[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 13, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H857-H863]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EDUCATION POLICY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to use most of my time to talk
about education, but I think it is important to begin by setting the
discussion on education in the proper context, within the proper
context of what is developing here in Washington and in the House of
Representatives.
Last week we voted, the majority voted, to begin the massive tax cut
proposed by the President. This is a massive amount of money to be
spent on tax refunds. A tax cut is a kind of expenditure. That is an
important item to understand, put in place, because it is part of
setting the parameters for any kind of action on education or any other
program of the government. All other programs will have to respond to
the fact that there is less money available if we have a huge tax cut.
We have tried to set different parameters. Instead of a huge tax cut,
the Congressional Black Caucus and the progressive caucus have proposed
that at least 10 percent of the surplus be used for education. If we
used 10 percent of the surplus for education, we would still have 90
percent left to use for other programs. So we propose that we use
another 10 percent for housing, for social programs, for other kinds of
programs that are important for human resource development. In other
words, invest at least 20 percent in education and human resource
development. There would still be 80 percent left of the surplus after
that investment was made. So that additional 80 percent, we propose,
should be used to pay down the debt and to give a tax cut.
Tax cuts make a lot of sense. I am in favor of a tax cut, but the tax
cut should be targeted, the tax cut should not be extravagant, and the
tax cut should not jeopardize our budgeting process for the next 10
years. It should not throw us into a deficit. It should not throw us
into a situation where, in
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order to balance the budget, we are forced to cut more and more
programs. Education would be one of the programs that we would be
forced to cut.
Let me just start by saying also that it is an early hour. It is only
10 after 7, and I assume that large numbers of elementary school
students and high school students are awake. I hope a few are
listening, because on past occasions when I have had the opportunity to
address the House early, I always send a special message to the
children of America, to the students of America.
All students out there, whether they go to public school or private
school, although the great majority, more than 53 million children go
to public schools, it is important for all young people to understand
the kind of America we are going to live in; the kind of Nation that
they are going to grow up in and provide the leadership in and begin
their families in. That Nation will be determined mostly by the degree
to which we address the problems related to education.
It is not new. I think H. G. Wells said something, I am not sure I am
quoting correctly, but Civilization is a race between education and
chaos, or something similar to that. I would certainly endorse that
idea. We live in a world where things are more and more complicated.
And we want it that way, because as things get more complicated, we
increase productivity. An individual worker can do so much more and
groups can do so much more when we have highly automated systems. When
we apply the digital science related to computers or mass
communication, all of that creates the kind of better world that we
want to make and are already in the process of making.
It is what I call a cyber-civilization; a civilization that is going
to be far more productive, and we can contemplate being able to
actually meet the needs of all of the 6 billion people in the world.
The capacity to do that is there if we fully develop the resources and
educate all the people who can be educated. It is important we begin to
apply the benefits of our technology, the benefits of our cyber-
civilization on a widespread basis, whether that means the more
efficient production of drugs that allow people to get better health
care or whether it means new methods in education, automated methods,
or methods using distance learning, making it possible to teach more
people faster in all parts of the world.
There is great possibility out there. It is a great new world that we
are moving into. So it is important that the pupils, young people,
students understand what we have at stake here. We are at a critical
point where we have the resources now to do what is necessary to make a
world-class education system, an education system which is fitted for
the challenge that we face in this coming cyber-civilization.
We have an education system now which is still lagging and very much
mired in the old needs of an industrialized economy, when we did not
have to educate everybody to the maximum degree because there was work
available in the factories for people who did not know anything about
computers or did not know math. Large numbers of people, in fact the
vast majority 50 years ago, of the people who went to school, did not
graduate from school. Most of them did not get past the 8th grade. But
now we have a need for a highly educated population, and we need to
think that way, we need to budget that way, we need more than the
rhetoric of people who say they support education. We need to spend
dollars the way we spend them on an activity like defense.
We recognize that modern defense units or the modern defense systems
that we have decided we need cost far more money than the old cavalry
with the rifles and the wagons or the canons. Common sense says that
these things cost much more money. But when it comes to education, we
do not want to make the decision that we need to invest heavily in
maximizing the kind of physical facilities we have; buildings,
laboratories, and computers. We need to maximize that now. At this
point where we have a huge budget surplus, now is the time to take
those steps.
Young people have to wake up and communicate with all the people in
decision-making positions that they want the resources available right
now to be used to invest in education. We certainly do not want to
stagnate. We certainly do not want to go backwards. Young people need
to tell their mayors that; tell their legislators in the State
legislatures, tell their city council people and their Congress people
and their Senators and the people in the White House that they do not
want to go backwards and they do not want to stagnate.
{time} 1915
I apologize for even mentioning the word backwards, because that is
what I am going to have to spend a little bit of time talking about. We
are about to go backwards instead of going forward. We are about to go
backward instead of stagnating. It is a terrible thing we stood still,
but we are about to go backwards, and I want you to understand how
serious that is. It is your world that is at stake. So take some
action. As young people, take some action.
I remember standing here on the floor at about this time, when I was
able to get a 7 o'clock hour, and I invited all of you to take a drink,
a toast with me. I said, young people of America, students, come out
there, get a glass of milk and drink a toast, because we have just made
a basic breakthrough on getting Federal funds for construction. We made
a basic breakthrough on getting Federal funds for construction.
It was not much, but we got agreement in the budget for $1.2 billion
to be used for school renovations and building repairs. I wanted to
celebrate that, so we drank a toast with a glass of milk, of fruit
juice or whatever you have.
I also remember congratulating the students of America for coming to
our aid when we rallied to stop the rollback and the destruction of the
e-rate. Remember the e-rate?
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cantor). Members are reminded to address
their remarks to the Chair and not to persons outside the Chamber.
The gentleman may proceed.
Mr. OWENS. Is the Speaker saying that I cannot talk to the students
of America?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would advise that and the
gentleman must address his remarks to the Chair and not to persons
outside the Chamber.
The gentleman may proceed.
Mr. OWENS. So for all who are listening, no matter where you are, it
is important to note the fact that we celebrated. We celebrated the
fact that students, teachers, librarians, all over the country came to
the aid of those of us in Congress who were fighting to maintain and
expand the e-rate.
What is the e-rate? The e-rate is a special fund created as a result
of actions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. When we passed the
Telecommunications Act of 1996, a provision was put in the Act which
called upon the telecommunications industry to provide free or very
low-cost services to all schools and libraries in America. Private
schools, public schools, all schools were to be included and have been
included in the e-rate process--and libraries.
The development of the procedures and the standards for doing this
under William Kennard were magnificent. They determined that, instead
of providing it free, they could not go that far, there was a lot of
pressure on them from industry, they did determine that funds could be
made available not through the Treasury of the United States or any
other government but through the industry itself. The funds could be
made available to allow for a discount program where every school and
library in America would at least get a 15 percent discount on their
telecommunications services. They could apply and, as a result of the
e-rate, the initial wiring of the library or the initial process of
gearing up the schools, that could be funded and the cost of that could
be covered up to 15 percent in any school.
However, for the schools that had the poorest populations, those
schools could get a discount in proportion to the number of children
who were poor, up to a 90 percent discount. We have a lot of our
formulas in the Federal Government based on poverty, especially when it
comes to education.
The biggest program that the Federal Government has is Title I, Title
I for
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elementary and secondary education. Title I is based, the distribution
of it, is based primarily on poverty. Poverty is measured by the number
of students in each school who qualify for the free lunch program. The
forms and the investigations that are conducted at the time that they
decide how many youngsters will get free lunches through the Department
of Agriculture, that form is used again and again as a basis for
deciding how many children are poor in the school.
So the e-rate is based on a sound formula, and the poorest schools
could get up to 90 percent discounts. That means that for every $1 they
spent on their telecommunications services, or on the initial wiring of
the school, they would only have to pay 10 cents. The other 90 cents
would be paid out of the e-rate fund.
This caught on. It spread. Numerous, numerous schools and libraries
are reaping the benefit of the e-rate. So we celebrated that.
Everybody who was listening at that time, especially young people, I
invited to join me in celebrating the fact that the e-rate did go into
effect, was beaten down, lawsuits were threatened, all kinds of things
happened, but it went into effect because the outcry from the young
people, the students and the teachers and the families out there, the
working families was so great until they acquiesced and they supported
chairman Kennard, the chairman of the FCC, and we instituted the e-
rate. It has been highly successful.
But let me warn you tonight that we are about to go backwards. The e-
rate is threatened, is jeopardized. We have a situation now where the
e-rate may be folded into the regular budget. The President's budget,
the President's education plan is proposing that we have the e-rate
funded through the regular budget, that we combine that with some other
programs. Now, that would be a great step backwards, because the e-rate
now is funded through funds that come out of the telecommunications
industry and any placing of it in the budget means you jeopardize the
funds because you are competing with the other funds in the budget.
We did a lot to fight for the e-rate. It is time to rise up and let
your legislators know, people who are in this room, Members of Congress
listening, you must understand that it is jeopardized by this new move;
and, therefore, we should take action to let it be known we will not
sit still and allow the e-rate to be taken away.
The other item that is being jeopardized is the one we celebrated,
the $1.2 billion in construction funds. The Federal Government has not
appropriated money for school construction in the last 50 years. The
Federal Government, the Title I programs, all the Elementary and
Secondary Education Assistance Act stayed away from school
construction. It is most unfortunate because a study by the National
Education Association showed that we need about $320 billion to bring
the infrastructure of the schools, the laboratories, the physical
infrastructure of public education in America, just to bring it up to a
point where it can take care of the present students, would be about
$320 billion. They have suffered so greatly from neglect.
If you leave it all to the local governments, you leave it all to the
State governments, they are not doing as much as they should do and
could do, but certainly the Federal Government which has had large
amounts of money coming from the local level. All money originates at
the local level. All politics is local. All taxes is local. It comes
from us. It is not a matter of Washington giving us back something that
belongs to Washington. It is our money, and it should come back for the
needs that are clearly articulated.
If ever there was a need that was clear, it is school construction.
Yet we have not over the last 50 years appropriated any money for
school construction.
We finally made a breakthrough. As a result of a tremendous effort we
put forth, President Clinton insisted that there be some money for
school construction in the last budget. During the negotiation they
reached a compromise figure of $1.2 billion. I had proposed $10 billion
per year for 10 years. So you can see there is a great difference
between what is the need, which is $320 billion over many years, and
what I proposed, which was $10 billion over 10 years, which would be
$100 billion, and the actual compromise. We start with $1.2 billion.
But we celebrated. We celebrated because of the fact that it was a
breakthrough. We had broken through the barrier. And now the Federal
Government, according to the budget that we completed last December,
and it is important to go over this education budget now because it was
completed so late in the year. Most people do not know what we finally
came out with, and I will talk about that a little bit later, but we
did come out with $1.2 billion. Now that is jeopardized.
That $1.2 billion would provide new grants to make urgently needed
repairs and renovations in the schools. We are talking about items
which relate to the health and safety of young people. Now the new
administration is saying they will not go forward and spend this money
for the purposes for which it was negotiated last time. They are going
to fold it into some other programs, and we will not have any school
construction, any infrastructure initiative. That is a great step
backwards, and it needs the help of everybody to cry out and let it be
known, let it be known that this is an outrage. It is going backwards,
it is counterproductive, and it runs counter to the vision that has
been expressed by the new administration.
You cannot have improvements in education if the basic vessel, the
basic structure, the infrastructure, the concrete, the bricks and the
mortar, if that is crumbling around you, many of the other things that
are being proposed begin to look ridiculous. And it certainly looks
ridiculous through the eyes of young people. You tell young people you
care about education and you are going to do everything to guarantee
that they get the best opportunities available and they look out of
their eyes and see that there is a crumbling building there, there is a
coal-burning furnace in the school threatening their health,
exacerbating asthma conditions, the roof leaks and all the rooms on the
top floor of the school have crumbling walls because of the leaking
roof, windows that needed replacement now have wood pasted over, there
is plastic on the windows because you need to stop the draft from
coming in. They can see how much is the value of education, how much
value these adults who are making decisions are placing on education if
they send us into these kinds of conditions.
There are trailers in the school yards that were temporary trailers
25 years ago. I remember the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Sanchez)
stating on the floor of the House that she had gone back to visit one
of her old schools, junior high schools, and the same trailers that
were there when she was there are still there in the school yard.
However, when they were put there, they were supposed to be temporary,
for 2 or 3 years.
The same thing is true in most of our big cities and in many rural
communities. The trailers have become not a temporary emergency
solution but they are there permanently because that is what adult
decisionmakers-- that is the value they have placed on education.
No amount of vision statements and no amount of rhetoric can get past
the common sense of our young people who look and see with their eyes
that there is something wrong with this commitment. There is a
commitment to take us into the 21st century with the best possible
opportunities for education, and yet there are only a handful of
computers in the classroom, if it is lucky enough to be wired and have
computers. The library has books that are 30 years old, some of them
geography and history books.
I am not going to go through that litany. I have gone through it many
times before. But the thing is, here we are with a new administration
and we are looking forward to one area where there could be bipartisan
cooperation, one area where both parties would respond to the
overwhelming desire of the American people to see that there is some
improvement in education. That is an overwhelming desire that has been
expressed again and again in the polls. The polls for the last 5 years
have consistently placed education as one of the top five priorities.
In the last 2 years it has been the number one priority.
So why are we discussing a proposal to roll back progress and refuse
to
[[Page H860]]
spend the tiny $1.2 billion that was appropriated on December 18 of
last year for school repairs and renovations? Why are we contemplating
that? What kind of madness is this? They were also going to reduce
class sizes.
I have a summary of the December 18 budget, and I am going to take a
few minutes to just go through it because it came out so late until
very few people have had a chance to see it. Most citizens in the
country do not know the difference between this year's budget and last
year's budget because last year's budget came out so late.
{time} 1930
However, we did make some progress last year. It is important to note
and understand, all players, whether they are decision-makers here in
Congress or students out there in school, and they have to understand
that they made a big breakthrough last year with a $6.5 billion
increase. Education expenditures were increased last year by $6.5
billion. That is quite an achievement. That is quite an achievement, as
my colleagues know. It is not nearly as much as I think we should have
had. We could spend that much on school construction alone using the
surplus, but it is a great step forward using none of the surplus. This
was in the regular budgeting process. Why is it the case? Because both
Republicans and Democrats understand that the polls show that the
American people want improvements in education, and they can read the
polls and understand that they must show some movement forward.
Now we have had a movement forward in an area like reducing class
sizes. We had the third installment in reducing class sizes in grades
one to three. This is a nationwide program, trying to bring down the
average in the classroom to 18 students in the first three grades.
We increased that program by $323 million last year. There was a plus
of $323 million, and that increase added approximately 8,000 new highly
qualified teachers to the already 29,000 that were there before. The
total appropriation for reducing class sizes went from $1.3 billion to
$1.6 billion in the December 18 budget. Mr. Speaker, 8,000 new
qualified teachers will be added to the already 29,000 that have been
hired under this program. The administration that went out previously,
of course, as my colleagues know, was shooting for a goal of 100,000.
100,000 new teachers over 7 years to reduce class sizes in the early
grades.
Now, we are being told that this program too, the Class Size
Reduction Program, will be altered and phased out, combined with some
other program; and that is a step backwards also.
We expanded after-school opportunities in this budget of December 18,
last year's budget. The 21st Century Community Learning Centers that
provide after school learning programs in drug-free environments, and
also some support for lifelong learning for the parents of the students
who are involved, went from $453,000 million to $845 million. That was
an increase of $392 million. The program was almost doubled. It is now
in a position to provide for 650,000 additional school-age youngsters
as a result of the increase. So we have something like 1.3 million
youngsters being served by the total program. Everybody has applauded
the after-school programs, the 21st Century Community Learning Centers
as being successful. Everybody has said, this is what we need: longer
school days, some help for kids on the weekend and also summer school
help. Unfortunately, this amount of money only serves a tiny percentage
of the youngsters who are eligible and who need the help, but it is
there. Now we have been told that that, too, may be altered.
So I do not want to belabor the point. The point is that we have
heard that the new administration places education as a top priority,
but the actions that have started already show that we are going to
have to look very closely.
Mr. Speaker, Democrats are looking for an opportunity to cooperate.
We are looking for an opportunity to make bipartisanship a reality. The
one place where there is a clear opportunity is in education; and,
therefore, it is particularly disturbing that these proposed roll-backs
of good programs, the wiping out of the construction program totally,
these proposals are being made at this point because it is going to
create a roadblock to any possible bipartisan cooperation for the
benefit of the children of America.
The hiring and retaining of qualified teachers, we increased that by
$150 million; the total program is $485 million. We are doing in that
program one of the things that has been pinpointed as a major need. We
need more qualified teachers; we need more certified teachers. That
program would do it. The Eisenhower National Activities Program is a
complement to that. Preparing teachers for use of technology, that
program was increased from $75 million to $125 million.
Mr. Speaker, we have been on target in education leadership. Some of
the leadership, or most of the leadership, came from the previous
administration; and certainly, as a member of the Committee on
Education and the Workforce for 18 years, I have seen these proposals
introduced year after year, finally brought them to fruition; and we
did make some real headway in the budget that passed last year. But the
problem is, and the question is, are we really going to sincerely and
seriously go forward and build on what exists already, like the e-rate
and the school construction program, and the after-school program.
We had a program-funding increase for extra help in the basics,
helping disadvantaged students learn the basics and achieve high
studies. That is under title I. That program was increased by $569
million, and disadvantaged students can be helped as a result of that
increase.
Now, that is in harmony with what President Bush has proposed. We
have the President's proposals in outline form. We do not have a bill
yet. We cannot talk about a budget with clear sections; but we do have
an outline, and one of the things he stresses in his outline is that he
wants to focus on the pupils who have the greatest needs. The first
dollars should be focused on the pupils that have the greatest needs,
and any increase in the budget should go in that direction. So I am
glad to report that there is one area where I heartily agree with the
administration. Let us do that. Let us focus where the greatest need is
and target the Federal funds in that direction.
The unfortunate thing is that the administration will have to deal
with the members on the Committee on Education and the Workforce who
are on the majority. Their thinking in the past few years has gone in
the opposite direction. The Republican majority of the Committee on
Education and the Workforce, and the Republican majority in the House
as a whole, has consistently insisted that the existing funds be
utilized in a broader way. They want greater flexibility. They want to
take the dollars that do exist and spread them out to more schools, not
the poorest schools; but some schools that have less poverty and some
schools that have almost no poverty would be eligible for the funding
if we had the flexibility that they talk about.
Going even further beyond just flexibility, the members of the
President's party here in Congress are proposing block grants. Block
grants mean that we take the dollars and we give them to the States
with minimum guidelines and the States then proceed to do what they
feel is best. The problem with giving States that kind of authority is
that the States have a constitutional responsibility for education.
Every State has in their constitution a clear statement of
responsibility for the education of all of the children of the State.
If they had done their job in accordance with their constitutions all
of these years, the Federal Government would not need to be engaged in
this problem of education at all. We would not have to be trying to
catch up, trying to maintain high standards of education.
So, Mr. Speaker, because it was clearly demonstrated in World War II,
if not before, that education is a matter of national security, we
cannot afford to have an uneducated, ill-informed population and expect
to be able to defend ourselves in war, even a less complicated war,
such as World War II. Now, with high-tech weapons and an atmosphere
which requires much more learning to deal with a much more complex
peacetime economy and also to deal with any defense
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efforts, we know we need an educated population; it is a matter of
national security. It is not something we can afford to leave to the
States, even though the Federal Government is only responsible at this
point for a very tiny percentage.
Our expenditures, Federal expenditures for education, are still less
than 8 percent of the total. States and localities are still spending
92 percent to 93 percent of the total education budget, higher
education, elementary and secondary education, et cetera. We should be
going toward 25 percent. We should understand that the number one item
in terms of the defense of the country, in terms of competitiveness of
our economy in a global economy, is our being able to compete. In terms
of the greatness of the Nation, the future of the Nation, education is
a number one priority. We ought to be spending at least 25 percent of
the expenditure for education. The Federal expenditure should be 25
percent, not 8 percent or 7 percent.
We have other items that were in the budget last year that I just
want to note. Gear-Up and TRIO are programs for helping poor students
get ready for college. We understand that it is great to graduate from
high school, and one of our first targets was getting everybody to
graduate from high school, and we have improved greatly over the years
in getting rid of a large percentage of high school dropouts. But
beyond that, if one does not go to college, there is a limited future;
there is a limited amount you are going to earn in terms of income;
there is a limited amount of help one is going to be able to provide
for the economy in general, and one's own family; there is a limited
contribution that one is going to be able to make to society if one
does not go on to college and fully develop one's capacities.
So Gear-Up and TRIO are very important. The TRIO program has been in
existence for some years. It has proven itself, and I am happy to see
they have an $85 million increase. It has moved from $645 million to
$730 million in the December 18 budget last year. What is going to
happen this year I do not know, but I hope that the administration this
year will have the good sense to follow the leadership of the
Republican Congresses over the past few years who have increased the
program and not cut it. TRIO would help 765,000 disadvantaged students,
40,000 more than they do now as a result of the increases that we
provided last year. It is a magnificent program, and we certainly do
not want to see an attempt to roll back the clock on that.
Pell grants we increased from $3,300 to $3,750 per student last year,
a total increase overall from $7.6 billion to $8.7 billion, an increase
of $1.1 billion for Pell grants. That allowed a $450 increase in the
Pell grant over what it was before; but Pell grants are consistently
behind inflation, way behind the cost of a college education, and Pell
grants to our poorest students need to be greatly increased. I hope
that there will be no rollback on Pell grants in the coming development
of the administration's education budget.
We do have some information which shows that there are problems. I
said before that the present administration is proposing to zero-out
school modernization, the construction program; they are going to do
something else with that, put it into technology and special education.
That is most unfortunate. About 1,000 schools that could be renovated
will not be renovated.
The new budget eliminates the class-size reduction initiative; I
mentioned that that is on the chopping block. The class-size initiative
has already helped schools hire 37,000 teachers and provide smaller
classes to 2 million children. That will be a great loss if it is
rolled back. The Pell grant increase that we passed last year, it was a
14 percent increase in Pell grants. The increase that is being proposed
by the present administration, not through its budget, because we do
not have the full budget, but through its outlines and discussions, is
about 4 percent. Instead of 14 percent, they talk about a 4 percent
increase in Pell grants.
Minority-serving higher education institutions have certainly
benefited greatly over the past 6 years. We have had bipartisan
cooperation in the funding of the minority-serving institutions. There
are three categories, Historically Black Colleges and Universities and
the Hispanic-serving institutions, as well as the tribally controlled
colleges. They have had increases over the last 6 years. We have gotten
about a 25 percent annual increase over the last 3 years under the
previous administration. They have been well served. We think that they
have a key role to play in improving education in America. Minority-
serving institutions will be producing most of the teachers. A large
percentage of the qualified teachers that we need in our schools will
come from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-
serving institutions, and tribally controlled colleges.
{time} 1945
As Members know, we have a controversy here over the fact that the
Committee on Education and the Workforce has already chosen, in its
structure and formatting for business in the next 2 years, they have
structured the committee so that there is a Subcommittee for 21st
Century Competitiveness.
That subcommittee is very much on target. They call it that, and that
is a new concept where at the core of the Subcommittee of 21st Century
Competitiveness are the programs that fund our higher education
institutions. That is at the core. There are other programs that are
related to technology, development and research, a number of things
related to competitiveness. But certainly at the core is the funding
for higher education institutions.
For some reason that we are not clear on, the majority Republicans on
the Committee on Education and the Workforce chose to take these
minority-serving institutions, the historically black colleges and
universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and the tribally-
controlled colleges, and put them in another committee; not in the
subcommittee, but in another subcommittee. Instead of the Subcommittee
for 21st Century Competitiveness being the committee where all higher
education institutions are placed, they chose to put the minority
institutions in a subcommittee called the Subcommittee on Special
Education.
The Subcommittee on Special Education is a committee which has a
large number of other programs related to higher education, and many
not related to education. That is where we fund the programs for
adoptions, programs for child abuse education and prevention, programs
for domestic abuse and prevention, juvenile delinquency prevention. Why
do we put the minority-serving higher education institutions in a
subcommittee which mainly deals with social problems?
All of those social problems are important and they need to be
confronted, but why do we take the minority-serving institutions out of
the mainstream discussion of what it takes to remain competitive in the
coming 21st century? They are not going to be there when we discuss new
authorizations, new appropriations to meet the competitive world of the
cyber civilization I talked about at the beginning of my discourse this
evening.
If we are going to have a new approach to how we go into the 21st
century, how we meet the competition of the 21st century, how we meet
global competition, then we certainly do not want to leave out the
minority-serving institutions when we are making those plans and having
that discussion.
Members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce have decided
that we protest. I offered an amendment to correct this oversight. We
thought it was an oversight and that there was no malice involved, and
that if we brought it to the attention of the majority, it would be
corrected.
We spent about 3 hours debating the issue. It just so happens that on
the Committee on Education and the Workforce, among the Democrats on
the committee there are four people who are African Americans, there
are three people who are Hispanic-Americans, there are two Asian-
Americans, and there is one Native American. Probably few committees
have that kind of concentration of minorities.
We all expressed outrage and fear, because we know what separation
does. We have lived with separate but equal doctrines for too long to
not know what eventually happens when we separate out things. They do
not remain
[[Page H862]]
equal. The weaker party in the separation is going to be neglected,
abandoned, and in very subtle ways, probably, very subtle ways, the
minority-serving institutions will find themselves outside the
parameters of a full and moving discussion about what it takes to be
competitive in the 21st century. They will be outside the parameters of
a discussion about how higher education institutions must operate and
relate to the crisis in elementary and secondary education. They will
be outside of a serious discussion on the relationship between
corporations, industry, and higher education institutions if they are
out of the loop in terms of the way the committee is structured.
We have protested. All the Democratic members of the Committee on
Education and the Workforce have refused to accept their assignments on
subcommittees. There is an ongoing dialogue, and we hope that this will
be resolved, but it is an example of a blunder that, when we add to the
other kinds of proposals that are being made, the zeroing out of the
construction appropriation, the rollback of the class size reductions,
when we add all of these blunders and new backward moves, including the
threat to the e-rate, danger signals must be sent forth. We must send
up flares. We must get involved in reexamining what are the
possibilities of bipartisan cooperation, what are the dangers to the
progress that we have made.
Everybody has to get involved in making certain that their voices are
heard and that education, which has clearly been indicated to be the
top priority of the American voters, not be given a public relations
job. We do not want a public relations program. Many speeches are made
about improving education, but the substance of what has to be done in
terms of the way legislation is set forth and the way the budget is
developed, that substance is not there.
We do not want to fool the American people. We do not want a public
relations gimmick instead of real improvements in education.
Democratic education proposals are proposals for making real
investments in education. Whereas President Bush proposed $1.6 billion
for elementary and secondary budget programs increase, our program, as
reflected in the Excellence and Accountability in Education Act, this
is an act that is already been introduced. We have a piece of
legislation already introduced. The Excellence and Accountability in
Education Act, introduced by the gentleman from California (Mr. George
Miller) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), and has all of
the other Democratic members of the Committee on Education and the
Workforce as cosponsors, proposes a $9.7 billion increase. So $1.6
billion increase is proposed by the President, we propose $9.7 billion,
and we lay out where the money should go.
The Excellence and Accountability in Education Act is H.R. 340, a
comprehensive K through 12 education reform bill. It would hold schools
accountable to high standards, and place particular emphasis on closing
the achievement gap between different groups of children.
Schools that continue to fail after 3 years, under our act, and we
are in harmony with the President on that one, would receive special
help and be subject to changes in terms of their students being able to
make choices and go to other public choice schools, or the schools
might be closed and converted to charter schools.
Unlike the majority, we oppose any movement toward vouchers. This was
a clear disagreement in the past and remains a clear disagreement
between the two parties. We are not in favor of the wasteful,
cumbersome approach to improving education through giving families
vouchers.
We propose to double the Title I funds over a 5-year period. Do
Members want to know where our great increase will go? We will double
the Title I funds, and those are the funds that are targeted to the
disadvantaged areas and the schools that need help the most, the
failing schools.
We are in harmony with the President on that one. He wants to target
additional resources to the schools that need it most. We are not in
harmony with the amount. We propose to double the Title I funding in
order to do that, and not to have the small increment that he proposes.
We propose to institute strong accountability for results and
actions. The Title I schools will be held accountable. Administrations
and local education agencies and the States will be held accountable.
We are in agreement with the President on that. But each one of these
schools must have the resources they need to provide the opportunity to
learn. Opportunity-to-learn standards must be met.
These are the standards that Governors and bureaucrats do not like to
talk about, but if we are going to judge schools and declare that they
have failed, before we make a judgment that they have failed, provide
them with the money they need to provide a decent physical
infrastructure. Provide them the money they need for libraries, for
gyms, for teachers, for certified teachers. They have to meet certain
standards themselves before they hold the students and schools to
standards. Both the State governments and the Federal government must
not run away, as they have been, from opportunity-to-learn standards
coming first.
Teacher quality must be strengthened. We all agree on that. We must
understand that the context in which we go forward to improve our
schools is greater than the programs that relate to education. I
started by saying I want to set the discussion of education in the
proper context. I talked about the tax bill and how, in the context of
a huge tax cut, we can look forward to only rhetoric for education
because there will be no money for the kinds of increases that we need.
In the context of a big tax cut, most social programs, most human
investment programs, will suffer greatly. So the tax cut needs to be
whittled down to size.
I am in favor of a tax cut. Generally the Democrats are in favor of
tax cuts. They want smaller tax cuts. They want tax cuts targeted
toward the middle class and the working families. They want tax cuts
which reach down and even get people who supposedly do not pay taxes.
People who are working and pay Social Security, they have Social
Security taken out and Medicare funding taken out, they are paying
taxes. It is a payroll tax. Any time we are forced to give money to the
government, it is a tax. It is not an option. We cannot voluntarily
say, we will pay this fee, or not. It comes out of our paychecks. So
Social Security funding means those people need help, too.
The greatest-percentage increases in taxing over the last 20 years
have been an increase in the Social Security and related payroll taxes.
They have gone up more than anything else. So we want the tax cut, one
aimed at the middle class; we want a tax cut aimed at working class
families; we want a tax cut to get to the people at the very bottom;
but we do not want such a huge tax cut that there is no money for human
investment, or that there is no money for education, in particular.
We want those parameters to be understood: Stop the reckless tax cut
or there will be nothing left for education. Let that message go out:
Stop the war on working-class families. Working-class families are the
families that use the public school system.
When we talk about education, we are talking about the fact that the
primary means for upward mobility in America has been the public school
system, the primary means of upward mobility; public schools, public
libraries. Check the biography or autobiography of any great American
who rose from poverty to success and they will tell us about schools
and libraries that were free to them and were quality schools in terms
of the kinds of help they provided. That is a story that is repeated
over and over again, so working families will suffer if we do not
improve America's schools.
The majority party, the Republicans, should understand that they are
declaring war on working families when they roll back the clock on the
items related to improvement of education. They roll back the clock on
e-rate, and that means that working families will not have access to
computers, working families will not have access to the Internet that
is provided at a great discount through the e-rate.
If we take away the school or class size reduction program, it means
that working-class families will be crowded
[[Page H863]]
into classrooms of up to 30 and 35 students, and will not have the kind
of attention which students in the first to third grade need. Studies
have shown over and over again that the attention children get at a
very early age and the class size is very important. So they are
attacking working families when they take away that benefit or zero out
construction and do not provide decent schools for them.
The attack on working families continues in other ways. The context
is important, because the way children go to school, the families they
come from, the conditions in the home are all-important in terms of
their ability to relate to their schooling. Whereas I do not believe in
blaming the homes and parents for all the problems that children have
in learning, as some people do often, but understand that the stability
in the home, whether or not they have decent health care, are important
in terms of the way the child comes to school and is able to take
advantage of the opportunities there.
{time} 2000
The minimum wage that we have ignored is not an attack on working
families when we do not even allow it on the floor; we do not raise the
minimum wage from $5.15 an hour as we proposed in the last Congress to
$6.15 an hour; we are attacking working families.
Mr. Speaker, the biggest attack on working families probably is the
refusal to recognize that the floor of wages in America ought to at
least be $6.15 an hour and not $5.15 an hour, which is now more than 3
years old, that floor in terms of minimum wage.
The majority party would not even let it be discussed. Working
families on minimum wage, a family of four, is in dire poverty even if
you increase it to $6.15. It is a tiny percentage of what they need in
terms of survival, but the minimum that we could do is to accept the
Democratic proposals of a 50 cent increase over a 2-year period which
would raise the minimum wage. If we refuse to do that, that is an
attack on working families, the families of the pupils who go to our
public schools.
When we gut the health and safety rules to protect workers, as we did
last week, in context, working families have to understand that what
was done on the floor of this House last Wednesday, the vote to repeal
the ergonomics standards was an attack on working families.
Ergonomics is a big word. People do not want to deal with it. They
stop listening when you mention it. So I will just say, ergonomics is
all about ending the pain, the pain that is related to doing something
with your muscles and your fibers over and over again. Ergonomics is a
matter of taking steps to prevent, to prevent injuries that often
incapacitate people.
Ergonomics is not just about the guy who was out there lifting in the
warehouse, lifting heavy loads and he gets his problem with his back.
Ergonomics is about the secretaries and the clerks who type all the
time or the people who sit in front of computers and may get eyestrain.
There are ways to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome, another one of
those big words. Carpal tunnel syndrome is simply you have repeated
something so often and you use your fingers and your wrists in a
certain way until it wears out and it is painful to do it. And beyond
being painful, you reach the point where you cannot do it any more.
Mr. Speaker, a person who earns his or her living by typing the
motion over and over again can find themselves at a point where they do
not have a way to earn a living, because of the fact that they can no
longer use their wrists and their hands and their arms. It is as
incapacitating as if you were on a construction job and some big load
fell on your head. They are very real.
Every Member of Congress has had exposure, I am sure, to people with
carpal tunnel syndrome, because we have lots of people in that category
who do that kind of work up here. Nothing new. Yet we voted last week
to make war on the workers by removing a standard which required that
employers take preventive measures to minimize the risk of people
getting incapacitated as a result of repeated use, using certain
muscles and fibers. We eliminated it with one stroke under what is
called the Congressional Review Act.
One of the first achievements of the Gingrich Congress, and it is no
more, we do not have the ergonomics standard. It took 10 years. It took
10 years to reach the point where we issued some standards which said
you should do things a certain way to protect the health of people,
their muscles and their fibers from this kind of strain. And in one
day, it was voted out of existence and is no more.
We declared war on the working families of America in another way.
The war comes from different directions. It is a war sometime of
neglect and abandonment, but that is still war. It is sometimes a war
of a denial, denying the minimum wage increase, but it is still war.
These are the families from which the children who go to our public
schools come, and we cannot have improvements in education while the
attacks are being made on their livelihood in a manner in which their
homes are able to exist free of incapacitation, health problems and
deprivation.
We think that what happened last week with the wiping out of the
ergonomics standard through the Congressional Review Act is just a
beginning, that the war on working families is going to continue in
many ways.
We are going to be gutting overtime pay again for workers. That has
come up in the previous Congress, of course, and it failed to get
through because the President at that time threatened to veto it. There
is no veto power to prevent excesses. There is no veto power on extreme
mix. We are waiting for the attack to go forward.
We warn everybody listening to begin to make decisions about how we
are going to deal with an attempt to gut overtime pay for workers. We
had a bill on the floor, as my colleagues recall, those of my
colleagues who have been in Congress for some time, a bill on the floor
which said that overtime pay should no longer have to be given in cash.
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires that after you reach a certain
point, 40 hours, you must pay workers in cash for the overtime. Workers
who are not in that category, there are exempt workers, as we all know,
but those who are in that category must be paid in cash.
We had a bill which says the Fair Worker Labor Standards Act, that
section would be repealed and employers could at their own discretion
give workers time off, time off to compensate for your working
overtime. The time off would come at the discretion of the employer.
The majority party would gut overtime pay by expanding exemptions to
overtime requirements by excluding employee bonuses from overtime pay,
and this latter provision creates huge loopholes for employers, allows
them to exempt certain portions of employee pay as exempt from overtime
coverage.
We can look forward to more of this kind of attack on working
families. They are going to discourage all new health and safety laws.
They are going to discourage the National Labor Relations Board from
functioning in a fair and equitable way.
There will be bills to discourage union organizing. All of those
bills fall within the parameter of my committee. We must understand how
they all interrelate to the war on working families.
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