[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 2, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4138-S4156]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




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

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for a 
few

[[Page S4139]]

minutes within my hour on the motion to proceed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair and my colleagues. I will be brief. I 
see the Senator from Maryland is here, as well as others.
  Mr. President, I do not think there is a person in the Senate who 
does not view education as the single most important domestic priority 
this year. A number of us have been working for a long period of time 
to advance the dialog with respect to education. Indeed, a couple of 
years ago, we Democrats were prepared to move forward on the Elementary 
and Secondary Education Act. We were prevented from doing so because, 
frankly, our colleagues on the other side, for political reasons, were 
unwilling to allow President Clinton to be the person who signed a bill 
that passed education reform in the country.
  Politics trumped real reform. Politics trumped, once again, the 
interests of young people in our country.
  I remember Joe Lieberman, others, and myself talking for hours with 
Paul Coverdell, our late colleague, with Slade Gorton, and others 
trying to find the common ground so we could move forward on this 
critical issue.
  Here we are this year with Democrats having moved in ways that many 
people would have argued they never would have moved previously. There 
has been a challenging of the orthodoxy that has governed the debate on 
education for a long period of time. So we have a consolidation of 
programs. We have an effort to deal in a realistic way with the problem 
of accountability.
  It used to be there were some pretty one-sided discussions. Some 
people on the other side of the aisle thought it was just good money 
chasing after bad, and so they did not even want to talk about 
resources. All the discussion was about an alternative to the public 
education system--fundamentally, vouchers. On this side there was 
fundamentally only a discussion about school construction or class 
size. Nothing happened. Most important, nothing happened for our kids. 
The schools did not get much better, except in isolated instances where 
extraordinary leadership managed to break through.
  The fact is that 90 percent of America's children go to school in 
public schools. There are not enough vouchers and there are not enough 
private and parochial schools to offer enough choice to all of the 
students of this generation to get the education they need by 
alternatives.
  The bottom line is if 90 percent of America's children go to school 
today in public schools, if we are going to have the workforce we need 
for the future, but equally important, if we are going to have the 
skilled labor force we need, and much more important, if we are going 
to have young people who grow up to understand the obligations of 
citizenship, who have the capacity in an age of managing more 
information to be able to process the information and translate it into 
good civic activities, the acceptance of values, the acceptance of 
family responsibilities, the acceptance of community responsibilities, 
then every student, indeed, better have the best of opportunities.
  I have joined with Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Blanche 
Lincoln, John Breaux, Tom Carper, and a host of Democrats in agreeing 
we have to change the dynamics of this debate; that we need strict 
accountability; that we cannot put money into a school and allow it 
year after year as a consequence of some kind of reform to fail. But 
everybody in this institution knows there are countless communities in 
the United States of America that just cannot afford to do the basics. 
Property tax is what funds education. Come to Lawrence, New Bedford, or 
Holyoke, MA, or countless other communities in America where they don't 
have the tax base, particularly through the property tax, where people 
are on fixed incomes trying to hang on to a home and cannot afford 
higher property rates. In many States, there are limits on what can be 
raised on the property tax--mine among them.

  The question is, how do we provide adequate numbers of teachers to 
have a class size where a teacher can actually cope with children? How 
do we keep school doors open into the evening if the community can't 
pay the custodians or the additional teachers or have remedial classes? 
How do we put in the technology if they can't afford to buy it?
  The bottom line is, we have put in place in this bill an enormous 
change, a sea change, in how we are prepared to try to encourage 
accountability, to encourage reform and encourage change. But we cannot 
do it if there isn't an adequate commitment of resources for IDEA, the 
greatest burden we hear principals talk about in schools, to the 
capacity to be able to have a teacher for certain classes. We have some 
schools where 80 percent of the children in the school do not have an 
algebra teacher. Teachers are teaching out of field.
  Test students all you want, but if they do not get the fundamentals, 
they will be in deficit from the beginning.
  This is a choice for the Senate. Either we fund education reform to 
the degree that will empower it to actually take place or we will 
invite an incredible new round of cynicism. We will pass something and 
call it reform, and teachers and parents across the country will say: 
Thank God, reform at last. It is coming. But if you don't empower them 
to be able to do it, you can see the next wave of discussion. It will 
be: The public schools have failed; they did not live up to the 
expectations. We gave them the opportunity, and they didn't make it. 
Now it is alternatives.

  I am not going to buy into, as I think many of my colleagues will not 
buy into, a false equation of reform. We insist there be adequate 
funding of those communities that simply do not have the ability to be 
able to make the difference. That is the best of what the Federal 
Government exists for in the sense we assert a national priority, 
something in the interest of everybody in this country--educating our 
kids, making sure they have values, making sure they are in safe 
communities, where they can grow up to full citizenship. We share the 
capacity of our country to be able to guarantee that no child is left 
behind.
  In the budget that President Bush has presented, with only a 5 
percent increase in disadvantaged children's funding, how can one 
possibly live up to that promise? This is not a political fight. This 
is not a political food fight. This is not just Washington somehow 
being the same.
  I respect President Bush's effort to change the tone and be 
bipartisan. Right now, the only bipartisanship has been movement on our 
side of the aisle to consolidate the programs, to move toward a more 
sensible regime for accountability. The question we are asking is, 
where is the bipartisanship on the other side of the aisle that moves 
toward us with respect to this critical element of funding?
  You can have accountability, but if you don't have adequate funding 
to make it happen, it is a complete sham and waste of time. Likewise, 
we believe you can have a lot of money but if you don't have the 
accountability, it is equally a sham and waste of time. If we are 
prepared to change the dynamic and provide this country with education 
reform it deserves, we must be prepared to adequately fund the reform 
effort.
  I reserve the balance of my hour, and I ask unanimous consent I be 
permitted to speak again within the hour, if necessary.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The distinguished Senator from Maryland is recognized.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the motion to proceed 
to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and I yield myself 15 
minutes.
  I hope we will proceed. I intend to vote for the motion to proceed so 
we can get on the bill and get serious in the Senate about addressing 
the compelling human needs that exist in America's public schools.
  I believe education is the most important crucial rung in our 
Nation's opportunity ladder. During the coming days, we will discuss 
how we can strengthen this opportunity ladder. The Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act is only the first step. It sets the framework 
for reform, and also it will establish how we will address our public 
education.
  We do need reform in our public schools, and at the same time we need 
to have the resources to put the reforms into action. However, if we 
put

[[Page S4140]]

the reforms on the Federal law books but do not put the resources in 
the Federal checkbook, this will be a hollow opportunity.
  There are some on my side of the aisle who question whether we should 
embark upon testing. First, I stand squarely in the corner of 
supporting the concept of accountability. I also stand squarely in the 
corner of supporting testing, but making sure the Federal Government 
does pay the bill.
  In the State of Maryland, we have had testing for more than a decade. 
Testing enabled us to provide an inventory of where our schools were, 
what schools needed intervention and what type of intervention.
  I view testing like a CAT scan. It gives an inventory of where the 
problems might be and identifies other areas of potential problems. I 
believe we should proceed with testing and also aggressively fight for 
the resources. At the same time, we should not hold up on getting an 
inventory of where we are.
  In keeping with this principle, I support six priorities for 
educational reform. One is something I am calling ``digital 
opportunity.'' I know the Presiding Officer is deeply troubled about 
the need to have more people educated in math, science and technology 
in order to meet our growing national security needs. The Rudman-Hart 
report clearly indicates we need to have children technologically 
competent, not only for the new economy but also for the new security 
threats facing the United States of America. Issues such as 
cyberterrorism are an example of why we need to make the availability 
of educational technology a priority.
  I worked very hard to have a series of amendments creating digital 
opportunity. One, a national goal that every child be computer literate 
by the time they finish the eighth grade. I enjoyed bipartisan support 
on this issue in the committee and it passed. To make the goal a 
reality, I offered an amendment to make technology funds more robust 
and more effective. The BEST bill authorizing $1 billion for education 
technology.
  The new technology block grant that President Bush is advocating is 
something I will support because it will mean the programs will no 
longer be scattered through the Department of Education. As we are 
dealing with the scattered problem, we also have to deal with the 
skimpy problem and make sure we have the funds for hardware, software, 
and teacher training.
  I know, also, we are not considering the e-rate in ESEA. Sometimes in 
legislation the best thing we can do is do no harm. The Bush 
administration talked about eliminating the E-rate or consolidating the 
E-rate with ESEA technology programs. I am pleased that in our 
discussion with the White House they clarified the E-rate will be a 
subject of further discussion in the future. I am a big supporter of 
the E rate. I hope we do not change it.
  A weakness in the bill is that it focuses entirely on schools and not 
enough on the communities where children learn. Everybody does not 
entirely learn in school. Many people learn in structured afterschool 
activities and in the community. This is why I will offer an amendment 
on community tech centers, to establish 1,000 community tech centers, 
throughout the United States of America. That means that they can be 
run by nonprofits including the Boys and Girls Clubs, faith-based 
organizations, and Latino heritage organizations. Let's get tech into 
the community. In some instances our children are in schools that are 
so dated they cannot be wired. We want to make sure our kids are wired 
for the future.

  We also need to focus on teachers, recruiting the best, training the 
best, and retaining the best. I am pleased the education bill 
authorizes almost $3 billion for teacher training. At the same time, we 
could use more. I believe we need at least $2 billion more for teacher 
training to bring them into the classroom and also to upgrade their 
skills.
  Another priority I believe we need to focus on is smaller class size. 
Everyone will tell you we do need smaller class sizes. I will be 
supporting Senator Murray's effort to continue to try to hire 100,000 
new teachers for our classrooms.
  Coming back to where children learn, I support structured afterschool 
activities. Children need structured afterschool activities where they 
can learn, have fun, and be safe. In many of these neighborhoods this 
is absolutely crucial.
  Speaking of safety, this then takes us to school modernization. The 
average school in the United States of America is 42 years old. Many of 
them are crumbling. Many are dated. Some are even dangerous. We really 
need to work out how we can be a partner with State and local 
governments on the improvement of schools to modernize those 
facilities.
  The other area where we also need to keep our commitment is on 
funding for IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The 
Federal Government passed, some years ago, a mandate that local school 
districts are supposed to come up with individual education plans for 
children who are disabled. We promised them if they did that, they 
would get 40 percent of the cost from the Federal Government. Guess 
what. We only provide about 15 percent. In Maryland it's 9 percent. I 
believe we should keep the policy, but let's really, now, meet that 
mandate. If over the next 3 years we could work every year to increase 
the funding for IDEA, the money would go right into the school 
districts. It would help the local communities. It would alleviate a 
lot of the financial pressure on the state and locals to serve our 
special kids, without us becoming the schoolmarm or chairman of the 
school board in local school districts.
  These are the issues on which I look forward to working. I believe we 
can move the bill on a bipartisan basis. Let's have reform with 
resources so we can have results. Those are the three R's I want: 
Reform, resources, and results. Let's get our kids and our country 
ready for the 21st century. We have made great progress in the past, 
and I know we can do so in the future.
  I yield the floor. I yield back any time I may not have consumed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Florida is 
recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I would like to be recognized 
on the motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized. The minority has 16 
minutes 6 seconds remaining.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I listened closely to the 
eloquent comments of our colleague from Massachusetts this morning. It 
was his late brother, President Kennedy, in 1962, who said in a message 
to the 87th Congress: ``A child miseducated is a child lost.''
  Today, nearly four decades later, these words ring truer than ever. 
Far too many of our children, particularly poor and minority children, 
remain miseducated today despite efforts over the years to strengthen 
and reform America's public schools. The latest tests by the National 
Assessment of Educational Progress, for example, showed that only 32 
percent of our Nation's fourth graders were proficient or better in 
reading and more than one-third of the fourth graders read below basic 
minimum standards. That is unacceptable, especially today, when the 
consequences of such poor performance have never been greater.
  In this era of rapid technological change, business and industry 
require highly skilled, highly educated workers. If we fail to improve 
our school systems, many of our young people will be locked out of 
well-paid jobs and denied opportunities to succeed in a changing global 
economy. We cannot deny them that opportunity, nor can we deny this 
Nation the talent and skills it needs to grow and prosper. This 107th 
Congress must lead so no child is left behind.
  As for their leadership thus far, I wish to compliment many of our 
colleagues who have engaged in tough and bipartisan negotiations aimed 
at ensuring that we adequately address our Nation's educational 
priorities. The administration has proposed one plan, and some parts of 
it are very good. They are certainly in step with the reforms many of 
us have advocated in the past--particularly as I tried to articulate in 
this last election cycle in Florida. But other parts of the 
administration's plan are seriously flawed or are grossly underfunded. 
At the outset we must decide to put partisan interests aside and do 
what is right for our children.
  By the way, more than 90 percent of our children attend public 
schools. We

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must debate and resolve the important issues that still separate us, 
keeping in mind our common goal of giving every child the opportunity 
to succeed, not only in school but also in life.
  The teachers and public schools in Melbourne, FL, along with my 
parents, gave me my start and instilled in me a lifelong love of 
learning. Public elementary and secondary schools gave me the 
opportunity to go on to college and to law school, and to serve in the 
Army and the Florida legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives. 
That public school education also allowed me to serve as Florida's 
State treasurer and as a member of the State cabinet, as a member of 
the State board of education, overseeing public education. Now I have 
the privilege of being here as a Member of the Senate.
  I am forever indebted to my teachers and to those schools. Those 
schools were good ones, located in a growing, prospering community 
along the east coast of Florida. I was blessed. As we know and as the 
recent reading scores demonstrate, not every child is that fortunate. 
Too many of them come from broken families, too busy putting food on 
the table to worry about the absence of books in their homes. Too many 
attend failing schools in failing neighborhoods, or crumbling schools 
with overcrowded classrooms. Too many have outdated textbooks, 
insufficient numbers of books to go around, and tired teachers who 
believe they lack the support they need.
  Thanks to economic growth and the fiscal discipline imposed by the 
Congress, we now have a unique opportunity this session to help our 
States and local school districts address these problems. We have an 
opportunity not only to provide more of the financial help needed but 
also to ensure that those dollars help produce a better education for 
our children. We must not squander that opportunity now.
  I am encouraged that the White House has emphasized education. I also 
am encouraged that progress has been made in the negotiations so that 
we can give the States and school districts greater flexibility on 
spending while also holding them more accountable for results. These 
are goals we all share.
  I am confident that we can resolve our remaining differences on this 
legislation and work out the details on how best to achieve those goals 
that we share. But I am also convinced that the administration's 
commitment to leave no child behind will be nothing more than an empty 
slogan unless we bolster it with sufficient resources needed to get the 
job done. Reform without resources is not reform.
  In this regard, the President's demand for excessive tax cuts 
contradicts his pledge to do right by America's schoolchildren. I 
believe that it would be reckless to risk a return to the annual budget 
deficits that you and I, Mr. President, experienced in the 1980s and 
return to mounting national debt by committing this Nation to a tax cut 
that could overwhelm the projected surplus. It is a tax cut that is 
said to be $1.6 trillion, but in a real estimate of what it would cost 
in terms of deficit reduction, it is $2.5 trillion. It would be 
reckless to use the surplus for that instead of investing any increase 
in Federal education over the next 10 years. The White House claimed 
its proposed budget would provide an 11.5 percent increase for 
education in the coming fiscal year. But the real increase would be 
half that amount, and could leave the States with unfunded mandates, 
something the Congress in 1995 vowed that it would never do--put 
unfunded mandates on the States.
  If we are truly to leave no child behind, then we can do a whole lot 
better. We must do better.
  In my view, there is no higher priority than providing a first-rate 
education for the children in our public school systems. Our Federal 
Government, which now provides just 7 percent of the money for all of 
our schools nationally, ought to provide a larger investment for school 
construction, for dropout prevention, for smaller and safer classes, 
for teachers who are both well trained and well paid, and for programs 
that assist children with preschool education and afterschool care.
  The amendments we adopted last month in our Senate budget resolution 
would strengthen the Federal investment in public education and 
children with disabilities by more than $250 billion over the next 
decade. We can also help failing schools succeed by strengthening our 
programs for disadvantaged children and targeting additional Federal 
money to needy students and to the poorest schools, some represented by 
the distinguished Senator who honors me with his presence here, the 
distinguished Senator from West Virginia.
  Along with increased support, the education bill that Congress enacts 
this year should provide for greater accountability. It should 
condition future help on academic performance standards set by the 
States and measured by testing students yearly and uniformly within 
each State.
  We also need to ensure that the States set meaningful standards and 
measure real progress.

  We can do all of this in part by using the National Assessment of 
Educational Progress tests of fourth and eighth grade students and as a 
way to audit the results of the yearly State reading and math tests 
that would be provided under this bill in grades three through eight.
  So the States do their thing, with their own accountability, but we 
then will have a national measure, a standard by which to compare the 
States with the National Assessment of Education Progress test. This 
will then enable us to confirm that Federal dollars were well spent.
  Parents have an important role to play. They are entitled to timely 
report cards from their school districts on the performance of their 
children's schools, not just their individual child's report card. If, 
despite our best efforts, a school continues to fail, they ought to 
have a choice so their kids are not trapped in failure. But when the 
Nation's taxpayers are paying for it, the choice ought to involve 
public schools, and not private ones, if it is public school money.
  I believe our negotiations are on the right track for providing 
options for transfers to charter schools, magnet schools, or other 
schools within a district, or for extra help from outside tutoring to 
summer school.
  I want to make sure that we don't divert public school tax dollars to 
private schools through vouchers. We need to improve public schools 
that perform poorly. We don't need to abandon them. As we make our 
schools and local school systems accountable, we also need to give them 
more control and greater flexibility to use the Federal funds in ways 
that better meet local needs. I believe that we can consolidate 
programs and cut bureaucratic strings without sacrificing those Federal 
initiatives that are an essential part of the solution.
  For example, we know that children learn better in smaller classes. 
Why in the world would we want to abandon our national commitment to 
reducing class size, to building new schools and renovating the old 
ones if we know that creates an environment in which children can 
better learn? We can do better.
  In February, I joined with 10 other Senators in introducing the 
Public Education Reinvestment, Reinvention, and Responsibility Act, 
which we call the three Rs. Its aim is to streamline the Federal role 
in education and eliminate some of the bureaucratic strings that hinder 
local school districts. Its goal is to establish a clear national 
priority to ensure that every child has a chance at a quality 
education. These priorities include--and let's think about these; they 
are common sense--closing the achievement gap between poor and more 
affluent children; helping immigrant children learn English; improving 
teacher quality; reducing class size in the early grades; spurring 
innovative practices; and promoting choice within the public school 
framework.
  I am pleased that many of our proposals are now embraced in the 
committee bill that is now pending before us. As our deliberations 
proceed, I will be fighting to ensure that they receive adequate 
funding.
  We must succeed in this endeavor. Failure is not an option. We cannot 
afford to abandon our young people. In the long run, such failure would 
be far more costly than investing in quality education for all of our 
children.
  Let us make sure that no child is miseducated, and let us make sure 
that no child is lost.
  I thank the distinguished Senator from West Virginia for being kind

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enough to be interested and to be on the floor as I present my maiden 
speech on education.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the distinguished Senator has 
expired. The time of the minority has expired.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator 
from Florida may have 3 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and thank the 
distinguished Senator from Florida for yielding. I thank him for the 
thoughtful remarks he has just made. I heard him as I was in my office, 
and I came to the floor because I knew I would hear something worth 
listening to. I gave some time to the Senator from Florida. I am very 
impressed with his dedication to his Senate duties, and I appreciate 
his love for the Senate. I am going to have a few remarks later 
concerning education and our schools and this legislation. I will want 
to scan very carefully--perhaps it would not be scanning--I will want 
to study very carefully the words of the Senator from Florida before I 
make my own remarks.
  I thank him for his contribution to the Senate and for his 
contribution to the debate on this extremely important subject. I look 
forward to reading his comments and hearing him from time to time. It 
is a pleasure to work with him.
  (Mrs. CLINTON assumed the chair.)
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, just in the remaining moment, 
I say to the Senator from West Virginia what a tremendous role model he 
has been to all of us new Senators, including the Senator now presiding 
in the chair. What a tremendous pillar of historical example he has 
been in carrying forth the traditions of the Senate and imparting those 
traditions to the new Senators, and then in his vision for the future 
to keep alive those traditions.
  I have been so educated sitting in this Chamber listening to Senator 
Byrd bring in the history of the world to make his point on a 
particular argument in which he might be engaged. He recalls to mind, 
for me, the great orators who have been in this Chamber. Again, that is 
another part of he being a wonderful role model for all of the new 
Senators.
  So I am eternally grateful, and I am especially honored that he would 
think me worthy of coming and listening to my comments today on 
education.
  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator for his 
generous and overly charitable remarks. I thank him very much.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the next 30 
minutes of postcloture debate be equally divided between the majority 
and Senator Hollings from the minority and that the time be deducted 
from each individual Senator as provided under rule XXII.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I am waiting for one of our Senators. In 
the meantime, let me again say how important it is that we move on with 
what we started to do in this Chamber. We have been working on the 
education bill now for a very long time. The committee has done a great 
deal of work. But we find ourselves now sort of postponing 
consideration of the bill. This is the third time I have been in this 
Chamber today to ask for another hour of postcloture activity.
  The time has come, certainly, for us to begin consideration of the 
bill, to begin to move forward, to begin to talk about those areas of 
disagreement, and to begin to offer the amendments that need to be 
considered.
  I think, clearly, this bill is one of the most important issues on 
which we will be working. We have talked for a long time about the need 
for accountability. We have talked for a very long time about the need 
for additional funding. We have talked a long time about the 
flexibility that should exist when we have Federal money going to local 
and State governments so that there can be enough changes made to allow 
for the differences that exist in communities. Certainly that is 
important.
  We have talked a lot about how we need to help teachers become more 
efficient and more effective in that they are the most important aspect 
of education.
  We have talked about parental choice so that students can move 
between public schools in the various communities at the choice of the 
parent. Certainly that is an important item.
  There will never be agreement on all these things among all of us, 
but certainly it is an issue with which we have to proceed. I look 
forward to that.
  Madam President, I yield the floor to my friend from Arkansas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I thank the Chair and thank the distinguished Senator 
from Wyoming for his leadership in this debate.
  Madam President, I will just take a few moments to again speak on the 
very important issue of education and the legislation we have pending 
before us, and to urge my colleagues to support the motion to proceed.
  I believe we have spent close to a week--perhaps more than a week--
talking about education without having yet taken a single vote on an 
amendment.
  I believe this issue is of such great importance that while we do not 
want to shortchange the amount of time we spend on this issue, and 
while we do not want to short circuit the process, we also do not want 
to become victims of the process.
  I saw last year where we spent weeks on the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, and where we had other items of important business that 
would interrupt the education debate, and where we would return to the 
education debate, and while there was never a formal filibuster, the 
effect last year was to have a filibuster by amendment and by process, 
so that extraneous amendments prevented us from ever getting a final 
vote on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the 
reauthorization of this important bill. The losers, as always, are the 
American people and, more critically, the children of this country.
  I urge my colleagues to allow us to proceed with the bill. I know 
there are good-faith negotiations occurring on important subjects. I 
have been involved in those. I think they are in good faith. I applaud 
the efforts that are ongoing. But we have spent a long time on this 
issue. The differences now are fairly small, whether it be in funding 
or whether it be in policy. It is critically important that we go ahead 
and proceed to consider the bill and begin the process of offering 
amendments and debating this issue.
  The process of what occurred in the Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee and the bill that was voted out of that committee, 
as well as the bipartisan policy agreements that have been reached 
through negotiations, have produced, I suspect, 95-percent agreement 
now on policy. In both of these instances--both the committee and the 
negotiated agreement--we have taken a tremendous step forward in 
education in this country and have made a tremendous move toward real 
educational reform.
  Let me mention a few of the areas. Let's reiterate them again. We 
must have accountability in educational reform. To pour billions of 
dollars more into the Federal contribution to educate our children 
without requiring real accountability would not only be foolhardy but 
would be a waste of taxpayers' dollars. So we must have accountability.
  The bill that is before us--the negotiations and what has resulted 
from those negotiations--brings us real accountability, and it 
transforms the way we have thought about accountability for the last 35 
years. What it has been in the past has been asking the local schools, 
local education authorities: Are you spending the money the way we 
prescribed that you spend it? That is what we have defined as 
accountability. Did you fill out the paperwork correctly? Did you cross 
the t's correctly? Did you dot the i's correctly? Did you spend it the 
way we prescribed you to spend it?
  Whether it made good sense locally or not, whether it was in the best 
interest of the children or not, if it conformed with what we in 
Washington believed was the right way to spend it, we

[[Page S4143]]

said, then that is accountability. You have met the accountability 
requirements.

  We have changed that and gone in a whole new direction. We have said 
every child ought to be tested every year. We ought to know whether or 
not children are learning. We are taking a giant step away from how old 
are you, what grade should you be in, have we shuffled you through the 
system, to what do you know.
  I have heard the critics of testing and the testing proposals. 
Testing is by no means perfect, but I ask my colleagues, is there a 
better way to measure what children know? The answer is, of course, no. 
That is the best tool we have to know whether or not children are 
progressing academically, whether or not they should be moved ahead and 
promoted. That is very important. If you are going to have real 
accountability, you must not only measure through testing; there must 
be consequences to those schools that are not teaching, that are not 
succeeding, that are not preparing their students to go out into the 
workplace and compete in this global economy.
  Under this bill, there are real consequences for those schools that 
will not teach and will not change. Yes, additional resources; yes, 
additional help, but in the end, if a school will not change and it 
will not teach and the children are being trapped in a school that is 
handicapping their future, then we say, in this legislation, there 
should be consequences to those schools.
  The best consequence, the best way you hold schools accountable is to 
ensure that parents have greater choices. Yes, after schools are given 
an opportunity to improve and to address the shortcomings of failing 
schools, and still they do not make the changes, then we would say 
parents should have the right to take those children and move them to 
the public school of their choice. I would prefer that the choices be 
expanded, but in the bill before us at least there is the expansion of 
parental choice in the sense that they can go to another public school. 
Competition is good in any sector in our economy. It is good in 
business and in education. The public schools will be better when that 
element of competition is injected.
  The evidence is overwhelming, whether you look at Milwaukee, WI, or 
whether you look at the State of Florida, that where you have 
competition, you have improvement in the public schools.
  We recently heard from the Milwaukee superintendent of schools, the 
longest choice program in the Nation. His testimony was that the public 
schools in Milwaukee are better today because of the choice element, 
because parents of low-income children have the right to take those 
children and move them into a private, public, parochial, or charter 
school where they have a whole range of options; that choice has made 
the public school system better. We suggest in this legislation that 
real consequences mean greater parental choice.
  We also say that where a school will not change and will not teach, 
those parents should be able to find supplemental services to assist in 
the education of their children. Parents should not be forced to 
sacrifice the future of their children because they happen to be in a 
school that will not make the academic investment in those children.
  We say, yes, if a parent has children who are in a school that after 
years does not improve and is still not doing the job, is still a 
failing school, the parents ought to be able to take those children to 
a Sylvan Learning Center or they should be able, with their title I 
dollars, to hire a tutor. They ought to be able to take that portion of 
the Federal contribution to local education and ensure that their 
children are not sacrificed in a failing system.

  Accountability is a huge part of the legislation that is before the 
Senate and that I hope we will begin voting on soon.
  A second aspect of this legislation is the consolidation that occurs. 
One of the frustrations of local educators for many years has been the 
plethora of programs that we have created at the Federal level, 
oftentimes well intended, oftentimes with a very good purpose in mind, 
and frequently never funded by the Federal Government, just authorized 
without any funding. Sometimes when we question officials at the 
Department of Education about how many programs they have, it is very 
difficult to get a clear, unequivocal answer. They simply don't know 
how many programs are under their jurisdiction that have been created 
through the years, since the department was established, authorized, 
some funded, some not funded, some having wilted away but still on the 
books. They don't know how many programs there are.
  We know that while it has been repeated frequently during the debate 
on education that we contribute between 7 and 9 percent of the local 
school's budget from the Federal Government, we contribute about 50 
percent of the paperwork with which local educators are required to 
comply. That is probably the best gauge of how many Federal mandates 
accompany that 7 to 9 percent of the funding at the local level.
  What the President has suggested and what the committee has produced 
in the committee deliberations is a bill that consolidates this 
plethora of Federal programs into a more manageable, more simple stream 
of funding for the local schools. The funding is still there but, as a 
result, there is far greater flexibility than there has been in the 
past because we have consolidated these many programs.
  That is something that needs to be done. Local educators acknowledge 
that. Yes, every program has a constituency. When we try to 
consolidate, to eliminate, we hear from those constituencies. But let 
the educators of this country realize, there is no reduction in 
funding. In fact, the funding is dramatically increased in this 
legislation.
  The flexibility for local educators to use those resources in the 
area they feel is most essential for local educational reform is 
enhanced under this legislation. Whether that is class size reduction, 
hiring more teachers, whether it is tutors, school nurses, whether it 
would be a form of merit pay, paying the best teachers more, enhanced 
flexibility would be there for these local educators under this 
legislation. So consolidation is a very important part of what we are 
doing in this education reform.
  Then what I hope comes out of the ongoing negotiations is a form of 
the President's proposal regarding charter States. This was a bold 
initiative that President Bush campaigned on and spoke eloquently about 
and that has been whittled down and whittled down and diminished and 
deluded, but there is a form of it still remaining. We are talking 
about perhaps seven States as a demonstration project with perhaps 25 
local educational authorities or school districts that would be given 
the option of applying for this new status created called charter 
States. In last year's deliberations, we called it the Straight A's 
Program.
  The concept is we will give States broad new flexibility to 
consolidate streams of funding and to make local education reforms in 
exchange for strict accountability standards.
  The concept of charter schools has for years been used successfully 
across the country. That is why they are increasing in number. We say 
to a charter school: You have a waiver in effect from local and State 
education requirements in exchange for results we expect from what you 
are doing in that charter school. If it works at the local school, why 
shouldn't it work if we give States, the laboratories of democracy, 
that kind of flexibility. So States would be given a new element of 
freedom and flexibility in exchange for a performance agreement with 
the Department of Education and the Secretary of Education as to what 
they intend to accomplish and how they intend to accomplish it and 
ensuring that there is going to be increased annual yearly progress.

  That is a good deal for schools; it is a good deal for States; and it 
is a good deal for the American people. There will be a little bit of 
that proposal that survives so that a few States can apply, and a few 
States will be willing to try it, to break out of the old mold. The 
result will be an example that a lot of other States will want to try 
in the future.
  I commend the President for his strong emphasis upon early childhood

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education and particularly his emphasis upon reading programs, his 
willingness to triple funding for reading programs. So often the 
tragedy of shuffling children through the system all begins in 
kindergarten and first grade and second grade, where the foundation is 
not adequately laid. The President's emphasis upon reading is to be 
commended and is an important part of this legislation as well.
  One aspect that I and my staff have been involved in, that will not 
get a lot of attention but is going to be a very significant step, is 
the change that is made in the bilingual education program.
  Historically, that has been a competitive grant program. Many States 
that have had growing minority populations--particularly--in the State 
of Arkansas, with a growing population have received almost nil under 
the current system. Because of the changes made in the legislation, we 
will not only have increased funding nationwide, but we will have a 
formula that will benefit many of these States such as Arkansas and 
Alabama, and many of the rural States that have fared so poorly under 
the past approach on bilingual education. In addition, there will be 
emphasis--in fact, a requirement--on teaching English in these 
programs.
  This is a huge step in the proper direction of reform. I know my 
colleague, Senator Bond, is on the floor. I am anxious to hear what he 
has to say on this subject. Senator Bond has been involved in education 
for years.
  I will conclude by addressing an issue that we have heard repeatedly 
on the floor, and we are going to hear a lot more about it in the next 
couple weeks, and that is the issue of spending. For those who say this 
is an unfunded mandate upon the States, for those who say it is 
unconscionable to do education reform without fully funding the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, I just say: Where have you 
been? This is the first time that the Republican Senate, with a 
Republican Congress and with a Republican President, has had an 
opportunity to reauthorize the ESEA. Historically, with a Democrat 
President and Democrat Congress, the funding increases when ESEA has 
been reauthorized, have been between 5 and 6 percent. So to demand that 
the only way you will support education reform is if there is a full 
commitment to funding ESEA for the next so many years is really 
disingenuous.
  The President has made a strong commitment to dramatic increases in 
education funding--in fact, more than in any other Cabinet department--
and has been willing to move even higher on those numbers in the 
negotiation process across the aisle.
  So I just plead with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that we 
not allow a bogus debate on funding to distract us from the very 
important task of giving the children of this country and the families 
of this country the kind of education reform they deserve, and that 
will truly put meaning behind what has become a very popular phrase--
``leaving no child behind.'' We are leaving them behind today. We have 
an opportunity to leave far fewer behind. Every child can learn if 
given the opportunity and the expectations.
  This legislation, through accountability and flexibility, testing 
requirements, through increased funding, does many good things in 
moving us in the right direction toward greater educational opportunity 
for every child in America. I hope that we get on with it, get on the 
bill, and pass the bill and send it to the President, who has been a 
dynamic leader on education reform in this country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I know I am out of order, but I do not see 
a representative from the other side. I ask unanimous consent that I 
may be allowed to proceed out of order for up to 8 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I rise today to support President Bush's 
education initiative and S. 1, the Better Education for Students and 
Teachers Act. As a new member of the Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee I have been involved in the tremendous bipartisan 
progress that has been made in Congress thus far on public education 
reform. I look forward to the swift conclusion of the debate, the 
signing ceremony that will take place, but most importantly--the 
improvements to public education that will result to ensure that ``no 
child is left behind.''
  It is obvious that the American public places improvement of our 
public education system as a top priority. Parents and communities are 
aware of the same statistics that have been provided to us. Our 
children are not reading at the basic level. Too many students never 
graduate from high school. U.S. students lag behind too many countries 
in science and math. Our higher education institutions are spending too 
much money on remedial education and businesses have to spend billions 
of dollars teaching their employees what the schools did not teach 
them.
  I believe there is agreement that education, while a national 
priority, is a responsibility and obligation of the state and local 
communities. The education of our children has always been carried out 
and implemented at the local level. The American public is interested 
in the debate here in Washington, but they understand what really 
matters is what takes place in the schools and classrooms around the 
country--not the Senate or House floors.
  The decisions that are going to improve children in a particular 
school district are going to be made by the teachers, parents, school 
board members, and administrators who know the names of the children, 
know their problems, know their opportunities.
  Every single one of us have a vested interest in the success of 
today's generation and future generations of youth in this country. 
Therefore, we have a vested interest in the improvement of our public 
education system.
  For many decades Congress has debated numerous education issues, 
including the federal role and federal funding. Even after the 
completion of this specific debate, discussions and debates will 
continue. The debates continue because we are constantly seeking ways 
to improve upon our public education system.
  However, we must be careful. One of the main reasons that I support 
President Bush's plan and S. 1 is because it streamlines and 
consolidates many of the countless individual education programs that 
exist. We have all read the reports and have heard several colleagues 
talk about the 760 education programs scattered throughout 39 different 
federal agencies. According to the Education Commission of the States, 
``In the 1999-2000 budget, the federal government spent almost $44 
billion on elementary and secondary education programs. This funding 
was spread across 35 different education programs in 15 different 
federal departments.''

  All the programs that exist today were started with good intentions. 
Some I have advocated and numerous others I have supported. All along, 
all of us have tried to do the right thing. But--what have they gotten 
us?
  Today, our good intentions have gotten us burdensome regulations, 
unfunded mandates, and unwanted meddling. Parents, teachers, and local 
school officials have less and less control over what happens in the 
classroom. The myriad of federal education programs make the jobs of 
our school administrators and teachers harder than they should be. 
Teachers are taken of the task of teaching, preparing lesson plans, 
taking on after school student activities and instead are researching 
for grant opportunities, reading regulations, preparing applications, 
filling out paperwork requirements, complying with cumbersome rules, 
and reporting on how they spend the little federal funding received. We 
even have teachers and administrators that decide that the little extra 
federal funding is not worth the time and effort that it will take to 
apply and comply so they do not even bother with the process. Instead 
of empowering parents, teachers, and local school officials we have 
empowered the federal government and bureaucrats.
  We have slowly eroded the opportunity for creativity and innovation 
on the local level and have established a system where supposedly the 
Olympians on the hill know what is best for the peasants in the valley.
  Knowing where we now are, how can we afford to keep spending our 
federal

[[Page S4145]]

education dollars in the same way we have been doing for years if it is 
not simulating academic success for our children? We can't. Not only 
will I not stand for it, but parents, teachers, school boards, 
communities, and businesses cannot afford to stand for continued 
lackluster performance and failure in some cases.
  The President's education plan and S.1 are huge steps in the right 
direction recognizing that the answer to improving public education 
does not lie within the Halls of Congress or in the granite buildings 
of the downtown Washington education establishment. As an editorial 
from one of my homestate newspapers, the Southeast Missourian stated, 
``The answer to fixing America's educational woes rests with individual 
school boards and passionate educators. The bureaucrats must reduce the 
red tape and mandates that are strangling our schools. Give those who 
know best the time, talent and incentives to finally fix public 
education.'' I agree with what the Southeast Missourian said.
  The President's proposal and S. 1 stress high academic achievement 
for all students so the achievement gap that exists will erode. The 
legislation stresses the importance of literacy and making certain our 
children can read. We know that reading is a basic, essential, and 
fundamental tool for personal growth and self-sufficiency. Reading 
provides the foundation for all other learning and eventually for 
productive employment. Accountability, as well as flexibility, are 
incorporated in the Bush plan and S. 1 to ensure that the needs of the 
individual child and school can be addressed while also ensuring that 
our tax dollars are resulting in academic success. Finally, one of the 
most important aspects from my perspective--advocation for increased 
parental involvement. It is very simple and well documented. Children 
whose parents are involved in their education from the very beginning 
are more successful in school and score higher on tests. Parents are a 
child's first teacher, and we can do things to help them be better 
teachers.
  Parental involvement, especially as it relates to early childhood 
education, is something that everyone has heard me talk a lot about, 
and they are going to hear more about it.
  There is bipartisan recognition that we must try something new to 
improve our public education system. My dear friend and colleague, the 
Senate leader from the other side of the aisle, Senator Byrd, said the 
following on the Senate floor in the 105th Congress:

       . . . when one goes the last mile of the way and concludes 
     from what he sees, from what he hears, and from what he 
     reads, concludes from analytical reports about public 
     education that we are not doing well, that there is something 
     working, then it seems to me that, in the interest of the 
     public schools system, we may have to try a little different 
     approach, else the confidence of the American people in that 
     system and the support of the American people for that system 
     are going to erode. We see that happening.

  From all the newspaper articles, television reports, letters to the 
office, et cetera, we know that the American people want more, demand 
more, and deserve more when it comes to public education. Let's put 
partisan rhetoric aside, let's move past the squabbling, and let's move 
forward on our common goal. Let's get on with our business. Let's have 
our votes. We want to be a positive contribution to educating our 
children for a lifetime of achievement.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the next 30 minutes of 
postcloture debate be equally divided between the majority and minority 
parties and the time deducted from each Senator as provided under rule 
XXII.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Madam 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. Madam 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. Madam President, I rise to speak again on the 
education bill that I hope will be before the Senate very shortly. We 
have been talking about this bill off and on for 2 weeks. It is time 
for the Senate to get down to the real debate.
  Let us bring the bill forward, propose amendments, let everyone have 
their say, and send a bill to President Bush he can sign. We have the 
opportunity in this debate to change the course of public education in 
this country, and I believe it needs changing.
  We have seen year after year, in the last 25 years in this country, 
more spending going into public education from the Federal level but 
not improvements in the overall education of our children. I do not 
think throwing more money at education is the only answer. We are going 
to put more money into education, but we are going to do it in a 
reformed education system. In fact, we need to shake up the system.
  We have some very good public schools in our country, but we don't 
have a uniform standard of public schools where we can say all of them 
meet the test of giving every child the chance to reach his or her full 
potential with a public education. That should be the standard. We must 
be able to help each individual child learn in the best way that child 
possibly can, if that child is going to reach his or her full 
potential. That is exactly what we are trying to do with the bill we 
hope to bring up soon.
  I will talk about a couple of amendments I want to include in the 
bill that are not included now. One is to help bring more good teachers 
into the classroom. Every Member knows of a teacher shortage in a 
public school in their area. Rural schools have problems, urban schools 
have problems getting qualified teachers in some of the core subject 
matters, and especially math and science are lacking in qualified 
public teachers.
  We are trying to add some creativity into the process by giving 
incentives to school districts to bring more people into the teaching 
profession. We must be a partner with the States. It is the States that 
set the salaries and the benefits and the hours for the teachers. That 
is first and foremost what needs to be improved. I don't know of one 
public school teacher making enough money--not one. Not even in our 
best public schools are teachers making what they are worth. Our 
teachers should be making what our major corporate CEOs are making. 
What they are doing is more important than what any corporate CEO could 
possibly do. They are determining if our democracy is going to stay 
intact. We should pay them more. Most States are trying to do that.
  My home State of Texas is in its legislative session now and they are 
looking for ways to augment what teachers are paid, as well as benefits 
for teachers. I imagine most States are trying to do it because I think 
we all agree, public school teachers are not being paid what they are 
worth.
  We can do more at the Federal level where we can't set the salaries 
and we can't set the hours and we can't set the school days. We can be 
creative. We can reach out, and we have done so, as in the Troops to 
Teachers Program which would go for the many wonderfully qualified 
military personnel who are retiring, sometimes at the age of 40, 45. 
They are looking for a second career. We want them to go into teaching. 
Many of them have skills where there are teacher shortages.
  For instance, a military person is fluent in French, Spanish, 
Chinese, or Japanese. We have schools all over our country that cannot 
teach these courses because they don't have qualified teachers. We are 
offering incentives for alternative certification to get those people 
into the classrooms in their areas of expertise, although they don't 
have educational certification or educational degrees.
  Someone has a math degree, but they didn't get an educational degree. 
However, they are very qualified to teach math. Why not give them an 
incentive to come into the classroom and teach the area in which they 
are expert?
  My amendment will be called careers to classrooms. It is modeled 
after the Troops to Teachers Program. It says to a retiree of a 
computer firm, perhaps one of the wonderfully successful computer firms 
that has done well and the person can retire at the age of 40, 45, 50, 
or 55, if they would like to do something else, they are not ready to 
retire, why not encourage them to teach computer skills to our young 
people in the classroom by offering an incentive for an 
alternative certification for that

[[Page S4146]]

teacher to be able to come into the classroom with a minimum of hassle, 
a minimum of bureaucratic red tape. Let's break the red tape. Let's get 
the qualified people into our classrooms, targeting the schools that 
have teacher shortages--rural schools and urban schools.

  My careers to classrooms amendment will be just such an incentive 
that we hope will reach out to more teachers or more potential teachers 
and bring them into the classroom and enrich the experience of the 
young people in the classroom.
  The second amendment I am planning to offer, along with Senator Susan 
Collins, with the help of Senator Barbara Mikulski and others, is the 
single sex option for public schools. I believe if our public schools 
are going to compete, we are going to have to give every option to 
parents. Many parents can afford to send their children to private 
schools. So they have their young girl attend a girls' school, or their 
boy attend a boys' school.
  However, if you go to public schools or you cannot afford to send 
your children to private schools, you probably don't have that single 
sex option. It has proven, time and time and time again, some young 
people at certain ages, usually in that junior high school to high 
school age range, and not later than elementary school, some young 
people do so much better in a single sex atmosphere. It was found girls 
do better in math in a single sex atmosphere in those age levels. It 
was found that rowdy boys do better in a single sex atmosphere, 
particularly in an urban setting.
  Why not allow parents the options? We are not talking mandate. Many 
parents prefer to have their children in coeducational schools. Some 
parents might want to give a special needs child that single sex 
atmosphere. They can't afford to send their children to private 
schools, so why not let them have the option of going to their school 
board and saying they would like to have a single sex math class in the 
fifth grade in the elementary school. Why not give them the option? We 
want to take away the barriers being put in front of the parents, 
putting schools in fear they may be sued if they have a single sex 
educational opportunity.
  There would be a requirement for a comparable opportunity for young 
people of the other sex. That is fair. We want that to be allowed, 
also.
  We want to offer all the options a parent could possibly have if the 
parent had the opportunity to go to parochial schools or private 
schools for their children. We want those options to be available in 
public schools. I will offer the single sex amendment to this bill 
because I want to grow the opportunities; I don't want to kill them. I 
want public schools to be the best.
  I always like to proudly say I am a total product of public schools. 
I grew up in a small town of 15,000. I went to public schools. I 
graduated from the University of Texas and the University of Texas Law 
School. I want every child to have the same opportunity I had. I want 
every child to be able to go to public school and compete in any arena. 
I have competed in debates, I have had opponents who have had a 
wonderful Harvard education, and I won. I couldn't have done that 
without the quality public education.
  I want every child to have the same opportunity I had so that young 
people with private school degrees and public school degrees will have 
the equal opportunity to reach their full potential.
  Madam President, the choices are what make our country great. The 
basis we must provide is quality public education. I am excited about 
the opportunity to reform education, and I am excited about the 
President's plan. I am excited about what Congress will be able to do 
to make sure that future generations have the quality public education 
that has been the foundation of our democracy. That is what I want for 
every child for the future in our country.
  I hope we can get on to the bill. I think it is time. We have talked 
about policy and all the priorities that we have for a long time--about 
10 days now. It is time for us to start amending this bill and going 
forward so we will have the winds of change in this country in public 
education. I urge my colleagues to come together and make it happen.
  Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent I may speak notwithstanding the 
previous agreement. If someone from the other side of the aisle arrives 
to the floor, I will yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I rise to continue our discussion as we 
prepare to bring to the floor a very important bill that I believe 
realizes the dream of the President of the United States, his campaign 
pledge, the vision he has put forward of dramatically shaping and 
reshaping and modifying and changing Washington and the Federal 
Government's role in education.
  We are at a unique time. I believe never before in this body, at 
least in the history of the last 35 years since the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act was first enacted, have the American people, 
and their Representatives on both sides of the aisle, been so focused 
on education, kindergarten through 12th grade, and the reform of 
education so that we truly leave no child behind.
  With that attention and that focus, come great expectations. I 
believe as a Congress we must seize that opportunity. We must work 
together, both sides of the aisle, to work with the President of the 
United States and take advantage of that opportunity to creatively 
improve how the Federal Government addresses education and to answer 
the question: What is the appropriate Federal role and how can we best 
leverage that Federal role to leave no child behind?
  I spoke a little bit to that point yesterday. It was to get 
Washington out of the business. Remember, of the total amount of money 
spent on education for K-12 in this country, only 7 percent comes from 
the Federal Government--from the taxpayer, I should say, through the 
Federal Government.
  In my mind, it means we need to change that Washington role from one 
of regulator to one of education investor--to invest in education and 
to regulate only to the degree that we accomplish that goal of reducing 
the achievement gap, of boosting the academic achievement of all 
children to make them more ready for the world they inherit. It comes 
down to the concept of allowing innovation and creativity to address 
the problems we have identified and then coupling the freedom to 
innovate and create, the freedom to teach with measurable results, 
which clearly is a Federal role, to couple whatever requirements and 
assessments we place, mandates--yes, mandates--that we place in terms 
of testing and assessing that we attach to freedom and flexibility, to 
have those measurable results.

  We must continue, I believe, to cut the redtape, to cut the 
unnecessary bureaucracy that has resulted from a litany, a myriad of 
programs that were all well-intended. They were Federal programs passed 
in this body over the last 35 years, but they have resulted in a 
complex network of overlapping responsibility in terms of the target 
population: excessive and confusing bureaucracy, and paperwork. We need 
to get rid of the overly prescriptive Federal mandates on the Federal 
role in education, those mandates put on the floor, taken through the 
legislative arena, and imposed on our communities. I believe it is our 
opportunity today to cut that red tape and remove those overly 
prescriptive mandates.
  I think the result of our discussion and debate on this bill, once we 
are allowed to bring it to the floor, will result in innovation, in 
creativity, all of which will translate, again, to leaving no child 
behind.
  One aspect of our bipartisan discussion of the last 3 months that I 
look forward to talking more about at the appropriate time is what is 
called Straight A's, the Academic Achievement for All Act. That is why 
it is called Straight A's, which really in a demonstrable, optional way 
allows for a consolidation of a lot of the programs that we have 
inherited--given that

[[Page S4147]]

consolidation of programs in funding all the way down to the State or 
down to the district--and allows those funds to be used but attaches 
them to demonstrable, measurable results of academic achievement.
  This is, again, a demonstration program that hopefully will allow up 
to seven States to participate. They will have what is called a 
performance agreement. In that performance agreement with the Secretary 
of the Department of Education and the administration, there will be 
high standards, high accountability, measurable results coupled with 
freedom, with consolidation of programs so we can, with a performance 
agreement, link, to the maximum extent possible, flexibility and 
freedom to innovate with measurable results.
  I see we have other Members on the floor. As I said, by unanimous 
consent I will be glad to yield the floor at this juncture and look 
forward to coming back and continuing a discussion of what is in the 
underlying bill as well as what I hope will be added to the bill over 
the course of the day as the language becomes available.
  Madam President, I request recognition to briefly speak on behalf of 
the leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Lincoln). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the next 60 
minutes of postcloture debate be equally divided between the majority 
and the minority parties and the time be deducted from each individual 
Senator as provided under rule XXII.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Tennessee.
  Madam President, I rise today to speak about the landmark educational 
reform bill and plan we are currently debating, and in fact are 
currently negotiating, a plan that, I think, if it reaches its proper 
drafting conclusion and, most importantly, is adequately funded, will 
spur bold changes and innovations in our public schools and will 
ultimately help improve the quality of education for every child in 
Connecticut and every child in America.
  It is premature at this moment to talk about this comprehensive 
legislation with total certainty and in all of its details, so I intend 
to make a fuller statement about the bill once the negotiations are 
complete. But I did want to come to the floor today as we work out the 
final pieces of this complicated policy puzzle to offer both a few 
congratulations and a few concerns about what I would call this 
important near agreement on reauthorization of the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act.
  Let me start by saying how encouraged I am about the process we have 
followed for formulating this plan to reauthorize ESEA and its 
prospects for stirring a real revolution in our public educational 
system.
  The discussions we have had over the last several weeks involving 
Senate Democrats and Republicans and the White House have been a model 
of how this place should work. There has been civility. There has been 
healthy debate. There has been disagreement from time to time. But 
there has also ultimately been a shared sense of common purpose. We 
have had our disagreements--some of them profound--but the Members and 
our staff have negotiated in good faith and with good will. In doing 
so, I think we have demonstrated that we can find common ground on a 
consequential issue and move this country forward as we do so. This can 
be a real breakthrough given some of the rancor and division that have 
plagued the education debate too often in recent years.

  I commend our leaders, my colleagues from both parties, the 
President, and representatives from the White House who participated in 
these negotiations. I think we all want to realize the same goal, which 
is the best public educational system in the world. We all understand 
that today we have significant challenges ahead of us if we are going 
to achieve that goal.
  We all want to close the persistent achievement gap separating the 
haves in our society from the have-nots. That is by far the biggest 
hurdle I think we have to overcome. We all want to deliver on the 
promise of equality and opportunity for every child. We all want to 
increase the supply of highly skilled workers, which we all know is 
critical to our future economic competitiveness and the long-term 
prosperity and security of this Nation. Now, through the reforms in 
this bill, we are not just talking the same points of principle; we are 
actually walking the same path to progress.
  I am particularly encouraged and gratified that a number of the 
ideals and ideas that Senator Bayh and I and so many other Members of 
the new Senate Democratic coalition have been advocating for the past 
few years through our three R's reform bill and that so many of these 
ideas presented by the distinguished occupant of the Chair, and other 
colleagues, are reflected in the historic agreement on a core 
bipartisan amendment to ESEA that we are very close to achieving.
  As some of my colleagues know, we started out with the three R's bill 
with the new vision of education policy, one that focuses not on 
progress but on performance, not on rules and regulations but on 
results, not so much on what we put into the system, although obviously 
that is important, but ultimately on the real test, which is what we 
get out of the system. What are the results? How well are our children 
being educated?
  We drew up a reform blueprint that translates these principles into 
policies, calling for increased investments to help our public schools, 
help every child learn at a high level, for greater flexibility to 
allow the local educators to decide, as they know best, how best to 
spend their Federal dollars to meet the specific needs of their 
students, and also to encourage innovation and experimentation with 
different educational reform models at the local level.
  We have in this bill stronger accountability. That is the way we test 
the results. That is the way we make sure we are not giving up on any 
child in America and that we are going to take them to the highest 
level their God-given potential gives them to achieve in education. 
That is particularly true of low-income and minority students. We 
propose this new equation, which we call invest in reform, and insist 
on results, as a possible bridge to a bipartisan compromise.
  Last year, President Bush went across a bridge of his own and 
embraced some of those same goals and values and articulated a similar 
reform plan for realizing them, and for encouraging and accelerating 
the growing movement in many States towards standards and 
accountability--focus on results. What are our children learning?
  This year, the President made that plan a legislative priority and 
signaled his seriousness not just on the subject of education but on 
the kind of educational reform that is embraced in our three R's bill.

  It was focused on transforming the Federal Government into a catalyst 
for change, on demanding results, and on no longer tolerating failure, 
so that this bill, about which we are now debating a motion to proceed 
and around which negotiations are continuing and coming ever closer to 
a bipartisan agreement, builds on that common ground we have forged on 
those critical innovative ingredients to the recipe of reform.
  The centerpiece of the three R's plan and of the President's 
blueprint was a tough new accountability system that would reward 
States in making real progress in meeting high standards while 
sanctioning those that did not and would require local districts to 
take strong remedial action to fix chronically failing schools.
  We are not going to sit back and let schools continue to fail to 
educate our kids. We are not going to continue to push kids ahead from 
one grade to another just because a year has passed, regardless of 
whether the school has taught them anything or whether they have made 
progress.
  This is a system that tracks the progressive reform that State 
leaders around America, including my own State of Connecticut, have 
already implemented. It has proven effective.
  I will say that in the negotiations that have gone on over the last 
few weeks, we have had some differences on how to set those standards 
for judging performance, which is to say, How do

[[Page S4148]]

we define progress for our students? How do we strike the right balance 
between truly holding schools and States accountable for raising 
academic achievement, and particularly closing the achievement, without 
setting the bar so high that we end up grading most schools as failing?
  We have worked through those problems over the last few weeks.
  I want my colleagues to know that we have reached an agreement 
certainly on policy on a reasonable and realistic middle ground. That 
agreement is now being drafted. Hopefully, we will have the opportunity 
to present it in this Chamber before very long. But it is a 
significant, real, and hopeful agreement.
  While I would have liked, in some ways, to have made the provisions 
stronger, I have not given up hope of enhancing them in our discussions 
with the House. I do think this agreement is suitably explicit and 
demanding, as well as suitably fair, and will achieve our goal of 
driving real change and bold reform. I hope soon to be able to share 
the details of that agreement with our colleagues.
  But as much as I appreciate this significant bipartisan achievement, 
I remain deeply concerned--as I believe almost all my colleagues on 
this side of the aisle do--about one missing, indispensable ingredient 
to the recipe for genuine educational reform in America, and that is 
investment. It is clear to us that these reforms will not work without 
a significant increase in resources from the Federal Government.
  To date, the Federal Government supplies only about 7 cents of every 
dollar spent on public schools in America. Under the President's 
current budget, we will not provide much more than that. Some would go 
a step further and suggest we may, in fact, be setting up schools and 
children to fail if we do not back up the new demands for results that 
are in this bill--which we all agree are critically important--with new 
dollars to meet those demands. If that becomes the case, then we do not 
have a system of genuine accountability; we have a system that sets 
standards and does not help the local school districts meet those 
standards.
  We clearly recognize, of course, that money alone will not solve the 
problems plaguing our public schools. Money will not spur innovation 
and lasting reform, and it will not streamline inert and inefficient 
bureaucracies. Money will not set high standards and hold schools 
responsible for meeting them.
  That is why we New Democrats pushed so hard in this bill to shift our 
Federal focus from process to performance, to streamline duplicative 
and ineffective programs, to accentuate the freedom of local teachers 
to innovate--they are the heart of our whole educational system--to 
have principals enact reforms, superintendents to set new standards, 
and try new, bold ideas.
  That is why we pushed so hard to recognize that we cannot have more 
blue ribbon schools without less redtape. And not least of all, that is 
why we who advanced the three R's bill decided that imposing real 
consequences on schools and districts that chronically fail to educate 
disadvantaged children is a necessary and critical element of a true 
educational reform proposal.
  But we also recognize that money is a crucial part of the equation. 
We simply cannot expect States and local districts to improve the 
quality of teaching and reduce class size to help every child--for 
instance, an immigrant child to master English, to reconstitute 
chronically underperforming schools, and in particular to end the 
national disgrace of having African American and Latino American 
children reading and doing math, on the average around our country, at 
a level that is substantially below their fellow students in America's 
schools--if we do not substantially increase our investments in our 
public schools. This is something most Americans recognize, which is 
why there is overwhelming support for significantly increasing our 
national investment in education.

  At home, in conversations I have had with people in Connecticut, and 
from public opinion surveys I read about American attitudes, it is 
clear that the American people put education at the top of their 
priority list, and sensibly so. The American people know you cannot 
bring millions of children, particularly low-income children who cannot 
read, up to grade level on the cheap. It cannot be done.
  Consider a few specific examples, such as teacher quality. The 
reality is that we must hire, train, and ultimately retrain about 2 
million new teachers over the next several years--2 million new 
teachers over the next several years.
  The reality is, 95 percent of urban school districts are experiencing 
a shortage of qualified math and science teachers and that 50 percent 
of new teachers quit high-need schools during the first 3 years of 
their teaching there.
  The reality is, educational reform will not succeed if we do not 
provide every child with a good teacher. Many people in our society do 
important work, but no one in our society today does more important 
work than a good teacher. We learned that lesson in Connecticut, which 
has invested millions of dollars--tens of millions, hundreds of 
millions--over the last several years to raise teachers' salaries, to 
attract and train high-quality professionals, and develop a nationally 
recognized mentoring program to nurture young teachers in their early 
years in the profession. That has produced, I am proud to say, one of 
the best teaching forces in the Nation. In turn, they have helped to 
produce consistently high scores by Connecticut students on national 
education tests.
  The bill we are working on will push all of America in all of 
America's school districts to take similarly strong steps to strengthen 
the quality of their teaching force, setting a firm goal of having all 
teachers in the highest poverty districts highly qualified within 4 
years. But reaching that benchmark is clearly going to take a 
significant increase in funding for recruitment, retention, and 
professional development. We have an obligation--since we are making 
these demands on the local school districts and on the schools and on 
the teachers--to help States meet those high standards by giving them 
adequate financial resources to do so.
  Also, consider title I, the heart of our traditional Federal focus on 
disadvantaged children. Here again, the distinguished occupant of the 
Chair, the junior Senator from Arkansas, and I have talked often about 
this problem. It is real, from the cities of Connecticut to the cities 
and towns of Arkansas. The reality is that one-fifth of urban and rural 
districts, with 50 to 75 percent of their students living in poverty, 
receive no title I funding today. It is hard to believe.
  Title I was a program established 35 years ago to help disadvantaged 
kids, low-income kids. Yet today, I repeat, one-fifth of urban and 
rural districts, with 50 and 75 percent of their students living in 
poverty, receive no title I funding. That is, in good part, because we 
do not target those dollars well with the formulas we are using today. 
That is a shortcoming we are working very hard to fix in these 
negotiations that are ongoing. But it is also because we are not 
providing the resources--enough money--to fully serve disadvantaged 
children and carry out our responsibilities under the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act.
  According to independent estimates, it would take $17 billion to 
fully fund title I, an increase of about 100 percent above current 
funding levels. That is an annual number.
  The accountability system we are working on now will help make title 
I a much more effective program for kids in high-poverty districts--
whether they live in Connecticut, Arkansas, or anywhere else throughout 
America--requiring States and local districts to turn around 
chronically underperforming schools, empowering parents whose children 
are trapped in those failing schools with new choices and new options 
to help their kids get a better education, sanctioning States that do 
not make progress in raising the academic achievement of disadvantaged 
students, and closing the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
  Again, we cannot expect those interventions to succeed, those choices 
to be meaningful, or those sanctions to be fair if we do not invest in 
reform while we are insisting on results. That means infusing title I 
with substantial increases in funding.
  Unfortunately, the Bush administration has to date been unwilling to 
match their commitment to reform

[[Page S4149]]

that we are so near agreement on with commensurate resources on which 
we are still some distance from agreement. The President's initial 
proposal for ESEA programs included only a $700 million increase for 
the next fiscal year and less than $500 million for title I. In the 
last few days, the White House has increased that now to a total number 
of more than $2 billion. But this counteroffer is still far from 
sufficient to meet either the needs we have identified or the demands 
we will place on America's schools with this legislation.
  That is particularly hard to justify when we know that we are 
projecting a $200 billion surplus for next year, $69 billion of which 
apparently will be spent on the President's tax plan. That is almost 35 
percent of the projected surplus next year for the tax plan and a 
little more than 1 percent for additional funding for education.
  We can do better. Hopefully, together, as we have come some 
substantial distance on most of the critical policy issues facing 
American education over the last several weeks in our bipartisan 
negotiations, we can similarly close the gap when it comes to our 
remaining disagreement on resources to make reform real.
  In the same spirit in which we have negotiated this agreement to 
insist on results, we appeal today to the President to join us in 
investing in reform. We have a unique opportunity at this moment, and 
we cannot afford to let it slip away. The truth is, we can afford to 
give every child in America a quality education. That is our 
responsibility and, if we do it right, that will guarantee that our 
future is brighter.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I wonder if the Senator would be good 
enough to yield for a question.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I certainly would.
  Mr. KENNEDY. First of all, I commend the Senator for an excellent 
presentation and, more importantly, for all of his good work in the 
past weeks in helping move the process along and for the work that has 
been done in the past.
  As the Senator spoke, one of the points he underlined was the need 
for additional funding. As we understand funding, for the Senator from 
Connecticut and myself, we are talking about investments. We are 
talking about investing in children and in their future and our 
Nation's future. The Senator has made that case very effectively.
  I join with the Senator from Connecticut in the importance of 
developing the kind of blueprint which has been developed which we 
believe can really make a difference if it reaches out to the children 
who are out there who need the assistance. One of the major struggles 
and one of the major battles has been over funding.
  Yesterday, we saw the President and our Republican friends make the 
announcement on the budget for this year and projected over future 
years. In that budget, the negotiators found $1.35 trillion in tax cuts 
over the next 11 years. Yet they declined to find the funding which 
would be necessary to support the amendment of our colleague and 
friend, Senator Harkin.
  As my colleague remembers, Senator Harkin, during the budget debate, 
initiated an amendment that was passed with strong bipartisan support 
for $250 billion for education over the life of the budget. That 
virtually disappeared in these negotiations. That cannot be found. The 
position of the Senate, which was bipartisan, and the majority, is 
virtually eliminated.
  I find it difficult. In looking over this budget and consulting with 
members of the Budget Committee and asking them whatever happened to 
it, it just disappeared. It virtually was eliminated. In that was the 
funding, as the Senator remembers, for the expansion of Head Start 
Programs. It had funding in terms of increased funding on title I. It 
had additional programs in terms of child care support, the block grant 
program, other programs that were targeted on children and needy 
children.
  We have been told in these conversations that we have had with the 
administration: We are prepared to give some funds, some additional 
funds for title I, but we are unable to make a commitment in future 
years.
  I notice in those budget figures that came out from the Budget 
Committee, they are prepared to list for millionaires what the 
reduction of their inheritance tax will be in the year 2011. Here we 
have, for the wealthiest individuals, a very clear roadmap about how 
their taxes are going to be reduced in 2011, but we can't get the 
administration to commit that over the next 4 years they are prepared 
to allocate sufficient funds so that the benefits of this bill will 
reach the children who are qualified to benefit from the program.
  Is the Senator from Connecticut troubled by that development?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Responding, if I may, to the Senator from 
Massachusetts, this Senator certainly is troubled by that.
  Let me say, before I respond directly, what a pleasure it has been to 
work with the Senator from Massachusetts on this bill. There is not a 
better lawmaker/legislator in the literal meaning of that word in this 
Chamber than the Senator from Massachusetts. I have seen his talents, 
his persistence, his knowledge, and his great skill as an advocate at 
work. I have actually enjoyed the experience.
  I thank him for his leadership. He has been responsible for 
successive advances in the quality of life in our country, particularly 
for our children. If we can bring this one to a conclusion, it will be 
yet another extraordinary accomplishment that he has led, working not 
just with members of this party but across the aisle and, in fact, with 
the White House.
  The numbers the Senator from Massachusetts cites are troubling to me. 
They are particularly troubling today, as the two of us have said, 
because we have essentially reached agreement on the core issues 
relating to this bill. Our staffs are drafting and we will meet again 
later in the day, but this is a substantial accomplishment. It shows 
that we have common purposes, and we can reach common ground across 
party lines, across Pennsylvania Avenue, because what is on the line 
here is the well-being of our children and the future of our country.
  All of these agreements we have now reached and are drafting are just 
not going to mean anything much unless we help the States and local 
governments and school districts meet the additional responsibilities 
we are placing on them through this bill.
  The Senator from Massachusetts has spoken about the amendment to the 
budget resolution introduced by Senator Harkin, our colleague from 
Iowa. It passed with bipartisan support. It took over $200 billion from 
the tax plan, used it to pay down the debt, took a similar amount, over 
$200 billion, and asked that it be invested in education. This 
expresses the concern across the aisle here in the priority placed on 
education.
  In that amendment, as I read it, over the 10 years there was 
approximately $100 billion of that money that was to go through the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act that we are considering now, 
about $50 billion there for the first 5 years which we are considering 
as part of this authorization; therefore, $10 billion a year. That is 
what was voted by this Senate in a bipartisan vote.
  Here we are with the President saying to us that the most he can do 
at this point, as I understand it, is somewhat over $2 billion. And 
while so much more next year--$69 billion--is being put into the tax 
cut, 35 percent of the projected surplus in the tax cut, 1 percent is 
in education. I agree with the Senator. It doesn't make any sense to 
say we can't make a long-range commitment to the children of America 
for their education, but we can, in the budget resolution, somehow make 
a long-range commitment to the wealthiest taxpayers who, if I may say 
so personally, don't need the help as much as the children of America.

  So the Senator is right. I say, again, when you think about the 
plenty that we have available to us, when you think about the strong 
economy we have had for the last several years, and the restraint we 
have shown at the Federal Government level that produces these 
extraordinary surpluses ahead, the likes of which we have never seen 
before, this all comes down to priorities and choices. How do we want 
to invest this money?
  I say proudly, with the Senator from Massachusetts, who has been the 
leader, we want to invest it in our children's education.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the 30 minutes 
allotted to the Democrats has expired.

[[Page S4150]]

  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I want to take the next 7 or 8 minutes to 
complete the remarks I had begun 30 or 40 minutes ago. It really boils 
down to this whole theme of a change, a change in the Washington 
approach to education, from kindergarten through 12th grade. That is 
very much what I believe the underlying bill is all about. We recognize 
that 35 years and $125 billion later, we have failed to accomplish the 
original goal of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We 
have not met that goal, that is we have not reduced the achievement gap 
between the served and underserved, or the advantaged and 
disadvantaged, and we want to accomplish that, working together in a 
bipartisan way, under the leadership of President Bush and the 
principles he has laid out.
  An important element of the President's plan is flexibility based on 
local identification of the problems and challenges facing schools 
today, coupled with strong accountability--accountability for the 
taxpayer dollars that are being invested, accountability in exchange 
for the freedom that we, through this legislation, will give local 
schools, teachers, school districts, communities and States in return 
for measurable results.
  As I mentioned, we must cut the red tape and get rid of the overly 
prescriptive regulations, which we know have not worked. We must change 
the Washington approach, and transform the Federal role from that of 
education regulator, which has not worked, to education investor, 
because we are investing in education, in policies that we know are 
successful, in programs that work. We must not reward programs that 
don't work by investing in them further.
  Education investor versus education regulator. To me that's what it's 
all about.
  One element of our education investment plan is a piece of 
legislation called Straight A's. The formal name, of course, is the 
Academic Achievement for All Act--a lot of A's in there, which is why 
we call it Straight A's. That is an easy way to remember what it is all 
about.
  Ultimately, Straight A's addresses the fact that we know there is 
excessive regulation out there--well-intended, but excessive. It 
addresses the fact that we know there are and hundreds of programs, 
again well-intended, but programs that straitjacket our teachers to the 
point that they can no longer teach because they are spending all their 
time complying with federal law. Rather than teaching that individual 
child face-to-face, they are doing paperwork.

  Straight A's will free them up of that red tape, get those 
regulations off their backs, so they can do what we want them to do, 
what we'd like to hold them accountable for doing: teaching our 
children. Yes, it's what they want, but more importantly, its what our 
children need and deserve.
  Today they do not have that flexibility.
  Straight A's is an optional program. There is no school district that 
must participate in this demonstration project if it chooses not to. 
That is the way it is outlined and presented in the bill. It is an 
optional program, limited to just seven States. Even if there is a 
great demand, we will limit it to seven States. Personally, I would 
like to increase the number of participation states, but in 
negotiations we decided that as many as seven States would have the 
option of being freed from regulations if they agree to be held 
accountable for strong, measurable results.
  Straight A's is not a block grant. We hear that, and it scares 
people. Block grant means when you give money to a group of people en 
bloc instead of having a hundred different programs and saying the 
money has to be used for a computer or software or to hire another 
teacher. The idea is to give that money in the aggregate. This is not a 
block grant program. It is a performance grant, linked to results. 
There is strong accountability. It is not just giving the money away. I 
think we have done that for too long. If you look at the last 35 years, 
we have spent about $120 billion. And for that $120 billion we neither 
received nor demanded results.
  What I think is great about this bill is that it provides both local 
control and flexibility. Local folks receive the funds, they are held 
accountable for results, but how they use those funds is up to them.
  Teachers in a classroom know what they need. Is it a piece of 
software? If so, they can use the money for that. Is it a new computer? 
If so, they can use the money for that. Smaller class size? Those 
things are best determined by an individual school or perhaps an 
individual subject area of a school. Why should we be dictating that 
from above when local schools, teachers or parents can make those 
decisions and participate in the process?
  It might be that this money could be used for reducing class size or 
improving technology, or hiring better teachers. I can also be used for 
teacher development. If, for example, a teacher does not feel qualified 
to teach in a certain area, that money, available for the first time, 
can be used for teacher development, to ensure that every child in this 
country is given the opportunity to be in a safe classroom, drug-free 
classroom, with an excellent teacher at the head of that class.
  So, this is not a block grant, it is a performance agreement. 
Accountability is part of that agreement, it is written in. You will 
hear a lot about accountability, accountability and high standards, 
because we all feel very strongly that boosting student achievement, 
reducing that achievement gap, is the essence of accountability 
measurement.
  For this increased flexibility we have built even higher standards of 
accountability. We have very specifically addressed the idea of 
targeting both for the title I component and the title II component. An 
element of targeting is written into the bill, and the demonstration 
project, to ensure that the money goes to the people who need it the 
most.
  Today, States, localities, and school districts are the engines of 
change. Not Washington. We are locked into a system where change is not 
allowed. That is the sort of reform I am very hopeful we will be able 
to debate and put forward. We want to support that engine of change 
that is going on in States all across America. We want to encourage it, 
make it possible, because there are teachers out there who care, who 
want to teach, who will teach, if we get rid of the bureaucracy.
  We have parents who care, nobody cares more about children than 
parents. But right now, they have little in the way of choice, very 
little power to direct resources. We talk about supplemental services 
and how important they are so parents can have some element of choice, 
some way to direct their taxpayer dollars in a direction that will 
benefit their children.
  This is very different than the current system. That system over the 
last 35 years, involved always thinking up new programs, and funding 
those programs--usually inadequately--hoping it would do some good. So 
that now we have hundreds of programs each with their own bureaucracy, 
each their own requirements, each inadequately funded, and all of which 
have resulted in the failure we see today.

  I just want to share with my colleagues what the Chicago school 
system officials--again, this is not partisan--reported to the task 
force on education that we conducted in the Budget Committee under the 
leadership of Senator Pete Domenici. Those officials from the Chicago 
school system extolled the virtues of flexibility and credit much of 
the success they have seen in Chicago to this increased flexibility. I 
quote:

       We know the system and we believe we know the things that 
     it needs to have in order to improve. So the more flexibility 
     we have with Federal and State funds, the easier it is to 
     make those changes.

  It makes sense. People at the local level can best identify those 
needs. So we need to free up, get rid of those unnecessary regulations 
which have tied their hands, that have prevented them from boosting 
student achievement and reducing that achievement gap.
  We will have time, hopefully, in the next several days to continue 
the discussion of this concept of flexibility, accountability, and 
local control. I appreciate the opportunity to share with my colleagues 
this concept of Straight A's which will be a part of the underlying 
agreement by allowing greater flexibility, coupled with those demands 
of achievement.
  Washington will become, not the education regulator, but the 
education investor.

[[Page S4151]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee 
for his leadership in the area of education. We do have an opportunity 
to reform the system. What Senator Frist was discussing on the issue of 
accountability is the key. We can pass all the laws in the world. We 
can pass all the regulations that fill the books, but if we do not have 
accountability, it will not work.
  We know that because it has not worked so far. We have poured in more 
money. We have tried to give mandates; we have given them red tape; we 
have given regulations; but that has not helped.
  What we need to do is have accountability. We need parents, teachers, 
and principals to work together to determine what is best in any 
particular area. Then we need to test to see if it is working, not so 
we can point fingers. We need to test so we can identify weaknesses and 
strengthen those weaknesses. That is the difference.
  We have 15 more minutes of our time, but I understand the Democrats 
would like to start a little early. I ask Senator Sessions to take up 
to 10 minutes, and then we will allow the Democrats to take the rest of 
the time until we determine the next amount of time that we will have 
on the subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak. 
I thank the Senator from Texas for her steadfast leadership and 
commitment to education. She has been a stalwart on these issues and 
cares about them deeply.
  I also appreciate the leadership on the Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee of Dr./Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee. He is one of 
the champions for doing something different this time.
  Yes, we have the largest increase in spending percentagewise in 
education than any other budget item, but that is not what is so 
special about our education debate today.
  Our debate today is about children. Our debate today is about making 
sure what we do furthers not just a system that has not been as 
effective as it should be, but actually furthers learning. That magic 
moment in a classroom when a child and teacher come together and 
learning occurs is what it is all about. Nothing else really counts.
  When you visit schools as I have for the last year, 25 or more 
schools around the State, and talk to teachers, principals, and 
superintendents, and you hear them express their deep frustration at 
the burdensome strings that are attached to the Federal Government's 
education funding. The Federal Government only makes up about 10 
percent of education spending--90 percent of it is funded by the State, 
and well it should be. States have always been the primary engine of 
education in America. The Federal Government does not need to take 
over.
  I do not think there is anyone who will stand up and defend a major, 
massive Federal takeover of education in America, but we are paying a 
substantial sum of money. We spend $125 billion improving the education 
of low-income children, trying to narrow the gap, and it has not 
worked.
  What do you learn when you talk to the teachers and principals? They 
are frustrated. They tell me the paperwork is substantial; the 
regulations are burdensome; the money they get can only be used for 
certain programs which may not be programs they need in their school, 
and they cannot use the money for things they think are important and 
would improve learning in their school system.
  They tell me the Federal Government--and I spend a lot of time 
dealing with this issue--is creating mandates under IDEA. School 
officials are not able to discipline children with disabilities who are 
disrupting a classroom. They must keep them in the classroom day after 
day, even though the child is not benefiting from being in the 
classroom and even though that child is disrupting the other children 
in the classroom.
  I started in recent months to ask teachers, Which would you rather 
do: Take the 10 percent from the Federal Government or let them go away 
and run the schools the way you want to run them?
  You would be surprised how many say: Take your money and leave us 
alone. That is shocking. I am not sure they really meant that, but 
their hands went up when I asked that question. It reflects a deep 
frustration that we are not being good partners in this deal.
  How do these programs come about? How have we ended up with 700 
Federal education programs in America? It is something like this: Some 
State develops a good idea for an education program. A Senator or 
Congressman hears about it. He thinks it is popular and would be 
popular back home if he authored a bill to fund that kind of program 
around the country, and program after program gets adopted over the 
years.
  Some are good, some not good. Some may have been good 15, 20 years 
ago, but are not good today. Some of the programs are successful, and 
my colleagues have to understand that some of those special programs 
were successful because the teacher who ran it was special, and they 
could make certain things happen in a way that cannot be replicated 
with a teacher who does not have that passion to run that particular 
program. So we created all these systems.
  We send the money and say: You can only use it for this science 
instruction, this reading instruction, this math instruction. It has 
burdened our school systems and has not created as much good will as we 
would like.
  I believe our legislation today is a big step in the right direction. 
This legislation is designed to provide a way to give schools more 
money with less strings in return for accountability.
  Many Senators have talked about accountability. It seems to me they 
have a misconception of what accountability actually is. They seem to 
think accountability is when somebody spends Federal Government money 
precisely, exactly as written in a rule book. They think that if they 
spend it that way, that is accountability, even though learning has not 
been improved one bit.
  The growing consensus, I think, is bipartisan. Our bill came out of 
the committee almost unanimously. We believe accountability means 
finding out if the children are learning. Have they benefitted from the 
instruction or are they falling behind? We must look at those test 
scores and make sure they are brought up to speed. We must ask what can 
be done, at the earlier grades, to identify when children are falling 
behind? We must not let even one child fall behind.
  When the Secretary of Education, Dr. Paige, was in Houston, he 
doubled the number of students passing the basic Texas proficiency 
test. Dr. Paige says if you love children and care about them, you will 
test them and find out if they are keeping up. If they are not, and you 
love them, you figure out a way to help them do better. He did that in 
Houston. Some say he got a lot of extra money to administer these 
tests, but he did not. The third or fourth year he picked up bit extra, 
but in 5 years he doubled the test scores mainly through changes in 
policy by doing things differently, with the passion to achieve. If 
schools in his system were not conforming, he confronted them, and 
fixed them. He did not let continue to fail.
  In Alabama we have an excellent State superintendent of education and 
some wonderful schools and magnificent teachers. The new superintendent 
believes in testing. He has been testing for some time, and test scores 
are moving upward. Some say the tests in Alabama may be the most 
difficult in the Nation. Students cannot get a degree if they do not 
pass the basic proficiency test, and the test scores are moving up. If 
a school allows children to move to a higher grade without learning, 
the State superintendent can take over the school system and fix it. 
The State is putting a lot of money into this testing, and we need to 
know it is being spent well.
  Let's get out of the business of micromanaging schools. Let's make 
sure progress is being made, that children achieve, that the school 
system is not leaving children behind, that they are not being 
abandoned, are not given up on. Because when children reach the ninth 
grade, still unable to read, unable to do basic math, they drop out of 
school with no prospects for any good economic future.

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  We can do better. Every child may not be able to handle advanced 
mathematics and the high sciences, but most children are able to do the 
basic reading, writing, and mathematics necessary to be successful in 
America today.
  Some complain about tests, calling it punishment, a way to categorize 
or stigmatize a child. I don't see it that way. Neither does Dr. Paige 
who believes it is part of a good education. The way to teach is to 
find out how children are learning and progressing. When we know what 
they need, we can do it better. I think it is the right thing to do.
  First, we want the States to conduct the tests. We encourage them to 
develop tests that fundamentally are fair and objective. If a test 
focuses on basic reading, basic math, basic science, and students are 
tested on those things, how can anyone complain if a teacher teaches to 
the test? Isn't that what we want? Don't we want to make sure that the 
basics are not being overlooked in the classroom?

  I am excited about the possibility today that, across the Nation, we 
could achieve a fraction of the progress that our Secretary of 
Education achieved in Houston.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield?
  The distinguished Senator from Alabama mentioned Rod Paige was the 
superintendent of schools in Houston before he became Secretary of 
Education. What struck me most about Rod Paige's attitude was that he 
wanted testing. He wanted parents to have a choice. He wanted parents 
to be able to send their children wherever they thought they could get 
a better chance. He was open to it. Because he was open, the public 
schools ended up winning the competition. More students came into 
public schools rather than into private schools because he said, I want 
parents to have the freedom.
  He has had the experience at the grassroots level. He is not somebody 
reading about it out of the book. He has been there. He had a troubled 
school system, and he turned it around by seeking creativity, by 
seeking openness, by seeking choice, by seeking more opportunities for 
parents, because he wants parents to know they are getting the very 
best chance for their children.
  That is what struck me about Rod Paige's style of leadership.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I agree. That is precisely the way I feel. To hear him 
talk with such compassion and concern and determination was exciting.
  His advice was, ``[If we don't care about a child, we will let them 
just go along and we won't find out if they are falling behind.]'' What 
happens if we don't test? A child will be left behind.
  He deeply believes in President Bush's vision that no child should be 
left behind. The Houston example is perfect.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask unanimous consent the period for postcloture 
debate be extended until 4:40 p.m. with the additional time equally 
divided between the majority and the minority parties, and the time be 
deducted from each individual Senator as provided under rule XXII.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the importance of 
adopting legislation to expand and improve the Federal Government's 
commitment to education. In my view, there is no more important issue 
before the Congress than how we deal with education. As our economy 
becomes increasingly global, based on high technology, its future is 
increasingly dependent on the quality of our workforce.
  The better our educational system, the stronger our economy and our 
Nation will be. That is why as a nation we should make education our 
number-one priority.
  Let me begin by saying our current educational system, while it has 
many faults, does have real strengths. Today, throughout our Nation, 
dedicated teachers are working long, hard hours to educate our 
children. Often they get little public recognition and acknowledgment 
for their contributions. Almost always, they are paid much less than 
individuals educated similarly can earn in the private sector. I know 
because my mother was a teacher for 30 years, my wife for 7.
  We have an incredible commitment to teaching from folks across the 
country. We should start this debate on education by saying thank you 
to these teachers. They deserve our appreciation and our support.
  Of course, while our Nation is fortunate to have so many dedicated 
and selfless teachers, the fact remains our educational system still 
has serious problems. Too many of our schools are dilapidated, ill-
equipped, and unsafe.
  During the recent recess I visited schools in Jersey City, NJ, that 
were 100 years old or older. There are still too many children in too 
many classes that are not up to the latest standards. Too few schools 
are at the cutting edge of new technologies and new approaches, and 
mediocrity continues to be tolerated in too many of our school systems, 
without the accountability necessary to improve performance.

  Some have suggested that local school boards should be left alone to 
solve these problems on their own. I disagree. I do support local 
control of education. It is fundamental in America. But local control 
does not mean much if you don't have adequate resources within your 
control. And it's not enough to leave the problem to states, which can 
pit urban areas against suburban communities--a fight with no winners.
  Common sense makes clear that a property-tax-based financial system 
for our public education leaves unequal education rampant in our 
society.
  No, if we are serious about education, we need to make it a national 
priority. We need to ensure that our national government plays an 
active and aggressive role, making sure every child has access to 
quality public education.
  Our public schools can not assure equal outcomes in life, but they 
should provide equal opportunity.
  I am optimistic that we can make that happen, and that we will soon 
pass a strong bill that addresses the most serious pressing issues 
facing education today. I thank Senator Jeffords, Senator Kennedy, and 
the many other leaders in the Senate for their tremendous bipartisan 
efforts to ensure we have an exceptional bill. These are true leaders, 
making sure our children come first. I want to do what I can to help 
ensure their efforts are rewarded with passage in the Senate.
  Today, I would like to take a few minutes to discuss some of the most 
important issues that I hope we will be addressing in the debate ahead.
  First, let me mention some of the areas in which I think most of us 
agree. For example, I think we all agree that we need to promote 
parental involvement in education. It is common sense. That means 
giving parents more information about their children's schools, and 
giving them increased options in choosing among public schools. That is 
the right thing to do, and I am glad these ideas have broad support.
  I am also glad that we generally agree about the value of promoting 
literacy. President Bush--and I compliment him for this--has proposed 
$1 billion annually for a reading first bill, and I applaud him for 
that. We need to make sure appropriations follow the authorization. We 
need to make sure we put our money where our mouth is, so we ensure 
that all children can read by the end of the third grade.
  Another area of broad agreement is the need to improve teacher 
quality.
  A good teacher is probably the most important single factor in the 
quality of a child's education. We can do everything else right, but if 
we do not have excellent teachers, the educational system just will not 
be top drawer.
  That is why it is critically important that we provide real resources 
to attract and retain quality teachers, and to help teachers develop 
their skills and create a career of teaching our children.
  Unfortunately, there is a lot of work to do in this area. Last year, 
schools in high poverty areas hired 50,000 unqualified teachers, and 
only 39 percent of teachers in these areas have an undergraduate major 
or minor in the primary field of instruction. That is not acceptable. 
And I am grateful that colleagues on both sides of the aisle seem to 
agree.
  Unfortunately while there is much about education with which we can 
all

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agree, there are also some areas of disagreement.
  I'm especially concerned about the need to reduce class sizes. In my 
view, it is abundantly clear that smaller classes are better for 
children, and we have made progress in recent years. But we have not 
gone far enough.
  That Jersey City school I visited, the average class size was 29--29 
children. No one believes that is the right size to make sure that you 
have quality education going on in the classroom.
  It is abundantly clear that smaller classes are better for children 
and we have made some progress in recent years, but we have not gone 
far enough.
  The Bush administration in my view is walking away from the class 
size initiative. In my view, that's a serious mistake. I look forward 
to working with Senator Murray and my other colleagues to secure 
approval of an amendment to reduce class sizes later in the debate. We 
ought to move that down to 18 per class.
  I am also disappointed that the administration has failed to address 
one of the most compelling needs in education: the need to modernize 
our schools. Mr. President, 14 million children now attend schools that 
need major renovations, like fixed heating and plumbing systems. 
Nationwide, school construction needs total more than $127 billion. The 
problem is worse in our cities, where two-thirds of the schools--
serving 10 million students--report problems. In my State of New 
Jersey, 87 percent of schools report a need to upgrade or repair a 
building; one in six say that the effort will require between $1.7 
million to $30 million. The average age of all New Jersey school 
buildings is 47 years, compared to the national average of 35 years. 
That is why in New Jersey, we have begun a $12 billion funding program 
to modernize our schools. I believe the Federal Government should be a 
partner in that effort.
  Despite the size of these needs, the Bush administration is proposing 
to eliminate virtually the entire school construction program that 
means higher taxes at the local level. That would be wrong. I look 
forward to working with my colleagues to protect the program, and 
increase our commitment to school modernization.
  We have heard a lot of rhetoric lately about the need to ensure that 
no child is left behind, and about the need for school reform. But, at 
least until now, Congress simply has been unwilling to put our money 
where our mouth is. Whether we do now may be the most important issue 
of all.
  There may be broad support for increased testing in our schools. But 
it does no good to diagnose a problem if you lack the resources to 
treat it.
  I have heard in the last few hours that even in the conference 
committee on the budget we have now dropped the Harkin amendment, 
putting $225 billion over 10 years into supporting our school system. 
This is a mistake. We need to put money where we want our priorities to 
be--and our children should be that.
  If we want to reform schools, we need to provide them with real 
resources. I would highlight, in particular, the title I program, which 
focuses funds on areas with the greatest needs. Title I can and should 
be the real engine for reform. Yet today we are meeting only one-third 
of related needs. And that is just not good enough. My own State 
struggles to cover the costs of implementing parity in education for 
the school children in our Abbott Districts--urban districts, the 
economically deprived. Especially given our historic surpluses, is not 
the time to leave behind the children from low-income families who need 
our help the most. I look forward to working with my colleagues to 
dramatically increase our commitment to the critical title I program.
  I also want to take a few moments to discuss an issue of particular 
interest to me: teaching students the basic principles of financial 
literacy.
  Unfortunately, when it comes to personal finances, young Americans do 
not have the skills they need. Too few understand the details of 
managing a checking account, for example, preparing tax returns or 
using a credit card. A recent survey by the non-profit JumpStart 
Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy revealed the extent of this 
problem, finding that only 36 percent of surveyed high school students 
could correctly answer basic personal finance questions, and only 33 
percent of students believed that financial issues strongly impacted 
their daily lives.
  In my view, it is time to make sure that our education system teaches 
our children all the skills they need, including the fundamental 
principles involved with earning, spending, saving, and investing.
  These skills will help them stay out of debt and maintain a good 
credit record, save money for the future, and negotiate an increasingly 
exceedingly complex financial system.
  I filed an amendment that would include financial education in S. 1, 
and I am very fortunate to have the support of my colleagues, Senators 
Enzi and Akaka. I am hopeful that, working together, we can ensure that 
our next generation is prepared to meet the challenges of the new 
economy.
  In conclusion, I again thank Senators Jeffords and Kennedy for their 
remarkable leadership on this legislation. I look forward to working 
with them and with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make a real 
commitment to education in the legislation before us.
  But we must put resources with reform. The stakes couldn't be higher 
because the future of our children and our Nation depends on it.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, many in the Senate today have not seen 
that much participation with respect to the education debate. I have 
found out after 30-some years up here that you have to direct your 
attention to where you can do the most good. I am not on the Education 
Committee.
  Let me qualify. No. 1, 50 years ago I wrote a 3-percent sales tax for 
public education in the State of South Carolina. We were trying to play 
catchup ball with our sister State, North Carolina. They had passed 
theirs in 1936, some 14 years ahead of us. They were getting the 
industry in, and we were getting no investment whatsoever.
  Right to the point, if somebody wants to attract an industry, don't 
tell me about the taxes, the highways, the climate, the rivers, the 
availability of water and that kind of thing. Get yourself good school 
buildings and a school system.
  So I venture to say of the six-person committee that I headed up, 
five lost the election right after that.
  But be that as it may, no one has put in to repeal that particular 
measure. It has been a saving grace in the sense that not only is it 3, 
but we have now increased it to 5 percent, and we have embellished it 
with technical training.
  I immediately started to work the week after I was elected in 1948. 
The superintendent of the schools in my hometown said, Fritz, I want 
you to get in the car and I want to show you something. We went across 
the river on the bridge on Christ Church Parish Road, and there was a 
big square building of just one story with four sides and a roof and a 
pot-bellied stove. It was November. There was a class in one corner, a 
class in another corner, a class in the third, and a class in the 
fourth corner, and one teacher.

  Those were the schools we had at that time for minorities in South 
Carolina. I have this to say for those who weep and wail about the past 
36 years, I have been putting money into education for the past 50 
years and it's still not enough.
  Yes. I started an equalization of facilities with that sales tax. But 
we have yet to perform the sort of catchup where we provide schools in 
rural areas, and those we have abandoned within the city, with equal 
facilities as those in the wealthier suburbs.
  I came to Washington with that bone in my craw, as the saying goes, 
and I put in a revenue-sharing plan. But in taking the plan around, I 
found that I couldn't put it in just for education. That is what I was 
intent upon. If you can single out and target the program, I thought 
you could get the support. But I was told no, you couldn't get the 
support unless you could get it back to the States for general 
purposes. They did not suffer the ills and needs of my great State of 
South Carolina.
  So I put in on February 1, 1967, the first revenue-sharing bill, 
later abolished in the 1980s, interestingly, from the standpoint of 
Howard Baker who

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led the abolition, or repeal. He said we were just financing the 
Government and we should send money back to the Governors so they could 
take the money and do with it what they wanted. So we were financing 
our opposition. We weren't financing education. We were financing our 
own education. We learned the hard way. So we did away with revenue 
sharing.
  The next thing I got into was a tuition tax credit. I can see the 
distinguished Senator from New York now talking about his Boston Latin 
school. I had the assistance of the Senator from Arkansas, Kaneaster 
Hodges. We fought that particular diversion of funds from public 
schools to private schools, and thereupon they fought the institution, 
the Department of Education. We, along with President Carter, 
established the Department of Education. They wanted to, by gosh, avoid 
and oppose the Department of Education.
  Then I have been on the floor, of course, with the vouchers and 
trying to force those. But I had not paid good enough attention to the 
testing and accountability debate until I started listening to the 
distinguished Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Paul Wellstone, and now I 
know we have to fight. He knows of what he speaks. He is not talking 
about the pollster thing. That is the thing I resent and resist around 
here, this entire operation--that it's pollster driven. The cardinal 
rule of the pollster is: Never take a position that divides the voters. 
Don't say you are for chairs and desks. Don't say you are against them. 
Say I am concerned about these chairs and desks; they trouble me. All 
the Senators are running around, and they are all troubled. That is the 
nonsense we are engaged in.
  But I take a poll, and everybody is for tax cuts. We have forgotten 
from whence we came. I am completely absolutely opposed to the budget 
settlement of $1.235 trillion, plus the stimulus $1.35 
trillion, because I believe in paying down the debt, not increasing it.

  But the polls do not do that. They ask you if you are for a tax cut, 
but they do not tell you we are spending surpluses that do not exist. I 
will bet anybody any amount of money, with any odds, that we will end 
this fiscal year with an increase in the national debt. We have done 
that each year, since Lyndon Johnson was President, for the last 30 
years.
  But now comes education, and it is polled also: Accountability, 
accountability. Here is the crowd that says: We want to find out what 
is wrong. Heavens above, they come to government as if it begins with 
them.
  Senator Wellstone is really fighting the fight for the youngsters of 
America, for the economic strength of America, and for its defense. The 
best defense is an educated citizen. Do not give me all the toys--the 
Osprey: Jump, move forward, jump around, get in it, and kill everybody 
who gets in it. I am not for these toys. I am for education. That is 
the best defense.
  Give me $225 billion; give me the Harkin amendment. That is what I 
want. Give me the moneys to flesh out these programs that have worked. 
But they come and say the programs have not worked. It is ignorance.
  I say to Senator Wellstone, the Governors met in 1988. The 
distinguished Governor from Arkansas got together with another 
Governor, a Republican leader at the time, and they founded, so to 
speak, Goals 2000. But President Bush would not put it in. Then when 
President Clinton got here to put it in, they fought it.
  So I begin to wonder when they say: We don't know how the schools are 
performing. Ha, they fought the Department of Education. They fought to 
privatize all the public money for public schools with vouchers, 
charter schools, tuition tax credits, any way they could, to destroy 
the public support for public schools. And they come now and say they 
don't know, when they fought Goals 2000.
  We had testing in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1994. 
They act as if we haven't heard of testing. We have testing coming out 
of our ears. But the polls say: Accountability; discipline, discipline, 
yes.
  I say to the Senator, in relation to that discipline, I remember the 
mother who sent her little boy to school with a note for the teacher. 
It said: Dear teacher, my boy Ivan is very sensitive. If he misbehaves, 
slap the child next to him. That is punishment enough for my Ivan.
  They say: Discipline, yes. I am for accountability. We are going to 
find out. Don't give me that stuff. Bug off. As my grandchildren say: 
Get a life.
  We provide $7 of every $100 spent--or 7 cents for every $1 spent--on 
education. We act as if we have invented education and all of a sudden 
we are going to do something about it. One way or the other, we are not 
going to do much. But what we do that is working ought to be allowed to 
continue.
  Specifically, we have the women's, infants, and children's nutrition 
program, which is not part of the education budget, but it is an 
important part of education. I worked with Senator Humphrey from 
Minnesota, a state where I worked on and wrote a book on hunger. I got 
with him, and we put in the women's, infants and children's program. 
You have 21 billion brain cells, and I have 21 billion brain cells, and 
17 billion of the 21 billion brain cells have developed in the first 5 
months in the mother's womb. Without the proper nutrition in relation 
to the protein and the synthesis of the nerve cells during those first 
5 months, there can be as much as 20 percent less cellular development 
when that child is born, causing what we call organic brain damage. The 
child can't function, can't assimilate. That has everything to do with 
their education, and yet WIC is not adequately funded to meet the needs 
of all those who are eligible.

  They want to know what works. We have had mathematical studies 
conducted about the benefits of title I for the disadvantaged. For 
every dollar we put in title I, the Government and society reap $7. For 
Head Start, it is $4. That works.
  We are going to have this testing to find out who is failing and who 
is succeeding, but we are not testing the school building, we are not 
testing the principal, we are not testing the school board, we are not 
testing, really, the pupil.
  As my distinguished colleague from Minnesota says, we are testing 
wealth. Why? Because the wealthy student--the one who starts his 
education in a good pre-school and has books read to him, and 
everything else of that kind--by the time he's tested in third grade, 
he has had 6 years of schooling. Without these advantages, a child has 
only three years of schooling coming into the test. So you are testing 
wealth.
  The Senator from Minnesota has educated this Senator. He has really 
gotten into things that mean something to this body and this country. 
We are about to go the way--as I am convinced we are running up the 
national debt, and we have interest costs of $1 billion a day--of 
hollering surpluses, surpluses, surpluses, when we have deficits, 
deficits, deficits. That is their way of getting rid of the Government. 
And this is their way of getting rid of public education--anything to 
get rid of public education.
  We have not really equipped our minority teachers, and yet they have 
outstanding schools here, there, and yonder. And then we have very poor 
ones. We know. I read in the morning paper--I do not have to wait to 
pass this bill--about schools that are practically closed. So they are 
going to take the test. And what are we going to find out? What we 
already know. It is like taking a fellow who can't swim, who is 
drowning 100 yards offshore, and throwing him a 50-yard lifeline. We 
haven't made it all the way for Head Start, for title I, for all of 
these measures. And then we are going to have the test to see whether 
he can swim, while the poor fellow drowns. No. We ought to be realistic 
and look at what we know is there.
  I campaigned all over the State of Texas. I have never forgotten it. 
It was not the ``best little whorehouse in Texas,'' it was the best 
little poorhouse--poorhouse. The Rand Corporation agreed last year that 
Texas had failed to improve on key education points. I can get into 
that debate on schools, but it isn't the point here. The point is, we 
do not want to really find that 20 percent or a third of our schools 
are failures. You do not have to administer a test to see what the good 
schools are doing.
  So what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about 
it? Mr. President, nothing. We are going to talk. We are going to speak 
to the polls

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and say in the campaign: I was for accountability. I am for 
accountability and I voted for testing.
  The Senator from Minnesota and some of us others are going to have an 
extended debate on this issue. We have to educate our colleagues and 
get the support to kill the so-called accountability in its crib, the 
accountability they refused in Goals 2000 and earlier with the testing 
in the 1994 act. Now they act as if they have a discovery to identify 
the problem--hit-and-run driving.
  Yes, accountability, accountability, accountability. Ask them about 
the Patients' Bill of Rights. There are too many lawsuits when you 
bring a suit to get accountability. No, no, we are not for 
accountability. We have too many lawyers. Get rid of the lawyers. That 
is also in the polls. Kill all the lawyers, said Shakespeare in Henry 
VI. Accountability.
  Unfunded mandates, where are they? They were jumping all over the 
place 7 years ago on unfunded mandates. Now they are pell-mell down the 
road. For what? The President has put in $320 million to cover an 
estimated $2 to $7 billion in costs over the 4-year testing period. I 
am concerned that the states will have to pick up a substantial part of 
that cost.
  We had the Governors. We had the local people say, heck, we know, we 
are there. It is amazing to me the distinguished President, who had 
been a Governor, acts as if he never has been in government before. He 
would know that this would hackle every Governor, every school board, 
every school superintendent, every principal. They know about testing. 
They are trying to get the money. But, no, we have accountability. We 
have unfunded mandates now, and right on down the road with a program 
that can't possibly work. But it is only going to highlight the need, 
they say, for vouchers.
  The Senator from Minnesota has an amendment that fleshes out a 
program that works; namely to fully fund Title I before we proceed with 
a testing mandate. You have to teach the course before you give the 
exam. The U.S. Congress has not taught the course. We haven't given 
students, in many instances, the building. We haven't given them the 
professional classroom teacher. We haven't given them the right size 
class so that they can get the teacher's attention. We haven't given 
them counselors, and they need counseling. We haven't given, of course, 
the different courses and other assistance that we have all found, from 
time to time, is very necessary. So we haven't taught the course, but 
we are going to give them the exam. We are going to have 
accountability, and we are going to puff and blow and walk all around 
on the political stump saying: I was in Washington and I told that 
Washington crowd that we had to have accountability.
  I want them to come with the Patients' Bill of Rights, because that 
is what we have in the Patients' Bill of Rights, some accountability. 
If they absolutely step aside, if they engage in malicious and reckless 
conduct, malpractice, then we can bring the suit. That makes them 
accountable. But, no, they are opposed to that kind of thing.
  If the test shows schools are failing, we are not going to put up the 
billions to improve schools. Instead, they are going to put on a full 
course drive for vouchers to $1,500. What is that going to do?
  The real need is to get teachers' pay up. If I were king for a day--I 
ran for the Presidency on this back in the 1980s--they laughed but it 
is still just as efficacious--I would increase teacher pay, because 
that $36,000, the average pay of a teacher in South Carolina, doesn't 
do the job.
  But I go across the stage having made a graduation speech, and 
students approach me and say: Senator, I wanted to get into teaching, 
but I couldn't save enough money with the pay to send my kids to 
college. We have a lot of dedicated teachers in the classrooms and a 
lot of great schools, but we are missing out on bringing in the 
feedstock of that professional teacher because we are not paying 
enough. We are doing it on the cheap. We are doing it on the cheap, and 
we know it.
  But we are going to tinker around. We are going to have reading. We 
are going to have math and science, and we are going to have the size 
of the classroom. And we are going to build another building, and we 
are going to toy around with it to try the hit-and-run drive, to 
identify with the problem but not solve it.

  Begin at the beginning. Somehow let's get some revenue sharing with 
the teacher out in that rural school or combat pay for the inner-city 
classroom teacher. They deserve combat pay trying to keep law and order 
and act as a parent at the same time. The role of a teacher is just 
almost unable to be performed in the sense that teachers can't get 
around to teaching because of the other particular duties at hand.
  I will have plenty more to say when this measure comes up about 
accountability. Please spare the Senator here from all of these 
expressions, the pollsters. Has anyone ever heard of a pollster being 
elected to anything? If they can find me a pollster who has been 
elected to office, I would like to find one. A pollster has never 
experienced anything.
  Here are some expressions. We have to give the child ``a real 
chance.'' We want to ``find out what works'' and so forth like that. We 
need to ``increase flexibility.'' We need to ``reduce bureaucracy.'' We 
need to ``empower parents.'' Come on. Don't give us all of that. 
Parents are working day and night and the child is home and nobody is 
helping him with his homework. And we know it. We don't need a test to 
prove it. Let's get away from all of this gamesmanship and polling 
politics and really do something for public education in the United 
States.
  If they want a starting point, our distinguished friend from 
Massachusetts has led the way and held the line on public schools for 
the years I have been up here. I have been glad to associate with him.
  But I can tell you here and now, this is dangerous to come in and 
start, under the auspices of accountability, testing from the third to 
the eighth grade every student in all of America. They are going to 
create the very cost and the bureaucracy they want to get rid of and 
waste money that is needed for teachers' pay. The ultimate is, of 
course, finding out that there are a lot of schools in need, and we 
know where they are, and we are trying to get assistance to them. I saw 
it 50 years ago when I put in a county-wide millage for a school in 
Awendaw. You put in 100 mills property tax in that rural area, and you 
couldn't build a lunchroom, much less a school. So as chairman of the 
delegation, I put it in.
  So don't give us these nebulous statements of flexibility and 
empowerment and all these buzz words around here. Let's give us some 
education and test the Senate. That is where we ought to have a test. 
Find out if we have passed the test first. Have we really fleshed out 
the women, infants, and children's program? Have we really fleshed out 
and supported 100 percent Head Start. Have we really financed title I 
for the disadvantaged? Have we built school buildings so that students 
can learn without the ceiling falling in on their heads or freezing to 
death? Have we done that? Give us the test first. Find out what we have 
done.
  Or have we regarded what we have already known to be the case, what 
the Governors have come in with, Goals 2000? Have we responded to the 
test that we prescribed with the flexibility they said they wanted? In 
1994, they wanted the States to be able to decide.
  Have we passed that test? Give us a flunking grade, a zero--except 
for the Senator from Massachusetts, the Senator from Minnesota, the 
Senator from Iowa, and some others, such as the Senator from 
Connecticut, Mr. Dodd. They have been out here working for education. 
But there are only a handful of them who can pass the test if given to 
the Senate itself. That is what I want to see. Cut out the pollster's 
gamesmanship and the campaigning and let's think not of our needs to be 
reelected, but the needs of the country to prosper and survive.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page S4156]]

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I understand our time would start in 
about 10 minutes. I am going to yield time to Senator Byrd, the time up 
to 4 o'clock, and then we will reclaim our time because we have 
speakers coming at 4. So such time as he may consume, until 4, I yield 
to Senator Byrd.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Texas yield time from 
the Republican side to Senator Byrd until the hour of 4 p.m.?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I yield up until 4 o'clock to Senator Byrd, but I 
would not want it to come from the Republican time if others come and 
want to speak on the Republican time.
  Mr. BYRD. If the distinguished Senator from Texas will yield, may I 
suggest that I only take--I think we have 5, 6 or 8 minutes----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is 7\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. BYRD. May I suggest that I take that amount of time now and make 
a few remarks about Bob Schieffer. Then I will wait until 4:30. I could 
have more time at that point, as I understand it.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Yes, that is correct.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senator for her efforts to accommodate me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.

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