[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 39 (Thursday, March 22, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1102-H1103]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE PRESIDENT'S EDUCATION INITIATIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, today is a historic day. We have introduced 
in the House H.R. 1, the President's education initiative. I am not an 
initial cosponsor, but I am basically supportive of this legislation 
and am looking forward to continuing to work in tweaking it.
  Let me raise a couple of points that were of special concern. First, 
I think that the President's goal of leaving no children behind is 
admirable, and he is trying to develop accountability standards to make 
sure we actually know that no child has been left behind.
  Some of us on the conservative side of the spectrum have been 
concerned

[[Page H1103]]

about how you hold someone accountable and how those testing standards 
are going to be implemented and whether this could lead to a monopoly 
test that would in effect become a national test.
  We have worked for weeks to try to clarify this language, and I 
believe by having an alternative available to the States, in addition 
to their State test, which is to be primary, in addition to the 
protections that we have for home schools and private schools and 
public schools that do not receive, if there are any, Federal funds, 
public schools that do not receive Federal funds, they are not covered 
by this. We have tried to make sure that the tests cannot be released 
on any basis without parental approval, that the language is clear to 
parents, that it is posted.
  We still have a few things we are continuing to work through, but 
there has been great progress in addressing many of the conservative 
concerns about a national test that we had under the previous 
administration.

                              {time}  1500

  A second area of discussion has been the safe and drug-free schools. 
I believe that this prevention program, the only prevention program 
oriented directly at school-age children, needs to preserve its 
separate funding stream. The President of the United States supports 
this, the United States Senate supports this, and I believe that the 
House should support this as well.
  It is not a separate funding stream in this bill, although all of the 
changes that we had suggested and worked with in drug-free schools to 
make it a more effective program are in this bill. We worked hard in 
the last session of Congress to try to improve that program. I believe 
we made great progress. I believe that an amendment that I and others 
will offer in the committee will address the funding stream question 
and probably pass very easily and, if not, it will be addressed in the 
appropriations bill, as it has been in the past.
  Because we cannot talk about aid to Colombia and the Andean region 
that is line item and specific, it is not block granted. We cannot talk 
about anti-drug efforts in the Justice Department that are not block 
granted but line-itemed and then say, with prevention and treatment we 
are going to block grant it with other programs. We need to have drug-
free prevention programs in this country that are effective, and I 
think most Members of Congress, if not the overwhelming majority, quite 
possibly unanimously, would favor that position.
  The third area is that the education bill is the first actual piece 
of legislation that also addresses the charitable-choice question. We 
worked this through committee last year in ESEA and it is in the 21st 
century. It is not a part of a school day, it has to deal with after-
school programs. Those who want to get copies of this bill, in the 
language we can see language that we worked through that is tighter 
than the language on the welfare bill, tighter than the language on 
drug treatment, because in these programs, students do not have a 
choice, there is just one after-school program in their area.
  So we have said that not only can government funds not be used to 
proselytize, but private funds cannot be used for proselytization 
either during the period that government funds are in it. Because when 
we have a choice and we can do to different programs, no government 
funds can ever be used for proselytization, but private funds could be. 
But when there is only one choice available to students, we have to be 
even more protective of religious liberty. I believe that we will see 
in the 21st century a model of how charitable choice can work in those 
areas which is slightly different than how it will work in other bills.
  So today's H.R. 1 is historic because not only is it the first big 
step in President Bush's ``Leave No Child Behind'' in education, it is 
also the real first step of actual legislation introduced with 
specifics on charitable choice.

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