[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 57 (Tuesday, May 1, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4070-S4091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  BETTER EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED--
                               Continued

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I have been listening to the debate on 
education reform for the last few days. I think it is interesting we 
are talking about two different things. I hear Senator Wellstone and 
Senator Kennedy talk about money. Everything is about money. We are 
absolutely convinced if we don't have reform of our public education 
system, throwing the rest of the Federal budget at it will not work. We 
will not see improvements if we don't reform the underlying system.
  Our public education system is failing. It is failing because there 
is such a variation of standards. Some of our public schools are 
terrific, but they are not all terrific. Some are even abysmal. That is 
not the standard of quality for public education we should stand for in 
this country. We are trying to reform the system so there will be a 
standard under which any child in this country who is educated in our 
public schools will be a child who can reach his or her full potential 
so that no child will be left behind. We are trying to set a minimum 
standard that every child must meet or, if the child doesn't, that we 
will give that child help.
  We have seen the high school dropout rates. They are alarming in some 
areas of our country. What is interesting, when we go to the root of 
the problem and we talk to these young people who have dropped out of 
high school in despair, there is a basic reason. The basic reason is 
they can't read.
  Why not go down to the third grade and catch these young people who 
are having problems reading and give them a chance to have the full 
ability to absorb the education they are receiving? If we shuffle them 
from one grade to the next grade to the next grade, a social promotion, 
and they still can't read in the 10th grade, who is surprised that the 
children are frustrated? They are sitting in classes, trying to learn 
algebra, math, science, history, and geography, and they don't have 
third grade reading skills. Of course they are going to be frustrated.
  What we are proposing is an accountability, a standard, that says 
every child will be tested in the third grade. If that child isn't 
reading at grade level in the third grade, we are going to hold them 
back. We are going to give them tutors. We are going to give them the 
tools they need to be able to participate in their education and in 
this country the future.
  That is what reform is. Reform is not just throwing more money at the 
problem. Reform is getting parents involved, in getting teachers, in 
getting principals involved, in letting the local school districts make 
the decisions about what will be the best for the individual children 
in that district. That is what reform is. It is not throwing money at 
it and having regulations coming out of Washington, DC.
  We are trying to set a standard by which every child in this country 
will be able to read at grade level in the third grade. I think we are 
going to see the test scores soar across our country if we can get over 
the hurdle of talking just about money and start talking about reform.
  Reform includes accountability. A lot of people wring their hands and 
talk about tests: We don't want tests; we don't want too many 
artificial tests; we don't want teachers teaching to the tests. If we 
are testing for the basic skills, why wouldn't we teach to the test and 
improve what the children are learning? If we teach to the test and the 
test is fundamental reading, fundamental math, fundamental science, 
fundamental history, then we need to have a standard by which to judge 
what is happening in our schools.
  Another reform is reporting, making sure that parents have the tools 
and the information to make the best decisions for their children. In 
fact, if a parent doesn't know how the school is doing and how the 
children in the school are doing, how can they know their children are 
getting the best opportunity that is available?
  In my State, we have a report card. It is called the Just For Kids 
Program. The test scores of every elementary and junior high school--
and we are going now through the high schools--in Texas will have a 
report card that shows the test scores and how the test scores have 
grown in that particular school. If that school is compared to other 
schools in the same socioeconomic, demographic area and that school 
does not compare well, the parents then have the information and the 
parents will be able to say to the principal, wait a minute, why is 
this school not performing? We want to give parents the ability to 
question. We think by questioning, we can see improvements.
  We are talking about reform, not money. We are talking about doing 
things a different way. We are talking about reading at grade level in 
the third grade so in the eighth grade the child will have the chance 
to learn the higher math, the history, the algebra. We are talking 
about accountability testing, to see if the children are keeping up, to 
see if we can go to the heart of the problem, if there is one, and fix 
it while we still have a chance, before the young person has, in utter 
frustration, dropped out of high school. We get them at the lower level 
and we give them the chance to compete.
  We also have report cards. We have report cards so parents will be 
armed with knowledge. Parents can go to the principal and say, why 
isn't this school performing? That is the most powerful force we can 
possibly have. If there is a coverup, if there is no test, if there is 
nothing by which the parents can judge the performance, of course, 
everyone is going to be silent and we will have continued failure.
  These are the elements of reform that will make a difference in the 
system. This is what we are talking about when we talk about doing 
things in a different way in our country. We are not talking about just 
throwing more money at it, although the President's plan does increase 
education spending by over 11 percent, the largest increase of any part 
of his budget.
  Yes, we are going to spend more money but we are going to make sure 
that the money goes directly to the school districts with standards 
that we would ask them to meet. We would ask them to meet those 
standards in their own way, not in some federally mandated way that 
might not be right for the children in those particular school 
districts.
  I am very pleased that we are finally on this bill, and I hope we are 
going to come out with something that will show the parents of this 
country that there really is hope; there is hope for a different way; 
there is hope for the future for their children in public schools.
  Mr. President, I am now very pleased to yield the floor to the 
Senator from New Hampshire.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask to proceed for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise in support of a variety of sections 
of this piece of legislation. I certainly want to second the comments 
of the Senator from Texas, who has pointed out some of the significant 
strengths of the bill.
  Let me talk about one specific area that I think needs clarity, and 
then some additional amendments I hope to offer to give parents more 
options.
  The question of quality education I think we all understand is 
parental involvement. It is a good teacher, a good principal, but, most 
importantly it is a parent who gets involved in their child's daily 
activity of going to school and learning. Unfortunately, the Federal 
role in education has historically undermined the ability of the parent 
to be a participant in that activity. In fact, title I, as it has been 
structured over the last 25-30 years, has been a school-based, 
bureaucracy-based funding mechanism. It has not been directed at 
benefiting the child so much

[[Page S4071]]

as benefiting the bureaucracy which in turn theoretically benefits the 
child. As a result, I would argue that that is probably one of the 
primary reasons title I has failed, and ``failure'' I define is the 
fact that today the low-income child reads at two grade levels below 
their peers, and that is the same level of inefficiency or inability 
that the low-income child was reading at 20 years ago.
  We have seen a huge amount of money spent on title I over the last 20 
years--$120 billion--but we have seen, in fact, no improvement in the 
performance of low-income children. So they have been, even though we 
have been spending a lot of money on the program, left behind.
  This bill tries to address that issue. One of the ways it addresses 
it is as follows. It attempts to empower the parents, giving the 
parents a little bigger say in how their children are taught. If you 
are a parent and you are in a failing school, under today's rules, you 
have no rights. Your child is stuck in that school and there is 
virtually nothing you can do to help your child. Under this bill, what 
we say is if a school fails in the first year, we are going to come in 
with some additional resources to that school, significantly additional 
resources, and we are going to try to help that school improve. But if 
the school is failing in the second year, we are going to do some other 
things to try to improve that school. We are going to replace some 
people. We are going to try to dramatically improve the curriculum and, 
again, we are going to fund that. But if by the third year the school 
is still failing, we are going to say to the parent: All right, you 
have the right to do something with your children to try to improve 
their education because it is very obvious that you are not getting the 
benefit you need as a result of the way the school is functioning.
  Unfortunately, I would like to have accelerated that so it would 
happen in the second year, but the agreement is that in the third year 
if a child is in a failing school that has failed for 3 years, the 
parent will have the right to get that child supplemental assistance 
outside the school system so that if that child is failing in reading 
or that child is failing in math, the parent, at the parent's option, 
will be able to take their child and get additional assistance for that 
child after school or maybe during recess time, however the school 
wants to set it up, so that that child can go away from the school to a 
Sylvan Learning Center, to another public school or to a private 
parochial school for the purposes of getting remedial assistance in the 
academic area where the child needs help.
  The child still remains a pupil in the public school system. This is 
not an option of leaving the public school system and going into a 
private school system. Rather, this is an option of allowing the parent 
to get supplemental assistance for that child and allow the child to 
have the assistance he or she needs in order to bring the child up to 
speed because he or she has been in this failing school now for at 
least 3 years--they may have been in it longer--and they are way 
behind. Under most scenarios, you are going to find they are way 
behind. So this is an attempt to bring them back up to speed with 
special tutorial support.

  What does this mean? For the first time it empowers the parent to do 
something when their child is stuck in a failing school. Who are we 
talking about? We are not talking about middle class parents for the 
most part. We are certainly not talking about wealthy parents. What we 
are talking about for the most part are single moms, many of them in 
urban societies, who have virtually no options for their children, and 
we are going to give that single mother an option. We are going to 
allow that single mother to take her child and get some assistance in 
math or reading.
  That language has been agreed to and put in this bill. Some have 
called it choice. It is not a choice; it is sort of hybrid of choice. 
It was an idea I came up with more than 3 years ago and got consensus--
in fact, so much consensus that folks on the other side are announcing 
it was their idea. We are happy to have many authors of it because it 
is a good idea. But it really is the first step in the effort to try to 
empower parents.
  The second step is equally important. It is not in the bill, 
unfortunately. That is to take a few schools that we know are failing 
and that have failed year in and year out and say to the parents of 
those kids in those schools: We are going to give you a full option of 
choice. We are going to put the pressure on that school to perform, and 
if it does not perform we are going to allow you to put your child in 
another school, either a public school or a private school. Under this 
bill there is an option to take your child out and put them in a public 
school after being in a failing school, but there is no option to go to 
a private school.
  Now, this is the classic choice situation. This is what we call 
portability. The idea is instead of having the money go to the school 
systems which have taken this money and produced year in and year out a 
failing school, to say to the parents: The money is going to go to your 
child; it is going to be strapped on the back of your child with a 
backpack, and you can take that money and your child and you can put 
them in a different learning climate. But when you do that, the 
conditions are going to be that your child has to learn. That is the 
only thing we are going to hold you to. Your child is going to have to 
start to achieve as a result of leaving that school and going to 
another school, whether public or private. Your child is going to have 
to start achieving at the level that they should have achieved to be 
comparable with or equal to a child in their grade level who is in a 
school that is performing well.
  We are going to expect academic achievement, and we are going to have 
accountability standards expecting academic achievement for you, the 
parent, having the right to take your child and the money that is 
supposedly supporting your child, the Federal money--and, really, we 
are only talking about low-income parents; we are not talking about the 
general population--to another school.
  Now, does this idea work? Yes, it does. This idea is already being 
used in Milwaukee, for example, and it has been extraordinarily 
successful. It is being used in Arizona, and it has been successful. 
The fact is, there are a lot of school systems out there that are 
willing to pursue this type of idea.
  It should be noted that we are not going to suggest that this be done 
unilaterally by the Federal Government or that the parent have the 
unilateral right to make this decision. Rather, what we are suggesting 
is that there be two conditions present. First, that before this option 
of a choice or portability is given to the parents, the local school 
district, the local elected public school district, must opt into the 
program.
  You will probably say that will never happen. It will actually 
happen. That is what happened in Milwaukee. The local elected officials 
who were responsible for education decided in this case that it wasn't 
the school district but it was the town council that decided they 
wanted to give parental choice. They wanted portability. If a local 
elected board, which is charged with the education responsibility of 
the children in that school district and, therefore, has the 
responsibility for public education, decides that as one of the 
elements of its educational system it wishes to give parents of kids 
who are in failing schools where the school has failed for at least 3 
years the option and the ability to move that child to a private 
school, they will have that option but only if that idea is supported 
by the public entity which has legal authority over the public school 
system.
  It is not a top-down decision. It is not even a unilateral parental 
decision.
  The second condition we have is that no title I money will be used 
for this exercise. This will be a new funding stream so that the 
portability initiative or the choice initiative--however you want to 
call it--will not be a drain on title I funding in the school districts 
but, rather, will be a separate funding stream that will be available 
to the community that decides to opt into this.
  So as to the argument that this is going to somehow undermine the 
public school system, we punch a hole in that balloon by pointing out 
that the public school system makes the decision to go down this road. 
As for the argument it is going to undermine the funding mechanisms for 
title I kids, we punch a hole in that by making it clear

[[Page S4072]]

that the funding mechanism is independent of the title I dollars and, 
therefore, has no impact at all on title I.
  Those two red herrings can then be set aside, although I am sure we 
will hear a lot about them when the amendment is offered.
  The real argument is, interestingly enough, by the Washington Post, a 
paper with which I don't often agree, editorializing this last Saturday 
in favor of giving parents some options--especially low-income parents, 
and especially single mothers in urban communities who have no options 
today as a result of giving them those options and bringing competition 
into the school system, and it is competition that produces quality in 
our society, whether you choose to go to a Burger King over a 
McDonald's because of the competition or a McDonald's over the Burger 
King. In education we have no competition today. We have no force for 
improvement that comes from the marketplace or that comes from the 
pressure of having to perform in order to get clients.
  This will introduce that into the system, and, most importantly, it 
will give hope to parents--in particular, single moms, especially in 
urban communities, mostly from minority districts--hope that their 
children will have the opportunity to live the American dream and that 
their children will have the opportunity to be educated.
  I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Alabama in allowing me 
to go first.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire 
for his steadfast leadership on matters involving education. He has 
served on the Education Committee, on which I serve now, for quite a 
number of years. He is a champion and a visionary and a person who 
really cares about children and wants to improve education in America. 
He has been very successful in making that happen.
  I had the opportunity last week to spend a day with Dr. Rod Paige, 
the President's Secretary of Education. Dr. Paige is an extraordinary 
individual. He has lived the kind of life we want to happen in America. 
He grew up in Monticello, MS. His parents were both educators. He 
played ball and coached at Jackson State. He then went on to become 
dean of the education school at Texas Southern, and was on the school 
board at Houston. Houston was looking for a new superintendent of their 
education system. They were troubled about how they were getting along. 
Things weren't going well. There are 207,000 students in that system. 
It is the seventh largest education system in America that had a number 
of children who had difficulty with the English language, with a 
diverse racial and socioeconomic makeup. It was a real challenge.
  When he took over, only 37 percent of the students in that school 
system were passing the basic Texas test. He took it on with a passion 
that this could not continue. He had been a dean of an education 
school. He said: If I knew what I know now about training teachers, I 
would have done things a lot differently when I was dean. But he still 
took over that system, and it was in trouble.
  He identified schools that were failing, and he did not allow it to 
continue. He took action on failing schools. He cracked down on 
discipline. He said we must have discipline. We cannot have a school 
system that has a reputation that it is not safe to come to it and 
where teachers continue to feel unsafe and where students don't feel 
safe. He improved discipline dramatically.
  He ended social promotion--the idea of just passing children along 
even if they are not learning the basic requirements of that grade. He 
said that cannot continue.
  He began a rigorous system of testing--not because he wanted to harm 
the children or because he wanted to pigeonhole students, but he wanted 
to find out diagnostically as part of the education process where they 
were academically.
  He said quite convincingly that if a child reaches the fourth grade 
and they are way behind in reading and math, they probably will never 
catch up. You have a rare opportunity in those early grades to 
constrict failure and turn it around. That is what he decided to do. He 
did those things.
  As a result, in 5 years, from 1995 to the year 2000, he nearly 
doubled the number of students passing that basic Houston, TX, test. It 
went from 37 percent to 73 percent, one percentage point below doubling 
that figure in just 5 years.
  I think that is an extraordinary achievement. He said he was able to 
achieve some additional financial support, but not much really until 
the last year after he had proven that he could achieve success.
  What he said they did was the very thing I just mentioned. They did 
not want to leave a child behind. How do you leave a child behind? You 
don't test them. You let them go by law to a school that is 
dysfunctional, that is not working, and that is not effective. You 
won't let them go to any other school in the system. They don't have 
money to go outside the system. You just say: Tough luck, child. We are 
taking care of it. We are giving that school as much money as we give 
the next school. But you have to go there even if it is a failing 
school.
  Dr. Paige said we cannot do that anymore. I know the Senator from New 
Hampshire is a strong believer in choice. So is Dr. Paige. Most school 
systems, I am sure, wouldn't adopt the option that we provide them. But 
Houston did. Dr. Paige said: It did not hurt the public schools. It 
made us better, and in fact after a period of years with our test 
scores going up, our success rate going up, and our discipline problem 
going down, the number of students coming to the public schools 
increased. We were drawing people from private schools. He said public 
schools can and will win the battle if they do the things necessary to 
achieve success.
  I will just echo that. I taught a year. My wife taught 4 years. Our 
children attended public schools for most of their career. My two 
daughters graduated from one of the big inner-city schools in Mobile, 
AL. We were on the PTA and have a lot of great friends who are 
teachers. I have visited 25 schools in Alabama this past year.
  I think I have some appreciation for what education is all about. 
Yes, we want to get as much money as possible for education. In fact, 
the Federal Government has increased federal spending on education by 
50 percent since 1994.
  This year's budget has an additional 11.5 percent proposed increase 
for education. But it is deeper than that. We have to ask ourselves: 
What is happening with the money we are spending? There are States that 
spend a lot more money than other States. There can be schools in the 
same town, in the same system, receiving the same amount of money per 
student, and one school is functioning well and maybe the another one 
is not.
  We have to ask ourselves: What is occurring in our school systems 
that is not healthy? There is a legitimate concern that public policy 
has responded to the system. We have tried to do what the system says; 
and the system says, basically, we do not want testing and 
accountability; we just want more money. Just give us more money, and 
we will do better.
  For the most part, schools in the United States have had increased 
funding per student over the last decade or more. But, unfortunately, 
the numbers have not gone up. The Federal Government has spent $125 
billion in trying to narrow the gap between low-income students and 
upper-income students, and the gap has not narrowed, it has widened in 
some areas.
  We still have very disturbing test scores in math and science that 
show we are not competitive with the rest of the industrial world. I 
think that is so obvious as to be without dispute.
  What is it we are doing wrong in education? You go to Japan, and they 
have classes with 50 or 60 children in a class. We have much smaller 
classes than that, but our numbers are not where we they need to be. So 
what is the problem?
  I think Dr. Paige and the President's plan is focusing on a couple of 
core events: Do not let a child fall behind. Leave no child behind. 
Find out at the earliest possible time if they are not keeping up. Do 
what needs to be done to then intervene. Do not let parents think that 
just because Billy is going

[[Page S4073]]

to school every day, that Billy is learning at a legitimate rate and 
progressing effectively. Those tests will tell on the school. They will 
tell on the students. And the parents will be much more engaged.
  Alabama has done that. My State has stepped forward. It has one of 
the toughest testing systems in America. It demands that students meet 
certain minimum standards. The students are achieving more.
  Some say: I just don't like these tests mandated by the Federal 
Government. They direct policy in teaching and teachers have to teach 
to the test. But if the test is a good test, and the test determines 
whether or not a child can handle basic math or can read and write, and 
teachers are teaching to that test, I say, well done. I say that is 
progress.
  We need good testing, developed by the States, that will test basic 
reading and math improvement skills. If we know that, if we are 
knowledgeable about whether or not they are making progress, then we 
can help that child get even better. If they are not making progress, 
we can confront it. If a teacher or school is consistently failing, and 
not meeting those standards, perhaps at that point we need to confront 
the leadership at that school. Maybe we can find better leadership and 
improve those test scores. Because the American taxpayer, the American 
citizen, is entitled to know whether or not their money is producing 
results. How much more basic can it be? We are talking about giving 
more money and having no accountability?
  In the 4 years I have been in this body, I have learned that many of 
our friends on the other side of the aisle say: You just want to send 
more money to the schools without accountability. And I do want to send 
more money to the schools with less strings and less paperwork. I 
definitely believe in that. But the question is, what is 
accountability? What do we mean when we say ``accountability''?

  If you listen to many in this body, accountability is whether or not 
an individual school gets the money that we appropriate and that they 
do with it precisely what is said here. That is what they determine to 
be accountability. We have 700 Federal Government education programs. 
Can you imagine that--700? It is hard to believe.
  So they say, you cannot consolidate those problems. You cannot send 
the money down to an elementary school that wants to revamp its entire 
reading program, to spend $20,000 to develop a program that will be 
effective for the next decade to improve reading in their school where 
they have a vision and a passion for it and they just can't wait to do 
it. They don't have the money, and we say: No, you can't do that. You 
have to spend it for one of our little 700 projects.
  What I have learned is--and as I have thought about it--that is a 
wrong view of accountability. Accountability is having a learning 
curve. Are children improving? Are they better able to read now than 
they were last month or last year? That is what accountability is. You 
cannot do that without testing. Almost every school system knows that. 
Virtually every school system tests, although there is a fierce, 
dogmatic, determined group of advocates who resist testing in every 
shape, form, or fashion. They fight it every way possible, with every 
kind of possible excuse.
  But I repeat again, if you love those children, if you want to see 
them reach the highest and best economic and social potential in the 
world, you want them to be able the read and write. You want them to be 
able to do basic math. You want them to reach the highest possible 
achievement in trig, in chemistry, and physics, and the highest form of 
mathematics in their school systems. We want them to reach their 
fullest potential. That will not happen if they are not progressing 
steadily every year.
  So I believe we can do better. I believe if we focus on learning, and 
if we give our principals and our teachers more freedom to use the 
Federal resources in a way most effective for learning, they will use 
it that way. If we say: You will get even more freedom if your test 
scores improve, such as they did in Houston, the children will benefit 
from that additional freedom. I assure you, the local people will be 
more willing to support a school that is showing progress than one that 
is not showing progress.
  I will share this story. There is a principal in Alabama named 
Dorothy Robinson. A number of years ago, she was a teacher in a rural 
school in the county in which I grew up. She also grew up there and 
taught in Packer's Bend. We call it ``across the river.'' Packer's Bend 
was an isolated area across the river from the main part of the county. 
They had a small school, and it was in big trouble. Test scores were 
not good. The school was not in good shape. The county was about to 
close it. They said they would.
  Dorothy Robinson said: Don't close it. Give me a chance. I believe I 
can turn this school around. It was on academic alert by the State. It 
was the smallest high school in the State. She started that summer, got 
students together, and they helped clean up the school. They got 
parents involved to an extraordinary degree. She called her teachers 
together, and they decided they could improve test scores. They were 
going to do the things necessary to make that school be an effective 
educational institution. She worked at it, and was highly successful; 
and 4 years later they were running test scores as high as any in the 
county.
  It was a really tremendous achievement done without any great 
appropriation of money, done by leadership and a determination to hold 
students accountable. She challenged them to be their very best. She 
did not put up with excuses. And she moved them forward. In fact, the 
superintendent of education in Alabama has now hired her to help him 
set up programs for similar schools throughout the State.
  Those kinds of improvements are happening in America. We need--as a 
Senate, as a Congress, and as a U.S. Government--to develop policies 
that help those success stories occur more often. We need to help them 
decide what to do fundamentally; and that is, to find out whether 
children are learning properly and to give those schools more freedom 
and flexibility to do that. If the schools continue to fail to teach 
our children, we need to give those children some option to reach 
outside that school. Because it is wrong; it is not right at its most 
fundamental level, to say to a poor child who has no other option but 
to go to public school: You must go to this failing school. You just go 
there anyway.

  This is what we do in American today mostly. The President is saying, 
if you can't get your school operating at the basic level, give them 
some options, give them some choices. But fundamentally, if we do the 
things Dr. Paige did in Houston, if we do the things Ms. Dorothy 
Robinson did at Packer's Bend, every school can move to the highest 
possible level. We can without any doubt substantially improve the 
learning of children all over this Nation without any tremendous 
increase in funding. It can be one of the greatest things this Nation 
has ever done, not to leave a child behind, make sure every one is 
progressing to their fullest potential.
  We can do this. I am excited about it. The President was a Governor 
of a large State. He ran for Governor promising to do something about 
education. He achieved some great improvements in Texas education, and 
he wants to do it for America. It is not a pipe dream, it is a vision 
that can be achieved and made a reality. I hope this Congress will not 
just continue business as usual, not just continue to function as an 
arm of the establishment, but that we will confront our failure to come 
up with innovative solutions for improvement and to increase 
substantially the learning that occurs in classrooms in America, those 
magic moments when a child and teacher gel and they learn. It is a 
thrilling thing. We need to further that and not the bureaucracy.
  I look forward to the continued debate on this. It is time to bring 
this bill up and make some changes for the better in America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I begin by complimenting the Senator from 
Alabama and before him the Senator from New Hampshire, both of whom 
made extraordinarily important points about the need for improvement in 
our education in the United States and about the single ingredient that 
can do more to enhance their performance than any

[[Page S4074]]

other single thing; that is, more choice, more freedom in our education 
system, choice for parents so that their kids have a chance, and 
freedom of local schools to experiment and to do what is in the best 
interest of the kids in their local communities rather than having 
policies dictated from Washington, DC.
  In starting this process, I had very high hopes that we would be 
considering legislation in this Chamber that embodied this concept of 
choice, of more freedom for parents and students to go to the schools 
that were succeeding rather than being relegated to the poorer schools 
that characterize all too many of our communities today. I had hoped we 
would be able to pass and enact legislation that embodied an entirely 
new approach to education in our country.
  Sadly, I no longer have those hopes because the bill that came to us 
from the committee to the floor is a bill which does not embody all of 
the President's ideas as he put forth. It is, in effect, the lowest 
common denominator, a bill that represents the consensus of all of 
those people who had anything to do with it and, as a result, instead 
of embodying those new principles, those principles of reform, relies 
far too heavily on the ideas of the past, the old model of Federal 
education which assumed that improvement in student performance could 
be secured through bureaucratic initiative alone. The old model ensured 
that when policy details were hammered out, there was a seat at the 
table for any special interest with a vested interest in existing 
arrangements but literally no voice for students and parents.

  Of course, the old education model was built on the premise that 
Congress' commitment to expanding opportunities to the disadvantaged, 
as well as to overall academic excellence, could be measured primarily 
by how many taxpayer dollars were spent. I believe we need a new model, 
and we should begin by recognizing that if we want to see revolutionary 
improvement in education, we will need to consider the benefits of a 
system that is more dynamic than the monopoly model in place today.
  An old rancher friend of mine told me, if you want to get out of a 
hole, the first thing you have to do is stop digging. The hole that our 
educational system is in today means that we have to stop making it 
worse by continuing the same policies. The only way we are going to 
improve is if we allow freedom and choice of the local communities and 
the parents to do what they think is best for their kids and for their 
students.
  We have to begin by declaring independence from special interests. In 
covering other areas of public policy, the news media constantly 
insinuate that politicians are putting the well-being of the special 
interests that help their campaigns ahead of the consumers' well-being. 
That pretty well sums up the relationship between many politicians and 
the defenders of the status quo in education. We need a debate about 
the premise that more spending equals better results in education 
before we pass legislation influenced by that premise.
  In fact, the history of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
makes it clear that spending more taxpayers' money does not buy better 
results. As an alternative hypothesis, I submit we will improve 
education to the extent that we provide more freedom for families to 
obtain the kind of education they know is best for their children. I 
hope we will legislate accordingly.
  Let's look at the state of elementary and secondary education in our 
country today. America is not educating a workforce that meets the 
needs of the 21st century, let alone the needs of each student. Last 
year Congress authorized the issuance of 297,500 new visas for highly 
skilled temporary workers to come to our country, and we had just 
raised the ceiling 2 years before. The reason? Not enough qualified 
American workers were available to fill the jobs in the new American 
economy. This situation is not likely to reverse itself based upon 
current trends.
  The results from the third international mathematics and science 
study show that American high school seniors rank 19 out of 21 
industrialized countries in math and 16 out of 21 nations in science. 
Over the past decade, the number of college degrees earned overall has 
increased by 25 percent, but the number earned in the fields at the 
heart of the new economy--engineering, computer science, and things of 
that sort--has grown by only 1 percent.
  Moreover, too many people are being left behind in our education 
system: 37 percent of fourth graders test at the so-called below basic 
level in reading. That means essentially they are illiterate. For 
Hispanic fourth graders the proportion is 58 percent. For African 
American youngsters it is 63 percent. That is unacceptable. Only a 
third of all fourth graders have attained proficiency in reading. Since 
1983, over 10 million Americans have reached the 12th grade without 
having learned to read at a basic level. Over 20 million have reached 
their senior year unable to do basic math.
  As President Bush has repeatedly noted, too many of America's most 
disadvantaged youngsters pass through public schools without receiving 
an adequate education. The President has correctly identified these 
shortchanged young Americans as victims of the soft bigotry of low 
expectations.
  For some the response to these problems will be to call for more 
money. I might note that Republican majorities in the Congress have 
provided more money; for example, a record increase of 18 percent last 
year. We will see even bigger increases this year given the priority 
President Bush has placed on this in his budget. But simply spending 
more money on schools and school personnel has not produced educational 
improvements.
  Since 1965, real per pupil expenditures have increased from less than 
$3,000 to more than $7,000. During the same period, reading scores on 
the National Assessment of Educational Progress have been static. So we 
have well more than doubled the spending per pupil on education, and we 
have no improvement in the test scores. Between 1960 and 1995, average 
class size fell from 25.8 to 17.3. Inflation-adjusted average salaries 
for U.S. public school teachers grew 45 percent from 1960 to 1995. Over 
that same period, SAT scores plummeted.
  As Secretary of Education Ron Paige has noted:

       After spending $125 billion over 25 years, we have 
     virtually nothing to show for it.
  Education special interests and the politicians who represent them 
have lost the battle. Their last resort is to say we are not spending 
enough money. But we don't need a bidding war. What we need are reforms 
that will bring results.
  President Bush's original plan contained a number of worthwhile 
reforms in existing education programs. It called for cutting Federal 
redtape while bolstering accountability through meaningful assessments.
  In addition to its accountability provisions, that plan contained a 
modest school choice provision. To the President's great credit, the 
Bush blueprint recognized that competitive pressure, and the threat of 
it, is essential to triggering the meaningful accountability that can 
spur improvement. That is the insight upon which we should be building.
  We know that the benefits of education freedom are real and they are 
dramatic. One talented researcher, Harvard's Caroline Hoxby, has found 
that expanding choice raises the demand for teachers with initiative 
and strong academic backgrounds. Currently, these are the teachers most 
likely to leave the profession.
  Professor Hoxby also found that when families are given a real choice 
of schools--as, for example, they have been in Cleveland and 
Milwaukee--significant improvements in test scores, graduation rates, 
and future incomes are registered by the students who leave their old 
schools and by those who stay because those schools have responded to 
the challenge of competition and have improved accordingly.
  Unfortunately, efforts to ally public policy with an agenda of 
promoting freedom in education have had only limited success. I am very 
proud that Arizona was ranked No. 1 last year on the Manhattan 
Institute's Education Freedom Index, which ranked all 50 States. My 
State's reforms, for example, have led the way with the type of reforms 
I think we need at the Federal level, including the most liberal 
charter school law in the country, a law

[[Page S4075]]

that has led to the opening of more than 400 charter schools in 
Arizona, which is about a third of all the charter schools in the 
country; open enrollment, which allows parents to enroll children in 
any public school and has the funds to follow the student; finally, an 
idea I plan to propose as a Federal policy--a tax credit that offsets 
contributions Arizona families make to organizations that help give 
students the opportunity to attend a school of their choice.
  This tax credit proposal builds on an idea that has already taken 
off, thanks to private philanthropists. In 1997, two distinguished 
business leaders, Ted Forstmann and John Walton, invited applications 
for 1,000 partial tuition scholarships for families in the District of 
Columbia. Nearly 8,000 applications were received. In 1998, they formed 
an organization called the Children's Scholarship Fund to apply the 
idea on a national basis. They planned to offer 40,000 scholarships, 
and 1.25 million applications were received.
  This is an idea whose time has come. It is a concept Americans 
embrace. As impressive as these numbers are, these testimonials were 
offered by parents who have been pleading for better options.
  One mother said the following about her experience:

       We would not be able to afford this without your help. Our 
     daughter is really excited to be learning spelling and 
     grammer (which was not being taught in public school). She's 
     an aspiring writer and thinks this is great. My son has 
     autism, and his new school had more services in place for him 
     on the first day of school--without me even asking--than 
     we've been able to pull out of the public school in six 
     years! They both love their new schools and are doing well.

  Here's another mother's testimony:

       I am so excited that my son has been chosen to receive a 
     scholarship . . . One evening I sat on my bed and cried 
     because I really wanted him to attend a private school but I 
     know that I cannot afford all of the tuition. Therefore your 
     scholarship fund was my only hope.

  Yet another mother wrote,

       I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am for this 
     opportunity to send my children to a private school. As a 
     low-income mother of four wonderful children with great 
     potential, I would not be able to provide this change for 
     them without your help.

  This particular mother goes on to say,

       I have chosen a school that will help nurture the seeds of 
     greatness in them. I am sure that with this opportunity to 
     succeed, my children will be successful and contribute 
     greatly to society in the future.

  In 1997, leaders in my state settled on a plan to help the private 
sector to satisfy that vast unmet demand for options.
  They instituted a state credit that allows Arizona residents to claim 
a dollar-for-dollar income tax credit for donations to school tuition 
organizations--like the Children's Scholarship Fund.
  Thanks to that program, 4,000 Arizona students--nearly all of them 
from disadvantaged backgrounds--have received scholarship assistance 
that has made it possible for them to enroll in a school of their 
choice.
  The number of organizations offering scholarships in the state has 
shot up from two to 33.
  Arizona's leaders understand the need for adequate resources for 
education.
  Last fall, Arizona voted to spend an additional $438 million on 
education.
  But first they laid the predicate to ensure that the money would be 
well-spend by reforming the system.
  We should do the same.
  If we define success as success in sending more of taxpayers' money 
to sustain a system that cannot improve and will not change, we may do 
great things for the buildings and personnel involved in education, but 
we will have left behind the children.
  We should be judged by our willingness to make changes that promote 
innovation, competition, and parental choice--in short, freedom.
  Those are the changes that will ensure no child is left behind.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask, of the hour I have, I be allowed 
to take 10 minutes as in morning business to introduce a bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Wellstone pertaining to the introduction of S. 
805 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Perhaps the best way to talk about this legislation 
and why I have been opposed to the way we are proceeding, is to do two 
things. I will start by reading. I don't want to plagiarize. I was a 
teacher.
  I say to my colleague from Rhode Island, I can be relatively brief 
and do this in 15 or 20 minutes--is that not brief? I was a teacher; 
that, for me, is brief. I know Senator Reed from Rhode Island has come 
to the floor.
  I will speak about what we are and are not doing in this legislation, 
first of all, by quoting Jonathan Kozol. Jonathan Kozol has 
unbelievable credibility because this man has written some of the most 
eloquent and powerful books ever written about children and education. 
I don't think there is any question about it. It is what the book 
reviewers say. It is what people in education say. Jonathan's first 
book was called ``Death at an Early Age'' and was about him having lost 
his job as a teacher in Boston for assigning a poem by Langston Hughes 
because the children were all African American, and he wanted them to 
know about Langston Hughes.
  He has written so many books. I will quote some of what Jonathan 
Kozol has had to say about this legislation and where we are heading. 
His words are better.
  He starts out:

       Standardized tests in the third grade measure 7 years of 
     learning for privileged children, but only 4 years for lower 
     income kids who got no Head Start opportunity.

  Think about that for a moment. In other words, the wealthiest 
children typically receive 3 years of rich developmental preschool 
education at an average cost of about $15,000 a year, while half of the 
eligible children of poverty don't even get one year of Head Start.
  And in the poorest areas, as Jonathan's last two books have been 
about the PS 30 school in the South Bronx, 75 percent of the children, 
not one of whom comes from a family with an income of over $10,000 a 
year, are excluded from Head Start. So any standardized tests given in 
the third grade is not a test of ``school's success.'' ``It is a test 
of wealth or poverty. A third grade test for children whom we rob of 
Head Start is not school reform but punitive hypocrisy.''

  Those are the words of Jonathan Kozol. Believe me, I wish they were 
my words. I agree with them. That is why I come to the floor and state 
I could not believe I heard some colleagues on the other side talking 
about how, if the schools do not succeed after 1 or 2 or 3 years, then 
there will be severe consequences, and on and on and on. I will say it 
again. Some of the harshest critics of these teachers in these schools 
could not last 1 hour in the classrooms they condemn. But at age 8, let 
us be clear about this, for these third graders, this is not a test of 
school success. It is a question of which kids by age 8 had rich 
prekindergarten education--which kids were able to come to school ready 
to learn. How many children were challenged, nurtured, and all of the 
rest. So basically you have one group of kids who had it all. You had 
another group of kids who did not even have a chance to be in Head 
Start because we fund Head Start at 50 percent of what is needed for 4-
year-olds even less for three year olds and only 3 percent of what is 
needed for 1 and 2-year-olds. And the Head Start program is to do 
what--to give children from disadvantaged backgrounds a head start.
  Jonathan's conclusion: A third grade test for children or for the 
school, which is also supposed to be a reflection of how the teachers 
do, is not school reform but ``punitive hypocrisy.''
  I will offer an amendment that will say that we will not mandate 
these tests in every school, in every district, in every State until we 
fully fund title I.
  Another amendment is going to be we should not do it until we fully 
fund Head Start. I will be interested to see how colleagues vote.
  Jonathan Kozol goes on and says--``and, please, this is my battle 
cry. This is my plea. This is my prayer.'' He says: ``Nationally 
enforced testing with no national guarantee of equal opportunity to 
pass the test is ethically unjust.'' I would like to see a Senator come 
out here and argue with me on

[[Page S4076]]

that. So you have school funding for pupils in the poorest school 
districts of America that range around $6,000 per child, and you have 
school districts in the richest communities that range in the area of 
about $24,000 per child. In New York City, poor kids in the Bronx last 
year got $8,000 to pay for their education while children in the 
wealthy suburbs got $18,000 to $20,000. Teachers in the richest 
districts got $20,000 more in annual pay than New York City teachers.
  So the White House bill will test the poor against the rich and then 
announce that the poor are failing. Federally required tests without 
federally required equity amounts to clubbing these children over the 
head after systematically cheating them. I want to say this in this 
Chamber because that is exactly what we are doing. That is exactly what 
we are doing. We know in advance which kids will fail. So this is a 
plan not for reform, not for equality, but for guaranteed humiliation 
children.
  I am sorry, I know where ``leave no child behind'' comes from. That 
is the mission statement of the Children's Defense Fund. I heard a 
colleague--I will not use names because we are not supposed to be 
personal--come to the floor and say the money is not the answer. We 
need to give the children tools to do well. And then this colleague 
jumped to talk about the tests. Does the test assure a good teacher? 
Does the test assure that we are going to be paying teachers well so we 
have good teachers? Does the test assure a smaller class? Is the test 
the tool that brings about the technology in the schools or the good 
textbooks? Does a test rebuild a crumbling school building? Does the 
test assure that the children come to kindergarten ready to learn? The 
test does not assure any of that.
  We cheat these children. We do not even fully fund Head Start, and 
then we fail them and club them over the head and we call this reform. 
I want nothing to do with this unless we are going to have an honest 
commitment of resources.
  My friend Jonathan Kozol goes on to say that the testing advocates 
assume that teachers are afraid--I have heard some of this discussion--
to be held accountable. He says this is a liability against the future. 
And he is right. No good teacher--I have two children who teach. I am a 
proud Jewish father. I think they are great teachers--No good teacher 
is afraid to be held accountable for what she does or what he does with 
children, but it is manifestly unfair to ask accountability from 
teachers when the Congress is unwilling to be held accountable for its 
behavior in shortchanging kids and basically cheating them from the 
hour of their birth, and then clubbing them over the head with a 
punitive exam.
  Senators should be ashamed to go along with this.
  Now, I am going to make one other point from Kozol, although I could 
go on and on. This excessive testing is degrading and it is distorting 
instruction. Teachers, and I quote from Kozol, are turning to robotic 
drill and grill routines because they are terrified of sanctions--loss 
of funding--if their student scores are not high enough. And this 
mandate from the Federal Government, an unfunded mandate, is going to 
require every school and every school district, every child from age 8 
every year to be tested. And what is going to happen is the teachers 
are not going to be able to encourage the students to have questions. 
They are not going to be able to encourage curiosity or humor or 
delight of any kind. All those trips to the museum and all that art and 
all that music and all of those other activities, they will go by the 
wayside as everybody will be drill teaching to drill tests. And this 
passes for reform?
  I wish there were more colleagues present so they could get angry at 
me. I think people in these school districts, people down in the 
trenches think we are crazy. I go to a school about every 2 weeks and I 
do not find people coming up to me, whether it is in rural or whether 
it is suburban or inner city, saying we need more tests. I have people 
come up to me and say: God, we need more teachers, or we need more 
counselors; we need affordable housing because our third graders are 
moving three and four times during the year and it is hard for them to 
do well in school.
  It is hard when the children come to school hungry. It is hard when 
they come to school with an abscessed tooth because they do not have 
any dental care and can't afford it. We need afterschool programs. Why 
can't you invest in Head Start, child care, and make sure the kids are 
kindergarten ready. We need smaller class sizes. Our buildings are 
dilapidated. I wonder how U.S. Senators would do if the toilets didn't 
work, or if it was cold during the winter, or there was no air 
conditioning, or we didn't have access to the fax, or we didn't have 
the books we needed, and we didn't have adequate facilities. How would 
we do as Senators?
  A lot of children are having to learn under these conditions.
  That is what I hear about. I do not hear people coming up to me 
saying: Please, Federal Government. Mandate that we have tests every 
year.
  But this is what we call reform.
  Then, to add insult to injury, the estimates that we are getting from 
our States is, wait a minute; to do the testing the right way, if there 
is a right way, is going to cost at a minimum over $2 billion. Some 
estimates are as high as $7 billion. The White House has a few hundred 
million dollars for this.
  Whatever happened to my Republican colleagues' outrage about unfunded 
mandates?
  In addition, in St. Paul, MN, after you get to a school where only 65 
percent of the kids are low income, or, say, 60 percent, there is no 
title I money left. We fund about 30 percent of the children who can 
get the help.
  The President is calling for a total increase of $670 million or 
thereabouts because we have to have these Robin-Hood-in-reverse tax 
cuts with over 40 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent. 
Now we hear we are going to have several hundred billion over X number 
of years spent on the Pentagon. Then there will be missile defense, and 
all the rest.
  Where are the resources?
  My final point today is that I am disappointed. I said before we 
actually brought this bill up, and certainly before we proceed with 
this bill I am going to keep saying this. We should have an agreement 
on some of the policy questions that I know Senator Reed and others are 
going to talk about, and also whether or not there is going to be a 
commitment on resources because this will just be a mockery. Senators 
will rue the day they voted to mandate this and made every State, every 
school district, every school, every kid, and every teacher go through 
this and they did not provide the resources for IDEA and for kids with 
special needs or for title I or so kids can be kindergarten ready. You 
will rue the day.
  Democrats, my colleagues, this is not reform. You should stand up 
against it. If there is not a commitment--I don't mean authorization, I 
mean the commitment of resources, appropriations, and I mean now--we 
should fight this all the way. We should say to people in the country: 
God knows we are committed, but we are not going to let this be an 
unfunded mandate, where you will have to raise your property taxes.
  As Jonathan Kozol said, we are not going to have a Federal mandate 
for testing without a Federal mandate of equal opportunity for the 
children to get a good education to do well.
  So I will offer an amendment to title I which says that the new 
testing set to go into effect in the school years 2005 and 2006 shall 
not be required to go into effect in that year unless title I has been 
appropriated at $24 billion, nor will it have to go into effect in 
subsequent years until such sums are necessary are appropriated to 
fully fund title I.

  This is put up or shut up time. If you are serious about 
accountability, but you are equally serious about making sure children 
have the same opportunity, then I think you should vote for it.
  There will be seven test quality amendments, which are really 
important so that we do this right.
  I have another amendment that says the assessment should be used for 
diagnostic purposes only.
  That is basically what we are talking about right now. That is what 
we should be using the tests for, diagnostic purposes. Let's not talk 
about using these tests to start bashing these kids over the head and 
these schools and teachers over the head.

[[Page S4077]]

  Finally, a transition teaching amendment that I have been working on 
which will be a bipartisan effort which expands and enhances the 
current transition teaching program to ensure that funds are targeted 
to the high-poverty and high-need school districts. The program will 
ensure funds are used on activities that have proven effective in both 
recruiting and retaining teachers. This is critical because so much of 
the need for teachers is rooted in the high attrition rate in the 
field. 73% of teachers in Minnesota leave the field for reasons other 
than retirement.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the notes that Jonathan 
Kozol sent to me be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Standardized tests in 3rd grade measure seven years of 
     learning for privileged children, but only four years for 
     low-income kids who got no head start opportunity.
       The wealthiest children receive typically three years of 
     rich developmental preschool, at average cost of $15,000 a 
     year, while half the eligible children of poverty get not 
     even one year of Head Start and, in the poorest urban areas, 
     75 percent are excluded from Head Start.
       Any standardized test given in 3rd grade, therefore, is not 
     a test of ``school success''--it is a test of wealth or 
     poverty. A 3rd grade test for children whom we rob of Head 
     Start is not ``School Reform'' but punitive hypocrisy.
       Nationally enforced testing with no national guarantee of 
     equal opportunity to pass the tests is ethically unjust. 
     School funding per-pupil ranges from $6,000 in the poorest 
     districts of America to $24,000 in the richest. In the New 
     York City area: poor kids in the Bronx last year got $8,000 
     while children in the wealthy suburbs got $18,000 to $20,000. 
     And incidentally teachers in the richest districts get 
     $20,000 more in annual pay than NYC teachers.
       The White House bill will test the poor against the rich--
     and then announce ``The poor are failing.'' Federally 
     required tests without federally required equity amounts to 
     clubbing children over the head after systematically cheating 
     them.
       We know in advance which kids will fail. So this is a plan, 
     not for reform, not for equality, but for guaranteed 
     humiliation of our victims.
       We will learn nothing from another layer of tests that we 
     do not already know. Kids in the Bronx, for example, already 
     take six standardized exams beginning in 3rd grade: three 
     sets of tests in math and reading each, year after year.
       These tests, according to the principal of P.S.30, take up 
     one quarter of the year. Twenty-five percent of teaching time 
     is lost to tests, pre-tests, and test preparation.
       In other words, one-fourth of the school budget is already 
     being wasted by repetitive exams. Another set of tests will 
     simply waste more money. Every week devoted to a test is a 
     week of lost education.
       Some of my colleagues in the Senate are under the 
     impression that ``tests'' represent a ``form'' of education. 
     They do not! Tests do not teach reading: Only well-paid 
     teachers in small classes do. ``Testing'' is a symbolic 
     substitute for ``educating.'' Don't substitute a symbol for 
     the real thing.
       Kids who are cheated of Head Start, Title I, small classes, 
     and well-paid teachers learn absolutely nothing from a 
     national exam except how much their nation wants to punish 
     and embarrass them.
       Standardized tests are the worst kind of tests, but these 
     are inevitably the ones the White House will require, because 
     they are the easiest to compare numerically.
       Many of the brightest kids can write beautifully and read 
     perceptively but cannot regurgitate answers for a multiple-
     choice exam.
       A friend of mine once taught to a student, a boy named 
     Anthony from New York City. He failed every standardized exam 
     he was given, but today is in college because his teacher 
     took time to read his stories!
       Nationally standardized exams will stereotype boys like 
     Anthony as ``failures'' and convince them to drop out of 
     school before we even recognize their gifts. No standardized 
     exam will ever identify the true potential of a gifted 
     child--only his ``test-taking savvy.'' We'll lose too many 
     kids as a result.
       Standardized exams will also take the highest toll on poor 
     black and Latino kids.
       The most poorly funded urban districts are overwhelmingly 
     black and Hispanic. Giving more tests, instead of more 
     opportunity, will simply drive more minority children out of 
     school and push larger numbers of black adolescents into the 
     streets--then into the prison system.
       New York already spends 10 times as much to incarcerate a 
     child in juvenile prison (nearly $90,000) as to educate that 
     child in public school. In California, prison guards get 
     higher salaries than teachers. Testing without educational 
     equality will increase the prison population while it 
     demoralizes and stigmatizes kids of color.
       Testing advocates also assume that teachers are afraid to 
     be held ``accountable.'' This is a libel against teachers.
       No good teacher is afraid to be held accountable for what 
     she does each day with children.
       But it is manifestly unfair to ask ``accountability'' from 
     teachers when Congress is itself unwilling to be held 
     accountable for its perfidious behavior in short-changing 
     kids to start with--cheating them from the hour of their 
     birth--then clubbing them over the head with one more frankly 
     punitive exam.
       ``One-way accountability'' is unacceptable. Senators, we 
     should be ashamed to go along with this.
       Excessive testing is already degrading and distorting 
     instruction. Teachers are turning to robotic ``drill-and-
     grill'' routines because they're terrified of ``sanctions'' 
     (loss of funding) if their students' scores aren't high 
     enough. The White House plan will make this even worse.
       Teachers are increasingly afraid to encourage questions, 
     curiosity, humor, or delight of any kind during the school 
     day because they're being told that every minute must be 
     calibrated to an item that may be on an exam.
       Urban schools, as a result, are being turned into pedagogic 
     bootcamps in which children lose not only equal opportunity 
     but also all the joy and sweetness that should be a part of 
     childhood. In this way, we rob the poorest kids twice.
       And it seems that the best teachers hate the testing agenda 
     most. They will not remain in public schools if they are 
     forced to be drill-sergeants for exams instead of educators. 
     Hundreds of the most exciting and beautifully educated 
     teachers are already fleeing from inner-city schools in order 
     to escape what one brilliant young teacher (a graduate of 
     Swarthmore) calls ``Examination Hell.''
       The dreariest and most robotic teachers will remain. The 
     glowing and passionate teachers will get out as fast as they 
     can. Who will you find to replace these beautiful young 
     teachers?
       This is another way of robbing urban and poor rural 
     children of the opportunities that Senators give their own 
     kids.

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield such time to the Senator from 
Rhode Island as he requires. I will reserve the remainder of my time, 
if there is any, for parliamentary remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I thank Senator Wellstone for his articulate 
and very passionate discussion of the issues today. I, too, am 
concerned that we are moving forward on legislation that has not yet 
been finalized. Technically, we voted this morning to proceed to S. 1, 
this piece of legislation. But we recognize and understand that this 
piece of legislation, the committee print, has already been overtaken 
by events and negotiations, and that what we will ultimately be 
confronted with on the floor is still being written.
  When there are so many important and outstanding issues that have yet 
to be resolved, it is, indeed, premature and, I think, unfortunate that 
we would begin this debate.
  S. 1, the committee bill, was carefully and thoughtfully considered 
in committee, and it represents accommodation between the 
administration's proposal and the ideas of the committee members in 
both Republican and Democrat caucuses. I hoped it would come to the 
floor as the vehicle by which we could discuss educational reform in 
the United States. But as I indicated, this has been overtaken. The few 
hundred or so pages, for all practical purposes, are irrelevant.
  What is being discussed today is how we will deviate from the agreed-
upon committee print. That committee product represented a balancing of 
several important principles.
  First, there was the principle of enhanced accountability, the 
principle that I recognized, indeed, in the last ESEA reauthorization 
in 1994 and fought strenuously for to increase accountability, 
recognizing that unless we had agreed-upon educational standards and 
ways to evaluate those standards, we were not going to make significant 
educational progress in the United States.
  The second principle is flexibility, to give the States more 
discretion and authority to ensure that their plans are developed, 
carried out, and evaluated.
  The third principle is increased resources, because without adequate 
resources, testing and flexibility will lead, in my view, to very 
little progress, and may be even detrimental, as my colleague from 
Minnesota suggested.
  But today we still do not have a resolution of the funding. We have 
an agreed-upon authorization number in this bill. But we have not seen 
the administration come forward and pledge the same kind of resources 
that they

[[Page S4078]]

are about to announce for the Department of Defense and for other 
areas.

  If this is truly the No. 1 domestic priority in the United States--
the education of our young people--then we can put our money where our 
mouth is; we can put the resources to work. To date, we have no real 
resolution. So, we are in danger of having a testing scheme and 
flexibility but without the resources to make it all work.
  But in addition to that issue, there is still the issue to be 
resolved in terms of accountability. What I think we would all concede 
is a tough accountability standard within this legislation is now being 
watered down and diluted because, frankly, it has suddenly dawned on 
many people, particularly the State education officials and Governors, 
that real accountability costs money, and not just Federal money.
  When we really measure the progress of education and the progress of 
individual schools throughout this country, and we commit to making 
these schools all successful, we are not just talking about some extra 
Federal dollars, we are talking about a profound shift in spending at 
the State and local levels, to make sure that truly no child is left 
behind. So it comes as no surprise to me that suddenly, having figured 
it out, the States are very concerned about accountability.
  So you have three major issues which form the core, the foundation of 
this legislation, that are now in flux subject to continuing 
negotiation. In that context, I believe it is inappropriate to proceed. 
That is why I voted this morning not to proceed to the bill, so we 
could wait until we have real language we can talk about, debate, and 
study before we consider the bill in the Chamber. We should wait until 
we have real resources committed--not just reauthorization language but 
a real commitment to appropriations. When we do those things, then I 
think we are ready to move forward. But we have, in any case, taken up 
this debate.
  We have seen over the last several weeks and months an attempt to 
work on a bipartisan basis to develop legislation, understanding that 
when we came to the Chamber more controversial elements would be 
introduced, such as the Straight A's Program, which is essentially a 
block grant for the States rather than categorical programs. There 
would be discussions on school vouchers and charitable choice. We 
understood that those issues would be debated in this Chamber. But the 
assumption was at least we would start with the language we had worked 
on, the language we agreed upon, the language in the committee proposal 
of S. 1. That, again, seems to be overtaken by events, overtaken by 
pending negotiations, and, as a result, rendering this particular 
version of the legislation obsolete as we begin.
  We have seen in these negotiations language on some of the 
controversial elements, but we have not seen a resolution yet. For 
example, with regard to Straight A's, this is a proposal that 
essentially would provide a block grant to the States to operate the 
educational programs without regard to the categorical provisions of 
existing programs.
  One of the problems of the Straight A's proposal is that it is not 
yet clear whether States participating in this program on an 
experimental basis could use Federal resources for vouchers. I think 
that is an important point that should be resolved before we consider 
it in this Chamber, not hurried in while we are still in the midst of 
the debate.
  Also, there are additional problems we have. It is not quite clear 
whether key provisions with respect to title I will still be part of 
the Straight A's Program if the State is operating under one of these 
pilot programs.

  One of the provisions that is particularly important is parental 
involvement. In the 1994 ESEA reauthorization, in title I, we 
understood that parents were a critical aspect of education. But the 
existing title I law before that was merely suggestive of parental 
involvement. So in 1994, we put in real requirements for parental 
involvement, authorizing the States to use a certain amount of their 
title I moneys--in fact, we directed them to use it for parental 
involvement, to develop parental involvement plans.
  I believe the title I moneys, the title I program, should be infused 
with parental involvement. But as the current draft of the Straight A's 
seems to suggest, they are going back, prior to 1994, and making 
parental involvement simply something that might be done, could be 
done, should be done. I think we know enough about the role of parents 
in education to make this an important part of education, not simply an 
optional provision of educational policy in the United States.
  As I mentioned before, there still is this issue of accountability. 
What will be the standards? Who will set the standards? It is clear 
that there will be increased testing. This testing raises significant 
questions. Most of the States, if not all the States, engage in rather 
elaborate testing already. Most of the States are acting under the 
provisions of Goals 2000.
  The 1994 ESEA reauthorization embarked on a very elaborate process of 
setting State standards: What a child should know, developing 
evaluations so those standards are tested, and imposing a scheme of 
evaluations--not every year for every child, but a scheme that made 
sense to a particular State.
  Now we are saying, no, one size does fit all for every child, every 
year, for grades 3 through 8. That puts a lot of practical pressure on 
the States because if you are trying to harmonize your standards with 
your evaluation, it takes time. Some States have found out it is not 
practical to give a test to every child every year because the tests 
have to be very individualized to capture all the nuances of those 
standards.
  My sense is--and I have talked to educational experts in the States--
the sheer requirement to test every child every year for grades 3 
through 8 will inexorably leave the States to adopt standardized 
testing which may or may not capture the standards in that particular 
State. So this testing regime could unwittingly move away from one of 
the central elements we all agree on--standards carefully thought out 
and evaluations that measure those standards.
  In these ongoing discussions, there is also included the notion of 
supplemental services, the idea that in failing schools there will be 
money given for supplemental services. It seems to me that raises a 
very profound question: Are you interested in merely giving a few 
children this option, because given the caps on this program, all 
children, even in the failing schools, may not be able to realize this 
program? Or are you interested in fixing the schools so that not only 
that class of children but succeeding classes of children will enjoy 
excellent education in a reformed, revitalized school? It seems to me 
we are diverting resources from the main point, to fix our schools, 
giving some children access to some supplementary education 
alternatives. That is another issue.
  Then there is the issue of charitable choice, which will come up, 
which raises profound issues about civil rights. What is the policy if 
we are going to use this approach by encouraging charities and 
religious groups to become more involved, more directly involved in 
Federal funding? Does that impose requirements on these groups to 
recognize civil rights laws in hiring? Does that impose requirements in 
the type of curricula they can use?
  All of these are very difficult questions, and they have to be 
addressed. I believe they should have been addressed as best we could 
before we brought this bill to the floor.
  There are some other practical issues here, too. It goes back to the 
overarching concern. The overarching concern is, who is going to pay 
for all this? It has been estimated by the National Association of 
State Boards of Education that testing alone of every child in grades 3 
through 8 could cost between $2.7 and $7 billion over 4 years. That 
type of money is not in the appropriations language I am seeing in the 
President's budget. That type of commitment is certainly not there. And 
that is just for testing alone. That is just to diagnose the problem.
  But we all recognize that simply identifying children who are falling 
behind and schools that are falling behind is just the first step, the 
hardest step of fixing the problem.

  As my colleague from Minnesota pointed out, we hear time and time 
again money is not the problem. Well, it is a refrain we seldom hear 
from other departments when they come in and say they have to confront 
new issues, new changing forces in the

[[Page S4079]]

world. The classic example is the problem with defense. We are all 
reading this week that it is likely the Secretary of Defense will 
recommend an increase of $25 billion a year in defense spending to 
adjust to new threats, new technologies, new opportunities. I am not 
hearing anyone say to him: Money is not the problem. Reorganize, 
evaluate your forces better.
  Resources is not the sole answer, but it is an important part of 
dealing with the issue. So we have to do that.
  Again, we are not seeing that type of commitment, that real 
commitment. Without that real commitment, we will not be able to 
attract the kind of teachers we need; we will not be able to provide 
continuous professional development so that teachers stay current on 
teaching techniques; we will not be able to fix school buildings so 
that children believe they are going to a place that is held in esteem 
by their community, a place that is treasured enough so that it is 
maintained. If you go to the schools in many parts of this country 
today, you find they are decrepit, that they are obsolete. They are 
places that no one would go voluntarily and certainly no one would go 
with the sense of excitement and joy that every child should bring to 
school. We will need more money to fix those schools.
  We are going to proceed on this debate. One of the presumptions of 
this debate, for those who are suggesting that we engage in a regime of 
testing without adequate resources--one of the presumptions is the 
sense that our schools are failing America. There is another 
perspective. The perspective is that this Congress and preceding 
Congresses, State Governors, and State assemblies have for years and 
years been failing our schools. We have not been giving them the 
resources they need. We have not been recognizing that educational 
problems today, in many cases, result from problems of health care for 
children, problems of poverty for children, problems of housing for 
children. Until we recognize these issues and until we confront these 
issues, not just rhetorically but, more importantly, with real 
resources and a real commitment, to say that our schools are failing 
America is missing a much larger point.
  What have we done truly to give these embattled teachers and 
students, these difficult schools, the help they need to succeed, not 
just a mandate to test and evaluate, but the support so that every 
child goes to school ready to learn? That was the first core principle 
of our reform movement, which President Bush's father began a decade or 
more ago.
  There are still too many children going to school without adequate 
health care, coming from homes that are dangerous because of exposure 
to lead in paint on the walls. There are still too many children who 
will fail because they don't have these types of supports and these 
types of help. As we consider this bill, we have to recognize that 
group as well.
  There are many things that will be debated in the course of the next 
few days in terms of education reform. I hope we can debate and I hope 
we can successfully adopt provisions that will decrease the size of 
classrooms throughout the country, knowing that children perform better 
when they have a smaller ratio between the teachers and the students. I 
hope we improve the quality of the physical condition of our schools--
better classrooms, modern classrooms, and safer schools. I hope we can 
improve the quality of our teachers and principals by providing real 
professional development. I hope we can improve our school libraries, 
and add additional school counselors. If we can do that, then we can 
take this legislation and make a real contribution to the quality of 
education in the United States.
  I hope we can do that. I hope we can do that on behalf of the 
thousands and thousands of youngsters who are going to school today and 
the generations to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time from 
4:15 to 6:15 be equally divided between the two leaders or their 
designees for postcloture debate. Further, I ask unanimous consent that 
Senator Carper be recognized first for up to 15 minutes, to be followed 
by Senator Enzi for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Delaware is recognized.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, my grandparents were born around the 
beginning of the 20th century and lived for much of the 20th century. 
In the early part of the last century, my grandparents and their 
generation--actually my parents and their generation--were able to find 
jobs and become employed not so much because of the strength of their 
minds but because of the strength of their backs.
  As we moved throughout the 20th century, the time came when more and 
more it was important that we knew how to read and how to write, knew 
how to do math and eventually to use technology, if we were going to 
get some of the better jobs available in our country. As we now move 
into the 21st century, that will be only more true.
  The last century has been called by some the American century. If the 
21st century is to be another American century, it is important that 
our young people have the kind of skills that will enable our employers 
to be successful in an increasingly competitive world marketplace.
  I believe among the reasons we have been remarkably successful as a 
nation over the last century is that we have taken our core democratic 
values, our democratic principles, combined those with the free 
enterprise system, and added to that a belief in free public education 
now for just about everybody in our country. Blending those disparate 
elements together, we ended up with an economic engine, as we close one 
century and walk into the next, that is, frankly, unrivaled by any 
other on the face of the Earth.
  That was yesterday's news. The question is, How are we going to fare 
for the next 100 years? For the past decade or so, we have heard 
increasing cries of concern that too often the skills our young people 
are bringing out of the high schools from which they in many cases 
graduate are not preparing them for college, not preparing them 
adequately for the workforce. We have heard calls from all levels of 
government, particularly State and local, to do something about it.
  As a Governor for the last 8 years, I know full well we have done a 
lot more in the States than just wring our hands and cry in anguish. We 
have done a great deal to try to ensure that my children and the 
children of the generation of kids in school with them and those to 
follow, when they graduate with that diploma, will really mean 
something. It will mean that they do know how to read and understand 
what they have read, that they do know how to do math--in some cases 
pretty complex math--they know how to use technology, they know how to 
think, and they are prepared to go on to be successful in college and 
in the world and in life.
  Throughout the country over the last 7 years--maybe the last 8 
years--States have been involved in adopting academic standards. What 
is an academic standard? It spells out in a State such as Delaware, or 
any other State, what we expect students to know and to be able to do, 
such as standards in math, science, English, social studies, and in 
other subject areas as well. If you look at the 49 States that have 
adopted standards, most of them spell out clearly what they expect 
their students to be able to do in math, science, English, and social 
studies.
  In recent years, maybe a bit more than half of our States have 
developed tests to measure student progress in the standards in math, 
science, English, and social studies that those States have adopted. 
They give those tests usually every year. In our State, it is annually 
in the spring, and it is given to students in grades 3, 5, 8 and 10.
  Now, almost half of the States have taken the next step toward 
developing accountability. What is accountability? There is a lot of 
confusion about what is accountability. Accountability says there ought 
to be consequences--some positive and some maybe not so positive--for 
students who fall short of the mark or for those who do well or for 
schools or districts that fall short or do well. There ought to be 
accountability for parents as well and also for politicians and for 
educators.

[[Page S4080]]

  As we take up the education debate in the Senate this week, we are 
literally trying to figure out what is the appropriate Federal role 
with respect to the education of our children. My boys play soccer in a 
YMCA rec league in Wilmington, DE. They play on a variety of fields 
around the city of Wilmington. One of the fields is a field that is not 
level. In fact, if I can use this folder as an example, about half of 
the game they are running downhill on this one field. Teams like to be 
running downhill. At the end of the first half, they switch and they 
have to go in the other direction. The team running downhill for the 
first half ends up having to run uphill for the rest of the game.
  A lot of kids in life don't have the luxury of changing sides of the 
field. For a lot of their lives, they play the game running uphill. The 
role of the Federal Government, for kids who spend a whole lot of their 
lives running uphill, is to try to level that playing field a little 
bit. For the kids born in tough situations, maybe with parents not 
engaged in their lives, or who don't value education, or maybe they 
don't even have parents, we must make sure those kids aren't hopelessly 
behind when they walk into kindergarten at age 5. If they are 
hopelessly behind and are coming from a real difficult situation in 
their home lives, they may need help to catch up with their other 
classmates.
  I don't think anybody in Washington expects the Federal Government to 
be the primary funder or mover and shaker in education in America. That 
is not our role. Our role is to try to level the playing field and to 
help ensure that States adopt academic standards for their students, 
and that not just some kids have a chance to meet the rigorous 
standards but that all kids have a chance to meet the standards their 
States have adopted.
  As we debate this issue this week, and perhaps next week as well, we 
are trying to figure out what can we do that is helpful, that builds on 
the reforms being adopted and implemented in the States. It does no 
harm; in fact, it does a lot of good.
  We have to consider that between 0 and age 5, kids will learn about 
half of what they know in their lives. If we waste the first 5 years, 
it is tough to get them back. We know that there is a lot more we can 
do in terms of parent training. A lot could be done in our States with 
respect to ensuring that healthier babies are born and raised. We can 
try to provide assistance with respect to quality child care and 
programs such as Head Start and make sure kids - and parents--are given 
a bit of a boost at the age of 3 or 4 and find themselves better 
prepared to be successful at the age of 5.
  Those are appropriate roles for the Federal Government. When kids 
walk into kindergarten at 5, what is an appropriate role? The Congress 
and the President have said it is to provide hope in smaller class 
sizes.
  We have also said it is important to provide extra learning time for 
kids who need extra time. We are joined in the Chamber by Senator 
Specter of Pennsylvania and Senator Graham from Florida. Senator 
Specter may be able to learn a little faster than the Senator from 
Delaware, but the Senator from Delaware can learn, too. I might just 
need some extra learning time.
  One of the things we have done in Delaware and in other States, 
through programs such as title 1, is we provide extra learning time for 
kids who need it to reach the academic standards that have been set.
  We also know that one of the best things that could happen to ensure 
that a kid is successful in school is to have a terrific teacher such 
as Mrs. Anderson, my first grade teacher, and Mrs. Swane, my fifth 
grade teacher--teachers who really make an impact. Mrs. Anderson helped 
me read at the age of 5 and 6 in my first grade class. We need teachers 
who love kids, who can teach and who know their stuff. One of the 
things that we can do at the Federal level, working with State and 
local school districts, is to help recruit the best and brightest to be 
teachers, to make sure they have the tools that will at least help them 
have a shot at being successful in the classroom and to ensure that 
their professional development continues.
  Another area where the Federal Government has been involved is in 
technology--trying to infuse technology into public school classrooms. 
Delaware was the first State to wire a public school classroom for 
access to the Internet. I think we have the best ratio of computers to 
kids in the country. We spend a lot of money to train teachers to use 
the technology effectively in the class, to integrate technology into 
their curriculum, to bring the outside world into the classroom and 
make the learning come alive.
  I am pleased that the legislation coming before us focuses, in part, 
on technology. One of the best things it does is to say we encourage 
teams in schools across America to figure out how to work at their 
schools, how they can incorporate technology into their curriculum. 
That is a perfectly appropriate role for us.
  Among the other things we can do is provide some help when students 
are disruptive. An amendment will be offered later this week by John 
Kerry and myself that will say if a school district wants to use some 
of the moneys in this legislation for establishing alternative schools 
for chronically disruptive students, they would have the ability to do 
so.
  Lastly, our legislation, in providing for accountability and 
consequences for schools that do well and those that don't do well, 
says we want to put schools on sort of a 10-year glidepath to making 
sure that all the students are able to come closer to meeting the 
standards set by their States, and each year that a school district 
fails to meet the State's own progress chart--imagine a stair step, if 
you will, of 10 steps. The first year that happens, the school gets 
some extra money for assistance. The second year, if they fall short, 
we provide more technical assistance. By the time the fourth year 
comes, we require that school district to institute public school 
choice to provide, for that child who is in a failing school, their 
parents an opportunity to send them to another public school that is 
not failing or to take advantage of extra learning time provided, in 
some cases, by a private vendor after school.

  We say if a school is failing after 4 years, that school has to be 
reconstituted as a charter school or turned over to a private sector 
vendor to run that school or simply the school is reconstituted with a 
new administration and new faculty. But while we call for some serious 
steps in our accountability plan in this legislation to require public 
school choice when schools are failing children in some cases, and to 
require as one of three options the establishment of charter schools, 
transforming existing schools into charter schools, those are options 
that cost money.
  One of the amendments that will be proposed by Senator Gregg, myself, 
and others is legislation saying if we are going to mandate public 
school choice, we need to provide assistance. If we are going to 
require, as one of the three options, turning a failing school into a 
charter school, we need to provide resources there as well.
  Let me close with this point as I approach the end of my 15 minutes. 
I honestly believe there is more before the legislation that we will be 
debating this week to unite us than divide us. Most Members, including 
Democrats and Republicans, and I believe this President, understands 
the need to invest more money in programs that work to raise student 
achievement, targeted to kids who need the help the most. I will not 
quarrel whether 10 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent increases, or 
more, are enough, but we all understand we need to invest more 
resources targeted to the kids who need it, in programs that work to 
raise student achievement.

  The second area where we are in agreement, generally, is that the 
money we provide from the Federal Government should be provided 
flexibly. We should not try to micromanage what is going on in the 
schools. We should say, here is the money to use; target it for kids 
who need it most. You figure how to best use it in your school and 
school district to help your kids.
  As we provide more money and we provide the money more flexibly, it 
is critically important we demand results, that we call for and require 
accountability. There have to be consequences. They do not have to be 
negative. There have to be consequences to make sure we are not 
throwing good money after bad money.

[[Page S4081]]

  We will debate a lot of issues in this Senate Chamber this year. For 
my money, I think for our taxpayers' money, this is maybe one of the 
most important issues we will consider. It will go probably as far in 
determining whether we will continue to be the superpower in the world 
we have today 100 years from now. All the rest that we do, we can 
debate and decide.
  I look forward to joining my colleagues in this debate, doing what is 
best for kids. The approach we take, I hope, is what I call the ``tough 
love'' approach, demonstrated when we took up welfare reform 5 years 
ago. A certain toughness in the approach was adopted and there is a lot 
of love and compassion, as well. There will be a similar approach. We 
will be successful and our children will be successful not just in this 
debate but in what follows.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, at the outset I commend my distinguished 
colleague from Delaware for his statement on the issues of flexibility 
and local control and accountability. In a few months in the Senate he 
has made a distinct contribution. It is good to share the train with 
the Senator from Delaware. I have done so with his distinguished 
colleague, Senator Biden, for many years. Those hours on the train 
enable some Members to learn more about each other and to come to 
bipartisan agreements on a great many of the issues. At the outset, I 
compliment the Senator from Delaware.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. I rise today to support S. 1 and to talk about the motion 
to proceed on which we have gotten cloture and are now debating, with 
some limitations on each Senator's time, but still debating whether to 
proceed on debating education.
  I haven't heard anybody who hasn't said that education is the most 
important thing on which we have to work. For a week we didn't get to 
debate education. Now we are only getting to debate proceeding to 
education. We ought to be talking about the issues and the amendments 
and getting a bill done and through here.

  Talking to the folks back in my school districts, right now what they 
are concentrating on is the end of the year, graduation for seniors. 
Immediately after that happens, they need to be planning for next fall.
  We are talking about elementary and secondary education 
reauthorization, which is where we outline in what programs schools can 
be involved. Don't you think they kind of need to know that when they 
start planning for fall? If they do not know by the time they start 
planning for fall, then they have to delay what we are talking about 
for a year. So it could be a year and a quarter before any of the 
reforms that all of us agree on can go into effect.
  When I listened to the debate this morning, the discussion was over 
how much money would be put in this bill. This bill is not an 
appropriations bill. This is an authorization bill. This is where we 
talk about what programs can be done. Later we talk about how much 
money to spend on those programs.
  One of the reasons I find it particularly fascinating that the 
Democrats have done a little filibuster on the amount of money is that 
this is the first time the Republicans have been in charge when we have 
gotten to do a reauthorization of education. I have to tell you, we are 
really excited about it because there is some tremendous potential in 
education out there.
  We are talking about the amount of money in the authorization bill. I 
find that particularly interesting because I went back to see how much 
they talked about money the last time this was authorized. The last 
time this was authorized the Democrats were the majority and the 
President was a Democrat. Do you know how much additional money they 
insisted be put in for the authorization of programs? No additional 
money. Money was not part of authorization. The Democrats have been in 
the reauthorizing lead for 35 years, and the amount of money has not 
been the issue in the authorization bills.
  So what is the difference now? A little chance to pound on the 
Republicans and reduce the amount of civility and bipartisanship that 
has already been shown on this bill. That should not happen.
  The plain truth is that without reform any increase would be just 
another drop in the $400 million--$400 billion; I have to start 
thinking in these Washington terms--a drop in the $400 billion 
education bucket. If money were our answer, we would not be here today. 
So we did not talk about it for 35 years. We did not talk about it the 
last time.
  The Federal Government provides 6 percent of the education dollar. We 
force 50 percent of the paperwork. We are the time waster generators.
  So we are going to increase that a little bit. Even under most 
circumstances it will not get much higher than that, and that is 
because we do expect the States to make the major effort. That is where 
the people live. That has been the tradition and the method for funding 
education.
  This is a difficult area. One of the reasons it is difficult is 
because everybody has been to school, so that makes each of us and 
everybody who listens to any debate on education an expert. We do have 
people in our lives who have influenced us tremendously. Some of the 
greatest influence we get is in that period of time we spend in school, 
which is some of the most contact we get with adults when we are kids.

  Besides having gone to school, I also get some input from my 
daughter, who is a seventh grade English teacher in Gillette, WY, an 
outstanding English teacher. I am really pleased with the progress she 
makes with her students. I get to see that firsthand and hear about it. 
I have to say, while she has been teaching, she has also earned two 
master's degrees. She just finished up the master's degree in 
administration so she can at some time be a principal. She would much 
rather be a teacher, but she has seen where a lot of the money goes.
  We do need to get more money into the classroom for teachers so we 
can recruit and retain good teachers. My wife has a master's degree in 
adult education and emphasizes education quite a bit.
  Some of my best mentors in my life have been people with whom I 
worked in the legislature who worked in education. On the State level, 
it is a much bigger deal than it is here because that is where the 
money comes from and that is where the decisions are made for the kids. 
Even at the State level what they do is defer the decisions, some of 
which we are trying to do, to the school boards themselves. That is a 
very important trend, and that is provided for in this bill.
  We are not talking about the amount of money, although some would 
like to distract the discussion so it talks about the amount of money. 
We need to be talking about how we are going to educate our kids, how 
we are going to reform the process.
  I do, first, want to applaud the entire committee for unanimously 
advancing this important bill before the full Senate. We did invest 
tremendous resources in attempting to reauthorize ESEA last year, and I 
am pleased we made it our first priority this year. I am also impressed 
with the support of the new administration in seeing President Bush's 
No. 1 priority take the next step in the legislative process. In the 
history of Presidential initiatives, I believe the work of this 
administration will serve as a model for bipartisanship on policies of 
national significance.
  Frankly, I was stunned to hear the suggestions last week that our 
President has not taken any bipartisan initiatives. At both the staff 
and principal level, the White House has been actively engaged for 
weeks on negotiating this powerful education reform bill that we have 
before us today. I applaud the product. I thank all the parties for 
their investment of time, energy, and willingness to compromise--the 
necessary ingredients for bipartisanship without which we would not be 
advancing the bill today.
  This is my fifth year on the Education Committee. The normal 
Education Committee process is to have a markup that lasts 2 to 3 weeks 
and then come out along party lines. This, one of the most innovative 
bills that we have worked on, took 2 days and it came out unanimously. 
That has to be a record for the Education Committee on any of the bills 
with which we deal. That is bipartisanship. Unanimous is about as close 
as you can come.

[[Page S4082]]

  This education reform bill, the BEST Act, reflects an understanding 
of the variation in needs between urban, suburban, and rural schools. 
The bill arguably addresses the concerns of all stakeholders in our 
children's education, and it does so in a bipartisan way. I believe the 
bill has struck meaningful compromise and reflects a strong but 
appropriate role for the Federal partnership in elementary and 
secondary education.

  The State of Wyoming has invested tremendous amounts of time and 
money in developing high standards for learning. That has been a 
priority for quite a while--high standards of learning, reliable 
assessments, strong parental involvement, and other research-based 
education innovations. The BEST Act builds upon that work and 
solidifies the shared commitment to academic achievement for all 
children.
  The State of Wyoming also has a Web site where you can check on the 
grades of any of the schools. They take the testing they do and they 
show how well, by school, the report cards come out for those schools. 
So they have had strong assessments.
  The State of Wyoming is currently facing a crisis in education. We 
call it a teacher shortage. It is not about class size. It is about 
teachers' salaries and a dwindling supply of qualified educators, 
particularly in light of the new high standards which the students must 
meet, which are on this Web site. But this is a problem for which the 
Federal Government can help provide a solution.
  Under title II of our bill, the focus is not only on preparing 
teachers but on helping schools recruit and retain high-quality 
teachers. Reducing the class sizes will be an allowable use of funds 
under this title, if that is the unique need of the particular school.
  I have to say, in Wyoming a lot of the schools have small class 
sizes. Even if they combined all of the classes into one class, it 
would be a very small class. We have some very small towns in Wyoming. 
It has been very important through this process to maintain the 
capability for those small schools to operate as well.
  This bill also emphasizes the need to improve the access to education 
technology and to use it in the process of improving academic 
achievement. I like to think our State is a forerunner in that. Again, 
that is because of our distances. It is a way that kids who are not in 
our urban centers--and our biggest urban center is now 53,293 people--
will still be able to get a diversified education.
  The goal of eliminating the duplicative administrative application 
process and allowing schools to have one pot of funds for the range of 
technology uses, including teacher and administrative staff teaching, 
will make a difference. The digital divide will shrink and technology 
will become even more relevant as an educational tool.
  I have to divert for a moment and talk about some of the innovations 
in technology.
  About 10 days ago I happened to tour a school that deals with migrant 
workers. I found that they had received a grant for laptops. The 
laptops are assigned to these children of migrant workers, and I 
suspect to other workers as well. But it has all of the course work on 
it. It plugs into a modem that dials an 800 number to give their 
homework to the teacher to grade. It allows them to talk on line with 
the teacher. There is also an 800 phone number they can call to talk to 
the teacher. It is a very successful program. It was started with an 
old blue school bus that went around to migrant worker camps and 
followed the migrant workers. They gutted the bus. They put in a desk 
and some folding chairs. They started a school. They have progressed 
now to the point where they can accommodate a lot more kids using this 
laptop network and some teachers who can be accessible at any time the 
students have an opportunity for it.
  There are some technological innovations out there that will help 
rural students and ones who move a lot. They are included in this bill.
  Very importantly, the bill clarifies the purpose of the President's 
requirement that States expand existing assessments and take on the new 
practice of participating annually in the NAEP test, which is the 
National Assessment of Educational Progress test, which many States, 
including Wyoming, currently administer to students.
  These clarifications go a long way in addressing the fundamental 
concerns by all parties that the Federal Government not enact 
additional unfunded mandates and that the States continue to retain the 
flexibility to design their own standards of learning for students 
versus nationalized standards or tests. We will have to debate a little 
bit this interaction between anything that looks like a national test 
and a State test which follows the things kids in that area of the 
country need besides their basic education.
  While it is not a part of the reauthorization, we would be remiss in 
meeting our commitment to the education of all children if we did not 
also prioritize funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education 
Act.
  As we advocate meaningful education reform, I look forward to the 
continued support for strong increases in funding of IDEA but recognize 
that is part of the appropriations process and not part of the 
authorization process. Fully funding this important but costly Federal 
requirement is as critical as requiring academic success in our 
classrooms. It is something we have been working toward and will 
continue to work toward.
  Throughout the consideration of the different elements of the BEST 
Act, I plan to discuss in more detail those that will most help 
Wyoming's children succeed.
  In spite of increases in the Federal investment in elementary and 
secondary education, it does remain a fraction of the overall 
expenditures--less than 10 percent. I think the figure being used here 
is 6 percent, and also 7 percent has been used.
  I remind people that 50 percent of the paperwork is generated by our 
very small funds. We force people to spend a lot of time for the money 
that comes from the Federal Government.
  I had a high school principal who took a leave of absence and came 
back to Washington to work in my office for a semester. He spent most 
of that time down at the Department of Education. He had been filling 
out these Federal forms for what seemed to him a lifetime, and he 
wanted to know what happened to them.
  Let me tell you what the results were. He was pleased to find out 
that the forms are scrutinized in detail, that every ``t'' has to be 
crossed and every ``i'' has to be dotted; everything has to be on the 
form. He was disappointed to find out that was the last use of that 
form. It isn't used to help any kid anywhere, but it maintains a job in 
the bureaucracy in Washington for that person who is making sure the 
form is completely filled out. That is not helping any kid in my State.
  If they do not put that information together and package it somehow 
so it is helpful to them, we ought to eliminate the form--actually, a 
lot of forms. I mentioned that 50 percent of the paperwork is generated 
in Washington.
  We have to help the schools maximize their dollars. I believe we can 
help improve our kids' academic experience because of this.
  Planning for next year requires quick passage. I mentioned that. If 
we don't have quick passage, we are getting past the planning stage for 
the next academic year; we will be forced to have the reform kick in 1 
year later.
  We need to get on with this process. I hope we can have everybody get 
on board, end the filibuster that is in process, compromise on some 
time, and get the bill debated and move on to a better treatment of the 
kids of this country.

  I look forward to seeing this bill overwhelmingly adopted by the 
Senate and signed into law as quickly as possible. We cannot afford to 
shirk our commitment to reform and putting children first.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from New York that I do 
have a unanimous consent request I want to offer. I believe that we 
will be having

[[Page S4083]]

some Senator from the other side of the aisle to discuss it with me 
briefly. It should not take too long. I thank the Senator for her 
courtesy in letting us do this now.
  Mr. President, obviously we need to go forward with the discussion, 
the general debate, and the amendment process on the education reform 
package. Earlier today, the vote on the motion to proceed was an 
overwhelming 96-3. I thought that was a clear indication that we were 
ready to go to S. 1, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
  I had the impression that we would have time spent this afternoon 
discussing education--not actually on the bill because time is allowed 
postcloture to talk about the bill in general, but that we would be 
able to go to the bill itself and begin debate on the bill at 6:15 or 
6:30 this evening and tomorrow we would actually be into the amendment 
process. That seemed a fair way to proceed.
  I am being told now that there is objection to us even proceeding to 
general debate on the bill itself. Also, I have the impression--and I 
am glad to see Senator Daschle in the Chamber; maybe he can clarify 
this for me--part of the reason is, Senators do not want to go to the 
bill and begin the amendment process until the substitute has been 
offered because they do not want to offer an amendment to the 
underlying bill and then have to offer it later to the agreed-to 
compromise bill. But I would be glad to ask consent or work out an 
agreement that any amendment that is offered before then would be 
applied to the compromise managers' amendment that might be offered 
later.
  My concern, I say to Senator Daschle, and to Senator Kennedy, who I 
see just coming into the Chamber, is that a lot of good work has been 
done. It has been bipartisan. The administration has been involved. It 
has been understandable that it took some more time. My attitude on 
that is, if more time is needed, let's take it. But now we are on the 
verge of going through a second week without actually getting on the 
bill.
  I know a lot of Senators are going to want to speak in general debate 
and will have amendments to offer, and it is going to take some time. 
The idea that we could spend, hopefully, time tomorrow on general 
debate and begin the amendment process, decide how we are going to deal 
with perhaps amendments on Friday, and begin to make progress seemed to 
be a very positive thing.
  So I hope we can go to the bill and begin debate on it this 
afternoon, tonight, and then be prepared to have more time tomorrow in 
general debate, if we need to, and then go to the amendments.
  Before I ask consent, I will yield to Senator Daschle to see if we 
can get an agreement worked out so that if there are amendments that 
are offered, they would apply to not only the underlying bill, S. 1, 
but to any compromise amendment that is agreed to. I did discuss that 
with Senator Kennedy, and he did not think that would be a problem.
  I would be glad to yield to Senator Daschle for a response.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I appreciate the majority leader 
yielding. Let me say, he has attempted to reach me earlier, and I have 
been tied up in important meetings. I did not know he was trying to 
reach me until just a few minutes ago. But I apologize for not getting 
back to him sooner.
  Mr. LOTT. I understand. We both are running from meeting to meeting.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Senator Lott and I talked about this very question last 
week. I understand his desire to move to the legislation. I said I 
would be supportive of an effort to do that. But there are two 
outstanding issues. The one that we talked about last week, and 
continues to be a very big concern, is what kind of a commitment we can 
get from the administration on overall funding. I had indicated at that 
time when we discussed this matter last week that even though that is 
critical to all of us, and even though many of our colleagues believe 
more strongly in that than any other question, that I was prepared to 
move to the bill even if we had not yet completed our discussions with 
the administration and our Republican colleagues about that, in spite 
of the fact that many of our colleagues were very concerned about 
taking that approach.
  The second issue, of course, has to do with having the language. The 
majority leader puts his finger on one of the concerns we have, but 
there are two. The first concern, of course, is what happens if you 
offer amendments. And, of course, that is subject then to a unanimous 
consent agreement that we accommodate Senators who have offered 
amendments in good faith. And I guess there isn't the confidence, at 
least right now, that we might even be able to get a unanimous consent 
agreement that allows Senators the confidence of knowing that even 
though they are amending the substitute that they have not yet seen, 
that it would be accommodated if ultimately we agreed to that 
substitute.
  So I think the larger question is one that many of our colleagues 
have expressed to me personally, even as late as in the last half-hour, 
and that is that they are just uncomfortable moving to a bill for which 
we have not been given any information. I think a lot of our 
negotiators are talking back and forth, and they are attempting to 
resolve the outstanding differences.
  The problem is that I will say at least 90 percent of our caucus has 
not seen even the first draft of the substitute. They are 
understandably concerned about committing to a motion to proceed before 
they have had a chance to even look at it. I think what I made clear to 
the majority leader last week was that we had to at least resolve the 
language issue before we could make the motion to proceed.
  I also supported, as 95 of my colleagues this morning did, the motion 
on cloture to proceed. But I am very uncomfortable asking my colleagues 
to accept language that they have not seen yet. I am told that we are 
very near this point of agreement that would then allow us to print a 
document that we could share with all of our colleagues and I think 
substantially increase the confidence levels about what it is we are 
agreeing to on the motion to proceed.
  So I hope that our colleagues could work extra hard in the next few 
hours and through the night and present us with an agreed-upon 
substitute tomorrow that we could share with our colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle so that we could all vote for the motion to proceed. 
I think there would be a strong vote for it. But that is really the 
essence of my concern.
  I am willing to put aside, for the moment, the funding question, even 
though, as I say, I cannot tell you the depth of feeling there is in 
our caucus about proceeding without some agreement. But I think it is 
very difficult for us to agree on a substitute prior to the time we 
have even seen it.
  So I again reiterate what I thought I expressed to the majority 
leader was my concern last week, and that would be the reason we would 
have to object at this time.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could respond, Senator Daschle 
mentioned to me last week that there was a need to see the language. I 
passed the word that certainly that should be made available. I am 
surprised. While I have not been directly involved in all the 
negotiations, I thought that everybody was familiar with all that was 
going on and that basically Senator Kennedy and others have the 
language, know the language, and if there is any outstanding language, 
they would know what that is.
  So for a week we have been saying, let's share the language, and 
let's move on. Maybe the problem is that the language is continuing to 
be modified. But how long does that go on? We talk about the regular 
order, the legislative process. The way you usually do it is you call 
up a bill, and a managers' amendment is offered, amendments are 
offered. I do not know if we can ever get every word agreed to. I 
assume there are going to be Senators on both sides of the aisle who 
are going to offer some amendments to make further changes.
  But my urging would be--on both sides of the aisle--let's give them 
the language. Somebody has some language somewhere. I am being assured 
Republicans are not hiding in the corner, holding back language that 
they won't share. If there is anything that Senator Kennedy is not 
aware of, I am

[[Page S4084]]

not aware of it. I would urge that we get that language agreed to.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I ask the majority leader if he would yield for just a 
short response?
  Mr. LOTT. Sure.
  Mr. DASCHLE. The majority leader is right. I think part of the 
language is agreed to, and I think a lot of our colleagues have seen 
that. But I think it is fair to say that both sides of the aisle would 
agree that a very significant part of this whole effort is the issue of 
accountability. And it is on accountability that we are still hung up, 
that we have this moving target. We have evolving language that still 
has yet to be nailed down.
  Were it not for the fact that accountability is so important, I think 
there would be a lot more interest in trying to see if we could resolve 
this matter. But it is a key question. Because it is, and because this 
moving target seems to be one that continues to change as we go from 
hour to hour and day to day, that is the issue.
  However, I will join with the majority leader, I would love to see 
both sides come together, finalize the language, and offer amendments 
if we are not satisfied with it.
  Mr. LOTT. I have always observed in a legislative body you have to 
have a closer. You have to have somebody who says: This is good enough; 
let's go for it. We have had all of last week and now half of this 
week. We continue to negotiate.
  I guess I will have to assume some responsibility because if I had 
known we were not going to be able to go to the education bill--the No. 
1 priority in almost everybody's mind in the country--we could have 
been considering other legislation.
  I have continued to hope that with one more half day, one more day, 
we could get going; we could have a full debate and offer amendments.
  If I had known we were going to be stalled out on education, I would 
have gone to other issues, and maybe that is what we ought to do now. 
If I understand correctly, Senator Daschle indicates he doesn't think 
this idea that any amendment would be considered to be applicable to 
the bill or the substitute, that we might not get an agreement to do 
that, but would it help if we could do that?
  Mr. DASCHLE. Again, that would help a good deal, but that does not 
solve the other problem. There are many on our side who feel so 
strongly about this issue of accountability that they want to be able 
to see the language prior to the time they are asked to vote on the 
motion to proceed.
  I have to respect the wishes of those colleagues who have made that 
fact known to me. Clearly, it would help if we had that language. It 
would solve part of the problem.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: How much time is 
remaining postcloture on the motion to proceed?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It will take 1 minute to calculate.
  Mr. LOTT. I assume there must be 24, 25 hours remaining.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty-six hours 15 minutes.
  Mr. LOTT. I guess if we run off all of that time, it would be 
tomorrow night or Friday before we could get to general debate on the 
bill. I hope we will not have to do that. Maybe there is some plan to 
have language available tonight for some press conference announcing 
that language tomorrow. Is there some indication that maybe we could go 
to the general debate in the morning? Do we know? I guess what I am 
asking is, are we going to have to run off the full 24 or 25 hours?
  Mr. DASCHLE. If the majority leader will yield, that is not my 
expectation. As I said, both sides have been working to try to resolve 
the outstanding difference. I was hoping by now we would have resolved 
it. I was hoping we would be able to say that we now have a draft we 
can share with everybody. Unfortunately, that is still not the case. I 
can't imagine that this is going to go on much longer.
  Mr. LOTT. Could I inquire of Senator Daschle, would it be his 
recommendation that we set aside education and try to go to other 
legislation for the balance of this week? I hate for us to let the rest 
of this evening, tonight, and tomorrow go without making progress on 
education or any other bill. If he thinks we should consider that, 
maybe he and I could talk after we leave here.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I would be happy to talk to the majority leader about 
possibilities we might entertain.
  Mr. LOTT. I confess, what I am trying to do is to put pressure on all 
parties, not just on the Democratic side or the administration, 
everybody. Let's come to some sort of agreement one way or the other. 
Let's get started.
  I had planned to ask unanimous consent that we would yield back all 
time and proceed to the bill itself at 6:15, but it is obvious Senator 
Daschle believes now that he would be in a position to have to object, 
so I will not go through that exercise.
  I do emphasize to all that everybody agrees we have a monumental, 
historic opportunity to get major education reform and increases in 
funds for education. I hope we can get to the bill itself within the 
next half a day at a very minimum.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I appreciate the dialog that just 
occurred between the leaders because, certainly, it is critical that 
the debate on education commence and that we do everything within our 
power to provide more resources, greater opportunities, and 
accountability to our children around the country.
  As a new Member to this body, I am one who shares the concern about 
actually seeing the language of the bill and trying to be sure that we 
know what it is we are debating and that the people back in our States 
who we represent have a chance to be part of this debate by being able 
to read and study and provide comments about what it is we are 
considering in the Senate. I know it may, from time to time, be a 
little frustrating, but until we actually have a bill with language 
that will determine the future of education funding from the Federal 
Government for 5 to 7 years, it is a wiser course for us to be prudent 
and thoughtful and to wait until we actually know what it is we are 
debating and what the potential impact of these provisions could be on 
the lives of real children. After all, this debate is going to set the 
stage for how much or how little we as a Nation will do for elementary, 
junior high, middle, and high schools.
  I am particularly concerned about the impact we will have on our 
neediest children, those who are too often left behind. We still have 
too many children who are not reading at grade level and who are being 
taught by uncertified teachers, and too many who are in overcrowded 
classrooms and dilapidated school buildings. I know that all of us on 
both sides of the aisle agree that we can do better than this. We can't 
just sign a blank check or decide that we can proceed on bill language 
we have not even seen and discharge our responsibilities to the 
children we represent in this body.
  Many of my colleagues and I have serious concerns about the substance 
of the bill. For example, the block grant demonstration program, so far 
as we are aware of it without having seen the language of it, does not 
target enough funds to our highest-need districts and will mean less 
control for local school districts on how best to invest their Federal 
education dollars. Because we have not yet seen the final version of 
the bill we are considering, we don't know whether there is a genuine 
commitment to devote the resources necessary to make the promise of 
greater accountability a realistic outcome.
  Just as we expect teachers, administrators, and students to abide by 
a high standard of accountability, we should bring our backroom 
negotiations to the floor of the Senate for all of us to hear. That is 
why I voted to proceed with the bill. But we should do it on the basis 
of an actual bill. I, for one, am willing to wait and to be patient 
until we actually get the bill and then to proceed in an expeditious 
manner.
  If we look at where the negotiations are and what we are attempting 
to achieve, we have a great opportunity to accomplish some very 
important goals for the people of this country. We all share the goal 
of improving our Nation's schools. We agree that everyone should be 
held more accountable for turning around failing schools. There is a 
bipartisan agreement that is very strong for ensuring that all children 
should be taught by high quality teachers and that parents should know 
the

[[Page S4085]]

quality of the schools their children attend.
  This bill, so far as it is reported to us, does a tremendous job of 
strengthening accountability. I applaud Senators Kennedy and Bingaman 
for leading the negotiations that have resulted in important 
accountability provisions.
  Some have asked: Why don't we just call it quits. Let's just put in 
more accountability. Let's just test our children every year from third 
through eighth grade. We don't need to do any more than that.
  I ask: What is it we are attempting to achieve? If all it does is to 
put more accountability on the already existing testing systems that 
every one of our States have employed, what is it we hope to achieve?
  The answer is that in order to have real accountability, we have to 
marry those accountability measures with targeted additional resources, 
invested wisely, that will really make the difference as to whether the 
tests actually create better educational outcomes.
  Resources would make a difference for children such as Delano Tucker, 
a fifth grader from PS 41 in the Bronx, who wrote me that his entire 
fifth grade class was asking for help to improve education. Here is 
what Delano said:

       We need more books, but we can't do that without more 
     money. My second reason is we need more teachers because 
     classes are too crowded. The third reason is children are 
     passing without knowing how to read.

  We don't need to get a bunch of experts or Senators who can come up 
with a better analysis than what Delano just gave us. We need better 
teachers, more books, less crowded classrooms, and we should not be 
passing children who don't know how to read.
  Resources would make a difference for the nearly 168,000 children who 
go to school every day in overcrowded classes in New York City. We are 
losing teachers every single day because teachers can't teach in the 
kind of circumstances that we are presenting for the state of education 
in many of our cities.
  One New York City parent recently shared her thoughts with me, 
writing that:

       I am a parent of two young children--one in kindergarten 
     and one in third grade. They are both bright, but they suffer 
     from learning difficulties, in part, because they are trying 
     to learn in classes of 28 children. They are unable to get 
     the individual attention they need because they are competing 
     for the teacher's attention with so many.

  How can we expect children in classes that are that crowded, given 
the difficulties and issues that children bring to school today, to be 
able to get the same quality of education that we know works so well 
when classes are smaller in the early grades?
  Resources would have made a real difference for the fourth grade 
teacher at the 82-year-old Mechanicville Elementary School, just north 
of Albany, NY, who last year was struck in the head by concrete from 
the ceiling as she was teaching because the school was in such 
disrepair.
  My colleagues and I have heard similar stories from students and 
teachers in every State around the country. Although education is, and 
always will be, a local issue, it has to be a national concern. Some of 
the most severe problems in education today require national solutions. 
I think that is why we are here today debating education.
  How will investing in school repairs and renovations help to raise 
student achievement? I think the answer is self-evident, especially if 
you have a teacher hit in the head with concrete falling from the 
ceiling. We know from research that children benefit when they attend 
school buildings that are in good physical condition.
  A 1996 study of large urban high schools in Virginia found that 
student achievement was as much as 11 percentile points lower in 
substandard buildings as compared to standard buildings.
  Another study found that the quality of air inside public school 
facilities may significantly affect students' ability to concentrate. 
In fact, the evidence suggests that children under 10 are more 
vulnerable than adults to the types of contaminants found in school 
facilities. We have seen reports and studies about working conditions 
in urban schools, concluding that they ``have direct positive and 
negative effects on teacher morale, their sense of personal safety, 
their feelings of effectiveness, and on the general learning 
environment.'' That kind of scientific conclusion is reinforced by the 
experience of students in Mount Vernon, NY, who go to school with air 
ducts that are so old and so clogged up and filled with pigeon and rat 
droppings that they can't even breathe decent air; or the students in 
Cohoes, NY, who go to a school that banned the use of chalk because 
they have inadequate ventilation, and the chalk dust would hang like a 
curtain in the air.

  Too many of our students are trying to learn in cramped trailers such 
as in this photo taken in Queens. These may be so-called ``temporary'' 
trailers, but they can end up representing a big part of a child's 
educational experience.
  Too many of our children are in hallways with many distractions and 
far too little room. This photo represents a common sight in schools in 
New York. This is not a classroom. This is a hallway. The children 
aren't in a classroom that you and I remember, where there is a chalk 
board, a teacher's desk, and the desks of the children, and bulletin 
boards with pretty displays. This is a hallway and this is their 
classroom.
  I don't know how much longer we can keep hearing stories about 
hallway classrooms, falling concrete, conditions in the classroom that 
are unhealthy, and not recognize that we should be helping our school 
districts, many of which cannot possibly afford to raise their property 
taxes. We can't ask hard-pressed parents to put even more money into 
the property tax base. We should be helping the parents in those school 
districts.
  During this debate, I will do everything I can to urge my colleagues 
to support Senator Harkin's efforts to include authorization for an 
emergency renovation and repair fund that would certainly make a 
difference for some of the schools we just saw.
  I will also be offering my own amendment to examine the impact of 
dilapidated schools on the health of our children. It is simply 
unacceptable in America in the beginning of the 21st century that our 
children should have to attend schools that not only impair their 
ability to learn but even make them sick.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator from New York yield for a question?
  Mrs. CLINTON. Yes, I will.
  Mr. REID. It is my understanding that the Senator from New York has 
had experience in the past in dealing with issues such as we are trying 
to deal with here. Is that true?
  Mrs. CLINTON. Yes, that is.
  Mr. REID. Would she tell the Senator from Nevada some of the things 
she has worked on in the past?
  Mrs. CLINTON. As the Senator points out, I have been involved in 
improving education and reforming our accountability measures since 
1983, when ``A Nation At Risk'' was first issued by then-President 
Reagan's Commission on Education. I was one of the first in our country 
to ask for much stricter accountability, to test not only students but 
also teachers, and to hold schools to a very high standard. If they did 
not succeed in passing 85 percent of their children beyond a level of 
acceptable learning outcomes, the school would be in danger of being 
taken over. That was 18 years ago.
  So there is really nothing new in what we are discussing today, as 
the Senator from Nevada knows so well. We want to do the best job we 
can in raising standards; yes, we do. That is something many of us have 
worked on, and we have actually seen some positive results in some of 
our schools over the last 18 years. But we know there have to be the 
kind of conditions in learning circumstances in our classes, in our 
schools, that will enable these accountability measures to be 
successful.

  Mr. REID. I will ask one final question to the Senator from New York. 
We know that there has been talk from the other side saying throwing 
money at the problem doesn't solve anything. The Senator from New York 
realizes that. But would the Senator also acknowledge that money is 
going to help some of these problems?
  Mrs. CLINTON. As the Senator knows, when somebody says money doesn't 
make a difference, they are talking about somebody else and somebody 
else's money. Every one of us in this body goes to the extra length of

[[Page S4086]]

making sure that our children and any children we care about are given 
those kinds of resources that will enable a child to learn.
  Money is not the only answer to what we need to do if we are serious 
about zeroing in on those children most in need. Most of our schools in 
this country are doing a fine job.
  I live in a district in New York that is one of the best in the 
entire country. Many of the other districts in our suburbs and rural 
and city areas are producing good students who care about learning. Our 
real problems are in those areas with concentrated poverty.
  I have seen the Senator from Connecticut come into the Chamber. He 
has a passion about getting our resources targeted where they can do 
the most good. So to anybody who says money is not the only answer, of 
course, I say money is not the only answer, but money helps when 
married to accountability and invested in getting rid of conditions 
such as the ones I am showing here on the picture where there are so 
many children in this classroom, where it is impossible for even the 
best trained teacher to be able to communicate effectively with these 
children. This is a classroom where the children are coming from 
backgrounds where English is not their first language, coming from 
concentrated poverty, often difficult family situations.
  So when somebody says we don't want to throw money at it, I say, 
that's right. I want to target money to make sure we clean up our 
dilapidated classes and schools and that we provide lower class size so 
that the teachers who are willing to go into our hard-to-teach areas 
will be able to have a decent chance to reach these children; to 
recruit and retain teachers who come in with idealism and find 
themselves in situations such as this and within a year or two are 
gone.
  For me, there isn't a contradiction here, as the Senator from Nevada 
knows so well. We need to have the kinds of accountability that is 
effective and will work but without the resources we are not going to 
be successful.
  We are going to find, as I have said in the past, that we are just 
passing out thermometers in the midst of an epidemic. We are going to 
find that everybody has a raging fever, but we don't have the resources 
or the will to help them get well. We can do both. That is what this 
opportunity provides.

  I appreciate the concern of the Senator from Nevada. We have to have 
a good debate. It is only fair, if we are asking that we invest more 
dollars in education from the Federal Government, we be able to justify 
the use of those dollars and we tell our constituents and our 
colleagues where they will go. I have pointed out they go to helping 
clean, repair, and construct schools we need. Second, they go to 
reducing class size. The situation shown in this picture is 
unacceptable.
  We are under court order in New York City to have only certified 
teachers in the classes. That sounds great, and I am for it, but in 
order to have certified, qualified teachers go into a situation such as 
this, we will have to make a contract with these teachers that this 
situation will improve; they will find they will have a chance, 
actually, to teach; otherwise, they will vote with their feet and 
either leave to go to a suburban district where they are paid a lot 
more, in a lot better situation, or they will leave teaching 
altogether.
  I am not talking about something that is anecdotal. We have research 
from Project STAR in Tennessee that demonstrates children assigned to 
smaller classes in grades K-3 received better grades, higher test 
scores, and were less likely to drop out of school or be held back 
through their entire educational careers. This is a research study that 
has gone on for 15 years in the entire State of Tennessee. I applaud 
the State because they made the investment to evaluate what they were 
doing.
  We found that the children who benefited the most were poor and 
minority children. By all means, test them and find out if they are 
failing. But be fair and give them a chance to succeed. That is what we 
are calling for when we ask for reduced class sizes.
  We know if we don't recruit teachers we will not be able to continue 
teaching anybody. Right now we have a national crisis when it comes to 
recruiting and retaining teachers. There isn't any more important 
factor than teacher quality in improving student achievement. Yet if 
you are a young teacher placed in a situation such as this, if your 
classroom is a hallway, as I have seen in some schools in New York, a 
closet, that makes it very difficult to teach.
  I recently heard from a constituent in Farmingdale, NY, who told me 
their elementary school alone needs 16 new teachers for kindergarten. 
In Buffalo, 231 teachers retired last year, compared with an average of 
92 retirees in each of the preceding 8 years.
  We can't just mandate that school districts go out and hire 
certified, qualified teachers without providing some resources to make 
that possible. We tried that in New York City. The court order said 
hire only certified teachers and put those certified teachers into the 
classes where the kids are most at risk. So the school district went 
out, hired 2,000 certified teachers, assigned them to schools as 
depicted in this picture and the previous pictures, and the 2,000 
certified teachers wouldn't take the job. Who can blame them? They are 
certified teachers, qualified; they pass the tests; they have taken the 
courses; they are assigned to a school where the conditions to teach 
are impossible.
  If we are going to say let's only have certified, qualified teachers, 
then for goodness' sake, provide help to districts such as those I 
represent so we can actually recruit and keep those certified, 
qualified teachers. I strongly believe this bill should include a 
teacher recruitment section. I am working with a bipartisan group to 
offer an amendment to help school districts meet the demands for 
certified teachers.

  Let me turn now to title I. I would like to paint a picture of what 
full funding for title I means for the children of New York City. 
Yesterday, several of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle 
came to the floor to talk about the failure of title I to improve 
student learning and dismissed the idea that fully funding title I 
could result in increased student achievement.
  I want to be sure the American people have the facts about title I. 
The real fact, as presented by the independent, nonpartisan 
Congressional Research Service, is that in fiscal year 2001 Congress 
provided school districts with only one-third of the resources needed 
to fully serve eligible students in order to help close the achievement 
gap. Even with this limited Federal investment, our school districts 
have shown real gains in reading and math.
  In 1999, the Council of Great City Schools found fourth and eighth 
graders in urban schools boosted their performance in reading and math. 
In fact, 87.5 percent of the urban school districts showed reading 
gains in Title I schools and 83 percent showed math gains. Moreover, 
the study found that the percentage of title I students in urban 
schools below the 25th percentile had been declining over 2- and 3-year 
periods while the percentage of title I students between the 25th and 
50th percentile was increasing.
  There are those who will still deny these facts and make the claim 
that title I doesn't make a difference. I often think Washington is the 
only evidence-free zone in our country. The facts are the facts. Title 
I does make a difference. Imagine the results if cities such as New 
York, Buffalo, Rochester, or Syracuse were able to assist all our title 
I eligible students rather than just a third of them. It would mean, 
for example, in New York City, we could lower the current threshold and 
serve an additional 99,295 children. The city could invest in 
strategies that work better. We could provide extended time initiatives 
that we know make a difference with children. We could expand early 
literacy intervention, and intervention strategies, have classroom 
professional development for teachers.
  As we look at the bill, we need to look at a full investment in title 
I. It is not just a game of imagination but a real investment in 
student improvement that will pay off down the road. I will support 
Senator Dodd and Senator Collins in their efforts to include full 
funding of title I in this bill.
  Finally, let me touch on the issue of testing. In 1983, I called for 
student tests, high-stake student and high-stake teacher tests. I take 
a back seat to no one when it comes to using testing and other measures 
of accountability to find out how well we are

[[Page S4087]]

doing and hold ourselves accountable. But let's be sure the tests are 
actually going to accomplish the purpose for which they are intended. 
We need to look at how children do from year to year, to help teachers 
modify and individualize curriculum, and provide parents with timely 
information. We have to make sure that if they take a test in the 
winter, they get the results that winter, not the following fall when 
the children have moved on. We have to help schools know what the 
standard should be so they are not teaching to the tests but they are 
trying to measure the standards they have set. And we have to help pay 
for the tests.
  In New York alone, it would cost $16 million to comply with these new 
Federal testing requirements. Only $8 million would be provided by the 
Federal Government; the other $8 million is from scarce State 
resources. We need to be sure we are fair to our States. If we are 
going to mandate testing, let's not make it an unfunded mandate. Let's 
provide the resources needed. If we do develop and implement the tests, 
we need to have the resources to ensure that our children from the most 
disadvantaged circumstances can pass and excel in those tests. I think 
that means smaller classrooms, modern schools, quality teachers.
  As we go forward in this debate, I hope we will think hard about the 
impact we will have on our children, and that we do everything we 
possibly can to make sure we don't just pass a bill but we really do 
provide the resources to reform education and produce better results 
across our country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. How much time remains on each side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). Twenty-five minutes 
remains on the Republican side and 22 minutes remains on the Democratic 
side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? If no time is requested, it 
will be deducted from both sides equally.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to be notified when I 
have taken 3 minutes because I think it is very important that we 
discuss education reforms.
  I think all of us have the same goal. Every one of us believes that 
public education is not meeting the standards we envisioned for this 
country when we established public education as the basis for 
democracy. The question is, How do we do better? We have been adding 
more money for education for the last 50 years, but we have not seen an 
improvement in test scores or in the actual quality of education of our 
children who are graduating from public schools.
  There are some public schools that are terrific. Those are the 
schools where parents and teachers and principals work together, where 
there is an openness, where the principal welcomes the parents to be a 
part of the process. But the schools that are failing are the schools 
that are afraid of accountability. There are teachers who do not want 
to have tests. Why don't they want to have tests? You can only assume 
they are concerned that they will not pass and that their students will 
not pass. That is not acceptable.
  We have to have accountability. We have to have information for 
parents. Parents must know which schools are failing. If those schools 
are failing, we need to know how to bring them up to the higher 
standards. The best way to do that is to look at other schools that are 
alike in demographics, to allow them to see what the good schools with 
those demographics are doing: What are they doing right? That is what 
our reforms are meant to do.
  We are focusing on accountability. Yes, it will hurt in some ways. It 
will hurt if you fail. But wouldn't we rather have a failure early in a 
school career, so we can correct it and give that child the real chance 
in life? Or do we want to continue social promotions with failing 
programs so the child never has the chance to reach his or her full 
potential? I do not think that is what we want. We want to let the 
child succeed. To do that, we need accountability. We might need 
failure so we know what the problems are and we can bring them up to 
standard.
  That means we need to support the programs that work. We need to 
reduce bureaucracy. We need to increase flexibility. We need to empower 
parents. There is an absolute tie between parents who are involved and 
students who are successful. That is not based on the intellectual 
capacity of the student. When the parent is involved, the student does 
better.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has elapsed.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am going to yield the floor and 
suggest the absence of a quorum because I have two more speakers on our 
side. Until I hear they are not going to make it, I am going to reserve 
their time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask to be notified when we have 15 
minutes left. I assume that will give me about 7 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will do so.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to talk about what the 
President's education plan does. The Democrats are claiming they have 
offered more spending on education. In fact, the President has proposed 
an 11.5-percent increase in overall education spending for fiscal year 
2002. This is an increase of $4.6 billion, to almost $54 billion next 
year.
  Included in this spending increase are key areas that we think will 
target the young people who need the help the most. It triples funding 
for children's reading programs, because we know if a child cannot read 
at grade level, that is a child who is going to fail. There is no 
question about it. Time after time after time, when high school 
dropouts or junior high school dropouts have been talked to and 
listened to, the problem is they can't read. Of course they are 
frustrated if they can't read. Of course they miss the key points in a 
history lesson or geography lesson or a math lesson. If they can't 
read, they don't have a chance. So we are targeting the spending 
increases at reading programs at the very earliest level.
  That is why we want to test at the third grade level to see if a 
child is falling back at the third grade, because we can catch that 
child, we can save that child, if we can test at the third grade and 
give the child the extra help so he or she will have the chance to read 
at grade level and compete and absorb what is being given as their 
educational opportunities.
  A 30-percent increase is in this budget for Hispanic-serving 
institutions and historically black colleges and universities. Those 
are two areas that are doing great work. I have worked very hard for 
Hispanic-serving institutions because I know if we put the money there 
and we give them the counseling they need in those universities, we 
will have good, productive citizens. Our high school dropout rate among 
Hispanics is the highest of any ethnic group in our country, and that 
is unacceptable. So we want to go for the Hispanic-serving institutions 
and give them that extra help so they will be able to graduate their 
young people into the good jobs that are available in our country.
  The historically black colleges and universities do great service. I 
am going to give a graduation speech this weekend at Paul Quinn 
College, a historically black college that is doing a wonderful job of 
educating young people. They have a program at Paul Quinn College where 
the young men go out and mentor the high school students in some of the 
disadvantaged areas of Dallas. It enriches both the student who is 
being mentored and the mentor himself.
  I see my colleague, Senator Collins, has arrived. I am going to ask 
her to talk about this subject because she is one of the leading Senate 
experts in

[[Page S4088]]

this education field. She is on the committee. She is making the 
contributions. She knows this bill, and she knows what it can do for 
public education.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, let me start by thanking my good friend 
and colleague from Texas for her kind comments and for her leadership 
in this area. I have enjoyed working with her on a number of 
educational issues. We will be bringing one up later this week.
  No endeavor is more important to our Nation's future than ensuring 
that all children receive a good education. In a real sense, the future 
of our country rests on the shoulders of our Nation's educators and 
depends upon the decisions we make today on how best to educate our 
leaders of tomorrow. I believe that this comprehensive education reform 
bill may well be the most important legislation the Senate debates this 
year. I am hopeful that we will pass a bill that keeps the 
inspirational promise made by President Bush ``to leave no child 
behind.''

  In many cases, education is the difference between prosperity and 
poverty, hope and despair, dreams fulfilled and lost opportunities. 
Between Silicon Valley and Wall Street, many Americans still live in 
the shadows of the new prosperity. Education is the best, perhaps the 
only way, to close the every-widening economic gap in America. Indeed, 
the economic gap in America is largely an education gap. And, education 
is the best way for us to stoke the fire of our nation's economic 
engine.
  The President deserves tremendous credit for making education his top 
priority and for setting a goal that inspires us all. This should not 
be, and I hope will not be, a partisan debate, but rather a bipartisan 
discussion on how we can best achieve the goal of leaving no child 
behind. I am convinced that, working together, we can help states, 
communities, local school boards, educators, and parents improve our 
public schools significantly.
  The Better Education for Students and Teachers, or BEST, Act is an 
excellent start. The BEST Act demands a great deal from all of us. It 
would require parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, school 
board members, state legislators, governors, and federal officials to 
work together to ensure that our children reach high standards of 
academic excellence. It would give our schools more flexibility in 
spending federal funds while holding them accountable for what really 
counts: improved student achievement. The legislation requires schools 
to answer the fundamental question: ``Are our children learning?''--
rather than, ``Was that federal paperwork completed correctly?'' It 
changes the focus from paperwork and process to results and 
accountability.
  During the past four years, I have visited more than 60 schools all 
over the State of Maine, from Kittery at the southern tip, to Jackman 
in the west, Rockland on the coast, and Fort Kent in the north. I have 
seen firsthand the excellent work of Maine dedicated teachers. The 
quality of instruction taking place in Maine schools is impressive, and 
it is producing results. Maine's scores on national tests prove that 
our State's public schools are among the best in the nation. Moreover, 
Maine's public schools strive to provide a good education for all of 
our children regardless of their family income or where they live in 
our State.
  A report issued last year by the Council of Chief State School 
Officers shows that, low-income students in Maine are performing nearly 
as well as the average of public school students in our state. Yet even 
in Maine, nearly one in four students has not acquired a level of 
literacy that is acceptable by most standards. Even in our strongest 
states, too many children are being left behind!
  Eighteen years ago, the landmark study, ``A Nation at Risk,'' warned 
of declining performance in American schools and turned the nation's 
attention toward reforming public education.
  Today, however, too many schools, particularly in our inner cities, 
continue to fail to provide a solid education to their students. 
Although the United States spends more than $660 billion a year on 
education, nearly 60 percent of our low-income fourth graders cannot 
read at a basic level.
  The Federal Government takes a secondary role to States and 
communities in terms of funding and overseeing our public schools, and 
that is how it should be. The Federal role is, nevertheless, important, 
particularly for helping disadvantaged students.
  Unfortunately, Washington has not always been helpful, nor has it 
been successful in achieving that goal. After spending $125 billion of 
title I funding for disadvantaged students over 25 years, there is 
little to suggest that we are making progress in narrowing the 
achievement gap. Fewer than a third of fourth graders can read at grade 
level. If you look more closely at test scores, over time, you will 
notice the better students improving their performance while the worse 
students are getting worse. You also see a persistent achievement gap 
between students from a disadvantaged families and their more affluent 
peers. Although title I was created to put economically challenged 
students on even ground with their peers, recent data from the National 
Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) prove that the program has not 
achieved the goal of narrowing the gap in achievement.
  A state-by-state analysis of scores from the National Assessment of 
Educational Progress, the only test to measure student achievement 
nationwide, reveals troubling statistics that should give us pause, 
and that should cause us to ask what we should do differently. Many of 
us believe that more money and more resources are needed, but we can't 
pour more money into a failed system. We need to increase the dollars, 
but we also need to demand change.

  For example, let's look at the scores. There has been virtually no 
change since 1992 in fourth grade reading scores. As you can see from 
this chart, the line is flat despite the increase in expenditures over 
this 30-year period.
  The analysis found that only two states--Georgia and Massachusetts--
reduced the gap between white students and black or Hispanic students 
in fourth-grade math. No state did so in eighth grade, leaving gaps as 
wide as 56 points in Washington, DC, and 35 points in New Jersey. In 
reading, only Delaware reduced the gap.
  Overall, only 32% of fourth-graders were deemed to be ``proficient'' 
or better in reading in 2000. Nearly four in 10 students nationally 
continue to read below a basic level, meaning they have serious 
problems understanding even simple texts.
  Sixty-three percent of African-American fourth-graders, 60 percent of 
children in poverty, and 47 percent of children in urban schools fell 
``below basic'' in their skills, meaning they have less than even a 
``partial mastery'' of the material.
  Again, look how flat these scores are, whether you are looking at the 
4th graders, the 8th graders, or the 12th graders. This is the system 
that cries out for change. We have increased the amount of money we are 
spending. I support more investment in education. But we need to face 
the reality that what we have been doing in far too many cases has not 
been working. It has not focused on improving student achievement or on 
ensuring that every child gets a good education.
  The Federal Government has spent a great deal of money on education 
programs over the past 35 years without a great deal to show for it. 
These statistics show that a new approach is needed, and a part of that 
new approach needs to be an increased focus on reading and literacy.
  These results are particularly distressing given that researchers in 
recent years have reached a consensus on the best practices to teach 
reading. The research, however, has yet to find its way into many 
classrooms.
  This is one reason why the Reading First Initiative in S. 1 is so 
very important. We need to put proven teaching methods into the hands 
of our educators. We know that if our classroom teachers are not 
offered extensive training in the area of literacy, then many of our 
children will not learn to read to the best of their ability. The 
Reading First Initiative makes professional development a top priority 
and it establishes an early reading intervention program that, I 
believe, will make a real difference.
  I have worked extensively with the President and the Department of 
Education in this area, and I am very

[[Page S4089]]

pleased with the results that we have come up with. Earlier this year, 
I introduced the Early Reading Intervention Act to address the urgent 
need to improve reading skills. The reading portion of the BEST Act is 
a synthesis of the President's plan and my legislation.
  It simply does not make sense to test a child's reading ability for 
the first time in third grade and discover the child's reading skills 
are far below his or her peers, when, at that point, the chances of the 
student learning to read at grade level by the end of elementary school 
are less than 25 percent. Yet, that is what occurs far too often with 
far too many of our children. By contrast, if a child is tested and 
receives help in kindergarten or first grade, that child has a 90 to 95 
percent chance of becoming a good reader. Since reading is learned more 
easily and effectively during the early grades, it makes sense to 
identify reading problems and language-based learning disabilities 
early when intervention can make a difference.
  Our goal--the goal set forth by the President--must be for all 
students to read by the third grade. By achieving this goal, we can 
decrease the number of students who will need special education and 
ensure that every child--all of our students--have the necessary tools 
to handle the curriculum in the future years.

  An investment of $5 billion to ensure that every child in America can 
read by the third grade is a serious and long-term commitment. It is a 
significant first step toward improving our Nation's failing report 
card for the best way to ensure that no child is left behind is to 
ensure that every child knows how to read.
  I am also very pleased that the BEST Act contains the Rural Education 
Initiative, which I introduced with my colleagues, Senators Conrad, 
Gregg, Enzi, Hutchinson, Roberts, Dorgan, Burns, Hagel, Allard, and 
Thomas. This important legislation will give small rural school 
districts more flexibility by allowing them to combine small, 
categorical grant programs into a single grant that can be used to 
target local needs. It will also provide these rural schools with 
supplemental funds to compensate them for their inability to compete 
with larger school districts for a number of Federal education grants.
  As I look forward to the important education debate ahead, I see 
great opportunity. I see a constructive debate not about whether the 
Federal Government has a role to play in educating our youth but about 
how it can best promote excellence in all of our public schools and for 
all of our children. I see a President with a vision for how we can 
reshape and reinvigorate our educational system and a commitment to 
doing what it takes to help our students succeed. And I see Senators, 
all of whom have listened to those who know best--our parents, our 
teachers, our school board members and our administrators back home who 
have ideas on how to make the BEST Act even better.
  Now is the time for us to lay a new foundation for the education of 
America's youth. It is time for us to seize this tremendous opportunity 
and to unite behind the inspiring goal the President has set forth of 
leaving no child behind.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time under the control of the majority has 
expired.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. The minority manager has offered me 5 minutes of his 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, first of all, I commend the Senator from 
Maine for not only her excellent presentation but for her work on the 
committee. She is an invaluable member of our committee. I want to give 
her the accolades she deserves for what she has done to help us during 
this difficult time of trying to define how we can best improve the 
educational capacity of our Nation.
  Today, the Senate begins its consideration of the Better Education 
for Students and Teachers Act. The BEST Act is an opportunity to 
combine our efforts with those of President Bush to guide the course of 
the No. 1 issue facing our Nation today: the education of our children. 
The BEST Act represents a bipartisan blueprint for meaningful education 
reform. We are putting forward an elementary and secondary education 
initiative that provides the necessary tools for every child to receive 
a quality education.
  The BEST Act will strengthen accountability across the board to 
improve student performance, expand assessment programs so that parents 
and schools will have an accurate measurement of how well their 
children are learning, provide the funds necessary to prepare, recruit, 
and train highly qualified teachers, develop reading programs to ensure 
that all students will be able to read by the third grade, create 
partnerships for States and colleges and universities to strengthen K-
12 math and science education, and provide for emerging technology 
activities that will boost student achievement.

  BEST builds upon current law and requires States to create a single 
accountability system which will provide the mechanisms for moving all 
students toward proficiency. States must assess students in grades 3-8 
annually in mathematics, reading and science. The results of these 
assessments will provide parents and the public an effective, highly 
visible measure of success and failure. Just as parents receive report 
cards to see how their children are performing in school, they will now 
be able to get report cards to see how the school is performing for 
their children.
  If schools are not measuring up to the standards, BEST requires 
States, local education agencies, and schools to improve overall 
performance. These tough, new accountability standards are the 
cornerstone of BEST.
  BEST creates new programs to help our children learn to read at an 
early age. These programs are Reading First and Early Reading First. 
President Bush has set as a goal for the Nation that all students be 
proficient readers by the end of the third grade. This is critically 
important. An engineer will tell you that without a deep and strong 
foundation, you cannot build a tower. An educator will tell you that 
without strong and deeply rooted reading skills, you cannot reach a 
high academic level. Young students who cannot read--with speed, 
accuracy and understanding--are likely to fall further behind from 
their peers in reading ability and in all other subjects. Research has 
proven that the sills which make learning to read possible develop at a 
much earlier age. The Early Reading First demonstration program in BEST 
will provide preschool-age children who are 3 and 4 years old with the 
opportunity to gain the important language and pre-literacy skills 
identified by rigorous research.
  BEST also recognizes that an investment in better teachers is an 
investment in our Nation's young people. Children can make greater 
academic gains if they have a knowledgeable and caring teacher leading 
their classroom. The bill takes a flexible approach that allows States 
and educational agencies to adopt successful models that will best meet 
their needs. Previous programs are combined to lessen the burden on 
schools and States. BEST puts an emphasis on innovative professional 
development program to maximize opportunities for teachers. At the same 
time, the bill requires professional development to be tied to 
effective strategies for increasing teacher performance and student 
achievement. BEST demands strong accountability in combination with 
effective approaches to get the best from our teachers and students.
  Student achievement in the United States has fallen behind many other 
countries in the areas of math and science. BEST includes important new 
initiatives designed to improve upon performance here.
  An enormous improvement in math and science education at the K 
through 12 level is necessary if today's students want good jobs and 
the U.S. wants to stay competitive in the world economy. If American 
students are not prepared to fill high-tech jobs that require advanced 
math and science skills, then those jobs will go elsewhere or people 
will come from other countries to fill them. To achieve this, BEST will 
allow for the establishment of math and science partnerships between 
institutions of higher learning, States, and

[[Page S4090]]

school districts. These partnerships will help our teachers become more 
effective, improve student achievement, and help keep our economy 
strong and vital.

  BEST will also provide assistance to help eliminate the digital 
divide in the nation's schools. It is very important that we not 
separate technology from learning. Technology must not be used for it's 
own sake. Technology must be used to improve student outcomes. BEST 
contains strong accountability provisions to ensure that this occurs.
  We are faced with an opportunity to do what is right for the children 
of our country. We have a chance to improve their education, and to 
improve their lives. This bill increases accountability in the 
education delivery system on all fronts. It provides strong new 
assessments to ensure that all of our children are well served by their 
schools. It authorizes the necessary resources required to have first 
rate educational opportunities available to all children in this 
nation.
  Mr. President, we are starting today on bringing forward the 
President's proposal which is the cornerstone of the future of this 
Nation's ability to improve its education. I praise the President for 
bringing this very excellent bill forward. We have worked hard on it on 
the committee. I am confident we will pass it and that it will become 
law.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak 
until someone from the Democratic side comes to reclaim their time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of 
the committee that is going to bring forth the education bill. I am 
very optimistic we are going to have a bill. I thank him for working so 
hard in a very bipartisan way to produce a bill. The reforms are pretty 
well agreed to. Both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are coming 
together to say: We need a change. Business as usual in our education 
system is not going to cut it anymore. There are too many children 
falling behind and nobody in this country wants that to happen. Every 
one of us knows our democracy depends on a well-educated populace.
  Most people would agree that the variations in the standards of our 
public schools across the country mean we are not succeeding in the 
mandate for a quality public education system. That is why Chairman 
Jeffords and Senator Kennedy, Senator Collins, Senator Frist, Senator 
Gregg, Senator Hutchinson of Arkansas, Senator Sessions of Alabama, and 
Senator Enzi have worked so hard to make sure this bill does not fall 
by the wayside.
  I am a little frustrated that it has taken so long to get this bill 
to the floor. After all, this is a bill we have debated before. We 
actually debated it last session. It was not passed. We are back again. 
Surely there are divisions, but let's get the divisions out there. 
Let's get them out there. Let's make the decisions and let's reform 
public education so that every child in our country will have the 
opportunity to reach his or her full potential with a public education. 
That is our goal.
  Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Oregon if his State has a 
testing program with accountability that would be something we would 
want to have as a nation. Has he had experience with accountability in 
the State of Oregon?

  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, we do have testing. I do not 
think it is on the scale that we are contemplating in this bill.
  What I hear, as I travel the State of Oregon, over and over again 
from parents is: We would like to give more resources to education. We 
would like more accountability for that. We would like better results 
for that.
  I commend the Senator from Texas and others on the committee, Senator 
Collins, and our friends on the Democratic side who are focusing on 
some very significant reforms in this bill. If I can cut through the 
arguments I am hearing, as I have listened and presided today, often we 
tend to confuse what we are about, whether we are about developing a 
system of employment for adults or whether we are about developing a 
system for educating children. If we can keep the focus on educating 
children, there are all kinds of things that become possible in terms 
of testing, not just kids but teachers as well, to make sure we are 
delivering results, that we are giving parents more choices so we give 
their children more chances.
  In a nutshell, that is what I want to vote for: more resources but 
also more reform. If we do that, the American people will look at our 
work as Republicans and Democrats and thank us for generations to come. 
There is not a single thing we could do more significantly for the 
future of our country, for the parents and their children, than to 
provide more resources and to demand more reform. We keep our 
stewardship then.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator from Oregon. That is why 
President Bush has worked so hard to make this a priority to say that 
there is nothing more important we can do than to provide a quality 
public education for every one of the young people in our country.
  I ask the Senator from Oregon if he would like the floor. If so, I am 
happy to yield.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, I gave my speech because of the 
question of the Senator from Texas. I thank her for that opportunity.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator from Oregon. I am pleased that 
he, too, is committed to reform. All of us know that if we are going to 
give every child a chance, we are going to have to make some changes. 
And some of those are going to be hard changes, there is no question 
about it.
  Some of the people who are in the system today don't want testing. 
They don't like testing. I can understand that. But what is the 
alternative to accountability? What is the alternative to finding out 
what is wrong in our system?
  If we can't admit that we have some weaknesses in the system and try 
to correct them, we will never get any better. What we want to do is 
find the weaknesses in the system and correct them while there is still 
a chance.
  Let's correct the reading weaknesses in the third grade rather than 
in junior high school because we will have wasted years if we are not 
able to give a child a chance with the full capability to read in the 
third grade. Instead, if we wait until junior high school, we have 
wasted 6 years--6 years. Why would we do that?
  It is time to take the bold steps. The President has asked us to do 
so. We have a bipartisan, general consensus in Congress, and I think it 
is time for us to act. I don't see any reason to start saying, well, if 
we amend one bill, then maybe we are going to have a substitute and 
what would that do to the amendment? Come on, can't we figure that out? 
Can't we say that all of the amendments passed by this Senate will go 
on to the final bill after the amendments are made, and if there is a 
substitute, they would go to that substitute? That is not rocket 
science. If we can't figure that out, then we have no business being 
here.
  So I think it is time for us to act. We are wasting time. We have 
been talking about going to the education bill now for a week and 2 
days. We are going to lose another day today if we don't start 
immediately to actually debate this bill. I hope that we will do that.
  I want to outline a few more of the points of the bill, and I think 
this is a very important one. The plan is going to allow students who 
are trapped in failing schools to leave those schools by using title I 
funds to transfer to a higher performing public school or a private 
school if that is passed. I would like to see that because I want a 
parent to have all of the options. I don't want only parents who can 
afford private schools for their children to have the best. I want 
every parent to have the best. What could be more frustrating for a 
parent than to see their child in a school that is not performing and 
know that that child is never going to have the full chance in life and 
the parent can't change the school because the parent can't afford a 
private school or a parochial school. Why would we do that? We have the 
alternative.

[[Page S4091]]

  In addition, education savings accounts will be increased to $5,000 
and expanded from K through 12, not just college anymore.
  We also include additional dollars for States to use to control 
violence and other crimes in schools because there is no doubt that in 
our country, if children are not safe and secure in their schools, they 
are not going to have the optimum learning environment. No doubt about 
it, they must have secure schools and drug-free schools.
  Parents will be given a greater flexibility for their child's best 
interest. School districts will be given greater flexibility. This will 
be accomplished by decreasing administrative costs and paperwork. When 
I do townhall meetings in my State, teachers come in and say: Get rid 
of the paperwork. Let me teach. Let me spend my time with the students 
finding out what they need and helping them learn.
  One teacher came to a townhall meeting that I had with a stack of 
papers this big and said that is what she had been working on all week. 
Instead of being in the classroom or counseling children after class, 
she was filling out forms this thick. That is not what is going to 
improve public education. It is the attention a teacher can give to 
children, to assess what their weaknesses are and bring them up to 
speed.
  We are going to provide technology assistance, and math and science 
instruction will be reemphasized, as well as basic literacy. 
Partnerships between schools and higher education institutions will be 
encouraged, and new Federal initiatives such as Reading First K through 
12, and Early Reading First Preschool will offer States incentives to 
implement rigorous literacy education.

  We have solved a problem in my home State of Texas. The University of 
North Texas has an accelerated math course for high school math 
prodigies, so that high school students with math aptitude can go to 
the University of North Texas and take college courses and get their 
high school degree with accelerated capabilities to go into college. 
This is so that you don't hold back the students who are already beyond 
high school competency. You give the child a chance to grow at his or 
her level and competency capability. It is quite exciting. I would love 
to see that happen all over our country, where an innovative, higher 
education institution would offer programs for high school students. I 
hope we will be able to encourage that by passing the bill that is 
before us.
  We are also going to try to help teachers help themselves. They 
deserve recognition and assistance. The President's plan will allow 
teachers to make tax deductions of up to $400 to help defray costs 
associated with out-of-pocket classroom expenses. I don't know a 
teacher that doesn't spend money from his or her own pocket to try to 
help the child get the tools the child needs in class, the crayons, or 
a ruler, or a tablet to write on, because the child comes to school 
without the proper school supplies. Many times, the child's family 
doesn't have the money for the school supplies. The teacher digs in her 
pocket and puts the money out and buys the supplies for the kids. That 
teacher does it because that teacher is dedicated. But we want to help 
defray those out-of-pocket costs. We want to give those young people 
the opportunity to have everything they need but not at the personal 
expense of the teachers. We don't pay teachers enough for the work they 
do anyway. The last thing we should expect is for them to defray the 
cost of their young people's school supplies out of their own 
pocketbooks.
  Mr. President, as I close today, I want to say that there is nothing 
more important that we will do in this session of Congress than to 
reform public education, to make sure that public education gives every 
child the opportunity to reach his or her full potential. Yes, we think 
private schools are great and, yes, parochial schools are great, and 
they are a part of the option that a parent might have. But what we are 
responsible for is to make sure that every child has access to a public 
education that is quality and that competes with any other school in 
the world. That is what will keep our democracy strong, and that is 
what will fulfill our responsibility as Members of the U.S. Senate.
  I can't wait to get to this bill because I have some amendments I 
want to offer that would provide creativity for our school districts, 
that would try to encourage more people to come into the classroom with 
expertise in an area--maybe not a teaching degree but someone with an 
expertise. I want to offer single-sex school classes in public schools 
as another option, which is now available in private schools but not in 
public schools to any great degree. I am going to talk about those 
amendments later.
  I want to get on to this bill so that we can pass these reforms and 
so that the next school year that starts in September will be a school 
year that is different from the past 25 years and will have more 
options and more creativity and more capabilities for the young people 
of our country to excel.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I join my colleague in entreating to get 
this bill moving. I am proud to serve on the committee. It is badly 
needed.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I respond to the Senator from Virginia and mention 
that he, as a very senior member of the Senate, asked to go on the 
Education Committee because of his interest in improving our public 
schools. I appreciate he made that a priority. His contribution is very 
much one that has helped this process this year.
  Mr. WARNER. If I may say to my colleague, at the time our conference 
was allocating that last seat, I knew of the interest of the Senator 
from Texas. She extended to this Senator certain courtesies I shall not 
forget, enabling me to have that as my third committee. I thank the 
Senator.

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