[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 113 (Thursday, September 21, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H7971-H7977]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       EDUCATION IN TODAY'S WORLD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, who we are proud of 
as a Hoosier; and, as he has announced his retirement this year, he 
will be missed.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about, in a bipartisan way, an 
issue that I think is the most important issue to my constituents in 
the great State of Indiana, whether I go to South Bend or Elkhart, La 
Porte or Michigan City or Middlebury or all over Indiana. Business 
leaders, parents, workers are talking about the importance of a great 
education system.

                              {time}  1415

  It has been said, as education goes, so goes America. We need in this 
great hallowed Chamber to be able to discuss in civil and bipartisan 
ways new ideas that will lead to a better education system.
  Today in the Committee on Education and the Workforce, we were 
fortunate to have, not so much an expert on education issues as an 
expert on economic and fiscal issues, the chairman of the Federal 
Reserve, Alan Greenspan testify before our committee.
  We talked at length with Mr. Greenspan about how intimately education 
is tied to the health, competitiveness, the betterment of our civil 
society. We can have low inflation. We can have low unemployment rates. 
We can have low mortgage and interest rates. But if we do not have a 
prepared citizen rate, if we do not have great schools and quality 
teachers, if we do not have discipline in the schools and parents being 
involved in our children's education, then we are not going to have a 
continued productive economy.
  So Mr. Greenspan was up before Congress to say to us, Democrats and 
Republicans alike, that we have to do a better job in math and science 
education and enticing our best and brightest people into teaching, 
whether that be at 18 years old or at 48 years old in mid career.
  Now, I have a number of my colleagues that want to join us on the 
floor today to talk about the importance of education, some of the new 
ideas that we have talked about and fought for and articulated through 
the months.
  We have talked about parental involvement which is one of the biggest 
indicators to success. We have talked about quality teachers and making 
sure that we get the best and brightest into the teaching profession.
  We will talk a little bit more about a bill that the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Davis) and I have introduced to try to entice people who 
want to move from Main Street into our classrooms with math and science 
and technology expertise.
  We will talk, maybe, a little bit about class size and how class size 
is such a large determinate about how effective a quality teacher can 
be. There is a huge difference between a class of 16 and a class of 26.
  About professional development opportunities for our teachers, a 
recent survey indicated that 80 percent, 80 percent of those teachers 
that were polled said that they did not feel comfortable integrating 
technology into the curriculum and that they needed more opportunity 
for professional development.
  We will probably talk a little bit about safe schools, drug-free 
schools, and discipline in our schools, and all of that within the 
context of local control of our schools, making sure there is 
accountability at the local level, that we give resources and we target 
programs for our local communities, and they make decisions.
  So let me include some of my colleagues, Mr. Speaker. I know the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), my good friend who serves on the 
Committee on Education and the Workforce, has talked at length about a 
number of these issues, including his concern for academy for 
principals and teachers, for leadership programs for these individuals 
running schools, about parental involvement in schools as being such an 
important indicator. He was in the committee hearing this morning when 
we had Mr. Greenspan.
  Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Kind).
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Roemer) for yielding me this time and for allowing me to participate 
during this special order on what really should be the top priority, 
the top issue for this country of ours.
  We have had a tremendous run with economic success and growth in 
recent years. We have heard testimony today from the chairman of the 
Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, on the Committee on Education 
and the Workforce, very enlightening and in-depth testimony about the 
important role of ramping up the quality of education and the 
implications for maintaining economic growth and expanding the 
opportunity for economic achievement in this country.
  We also had a wonderful second panel that testified as well with 
leaders in the education field who came, Mr. Haseltine, who is CEO of 
the Human Genome Science project; as well as Mr. Barrett, CEO of Intel 
Corporation talking about some of the innovative things that the 
private sector is doing to partner with the public sector to improve 
the quality of education.
  There is no question that we face challenges as a Nation in order to 
meet the growth needs that this economy has, but to expand the 
opportunities for success for all people and especially for our 
children in this country as we embark on what appears to be an 
incredible journey in the 21st century of scientific discoveries and 
wonders that are hard to imagine at this time.
  Mr. Haseltine from the Human Genome project, for instance, testified 
about the implications of not emphasizing enough math and science and 
engineering and technology in the classroom and the adverse effects 
that could have, then, on our ability to stay at the forefront of these 
discoveries.
  I happen to think that it is, not only good economically to do this 
to prioritize education in the country, but there are national security 
implications as well.
  I do not think it is too bold to predict today that, with the Human 
Genome project, the mapping of the human body, the possible discovery 
of water on Mars, and a moon off from Jupiter, and the tremendous 
amount of biotechnological discoveries, medical breakthroughs, 
scientific breakthroughs, we are probably going to see more of those 
discoveries in the next

[[Page H7972]]

10, 15, 20 years than we have seen discoveries in the last 300 years in 
this world.
  With that comes the challenge that this democracy and other 
democracies have around the globe that we need to do everything we can 
to get there first in making these type of scientific and medical 
breakthroughs, because they will have a profound effect on the course 
of human events. There are no guarantees that these scientific and 
medical discoveries will necessarily be used for good purposes to 
improve the human life.
  But I have more confidence that the democracies, if we make these 
discoveries first, will better shape these new discoveries for the 
betterment of mankind as opposed to some type of authoritarian or 
dictatorial regimes somewhere else on the globe making these 
discoveries.
  So it is kind of a national security issue that we are talking about 
as well why we need to have a national effort to improve the quality of 
education for our kids, an effort not unlike what we saw during the 
challenges posed to this country and to the free world during the 
Second World War where everyone in this country had a role to play, and 
the collective energy and resources of a Nation were brought to bear in 
order to achieve the common objective of defeating Nazism, fascism, the 
Japanese Empire in the Pacific. It was an incredible event in world 
history that the democracies were able to rally and accomplish that 
feat.
  I think we face the same type of challenge in the education system 
now where it is not going to just take policymakers or just parents or 
teachers or principals being involved but every member of this country, 
everyone in our society should have a role in improving the quality of 
education.
  A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to tour a lot of the elementary 
schools back in my district. At the time, I was releasing a report, a 
survey, a district-wide survey on the progress of reducing class size, 
knowing the success that that has reached in areas that have been 
successful in reducing class size, resulting in enhanced student 
performance as a result.
  The survey for western Wisconsin shows that we are doing a pretty 
good job. There are some holes. Improvements still need to be made. But 
we are doing a pretty good job of bringing those class sizes down so 
that the teachers have more individual attention with the kids. There 
is better discipline with the classroom, more safe school districts as 
a result, but we need to do more in that area as well.
  We heard some testimony today about the important role that parents 
play in the child's education. That is the number one factor to 
determine how well a child is going to succeed in the education system, 
how involved parents are going to be in their own children's education.
  Now, with the advent of technology and e-mail in particular, more and 
more parents are able to get more directly involved in the school 
system and what is happening in the individual classroom affecting 
their child through increased communication with the teachers of their 
kids and through the principals and superintendents of school 
districts, being able to communicate in a much more effective and 
efficient manner through the Internet and e-mail messages back and 
forth. I think it is a wonderful development.

  But we also know that, after parental involvement, the next most 
important determinate is the quality of teachers in the classroom. We 
heard consistently from Chairman Greenspan and others on the panel 
today the importance of professional development making to ensure we 
get the resources to the teachers so that we have the best and the 
brightest, as the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) indicated, in the 
classrooms making the difference that they can.
  There, too, we face a huge challenge as a Nation, a 2.2 million 
teacher retirement over the next 10 years. It is both a challenge and 
an opportunity. The challenge is to fill those vacant spots. The 
opportunity is to fill it with good quality people that are going to 
make a difference in the classroom.
  That is one of the reasons why I and many other Members, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) and also the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Etheridge), introduced the Ed-Tech bill, Education-
Technology bill, which will provide more resources back to local school 
districts for the professional development of teachers of how best to 
use this new powerful learning tool, the technology and the Internet, 
and the numbers that that brings to the classroom and how they can 
better integrate that technology into the classroom.
  Now, computers and the Internet and all these fancy programs on the 
computer are not going to replace good teachers. That will never 
happen. But it can certainly empower the teachers to be much more 
effective and efficient in connecting with the kids and enhancing 
student performance in the classroom. So those are just a few of the 
issues that I wanted to raise today.
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) probably has very similar businesses and schools 
and farms to what I may have in Indiana. I constantly find, as I visit 
both my small businesses and my big businesses and my unions and my 
chambers, that there is an overwhelming concern, probably the number 
one concern within the business community, and it was expressed very 
well today by the second panel, by people from Intel and other major 
corporations, international corporations, that we need to do a better 
job in this country of training our people in technology and math and 
science and school.
  The business community makes this oftentimes their number one 
concern; that when one walks out of an Indiana high school or Wisconsin 
or Florida or North Carolina or California high school, that that 
degree means that one should be able to walk right into a business at 
the local community and have certain requisite skills so that one is 
employable or can continue one's education someplace else.
  We need to continue to challenge our public schools, which are doing 
a very good job, but we need to have them do an even better job in this 
challenging global economy.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield again?
  Mr. ROEMER. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, just for one final thought on this subject. I 
was very encouraged. In fact, we are seeing a new awakening within the 
business community about how inextricably linked their future success 
and growth needs are to the education system.
  We are seeing many more private-public partners being formed and 
creative ideas coming out of the private sector of how they can assist 
in improving professional development with the teachers, getting the 
technology into the classroom, making sure that every child, regardless 
of where they happen to be living and growing up, are going to have 
access to the important technology so we can close this digital divide 
and raise all our kids up so they can be competitive in what is going 
to prove to be a very tough and very competitive marketplace following 
their education careers.
  So that is, I think, a very positive and encouraging development, and 
I know many of us on the committee and within the new Democratic 
Coalition in particular are finding creative ways of how we can foster 
and encourage this type of private-public partnership to achieve common 
objectives. I think it is the direction we need to be going in. Right 
now, from what I see, there is a lot of hope and promise in this 
direction.
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Kind). I believe that that really leads us to an issue that is a very, 
very important one and vital one to me; and that is the quality of 
teachers in our schools.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis) and I have introduced a bill 
that seeks to find some new ways to bring people in mid career, maybe 
off of Main Street, maybe an accountant, maybe somebody with expertise 
in computer technology, somebody with expertise in math or science, 
from the private sector into the public realm of teaching. It is not a 
way to circumvent tough standards or teaching requirements, it is a way 
to still demand that that teacher has to be able to meet stringent 
tests to convey knowledge to kids in the classroom. But they do not 
necessarily have to go back, as a 20- or 21-year-old, to Ball State or 
Indiana University or Saint Mary's and go back

[[Page H7973]]

to graduate school; that there are other ways of doing this in this new 
global economy.

                              {time}  1430

  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis) and I have worked for about a 
year now on this bill. We have some bipartisan support for this bill. 
We almost got it enacted into law last year; we hope it will be enacted 
this fall. I know that he has worked very, very hard on this bill and 
had a number of conversations with the White House and with Republicans 
and Democrats and almost anybody who will listen.
  I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis) 
to talk about the importance of quality teaching.
  Mr. DAVIS of Florida. I think it is important to emphasize exactly 
what the problem or challenge our Nation faces. Over the next decade, 
we are going to have to hire over 2.2 million new schoolteachers in 
this country. It is a result of demographics, as many of our very fine 
teachers begin to reach retirement age, and also the terrific growth we 
are experiencing in all levels of grades today. In Hillsborough County 
in Tampa we are going to have to hire 7,000 new teachers over the next 
10 years, and we are still struggling to find teachers to fill classes 
that started several weeks ago.
  So how do we go about meeting this demand and treating this as not 
just a challenge as far as quantity but also quality? What can we do to 
really ensure that we attract the very best people to our classrooms to 
teach our children?
  The Federal Government has sponsored a program known as Troops to 
Teachers, which was started by Senator John McCain and others, which 
has encouraged military retirees to move from the military into the 
classroom. Over 3,000 men and women have done this, about 270 in the 
State of Florida; and there have been some very good results. A lot of 
these men and women are there because they want to be there, they bring 
their life experience into the classroom, and they really have done a 
lot of great things.
  In my hometown, I know of one Vietnam veteran who started a course on 
the Vietnam War, as a social studies class in high school; something 
the school district never could have provided otherwise.
  So building on that success, the bill that my colleague, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), and I have introduced, along with 
other Democrats and Republicans, and that Senator Bob Graham has 
introduced with other Senators in the Senate, would expand the program 
to anybody. It could be a retired fire fighter, a retired policeman, a 
retired businessman or businesswoman, or lawyer. We are trying to move 
people from the fire house or the police station on Main Street to the 
schoolhouse on Main Street, from the board room to the classroom.
  Increasingly we are hearing from lots of people who have said this is 
something I am willing to do. I want to give something back to the 
community. I feel my life experience qualifies me to be a teacher. I am 
not afraid to meet those same high standards that every other teacher 
has to meet. Because we do not change those standards. We are simply 
trying to encourage people to make that transition into teaching.
  Our bill provides up to $5,000 as a grant to cover tuition and fees 
for someone who wants to go back to school to be a teacher and to pass 
the certification in their State. Our bill, also very importantly, 
provides funds that are available to any group that wants to encourage 
people to consider teaching as a second profession. It could be a 
chamber of commerce, it could be a university, it could be a labor 
union, it could be a not-for-profit organization. There are a lot of 
people out there that want to do this, and there is no reason why 
Congress should not take the lead and step up and call attention to 
this and facilitate people who really, on an individual basis or on 
behalf of a group, want to step up and help deal with this challenge.
  So I simply cite this as one example of what we can do, among many 
others, if Democrats and Republicans will come together in the closing 
days of this session of Congress and deal with things that will really 
help our school children at home.
  Mr. ROEMER. If the gentleman will yield, and the gentleman has 
probably had this happen to him on occasion too, but I have 
constituents in my home State of Indiana that know how active I have 
been on this issue and how enthusiastic I am about this idea, who walk 
up to me saying, when can we do it? I was fortunate enough, they say, 
to make a little bit of money over the last 20 years of my career in 
accounting, and now I want to give back to the community and I want to 
go into teaching. And if I can pass that stringent exam at the State 
level and if I can do an able job in that classroom of conveying that 
knowledge, I want to teach.
  The business community is very excited about this idea. The high-tech 
community is very excited about this idea. As the gentleman noted, 
Democrats and Republicans have supported the idea. I know the gentleman 
has probably seen some success in Florida with this idea and people 
trying it too.
  Mr. DAVIS of Florida. I have, and I have talked to men and women who 
have said to me, I want to make the transition; but before I start my 
job and earn a salary, I need a little help paying my tuition.
  That is one of the purposes of the bill, to provide up to a $5,000 
grant. And in return, and this is important to taxpayers, in return for 
receiving this grant, that teacher will have to spend at least 3 years 
teaching in a school that has a high need for teachers. Many of these 
are our most challenging schools. Many of the teacher positions that go 
unfilled are in math and science and special education, and there are 
people who have excelled in math and science who want to give something 
back who will make terrific teachers.
  There is no reason we should not get this done. We have a perfect 
opportunity to be a part of the solution. The President has proposed 
$25 million to fund this. Senator Mike DeWine in the Senate is a strong 
supporter of this proposition. We need to get it done in this session 
of Congress, and we need to be part of the solution in dealing with the 
increasing shortage of teachers.
  Mr. ROEMER. I appreciate the gentleman's hard work and articulation 
of why this is such an important piece of legislation. And the 
gentleman has noted that we have Senator DeWine, a Republican from 
Ohio, and Senator Graham, a Democrat from Florida, trying to work the 
Senate side on this. We are certainly working with Republicans and 
Democrats here in the House to try to get this passed as well.
  The gentleman mentioned that we based our bill on a previously 
successful program called Troops to Teachers, where we have somewhere 
between 3,000 and 4,000 individuals, many of them still in high-need 
areas where we have a paucity, a shortage, of qualified teachers; where 
turnover and retention is even higher in some of these rural and inner-
city areas. These individuals have brought specific, for the most part, 
math and science skills into many of these schools. So it has been a 
winner for public education, it has been a winner for a transition from 
military to other civilian life, and it has been a winner in terms of 
retention problems that we are having to deal with in public education.
  Mr. DAVIS of Florida. The most recent example of this, if the 
gentleman will yield, is the New York City School District. The 
chancellor of the New York City School District, Mr. Hal Levy, has 
instituted a program he calls the New York Teaching Fellows; and he is 
succeeding in inspiring men and women to leave their jobs and go into 
teaching.
  We need to be a part of that solution by having financial aid 
programs that are tailored to help people pay their bills while they 
are making the transition into teaching.
  Mr. ROEMER. I thank the gentleman from Florida for his time and his 
hard work on this bill.
  The gentleman from Florida talked about men and women going into 
teaching, and I think Mr. Greenspan today also touched on that, in 
responding to a very important question from the gentlewoman from 
California, who also serves on the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce with me. I would like to yield to her to talk a little about 
a program she is working on about equity, about fairness, about women 
getting into math and science programs; and maybe she will further

[[Page H7974]]

articulate on what Chairman Greenspan talked about today in reference 
to her question.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, I thank the gentleman for inviting me to be part 
of this conversation with him this afternoon on this special order.
  I will be talking about my ``Go Girl'' bill, but before I do that I 
have a few other thoughts on education that I would like to share with 
the gentleman in this conversation. Because I think it all works 
together, by the time I get to my ``Go Girl'' thoughts, and how 
important it is that we have women in math, science, and engineering in 
this country.
  When I first came to Congress in 1993, my number one priority was to 
make education the number one priority in this Nation, and I was 
honored and delighted to be placed on the Committee on Education and 
the Workforce with the gentleman from Indiana. We sat side by side, if 
I remember correctly, and that was when the gentleman's first child was 
being born. So now 8 years later, the gentleman has a much larger 
family, and I have a few different ideas about education. My commitment 
has not changed, but what has changed is my understanding of what it 
takes for our children to be ready to learn when they enter the 
classroom.
  We can have the best schools and the best teachers in the world, and 
we must; but our children will not enter the classroom ready to learn 
if we do not take some steps that are missing right now. If we have the 
best schools and the best educators, it will not matter if they are not 
ready to learn. So let us face it, if today's children are lucky enough 
to have two parents living with them in their home, chances are that 
both parents are in the workforce, they work outside of the home, and 
it is our children that are being left behind. It is not parents' 
fault. They are working hard, they are commuting long hours, they are 
working long hours, and they are doing that for one reason only and 
that is to support their families.

  The fact is that 66 percent of our mothers with children under age 6 
are working; 77 percent of mothers of school-aged children have jobs. 
Compared to 30 years ago, parents are spending nearly 52 fewer days a 
year with their children. Fifty-two days less a year with their 
children. That is almost 2 months in time. So we have to give parents 
the tools they need to bridge the gap between work and family so that 
their children will be prepared to succeed when they become adults. I 
would suggest that there are some tools that we must include so that 
parents can do a better job and so that we can do a better job for 
parents and relieve some of their pressures.
  First of all, I believe we need to have universal voluntary 
preschool. I also would support paid family leave, school breakfasts, 
and quality child care programs, thinking of those four programs as 
being key to preparing children to be ready for school when they enter 
the classroom.
  I am the Chair of the Democratic Caucus's Task Force on Children, and 
we are heading up an effort to ensure that our children's needs are 
considered in every vote we take in this Congress, and that we develop 
a comprehensive children's agenda that will help to prepare our 
children for the challenges that they will face now and the challenges 
that they will face as adults.
  Paid family leave is a key tool. It is a tool we can use to make sure 
that our children get off to a positive start. Study after study has 
shown that the first three years are critical to a child's development. 
Provisions must be made for families to be with their children at this 
critical time at the beginning of their lives.
  I have introduced legislation with Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut 
to allow States to establish paid leave programs so workers can care 
for newborns or newly adopted children. We know that the Family and 
Medical Leave Act has done a lot to help families, but most families 
cannot afford to go without a paycheck. In fact, a recent study found 
that nearly two-thirds of employees who needed family leave did not 
take it because they could not give up their family's income. It is our 
children who are paying the price because their parents need to earn a 
living, and that is not right. Parents should not have to choose 
between financial stability and their children's emotional stability.
  We also have to look at the fact that learning does not start on the 
first day of kindergarten. Children are growing and changing from the 
day that they are born. By providing parents the option of 
participating in a voluntary universal preschool program, we will be 
giving all children, not just the parents who can afford to send their 
children to preschool, but all children a chance to start school ready 
to learn. Programs like Head Start and Early Head Start show us that 
pre-K programs work, and parents should have the option of enrolling 
their children in a structured, quality pre-K program.

                              {time}  1445

  As I have said, with parents working hard, children are spending more 
and more time in child care. So we must ensure that child care is 
available to all children and that child care will be able to ensure 
for these children that they will be ready to learn, also, so that the 
child care is quality child care, and oh, my, would it not be nice to 
pay child care workers what they really should be earning?
  But in particular, I want to talk about parents with infants and 
toddlers. They have the hardest time finding quality child care because 
they are working, especially those in the workforce that work 
nontraditional hours, weekends and nights, we need to do more so that 
there is child care available for children under age 3 and for parents 
that work nights and weekends.
  But it is just not young children who are coming to school 
unprepared. Our children in school also face challenges. Now, we have 
title XI of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act which I wrote 
and saw signed into law in my first term in 1995. We need to expand 
title XI, because title XI allows schools to use more of their Federal 
funds for in-school support services, so that their students and 
families have those services available and convenient to them, services 
such as after-school programs, mentoring programs, tutoring and 
counseling programs, really services that could help young people 
address their fears, their angers, their frustrations before they 
result in tragic consequences like we have experienced this last year 
at our high schools.
  Also, students cannot learn when they are hungry. It is proven that 
students who eat breakfast do better on tests, they are more well 
behaved in the classroom and they miss less school than those who do 
not eat breakfast. In spite of the good economy and because parents are 
so busy, many children, not only poor children, start the day off 
without breakfast. My pilot Federal school breakfast program which is 
under way in five school districts around the country is the first step 
toward universal school breakfast.
  So even within the classroom, many children face challenges. They 
face challenges that make it hard for them to receive a quality 
education, and we must have quality education accessible to all 
children. So that means building new, modern schools that are welcoming 
to those who are disabled, that provide the technical background and 
experience and equipment that they need so that they are all learning 
on a level playing field. And in the high-tech global economy we have, 
those that graduate without computer skills are going to be left 
behind, pointblank, they will be left behind, as if we were teaching 
kids without books or without pencils or without paper.
  That is why we have to make sure that minorities and women do not 
continue to lag in training in math, science and technology. Females 
make up slightly more than 50 percent of our country's population, but 
less than 30 percent of America's scientists and less than 10 percent 
of engineering graduates are women.
  That is why I have introduced, now we will talk about Go Girl, that 
is why I have introduced the Go Girl bill to encourage a bold new 
workforce of energized women who will go into math and science and 
technology careers, careers that pay well, careers that are in great 
demand. Go Girl is legislation that will create a mentoring program to 
help girls from the fourth grade, because it is shortly after the 
fourth grade when they become sixth graders and on that for some reason 
girls lose

[[Page H7975]]

interest in science and math. We have to do something to encourage them 
to become interested and to stay interested in high tech careers.
  I do not believe, as our colleague said earlier, that education is 
only a job for our teachers. We have to have parents involved in their 
children's education. It has been proven that parental involvement is 
what makes the difference quite often in a successful student and a 
failing student. Parental involvement needs to be made a national 
priority for all schools, all families, and all people. These are just 
some of the fundamental ideas that I have that I think we in Congress 
can do something about to ensure that education in America is the best 
in the world. We must not only look at school buildings but we have to 
have school buildings. We also have to look at the problems children 
face before they enter the classroom. Only by seeing the whole picture 
can we give every child a chance to learn and a chance to succeed.
  Children are only 25 percent of our population but they are 100 
percent of this Nation's future. Our children must have every 
opportunity to succeed because there are going to be many challenges in 
this 21st century. Their future depends on it and the future of this 
Nation depends on it.
  Mr. ROEMER. I thank the gentlewoman for her articulate comments in 
looking at education across the spectrum and across the board. She did 
mention the need to try to get to children at earlier and earlier 
stages because there is so much great, ripe potential there for our 
children to learn at 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 years old. She also serves on 
the Committee on Education and the Workforce. When we looked at the 
existing Head Start program that is about 35 years old and we tried to 
put more emphasis in the Head Start program on what we found out about 
how much more children can learn now in the year 2000 than what we 
suspected in 1965, we tried to move it a little bit more away from some 
sitting services to more quality education. But still we only have 
sometimes 40 or 45 percent of some of the eligible children enrolled in 
that Head Start program, and I know she is a big proponent of that 
early education and quality Head Start programs.

  Ms. WOOLSEY. It was a hearing with Dr. Ed Ziegler, the father of Head 
Start, that started me on the road to preparing children for school, 
even though I know my major effort is that all children have the best 
education in the world, but getting them ready for this education. We 
had a child care hearing and, of course, he was there to talk about the 
successes and some of the learning experiences of Head Start. Dr. 
Ziegler said, before we even started, ``I have learned that no matter 
how good we make Head Start, if we don't take care of our children and 
have parents involved with them the first, from zero to 3 years old, 
the best Head Start programs in the world will have less of a chance of 
success.'' When I talk about universal preschool, I use Head Start as 
my model. So the gentleman is right. We have to make that available, on 
a voluntary basis. We do not want to force people to send their 
children to preschool if they can keep them home and want to.
  Mr. ROEMER. I thank the gentlewoman from California. In reclaiming my 
time, with respect to Head Start and parental involvement, what we have 
also tried to do with that Head Start program is devise some programs 
at night for parents to come in and work with the children directly so 
that they gain some of the skills and education to help teach their 
children some of the things, or reinforce with the children some of the 
things that the Head Start programs are trying to teach their children. 
But the gentlewoman is absolutely right. The key indicator, the very 
most important indicator for a child's success in education is parental 
involvement. If those parents are not involved, we can have the teacher 
quality and we can have the professional development and we can have 
the local control and the good ideas to reinforce charter schools and 
public choice, but that parental involvement is so critically 
important.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. I think what the gentleman is referring to, teaching the 
parents at Head Start, is parents being the first teacher. That is 
where it starts and that is where it ends with our children. The better 
the parent knows how to parent and how to teach their children by 
example in general, the better that child is.
  Mr. ROEMER. I thank the gentlewoman from California for her very 
helpful comments.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to segue into, we talk about parental 
involvement in terms of being a key in respect to helping our education 
system improve, but we also need legislators here in this body that 
have direct experience with our schools and know what role we should 
play and what role we should not play. The gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) who I am going to yield to has got not only 
experience as a parent with some of his children teaching but he has 
got experience as a superintendent. The gentleman from North Carolina 
has worked tirelessly on education issues in this Congress, 
construction issues, education issues, quality teaching issues, 
technology issues.
  I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. I want to thank my friend and colleague the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) for yielding and secondly for hosting this 
special order today.
  I was seated there as the dialogue was going on and could not help 
but think, when I was the State superintendent of schools in North 
Carolina back in 1996 contemplating running for Congress, I could not 
help but think it is amazing what a few years have done to the dialogue 
in this body. In 1996, I was so irritated as State superintendent 
trying to work in my State of North Carolina with 1.1 million children 
and listening to the teachers and administrators so beaten down here in 
Congress, talking about abolishing the Department of Education, doing 
away with child nutrition, cutting moneys, block granting, all those 
things that scared the people to death who were out there nurturing and 
caring for children, many of whom came to school each day to the safest 
place that they would arrive, and we have talked about that, where the 
teachers had to feed them breakfast and love them before they could 
teach them because unfortunately they did not get the kind of nurturing 
that every child did have to come.
  It is good to know now we are having more dialogue now across the 
aisle about the ability of this Congress to do something. I am glad our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are starting to pay some 
attention. I hope that before we finish this 106th Congress that we 
will heed to a number of the issues that have been addressed already 
but which I will not try to repeat. But I think it is important, a 
number of the pieces that you have worked on and been a cosponsor on. 
The whole issue of character education that we have included not only 
in higher education but now we have included in the reauthorization 
act. I thank the gentleman for his help on that. We have used it in 
North Carolina and it absolutely works in increasing academic 
achievement and reducing discipline in our schools.
  I sought this office when I came to Washington for only one reason 
and really one reason only. I wanted to come and help change the tone 
of the debate. I wanted to help make education work at the national 
level. Since I have been here and was sworn in, I have worked, as the 
gentleman knows, with my colleagues really on both sides of the aisle 
to help shape, where I could, meaningful legislation that will help our 
communities do a number of things, one of which that you are a 
cosponsor of as are, I think, most of the Members who have been here 
today, the truth is about 228 Members have now signed on to a bill for 
school construction.
  All these things. New teachers. We are talking about 100,000 teachers 
we have to fund this time, and I happen to believe we ought to fund 
those teachers and not block grant it. Funding for teachers, that is 
what parents tell me they need. I got a letter out of my local paper 
today that I am going to share with our friends in a few moments. But 
it is so important that we make sure that we help build schools and we 
do help reduce class sizes.
  The gentleman and his wife have several children. How would you like 
to be teaching 28 or 30 of them in your house each day?
  Mr. ROEMER. I do have. We just had our fourth child, a little girl, 
Grace. I

[[Page H7976]]

have Patrick, Matthew and Sarah. The job of a teacher today, and I 
think the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) in talking to 
his wife and talking to him on many occasions late at night around 
here, I have heard about his children who are no longer the age of my 
children, 7, 6, 3 and 40 days old, but they are teaching, they followed 
you into the education profession. Oftentimes the gentleman and I have 
talked at length about the importance of parental involvement. Some of 
our children are going to school without that parental involvement, 
without one parent following through on homework, on keeping them 
diligent about what they need to do to follow up on school work. We are 
demanding of our teachers not just to teach the three Rs, reading, 
writing and arithmetic but they are responsible for ethics, character 
education, values. Some of the children are bringing problems from the 
home into the classroom.

                              {time}  1500

  And when that classroom has 26 of those children in it, that is quite 
a challenge. So the gentleman brings up an excellent point.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. If the gentleman would yield, I have a letter here 
that was a letter to the editor. It was in our State paper, the News & 
Observer, just this morning on this very issue. A teacher had written a 
letter talking about class size and how important class size is, and in 
addition to that, how important it is to have a classroom large enough 
to teach.
  My colleagues know we will hear so many people talk about, well, this 
school was fine when I was there. It was a different world then. We 
were talking earlier about high tech and our people in the business 
community, not only just high tech, the people who work, run small 
businesses.
  It is important for them to have a well-educated employee who comes 
in, but it is important also for them to understand that their business 
is different than it was 25 years ago, and so are our schools and so 
are their needs. But this parent said, her name is Kimberly Clay, in 
Raleigh, North Carolina, she said, just a few days ago I visited my 
daughter's class. She happens to be a 4th grader.
  She had 31 students in the classroom, 31, and those children come 
with any multitude of issues. The gentleman talked about those who come 
from different backgrounds, and that is true; and we have children who 
need special help in languages, specialty help as a result of a number 
of disabilities they might have; but the other side of it is also a 
number of students who may come to school sick, we sort of forget that 
sometimes, simply because the parents cannot afford to put them in 
daycare, and they have to work and the teachers have to handle that. 
Medication has to be dispensed and the list goes on and on.
  I do not think we have a lot of colleagues who really understand that 
today, what we really place on the shoulders of a teacher; and then we 
say to them, but we want you to turn out the best students in the 
world, and we want them to be better than they have ever been; and by 
the way, we cannot control your salaries up here, so we are not going 
to pay you too much, but we still want you to do a good job.
  This parent was saying, it is impossible, talking about this teacher 
being able to teach them with all they need to do, and nurture 31 
children. It is impossible for the teacher, who is excellent, let me 
repeat that again, the teacher, who she has already identified as an 
excellent teacher, to address those children's needs, let alone the 
remainder of the class. Because there were a couple of children with 
very special needs in this class.
  And she talks about Wake County, which is a county this was written 
about. They subsequently improved their test scores, and they have been 
over the last several years one of the leading ones in our State; and 
she talks about the need for better facilities. The facilities are 
inadequate as we continue to increase student enrollment.
  I think we have a lot of colleagues who forget that. We talk about 
needs, but we forget enrollments are the largest today in America they 
have ever been in the history of this country. Fifty-three million 
students are in our public schools today, as a result of what we call 
the baby boom echo. That means the baby boom who is having babies.
  And if my colleagues will remember, Secretary Riley has released a 
report that over the next 10 years that number is going to grow even 
more dramatically, and in my home State of North Carolina, the 
projections are that we will be the fourth fastest-growing State in 
America for students in that age group.
  We are growing fast now. We have children in closets and converted 
gyms. You name it, they are there. It is very difficult to teach. One 
of the real challenges, and I saw it this morning on the local news 
here in D.C., a Maryland school, where we are starting, and it happens 
in North Carolina I am sure it happens in Indiana and if the Members 
will check in their home schools, they will find it is happening all 
across America because our schools are getting bigger. And they were 
built years ago. We have not increased the size of the media center.
  We used to call them libraries. We have not increased the size of the 
cafeteria where children have lunch. Can my colleagues imagine a small 
child having to eat lunch at 10 o'clock in the morning? And that 
happens in this country. It happens in my home county, my home State; 
and we passed a $1.8 billion bond issue, incidentally, at the State 
level in 1996 to help the local units, and they are raising taxes to 
build schools, but they are growing so rapidly across America that they 
need help.
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman mentioned this case from a 
teacher in his home State, North Carolina, of 31 children in one 
classroom; and it just brings home what we have been saying over the 
last hour: parental involvement, class size, quality teacher, 
discipline, character education in that school and some professional 
development opportunities for the teacher are keys for that school room 
to work.
  Let us say with those 31 children that six of them are at risk of 
dropping out, five of them may have some kind of learning disability or 
have a prescription of Ritalin, and then there might be another five 
that are gifted and talented, and the teacher needs to spend more time 
with them. So right there, we have a number out of that 31, we probably 
have 16 children or so that are somewhere in between.
  What does that teacher do with 31 kids? Should there be some role in 
a partnership, not mandating from Washington, D.C., that we say this to 
our local schools, but giving local schools some of the resources and 
some of the opportunity to say, if this is a big problem in our local 
community in North Carolina with 31 kids in the school room, we want to 
do something about it?
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. I think the gentleman is right, and as the gentleman 
knows, we have a number of things we are working on, one of which the 
gentleman is a part of. I have introduced legislation, a number of 
others have, there was one yesterday the Rangel-Johnson-Etheridge bill 
for school construction at the Federal level providing that at the 
Federal level we will only pay the interest, $25 billion, to be 
allocated across the country. The local units will sell those bonds, 
build the buildings to help give that relief. Because in a lot of 
places, the real problem the schools have is space.
  Teachers are a problem. Space is a problem. All these other things 
are a problem, but even if we allocate the 100,000 teachers, we have to 
do it hand in hand with the locals and help them build the space; and I 
think it is absolutely imperative that we do it.
  During the recess, we released the report, not unlike the report 
mentioned by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), on K through 3 
showing the number of schools, classrooms that had more than the 18 
optimum we are trying to get to in K through 3. What we found out, 
there was over 90 percent.
  Now, I mentioned the gentleman's children and mine earlier, we love 
all three of ours. And they were great youngsters. They were great 
youngsters, and they are outstanding young people today. But I shudder 
to think if I had to teach them everyday and I had 28 or 30 of them 
with their varying personalities as bright as they are and their 
different interests, I admire the teachers. God gave us mothers, and 
that was great. But he also gave us

[[Page H7977]]

teachers, and that is even better. Because they are great people; they 
deserve our admiration and all of our praise.
  I visited one school, and I will not forget it, I went in. They had 
so many trailers on the campus they called it the trailer park. Now, 
teachers can teach in that, but the problem is we do not have the 
space, we do not have the opportunity to move around and interact with 
students like we would like to. The real problem is, when it rains, 
guess what happens? They get wet and go into the main building. They go 
to the bathroom. They go to the cafeteria. They go to the media center. 
They present a part of the linkage of that school, and we can do better 
and we have some wonderful teachers in this country with hearts of gold 
doing the Lord's work in all kinds of conditions.
  I think at a time when we have the opportunity in this body to form 
that partnership, we ought to do it. We have a bill pending now, as the 
gentleman well knows, with 228 congressional sponsors from those on 
both sides of the aisle. I think it is incumbent upon the Republican 
leadership who runs this House to bring that bill up and allow us to 
vote on it.

  It would pass. The President would sign it, and we could send that 
money out to help local schools. It is in no way meddling, because they 
would have total control over it; all we would do is pay the interest. 
Those are the kind of partnerships that the business community would 
applaud. They are the things that the parents want to happen.
  The years that I served, 8 of them as State superintendent of the 
schools in North Carolina, and my colleagues have heard me say this on 
the floor before, I have never had a child, I never had a student ask 
me where the money came from. They do not really care. They just know 
they do not have as much in some communities as others. We have a great 
country. We have one of the wealthiest countries ever in the world, and 
there is no excuse at a time of prosperity when we cannot do the things 
we need to do for children to prepare for the 21st century and give 
every child that opportunity.
  Because I truly believe education is the one thing that levels the 
playing field, and that is what you fought for all of your life. I 
would not be here today if it were not for public education, and most 
Members of this body, if they would be honest with us, would not be 
here either.
  And I think we have an obligation to the next generation to reach out 
and help when we can. There have been times when we could not do that 
in the past. We did not have the resources. We now have it. We can join 
with the President in making sure we put out that 100,000 teachers; we 
can do the staff development we need, start planning for the future and 
also provide the resources to build schools.
  Mr. ROEMER. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for his remarks 
and for engaging in the colloquy with me, as I have engaged with my 
friends from California, Florida, and Wisconsin here over the last 50 
minutes or so; and I want to conclude where I started, and that is as 
education goes, so goes America.
  As we are able in a bipartisan way in this body to work together in a 
civil manner, Democrat and Republican alike, to try to work to give our 
local public schools more arrows in their quiver to try to solve some 
of the problems that they are engaged in right now, whether it is 
parental involvement, which we quite frankly do quite a lot about; but 
if it is the quality of teachers, we have some ideas that they might 
want to try, class size reduction.
  There are some ideas out there, many of them have started at some of 
the local levels that we have shared with other communities: 
professional development opportunities, such as the Eisenhower program, 
character education, discipline, safe schools, safe schools from drugs 
and drug dealers.
  These are some of the things that the Democrats and Republicans 
should be able to work together on as we did work together in a few 
instances on charter schools and public choice; on the education 
flexibility bill that my good friend, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. 
Castle), and I worked on and we worked on some of the ESEA together 
before the agreement fell apart.
  So for the benefit of these children, for the benefit of an economy 
that needs better-educated children, for the benefit of our civil 
society and the way that this body and this Chamber should work in 
working together and sometimes we will politely or adamantly disagree, 
let us try to get Democrats and Republicans to work together on the 
single most important issue to most citizens today, and that is 
improving our public education.

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