[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 48 (Wednesday, April 4, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1462-H1463]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SUPPORT THE MENTORING FOR SUCCESS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KELLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Mentoring for 
Success Act which we filed earlier today. This bill authorizes $100 
million for competitive grants to be allocated by local school 
districts and nonprofit community-based organizations for the purpose 
of starting up mentoring programs for high school students, to 
encourage them not to drop out of high school, to reduce their 
involvement in gangs, and also to improve the performance for children, 
elementary and middle schools.
  The chief sponsor of the Mentoring for Success Act is the gentleman 
from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne). I am proud to be the original cosponsor of 
this important legislation.
  I would like to address just three points today. First, I would like 
to talk a little bit about the background of the sponsors of this bill 
and why it is so important to us. Second, I would like to talk about 
the educational benefits of this bill. Third, I would like to talk 
about the crime prevention benefits of this bill.
  First, with respect to the sponsor of this legislation, there is 
probably no Member of Congress who has had more success with mentoring 
young people than the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), a former 
coach.

                              {time}  1615

  Coach Osborne led the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team to three 
national championships, and he has the winningest coaching record in 
the history of college football.
  As for me, my background in this area is far more humble than Coach 
Osborne's. However, I did have the privilege of serving as the 
volunteer Chairman of the Board of the Orlando-Orange County Compact 
Program, the largest mentoring program in the State of Florida. I also 
had the privilege of serving as a mentor myself to two students at 
Boone High School in Orlando, where I attended.
  I have been a big believer in mentoring programs since I was a small 
child. Back when I was in elementary school, my mom, who was a single 
parent, thought it would be a good idea for me to have a mentor. She 
went down to the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization and arranged for 
me to have a mentor.
  My mentor throughout my childhood was a man named Tom Luke. Tom has 
worked for the Orlando Sentinel, which is a local paper in Orlando, 
Florida, for the past 28 years as their manager of the computer 
services department.
  Tom, along with my mom, played a very key role in mentoring me as a 
child. They are, in large part, responsible for whatever success I may 
have today.
  Mr. Speaker, I would now like to address the educational benefits of 
the Mentoring for Success Act, particularly as it relates to preventing 
children from dropping out of high school.
  In my home State of Florida, we had a big problem: Only 53 percent of 
our children were graduating from high school. So we in the Orlando 
area decided to do something about it. We created what is known as the 
Orlando/Orange County Compact Program. That is a mentoring program that 
matches up students who are at risk of dropping out of public high 
schools with mentors from the business community who work with these 
young people 1 hour a week. It is sort of like a Big Brothers Big 
Sisters program.
  The results from this mentoring program have been dramatic. Over the 
past 10 years, 98 percent of the children in the Compact Program in 
Orlando have graduated from high school, the number one graduation rate 
in the United States. Let me give just one example of how this program 
is successful, because this is exactly the type of program that the 
Mentoring for Success Act seeks to create.
  There was a young 18-year-old African American man named Lenard who 
was attending Jones High School, which is an inner city school in 
Orlando. Lenard was struggling in school. He was making Ds and Fs. He 
was skipping school. He had been arrested for selling drugs. He 
announced that he was intending to drop out of school.
  Lenard agreed to be in the Compact Program on one condition. He said, 
Just do not give me a white mentor. Naturally, we assigned Lenard a 
white mentor, an AT&T executive named Paul Hurley. To make a long story 
short, Lenard's mentor developed a friendship with him, and met with 
him

[[Page H1463]]

every week. By Lenard's senior year, he went on to become Orange 
County's student of the year.
  In his senior year, Lenard won a raffle at Jones High School. The 
winner got two tickets to the Orlando Magic basketball game, great 
seats. He called his mentor and said, ``Hey, I just won two tickets to 
the Orlando Magic game tonight.'' His mentor replied, ``That is great. 
Why don't you ask your best friend?'' Lenard said, ``That is why I 
called you.'' Mentoring makes a difference, one child at a time.
  Finally, I would like to discuss the crime prevention benefits of 
this important legislation. In Florida, 70 percent of the inmates in 
our jails and prisons are high school dropouts. It costs the taxpayers 
$25,000 a year for each of these prisoners in our Federal prisons, 
compared to only $5,000 a year to educate a child in the public 
schools.
  Clearly, making this small investment in mentoring now will save us 
hundreds of millions of dollars down the road in reduced prison and 
welfare costs.
  In summary, the Mentoring for Success Act sponsored by Coach Osborne 
and myself will make a meaningful difference in the lives of young 
people, will improve education, will prevent crime, will save us money, 
and I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation and vote yes on 
this important bill.

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