[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 81 (Tuesday, June 12, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6061-S6078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BETTER EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS ACT
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of S. 1, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1) to extend programs and activities under the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
Pending:
Jeffords amendment No. 358, in the nature of a substitute.
Kennedy (for Dodd) amendment No. 382 (to amendment No.
358), to remove the 21st century community learning center
program from the list of programs covered by performance
agreements.
Biden amendment No. 386 (to amendment No. 358), to
establish school-based partnerships between local law
enforcement agencies and local school systems, by providing
school resource officers who operate in and around elementary
and secondary schools.
Leahy (for Hatch) amendment No. 424 (to amendment No. 358),
to provide for the establishment of additional Boys and Girls
Clubs of America.
Helms amendment No. 574 (to amendment No. 358), to prohibit
the use of Federal funds by any State or local educational
agency or school that discriminates against the Boy Scouts of
America in providing equal access to school premises or
facilities.
Helms amendment No. 648 (to amendment No. 574), in the
nature of a substitute.
Dorgan amendment No. 640 (to amendment No. 358), expressing
the sense of the Senate that there should be established a
joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives to
investigate the rapidly increasing energy prices across the
country and to determine what is causing the increases.
Hutchinson modified amendment No. 555 (to amendment No.
358), to express the sense of the Senate regarding the
Department of Education program to promote access of Armed
Forces recruiters to student directory information.
Feinstein modified amendment No. 369 (to amendment No.
358), to specify the purposes for which funds provided under
subpart 1 of part A of title I may be used.
Reed amendment No. 431 (to amendment No. 358), to provide
for greater parental involvement.
Dodd/Biden further modified amendment No. 459 (to amendment
No. 358), to provide for the comparability of educational
services available to elementary and secondary students
within States.
Clinton modified amendment No. 516 (to amendment No. 358),
to provide for the conduct of a study concerning the health
and learning impacts of sick and dilapidated public school
buildings on children and to establish the Healthy and High
Performance Schools Program.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts is
recognized.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand the proponent of the
amendment, Senator Gregg, will be here momentarily. I back up what our
leaders have stated. We are interested in the completion of this
legislation. We have been making progress in the disposition of
amendments, but we have a
[[Page S6062]]
number of our colleagues who have said they are not ready to call up
their amendments. That might have been a reasonable comment a week ago
or 4 weeks ago or 5 weeks ago, but it certainly is not now. We are
going to move ahead. Regrettably, there are ways we can ultimately
dispose of these amendments if we are put in that position.
What is completely unacceptable and completely unfair to our
colleagues is the failure to bring these amendments up and to indicate
to the floor managers a willingness to work through these amendments.
We are glad to have the votes when the votes are due. We are glad to
debate amendments, discuss them, and accept them when we can. We are
glad to cooperate in every way. We have received the strong direction
from our leader saying we want disposition. This bill has been before
the Senate for 8 weeks. Members have had an opportunity to study it, to
read about it, to think about it, and work with their staffs. There is
no further reason for delay. We will make every effort to dispose of
the amendments in a timely way. We are prepared to work long and hard
on these measures. We intend to accept the leader's challenge and
complete the work this week.
I suggest the absence of a quorum, with the time to be charged to the
proponent of the amendment.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the time that has
been running against the amendment be charged equally against both
sides. I am going to suggest the absence of a quorum and request the
time be charged equally.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
There being no objection, that will be the order.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The absence of a quorum having been
suggested, the clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. I thank the Chair.
Amendment No. 536
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senator from
New Hampshire, Mr. Gregg, is recognized to offer amendment No. 536, on
which there will be 4 hours for debate.
Mr. GREGG. I ask that the clerk report my amendment.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg], for himself and
Mr. Hutchinson, proposes an amendment numbered 536.
Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be
dispensed with.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The text of the amendment printed in the Record of May 9, 2001,
under ``Amendments Submitted''.)
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this amendment has popularly been referred
to as the choice amendment or the portability amendment. It is an
amendment which is crucial to the issue of how we are going to approach
education as we proceed as a nation. It is crucial for a lot of
different reasons, but primarily it deals with a group of people in our
country who have been left behind in our educational system. It doesn't
deal with the wealthy. It doesn't deal with those of moderate income.
It really deals with low-income people, most of them in urban schools,
who find the school systems their children are put into are failing and
that their children are being left behind.
The American dream, which is the essence of what makes our country
such a vibrant nation, is tied to the ability to be an educated
individual. You cannot participate in the American dream unless you are
well educated, unless you can compete and participate in our society,
and that requires a quality education.
So when you go through a school which does not teach, which is filled
with violence or filled with drugs, when you know every day a child who
goes to that school is falling further and further behind his or her
peers in other schools because that school is not able to teach that
child, then that child cannot participate in the American dream--you
are denying that child the opportunity to participate in the American
dream.
There are many attempts in this bill to correct the problem. There
are many initiatives in this bill to try to make failing schools work
better. Regrettably, they are not going to all work. There will
continue to be schools that fail.
Today, in our system of education, literally thousands of schools
across this country are defined as failing schools, and that means that
thousands, tens of thousands, potentially millions of children,
unfortunately, are in schools that are not educating them adequately.
So one option that should be given to the parents of those children
is to allow them, after their children have been in a failing school
for a period of time and the school has not improved even though
attempts have been made to improve it--to allow those children, and the
parents of those children, to have other options, to go to schools
where they will be able to learn, where they will be able to succeed,
and where they will, therefore, be able to take advantage of the
American dream.
This bill, hopefully, will include an expansion of what is known as
public school choice. But there are a lot of communities in this
country, regrettably, that have no public schools that are not failing
to which kids can move. Therefore, the option of going to some other
type of school, a private school, should be available to them.
In our society, if you have a fairly decent income, you can leave the
public school system and go to a private school. A lot of people who
have the income to accomplish it choose that option. The former
President of the United States, for example, chose that option. But if
you are a single mother, especially a single mother in an urban area,
trying to raise your children on a low income, you do not have that
option; you are stuck in that failing school. Your children are
sentenced to that school even though the school is unable to accomplish
what it is supposed to do, which is to teach your children.
This amendment is not going to fully address the issue. I wish it
would, but it is not. This amendment is going to set up a demonstration
program, and a very limited demonstration program, the purpose of which
is to see if private school choice using Federal dollars can alleviate
the problem to some degree, can allow some children today, who are not
in schools that are teaching them, to go to schools that will teach
them; to allow some children to have a chance at the American dream who
do not have it today. Private school choice is used in a lot of public
systems.
Remember, when you are talking private school choice, it sounds as if
you are saying the public schools are left out of the process. In the
public system, they use private school choices. Today, in the public
system, the elected officials are responsible. They make the decision
that children in the school system should have a choice between a
public and private system. It is used in a lot of different
communities. It is used in Milwaukee. It is used in Cleveland. It is
used in Florida. It is used to some degree in Arizona.
The difficulty, of course, behind this is that these States and these
communities have come to the conclusion that they will improve their
public school system by allowing some of the children in their public
school systems to have the option of going to a private school if the
public school isn't working well.
This demonstration program is an attempt to follow the leadership
that has been shown already by a lot of other public school districts
across this country who have chosen to put in place a private school
option as part of their public school education system, as I
[[Page S6063]]
said, in a very limited proposal. In fact, I intend to modify it to
make it even more limited as we go down the road. But, essentially,
under the present structure, it will only be voluntary, and it will
only apply to families who make less than $32,000 a year. This is not
going to be a high-income option. It will only apply to families who
make less than $32,000 a year and whose children are in school systems
where the school has failed for 3 years. That means by definition that
child, if he or she is in the third grade, is already probably 3 years
behind their peers in the school system that is working correctly.
It will also be limited as to the number of groups that can
participate to three States in ten school districts.
It is a very small demonstration program. It will be limited to $50
million, funds which come from outside the title I program.
It cannot be argued that the dollars to fund this demonstration
program are in any way undermining the dollars available to the public
school system. This will be a new pool of money available to fund the
child who moves on to a private system because the school system isn't
working correctly.
It will also have as a component that special consideration must be
given for applications of students coming from the highest number of
low-income families. It will really focus on those families who need it
the most, who, in my opinion, happen to be in primary instances single
moms trying to raise their kids mostly in inner-city schools.
Since the purpose of this amendment is a demonstration grant and a
small one at that, it will have an extremely aggressive evaluation
procedure so that we can find out whether or not private school choice
under a public school system works.
Parents in our urban schools have been waiting for this type of
reform for a long time. There has been a lot of rhetoric about it.
About every 2 years, the superintendent of the District of Columbia
school system changes. While the system of the superintendent changes,
the school systems regrettably don't. We continue to see failure.
Today we have 9,000 schools across this country which are identified
as failures--9,000 schools. Some have been identified as failures for 4
years, for 6 years, and for 8 years.
It is not unheard of, for example, for an entire public school
district to be identified as failing. That is the case, for example, in
Kansas City. Clearly the parents there have no option. They cannot go
from one public school to another public school because all of the
public schools in the districts have failed.
As a result of this failure, we have seen especially a debilitating
impact on minority kids. We know, for example, that today two out of
every three African-American students and Hispanic students in fourth
grade can barely read. Seventy percent of the children in high-poverty
schools score below even the most basic levels of reading, and half the
students from urban school districts fail to graduate on time if they
graduate at all.
We need to give the parents of these children an additional option.
There is, I believe, great interest in this. You don't have to
believe me. You don't have to take this as just a vague statement
because there have been exercises in this area that have shown this,
especially from low-income families.
The Children's Scholarship Fund, which was founded by Ted Forstmann
and John Walton, created a private foundation to provide scholarships
to low-income children who wanted the opportunity to go out of the
public school system into a private school system. They received 1.25
million applications from poor families across the country.
Unfortunately, they could only give out 40,000 scholarships. But in New
York City, 29 percent of the poor families of school-age children
applied. In the District of Columbia, 33 percent of families of poor
children applied. In Baltimore, 44 percent of poor families with
school-aged children applied.
Joseph Califano, in commenting on this, said:
These parents sent a powerful message. They want out of
schools that cannot protect their children's safety, let
alone teach them. This tidal wave of applications from
parents desperate to give their children an opportunity to
receive a quality education must serve as a wake-up call . .
. By quarantining poor--
That is probably the best way to describe it because that is what we
do in our society--
mostly minority children in schools affluent families would
never tolerate, we do not preserve the institution of public
education. We dishonor its guiding ideals.
Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, in commenting on this,
said:
. . . some children receive a better education than others
due to their parents' abilities to pay for benefits that are
often missing in public schools. This inequity is a violation
of the civil right of the parents and children who are so
afflicted by lack of income and by the mismanagement endemic
to so many of the country's public school systems.
Some would say if you take this option, you are going to undermine
the public system because you are going to take kids out of the public
system and put them into a private system. Of course, we really do not
know what will happen because we have never tried it at the Federal
level. But we do have examples of what has happened in public school
systems in other communities that have tried to put in their State and
local dollars.
We know, for example, that in places such as Charlotte and Milwaukee
the public school systems have been perceived, at least by the local
community, as improving significantly as a result of a private school
choice.
A study, in fact, which was done by Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby,
found the Milwaukee private school choice program pushed the city's
public elementary schools to improve.
Quoting from the leadership in the Milwaukee public school system,
Kenneth Johnson, vice president of the Milwaukee public school board of
directors and an AFL-CIO member, said:
Private school choice is one of the best things that ever
happened to my city's public schools. . . . When choice came
about, the Milwaukee Public School System had to rethink
education. It's now a matter of seeing parents as customers.
Milwaukee public school superintendent Spence Korte said:
Between choice and the general decline of live births,
we're all feeling the pinch to make sure that people
understand what our programs offer and, certainly that we're
competitive.
In other words, the school systems are improving as a result of
choice.
John Gardiner, an at-large member of the Milwaukee public school
board of directors and a member of the NAACP and the ACLU, stated the
following about the effects of choice on public schools in Milwaukee:
My involvement in the MPS--as a member of the school board,
as a parent and as an active and concerned citizen--has
persuaded me that MPS's internal reforms require the
sustained challenge and competition of the Milwaukee Parental
Choice Program. The program puts effective pressure on MPS to
expand, accelerate and improve reforms long deliberated and
too-long postponed.
The simple fact is, we have seen in Milwaukee, which has tried public
school/private school choice options aggressively, a significant
improvement in the school system and a significant improvement in the
quality of the education of the students, which is the basic goal.
In Florida the same situation can be cited. Florida has a statewide
choice program where they rate the schools; and if you are in a school
that is rated D or F, you have the opportunity to choose a private
school option.
The Urban League of Miami found that the Florida voucher plan
instilled in public schools a sense of urgency and zeal for reform not
seen in the past, when a school's failure was rewarded only with more
money that reinforced failure.
It is fairly obvious, I believe, first through just looking at the
situation and in reviewing it, and from intuition, that if you create
competition you usually improve a product.
The reason somebody chooses McDonald's over Burger King is because
they think the product is better at one or the other. Regrettably, our
public school systems have not ever had the competition necessary to
improve the product.
The purpose of choice, of course, is not to undermine the public
school system; it is just the opposite. It is to create an incentive
for reform in the public school system which improves those systems.
That is exactly what has been seen to happen in those areas of our
country where choice has been given a reasonable opportunity to be
tested, specifically in Milwaukee and Florida.
[[Page S6064]]
What about student achievement, which, of course, is the bottom line?
The goal is to take these kids who have been locked in a failing
school, who are reading at two or three grade levels behind their
peers, who are not graduating, who, therefore, cannot participate in
the American dream, and give them an opportunity.
Every major evaluation of school choice effectiveness has found
significant academic gains for the students participating in those
programs. Test scores in Milwaukee, Dayton, and Charlotte have all been
reviewed by scholars from Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Georgetown, and
the University of Texas. In all those communities it has been
determined that the kids who have been able to participate in the
private school option have had their test scores go up. These, in all
instances, have been kids from low-income families, urban poor in most
instances, who before they had this option were left out of the
American dream.
We have spent $120 billion in the last 35 years on title I, directed
at trying to help low-income kids. The result of those expenditures has
been that low-income kids are reading two grade levels below their
peers and are graduating from high school at half the rate of their
peers. There has been absolutely no academic improvement in those kids
over this 35-year period. In the last 10 years, when we spent the most
amount of money, the academic improvement also has not increased at
all.
There has been $120 billion spent to try to help kids who have come
from low-income families, and we have left them behind. It is a
disgrace. We have locked these children in schools where they cannot
learn because there is violence, because there are drugs, and because
the school system simply will not respond to the needs of those
children.
What I am suggesting in this amendment is a small step--a two-tenths
of 1 percent step compared to what we spend in the rest of title I in
this bill--to be applied to a demonstration--$50 million--to see if we
can determine whether or not the option of giving children a private
school choice is going to improve their academic achievement. It is
hardly a big expense in the context of what we have done, but if you
look at it in the context of what the results have been in communities
such as Milwaukee and Dayton and Charlotte and the State of Florida,
the returns may be overwhelming.
This could be the best investment we make in this entire bill in
terms of giving kids an opportunity to learn and participate in the
American dream.
Are parents satisfied with this option? If you look at the States and
the communities that have used this approach, parents are
extraordinarily satisfied.
In Charlotte, nearly twice as many choice parents gave their
children's school an A rating as did those parents whose kids went to
public schools.
In Milwaukee, 72 percent of the parents with kids going to private
schools gave their kids' school an A rating as compared to 16 percent
for the public schools.
So the impact is significant. The parents see it and, most
importantly, the children see it in their better chance to participate
in America.
One of those images that stands out from when I was a kid watching
TV--and I do not even remember the Governor's full name; I guess it was
Faubus, from Arkansas--I remember the National Guard going up to the
school. I must have been in the first grade or so or maybe I was in the
third grade. The National Guard went up to the school door, and this
elected official, who was the Governor of the State, was standing in
the school door saying he was not going to let this child, who seemed
to be a little bit older than me, about the age of my brother--I think
it was a girl--in the school. I could not understand it. Of course, we
learned this was wrong. And we changed our Nation because of it.
Today what we have are people standing in that school door not
letting kids out, locking them in those schools which are not teaching
them. And why? Why are they doing that? Because the bureaucracy and the
labor unions fear the option of giving parents a choice. It is that
simple.
This is not about education. This is about the power of political
groups to influence the process. When you have lost generation after
generation of kids to schools that are failing, when you have 9,000
schools in this country that are designated as failing, and those
schools have failed for 4 and 5 and 6 and 8 years, and you know that
every child who goes through that school is not going to have a chance
to participate in the American dream, Miss King is right, a civil right
is being denied--absolutely being denied to those children--simply
because they do not have the wherewithal to get out of that school and
get a decent education.
In this bill we attempt to improve those schools that have failed. We
make a huge commitment in that area. But we know we are not going to be
successful everywhere. We know that. We know that in some urban areas
the schools simply are not going to cut it, and the kids who go to
those schools are going to be left behind.
We have an obligation, I believe, to at least find out whether or not
there isn't a better way, to first give that child an option to get a
decent education and, second, to put real pressure on that public
school system to improve.
We have seen it work in Milwaukee. We have seen it work in Charlotte.
We have seen it work in Florida. And for a small amount of $50 million,
we can see whether it can work here with the Federal Government,
targeted solely on the child who comes from a low-income family and who
is stuck in a school that has failed for 3 consistent years.
I can't see how this amendment can be opposed, other than on the
grounds that it affronts the power politics of Washington, DC, which
are structured around bureaucracies and labor unions that will at all
costs defend their turf, even if that cost involves a child's
education.
Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Arkansas such time as he
may consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Corzine). The Senator from Arkansas is
recognized.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New
Hampshire, Mr. Gregg, for his leadership on this issue. He has outlined
not only what this amendment is but what it would do and why it is so
important.
It would enable 10 interested cities, 3 interested States, to provide
low-income parents with the option to send their children to the public
or private school of their choice. The Secretary of Education would
award grant money to these interested cities and States based on their
application.
Under the amendment, special consideration would be given to
applications which sought to serve the highest number of children from
low-income families and that provided parents with a diverse range of
schools from which to choose. No money would be taken away from public
schools for this program. Whether it is title I or IDEA, there would be
a hold harmless. Nobody would be reduced. A pool of money of $50
million would be established in fiscal year 2002 to be used for this
new program.
Only children who are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch,
children from families at 185 percent of poverty or below, and who
attend a school that has been identified as failing for 3 successive
years would be eligible to receive educational certificates for tuition
under this amendment.
There is also a strong evaluation component to this program. It
requires the Secretary of Education to contract with an independent
evaluating entity to conduct an ongoing evaluation of the program. For
all the doubters out there, we would at least be able to provide the
data, to provide the evidence one way or another on whether choice
really benefits students and parents and, in fact, improves public
schools.
The Center on Education Policy, an independent advocate for public
schools, states in their report entitled ``School Vouchers: What We
Know and Don't Know and How We Could Learn More,'' evaluation
requirements are important to any public policy on school choice.
This little pittance of $50 million for the entire Nation could
provide us the kind of database we need, the kind of evidence, the kind
of analysis to allow public policymakers of the future to know. Senator
Gregg and I may have the confidence--we may believe the
[[Page S6065]]
evidence is there--but this demonstration program will provide the kind
of evidence needed to convince policymakers, both at the State and
Federal level, of the value of a choice program.
The idea of school choice is not at all new. It has been around for
years. We currently have three high-profile school choice programs in
Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Florida. There are a number of others around
the country. They offer a money-back guarantee to parents of children
in failing schools.
Taxpayers deserve to get results from funding that goes to public
schools. After 35 years and $120 billion in Federal funding, it is time
we hold schools accountable for enabling our children to reach high
standards.
In my own thinking, as I have cosponsored this amendment and thought
about the issue of what is the legitimate role of the Federal
Government, do we have a role, I believe it must be very limited. I do
believe, however, that a demonstration program that targets only low-
income students--and that has been the basis upon which the Federal
Government has involved itself in a domain that has been historically
left to State and local entities; we have said the Federal Government
has a responsibility for disadvantaged students in trying to narrow the
learning gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students--fits the
proper Federal role. This amendment targets directly those who are
disadvantaged. Only low-income students from low-income families would
be able to access these education certificates.
In my own mind, I have outlined five reasons I believe this amendment
should be passed. No. 1, it is totally voluntary and permissive. We are
talking about 10 cities in 3 States. No one would be forced. There
would be no compulsion. I know some of my colleagues from Western
States do not support the idea of choice. They don't see that as
advantageous in their particular situation. I understand that. I ask
them--not for what it might do for their rural States in which there
are few choices and in which schools are widely diverse and separated
by many miles--to think, as they vote on the amendment, not about their
States, because it will not affect them, but about those children
trapped in failing schools in the inner cities of our country, to think
about inner-city Philadelphia or inner-city Washington, DC, or Atlanta
or Houston where the Secretary of Education understands the value of
this kind of a program and has endorsed this very concept.
No one would be forced to be involved. There is no compulsion. There
would be an independent entity to evaluate and determine whether or not
this was a worthwhile approach.
A report prepared by the National Research Council and commissioned
by the Clinton administration recommends that Government conduct ``a
large and ambitious research experiment to determine whether school
choice programs improve student performance.'' That was the
recommendation of a study commissioned by the Clinton administration,
issued in 1999, that said this is exactly the kind of large-scale
experiment--if you can call $50 million nationwide large scale--to give
us the answers to the questions posed concerning the value of a choice
program.
I believe choice opponents, those who oppose the idea of allowing
parents this kind of choice, should support this amendment. If in fact
they are right, this will give them the data to put the stake, finally,
in the idea of choice programs.
It is totally voluntary. It is entirely permissive. I hope my
colleagues who have reservations about choice will support this
amendment, realizing that no school district and no State would be
required to participate. It is entirely permissive. Only those who are
interested, only those who, on their own volition, decide they want to
experiment, they want to try, they want to be a part of this
demonstration program, will even be affected.
No. 2, I ask my colleagues to support this amendment because in fact
it does target and benefit those for whom we have our greatest
concern--low-income families. It would only be failing schools, those
who have failed year after year after year. The certificates would only
be for children who are eligible for free and reduced lunch.
We have a form of choice in this country right now. The choice,
though, is limited to your ability to move to a new neighborhood. I am
told that in Dallas, TX, there are about 158 local schools. Affluent
families are limited in their choice of what elementary school to go to
only by their ability to buy a home in that particular neighborhood.
Those who have the means to relocate--and it happens here in the
Washington, DC, area. When people think about buying a home or a
townhouse, they will investigate the neighborhood, the schools, the
crime rate, and they will check out where the best schools are, which
schools have the best teachers, which schools produce the best academic
product. They will make their determination of where they want to
locate, buy their townhouse, or build their home based upon the quality
of the schools. They have their choice.
But those who have no choice are those who are trapped by a limited
income and limited resources and cannot make the decision that their
more affluent neighbors can make to move to a better neighborhood.
Those low-income families are trapped. They have no choice.
My friends, we have a choice program in this country. The choice is
whether we want to extend those choices to those today who are left
out, who don't have the resources. This amendment targets only those
who are in the title I category, those who are low income.
In August of 2000, Dr. Jay Greene issued a report entitled ``The
Effective School Choice and Evaluation of the Charlotte Children
Scholarship Fund.'' He released the results of that study on the
Charlotte scholarship program. Among the study's findings, he found
that school choice improved scores, pleased parents, provided a safer
environment, reduced racial conflict, operated with less money, and
offered smaller class sizes and helped low-income parents.
In early 2000, John Witt, a professor of the University of Wisconsin,
Milwaukee, the official evaluator of the Milwaukee school choice
program, released the results of that latest study. His prior reports,
which often had been critical of the Milwaukee choice program and
basically concluded they didn't work, most recently changed his
conclusions and said the market approach to education and analysis of
America's voucher program said that ``choice is a useful tool to aid
low-income families.''
That is the reason I ask my colleagues to join in supporting this
amendment because it is targeting only the most disadvantaged. The
argument so often raised against vouchers is this is only going to
benefit higher income people making the choice to go to private schools
and this is going to make it easier for them to flee the public schools
for the private schools. You cannot make that case under this
amendment. It targets and it is limited only to failing schools and
low-income families.
Low-income academic improvement has been undisputed in the choice
programs in this country. In August of 2000, Harvard University
professor Paul Peterson and his colleagues released the results of a
study of a privately funded voucher program in New York, in Dayton, OH,
and in the District of Columbia. They found that African-American
children who used vouchers to attend private schools made significant
academic improvements. Black students in their second year at a private
school had improved their test scores by 6.3 percentile points--a
striking advance at a time when schools around the country were showing
an inability to close the achievement gap between white and African-
American students.
If we are really concerned, as we insist we are, in increasing title
I funding because of our concern about disadvantaged students, everyone
who says that should support this amendment because it can only benefit
those who are least advantaged today.
Another piece of evidence is that test scores of low-income children
are consistently improving when they are placed in schools with middle-
income children. For example, a congressionally mandated 4-year study
of about 27,000 title I students found that poor students who attended
middle-class schools performed significantly better than those who
attended schools where
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at least half the children were eligible for subsidized lunch. The
contrast was even greater with schools in which more than 75 percent of
students lived in low-income households. I think that is very
compelling; that this kind of a demonstration program, this kind of a
choice opportunity is going to be particularly beneficial academically
for low-income, disadvantaged students who now would be able to be
shoulder to shoulder in a school that had higher income students--what
we call middle and upper middle class students. The evidence is that
when put in that classroom context, academic scores go up. I ask my
colleagues to support this amendment because, in fact, it targets and
benefits the most needy--low-income students.
Thirdly, it takes absolutely nothing from the public schools. No
State will lose money. Not a State in this country would see their
portion of Federal funding reduced because of this amendment. There
would be no title I reductions; there would be no IDEA impact. All of
the kinds of traditional arguments we hear against choice programs are
taken off the table by this amendment. No school would lose money; no
public school would be hurt. It would merely provide an opportunity--a
small opportunity indeed--for $50 million statewide, 3 States, 10
cities--but it would begin to give us the evidence we need, and it
would give hope to a few who would be able to participate in this
demonstration program.
It answers the main concern that opponents have raised, and that is
that it is taking money away from public schools. It will not do that.
I think that is evidenced by the fact the Washington Post endorsed the
Gregg amendment. Everybody--all my colleagues--has on their desk a copy
of that endorsement. Their concern has been that these kinds of choice
programs are going to take money away from the public schools or they
are going to only benefit higher income people. This amendment
addresses both of those concerns. That is why the Washington Post has
endorsed this amendment, because it targets the low income and will
have no negative impact on public schools.
Fourthly, I ask Senators to support this amendment because this whole
concept is, in fact, immensely popular. It is supported by the vast
majority of the American people--this kind of idea to give parents more
choices and more opportunities.
For example, a congressionally mandated 4-year study of about 27,000
title I students--I made reference to that, but they showed great
academic improvement. The popularity of this program is becoming
increasingly beyond dispute.
In March 2001, the National Education Association released their
findings from a recent survey in which a clear majority of the American
people supported the President's proposal to allow parents of children
in chronically failing schools to use public dollars to send their
children to a public, private, or charter school of choice. In fact, 63
percent favored giving them tuition vouchers worth $1,500 a year, as
the President originally proposed.
Frankly, I wish we had done what the President campaigned on and what
he proposed doing, in taking part of that title I money, the Federal
dollars, for low-income children, and in chronically failing schools
that failed in 3 successive years, giving them the opportunity to take
that money and use it in private schools, with tutors. That has been
watered down, diluted, and basically removed. All that remains is
supplemental services, not a voucher at all. I wish we had done that.
The American people supported that. But we didn't and we are where we
are. This is our opportunity to at least give it a try. It is supported
and is very popular.
Senator Gregg cited the statistics during his opening comments that
last year the Children's Scholarship Foundation, a private scholarship
fund, offered 40,000 scholarships nationwide and had one and a quarter
million applicants. Maybe that is the best evidence. Maybe that is the
best evidence of the popularity of this approach. Those one and a
quarter million applications were in spite of the fact that applicants
had to match the scholarship with $1,000 of their own money. Low-
income, poor families were willing to put up $1,000 in order to be able
to participate, to have the choice that wealthier, higher income people
have every day.
This is a popular concept. It is something we as a Senate, we as a
Congress, should give a trial opportunity--or fail. We should not
buckle under to the teachers unions and those who are wedded to the
status quo. If we are concerned about leaving no child behind, this is
an amendment that ought to get overwhelming support in the Senate.
I ask my colleagues to support this amendment because it fosters
competition and innovation. I believe competition between private
schools and public schools benefits all children in this country.
I have often used the analogy of our higher education in this
country. We have, indisputably, the best higher educational system in
the world. Travel the world; we find leaders in most of the countries
of this world who have received part of their higher education in the
United States. Foreign students flock to this country to receive the
best in higher education. How did we achieve that? We created a system
of Pell grants. One can take that Pell grant and go anywhere, any
accredited institution: public, private, parochial or otherwise. That
competition has enhanced the quality and the academic standing of all
of our institutions of higher learning. It has fostered innovation and
made our colleges and universities world class by all standards.
Then we look at elementary, look at high school, and see between 4th
grade and 12th grade this steep decline in our competitiveness with
other nations. The difference is, in higher education, there is choice;
in elementary and secondary, there is no choice unless you are wealthy
enough to take advantage, unless you have the resources. Then you have
choice.
Why should we not give low-income parents the same opportunity, the
same choices, the same chance to give their children the opportunity to
live the American dream that their more affluent neighbors have? That
is the heart, that is the crux of the Gregg amendment.
I believe, as we have seen in Milwaukee, public schools will improve
and academic achievement for all students will improve. It is one of
the interesting things about the Jay Greene study on the Florida A+
program. It was not just the students who were beneficiaries but the
public school institutions that are the winners. He found when a public
school failed for the second time and they began to have the threat
that some of their students might depart and receive opportunity
scholarships to go elsewhere hanging over them, suddenly those test
scores began to increase. In fact, they increased twice as much as
those test score achievements in other schools. So the schools of all
stripes are the winners under a program such as this. That competition
is healthy.
America today has, whether we admit it or not, a nationwide school
choice system. It is a school choice system that is rationed, rationed
educational opportunity, through the housing market--where you can
afford to live. If you can afford to move out into the suburbs, if you
can afford to go and pick your neighborhood where the good schools are,
you have your choice.
We have a very class conscious choice system in this country. The
Gregg amendment says shouldn't those who stand to gain the most, those
who are the most disadvantaged, those who are in the lowest income
homes, have some choices, too? They have been locked out of those
choices. They have been trapped in failing schools. They don't have the
opportunity to move away from their neighborhood. When given the
chance, through private scholarships, limited as any are, the private
scholarship students have taken those opportunities because they know
what is at stake is the children's future.
That is why I ask my colleagues to consider this amendment--not just
to write it off as a choice program that may or may not benefit your
particular State, or to write it off and say, I have always said I
oppose choice so I will vote against this without even examining what
it does or who it targets, or to say, I don't want to take the heat I
might receive from the National Education Association or other groups
that are wedded to this system we have had for 35 years. If we believe
our commitment and our responsibility as Federal
[[Page S6067]]
public policymakers is to help low-income, help disadvantaged kids,
then look at this amendment.
I remind my colleagues again, it takes nothing away from the public
schools. It does not diminish by one dime the resources they have. It
targets only the low income.
Let's give it a chance. Look at the data: $50 million, 3 States, 10
cities. Let's give the most needy in our society the same choice the
most affluent already have.
Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator for his excellent statement and yield
to the Senator from Tennessee 5 minutes.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will be brief. I rise in support of the
Gregg amendment. The amendment is locally initiated, limited in scope,
and voluntary. It is a pilot program. It takes nothing away from other
educational funds. It involves a rigorous evaluation to monitor whether
the pilot program is successful.
The power of this amendment is in how it addresses the underlying
premise of leaving no child behind, the premise that no child should be
locked in a failing school, a school that fails year after year after
year. It gives parents the right to do what is best for their own
children, giving them opportunities, giving them alternatives if their
children are locked in a failing school.
Imagine a married couple making $30,000 a year. Their fourth grade
daughter attends a school which fails to meet national standards. This
school is failing to adequately education their daughter. The parents
know their daughter's future depends on the education she receives from
the school she attends.
The daughter graduates to the fifth grade, and again, things do not
seem quite right. At the end of the year, by national standards, they
find, once again, this school their daughter is attending has failed
and has not improved. Again, they know their daughter's future depends
on the quality of the education she receives in reading, math, and
science. She goes on to the sixth grade.
At the end of the sixth grade, she is not progressing. In fact, she
may be one of the 30 or 40 percent of the students who are proficient
at only a very basic educational level. These parents have sent their
daughter to a school which has failed to adequately education her for 3
years. As things now stand, these parents have no choice to improve
their daughter's education. She is trapped in a school that is failing.
They only make $30,000. They watch, as some of their neighbors who
earn a middle class or higher income leave the school district. Their
neighbors have a choice because of their personal income. By moving,
they say: we will not allow our children to continue in this failing
school year after year after year because it destroys the opportunity
for our children to experience the American dream we talked about this
morning. But the parents of this daughter don't have that option. They
can't afford to move. They only make $25,000 or $30,000. They have no
choice. They are trapped. They are trapped.
This is the focus of the amendment at hand. For the first time, low
income families--those who earn less than $32,000 a year--will have the
opportunity to choose. They will be able to remove their children from
a school which has failed for one, two, three years and place them in
another educational facility so their children have the opportunity to
realize that American dream.
This is why I believe so strongly in this pilot program proposed in
the amendment put forth by the Senator from New Hampshire. This
amendment gives parents a right to do what is best for their child. We
have too many failing schools today. Nine thousand schools in our
country have been identified as failing, and many of those schools have
failed for 4 years and 6 years and 8 years. These are the sorts of
school districts we hope to give this voluntary opportunity, this
choice, this option for parents to do what is best for their child.
There is broad support on this issue, as the Senator from Arkansas
has pointed out. Parents, especially low-income parents, broadly
support school choice. The Children's Scholarship Fund is a nonprofit
private foundation which provides K-12 scholarships for low-income
families. When they put out their call for applications, over 1.25
million applications from around the country came from poor families.
Right here in the District of Columbia, 33 percent of the families
eligible for those scholarships applied.
A recent poll conducted for the National Education Association found
that 63 percent of Americans support choice for children who attend
failing schools. Support for choice is highest within the African-
American community.
This amendment is good for public schools. Again, as pointed out,
competition is a factor that we know produces quality products and
services in America today. In order to improve our public schools,
competition must enter the educational equation. This is one step in
the right direction.
Second, this amendment is locally initiated. The application must be
made at the local level. Washington must not force choice on a local
community. This amendment simply opens the door for those who wish to
participate in this pilot project. It empowers State and local
education authorities to initiate this program.
Lastly, it is limited in scope. To qualify, families must meet two
criteria: Families must earn less than $32,000 a year and must attend a
school which has been failing for 3 years.
For these reasons, I urge support for and ultimately passage of this
very important amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Tennessee.
I yield to the Senator from Alabama 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire
for his leadership and dedication on this issue. He cares about
children deeply. He cares about public education. He wants to see it
more successful. This is not some sort of plan to weaken public
education.
As I have listened to him discuss his vision for making sure children
are not trapped in schools that are utterly failing and having their
futures damaged, I have become convinced, as much as I believe in
public education, that this is a project we ought to try. We ought to
allow this opportunity for alternative ways, particularly in programs
for low-income children in failing schools, and let's see how it works.
I think it is appropriate for the Federal Government to utilize money
under these circumstances to help analyze, through very effective
examination of these programs, whether or not they are working. If it
is clearly a benefit, maybe we ought to do more. If it is not a
benefit, maybe that will be the end of it.
I certainly think allowing 3 States that voluntarily choose to
participate in this program, 10 cities that voluntarily choose to
participate--not who are made to participate; it is their option if
they would like to participate in this program--let's try it, but let's
monitor it, let's watch it, let's see how it goes. I think we may find
progress will be made.
We do know one thing for sure. There are nearly 9,000 schools in
America that have been identified as failing, many of those for a
number of years, some 4, 6, 8 years failing consistently. I think it is
inconceivable--really immoral--not to take some steps to deal with that
circumstance.
These children are falling behind in those schools. Those children
have to be falling behind. They are not receiving the quality of
education other children are receiving in succeeding schools. It is
difficult for them. They come, many of them, from not an ideal home
life, and then they are sent to a school system that is failing. No
wonder they tend to have great difficulty.
What can we do for them? I was a U.S. attorney for a long time. A lot
of people haven't thought about this very clearly, but the law requires
them to go to that school. They do not have any choice whatsoever. If
they live a few blocks over this way, they may be in a school that is
quite successful, but because they are in this school district, they
must, by law--all over America, that is the pattern--they must go to
that school. They are ordered to go to that school. Many times they are
being ordered year after year, week after
[[Page S6068]]
week, day after day, to go to a school that is not functioning and is
not succeeding.
There is something wrong about that. I know people, as the Senator
from Arkansas said, who check out the school district, and they have
the money to decide where they want to live, and they move to a
district where they are comfortable. People know the schools that are
working and the ones that are not. I think we can do better.
This is a voluntary program for only 3 States if 3 States apply, 10
cities if 10 cities apply, to let them try these programs under a
strict evaluation process. I believe it can be helpful for America.
The moneys that will support this will not in any way come from
existing programs. It will provide new money but not a whole lot of
money to make this occur. It requires families be poorer families, not
people who have the money themselves to perhaps take advantage of
choice. No title I money will be spent. Rather, an additional $50
million will be made available to the handful of cities and States that
choose to participate in this program. It provides additional resources
to carry out this demonstration project that I believe will work.
The evaluation that will occur is going to be healthy. It is going to
examine and measure student achievement in the alternative situation.
It is going to measure parental involvement in education with parental
involvement increased. It is going to evaluate the satisfaction of
parents and all involved in the program. And it will evaluate the
overall impact on the performance of the public school system. In other
words, if it is damaging the public school system, we will find that
out.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time yielded to the Senator has expired.
Mr. SESSIONS. I will just wrap up and say the Secretary of Education,
Dr. Paige, tried it in Houston, a huge school system--I ask for 1
minute to wrap up--favors this idea.
Mr. KENNEDY. We have no objection.
Mr. GREGG. I yield the Senator 1 minute.
Mr. SESSIONS. He said in Houston it made them better. In the first
year or two, they lost some students and people complained. He said: I
supported it. If people could get a better education somewhere else, it
was all right with me. I cared about those children. But--he said--do
you know what happened? We improved our school system so much in
Houston that as years went by they were coming from private schools to
the public schools; the public schools grew at the expense of private
schools because we got better. He said there is no way a private school
can succeed and beat a public school in the long term, if it is run
right.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I will yield myself 30 minutes. I would
like to be reminded when I use 25.
H.L. Mencken said at one time that for every complex problem, there
is a simple easy answer, and it is wrong. That is what we have here, a
simple, easy answer to all the problems we are facing in our troubled
schools across this country, and it is basically and fundamentally
wrong; it does not work.
I will take the time to illustrate the flawed nature of this
amendment, and those Members with further interest are welcome to
contact our office, and we will provide a more detailed account of the
state of education in each of the cities that host voucher programs.
These programs have not worked. Vouchers do not work. Furthermore, this
is not really a debate about true ``choice'' because, under this
amendment, parents would not exercise a choice. Schools would exercise
a choice.
It is not a parent, it is not a 30-year-old mother with a single
child who makes a decision to go to a private school. That is malarkey.
That does not exist. Under this amendment, the decision is made by the
school.
I have listened to speeches time and time again state that
approximately $130 billion has been expended on title I, but we haven't
seen increased academic achievement among the nation's students in
need. Meanwhile, America spends nearly $400 billion annually on
elementary and secondary education. Those skeptical of increasing
funding for education cite $130 billion over 20 years or 30 years. The
real reason we have poor schools and low student achievement is that we
have not yet stepped up to the plate. Federal dollars provide only 7
cents of every dollar spent on education in this country. The remainder
of the responsibility rests with States and local communities. It is
the responsibility of States and local communities to provide local
schools with the help that they need to succeed. We are trying to
address this issue at the federal level, but cannot do it alone. I
think we have a good bill that can make a difference if it is
adequately funded.
With all respect to my colleagues, they have spoken about about
leaving no children behind, yet they leave two-thirds of the children
behind with the funding currently provided for Title I. In the past, we
have shed crocodile tears all over the Senate floor about leaving
children behind. They are already being left behind, and that is wrong.
As the allocations of current funds demonstrate, and under the current
budget proposed by the President, 3.7 million children will be provided
funding. Under the Dodd-Collins amendment, we have proposed funding for
5.7 million children, building up to full funding. That amendment has
now been accepted to this bill.
Along with an oratory on leaving no child behind, let's also ensure
that we truly do not leave children behind. Let's commit to securing
the funds so that no children are left behind. And with that, we really
need to dismiss this voucher argument. If we really are interested in
no child being left behind, then let's make sure that we aren't going
to leave them behind.
My friends and colleagues again provide the same talking points on
failing schools. They are good talking points. But they are only good.
They are not terribly good. We currently have approximately 10,000
schools. It would cost $1.8 billion to turn these schools into high-
performing schools. But are those funds in the budget? Are those funds
requested by the President? No. If we are serious about turning those
schools around, we know how to do it. It takes reforms and it takes
investment. We are on the road to success with the reforms, but we have
not yet seen the investment.
Supporters of this amendment also claim that the $50 million to fund
this program will not come from Title I. If not from Title I, then from
where? This investment in vouchers has been portrayed as an investment
that would not siphon funds in the federal budget away from education.
Where in the world is this magic $50 million coming from? I don't know
where it is. It is out here. They keep referring to it. I think we
ought to take that magical pot with a never-ending fountain, invest it,
and try to do something that is going to make a difference; that is,
address the problems of failing schools. That is what we ought to be
doing. But that is not the proposal here. This $50 million is, of
course, money that could otherwise be spent in terms of helping and
assisting schools. Under this amendment, schools in need of assistance
would lose.
First of all, all of us understand the importance of the public
school system and what a difference it has made in the hopes and dreams
of families all over this country. I went to private school. I have a
grandchild going to a public school, and nieces and nephews who go to
public schools. Most of them are going to private schools. But I was
able to go to a public school with good teachers. I was able to go to a
school that had a curriculum that was a good curriculum. I was able to
benefit from those.
We are trying to say let's try to do what we know works, and do that
for children all over this country. We know what works in education.
But vouchers don't. I will come to that. We know what works.
We have invested in what works--not completely the way I would like.
But it isn't completely the way that I know my friend, Senator Gregg,
would like, or that President Bush would like. It is a compromise. But
it is one that we can defend, if it is funded and invested in, because
we are going to make sure that we are going to get better trained
teachers and have opportunities to have smaller class sizes. And there
are going to be evaluations on that.
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I don't know how many times I have listened to my friends and
colleagues over here talk about why this is different. You know why
this is different. It is because in the old days, we just provided the
resources but we didn't have the accountability. In the old days, we
provided funds to States to use to build swimming pools and purchase
football uniforms. States did not target funds to the neediest children
with block grants.
We will continue to provide funding for our neediest children, but we
are going to have accountability. That is the President's proposal, and
that is our proposal. He wants annual assessments in the third grade
and the eighth grade. Those assessments will help States measure
progress. If schools don't measure up with annual yearly progress,
States will take action. They will provide the resources to reform
schools, and reconstitute them if necessary.
Hello. Not with the schools to which Mr. Gregg wants to permit these
children to go. No, no. There is no guarantee in this amendment with
that plea about that matter. I want to talk to that matter. If that
matter happens to be limited English speaking, forget about going to
these schools. Do you understand that? Forget about it. They do not
have to take your child. And they don't, more often than not. If your
child has a disability, forget about going because they do not have to
take your child. IDEA doesn't apply to this. There is reference in here
that IDEA applies. But it doesn't apply to private schools. If they are
disabled, forget about going. If they have a disability, forget about
bringing your child in. If you are a homeless or migrant student, you
will not be guaranteed services. You have no guarantee. Forget about
going to that school.
Do you get the picture?
It is very interesting. According to a 1998 survey conducted in
conjunction with a Department of Education study on public school
students and private schools, private schools indicated that, if they
were required to accept public school students--look at this: Randomly
assigned. What about saying there are a lot of children in that school,
and all of them want to go to a particular school. Let's take randomly
assigned students who go to a public school and later to a private
school. Entrants decline by one-half. And 68 percent of private schools
indicated that they would be unwilling to accept students with learning
disabilities. 68 percent would be unwilling to accept students with
limited English proficiency.
Under this condition, the percentage of schools that would definitely
be willing to participate declines from 77 to 36 percent.
Hello. This great experiment in democracy of making sure that every
child is going to have this choice and not have the needy schools that
are failing on that, basically it is going to be a decision for private
schools to make a judgment with regard to who they want, and make a
conscious selection.
The idea that this is going to open doors for parents whose children
are in failing schools as a way out raises a false hope, and it is one
that should be rejected.
We are strongly committed to trying to do something about it. I know
the Senator from New Hampshire is strongly committed. We know what has
to be done. We are going to ensure that, with real accountability,
schools will take steps to make sure they make annual, yearly progress,
even based upon the existing tests in the old 1994 act which States
already have in place. Schools will constantly have to make progress.
There is going to be a range of supplementary services available to
children. They are going to have additional options to go to public
schools if they need to. There will be afterschool programs available
to them. There will be summer programs available to them.
As we accepted last night, there will be funding for creative summer
programs which we have seen work in Boston last year. In those
programs, they tied employment to reading. And children in that
program, after 6 weeks of employment, increased their reading scores by
1.7 years. That is real progress taking place. We are strongly
committed to that. But we want to provide that for all the children.
That is our commitment--high achievement for all children. Of course
all of these parents who are faced with the prospect that their
children will not make progress in the schools, if someone offers them
a phony lifeline and says this is going to answer your problem,
everybody is going to vote for that particular kind of opportunity. But
that isn't being true to the complete picture.
We are trying to say we know what works. We are going to invest in
these programs. We are going to move all of these children along
together because we are one nation with one history and one destiny. We
are all going to move along together.
That is what this commitment ought to be--not just to try to find
some way that perhaps that one child or two children can move on. Good
for them. But we want everyone to move along together. That is what our
commitment is.
Private schools are not required to have assessments in their
programs in the manner that the President has talked about. They are
able to be selective about who will attend their schools. We are
considering a proposal to divert scarce resources away from the
nation's public school systems, where 90 percent of America's children
receive an education.
If we find that the children going to the private schools today would
like to go to the public schools, do you know what percent could
go? Four percent. Of all of them, 4 percent could go to private
schools. So what are we saying out there? Are we going to have an
experiment that is going to be out there, and only 4 percent can go?
This makes no sense.
Now let's get back to the facts about whether there are any
meaningful, positive results from these experiments, in the first
place, where they have been tried.
The first 5 years of the Milwaukee voucher program showed no
achievement differences between voucher students and comparable
students. That is from the University of Wisconsin at Madison report,
their 5-year report. It is the Witte study.
Followup studies found that voucher students made no gains in reading
and only small gains in math. In fact, low-income students in Milwaukee
public schools that reduced class size outperformed voucher students in
reading and did as well as voucher students in math. That is the
Princeton study.
Cecilia Rouse, 1998, a State-sponsored independent evaluation of the
first year of Cleveland's voucher program, conducted by researchers in
Indiana--not up at Harvard, not at Yale, not at Princeton; in Indiana--
found no significant achievement difference in all subjects between
voucher students and comparable public school students. In the second
year there were no achievement differences, except a slight advantage
for voucher students in languages.
The recent Jay Greene study on the effects of vouchers in Florida is
also in serious question. Many researchers found that the Florida
vouchers did not enhance reform in public schools, other factors did.
Some researchers did suggest that the threat of vouchers for students
failing public schools caused math and writing gains among Florida's
lowest performing public schools to increase. But Greene's research
overestimates the effect of being designated a failing school and
offers no evidence that the higher estimate test score gains by failing
schools should be attributed to the threat of vouchers.
What else? We could go down the list. I have the studies for
virtually all of the voucher programs here. We can take some time and
go through this. Later perhaps, in the afternoon, we will have an
opportunity to go through them. I will include in the Record the
analysis of the cities that have been mentioned in this debate, and
others, in a very limited way, and ask they be printed in the Record so
as to demonstrate that.
On the contrary, where have we seen the most progress made? Have we
seen the most progress made in any State which has had vouchers? No.
The most progress that has been made is in the State of North Carolina.
In the State of North Carolina, public school reforms have been similar
to those in Florida and have been initiated without vouchers, and
student achievements have risen. The results are further reason to
doubt the effectiveness of vouchers in public school reform.
[[Page S6070]]
The achievements in North Carolina have been notable. Every review,
every evaluation, every examination, and every study finds
unequivocally that North Carolina has made this significant and
dramatic progress.
Here are the Rand studies. The Rand studies show that the gains in
Texas and/or North Carolina, in both reading and math, were much higher
than the average State gains and close to that of the State with the
highest gains. If we were to average the gains across the States, North
Carolina and Texas show the highest average gain among all the States.
Do they have vouchers? No.
Here are the two States that are doing, what? In the bill we are
investing in well-trained teachers, professional development, smaller
class sizes, safer schools, afterschool programs, working with schools
that are in trouble, as North Carolina does, in terms of closing down
effectively the schools and putting them under new leadership, and
bringing around new curriculum with new evaluations to benefit the
children, having summer school programs--all of those that are out
there--and having early reading programs, which is one of the areas
Governor Hunt was so concerned with and is shown to be so important and
successful, and a program included in this legislation providing for
early reading programs.
I wish we could expand that. It is $75 million. That ought to be
expanded for a nation when we know what is happening. Why are we
talking, on the one hand, vouchers, for which there is virtually no
evidence--we can stand around here all day and talk about the different
tests, but the fact is, when you take the review of States that have
made meaningful progress in terms of advancing academic achievement,
they are not relying on vouchers, they are relying on the kinds of
things we have in this legislation.
I find this proposal enormously troublesome for other reasons as
well. If you look at the ``eligible entity'':
The term ``eligible entity'' means a public agency,
institution, or organization, such as a State--
This does not say it is going to go through the local superintendent
of schools--
a State or local educational agency, a county or municipal
agency, a consortium of public agencies, or a consortium of
public agencies and private nonprofit organizations, that can
demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the Secretary. . . .
I do not quite understand this, in any event, because I wonder if in
Boston the superintendent and the mayor say, ``We don't want it,'' and
then they are able to go out and the Secretary gets some other public
agency. It appears to me they would be eligible to develop a voucher
system in a community. I would have thought at least they would want
the superintendent of schools to say that, to give them the authority
and the responsibility.
I think we ought to get back to the fundamentals. We know what works.
And we know what works is investing and taking advantage of the kinds
of things that have happened in this country over the period of these
recent years, and building on those. We know what a difference that can
make in terms of the children of this country and having well-trained
teachers in the classroom, having the smaller class sizes, having a
well-thought-out curriculum, having evaluations of the progress
children are making with well-thought-out examinations and tests--not
tests that are just a mechanical rote of knowledge, but also a thinking
process for these children--helping and assisting with supplementary
services, summer programs, afterschool programs, doing all of that.
There are schools that are not going to measure up. We are taking the
kinds of items that are included in this bill, in terms of over a
period of years, and putting the emphasis and stress on math and
reading. They have the high priorities in the bill. This is what works.
If we adopted this amendment, we would be drawing down scarce resources
that would otherwise be used--make no mistake about it--to benefit all
of the children. If we took those resources out and used them on a
program that is largely discriminatory--because it does not give the
guarantee of choice to the child or to the parent. It still makes the
choice in the school's interest, not the child's interest. It does not
provide for how that child is going to be evaluated. It completely is
exempt from all the kinds of evaluation this President has talked
about. How can you have that?
He talks about having evaluations and making sure children are going
to learn and insists they have the annual test. And on the other hand
he says, if you go to a private school, you don't have to do any of
that.
What is happening here? What possible sense does that make? And he
leaves it up to the school to make the judgment and decision, and
without giving the protection to many of the children whether they are
disabled children, limited-English children, other children with any
kind of special needs. I think that is a failure.
Let us take the resources we have available and invest them in our
children, invest in their future, invest in what we know can work,
invest in this new partnership we will have with the Federal
Government, the States, and local communities; the new partnership we
are going to have involving parents, teachers, and the local
communities. I think that is what we ought to be about.
Finally, I think on the whole issue on the vouchers, obviously, there
are constitutional issues. I know in the remaining time that I have--I
will not take the time to go through it, but there are serious
constitutional issues as well.
But I strongly oppose this amendment just on the basis of the policy
questions. These programs have not demonstrated effectiveness. The
public, by and large, has rejected these issues time and again, across
this country, and more than 80 percent in the District of Columbia. I
know there is a potential voucher amendment for the District of
Columbia.
This has been rejected across the country. When people know we are
going to be serious about making a difference in investing in children
and in the kinds of educational programs that are positive and will
result in academic achievement and accomplishment, when we do that, the
American people understand the importance of that type of investment.
That is what this bill is about to do.
Its great failure to date is the fact that we have not received the
kinds of assurances from the administration that they are going to make
sure the benefits of this legislation are going to reach all of the
children.
Mr. President, I see my colleague and friend from Michigan is here. I
yield 5 minutes to the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Edwards). The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from
Massachusetts who has been such a stalwart in advocating for our
children throughout the process as it relates to this education bill.
There has been give and take and working together in a bipartisan basis
to formulate a bill that will focus on increasing accountability, goals
for our children, but also resources. Many of us have been saying over
and over again how the resources have to be coupled with the
accountability so that every child has the opportunity to learn and we
truly leave no child behind.
I rise in opposition to this amendment related to private school
vouchers and speak on behalf of the people of Michigan who voted in the
election last November resoundingly against a similar proposal that was
on the ballot in Michigan. There was a lot of thoughtful discussion on
both sides. The public resoundingly said no and focused on what I
believe to be a very wise course, which is to focus on making sure that
every child in every school has the opportunity to learn and that we
strengthen our public schools.
I have great respect for friends and colleagues who choose to send
their children to private schools. We also know that even if 10 percent
of the children in our public schools went to private schools through
vouchers, we would still be faced with needing 5,000 new schools in the
next number of years and doubling the number of schools in the 10
largest school systems in America, at a cost of $40 billion. Those
costs don't go away. The needs don't go away. If a few children leave,
you still have the majority there who need to have technology in the
classroom, who need to have smaller class sizes so they can learn.
What we have found is that the voucher system pulls resources away
[[Page S6071]]
but, in fact, does not improve education for all children.
I remember when we were debating a few years ago--maybe 3 years ago--
the D.C. schools. We had, literally, roofs falling in. One fall, as
school was getting ready to start, there was a proposal that, as the
roof was falling in, we ought to have vouchers for 2,000 children out
of 78,000 children in the Washington, DC, schools--that 2,000 ought to
be able to have vouchers. There was a big debate about the 2,000
children and not a debate about the 78,000 children who still would be
in schools that had broken roofs, schools that would have wastepaper
baskets in the corner catching the water. The resources that were being
debated to be pulled out for vouchers would not allow fixing of the
roofs. It didn't make any sense.
In the end, we were fortunate that proposal did not pass at that
time.
What we know is that over 90 percent of our children attend schools
potentially facing budget cuts, potentially facing challenges relating
to resources. We also know that we want every school to increase
accountability. We want to make sure that if a public school is not
working, the school system has the capacity to shut it down, to change
personnel, to do the things necessary to increase accountability.
I believe strongly that needs to be done within the context of our
public schools so that every child has the opportunity for people to be
fighting for the best quality possible for them and not just diverting
a few children away from that system while the rest are in schools that
are not up to standards.
This is an incredibly important issue that we need to send a strong
message, through a ``no'' vote on the amendment, that we support
strengthening our public school system for every child. We have schools
now doing wonderful work. We have schools now that are in trouble. We
need to make sure that through what we are doing federally, we are
recognizing and applauding and saluting our quality public schools and
that we are providing the resources and the accountability which our
children deserve and our families deserve, to make sure that no matter
what door you walk through in what public school, in which neighborhood
in the United States of America, you know that your child is going to
receive the very best quality education.
That is what this fight is all about. I believe this amendment takes
us in the wrong direction. I hope colleagues on both sides of the aisle
will vote no and we will get back to the business of strengthening our
public schools through this important legislation.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, for 1 minute, on North Carolina, a recent
Rand Corporation report found that between 1990 and 1996, students
showed the highest average annual gain in the National Assessment of
Education Progress, the NAEP, reading and math tests. Those are
national tests. SAT scores have risen 10 years in a row. The scores
have improved more than any other State--a 40-point gain between 1990
and 2000, 10 points higher than the three other States with big gains.
Most recently, the States average SAT moved up as well between 1999
and the year 2000. This is a State that is doing it right. We tried to
benefit from their experience.
The Senator from North Carolina, who is now presiding, was a
particular help to our committee in sharing the experiences of North
Carolina and ensuring that many of those very important aspects that
have been successful in North Carolina would be available to benefit
local communities in this legislation. That is the kind of thing we
ought to be investing in so that all children will benefit.
I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Washington.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am here today because I strongly
believe that Senator Gregg's voucher amendment moves this country and
our public schools in the wrong direction.
All of us stand for equal opportunity for all children. This
amendment might open doors to a few children, but it would shut them
for many others. In the Senate, we are fighting to improve our public
schools with resources. This amendment uses public funds to send a few
students to private schools rather than investing in schools that serve
all of our children.
We need to think about the consequences of this voucher amendment. In
the bill before us, we are insisting on accountability for the use of
Federal funds. This voucher program would funnel taxpayer dollars into
schools that are not accountable to the public at all.
Beyond lack of accountability, let's remember that private schools
don't even have to meet the same academic standards required for all
public schools. Not all private schools are created equal. There are a
lot of good ones, but there are some with lower quality and lower
standards, and our tax dollars would go to them as well with no
accountability.
Private schools are important. I am not here to speak against private
schools. I am here to speak against an amendment that would damage
public schools.
Mr. President, I want to talk about the four simple reasons I oppose
this amendment. Vouchers undermine our public schools; vouchers leave
children behind; vouchers mean less accountability; and vouchers are a
distraction from the hard but essential work of ensuring that all
public schools are good schools.
Our public schools are the cornerstone of our democracy, our
communities, and our economy. They are entrusted with giving more than
90 percent of our children the education they need to be productive
citizens. Vouchers would weaken public schools by diverting already
scarce funds needed for smaller classes, afterschool programs, better
facilities, and teacher training, to pay for private school tuition for
a few select children--which really leads to the second reason I cannot
support any voucher scheme.
Private schools may reject students for almost any reason, including
disability, limited English proficiency, behavioral challenges, or
academic deficiencies. Despite the rhetoric of this amendment, vouchers
do not offer true choice for students. While parents may remove
children from public schools, no voucher system guarantees admission to
the school of their choice. Private schools will still choose which
students they will admit.
While vouchers drain money from public schools to help a few
students, other students are left at a public school with fewer
resources. That will not help our kids succeed. In fact, it will
probably lower the quality of education for the most challenged
students, effectively leaving them behind.
Proponents of the underlying bill, including the author of this
amendment, have said that accountability provisions are the key to not
leaving students behind.
Well, Mr. President, my third objection is that this amendment would
make these accountability provisions meaningless for thousands of
students. This bill requires that the results of new reading and math
testing in grades 3-8 be used to judge the quality of all public
schools, and it sanctions schools that fail to make adequate yearly
progress. But those accountability provisions and testing do not apply
to private schools that benefit from vouchers.
If this accountability is truly essential to ensuring a good
education, should it not apply to all schools that receive Federal
funds?
Under this voucher plan, participating private schools do not have to
give the same tests. They do not have to make adequate yearly progress.
And they cannot be sanctioned. Public schools must comply with all
Federal, State, and local civil rights, and health and safety
requirements.
This voucher proposal doesn't even require participating private
schools to protect the civil rights of school employees, or to maintain
the separation of church and state.
Mr. President, I cannot support spending taxpayer dollars on schools
with no public accountability.
Finally, vouchers drain away the resources and attention that should
be focused on turning around low-performing schools. Vouchers offer an
excuse to those who are unwilling to make the necessary investment or
to roll up their sleeves and get involved in the hard work of leading a
struggling public school into success.
Turning around low-performing schools is not magic. Hard-working
people all across the country are doing it every single day.
[[Page S6072]]
Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mrs. MURRAY. I am happy to yield.
Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator just made a comment that I think is
particularly pertinent to this discussion on the question of
accountability. Here in the legislation that we have before us--as we
have debated over the past 7 or 8 weeks, much of that debate has been
on accountability. But could the Senator indicate what her position is
with regard to accountability for the schools where the children might
be able to gain entry if they take these vouchers--what kind of
accountability will be in place there? Are those schools included in
this same kind of rigorous accountability, or will we be investing
money in schools and not really know their impact on our children's
future?
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, it is very clear that as we have listened
to this debate in the Senate, Senators on both sides of the aisle
believe that the key to the success of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act is accountability, and a part of that is testing. The
voucher system would mean that students could take public taxpayer
dollars to a private school that has no testing requirements similar to
the public schools, has no accountability, requires no accountability,
and thus we are just sending taxpayer dollars to private schools that
don't live by the same rules.
Mr. KENNEDY. If the Senator will yield further, part of the very, I
think, strong presentation that the President has made is that he wants
to ensure that tests are not used in a punitive way, but as instruments
to gauge student progress and inform instruction. I think the Senator
was there when we listened to Secretary Paige--he emphasized the
importance of finding out what children don't know so there can be
assistance provided to children to help them succeed. I have some
enormously interesting examples. In our own State, where the teachers
find out the class doesn't know much about fractions, they deal with
that by teaching other aspects of mathematics over the course of the
year. They are making up for lost progress in the past, and ensuring
that children move along and keep up with the current material. There
is a reason for accountability. If students are not able to make
progress, they receive supplementary services--the afterschool
programs, the summer programs, or the tutorials--to provide them with
the extra help they need.
Now what is going to happen in voucher schools? Will those programs
be available? How are we going to know whether these children are
making progress?
Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator raises a key point. We won't know how they
are progressing. As the Senator from Massachusetts knows, I was a
school board member before I was a Senator. I can tell you of numerous
school board meetings where we had citizens from our community sitting
in big audiences before us saying: You are spending my taxpayer dollars
and I want you to--fill in the blank. If we send our Federal taxpayer
dollars to private schools, our citizens in our communities will not
have the opportunity to go before a board that governs a private school
to demand that their taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.
Mr. KENNEDY. One of the most important aspects of accountability
provided for in this bill is giving information to parents so that they
will be able to follow the development of their children. We have a
school in Massachusetts where part of the portfolio for school success
is a measure of parental involvement. Very interesting. That sounds
like something that is way out, but, by George, that school was able to
get their parents involved.
An essential element in this bill is the proposal to make sure that
parents understand what is happening in their schools, and to be able
to provide a comparison of their schools performance to other schools
in the neighborhood. In this respect, and with school report cards,
parents will be able to be effective, articulate spokespersons for
their children's education. Will that be available under a voucher
program?
Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Massachusetts knows that it would not.
If our taxpayer dollars went to a private school in the form of a
voucher, there would be no parental involvement, no community
involvement, no taxpayer involvement on how their dollars were being
spent.
Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator for that. Is the Senator also aware
that opportunities for children who are limited English proficient, or
for children who may have a learning disability, or for migrant
children or homeless children--those opportunities will not be driven
by parents. The choice of how to serve those children, if they are
served, will be made by the school under a voucher program. So does the
Senator agree with me that the idea of somehow providing millions of
American parents the opportunity for their children to be moved into a
different situation with this proposal is really a distortion? Critical
decisions will be made by schools that may not be inclined to reach out
to children who have some special situation, special needs.
Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Massachusetts raises a very good point.
I know many parents today with young children who are 2 and 3 years old
are now trying to get their kids into private school. They are starting
the application process already. It is very difficult to get into some
of our best private schools. Imagine parents out there who are
listening to rhetoric about a voucher program as some kind of magic
bullet that their child will use to get into a private school, and that
is not correct. In fact, private schools can say they will not take
children with disabilities or with limited English proficiency or with
the difficulties that they have experienced in the past.
So it is an empty promise to many parents who are thinking it is some
kind of panacea--a voucher system that all of a sudden they will
receive as taxpayers. The good private schools are hard to get into. We
all know not all private schools are created equal. There are good ones
and there are some not so good. This money would apply to all of them.
I think we would lose for a lot of taxpayers in this country and our
public school systems will lose even more.
Mr. KENNEDY. Finally, we have listened during the presentation of
those who supported this amendment, that this was not really going to
take money away from public school children.
We would like to find out where this magical pot of money is. They
are saying we want to give assurance to all those who are voting with
us and against us that this money will not be taken away. If we don't
use this money, it still won't be available to children. I am somewhat
mystified--I don't believe it. I don't think anybody in this body
believes it.
Does the Senator agree these are scarce resources? We have reviewed
the fact we are still only reaching a third of the children under the
President's program. Under the President's program, there is no
increase other than the cost-of-living increase for children over the
period of the next 8 years.
Resources are scarce. I wonder if the Senator from Washington buys
the argument that this is not going to be money that would otherwise be
used for professional development, or training teachers, or mentoring
programs, or afterschool programs, or moving teachers into smaller
class sizes. The Senator has been our national leader on that issue.
Doesn't the Senator agree we could use that $50 million more
effectively in terms of benefitting children rather than for a voucher
program?
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, as the Senator from Massachusetts knows
well, we only fund one-third of the students who are eligible for title
I today. It seems to me we should be investing the money in making sure
title I students have access to additional help. If we reduce class
size, if we provide teacher training, if we invest in public schools in
a way we have promised for many years to do, vouchers would not be an
argument on the floor. Our children everywhere would be getting the
good education they should and we would not select just a few kids to
go on to a few schools to succeed. We would go back to the principle we
all espouse in the Senate, to leave no child behind.
As a country that cares about all of our children, we are making sure
we invest in all of our children.
Mr. KENNEDY. I thank my friend and colleague.
As a school board member and a teacher of elementary school, Senator
Murray brings a special insight into
[[Page S6073]]
the education policy issues. I think we do well to heed her warnings
and concerns.
Whatever time the Senator needs to conclude her remarks, I yield.
Mrs. MURRAY. I thank my colleague from Massachusetts. I urge all
colleagues to think about the principles of this bill and the
underlying concept: We want to make sure every child in this country
succeeds. That is not what this amendment will do. It is what we need
to do in terms of investing in our communities, our schools, in the
right way, so all children can succeed.
There is no magic bullet. The vouchers amendment is certainly not
one. I hope we are not tempted by the false promise of vouchers as that
magic bullet.
I urge all of my colleagues to vote no.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I take a moment or two to refer those
interested in this debate to this report called ``Uncommon Wisdom,
Effective Reform Strategies,'' from Mass Insight Education, an
education-reform organization based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Massachusetts is well on its way in terms of educational reform. We
have been making progress in recent years.
This report illustrates a number of schools making very important and
significant progress academically with their students. They include
elementary, middle, and high schools. They illustrate the different
techniques used in each of the schools. All the reforms vary somewhat,
but all have been implemented within the framework that this bill
supports: high standards; good professional development; data generated
by meaningful, high-quality assessments; and extra support for the
students in need of academic assistance.
This independent organization is highly regarded. They have reviewed
various schools in our State, and have shared their findings so that
other schools can make progress. Again, they identify four critical
priorities: the development of the curriculum, the teaching, the
assessment, and the intervention. Together, these reforms directly
shape every student's educational experience in school. These four
common elements have produced important and significant progress in
each of the 22 Massachusetts schools included in this report.
In the Thompson School in Arlington, 30 percent of students receive
free or reduced lunches, 15 percent have special needs, and 25 percent
are students of color. It is a mixed blue-collar, working-class,
middle/low-income high school that has been able to make extraordinary
progress with their programs. There are countless other examples of
schools, such as the Thompson school, that have reformed to produce
results.
The bottom line is that the elements included in this report are
elements we have included in this legislation. If we provide funding
for these reforms, we will see these results in not only every school
in Massachusetts but every school in the country. That is what we want
to do.
The Senator from Rhode Island is here and I yield 10 minutes.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Gregg-Hutchinson
amendment which authorizes a voucher program for private schools for 7
years, encompassing 10 cities and 3 States. I don't believe this is an
appropriate educational policy we should be pursuing. Our first and
foremost commitment should be to strengthen and improve reform of
public education.
Frankly, as we go forward with the constrained resources, that
primary challenge will be difficult to achieve. Dissipating funds for
vouchers for private schools to me is not the appropriate response to a
crisis in public education in the United States. For over 30 years, the
Federal Government has made a commitment to help the students of
America throughout the public education system. Particularly, we have
committed to ensuring that low-income students are given a chance to
succeed. We have created reforms over the last several years to help
improve the learning environment and ensure a vigorous public
education. Back in 1994 we streamlined reform of the title I program
and other Federal programs. The thrust, the purpose, the constant theme
is how we can help, working with the States and localities, to improve
public education to ensure that every family in America has an
opportunity to send their children to excellent, free, public schools.
This amendment takes us off that track, off that purpose. It would
not improve public education in the United States. It would not respond
to the need for safe schools, quality teachers, smaller classes,
buildings that are well repaired and well maintained, or greater
parental involvement. It would not ensure that all students reach high
academic standards. It diverts scarce Federal resources from the public
schools, our first and foremost priority. And it does so at a time when
the massive tax cut that has just been passed weakens our ability to
respond to the overwhelming needs of public education throughout this
country.
As a result, I do not believe we should engage in this policy
endeavor. In a world of finite resources, we have to be careful and
conscious of our obligations to public education and our foremost
responsibility, to ensure that public education is well served.
There are proponents of this legislation who say this amendment is
really about giving families a choice. I do not believe this really is
an issue of choice. Realistically, this amendment will never reach all
the children in all the failing schools. So we know, even if this
amendment is adopted and accepted, there will be children left behind
in failing schools. That is not a choice for parents.
It seems to me, then, that we have to go back to our initial purpose,
which is to try to improve every school in this country so no parent
has to keep their children in a public school that is not performing.
We need to give parents real choice, and we do not deal with the issue
of choice by dissipating resources, by inviting some children to go to
private schools and leaving others behind. We do it by confronting our
responsibilities to reform each and every public school in this
country.
There are other issues that complicate this approach to choice.
First, giving a voucher to a family for their child does not ensure
that child can go to the school the family chooses. Frankly, the nature
of private education is they exclude students. They exclude students
because they are not smart enough. They exclude students because they
just do not fit in with their approach to education. They exclude
students because, frankly, they are difficult or have discipline
problems. Public education cannot do that. Public education has to be
inclusive. Public education has to reach out and embrace every child--
those who are difficult and those who are honor students.
So this approach to reform fails on one other principal ground. We
are not giving every family the full range of choice because private
schools will exclude again and again and again. That is the nature of
being a private enterprise. That, in some respects, some might argue,
is one of their strengths. They can ensure all the children are part of
their patent, that they fit in. That is not a luxury, frankly, that
public education has. We have to recognize that. So this argument of
choice is not something I think really carries the day.
Also, there are other issues. If we do embark on a voucher program
such as this, it will invariably raise issues of the rights of parents
to demand entry to these private schools. It will raise issues of
whether or not it is conscionable to exclude these children, who now
have public funds, from these schools. So there may be many in the
private education community who would like to see this development, but
they might, when it becomes, or if it becomes, a reality, think
otherwise.
There are many things we have to do to ensure the education of the
young people in America is excellent. We have to raise standards. We
have to improve the professional development of teachers in public
education. We have to enhance the ability of our schools to embrace and
bring parents into the school system. We have to ensure that the
buildings, the very buildings that children occupy, are places where
they feel comfortable in terms of security and safety, in terms of just
the feeling of being in a place that is esteemed enough to have the
floors clean, the ceilings fixed, all the facilities working. There are
too many schools in America that fail that test.
There are too many schools that do not have the appropriate programs
to
[[Page S6074]]
involve parents. There are too many schools that are not conscious of
doing their best--too many public schools in this country. That is
where our attention must lie. That is where our focus must lie. That is
the purpose for which we come here--to ensure every public school in
this country offers the families of America excellent, free, public
education.
To embark on this approach of vouchers for private education is a
mistake. It dissipates our resources. It also does not truly give the
families of America choice.
There are today, within the public system, more and more
opportunities for parents to choose among different schools within that
public school system. There is the recognition that public systems
simply cannot stand pat any longer, they have to improve the quality of
education, they have to reach out to teachers and parents and the
community at large to restore trust, to rebuild not just the physical
structure of the school, but also the educational scope and commitment
to excellence of all schools. That is their job.
We can help, not by providing vouchers for private education, but by
funding and authorizing programs that will require, and insist, that
every public school in this country meets the standards of excellence.
I hope we will do this.
I hope we will reject this amendment and get on with the business of
the education bill before us and make a real commitment to public
education.
Mr. President, I will yield the floor, but on behalf of Senator
Kennedy, at this time I will yield 10 minutes to the Senator from
California, Mrs. Boxer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). The Senator from California is
recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I say to the Senator from Rhode Island
and Senator Kennedy, thank you for your magnificent leadership on this
issue of education.
We all know life is complex and we all face problems every day in our
lives. Our society has problems, not the least of which is that
sometimes our kids go astray; they make the wrong turn and struggle and
sometimes wind up in difficult situations. Whether it is turning to
juvenile delinquency--and we all know that happens to some of our
kids--whether it is not being able to handle the stresses of broken
families, we know we have problems in our society.
We also certainly know that there is no silver bullet. We wish there
were one thing we could do that would be kind of a magic wand to fix
all the problems we face, the problems our families face, the problems
we face as individuals.
Let's say someone came up to me and said: You only have one answer.
What would be the most important thing we could do to stop problems in
our society, be it crime, be it drugs, be it alcohol use, be it sexual
abuse? Talk about the issues; we all know they are here. What would be
the one thing, if you had to choose only one and that was it--you
couldn't pick five, or four, or three, or two--I would say it would be
a quality education for every single child starting from the earliest
times.
Why do I say that? It is because we know now that 90 percent of our
brain capacity is set by age 3. So we know if we think all this starts
later in life, we are wrong. If we can reach those children,
particularly those children who may not have the support of a family
structure, we can make a difference.
Will it solve the problem? No. But I can say to you that it will
solve most of the problems.
I speak as someone who is an expert on public schools. Why? Because
that is where I went. From kindergarten through college, I went to
public schools. I am a first-generation American on my mother's side.
My mother never graduated from high school. Here I am in the Senate.
For those people who may not like my politics, they say: God, look at
what the public schools did to us. But for the people who think I fight
hard and do things, that I can go toe to toe with most people in this
institution who went to the fanciest schools, they say: Hey, look. Look
at what our public schools can do.
That is why I strongly oppose the Gregg amendment. I think any effort
in this Chamber to pull money away from our public schools before we
know whether they are qualified, before we know that we are giving
every child what he or she deserves to have, anything that pulls that
money away from the public school system is absolutely wrong on its
face. Well intentioned and the rest, it doesn't work.
We know we can provide what our kids need if we put the resources
behind the rhetoric. Senator Schumer and I will have an amendment later
today which will say to our colleagues, if you believe in this, vote
for the Schumer-Boxer amendment, which is going to say let's make sure
there are appropriations to fund education to match the authorization
in this bill. We are going to have a chance to vote on that. But I have
to say this. The amendment of Senator Gregg provides for voucher
demonstration programs in 10 cities and 3 States. Our teachers are
telling us not to pull resources out. Our voters have told us in
California: Don't pull resources out of the public schools and put them
in the private schools. In California, people have voted. They had a
couple of voucher initiatives. The last one, Proposition 38, they
defeated by 70.7 percent of the vote. Let me repeat that. Californians
voted 70 percent against a voucher experiment. I have to tell you that
we don't vote 70 percent for anything.
People always ask: How do you manage to represent a State such as
California with 34 million people? I basically am honest in my answer.
I say: I do my best. But on any given day, 30 percent of the people
love me and 30 percent of the people hate me, and a third of the people
have no idea who I am because there are 34 million people in that
State. But 70 percent of them voted against vouchers.
It pulled everyone together--Republicans, Democrats, and
Independents--because it is a very simple point. If you believe in the
rhetoric of ``leave no child behind''--and our President uses it; I
believe it--and, if it is real, then you don't leave them behind by
pulling money out of the public schools and putting in these voucher
initiatives which have a lot of problems.
We have a lot of laws on the books that I think are important. We
know in the public schools you can't discriminate against any child for
any reason. Every child who walks through that door is precious and
important and equal to every other child, regardless if they have a
disability, regardless of their gender, and regardless of their
national origin.
The fact is, in this amendment we are going to have exceptions.
Private schools can say they don't want any more girls; they just want
to have boys; they can just say no, or vice versa. They can say they
don't want any more boys and just take girls. There can be
discrimination because that is the essence, frankly, of a private
school. If they want to do that, fine. But just do not take the money.
You do what you want but don't take taxpayer money. Don't pull it away
from the public schools.
I admire a lot of private schools. I have a lot of them in my State.
They give scholarships to needy children. They get a tax break, if they
are a profit-making school, for doing that. I support that tax break.
Scholarships for needy kids are the way to go, if private schools want
to make sure their student body is diverse and interesting and helps
kids. But to pull hard-earned taxpayer dollars away and put them into
the private schools isn't the way to go. We know that just a few kids
will benefit. Even the question of how much they will benefit has been
looked at.
Let's say you are lucky enough to have enough money so a $2,000
voucher can help you pay for the rest of the tuition. Sometimes the
tuition is $8,000, $10,000, or $12,000. There is no reliable research
that shows voucher programs actually improve the education of our
children or that voucher students outperform their public school peers.
In fact, the policy analysis of a California education group reported
that Proposition 38, the voucher initiative in our State, would cost
more and affect fewer students in proven education reform.
What do I mean by that? It has been proven that smaller class size
really helps student performance. Again, it is kind of a no-brainer
thing. If a teacher can pay attention to fewer kids, she or he is going
to do a better job. It costs much less to put that reform in place
[[Page S6075]]
than to have a voucher initiative in our State.
Now we are reducing class size. We are seeing results. We are seeing
great results. That is the track on which we should stay. Someday when
we have quality education for every public school child--where 95
percent of our kids go, by the way--I am willing to look at other ways
to help other kids in private schools. I may always be biased against
it because I believe in public schools. I think it makes our country
different from every other country. It gives every kid a chance at the
American dream. But I will look at it once I know every child has a
quality education. We know they don't have quality education in every
school district in this country. The purpose of this underlying bill is
to make sure we give every child a quality education.
Let's talk about Michigan. Michigan had a vote on vouchers. They
voted it down 68-31. What are we doing here? We are reinventing a
voucher plan that has already been voted down in California by more
than 70 percent of the vote and by 69 percent of the vote in Michigan.
Once again, voters are expressing their concern that we are pulling
money away from public schools.
Let me say that one independent Princeton researcher found that when
students in Milwaukee's public schools program were given extra
resources to reduce class size, they actually outperformed those kids
who were on the voucher.
Let me reiterate. There is an independent study that showed that kids
in Wisconsin, who had the advantage of smaller class size, outperformed
other students who had vouchers in reading, and they did as well as
those students in math.
The drain on the public school system in Milwaukee is evident.
According to the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the voucher
initiative took $22 million away from the public schools.
Why would we do that? We know vouchers don't guarantee equal access.
In Milwaukee, 40 percent of the kids who sought to participate in the
voucher program could not find schools that would take them. They could
be particularly harmful to a student who is not the ``cream of the
crop.'' Suppose the student is disabled, has limited English, or
suppose they are homeless. A private school is going to look twice,
scratch its head, and say: Maybe not.
That goes against the American dream, which is, again, an equal
chance for every child, regardless of their circumstance.
I think this amendment is an important amendment. I hope it will be
defeated because the underlying bill is really about reform--reform of
our public schools. By pulling funds away, we hurt that reform effort.
I had a successful amendment that I offered to this bill, cosponsored
by my Republican colleague, John Ensign. It was about after school. We
want to make sure kids after school do not get into trouble. We know,
if we look at the charts, what happens. The FBI charts show, for sure,
that is when kids get in trouble.
This was a bipartisan amendment. It passed with a very healthy
majority. But I do not want to see us now turn around and take money
away from that effort for after school and away from the effort of
smaller class size and all the other things we are trying to do in this
bill. I do not want to see that happen.
I see my colleague from New York is in the Chamber. She has worked so
hard on this bill and has dedicated her life to kids. I am very excited
she is going to be partaking of this debate this morning.
To sum up my argument, it is this: Our public schools are what make
our country different from most other countries because they give us
all a shot at the American dream. Are the public schools perfect? No,
they are not. Do we have to hold them accountable? Yes, we do. Do we
need to make improvements? Yes, we do. Do we need to invest in the
children in those schools? Yes, we do. Do we need to demand results?
Yes, we do.
But if we pull those dollars away from the public schools and we put
them into the private schools, where 5 percent of the children go, we
are making a huge mistake. My voters in California have shown that on
several occasions. Voters in Michigan have shown that. They want to see
us fix up our public schools first, make them work first. Then maybe we
will have the luxury to look outside the system.
We should demand the most from our kids, the most from our teachers,
the most from our principals, the most from our school districts, the
most from our Governors. But when we expect that, we should provide the
resources, we should not pull them away from the public schools.
Thank you very much, Madam President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mrs. CLINTON. I yield myself 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from New York is recognized.
Mrs. CLINTON. Madam President, I commend and thank my good friend,
the Senator from California, for her usual eloquence and energy in
putting forth a very commonsense proposal, which is that we ought to do
everything in our power to make sure our public schools work before
turning our backs on them. I especially note her telling all of us that
voters in California and Michigan, who have been given the chance to
vote on vouchers in their own States, have not only rejected that
proposal but have done so overwhelmingly.
I join my friend from California, and so many others, in opposing the
Gregg amendment which would provide $50 million for a voucher
demonstration program. I think it is fair to ask: Why would I and
others oppose a mere experiment?
What I would like to do is just reflect back for a minute on an
experience I had which really crystallized my opposition for me.
A few years ago I was in Northern Ireland, in Belfast, where I was
privileged to meet with a number of people who were crossing sectarian
lines to try to come together to find a way to peacefully coexist after
decades and decades of troubles between Protestant and Catholic
citizens. I was so struck, after a daylong conference--where we spoke
about how to set up a governing assembly, how to provide economic
opportunity, how we could get more people involved in the participation
required for a democracy to work--when several people said: But the
real problem we face is in our schools.
I said: What do you mean?
A number of them went on to tell me that from the very earliest of
ages children from the two religious traditions grew up in very
separate environments. There are literally barriers between Catholic
and Protestant neighborhoods, and then they go to schools that are run
by the respective churches into which they are born.
Person after person said to me: We will never live and work in peace
if we don't go to school together. We won't have a chance to get to
know one another. Can't you help us have a public school system like
you have in America?
That made such an impression on me because I have been fortunate to
travel all over the world. I have been in many countries on every
continent except Antarctica. In every country I go to, I meet very
smart people. I meet athletic stars, Olympic gold medal winners. I meet
scientists, very successful business leaders, and great artists. Yet
there is something very different about every other society than ours
because no other society has committed itself to the proposition that
all people have the opportunity to live up to their God-given potential
and that we will provide universal public education, to offer that to
each young boy and girl.
We are not perfect. We know that. We know we have schools that fail
at this responsibility. Yet the goal we have set and the results we
have seen, from a commitment to public education for so many years now,
have been realized in the success of this country, in the uniqueness of
our mobility, and in the opportunities we make available.
There are some children who, frankly, start out pretty far behind the
starting line. They do not have the family background. They do not have
the environmental enrichment. They do not have families who will help
them succeed in school. They are often trapped in generational poverty.
When you have poor people, you often have poor services.
[[Page S6076]]
It is a challenge to those of us who believe in public education to
come up with reasons to oppose something that sounds so good. You can
read the supporters' comments. They say: In some of our large cities,
children are trapped in failing schools. They should be set free. And
we should, therefore, give them money to go to a private or parochial
school. And it sounds so good. But it has a number of serious flaws
that I hope will lead a majority in this Chamber to vote against it.
Let's take, first, the fact that the experiments that have been run--
because we have already run experiments on vouchers--have demonstrated
absolutely no evidence that vouchers help to improve student
achievement.
Secondly, we know vouchers do not help the students who need the help
the most.
Thirdly, vouchers do nothing to help improve public schools. In fact,
research shows clearly that vouchers only further segregate and
stratify our public schools.
That does not stop the proponents. I often have remarked since I have
been in Washington that Washington operates in an evidence-free zone.
You can put out the evidence, and if it runs counter to the ideology,
then the evidence does not count.
But clearly there is no evidence. In fact, a 1998 study of the
Milwaukee public school choice program, done by Cecilia Rouse of
Princeton University, found that students in public schools with
smaller class size and additional State funding experienced
significantly faster reading scoring gains than students who attended
private schools through the program.
In Cleveland, a study of the voucher program found no significant
difference between the achievement of voucher students and their public
school counterparts in reading, mathematics, social studies--the full
battery of tests--after controlling for background characteristics,
including prior achievement.
So I do not think we need another experiment to tell us vouchers do
not work. We already have clear evidence of that fact.
But there are those who argue that increasing competition among
public schools, through vouchers, will help improve student achievement
in failing schools. But we know that, too, is a false promise.
We know what does work--strong accountability, coupled with the extra
attention that students who need it require, and the kinds of
intervention we have heard about--everything from preschool to parental
involvement to afterschool and summer school.
Scholars from the Economic Policy Institute, Duke University, and the
Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas, as well as Stanford
University, have found that States with strong accountability systems
which do not include vouchers were successful in improving student
achievement in the lowest performing public schools. Researchers call
it the scarlet-letter effect, which shows that if a school is termed
``failing,'' the school is often motivated to improve. That is what we
should be focusing on now, and that is what we are focusing on in this
education debate.
I also worry that trying to provide sufficient funds to afford a
student a choice that is meaningful will siphon much needed funds out
of our public school system. A $1,500 voucher, for example, is just not
sufficient in most large cities I am aware of, and we, therefore, know
that families have to add a substantial contribution themselves. In
Milwaukee, for example, as many as 46 percent of students dropped out
of the voucher program in the first year, and 28 percent dropped out in
the fifth year because the $3,600 voucher was not sufficient to cover
costs such as registration fees, books, uniforms, and transportation.
We also have to worry that if you implement vouchers, then very often
the motivated students and their parents will take advantage of them
and we will see the kind of exodus from the public schools that will
only make it more difficult to change their futures.
How can we justify taking $50 million away from proven practices of
improving student achievement? We need to do more to lower class sizes.
Yet we were unsuccessful in continuing a proven program to do just that
by helping to fund teachers in the classroom. Our friends on the other
side said: That is not something the Federal Government should be
doing; so even though we know it works, we won't vote for it.
We were unsuccessful in having construction and modernization and
repair funding available where we know that so many schools,
particularly the very schools we are talking about, are literally
falling down around the heads of students and teachers. We were told:
Well, modernizing our schools is not a Federal responsibility.
We need to recruit and retain teachers, and we know we are not going
to do that if we don't provide competitive salaries and bonuses and
other financial rewards. And we have a long way to go before we have
the teaching core, the quality teaching core we need in our country.
Instead of investing in proven measures to raise student achievement,
we are being asked to divert and siphon off these dollars.
I started by saying that my concern is not only based on the fact
there isn't any evidence this works, that it siphons money out of the
public schools, that, in effect, it opens the door to giving up on what
we know makes a difference in our children's lives, but that also
public schools, for me, are the distinguishing characteristic that sets
us apart from many other societies. They are the bedrock of our
democracy. I don't think we would be giving up on any of our
fundamental freedoms so easily. I don't think we would be turning our
back on our Constitution or our Bill of Rights. Yet without a strong
public school system, we could, in effect, be doing just that.
At a time when we are trying to hold students and teachers to higher
standards, diverting scarce resources to fund an experiment that we
already know has weak results and could very well undermine the future
of public education, which takes care of 95 percent of our students and
works well in most parts of our country, is a very tragic step in the
wrong direction.
I heard the end of the remarks of my colleague from California. I
know she is a very strong supporter of public education, as I am. And
like her, I went to public schools from kindergarten through high
school. I believe in public schools. I was struck by what she said. If
we were already doing what we know works, if we had lowered class
sizes, if we had imposed the discipline, if we had recruited and paid
teachers in the hard-to-teach schools what they should be paid, if we
had modernized our schools so we didn't have chunks of plaster falling
on teachers' heads, as recently happened in a school in my State, then
if we still didn't have results, maybe even we very strong public
school advocates would be willing to say: Well, we need to try
something. But we are nowhere near there.
We have turned our backs on the children who need us the most. We
have basically left them in the most poorly funded schools with the
least qualified teachers, often not even encountering a certified
teacher without adequate resources, without being held accountable, and
we say: Well, what do you know; it is failure.
This is similar to so many of the other proposals that would
undermine public education. It is aimed not at solving the problem but
at coming up with a short-term, ideologically driven answer to a
complicated set of issues. It is tragic that when we know what works,
we are unwilling to step up and fund the resources that will give every
child in America, no matter who that child's parents might be, the same
chance I was given.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I yield back the
remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from New
Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I believe the understanding I had with
Senator Kennedy was that Senator Kennedy and the proponents of his
position would have until 12:15, and then from 12:15--it was a casual
understanding--we would go back to our side. I understand there are
Members on his side who wish to speak, and we have a Member on our
side.
It is my intention at this time to yield the 15 minutes we had
reserved on our side to Senator Ensign from Nevada.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. May I ask a question of the minority side?
[[Page S6077]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. GREGG. Yes, I yield for a question.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, it is my understanding, then, that there
is a prior agreement that a full 15 minutes will be used by the
minority side, and then it will come back over here?
Mr. GREGG. There was no formal agreement, but there was an
understanding that people presenting Senator Kennedy's position on this
amendment would go from 12 to 12:15, and we would go from 12:15 to
12:30, and then we will be in the break for the meetings of the
caucuses. Then we would be coming back. I understand the Senator from
Massachusetts wanted to go into morning business; is that correct?
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, that is correct. I ask the following, if
it is possible. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Nevada be
permitted to proceed. Does he intend to use the full 15 minutes? Might
the Senator from Nevada use less?
Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, 10, 15 minutes, somewhere in there.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator
from Nevada be permitted to proceed, the Senator from Minnesota then be
permitted to speak for 5 minutes, and then I be permitted to speak as
in morning business, at which point the Senate would recess for the
caucuses.
Mr. GREGG. I have no problem with that. The time of the Senator from
Minnesota will come off of the time of the Senator from Massachusetts.
Both the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from Minnesota will
come off of the time of the Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I ask that we change that. I am not going
to speak on the bill.
I ask unanimous consent that the 5 minutes of the Senator from
Minnesota come off Senator Kennedy's time, and that the time that I use
be time as in morning business until we recess for the caucuses.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. GREGG. I have no objection. I will amend it to include that the
time used up in this discussion be applied equally to both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Nevada 15
minutes, or such time as he may consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, many colleagues will come to the floor
today and state that federally funded vouchers will ruin our public
schools. I say flatly that this is wrong.
This program does not take money away from any school. This amendment
creates a demonstration program and authorizes new funding to pay for
it. But, even if the Gregg amendment did not provide new funding,
vouchers would not take money away from public schools. It a student
uses a voucher to go to a private school, a public school no longer has
to pay the cost of educating that student. And, in most cases, a
voucher is given for less money than the average per pupil expenditure
in the school district, thus saving the school money.
Under the Gregg amendment, the voucher program is voluntary. It
permits 10 cities and 3 states to apply for grants to operate a low-
income public/private choice program for students attending failing
schools.
This amendment ensures that children in our Nation's poorest
neighborhoods, who attend our Nation's most struggling schools, have
the opportunity to get out and attend a better, higher-performing
school. These vouchers allow parents to choose the best academic
setting for their child.
In my opinion, the reason all of my colleagues should support this
amendment is because it is going to help children succeed in school.
None of us wants a child to be stuck in a school that has been
identified as failing for 3 years. Rather, we want our children to be
in an environment where they can not only learn but excel in what they
are learning. Vouchers have made this achievement possible for many
students who otherwise would not have succeeded.
School choice, be it private or public, has been proven to drive
reform in our Nation's schools. Why? Because competition breeds reform.
How can a school be expected to rise above mediocrity if it is not
challenged? In my opinion a lack of competition breeds mediocrity.
If you look around us today, I will bet you that everyone here has
sought out the best schools for our children. Many of us are fortunate,
and can afford a move to a better school district, or can send our
children to private schools. I bet that most lobbyists, including those
for the National Education Association, in Washington, DC, send their
children to private schools. However, many in our country are not as
fortunate. How can we idly sit by and abandon children in failing
schools?
This amendment will help those who cannot afford to send their
children to private schools and cannot afford to move to a better
school district.
A study by Harvard researchers found that students who stayed in a
voucher program for 3 or 4 years registered reading scores 3 to 5
percentile points higher and math scores 5 to 11 percentile points
higher than a public school control group.
A study on the Milwaukee choice program found that scholarship
recipients experience a 1.5 to 2.3 percentile point gain over their
peers in math for each year spent in a private school.
Studies of private school choice programs in both Washington, DC, and
Dayton, OH, found that black students who switched from public to
private schools experienced an overall test score gain of 3.3
percentile points the first year, and 6.3 percentile points the second
year over the control group.
If this trend continues, the researchers contend that the achievement
gap in reading and math between white and minority students would be
eliminated.
Isn't this what everyone here wants: to have all students excel? Do
we not want our nation's students to prove that they can do as well or
better than their counterparts worldwide?
Test results released last year on the National Assessment for
Educational Progress, and the International Math and Science Survey,
showed that children who attend private and parochial schools scored
higher than their counterparts in public school.
Students in private and parochial schools did better. It is as simple
as that. Why then would we not allow low-income students who attend
chronically failing schools a chance to attend schools that have proven
time and again that they can and do increase student achievement?
Parents strongly support public school choice; and yes, even
vouchers. A recent poll done by the National Education Association
(NEA) found that 63 percent of parents polled favored legislation that
would provide parents with tuition vouchers of $1,500 a year to send
their children to any public, private, or charter school. I ask my
colleagues, what parent would not want to be given a chance to send
their child to a better, higher performing school?
I have had conversations with public school superintendents,
principals, and teachers who support vouchers. Yes, they support them.
But, they are afraid of stating their support publicly because of the
teacher unions.
In fact, public school teachers send their own children to private
schools at a higher rate than the general population. In Cleveland 39.7
percent of the public-school teachers living in the city sent at least
one child to a private school. The average rate for nonteacher families
was 25.2 percent. Here in Washington, DC, 28.2 percent of public school
teachers send their children to private schools versus 19.7 percent of
the general population. And finally, in Boston, 44.6 percent of public
teachers send their children to private schools, versus 28.9 percent of
all parents.
It is not surprising that private organizations have initiated
private school voucher programs and have had an unbelievable response.
For example, the Children's Scholarship Fund offered 40,000 vouchers to
similar students in cities across the United States. They received 1.25
million applicants. In Baltimore alone 67 percent of the eligible
student pool applied for one of these vouchers.
One of the reasons for this response is simple: parents are seeing
the results that private schools have on test results and want their
child to receive that same education.
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However, the results from introducing vouchers in areas where public
schools are failing our students are not only academic. Yes, test
results have increased, but so have high school completion rates,
college attendance rates, and parental satisfaction. In addition,
students in private schools are better disciplined and feel safer in
their school.
The Federal Government already provides a type of voucher to low- to
middle-income students with the Pell grant program. Pell grants are
given to students to attend any college or university that they want;
be it public, private, or parochial. The Federal Government has
supported this, and as a result the American higher education system is
the envy of the world.
How is a Pell grant any different than a voucher for elementary or
secondary school?
I am not here today to attack our public schools. In most places,
including my own state, our public schools are doing an outstanding
job. But, in some places they are not. Some schools are simply failing
to educate the children who attend them.
Vouchers not only help students leave these failing schools, but also
help to foster change in the schools they are leaving. Principals,
teachers and superintendents do not want to have failing schools. They
want their school to produce smart and productive children.
In fact, with the introduction of the A+ program in Florida, failing
schools did improve. Schools given a D or F improved by implementing
longer school days, providing additional teacher training and
professional development opportunities, and creating special programs
to improve math and reading skills for at-risk students.
This is what I want to see happening nationwide. I want to see our
public schools improve; to prove to us that they can teach our students
just as well, if not better, than private schools.
I believe that this legislation provides the assistance that many
public schools need to foster these changes and improvements. But I
also believe that this amendment is a necessary part of this
legislation. This amendment ensures that students in school districts
that are struggling to improve student achievement will be given a
chance to attend a school that does improve achievement.
I hope that my colleagues will support this amendment, and support
children in failing schools receive a better education.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
Minnesota is recognized.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, because there are other Senators
desiring to speak on this, I can do this in less than 5 minutes. An
awful lot has been said.
I was listening to my colleague from Nevada, and I thought I might
say at the beginning, in terms of my background, all of our children
went to public schools. My wife Sheila worked at the library of the
high school. I think this reminds me of a debate I was involved in with
Senator Hatch from Utah when I first came to the Senate, a sharp
debate, but done with some friendliness and a twinkle in our eye.
I said to Senator Hatch, if Democrats and Republicans in the Senate
could say to me as a Senator from Minnesota, we have lived up to our
commitment to leaving no child behind--I have heard so much about
leaving no child behind: We have fully funded prekindergarten education
so every child in America comes to kindergarten ready to learn--that is
where the Federal Government could be a real player; we have fully
funded the title I program for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We have lived up to our commitment to fund the IDEA program for
children with special needs; We have voted for smaller class size and
voted to get more teachers, good teachers into teaching, to join many
good teachers who are teaching; we have voted for there to be an
investment of money to rebuild crumbling schools because crumbling
schools tell the children we don't give a damn; we have voted for
resources for support services so there are counselors and teacher
assistance and to help kids in reading; We have done it all, and none
of it has worked; We have made our commitment to public education, and
it has not worked; at that point in time, I might be the first person
to embrace vouchers. But we have not done any of that. It is for that
reason alone that I vigorously oppose this amendment introduced by the
Senator from New Hampshire.
Second, in my understanding in this proposal--by the way, the
exclusive private schools cost a lot--I don't know how it is that low-
income children are going to be able to afford this, even with the help
they get here. This is fantasy land to believe that is the case.
There is not a requirement to accept children, for example, who have
special needs. If that is the case, and I believe it is, I oppose this
amendment for that reason alone. I do not support public money that is
not linked to making sure that every child will be able to benefit,
including children with special needs. I have made my case.
One other point. This bill is called BEST. This piece of legislation
in its present form so far, beyond testing every child at every grade
from grade 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and telling every school district in every
State they have to do it, I see no guarantee anywhere in this
legislation that provides any resources to make sure every child will
have the same opportunity to learn. I don't see it in this legislation.
I don't see it. It didn't happen last week with the trigger amendment
on title 1. I am not aware of any agreement with the administration.
This is putting the cart ahead of the horse, talking about vouchers,
without making the commitment to public education.
The tragedy is we have plenty of issues in our States, huge
disparities of resources between children in more affluent districts
and districts less affluent, States that could do better with
surpluses, and Minnesota is an example. I cannot believe we are not
making more of an investment in education in our own State. But at the
Federal level, Senators, we have not even come close to matching the
words we speak with the action we are taking. We have not lived up to
our commitment to leaving no child behind, which I have said a million
times, cannot be accomplished on a tin-cup education budget. That is
all we have.
Until we make the commitment to invest in the skills and intellect
and character of all children in our country--and it starts with
education, which is the foundation of opportunity--I could never
support this voucher proposal. I hope it is defeated.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
Massachusetts is recognized.
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