[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 126 (Wednesday, October 11, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H9809-H9816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
END-OF-SESSION ISSUES
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tancredo). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Bankruptcy Reform
Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, we are nearing the end of the current session
as everyone knows and it is very apparent that nerves are frayed and
that tempers are short but that is to be expected. That is an
occupational disease of being a Member of Congress or of being the
member of any parliamentary body anywhere in the world. But we have a
special affliction here in Washington because we indulge in this almost
every single year with every single year's budget, with every single
year's end incessant haggling over minutia and some grand themes in
this end-of-the-session battle in which we find ourselves once again.
Bankruptcy reform, which began some 3\1/2\ years ago in this very
Chamber, is one of those grand items to which I refer as being
includable in the end package of legislation which we will be
considering in the next few days, perhaps after the new CR is passed
even into next week. But there is a distinct difference in taking the
bankruptcy reform measure and putting it at the end process for the
purpose of yet one final vote on it. It is one that has been thoroughly
debated. It is not like at the last minute some appropriator jams
something into the omnibus bill at the end about which we know nothing
and we are surprised months later to learn that there is a swimming
pool now in the middle of the desert where never there was one before.
Those kinds of special favor types of items continue to appear in the
end product. We acknowledge that. Sometimes we wonder whether there is
anything we can do about it except to adopt the proposal that I have
proposed for 18 years, no, no, for many, many years now, that is, to
have an automatic continuing resolution if we have not reached a budget
by the end of the budget year.
In any event, the bankruptcy reform bill is not like that swimming
pool in the desert. Rather, it is a measure that has been well received
by Members of the House, by Members of the other body, by the business
community, by the credit unions of our Nation, by taxpayers groups, by
taxing authorities like States and local governments, all manner of
working entities in our country have testified before us, giving us
ample evidence upon which to base this movement to make sure that
everyone gets a new start, a fresh new start who deserves one but who,
by the same token, will guarantee in that process that those who can
repay some of their debt should be compelled to do so in a fair,
proportionate way in which we have fashioned the mechanism for doing
just that.
So when we bring this massive bankruptcy reform bill to the end game,
we are not shoving it into some omnibus bill hoping that nobody sees
it. No, we are bringing it to the floor after I would say one of the
most thorough continuing debates that any subject has received for
many, many years. I know, because I and my staff have been involved in
it from the very beginning, through many, many hearings, hundreds of
documents, many private discussions and consultations with bankruptcy
experts and with credit institutions and with bankrupts themselves,
people who have filed for bankruptcy, women who are left in a home
without a husband, without a provider, providers, people who deal in
State government with the complex problems of support and support
collection. You name it, we have heard from that kind of individual in
our regular hearing process. That is what is so bountiful in the
outcome of the bankruptcy reform movement, that indeed it is the
product of every coloration in our society of people who have to do
business with each other in order for this economy to continue to work
as well as it has.
By the way, in almost every set of remarks that I make back in my
district about bankruptcy reform, I pride myself in reasserting that
within the hearing process, it was not just a cameo appearance by
people where we knew what their testimony was going to be and we ho-
hummed our way through those hearings, I have to maintain and I will to
my dying day that the final product of bankruptcy reform reflected
actual testimony recommendations and clarifications made by the
witnesses from out there in the world of commerce and in the world of
the bankruptcy courts themselves. So it was not as if we were prompted
by a pre-prepared agenda with cooked legislation that we were just
going through the motions in these hearings but, rather, an intense
investigation into the entire process. We learned from it.
I remember after the first hearing that someone testified on behalf
of, I think, women, or single mothers or people who were devoid of
support in their own household, but I was so struck by it that I
instructed my staff to make sure that the next time there will be
language in our next version of the bankruptcy reform that will cure
the problem brought to us by that witness. As I say, this was
legislative magic at its best, witnesses testifying, developing
solutions to problems, and we who were charged with the responsibility
of packaging all that in a reform measure succeeded in doing so.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
Education
Mr. SCHAFFER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to talk
about education. Tonight there will be a debate between the two
Presidential candidates and we of course all across the country are
looking forward to that. Education is likely to be one of the issues
raised. I say this because, politics being as it is, candidates tend to
look to opinion polls to help identify those issues that are the most
important to the people in the country. When they are inclined to do
that in America today, they will find that education is the number one
issue on the minds of most Americans. My point tonight is twofold, one,
I want to talk about some of the work we have done here in the United
States Congress as a Republican majority and as Republicans across the
country to try to elevate the importance and prominence of education
and to push forward a plan that is designed to improve the quality of
education in America, and secondly I want to talk about what has been
done over the last 8 years, because, without a doubt, the Clinton-Gore
regime that has held the White House for the last 8 years has defined
itself as an administration that has missed many opportunities and has
failed to lead with respect to education.
I will start out by quoting the Vice President. He published a report
called Report of the National Performance Review. It was published in
1993. In that report back in 1993, here is what the Vice President
said, and I quote:
The Department of Education has suffered from mistrust and
management neglect almost from the beginning. To overcome
this legacy and to lead the way in national education reform,
the Department of Education must refashion and revitalize its
programs, management and systems.
My point being, Mr. Speaker, is that going all the way back to 1993,
the Vice President of the United States fully understood the nature of
the U.S. Department of Education, an agency that hemorrhages cash on
virtually a day-by-day basis. This is an agency that we look to to try
to get dollars to the classroom, to utilize the education expenditures
of the American people in a way that will help children learn but, to
our disappointment and even to the disappointment of the Vice President
and others over at the White House, this Department of Education has
failed in its noble mission.
One does not have to look too far to find examples of that. Here is
the reality of what has occurred since 1993. Just a few month ago, the
General Accounting Office in reporting to the Committee on Education
and Workforce of the House said the following, and I quote again:
The Department is riddled with continued weaknesses in
information systems controls which increase the risk of
unauthorized access or disruption in services and make
Education's sensitive grant and loan data vulnerable to
inadvertent or deliberate misuse, fraudulent use, improper
disclosure or destruction which could occur without being
detected.
That was in testimony to the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations going back to March of this year.
We have seen similar other kinds of characterizations of the
Department of
[[Page H9810]]
Education as we in our efforts to try and be frugal with the taxpayers'
money have asked hard questions about where does the money go. It is
frustrating as a parent myself of five children, three of them in
public schools today, to learn that of every dollar that we spend on
education through our Federal budget, only about 60 percent of those
dollars is actually spent in the classroom. In other words, there is
upwards of 40 percent, and that is probably a generous estimate, that
is wasted, squandered, lost, lost through fraud, lost through abuse,
sometimes lost through crime. I will go through some of those examples
here today because it underscores our Republican effort around the
country to try to get dollars to the classroom.
There is a difference of opinion here in Washington and a difference
of opinion that will be expressed later on tonight by the two
candidates for President of the United States.
{time} 2015
Democrats have always been in favor of spending more money. Whether
it comes to the Department of Education or any agency, spend and spend
and spend has been their philosophy. While we are not necessarily
always opposed to spending if it is for a good and just cause, our
Republican philosophy is very different. It is one that says spend
wisely, be accountable for how money is allocated and budgeted and
spent. So we are the party, the Republican Party, that asks the tough
questions about where do these dollars go? How is the money allocated?
Has it actually reached children in classrooms? Has it been effective?
As parents we are just kind of normal people who ask these questions as
most normal people would when they come to Washington, D.C. We work
hard as all taxpayers do to earn various livings and come from various
professional and employment backgrounds. We pay taxes to the Federal
Government. We do not like paying taxes, but we are willing to do that
when it is right and when the cause is just; but we expect people here
in Washington will follow the money and make sure that when we say we
are going to spend a dollar on education we actually do it.
It was not until the Republican Party took the majority of the
Congress that these difficult questions were even asked in the first
place. Here is what we found out: the U.S. Department of Education in
1998 could not even audit its books. We set up a very rigorous
evaluation process. We required every Federal agency to come up with a
new standard of accountability to hire outside auditors to come in and
examine their books, give an outside professional unbiased opinion of
the finances of various Federal agencies, and the U.S. Department of
Education came to us in the 1998 audit and the independent auditors
actually said the books were so bad over there, so poorly managed, that
they could not even audit the books, let alone tell us how the dollars
were spent.
In 1999, Mr. Speaker, things did not get much better. The Department
was able to finally balance its books but it, of course, failed that
audit. So we find these reports coming back to us from independent
auditors, from government auditors, painting a very bleak picture when
it comes to the accountability of the funds that are spent down the
street at the United States Department of Education.
Now we still want to have a powerful role and an important role in
improving schools across the country, but we point these examples out
to show that there really are two different approaches to how we
improve schools in America. There is the Democrat approach, the Al Gore
approach, that says just spend the money, never ask the tough
questions, never mind whether the dollars really get in the classrooms;
whether these dollars spent really improve student performance; whether
they really improve our standing among international peers. Just spend
the money and that is the right thing to do because, after all, we care
about education, we care about kids; and if we just spend the money,
things will sort of correct themselves.
That is in stark contrast to what we will hear the governor of Texas
speak about tonight and what Republicans stand for and have stood for
here in Washington, which again says there is money to be spent; and we
believe that the Federal Government has some role to play in trying to
help local administrators, school board members, superintendents, and
teachers teach children; but we really are about accountability. We
want to make sure that we squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of
every dollar that is spent, and we start by being honest about what is
wasted, what has been abused, where fraud, where theft has occurred
over in the Department, and we raise those important issues, not to
embarrass anyone. We do want to cause a certain amount of alarm, I
suppose, because these issues need to be addressed; they need to be
fixed.
That ultimately is our goal to fix these problems and create a
Department of Education that actually is on the mark; that actually
helps children learn; that really gets dollars to the classroom and
creates, through a system of assistance with the various 50 States, a
support system that allows those States to define their educational
priorities and to ultimately meet them and help children, because that
is what really matters in the end.
It does not matter how much money we spend. It does not matter how
many new programs we create. What matters more than anything else is
results and what we can do here in Washington that helps children
learn.
Now we have a great record where this is concerned as a Republican
majority. We have passed legislation over the last few years that is
intended and designed to shrink the size of the U.S. Department of
Education, to consolidate programs. There are some 760 education
programs spread out throughout several different agencies. We want to
consolidate those programs.
Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SCHAFFER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, I noticed that at the exact moment when the
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) was talking about the fact that
the Federal dollars that are being spent could be better spent at the
local level, in walked the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling),
who for years has been determined to make certain that we know that the
best way to spend those dollars is at the local school board level.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those comments.
Mr. Speaker, I was waiting for the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Goodling) to grab a microphone there so I could recognize him and yield
some time to him as well, because it has been the Republican leadership
on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, under the
direction of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), and also
the efforts being led by Republican governors throughout the country,
that have shown a new way to reach out to children and to manage
government programs in a way that helps kids far better than what we
have seen come out of the White House over the last 8 years.
We have focused on some key principles that I know the chairman cares
deeply about, and principles that he has made the basis for the work
that we have done and undertaken in the House Committee on Education
and the Workforce, and those principles are all about recognizing the
strengths of local communities, of States, of recognizing the autonomy
of parents to play the primary role in helping drive the education of a
child and local communities. And ultimately this message of
accountability is something that we talk about every day.
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SCHAFFER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
want to echo some of the things that he has already said. For the first
20 years in the Congress of the United States all I ever heard was that
if we just had another 100 programs from the Federal level, one-size-
fits-all, if we just had a few more billion dollars, if we just could
participate more from the Federal level, that somehow or another we
would close the achievement gap with the disadvantaged youngsters
because that is our major role from the Federal level.
Well, obviously it did not work, and every study showed that it did
not
[[Page H9811]]
work. One-size-fits-all from Washington does not work. So we wasted a
lot of money, but worse than that a lot of time because what happened
is we cheated children, pre-school children particularly in Head Start,
for the first 10 years because nobody ever talked about quality. The
only thing we talked about was if we could just cover more children
that somehow or another that would work. What they forgot was that it
was supposed to be a reading readiness program and a school readiness
program; but what it turned out to be was, as a matter of fact, a
poverty jobs program and a baby-sitting program.
We finally got it turned around.
So when we became the majority, we said, gee, we have to change. The
taxpayer is not getting very much for the money but, more importantly,
the children who are to benefit from all of these wonderful programs,
one-size-fits-all from Washington, were not getting any help. So the
achievement gap, of course, never closed.
We said we are going to have, first of all, seven key principles that
Republicans are going to push every time we talk about any legislation
from Washington, D.C. Number one, if it is not a quality program, then
do not bother with the program. Get rid of the program. We need to have
better teaching. We need to have local control. We need to have
accountability. We need to make sure that we get the dollars to the
classroom, where they can really help the children. We need to make
sure that we return to basic academics and parent involvement but not
only parent involvement, parent responsibility. The reason public
charter schools work, one of the major reasons, is because of the
parent responsibility. They are responsible to enforce the dress code.
They are responsible to enforce the homework code. They are responsible
to get the children to school and get them home from school. They
assume that responsibility. Now what does that do? That attracts the
best teachers. That attracts the best administrators, the best
supervisors, because they want to teach. They want to be in an
environment where they can teach. So one of the very first things we
talked about, even before we became the majority, was we need to give
flexibility to the local school districts to design these programs
rather than say here is one-size-fits-all, take it or like it, even
though you do not benefit from it.
So we got a token before we became the majority. We said here we will
give you six States for flexibility and they said we will give you 12
now the next time. Two of those States that did very, very well with
the flexibility they got were Maryland and, above all, Texas. Governor
Bush reached across the aisle, working with a Democrat majority in the
House and the Democrat majority in the Senate, and said we have to do
something about improving education for all children in this State. So
they got about 4,000 waivers from the Federal Government. They could
commingle money. They could make programs work. They could design them
the way they believed they will benefit their children. The result is
that their Black and Hispanic students are achieving above the overall
average of all of their students. Now, that is giving you flexibility
with accountability, and accountability is the big word.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Goodling) has been on the front line in the negotiations and in the
real fight that has taken place here in Washington between the
Republican-oriented solutions with respect to education and the
Democrat-oriented approaches to education that come out of the White
House. This key philosophy of flexibility is so important. There are
many of our colleagues and many people around the country who think
these are just nebulous terms and some kind of nebulous debate on the
point of flexibility; but those of us who are in the well on a day-to-
day basis fighting over the concept of flexibility see the real
difference that takes place based on who the leadership is down at the
White House.
So I am wondering if the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling)
would perhaps take a little more time and maybe describe for our
colleagues what takes place at some of these meetings when there is a
Republican philosophy of flexibility sitting across the table from the
Democrat philosophy as proposed by Al Gore of a centralized,
Washington-knows-best attitude. It is a real clash but one that I
believe we need to win on the side of flexibility. I think it is
critical and important for our children, and I was hoping the gentleman
would elaborate a little further on that point.
Mr. GOODLING. I think that it has been a slow learning process for
the minority, because I think they are at the point now where they
realize these programs did not work. Well intended, no question well
intended, but they now begin to realize, and we hear the word
flexibility mentioned now on the other side of the aisle. We hear
different things mentioned that we never would have heard for years
because the programs did not work. So now they are saying, hey, it
looks like Texas, for instance, was very, very successful with that
flexibility.
What does it mean to a State? Well, first of all, before we allowed
any kind of flexibility, the only purpose for the Federal auditor to go
out into that school district was to see whether the money was spent on
the right student.
{time} 2030
They were not sent out to see whether the students were benefiting
from what is being spent. They were just sent out to see, is the money
going to the right children?
Obviously, it was going to the right children, but it was not helping
those children. So this is the battle we go through every time, the
philosophical battle of another Federal program, one-size-fits-all from
Washington, D.C. will solve these problems; another $1 billion will
solve these problems. It has not worked.
So we have now taken a different approach. As I indicated, we have
these seven key principles, but beyond those seven key principles, of
course, is what is happening with the flexibility that is going back.
Governors, local school boards, are so far ahead of us on the Federal
level when it comes to reforming schools. They are on the front line
all the time. They understand it. So that is why 50 Governors said,
Hey, 12 States have flexibility; how about all 50 States? When we get
50 Governors on our side of the aisle say, hey, it is working, we all
want it, and obviously the President then had to agree. We sent him
legislation and he signed it.
The important thing is that as we brought the legislation then to the
floor, every piece of legislation was based on these seven key
principles. So when we did the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, we said, let us talk about the seven principles here when we
redesign that program, and we did it.
IDEA full funding, again, in those first 20 years I kept saying over
and over again, if we really want to help the local school district, I
will say the best way we can do that is to step up to the plate with
the 40 percent that we coaxed them into this program, guaranteeing them
25 years ago. When we became the majority, we were only up to 6
percent. We are now up to about 15 percent.
What that means is every low-income school district has to take their
local funds to support the IDEA mandates from Washington, D.C., which
means they must take it away from every other program. That is why I
would tell them, if we want to reduce class size, send them the money.
They will reduce class size. If we want them to repair a building, send
the IDEA money, they will repair buildings.
But no, we need a new program from Washington. That is what we have
heard the last couple of years, with our battle over 1,200,000
teachers; our battles over school construction.
We passed the Reading Excellence Act, again saying, on the local
level, they know how to do that. But above that we say, use the
scientific knowledge that we have on how to teach reading. Do not get
into the fad businesses that so many districts unfortunately fell into.
Our charter school expansion, in my estimation, probably the only
hope for many center city children is the charter school program, again
because the parents are very much involved. The parents are demanding
excellence from their children, excellence from their schools, and the
best teachers went there. It may be their only hope of getting a piece
of the American dream.
[[Page H9812]]
As I mentioned, Head Start, how did it take us so long when every
study told us we were failing? How did it take us so long to really do
something to make it an effective preschool program?
Promulgating the new Federal tests, we were going to spend $100
hundred million. First of all, the Department of Education was going to
design the tests. That would be the last group that I would want to
design some tests. But unless we know what the new higher standards
are, unless we prepared the teacher to teach the new higher standard,
unless we then test the teacher to say they are ready to teach the new
higher standard, why would we spend $100 hundred million to design some
national test to tell 50 percent of the children one more time they are
not doing very well?
The Dollars to the Classroom Act, again, that is where the money
counts, down where that teacher is, down where that building principal
is. The Vocational Technical Education Act, again the whole thing was
based on those seven principles. The Teacher Empowerment Act, we say if
they are not getting the proper in-service program, they could take a
voucher and get their own in-service program. They know where they can
get the best in-service program.
The Students Results Act, again, all we have to do out there in the
State and in the local district is show that all of the students
improve academically, and then they have the freedom to do what they
believe is necessary to bring that about.
We are moving in the right direction. We have to keep moving in that
direction. We cannot stop now, or what we will get back to again is,
okay, if we just have a new 100 programs that will do the job; if we
just spend another $100 billion, that certainly will do the job. Yet,
we will repeat the same failures over and over again because Washington
does not have the answers. The local area has the answers.
So I thank the gentleman for taking this hour this evening to again
remind the American people what our approach is and why it is
different, and why it is taking hold and why it is working, and why the
Governor was successful in Texas after we gave them the opportunity for
the flexibility.
So I appreciate the gentleman's taking this opportunity to remind the
American people once again the direction we are trying to move this
whole education issue in.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for joining me here
on the floor.
I want to go back to the top of the chart here in a moment, but there
really is a remarkable difference between the two individuals who the
American people will watch later on tonight, and will choose among in
deciding who our next president will be in just a few weeks.
The Texas example is almost miraculous on how far students improved
in academic achievement in the State of Texas under Governor Bush's
leadership versus what we have seen here in Washington for the last 8
years of a White House where President Clinton and Vice President Gore
have fully understood, and they even wrote books about the poor
management in the Department and the reality that there was not enough
flexibility, where we are not getting enough dollars to the classroom.
Yet, they have done nothing.
This is an administration that for 8 years has squandered their
opportunity to help improve schools, and to look to the real examples
and the real bright spots around the country where Republican Governors
like George Bush have led the way in academic success and achievement
for students.
This Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act is I think one of
the most important things we can focus on here in Washington. Just by
way of background for our colleagues and those who are monitoring
tonight's proceedings here on the floor, the Individuals with
Disabilities in Education Act was really initiated by the Supreme Court
under civil rights legislation.
Congress took the ball from there, but it was the Supreme Court that
drove the legislation underlying the Individuals with Disabilities in
Education Act, thereby making it one of the few really legitimate roles
that the Federal government plays in reaching out to some of the
neediest children and trying to equalize the playing field so those
children can have an opportunity to learn.
What Congress has done over the years is created this huge program
which has become a mandate on local States. In other words, the Federal
government created the rules, and we have told 50 States they must
implement this IDEA program the way the Federal government says they
will.
In exchange for that, the Federal government initially promised to
pay 40 percent of the expenses associated with implementing that
mandate. Many people around the country really rely and children with
disabilities really rely on this program and this mandate, and they are
counting not only on the program to be implemented accurately and
effectively, but they are also counting on the program to be funded.
So we have actually had to fight with the White House, Republicans
had to fight with the White House, to try to get us to a point where we
are increasing appropriations for the Individuals with Disabilities in
Education Act. We do not get a lot of help from Al Gore and President
Clinton down there at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Mr. GOODLING. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, two budgets submitted
by the White House in a row had a decrease in funding for special
education, 2 years in a row.
Mr. SCHAFFER. It just defies logic, but again it points out my point
that these folks have had 8 years to try to help, to try to help local
schools. They have really blown the opportunity. Even when they have
Republicans, and we are conservatives and we like to spend less when we
can, but here is a program where we believe we ought to pay for what
the government promised, and we have no assistance from the White
House. Al Gore, Bill Clinton, had other things they wanted to spend
money on, not children with disabilities in education.
It is important not only for those children, but it is important
because even when Congress does not fund the program to the extent that
it promised, the responsibility for carrying out the program still
exists.
Every principal of every school in this country has to continue to
unfold and provide these services under the Individuals with
Disabilities in Education Act, just as the law says, and it does not
matter whether we provide the money.
That is the real hardship, because what a principal has to do is
steal funds from other places in his or her budget. They have to take
money from the pay raises for teachers. They have to take money from
the staffing budget, providing perhaps more teachers for classrooms.
They might have to take the money from the transportation budget, or
maybe the technology budget.
Mr. GOODLING. The maintenance.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Maybe fixing the leaky roof is something that has to
wait a couple of years because the Vice President has not been willing
to help us in our effort to fully fund IDEA.
That I think is probably the most graphic and dramatic statement of
how this philosophy of ours towards flexibility has very real
implications on every single classroom in America. That is precisely
what we heard as we have traveled around the country.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania has helped today unveil his
Crossroads 2000 Report, called ``Education at a Crossroads.'' This is
really a report that one of the gentleman's subcommittees, the
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, had put together as a
result of traveling all across America visiting with education
professionals, students, parents, teachers, and all the rest.
What they tell us more often than not is this. They tell us, and we
can read it right in the report, and for our colleagues, I would urge
them to get hold of the Committee on Education and the Workforce for a
copy of this report, or my office or the chairman's office, and we will
make the report available to anyone who wants it.
But what we are told as we travel around the country is this: Do not
create new programs. In fact, do not spend a dime on creating more
government, more Department of Education bureaucracy. Do the basics
first: Fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act,
and that frees up
[[Page H9813]]
local schools to pay for the priorities that are truly important in
various locations, because the priorities in New York are not the same
as they are in Pennsylvania or as they are in Colorado or California.
They vary from State to State.
Mr. GOODLING. New York City would get an extra $190 million if we
were fully funding the 40 percent, and Los Angeles would get another
$90 million.
When we talk about class size reduction, when we talk about school
maintenance, think what they could do with that kind of money if they
did not have to spend it on our mandate.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Perhaps we can talk about that for a moment, because we
have been to New York, to California, and around the country. Even in a
big city like Los Angeles, $90 million is not pocket change. That is
real money.
Mr. GOODLING. Over 25 years, $90 million a year for 25 years, that
sounds like big money to me.
Mr. SCHAFFER. We have heard through the course of the presidential
campaign that Congress and that the Federal government should do
something other than fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities in
Education Act.
We have heard the Vice President talk about his goals for trying to
manage local schools from here in Washington. Our answer is very
different. Ours says, let us fully fund the mandates that are there
first.
Let us give Los Angeles, for example, the $90 million a year to spend
on whatever they want. If they want to fix the roof, that would be
their prerogative. If they want to buy new computers, they could do
that. California just had a class size reduction program that the
voters voted for.
It makes no sense for the Vice President, in the case of California,
to now say, no, I am going to invent a new program for class size
reduction, and the fact that you have already accomplished this goal is
irrelevant. We are going to give you more money to do things you do not
need.
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, in that area, of course, last year when I
was negotiating this 100,000 teacher business, at the end of the year I
made it very, very clear, the gentleman mentioned that the
administration, the President and the Vice President have had a great
opportunity in the 8 years.
I pleaded with the President, and I said, he can talk about class
size reduction, but if he does not have a quality teacher to put in
that new classroom, I will guarantee it does not matter whether the
teacher-to-pupil ratio is 12 to 1, 20 to 1, 30 to 1, it is not going to
make a difference.
Of course, what was the first 33 percent we allowed him to have? More
than 30 percent of those had no qualifications whatsoever.
Mr. SCHAFFER. It comes right back to the rallying cry that the
gentleman has espoused over and over again, focus on quality, not
quantity. We see that not only with this effort toward hiring more
employees in schools, but we hear it when it comes to even school
construction, that it is just that the White House is intent on just
spending the money, and really has no plans to focus on the quality.
They never have. In the 8 years they have held the White House, their
own reports verify they have never ever focused on quality.
Mr. GOODLING. When we were doing that negotiating last year, it was a
perfect time. The New York News newspaper had total front page coverage
which said, Parents, do you recognize in New York City, 50 percent of
your teachers are not qualified? And I would hold that up every time
they would talk, and remind them again, if we cannot put a quality
teacher in the classroom, we are not going to help the child.
Mr. SCHAFFER. I am wondering if the gentleman would also be able to
tell us about his experiences with the vast numbers of education
leaders we have met with from throughout the country who have testified
before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, reiterated the
kinds of things we have heard in the Crossroads Report that fully
funding the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act really
represents the ultimate in flexibility. We hear this routinely. I know
the gentleman has, as well.
{time} 2045
I am wondering if the gentleman could share some of his experiences.
I might also point out, Mr. Speaker, as many of our colleagues know,
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) prior to coming to
Congress was a school superintendent and one who understands full well
how fully funding Federal mandates frees up local leaders to focus on
the real priorities, which is ultimately helping kids far better than
anybody here in Washington can do.
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, in IDEA, as we indicated, for instance,
they were promised 40 percent of the average expenditure for students
all over this country. Now, 2 years ago, that average expenditure per
pupil was about $6300. If they were getting their 40 percent, we can
see they would be getting $2500, $2600 for each child. Instead, when we
started, they were getting about $400. We are now up to about $600 or
$700. We will get to about $800. That is a long way from that $2600
that we promised.
If they have that extra money, as I indicated before, they then can
take care of pupil-teacher ratios. Again, this is why we negotiated for
100,000 teachers. If we need money to improve the teachers that we
presently have, use it for that purpose. That is very, very important.
We need to make sure they have the best quality programs they can have
to become better teachers, and that is so important.
Mr. SCHAFFER. The White House has also fought us on this notion of
expanding Ed-Flex to all of the 50 States. There were 12 States that
piloted this flexibility act where some achieved great things.
The State of Texas as we mentioned as raised dramatically achievement
for minority students, for black students and Hispanic students. In
fact, the rate of improvement for school children in those categories
was far higher than anywhere else around the country. And that is
dramatic testimony to the power of flexibility and choice by governors.
We wanted to expand that same kind of liberty to all 50 States. We
have received opposition from the White House from the moment we
started talking about flexibility for all.
Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the gentleman might spend a little bit
of time talking about that experience.
Mr. GOODLING. No question about. The minority and the former majority
and the President were very much opposed to flexibility. As I
indicated, when it became that successful for those who undertook that
opportunity or took advantage of that opportunity, the President then,
of course, got all sorts of heat from 50 governors, and then we were
able to move that.
What we also said from our side is not that we even want to do that,
but we want to also give them the Student Results Act so they have no
trouble commingling money to make programs work. When we have a
thousand programs, in this case, 700 and some programs, the amount of
money each program gets is so small that we cannot do anything
worthwhile with it, but if we try to commingle any of it, as I said
earlier, we are in trouble with the auditors.
So we say in the Straight As, we can commingle those dollars, all you
have to do is prove to us that you can make sure every child improves
academically.
Now, I have been told by some States, well, we have enough
flexibility. We know what they are saying. They are basically saying we
are just happy to take your money. You do not ask us for anything in
return. We just take your money, and we do the same thing over and over
again.
We do not have a new idea or a creative idea in our heads, so we will
just go on taking the money from the taxpayers, from the Federal
Government, because we do not require quality. We do not require
anything.
It is catching on, because as I said, Texas is a great success story.
Maryland has done well. So my hope is that as I retire, we do not
forget what the gentleman said what he hears in his sleep every night,
quality not quantity, results not process.
Let us get them to stop spending hours and hours and hours of
paperwork. In IDEA alone, we use teacher after teacher after teacher in
IDEA, because they spend so much time on paperwork that they cannot do
what they are trained to do, which is to teach
[[Page H9814]]
children, which is what they want to do.
Mr. SCHAFFER. That is the real hardship, I might add, that we see
with all of these Federal programs is the paperwork, the red tape, the
rules that go along with what amounts to pretty small amount of funds.
The gentleman is right that with so many Federal programs, we spend a
lot of money in Washington, about $40 billion a year just on the
program costs for the U.S. Department of Education, and that is not
even mentioning the other $80 billion that is managed through student
loans by the U.S. Department.
We just need to focus on the $40 billion that we budgeted and
allocated towards education, each dollar is sent out from Washington to
various States and school districts with all kinds of requirements
attached to it, much of which has nothing to do with the quality of
education. Some governors frankly do not understand that.
This is an easy process for some of them. As the gentleman said, they
just get the money from Washington, and they turn around and spend it,
and it appears to their constituents that they are accomplishing
something with nothing.
Again, where the real hardship is realized is at the street level, at
the schoolroom level, the classroom level, where these principals,
administrators, secretaries, teachers have to deal with these
monotonous rules and these monotonous regulations.
Only about 6 percent to 7 percent, maybe sometimes 8 percent of a
classroom budget is Federal funds. The rest comes from your State or it
comes from local property taxes. So a tiny portion is all we are
talking about when we are talking the amount of dollars that goes into
a classroom.
The tragedy is for the 6 percent, 7 percent or 8 percent of Federal
funds that makes it into a classroom, probably 50 percent to 60 percent
of the paperwork requirements are attached to that small amount of
Federal dollars. That is what we want to eliminate.
We want to allow flexibility so that we can actually increase the
power of the money that is already spent. We do not need to really
spend more, if we just spend it more wisely. We can be more effective.
Mr. GOODLING. When we were negotiating the 100,000 teachers last
year, the first thing the administration said is we have to take about
10 percent off the top, I think they wanted 15 percent, to keep on the
Federal level. I said, wait a minute, you are not hiring the teachers.
The local school board is hiring the teachers. Then they called back
and said we certainly need 10 percent for the States off the top.
I said, wait a minute. The State is not hiring the teachers. The
local school districts are hiring the teachers; that is where the money
should go. Of course, we won that argument because it makes sense.
Mr. SCHAFFER. That is the educational empire which the gentleman just
described, which is so hard to understand. There is such momentum, and
all of these people that are employed, and not only at the U.S.
Department of Education, but the State Departments of Education, they
make careers out of this paperwork and these rules. Somebody reads all
of this stuff.
Somebody actually opens up the mail when the superintendent fills out
the paperwork and sends it to Washington. There is a person here in
Washington whose job it is to open up all of these forms and compile
them and collate them and make reports on them.
When we start talking about getting rid of the rules and regulations,
consolidating programs and increasing flexibility, our goal is to help
children. Unfortunately, some people in Washington feel threatened by
our objective to help kids.
There is a huge bureaucratic empire that is sustained through all of
the monotony, and that is the objective of the Vice President and
President. They have worked tirelessly to preserve this large
bureaucracy to preserve all of these rules, to preserve these
regulations, and make decisions here in Washington D.C.
Our message, our Republican message, is very different, one that the
Governor of Texas tonight and every time he speaks articulates for us
so well; that is, we should not be trusting of the bureaucrats in
Washington. We should be trusting of the teachers who actually know the
name of the children.
We should be trusting of the principals who knows the name of the
teachers. We should be trusting of the superintendents who can name all
of the principals and many of the players in a school district. We
should also be trusting the school board members who make the policy
decisions who are elected by local communities, by our friends and our
neighbors.
The farther away we get from the classroom in terms of decision-
making, accountability, the poorer the decisions are made, and the
greater the opportunity for mismanagement. My goodness, the President
and the President's own agencies have documented this repeatedly, they
have written books on the matter of waste, fraud and abuse in their own
agency, which are replete with examples and there are real
opportunities to fix these problems and get the money to the classroom.
After 8 years, the Vice President has done nothing. He has not lifted
a finger to help us in our efforts to streamline this bureaucracy and
get the money, get the flexibility, get the decision-making to the
people who deserve it.
Mr. GOODLING. I am reminded each time that we were negotiating that
both the President and the Secretaries were governors. Think in terms
of being a governor, rather than being a Washington bureaucrat, and you
will be offering far better solutions to problems, than being a
bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Of course, Governor Bush understands the perspective of
being a governor. He has worked in partnership, not always Republicans;
this has not been solely a Republican success, although, it is a
Republican philosophy. He has had to work with Democrats here in
Congress as well, Democrats of the Texas delegation, Democrats in the
Texas State House and the State Senate.
He understands working across the aisle, and that is a real sign of
leadership when somebody can, as Governor Bush has done, raise the
priority of children over and above everything else, over and above the
bureaucracy, over and above the politics and state as a public goal,
the number 1 objective for education is to raise the achievement of all
children. We are going to start with the ones who are suffering the
most.
We have seen the Governor of Texas accomplish that in his State. It
has just been remarkable how that kind of leadership has brought all of
us together toward that goal. What I am afraid of is that many
Americans may not realize the conflict in vision between these two men
running for President of the United States.
We have the Bush model from the perspective of a governor that we
support that says children should be the number 1 objective of our
education reform efforts; that is in stark contrast to the 8-year
record of the Vice President, which has been to preserve bureaucracy,
to preserve waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement, to write books on
how bad it is, and spend 8 years doing nothing about it. That is a huge
conflict in vision and an important choice that I think we all need to
think about very seriously.
After this election, the gentleman and I and all of our colleagues
here in Washington are going to have to deal with the attitude of the
White House.
Mr. Speaker, I am hoping the Bush attitude of putting children first
is something that we all will be celebrating and rallying around. I
know many people around the country will learn more about that tonight.
I am fearful that not enough share our enthusiasm for putting
children ahead of bureaucracy and may be persuaded by this simple,
unimaginable message that we hear coming out of the White House and
from the Vice President that just says spend more, spend more, spend
more. There is nothing else to say, just spend more.
Mr. GOODLING. Again, there is no question that we are moving in the
right direction as a new majority, because we are putting children
first. Everybody should be thinking about putting children first. They
are our future. The tragedy is that 50 percent of our children today
are not going to be ready to get a piece of the American dream in the
21st Century, the high-tech century. What a tragedy.
[[Page H9815]]
We are going to vote again to bring another 200,000 people from other
countries to do our high-tech jobs, our $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a
year jobs because we do not have our own ready to take those jobs.
We cannot survive as a great society if we continue to do that. We
must tackle the problem.
Mr. SCHAFFER. The contrast again could not be clearer. The Texas
record is one of improving test scores. This is a graph of the Texas
4th graders when it comes to reading skills. Back in 1994, when
Governor Bush took over the governorship in Texas, only 75 percent of
Texas 4th graders could read at grade level, and that has increased to
almost 90 percent in 1999.
That is a remarkable improvement. This is a huge contrast to what has
been created by the Clinton-Gore administration. If we take, for
example, the third international math study, math-science study
comparison, which ranked American students Nationwide against their
peers with 21 other industrial countries, we come in 19th.
This is something we have known about for 8 years that the Clinton
and Gore regime have occupied the White House, and our test scores have
not improved. They have gotten worse. So I guess the question that
Americans need to decide in the next few days is whether we want to see
the Texas style rates of improvement of dramatic increases in academic
performance or whether we want to see the Clinton-Gore kinds of trends,
which is declining performance when compared to international peers in
the case of math and science.
{time} 2100
I love Colorado. It is a great State. But nobody from Colorado is
running for President of the United States. Of the two models, the bad
Washington, D.C. model versus the good Texas model, I will choose the
Texas model every time. I prefer that for my kids. I know most of my
friends and neighborhoods around my district would far prefer to see
improving test scores for their children, not declining test course.
All of this is critically important to maintaining strength and
solvency of our Republic.
It is going to be an interesting evening tonight as that debate gets
under way in just a minute. I am really hopeful that Americans will
remember the difference in opportunity, the opportunity that the White
House has had, that Al Gore has had as Vice President of the United
States, which he has squandered, he has done nothing about some of the
problems that he has known to exist through the Department of
Education, versus dramatic improvements that real leadership in Texas
have achieved for real children with real parents in real communities
in a State that has enjoyed great leadership. Now, that kind of
leadership is something that we can have for the whole country.
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, the Governor Bush model, of course, is the
model I have tried to follow for 26 years, and that is to put people
before politics but put children before politics. That is what he has
done in Texas. That is why we have seen the kind of improvement that we
see in Texas. Those children most in need in Texas are receiving the
benefits that all of these programs that were created in Washington
wanted to see happen, but it did not happen. It has happened with his
leadership and leading a Democrat House and a Democrat Senate.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to be
recognized tonight.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan and the
gentleman from Colorado for allowing me the opportunity to express my
thoughts on the education reform debate that is sure to consume much of
our time in the remaining days of the 106th Congress. For all the sound
and fury generated by the argument over education, the truth is that
the differences between the congressional leadership and the
administration are not significant; both wish to strengthen the
unconstitutional system of centralized education. I trust I need not go
into the flaws with President Clinton's command-and-control approach to
education. However, this Congress has failed to present a true,
constitutional alternative to President Clinton's proposal to further
nationalize education.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the experiment in centralized
control of education has failed, and that the best means of improving
education is to put parents back in charge. According to a recent
Manhattan Institute study of the effects of state policies promoting
parental control over education, a minimal increase in parental control
boosts students' average SAT verbal score by 21 points and students'
SAT math score by 22 points! The Manhattan Institute study also found
that increasing parental control of education is the best way to
improve student performance on the National Assessment of Education
Progress (NAEP) tests. Clearly, the drafters of the Constitution knew
what they were doing when they forbade the Federal Government from
meddling in education.
American children deserve nothing less than the best educational
opportunities, not warmed-over versions of the disastrous educational
policies of the past. That is why I introduced H.R. 935, the Family
Education Freedom Act. This bill would give parents an inflation-
adjusted $3,000 per annum tax credit, per child for educational
expenses. The credit applies to those in public, private, parochial, or
home schooling.
This bill creates the largest tax credit for K-12 education in the
history of our great Republic and it returns the fundamental principle
of a truly free economy to America's education system: what the great
economist Ludwig von Mises called ``consumer sovereignty.'' Consumer
sovereignty simply means consumers decide who succeeds or fails in the
market. Businesses that best satisfy consumer demand will be the most
successful. Consumer sovereignty is the means by which the free market
maximizes human happiness.
Currently, consumers are less than sovereign in the education
``market.'' Funding decisions are increasingly controlled by the
federal government. Because ``he who pays the piper calls the tune,''
public, and even private schools, are paying greater attention to the
dictates of federal ``educrats'' while ignoring the wishes of the
parents to an ever-greater degree. As such, the lack of consumer
sovereignty in education is destroying parental control of education
and replacing it with state control. Restoring parental control is the
key to improving education.
Of course, I applaud all efforts which move in the right direction
such as the Education Savings Accounts legislation (H.R. 7). President
Clinton's college tax credits are also good first steps in the right
direction. However, Congress must act boldly--we can ill afford to
waste another year without a revolutionary change in our policy. I
believe my bill sparks this revolution and I am disappointed that the
leadership of this Congress chose to ignore this fundamental reform and
instead focused on reauthorizing great society programs and promoting
the pseudo-federalism of block grants.
One area where this Congress has so far been successful in fighting
for a constitutional education policy was in resisting President
Clinton's drive for national testing. I do wish to express my support
for the provisions banning the development of national testing
contained in the Education Appropriations bill, and thank Mr. Goodling
for his leadership in this struggle.
Certain of my colleagues champion proposals to relieve schools of
certain mandates so long as states and localities agree to be held
``accountable'' to the federal government for the quality of their
schools. I have supported certain of these proposals because they do
provide states and localities the option of escaping certain federal
mandates.
However, there are a number of both practical and philosophical
concerns regarding these proposals. The primary objection to this
approach, from a constitutional viewpoint, is embedded in the very
mantra of ``accountability'' stressed by the plans' proponents. Talk of
accountability begs the question: accountable to whom? Under these type
of plans, schools remain accountable to federal bureaucrats and those
who develop the state tests upon which a schools' performance is
judged. Should the schools not live up to their bureaucratically-
determined ``performance goals,'' they will lose their limited freedom
from federal mandates. So federal and state bureaucrats will determine
if the schools are to be allowed to participate in these programs and
bureaucrats will judge whether the states are living up to the
standards set in the state's education plan--yet this is supposed to
debureaucratize and decentralize education!
Even absent the ``accountability'' provisions spending billions of
taxpayer dollars on block grants is a poor way of restoring control
over education to local educators and parents. Some members claim that
the expenditure levels for not matter, it is the way the money is spent
which is important. Contrary to the view of the well-meaning but
misguided members who promote block grants, the amount of taxpayer
dollars spent on federal education does matter.
First of all, the federal government lacks constitutional authority
to redistribute monies between states and taxpayers for the purpose of
education, regardless of whether the monies are redistributed through
federal programs
[[Page H9816]]
or through grants. There is no ``block grant exception'' to the
principles of federalism embodied in the U.S. Constitution.
Furthermore, the federal government's power to treat state
governments as their administrative subordinates stems from an abuse of
Congress' taxing-and-spending power. Submitting to federal control is
the only way state and local officials can recapture any part of the
monies of the federal government has illegitimately taken from a
state's citizens. Of course, this is also the only way state officials
can tax citizens of other states to support their education programs.
It is the rare official who can afford not to bow to federal dictates
in exchange for federal funding!
As long as the federal government controls education dollars, states
and local schools will obey Federal mandates; the core program is not
that federal monies are given with the inevitable strings attached, the
real problem is the existence of federal taxation and funding.
Since federal spending is the root of federal control, by increasing
federal spending this Congress is laying the groundwork for future
Congresses to fasten more and more mandates on the states. Because
state and even local officials, not federal bureaucrats, will be
carrying out these mandates, this system could complete the
transformation of the state governments into mere agents of the federal
government.
While it is true that lower levels of intervention are not as bad as
micro-management at the federal level, Congress' constitutional and
moral responsibility is not to make the federal education bureaucracy
``less bad.'' Rather, we must act now to put parents back in charge of
education and thus make American education once again the envy of the
world.
Hopefully the next Congress will be more reverent toward their duty
to the U.S. Constitution and America's children. The price of
Congress's failure to return to the Constitution in the area of
education will be paid by the next generation of American children. In
short, we cannot afford to continue on the policy read we have been
going down. The cost of inaction to our future generations is simply
too great.
____________________