[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 6, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H642-H646]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              CHILDREN AND THEIR EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from North

[[Page H643]]

Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee 
of the minority leader.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, tonight I want to spend some time talking 
about an issue that is very important to me and to the Members of this 
Congress, I trust. I have a number of my colleagues joining me this 
evening to talk about a group of young people who need champions and a 
group who, because of their age, not because of their ability, are not 
allowed to serve in this body so we have to be their spokesman and 
their advocate.
  Tonight I want to talk about our children and their educational 
opportunities. I had the privilege of serving for 8 years as the State 
superintendent of schools for North Carolina and work with some 
wonderful people who deeply care about the education of our children. 
Just yesterday, I was in Eastern Wake County working with some 
tremendous people there, a lady by the name of Linda Johnson, who had 
previously been a teacher and school board member, who had pulled 
together three communities really to work together with children in a 
program they called Lights on for Education. They have taken on the 
monumental challenge in Eastern Wake County.
  What they are about is by 2003 they have committed to have 95 percent 
of their children in grades three through eight reading at or above 
grade level by 2003.

                              {time}  1900

  That is a monumental task, because reading is the key skill of all of 
the trainings we need to have in education. But for these people to 
come together, and what was so significant about that, and I want to 
share it just briefly before I ask my colleagues to join me, is that we 
have to understand that in North Carolina education is a State 
responsibility, augmented by about 7 percent Federal money and maybe 
about 20 to 25 percent local money, that is, local money from the 
counties.
  But in this situation, we had three mayors, Bob Matheny who is the 
mayor of Zebulon; Lucius Jones, who is the mayor of Wendell; and the 
Knightdale mayor, Joe Bryan, and we were joined by the superintendent 
of schools for the county, Bill McNeil. It is unusual for three mayors 
to come together to work on educational issues. Some people would say 
it is unusual to get three mayors to come together, as difficult as it 
is to get three Congressmen together; but they were willing not only to 
put their political prestige on the line to help children, they were 
willing to reach out into the community, get the business people 
together, and we had a substantial number of the business community 
working, Glaxco, Smith Kline hosted it on their campus; and we were 
able to light a tree that will burn uninterrupted, we trust, barring 
any natural interruptions of it, until 2003 when they have reached 
their goal. I think that is what we need in every community.
  But one thing I think is significant that I want my colleagues to 
know about tonight, and that is so many times we say, we really need 
local initiative, we need the local folks to take charge and do it; and 
that is true. But if the people from eastern Wade County were here 
tonight, they would say to us, that job would have been very difficult, 
if not near impossible, had it not been for Federal money coming down 
that was appropriated by this Congress last year, several million 
dollars that are going to be used as the glue to pull all of this 
together over the next 3 years to make a difference. It does take 
money, folks. Certainly it takes effort, certainly it takes commitment, 
but it is our responsibility to provide the leadership, and some places 
cannot do it on their own.
  I believe that we have a responsibility to be frugal. I was in 
business for 20 years before I was State superintendent, and I can tell 
my colleagues that it takes resources, I would like to remind my 
colleagues from time to time. We won the Cold War, and we did not win 
the Cold War on the cheap. We spent a lot of money. We spend a lot of 
money on education; it is going to take more. We have over 53 million 
children this year in the public schools in this country, and that 
number is continuing to grow.
  My State is not unlike any other State. We have spent money building 
buildings, but we have great needs. I will talk about that more in a 
few minutes. Even though we passed substantial bond issues, we are the 
fourth fastest-growing State in America right now. Even though we are 
only the 10th largest, we will be the fourth fastest-growing for 
students entering high school over the next 10 years. So we can see the 
challenge we face. We need money for infrastructure. I am going to talk 
about that more.
  Now, I would like to yield to a real strong leader on public 
education, a person who came to this Congress 2 years ago and at that 
point provided tremendous leadership in the area of science. He is a 
scientist himself, he understands education, he understands the 
commitment that all of us have to make to help, the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Holt).
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
Etheridge), who knows firsthand about what it takes to have excellent 
schools for our children. And he has talked about reading, and over the 
past couple of years he has talked at great length and with great 
effectiveness about the need for good facilities.
  I would like to talk for just a couple of minutes about another 
aspect of our public education, education in math and science. It is 
important for our economics, for our national security, really for our 
democracy, but also I would argue for personal well-being, because math 
and science bring order and harmony and balance to our lives. It is 
through math and science that children understand that our world is 
intelligible. It is not capricious. It gives them the skills for 
lifelong learning, really for creating progress itself.
  Now, from evidence of all sorts that is available to us now, it is 
clear that we are not providing the quality education in math and 
science that we should to our children; and I think my friend, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) knows that very well.
  I am proud to have served for the past year on the National 
Commission on Mathematics and Science teaching chaired by former 
Senator, former astronaut John Glenn, including leaders from business, 
industry, education, and professional organizations. The Glenn 
Commission, as it has come to be known, released its report a few 
months ago; and it identifies teaching as the key for dealing with the 
problems that this country faces in math and science education. The 
teachers are the key. The commission calls for major changes throughout 
the teaching profession and within scientific professions and in the 
institutions that produce our teachers. Our country must devote 
attention to the quantity and the quality and the professional 
environment of our teachers in math and science.
  I cannot emphasize too strongly that in the next 10 years, we will 
have to hire in the United States 2.2 million new teachers just to stay 
even, not for smaller class sizes, just to stay even; and most of those 
teachers, including all elementary schoolteachers, will be called on to 
teach math and science; and many will feel inadequate to teach it 
because of the preparation we make available to them, actually because 
of the way we approach science and math as subjects only for 
specialists, not for the general public, not for the general teacher. 
We must address that.
  But here is an example of the important role of the Federal 
Government. There is a role. We cannot expect the school district of 
Stockton in my district or the school district of Freehold to deal with 
this national problem of recruiting 2.2 million teachers. This is a 
national problem, it deserves national attention, and it deserves 
national resources. And providing the training for these teachers once 
they are hired and the continuing atmosphere of a good professional 
development, that is going to require resources.
  The President has talked about professional development of teachers 
in his early statements on education, but if we look at his sketch of 
the budget, we do not find it. So I think we have to step back and look 
at what we as a country are planning to do to help in math and science 
teaching and in reading and see that the resources are there. I would 
like to have that budget in front of us now before we do anything else 
to see whether we are dealing with need number one, education, and see 
whether the resources are there in the budget.

[[Page H644]]

  Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleague if he agrees.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, that is a 
critical point. The point where the gentleman is talking about 
training, and teachers having worked with the schools and knowing, the 
problem we face is daunting; but we can do it if we are committed to 
it. First of all, not only do we need the training, we need mentors for 
those teachers because today, in the first 3 to 5 years, we lose over 
25 to 30 percent of those teachers; they leave, because the job is so 
daunting and overwhelming. I stopped by a school this morning to have 
breakfast, a national breakfast program with our children. It was cold. 
I had on a topcoat. In North Carolina this morning it was very cold. 
The chill factor was probably about 20 degrees or less, and guess who 
was standing out in the cold with coats on to greet the children? The 
teachers. And this was at 7:30 in the morning, they had already been 
there for 30 minutes, because some of the children come early.
  I think our colleagues need to understand that teaching is not just 
teaching reading, writing, and math. I went into the classroom and had 
breakfast with the children, kindergartners. As the teachers came in 
with those children, they taught them how to stay in line, they go 
through the breakfast line, how to carry their tray along, they go sit 
down at the table with them, have breakfast with them, they watch them. 
They are taught manners, taught how to do certain things. With 
kindergarten, you have to start pretty early and build. Teachers do 
that for 13 years, kindergarten through the 12th grade, not just those 
details, but a myriad of other things.

  I think we need to honor our teachers more, make sure that we 
understand how tough their job is. We certainly do not pay them enough, 
so we ought to at least give them the honor they are due, and I agree 
with the gentleman.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I would say that 
we must treat teachers as the professionals they are. When I talk about 
a need for an environment in the schools of continual development, 
professional development, it means mentoring teachers; it means time in 
the day and in the week and in the school year for teachers to get the 
professional development that professionals in other fields are 
expected to get; and it means devoting resources to allow that to 
happen.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I could not agree 
more. I thank the gentleman.
  When we think of that, there are a lot of ways we can help, the 
Federal Government, the Congress. Too many times I hear people say, 
well, that is not Congress' responsibility. The fact is that Congress 
has a heavy responsibility, and we show up short time and time again.
  Last year, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle talked about 
children with special needs. I could not agree with them more. We ought 
to fund the 40 percent we said we would fund and fund it now that we 
have the money.
  Mr. Speaker, I now yield a few minutes to my colleague who is new to 
this Congress, but is not new to this issue, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Honda). He understands the need. If we fund that 40 
percent, and he has already shared this with me many times, and I could 
not agree more, we could free up a lot of local money, and I yield to 
my colleague to talk about that.
  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I really appreciate 
this discussion on education, because I believe that the President has 
made education one of the cornerstones of his administration for this 
next 4 years.
  One of the things that I found as a principal is that one of our jobs 
is to identify youngsters who need special education and need to be 
assessed. But that is not an obligation of the principal nor the 
teacher, because we are just good guys. It is also a mandate by the 
Federal Government. Public Law 94-142 requires everybody in schools to 
be able to go out and seek youngsters who may need special education 
services, and the PL 94-142 also said that they would fund the cost of 
special ed at the level of 40 percent. Currently, in the past few 
years, it has not gone beyond 12, 13, 14 percent.
  What that does for local school districts, and I was on a board of a 
local school district in San Jose, and we found that we had to struggle 
very, very hard to come up with the general fund moneys to supplement 
the funds that did not come from the Federal Government. What we find 
ourselves in is a bind that we have this requirement, this duty to seek 
out youngsters who need special education and also assess them and 
cover the costs and then cover the costs for the services that they 
would need. But we have to also use general fund monies to supplement 
the lack of the money that is not coming from the Federal Government. 
That puts the local districts into even more of a bind, because the 
general fund money that are allocated to special ed becomes siphoned 
off for services for other needs that the schools have to align the 
costs to.
  I think that what we have found ourselves in is fulfilling a mandate 
without the funding. I believe that having mandates without the full 
funding that we were promised is a disservice not only to the school 
districts, but ultimately to the youngsters. This pits parents and 
schools against each other, because we all have this great expectation 
now to meet the needs of our youngsters, but not having the resources 
to follow through.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, having served in the 
State as State superintendent where you have districts with resources, 
other districts without resources, I would be interested in the 
gentleman's comments as it relates to the disparity even these 
youngsters find. Because even though we have an obligation to serve 
them, they are served in a disproportionate way, even though we are 
serving, for a child who lives in a school district where we have 
substantial resources available, they get quality because the IEP, or 
individual education plans, have to be written for each one of these 
students; and as we are writing those plans, we may have one-on-one 
attention. I happen to support that, because I happen to believe that 
these young people become committed, taxpaying, productive citizens in 
American society. So I think we have an obligation to do it.
  However, my point is, have my colleagues seen that in their 
situations where some do not get the kind of attention they ought to 
get just because of resources?

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, many districts who do not have the local 
resources to fulfill their obligation find themselves not being as 
great of an advocate for the youngsters. They may want to, but they do 
not have the resources to cover it.
  There are other school districts who are well off, and they are still 
battling with parents and trying to minimize the identification of 
youngsters, because even in a well-to-do school district, it is still a 
drain on the general fund, but the mandate is still there. What it 
really does is pits parents against school districts, and that is not 
healthy for a public school system.
  I believe that what the gentleman mentioned, having an IEP for every 
youngster, should be a right of every youngster before they even start 
school, because what an IEP does is present all the needs that a 
youngster has, and you can develop an educational strategy so that the 
parent, the teacher at the get-go knows what they have to do.
  From that point, you can have great expectations. You can have 
accountability. You have benchmarks that we are all talking about, and 
we are talking about accountability. We have not had the real tools 
from which to judge the teaching and the youngsters. People say that 
developing an IEP is very expensive, but then I guess how expensive is 
ignorance.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. If the gentleman would yield, I think what the 
gentleman is talking about is absolutely right, and what the gentleman 
is really talking about is an investment.
  Mr. HONDA. That is correct.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. It is an investment in our future, and an investment 
in the future of this country because the dollar investment today will 
return rich dividends in years to come.
  One of the challenges we face not only of having the dollars to 
develop the plan and help teachers carrying them out and do them 
depending on the district, because if we funded the

[[Page H645]]

full 40 percent that we committed to, I cannot think of a better tax 
break for local systems, for local taxpayers than to make sure that 
every child in this country, not only special needs children but all 
children, have a good education. That will take more off their backs 
than anything else we can do from Washington this year or next year or 
the year after.
  Mr. HONDA. If the gentleman would yield, we also found in the penal 
institutions and the juvenile justice systems, we found there is an 
inordinate amount of folks in the penal system who have special ed 
needs.
  If we do it in the front end, we can save a lot of money in the 
criminal justice system, the juvenile justice system, and divert and 
invest our money properly and in a positive vein.
  Let me just close, if I may, by saying that we still have an 
obligation, we created that obligation with 94-142. We created that 
expectation. We said to parents, when we passed that law, that your 
children have a right to an equitable education, even if they have 
special needs. We have to cover that.
  If we fulfill that, our 40 percent, then that would allow the local 
districts to be able to function at a higher rate and more efficiently, 
but what concerns me this year is that the idea of creating a block 
grant funding for education to our States, to me that dissipates the 
direction of the funding that we need to specifically target to these 
youngsters and to the school district.
  I am hoping that we will be able to persuade our colleagues and the 
administration that special education needs to be very clear in its 
funding and as its direction and its target.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for 
his comments.
  Let me just add to that point when the gentleman talks about block 
grants, I served as a State legislator and chaired the Committee on 
Appropriations before I was superintendent. I happened to have been in 
the general assembly in the 1980s, when we had our last major tax cut 
and that blocked to us, and all that meant was we are going to send in 
money but we are going to cut it.
  The truth is, in schools or other agencies, we have a responsibility 
to help fund. The last thing they need is to be block granted or have 
grants they have to deal with. You cannot hire teachers on block grants 
and grant funding.
  The truth is when you hire a teacher or any person to work with 
children, you have to have enough to sustain that investment, the money 
has to be a continuous stream, otherwise you cannot hire people and 
sustain them.
  The gentleman mentioned this whole issue of the penal system. It 
reminds me, and I just said this a number of times in my State, we have 
prisons that are nicer in this country than we have public schools in 
some places. That is wrong. It ought to end. It ought to end right now.
  We have the ability in this Congress to do something about it, 
because we have the resources. I introduced legislation that the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Baca), my colleague, signed last year. 
We are going to introduce it again in the next week or so along with a 
number of our colleagues.
  I have here a flier that was done last year. It says ``America Has 
Come A Long Way Since The One-Room Schoolhouse.'' It is a nice-looking 
one room schoolhouse. The only problem is, in some cases, we have moved 
to this, less buildings that are not up to code, that are not what they 
ought to be, and a lot of times just trailers out behind the main 
building.
  The gentleman mentioned the issue of children. I was in a meeting 
yesterday where someone was talking and we had a group of children in 
front of us, and the word these days is leave no child behind, and all 
of a sudden the Speaker said which one of these children do you want to 
leave? That is really the answer.
  Talk is cheap. You have to work to get it done.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Baca), my colleague, who has been a real hard worker on this issue. He 
has committed to making sure children have a space to learn and a good 
environment for his comments on this issue.
  Mr. BACA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I want to thank my 
colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge), for 
putting education as the top priority.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is the number one area that we should 
probably invest in. When we talking about investment, when we talk 
about resources, we talk about our future, and our children are our 
future. But we have got to invest in education, and we are not 
investing enough dollars.
  When we look at President Bush making his statement that no child 
should be left behind, well, if no child should be left behind, then 
that means we ought to invest in education. We look at the amount of 
children in publics schools, over 53 million in our public schools 
alone.
  We look at California, over 6 million children in our public schools. 
If we do not invest in education, what is going to happen to our 
children? That means investment not only from preschools but investment 
in our K through 12. If we take the preventive measures, we save in the 
long run.
  Just as it was recently discussed about the prisons, we are investing 
more money in building prisons and incarcerating individuals. Had we 
invested early in education, we would have saved the taxpayers money. 
We would have had productive citizens that would have gone out into our 
communities, worked, become taxpayers, but that meant that we invested. 
That means that no child was left behind. That means that in the 
classroom, where right now we have approximately 30 to 45 students per 
teacher, this is uncalled for. The ratio should be less.
  As we begin to recruit, a need for more teachers, a demand for 2.3 
million teachers nationwide. In California alone, we need over 25,000 
teachers that we need to recruit. What does that mean? Teacher 
training, teacher recruitment, teacher development.
  What does that mean? Our institutions have to work. With that, as we 
begin to recruit teachers, we need to have the infrastructures. We need 
to have schools that are built to accommodate. If, in fact, we want 
every child to learn, we must put them in an environment where they can 
learn.
  The teacher must feel that environment, and it is very difficult when 
a teacher goes into the classroom and they have 30 to 35 students in a 
classroom, and you look at the construction buildings, you look at 
inadequate chalkboards, inadequate computers, inadequate faucets, leaky 
roofs, when you look at what is going on, we want to make sure that the 
atmospheres are good, that the teacher feels good, that the students 
feels good, and we create the kind of construction that is necessary 
for our children to look good, that they can look at any neighboring 
school and say we have schools that are built like any others. We have 
the technology that every other schools have.
  We want parity with anyone else, because we feel that we can learn. 
We want to have the same dreams that every other child has, but the 
dream will only come to reality if, in fact, we provide the tools and 
the instruments.
  My son is a teacher in junior high. He currently is going out and 
buying supplies at Colton Junior High School, Joe Baca, Jr., but yet he 
is also a baseball coach, and he is going out and buying all kinds of 
equipment, everything else, because we are not providing a lot of the 
resources.
  They should not have to reach into their pockets. We should make sure 
that when we have a bond bill and it becomes very difficult in some of 
our communities to pass, that we do not have the kind of schools 
that need to be built. We want to make sure that every school has 
adequate funding, that we provide the funding not only for 
construction, the funding for teacher training, the funding for 
recruitment, the funding for accountability.

  Accountability, when people talk about it, accountability is already 
at the local level. You have school board members that are elected. 
They have the responsibility at the local level to hold the 
accountability in how those dollars are spent. But we want to make sure 
that every child has access to education, that every child has an 
opportunity to be what they want to be.
  The only way it is going to be done is if we invest more money in 
education, provide more money in construction, provide more money for 
teacher training, provide more money for teacher

[[Page H646]]

development, provide opportunity for our children, invest at the 
beginning, not in our prisons, but invest in education from the 
beginning. Then we are going to have a society where individuals are 
going to go out to be governors, Presidents, Congressmen, assemblymen, 
businesspersons; they will have an opportunity to fulfill those dreams.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California. I 
think the gentleman reminds us if it were not for public education, 
most of us would not be here either.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), my 
friend who serves on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. He 
has been an outspoken advocate for education and a real champion.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina, my 
friend, for yielding to me.
  I saw the conversation taking place on the House floor and I wanted 
to join my friends and also commend my friend, the gentleman from North 
Carolina, the former State superintendent of the school system there, 
for his leadership and expertise that he has provided us in this 
Chamber on education issues.
  I wanted to also thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca), my 
good friend, for his energy and tireless effort in promoting 
educational programs here in Congress during his term. But I, for one, 
was very, very happy during the last campaign that there was so much 
discussion and focus on education issues whether it was Vice President 
Gore or Governor Bush.
  I think it elevated the sense of urgency that many of us feel in 
regards to our education investments as a Nation, but I just wanted to 
add during this conversation tonight a very important piece of the 
puzzle as we move forward on reauthorizing the elementary and secondary 
education bill in the Committee on Education and Workforce this year, 
and that is virtually every school district throughout the Nation is 
facing a common challenge, and that is the rising costs of providing a 
quality education to students with special needs, special education 
costs.
  We have a bill at the Federal level called Individuals With 
Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, and when it was passed back in the 
1970s, there was a commitment on the Federal level that we would at 
least provide 40 percent of the expenses to local school districts and 
educating these children with special needs.
  We have not done a very good job of living up to that obligation, 
that responsibility at the Federal level. I am sure every 
representative in this House could go home and find stories that they 
can share with us in regards to the rising costs of special education. 
Let us face it, with the advancement of medical technology and health 
care today, we are putting our children on a collision course with 
school funding at the local level, because many of the kids now who 
normally would not have survived and lived to join the public education 
system are doing so, and with that brings added costs and expense.
  If we can get one thing right during this education debate this year, 
it is fully funding IDEA, providing the 40 percent cost share back to 
local school districts, so they have more flexibility, more resources 
in order to educate these children, but also to do and implement the 
type of reforms that we are demanding of them, to improve student 
performance in the classroom.
  This is more than just good policy, this is a civil rights issue. 
These children deserve to have access to a quality education, like any 
other child in this country. So we have a special obligation, I feel, 
in this session of Congress to try to get to that 40 percent level.
  Even though we had a 27 percent increase last year in the last budget 
in regards to IDEA funding, it still only puts us at roughly 14 percent 
or 15 percent of the 40 percent level where we really should be. It 
would require an additional $11 billion or so to get the full funding 
this year, but it is a question of budgetary priorities, where we feel 
investments need to be made as a Nation. I could not think of any 
better place to start than with our children in the education system, 
helping local school districts, increasing their flexibility by 
providing them these resources that the Federal Government has promised 
throughout the years but has failed to deliver upon.
  Hopefully we will be able to get that aspect of education done in a 
bipartisan fashion during this year in Congress. The litmus test, quite 
frankly, will be the administration's first budget request that they 
are going to send out and where they place special education funding on 
their list of priorities, from there, then, hopefully, we will be able 
to establish the broad-based political coalition that I know exists in 
the House based on previous debates and votes that we have had in order 
to get this piece of the puzzle done for education.

                              {time}  1930

  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin is correct. 
We have the resources to do it this year. There is no reason that we 
cannot start down that road and make it happen. If we really want to 
have a better world, it has been said if you want a better world, you 
share it with a child and they will build it. We have that opportunity.

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