[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

[[Page H858]]

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

[[Page H859]]

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

[[Page H861]]

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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