that audit, and there is good reason to 
want that audit. I supported that. But it has nothing to do with Even 
Start.
  And it says that the audit of several Department of Education 
programs must happen. As I said, I supported that. The article also 
said that the person wanted an audit of AmeriCorps.
  Welcome to the crowd. When it came to the floor again, if Members 
will check the records, the one voice who spoke so loudly against it, 
not because it did not have merit but because it was totally 
misdirected as to how it should have unfolded, but when we think of the 
cost, it was promised as a program that was going to help young people 
get a college education; a pretty expensive way, because it is $29,000 
or $30,000 per person. Only about one-third of them have taken 
advantage of college.
  The major problem was that it set up a new bureaucracy, a new 
bureaucracy here and many new bureaucracies in every State to carry out 
the program. We had a college work study program already funded, 
already set up in operation, and all we had to do is say that a portion 
of that college work study grant had to be students participating in 
community service. Then we would have had all of the money to help more 
students, instead of paying bureaucracies in every State and in the 
Nation's capital to carry out the program.
  But I did not get much support, so I am glad to hear that there are 
some converts along that line.
  Let me just talk a little bit about this chart, because I want to 
point out just how different it is had we gone through work-study in 
relationship to bureaucracy and going through AmeriCorps.
  Members can see, this is the Federal involvement, the State 
involvement, the grantee organizations, and then the individual on this 
side. That is, by going through this creating a new bureaucracy. We see 
all those arrows to give us an indication of what I am talking about.
  Then we look on the other side and we see an existing work-study 
system already set up. We see how few arrows there are there, how few 
bureaucrats are involved in carrying out that program.
  The point I am making, of course, is that all of this money that 
these people are collecting could have been gone to help children, 
young people, become college students and college graduates. 
Unfortunately, the money went into the bureaucracy.
  Now, looking at chart 10, due to problems with illiteracy in the 
United States, we have had to go outside of the country to obtain the 
skilled work force required for many jobs. What a crying shame. We have 
had to go outside of this country to get the talent we need to carry 
out our high-tech employment opportunities and responsibilities. This 
will show Members what we have been doing as a Congress.
  One of the reasons that I am so tempted to vote against it this year 
is because of my fear that we will not tackle the problem domestically. 
We will not do anything about preparing our own to do these $40,000, 
$50,000, $60,000 jobs. We will just rely on going outside this country 
to get that kind of talent.
  Obviously, what is going to happen to our own people? Who is going to 
support them? The taxpayers that are fortunate enough to have the jobs, 
I suppose, to provide the tax dollars to do that.
  This shows Members what we have been doing. In 1998 we went outside 
the country to get the people we needed. In 1993, in 1994, and we keep 
going up. The real tragedy is, the next time we have to vote we are 
going to vote to increase 200,000 each year for 3 years. That is 
600,000 more people who we have to go outside of our country to bring 
in to do the high-tech jobs that are here.
  That means our people who are at low levels cannot climb that ladder 
of success, cannot hope to get a piece of the American dream. They are 
not prepared to do that. I have said over and over again that if we 
keep relying on this H1(b) Visa business we, too, will fall from 
within. There is no way we can possibly survive as a great Nation 
unless we can provide the necessary manpower to do the high-tech jobs 
that are out there.

  And high-tech jobs are going to become more high-tech. Wherever I 
speak, we used to say years ago, get that kid off the street and put 
him in the service. That will straighten him out. That is the last 
place I want to see them today. Those missiles will be coming back at 
us, rather than going where they are supposed to, because we have a 
high-tech military. Are we going to import people from other countries 
to provide the high-tech military that we need? We have to prepare them 
here in our own country.
  We then also get into this business of comparing apples and oranges. 
We just love to say how poorly we are doing, and we do a broad brush. 
We compare ourselves with other countries. We not only compare students 
who are in high-achieving elementary and secondary schools, we compare 
all students.
  We compare students where there is nothing expected of the student, 
no

[[Page H5831]]

high expectation. We will compare that with a Japan, where 50 percent 
of 3-year-olds and 92 percent of 4-year-olds are in school, most of it 
paid by public sources, some by private sources. In Germany, 53 percent 
of 3-year-olds and 78 percent of 4-year-olds are in school, almost all 
of which is publicly financed. In the United Kingdom, 47 percent of 3-
year-olds and 92 percent of 4-year-olds are in school, almost all of 
which is publicly financed.
  Then as we watch as they progress, oftentimes, and I guess it is 
still true in Japan, what they are going to do in life was pretty well 
determined by the kindergarten they got in. This was true throughout 
the industrial world. Oftentimes when someone got to middle school, 
that decision was not made by the person, what they were going to do, 
it was made by what the test results were.
  So we have to be careful when we compare apples with oranges when we 
say how poorly we do. Yes, 50 percent of our children unfortunately are 
in failing situations. Yes, it is a Federal issue. It is a national 
issue.
  Our forefathers would be dumbfounded that there would be those in the 
Congress who would try to hide behind what they have written as our 
founding documents to say that there is no responsibility on the 
Federal level in relationship to functional literacy and illiteracy in 
this country, that it is strictly a State and local responsibility.
  When I tried to improve Title I, I got the same story from our side 
of the aisle, Oh, we cannot demand excellence from those programs. 
Well, it is the taxpayer who is paying for the program. Should we not 
demand excellence for the money we are spending, the taxpayers' 
dollars?

                              {time}  2015

  Let me close by reading an editorial I recently saw in the Easton 
Express Times, which is a newspaper that is not in my district, but in 
the State of Pennsylvania, and I will just read a portion of it. ``The 
Even Start learn-to-read program deserves increased Federal funding. 
Few things can narrow people's lives more than being unable to read. 
While other ways exist to get news and information about the world, 
illiteracy keeps its victims from reading danger warnings, 
understanding provisions of a contract, or discovering the joy that a 
good book, magazine or newspaper can provide. It can also limit a 
workers advancement or prevent employers from hiring workers,'' as I 
just pointed out how we are going outside this country to get all of 
those workers, ``certainly a present-day problem with low unemployment.
  ``Thus, it is entirely appropriate for the Federal Government to 
continue to take the lead in sponsoring programs that will empower 
people by teaching them to read. One such program, Even Start, which 
has been in place for 6 years locally in Easton is under the funding 
microscope.
  ``Even Start teaches parents how to read so they can work with 
preschool children on reading, and also provides preschool care and 
education.''
  The project director says ``the program's goal is to break the cycle 
of illiteracy and poverty by improving educational opportunities for 
poor families. Further, programs like Even Start serve as a sound 
investment to prevent the continuing cycle of poverty.''
  And then the editor says ``who among us would argue against breaking 
the changes that link many people to a life of destitution? Who 
indeed.''
  I repeat, how can we say it is anything other than a national problem 
when it is probably the one major problem facing us that could bring 
this great Nation down from within.
  Mr. Speaker, I would encourage all on my side of the aisle to 
understand that what we may think of as that ideal family and the help 
that they get from their parents may not be true for 50 percent of the 
youngsters in this country; they need our help. We need them for a 
great future.

                          ____________________