[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 132 (Thursday, October 19, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10749-S10751]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               EDUCATION

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I listened with interest to my colleague 
from Massachusetts. I am always interested as he holds forth on these 
issues about which he feels passionately, and I congratulate him on his 
passion.
  I have a similar commitment to education but a rather different view 
of things. Let me review again, as I have in this Chamber before, my 
own experience with respect to education that causes me to come to a 
different opinion and a different position than that of the senior 
Senator from Massachusetts.
  As I have related to the Senate before, I was happy in a business 
career when I received a phone call that asked me to serve as chairman 
of the Strategic Planning Commission of the Utah State Board of 
Education. That got me into educational issues and actually started me 
down the road out of corporate life and into public life, ultimately 
leading me here to the Senate.
  Apropos of the things that the Senator from Massachusetts has said, I 
share an experience I had that resonated with the comment that Governor 
Bush made the other night. The Senator from Massachusetts has already 
referred to the debate between the two Presidential candidates, so I 
think it is appropriate I should go there, as well.
  We started, in my education about what happens in education by 
talking about the money. That is always a good place to start. Start 
with the numbers, start with the dollars. The dollars pretty much drive 
everything else.
  I looked at the various things that were being done in the State of 
Utah, some of which struck me, as a businessman, as being maybe a 
lesser priority than some other areas. I asked the question: Who sets 
the priorities? Who determines that we spend more money on topic A than 
topic C? I was told, that is the Federal Government. The Federal 
Government puts up matching funds and requires that the States come up 
with their match, and the Federal Government determines that topic A 
will be topic A, topic B will be topic B, and so on.
  I looked at some of the programs. I said, we would be better off in 
Utah if we spent that money on something else. Our needs in Utah are 
different than the needs in other States. Maybe it is nice to have the 
Federal dollars, but why don't we tell the Feds, sorry, we won't take 
your dollars for topic A, because for us topic C or topic D should be 
topic A, so we will forego the Federal dollars, and we will take the 
money that we have been forced to put up as matching dollars and spend 
it on our priorities.
  The fellow who was briefing me on this kind of smiled at how naive I 
was, how foolish a notion that was. He said:


[[Page S10750]]


       You can't do that. The Federal Government will sue you and 
     will win. They have already sued States that tried to do that 
     and won.

  So if the Federal Government says this is what you have to spend your 
money on, then you have no choice but to do that, even if it is not in 
the best interests of the schoolchildren in your State.
  That was a disappointing thing for me to realize, but I thought: OK, 
we are dealing with 50-cent dollars here, at least. We are putting up 
matching funds. So the Feds put up 50 cents and we put up 50 cents, so 
it is not hurting us quite as badly to be spending 50-cent dollars on a 
project we would not have chosen.
  Once again, smiles of indulgence on the part of the fellow who was 
briefing me. He said:

       No, no, you don't understand, Bob. The State doesn't put up 
     50 cents. The State puts up 80 cents, the State puts up 90 
     cents. When we say matching dollars, we don't mean matching 
     dollar for dollar; we mean the Feds put up 5 percent or 10 
     percent or, if they are feeling really generous, 15 percent 
     or 20 percent. But the States are required to put up the rest 
     of it.

  I thought: That is really not fair. That is not a good deal. That is 
controlling the direction of education everywhere with a small amount 
of money. I thought: There is something wrong with that. I looked into 
it. I found that the only program where the Federal Government puts up 
half or more of the money in so-called matching funds is school lunch--
which is not an educational program; it is a welfare program. I have 
nothing against school lunch. Indeed, I recognize that there is a great 
need for school lunch. I am a supporter of school lunch. But let us not 
stand here and say that, because the Feds put up more money for school 
lunch percentagewise than anything else, they are making a major 
contribution to education.
  When Governor Bush was speaking about this the other night, he made 
this point that went by many people but that I would like to focus on 
here. He said the Federal Government puts up about 6 percent of the 
money but they control--if my memory is correct from what the Governor 
said--60 percent of the strings.
  I don't know whether that 60 percent is exactly right, but it is in 
the ball park, and I will use that figure because that is what my 
memory says. Six percent of the money, but they control 60 percent of 
the strings that are attached to that money. So the people in Utah, 
Colorado, or Arizona or, yes, Massachusetts, have to jump through the 
Federal hoops with the 96 cents that they put into every dollar spent 
on education, jumping through at the dictate of the people who put up 
the 6 cents.
  Here is the fundamental difference we need to confront when we have 
this debate on education, the fundamental difference between the 
Republicans and the Democrats, between those who are demanding we put 
more money into the present system, as does the Senator from 
Massachusetts, and those who are saying let's experiment a little bit. 
The fundamental difference is, Who should be allowed to call the shots? 
The people closest to the problem, the people facing the children day 
by day, the people administering the schools on a regular basis in 
their home communities? Or the people in Washington, DC? Who should 
make the ultimate decisions about education?

  Let me make it clear, I am not calling for the abolition of the 
Department of Education. The senior Senator from Massachusetts would 
seem to be very upset that somebody suggested we abolish the Department 
of Education. I have never made that suggestion, so I am on his side on 
that one. I agree there should be a voice at the Cabinet level talking 
about education. But I do not think the voice at the Cabinet level that 
is talking to the President about education should be the voice at the 
school board level, talking to the principal of the school where my 
grandchildren go about education.
  I have to talk about my grandchildren now because all of my children 
have graduated. All of them are out of school, out of college, raising 
families, pursuing careers. But there was a time with six children--
seven, actually, because we had a foster child in our home for 4 
years--when I spent a lot of time at school board meetings. I went to 
school board meetings and listened to them discuss the budgets. I 
recognized that there were differences within the school district, 
between schools. I heard them debate about how they were going to take 
care of problems in this middle school that were different from 
problems in that middle school. I recognize that is where the rubber 
meets the road. That is where the decisions have to be made. That is 
where the problems really arise.
  I do not think there is anybody in Washington who can differentiate 
between the problems in this middle school in the Las Virgenes School 
District in California, where my children went, and that middle school 
in Las Virgenes School District in California where my children went. I 
don't think there are very many people in Washington who have ever 
heard of the Las Virgenes School District in California where my 
children went. That is the issue. That is what we are talking about.
  The Senator from Massachusetts says the Republicans don't care about 
Massachusetts because all they do is block all of our efforts to go 
forward with a massive Federal program in education. Yes, we do try to 
block some of those efforts. Not because we are saying the Federal 
Government should have no role in education, but we are saying the 
Federal Government should begin to trust people at the local level to 
make their own decisions. It is a fundamental difference. We saw it in 
the debates the other night. We are saying it on the floor now.
  Whom do you trust? Do you trust the Federal Government and the 
Federal bureaucracy and the Federal Department of Education as the 
ultimate authority as to what should be done or do you trust the people 
who are closest to the problem to decide what should be done? It should 
be a partnership, not a dictatorship. It seems to me someone who puts 
up 6 percent of the money, who then controls 60 percent of the 
decisions, is getting close to dictatorship and not partnership.
  At the State level, I found myself resenting it. Now that I have come 
to the Federal level, I bring that bias with me. I continue to resent 
it. I continue to think we would be better off if we said those who are 
putting up 6 percent of the money have an opinion, have a role to play, 
they have a function they can perform that no one else can perform, but 
when it comes to the nitty-gritty of the daily decisions, those who are 
putting up 6 percent of the money should yield to the decisionmaking 
power of those who are putting up 94 percent of the money and doing 
virtually 100 percent of the work.
  Let's look at this Congress. The Senator from Massachusetts attacked 
the record of this Congress on education and said we have not done 
anything. We have. For example, we passed the education savings 
accounts which would have put more power in the hands of individuals 
and parents. Once again, the fundamental difference: Whom do you trust?
  The education savings account bill, which was cosponsored by the 
chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Senator 
from New Jersey, Mr. Torricelli, would have put more power in the hands 
of individuals, and the President vetoed it. The President vetoed an 
education bill on the grounds that it would have taken power away from 
the Washington establishment and put power in the hands of the parents.
  It is not fair to stand here on this floor and say, regardless of the 
decibel level at which you say it, that this Congress has done nothing 
about education, because we have passed education bills that the 
President has vetoed and he has vetoed it on this basic issue.
  Straight A's: This is a bill, we call it the Academic Achievements 
for All Act--Straight A's Act. It was supported by the Senator from 
Georgia who used to occupy this place on the Senate floor, Mr. 
Coverdell.
  The Democrats blocked it. The Democrats said the President will veto 
it. The Democrats said: No, we cannot allow this kind of flexibility at 
the local level. We must continue to dictate to the local people what 
will happen with respect to education.
  Once again, those who put up 6 percent of the money control 60 
percent of the strings, and they are using their 6 percent of the money 
to dictate to the people at the local level how things should be.

[[Page S10751]]

  I remember the debate on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 
We have had that debate. I regret that it did not result in the passing 
of the act, but one of the reasons it did not result in the passing of 
the act was because of blocking efforts on the part of the Democrats to 
a Republican proposal that would have given States, on an experimental 
basis, the opportunity to try something new. There was no dictating in 
the position of the Senator from Washington, Mr. Gorton, that said 
States have to try this. His amendment said if a State thinks the 
present system is wonderful, the State can continue to receive money 
with the present system. They can continue to accept those 60 percent 
of the strings. They can continue to do exactly what they are doing.
  What if a State does not want to do it quite that way? What if a 
State wants to experiment in a very tentative fashion with something 
new? Let's give them the opportunity to try it. The senior Senator from 
Massachusetts was one of the first to take the floor and roar that we 
must not allow that kind of experimentation. We must not allow anyone 
to try anything different.
  Look at the States that are making progress. And, yes, look at the 
State of Texas. Look at the progress that has been made among Hispanic 
students, the progress that has been made among black students--the 
progress that has been made among minorities generally in the State of 
Texas. It leads the national average. It is a record of extremely 
beneficial accomplishment, and it is taking place in the early grades 
where it needs to take place because if you wait until the time they 
get to the SAT scores, it is too late.
  If you want to look at SAT scores, you are looking at high school 
students, and the high school students in Texas were cheated by the 
administrations in Texas that were there prior to the time Governor 
Bush took over. It is in the lower grades where they are seeing the 
fruits of the activities in Texas where they are trusting people, 
trusting the locals, giving the opportunities that need to be given to 
those who need education the most.
  The white middle-class suburban kids do pretty well in this country 
in almost every State in which they live. The real educational crisis 
is among the minorities. The real educational crisis is among those 
people who live in the inner cities and do not have the opportunities 
that come to the white middle-class suburban kids. Let's be honest and 
straightforward about that.
  It is very interesting. Who has led the fight, which seems to upset 
the senior Senator from Massachusetts more than any other, for 
experimentation with vouchers? It has been Polly Williams, an inner-
city representative of a minority, a black member of the State 
legislature. She comes from Milwaukee, and she has led the fight not 
for the rich, not for the upper 1 percent, not for the other groups 
that have been demonized in this political campaign. She has led the 
fight for poor inner-city kids. She has won the fight, and the fight in 
Milwaukee is over. If you run for an educational position in Milwaukee 
now, you better be for vouchers because the public has seen it and has 
embraced it, and it is now the strong majority position.

  It comes down to this fundamental question when we talk about money: 
Do you want to fund the individual or do you want to fund the system? 
We say let's fund the individual and let the individual take the money 
wherever he wants to go. They say: Oh, no; that's terrible. He might 
take it to a--dare we say it?--religious school. He might take the 
money in such a way that violates the separation of church and State. 
We can't have that.
  In what is considered the most successful social program since the 
Second World War, we did exactly that. We gave the money to 
individuals, and we said to them: We don't care what you do with it; 
just use it to get an education. I am talking, of course, about the GI 
bill. When we said to the GIs who came home from World War II, ``We are 
going to give you money to go to school,'' we did not say, ``We are 
going to pick the institutions that will receive this money and then 
you go petition for it.'' We just said if they served in the Armed 
Forces, they have the money under the GI bill of rights. And if they 
wanted to go to Notre Dame and study to be a Catholic priest, they 
could do that and nobody was going to claim that was somehow a 
violation of the separation of church and State.
  We said if they want to take the money and go to Oral Roberts 
University, they could do that. It may well be Oral Roberts University 
did not exist under the GI bill--I am not sure--but the principle still 
holds. If they wanted to go to Harvard, if they wanted to go to 
Wellesley, if they wanted to go to Ohio State University, or if they 
wanted to go to Baylor or Southern Methodist--they pick the school and 
the money follows the individual, giving the individual power, and 
America is the better for it. That is what we are talking about here. 
The money should go where it will do the individual the most good and 
not be controlled out of Washington that puts up 6 cents out of every 
educational dollar and then wants to make 60 percent of every 
educational decision.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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