[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 82 (Wednesday, June 13, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3137-H3141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1830
            AMERICA HAS URGENT NEEDS FOR SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Hart). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
Etheridge) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Madam Speaker, I rise this evening to direct the 
attention of my colleagues to a task that I think is paramount in our 
Nation and our ability to be able to compete in the 21st century, and 
that is the task of improving the public schools in this country.
  As the hour goes on, a number of my colleagues on the Democratic side 
have indicated they will join me as we offer a perspective on this 
critical issue facing our Nation, our States, our communities, and 
certainly the parents, teachers, and students of this country.
  As communities throughout my district and really across this country 
celebrated the graduation season in the past few weeks, I believe it is 
an opportune time to look at what Congress needs to do to provide our 
schools the support they need to succeed in the 21st century.
  It does not seem like it, but in just a matter of less than 2 months, 
school will be convening again all across America. Over 53-54 million 
students will head back to school, the largest number of public school 
students in the history of this country. At a time when the classrooms 
are going to be overcrowded, space will be at a premium and staffs will 
be challenged. Today my colleagues, Democratic colleagues who will join 
me, together we joined all of the members of the Democratic Caucus in 
signing a discharge petition on the bipartisan Johnson-Rangel-Etheridge 
school construction bill. American people understandably do not follow 
legislative process close enough to know what a discharge petition is 
or why it is important.
  I regret that we even have to use it, but when there comes a time 
when the majority estoppels an issue as important as school 
construction for the children of this country, it is time for drastic 
action. A discharge petition is the only vehicle we have as ranking 
minority members to force the leadership to act, such as when they have 
blocked us from bringing up needed legislation. That is the only way 
that the Members have an opportunity to get it done. I would remind my 
colleagues and others that every Member of this body is elected by the 
same

[[Page H3138]]

number of people, except at the end before a census when you may have 
more or less people in a district than usual.
  This is so important because we know that we have a bipartisan 
majority in this body of the membership who will vote for this school 
construction bill that will provide $25 billion to help build and fix 
schools in communities all across America. But the only way we can get 
a vote on this bill is if we get 218 signatures on the discharge 
petition. That means that we have to get a majority of the Members of 
the House to sign the discharge petition to get it to the floor, and we 
have more signatures than that as cosponsor of the bill when it came up 
before. If we get a chance to vote on it, it will pass by a large 
majority, in my opinion.
  As my colleagues know, I am the only former State school chief 
serving in Congress. I had the privilege of being elected to lead my 
State of North Carolina's public schools for 8 years, through a time of 
tremendous growth and change and opportunity. I am pleased to be 
serving in Congress. I have been working since I got here now 4\1/2\ 
years ago to pass this innovative legislation to provide national 
leadership for better schools.
  But the Republican leadership refuses to allow us a vote on this 
critical bill, for whatever reason. Some say partisanship; some say 
unyielding ideology. It makes no sense not to have a vote on it. It 
does not do anything to dictate to anyone. The only thing it does is 
provide tax free bonds to the local units of government, to sell those 
bonds and build school buildings to get children out of trailers, off 
stages, and out of hallways to where they have decent lighting and new 
technology, all of those things that we think about that is important 
for education.
  It is difficult for me to understand why we cannot get a vote on it. 
When Members stand on the floor of the House and say education is 
important, the President of the United States says it is one of his top 
priorities, if he makes one telephone call, we might get a 
breakthrough, if he would just call the Speaker.
  We have urgent needs for school construction, and they are going 
worse every day. We must work to help meet these needs.
  Throughout my district in North Carolina, schools are bursting at the 
seams. As I said, school will open in just a few short months, less 
than 2 now. And somewhere between 53 and 54 million children are going 
to show up. We know that school enrollment is going to increase the 
following year, and the year after that, and projections are for the 
next 10 years. Too many students are being condemned to less-than-the-
best facilities and stuffed in overcrowded classrooms and rundown 
facilities. We need a modernization act to help fix this problem.

  It bothers me that we talk about how important education is and we 
turn a blind eye to doing the needed things we need on facilities. Is 
it the most important thing? Probably not. But it is among the list of 
important things. Why? Because a well-trained teacher in front of that 
classroom, in my opinion, is the most critical piece. But then again 
you ask the question: Why not have a good place for the teacher to 
teach and the child to learn? If we say education is important and 
children ride in buses passing nice new prisons to go to a rundown 
school, what kind of message are we sending to our children. Do they 
really believe that we believe that education is that important? And 
yet the Republican leadership refuses to act on our modest bipartisan 
legislation that begins to supply some measure of help in this critical 
crisis.
  Yes, we need more teachers. We need to reduce class sizes, but we 
need the space to put students in. Every year, the Federal Government 
spends billions of dollars to build State prisons. We spend money for 
local roads, bridges, waterways, and countless other projects that are 
needed and are important. But why do they get priority over school 
construction? Do you reckon it is because of powerful constituents and 
influential patrons here in Washington. I would dare not think it was 
because school children do not vote.
  My friends, I am here to fight for the citizens who cannot vote, the 
children. They may only be 20 percent of our population, but I can 
assure you tonight that they are 100 percent of the future.
  I am here to represent the children who do not have lobbyists to get 
the leadership to cut them a deal. I am here to speak for the children 
whose voices will not be heard by themselves to say we need school 
construction. We need books. We need air conditioned classrooms. We 
need technology in those classrooms. We need bathrooms that work and 
water fountains that put out cool water on a hot day.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in signing the discharge petition on 
the Johnson-Rangel-Etheridge School Construction Act and to pass this 
critical bill without delay, and we can do it. It seems to me a tax cut 
was important to this body and to the President, and we got it through 
here in record time, before Memorial Day. School starts in less than 2 
months. We cannot build buildings that quick, but we can start; and it 
is important.
  I have spoken many times on this floor about the need for school 
construction, and I will continue to speak out because the need is 
growing every day, every month, and every year. The last number I saw 
about the need for modernization in this country is approaching $300 
billion. That is a lot of money. Historically we have said that is a 
local and State responsibility, and we do not say that with a lot of 
other things.
  We have people come to the floor and say education is the most 
important thing we have to do in this country beyond our national 
defense, and when it comes time to make the hard decisions to help make 
a difference, it becomes a big slip between the lip and the hip. It 
takes resources to get the job done. As more children come, the need 
will continue to grow.
  You know, the other side of that coin, as I mentioned earlier, is the 
need for good teachers, to reduce class size, decent facilities, 
adequate class sizes, and well-trained teachers are a critical piece in 
the challenge to improve education. We cannot do it in a stop-start, a 
piece here and a piece there. We would not dare, no businessman would 
dare try to do that on a production line building an automobile or 
tractor or any other product; and yet we ask our teachers to operate in 
conditions that we would not operate a factory for business people. It 
says something about our priorities. It bothers me greatly at a time 
when we have more resources available to us in this Congress than we 
have had in over 20 years. I trust we will not squander that 
opportunity.
  Last year, the Democratic staff of the Committee on Government Reform 
Special Investigation Division prepared for me a study entitled K-3 
Class Sizes in North Carolina's Research Triangle Region, and the 
numbers in this report are startling. I am talking about an area of the 
country that I think is fairly progressive. It does a good job with 
education. We have outstanding teachers. Children do well. It is one of 
those regions when you talk about high tech, you have to talk about 
Research Triangle Park as one of the top five or six places in the 
country. No matter how much talk or rhetoric there is in this town 
about education, I believe we should stick to the facts. Let me share 
with you some of the facts from my district. I think they would be the 
same from other districts and could very well be more telling.
  Fact number one, last year in Wake County, the largest county in my 
congressional district and the second fastest growing county in the 
State of North Carolina, over 95 percent of young children were taught 
in classrooms that exceeded the national goal of 18 students per 
classroom. That is kindergarten through third grade.
  Anyone who has done any kind of longitudinal study, which is a study 
that is done over years that has a statistical base, says if one wants 
to really improve education, improve the quality of opportunity for 
every child, then reduce class sizes, put a good teacher in front of 
that classroom, and exciting things will happen.
  Why? Because teachers do not have time when they have 26 or 30 
students in a class. It is very difficult. I like to remind people when 
they raise the issue, Faye and I have three wonderful children. We love 
all three of them. They have done well, and we are proud of them. One 
is a teacher, one started as a teacher and is now in law school, and 
the other finished school and is farming.

[[Page H3139]]

  But when they were growing up, I would hate to think that we had 28 
or 30 in a room. They were great youngsters, but I think that would 
have been tough. That is what we ask our teachers to do every day. We 
ask them to be surrogate parents, counselors, moral leaders. We ask 
them to be teachers. We ask them to do everything for our children. And 
to give students the kind of care and direction they need, and yet we 
put them in overcrowded classrooms.

                              {time}  1845

  We stuff more in than the teacher has time to work with and it makes 
it very difficult. In the Research Triangle region as we talked about 
those class sizes, 95 percent of the young children are taught in 
classrooms that exceed the national average. Across the 13-county 
Triangle region, 91 percent of our children in kindergarten through the 
third grade are taught in classrooms that exceed 18 students. That is a 
significant number when you look at all the challenges you have as a 
kindergartner. For those of us who are adults, it is kind of hard to 
remember when we were kindergartners. Sometimes it is difficult to 
remember that when you only have one at home. Just think what it would 
be if you had 18 and you were trying to teach them their numbers, their 
colors and their ranges are so great, from some who come to school 
knowing their colors, others who come to school knowing how to use the 
bathroom and go do other things and others who do not. Teachers have to 
do all that. When you are in classrooms over 18, the job is exceedingly 
difficult.
  More troubling is the fact that a whopping 42.5 percent of 
kindergarten students in Wake County are in huge classrooms of 25 or 
more.
  When we talk about improving the quality of education across this 
country as we compete in a global economy, then we understand the 
tremendous challenge and responsibility we are placing on teachers. No 
wonder it is difficult to recruit teachers and more difficult to keep 
them in the classroom. They are looking for other jobs. Besides that, 
we do not pay them like we ought to pay them. The last time I checked, 
if a teacher bought a car it cost just as much as it does for the 
president of a bank or a large corporation. They do not give them a 
discount. We have got teachers leaving education at an alarming rate 
now. Why? In the first 5 years, roughly 25 percent are leaving the 
profession, because they cannot make a living, buy a home and look 
after their children. There is something wrong when we are not doing 
that. Besides that, we are not even building the kind of facilities 
they need. We have to change that.
  The report I am talking from also documented that reducing class size 
improves order. Surprise. Improves discipline. It cuts down as much as 
30 percent on the time a teacher must divert from instruction to 
dealing with disruption. It seems to me that means students are 
learning more if you have time to instruct and they have time to learn. 
Not surprisingly, small class sizes lead to greater academic 
achievement, as I have just said. That is what we all want.
  The report demonstrates that class size reduction in the early grades 
is one of the most direct and effective ways to improve education 
performance. Why is it, then, if we know that, that this body wants to 
turn a blind eye to putting more teachers out there to help reduce 
class sizes? It is beyond me. I do not understand it. Maybe someone 
will explain it to me. No teacher can be expected to reach young minds 
effectively in a classroom that is overcrowded with so many youngsters. 
It is very difficult. The task is challenging enough to begin with 
without handicapping our teachers who care so much for their children.
  Madam Speaker, I have been in a lot of classrooms, probably more than 
any other Member in this body. I have seen how teachers can take milk 
cartons and turn them into turkeys for young children. I have seen how 
they can take throwaway things and turn them into usable items in the 
classroom. They take all the used equipment we give them, and I often 
marvel at how grateful they are that we will give them anything they 
can use. I remember when I was superintendent, we got the business 
community to give us their used computers because some schools had no 
computers. Then I go to meetings and I hear people say, ``What we need 
to do is turn out young people who can compute, who can communicate and 
when they come out of school, they ought to be able to go in business 
and run all this equipment.'' I say, ``That's right.'' But they do not 
have the equipment to learn on. Yet we criticize the public schools and 
we are not willing to give them the tools to do the job. It is wrong. 
It is unfair to hardworking teachers and bright young people who want 
to achieve to not give them a chance.
  Let me talk about now some of the good things that Congress is doing 
to help improve our Nation's schools, because I do not think you always 
ought to talk about the things we are not doing. I think it is 
important to remind ourselves that we are doing some things. As a 
member of the Committee on Science, I have been working with my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to help strengthen math and 
science and engineering education in this country, because I firmly 
believe as most of my colleagues do and I think a majority of the 
people in this country, if we are going to be a major competitor in the 
21st century, we are going to have to do better and better 
educationally and academically because we truly are competing with the 
world. The days are gone when we just compete with the neighbors next 
door. We still are the world's largest market, but the truth is that 95 
percent of the people of this world live outside the borders of the 
United States, so that is our developing market and our future market 
and we have got to be able to compete with it. There are absolutely 
critical fields in math, science and engineering for our Nation's 
economy to prosper. Military dominance and supremacy. Domestic quality 
of life in the 21st century. It is absolutely imperative that we 
improve our technological skills if we want to remain and continue to 
grow. Otherwise, we will be passed.

  The Rand Institute recently issued a report on the changes technology 
will bring in the coming years, over the next 25 years. Let me share 
some of this with Members. Hopefully it will help folks understand 
where we need to get to and be a little bit more focused on why we need 
to be spending dollars today on education to help our young people who 
will come out in 2015, will really be the next graduating class that 
starts this coming year.
  It dramatically lays out how high the stakes really are, and they are 
very high. Let me read from the report summary. If that is not a wakeup 
call, then maybe we have got people ready for a slap.
  ``Life in 2015 will be revolutionized by the growing effects of 
multidisciplinary technology across all dimensions of life: social, 
economic, political and personal. The results could be astonishing. 
Effects may include significant improvements in human quality of life 
and lifespan; high rates of industrial turnover; lifetime worker 
training; continuing globalization; reshuffling of wealth; cultural 
amalgamation or invasion with potential for increased tension and 
conflict; shifts in power from nation states to nongovernmental 
organizations and individuals; mixed environmental effect; improvements 
in quality of life with accompanying prosperity and reduced tension; 
and the possibility of human eugenics and cloning.''
  We need to read that a couple of times, because that is really heavy 
stuff. That is available within most all of our lifetimes unless 
something happens to suddenly end it. Those are major changes. They 
will all come about as a result of the opportunities in technology and 
others.
  Madam Speaker, the impact of this coming revolution is mind-boggling, 
but one point is abundantly clear. There is no question about it in my 
mind: America must have the leaders and workers to harness the 
potential of this coming revolution and continue to exert our global 
leadership role to secure our economic leadership position. Congress 
must provide support today through innovative efforts to improve 
science education to promote the success of America tomorrow. We cannot 
wait 5 to 10 years to start. Other countries are already investing 
today.
  I am pleased to report that we have begun to make some progress in 
this effort. Today, the House Committee on

[[Page H3140]]

Science unanimously adopted H.R. 1858, the National Mathematics and 
Science Partnership Act, to improve our Nation's standing in math, 
science, engineering and technological education and the instruction of 
it. This bill includes a major initiative that I started out with last 
year to enhance math and science education and teacher preparation 
through the National Science Foundation. This measure authorizes $200 
million for NSF to establish partnerships between institutions of 
higher education and local and State school systems to improve the 
instruction of elementary and secondary science education. That is an 
important component. Having been a State superintendent and working at 
the State level with local school systems, I can tell Members that is 
a critically needed piece and those dollars can be used wisely. It will 
provide a variety of other activities to include: recruiting and 
preparing pre-service students for careers in mathematics education, a 
shortage in this country right now; offering in-service professional 
development initiatives, including summer or academic year institutes 
or workshops to strengthen the capabilities of existing mathematics and 
science teachers.

  For too many years, we employed teachers, depending on the school 
systems, 9 months; in North Carolina it is 10 months and we wonder what 
they ought to do the next 2 months. Go out and find a part-time job? 
That is fine when you are young, but as you get older, you really need 
to have full-time work because you have full-time bills. We are beyond 
where that can continue to happen. Especially in the area of science 
and mathematics, if we can provide them with resources, they can get 
training, they will come back and even be far better teachers the 
following year.
  Innovative initiatives that instruct teachers on using technology 
more effectively. This is a critical piece, because technology is 
moving so fast. When you are in that classroom every day and you are 
instructing every day, you do not have time in a lot of cases to do all 
those things you would like to do to keep up to speed with all the new 
pieces coming down. I guess education is the only place I know where we 
ask a teacher to teach all day, go home at night and do a lesson plan, 
grade papers until sometimes 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night, especially if 
you are a teacher of literature and grading compositions, and come back 
and start all over the next day. That is why it is getting more and 
more difficult.
  It also will help in the development of distant learning programs for 
teachers and students, an opportunity to cut down on travel, especially 
now when gas prices are getting to be prohibitive for people to travel.
  Teacher transition efforts for professional mathematicians, 
scientists and engineers who wish to begin a career in teaching. There 
are those who have put in a full career in a professional field and 
really have got their years in to retire and feel a calling. They would 
like to go back to the public schools and get reinvigorated with a 
group of young people, and start teaching all over again, something 
they have wanted to do but could not do because of finances. There will 
be resources here to help make that transition, especially at a time 
when teachers are so critical and the shortage is so great.
  Madam Speaker, my district is, as I said, in the Research Triangle 
region of North Carolina, where we know that technology fueled the 
remarkable economic growth we have experienced in the 1990s, land that 
was turned from pine trees and cotton fields to high tech, computer 
chips, and a revolution that employs over 100,000 people. It has 
changed the landscape forever and added wealth to a lot of people. This 
partnership bill, this initiative that we are talking about, will help 
foster and provide a solid foundation on which to build better math and 
science education, not only in places like Research Triangle Park, but 
all over America and help those people who are looking for a better 
opportunity in life to realize it.

                              {time}  1900

  We cannot turn back. I grew up on a farm in eastern North Carolina. 
The county where I grew up, we grew normal crops you would have in 
eastern North Carolina, tobacco, corn, cotton, soybeans. Then we had 
hogs and all the other stuff. I think now how busy we thought we were 
then, but reflecting back we really did not have anywhere near as much 
to do as I thought we did, because today the pace seems to be much 
faster. I only say that to say that the things we are talking about 
tonight of education and opportunities have helped a young farm boy 
have the opportunity to get a college degree and the educational 
opportunities I have had, and served as a State legislator, State 
superintendent, now a Member of the most distinguished body, in my 
opinion, in the world, in the United States Congress. Yet, with all 
that we still have much to do.
  Let me take just a moment now in this special order to talk about and 
celebrate a bipartisan accomplishment that passed this House just a few 
weeks ago. I think it is so important. It really is a bipartisan 
accomplishment that I think will help improve the schools in this 
country and certainly has had a significant impact on schools in my 
State and in those areas across the country that we have put it in, and 
that is called character education.
  Last month, during the consideration of H.R. 1, this House 
unanimously voted to add a character education amendment that was 
offered by myself and my Republican colleague, the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Wamp). This important measure will provide $50 million 
per year for the U.S. Department of Education to provide grants to 
State and local school systems to launch education initiatives for our 
children.
  When I served as State superintendent, we pioneered character 
education. After a comprehensive survey I did in 1989, surveying about 
25,000 across the State, some alarming data came back that things we 
really needed to do and pay attention to and after a year and a half 
study and work with a whole host of principals, teachers, academicians, 
judges and others, we recommended to the State board and they adopted a 
character education program that we really initiated and integrated 
into the curriculum across the State.
  The survey showed that discipline, safety, good order and respect 
were really major problems or were perceived to be major problems, I 
should say, in the public schools of North Carolina. We planted a seed 
of character education, and I happen to believe they have produced a 
bumper crop of good things for the children of our State. This bill, I 
trust, will begin the process of doing that across America.
  Character education works, I believe, because it teaches students to 
view the world through a moral lens and to learn that actions really do 
have consequences. I think character education works best because it is 
integrated in the curriculum but probably equally or more important it 
integrates those basic values that all of us can agree on: Honesty, 
integrity, respect, responsibility, kindness, compassion, perseverance 
throughout the academic curriculum.
  I do not know of anyone who can disagree with those. It works, 
character education works, because it teaches children how to grow up 
to become not only good students but good citizens and decent human 
beings as well.
  I am pleased and proud that the House has passed the $50 million 
Etheridge-Wamp character education amendment and I call on my 
colleagues in this body and the White House to support it.
  Mr. Speaker, let me return back to where I started and then I will 
prepare to wind down shortly. This issue of school construction, I have 
talked about several issues after having started with that but I think 
it is important to remember Congress is called upon from time to time 
to do many things. If we have a disaster, we try to respond. If we have 
a problem in the world, America is the last safe haven as a democracy 
for people around the world, and we normally go and try to help, as we 
should.
  The time has come to do our own homework, to take care of our own 
children, to meet their needs, and we can do it. We have the resources, 
but the question is do we have the will. Do we have the commitment? I 
have often believed that it is one thing to talk. It is another thing 
to do. It is easy to say I care; I have compassion. It is another thing 
to show it in acts. It is one thing to tell a person, I am concerned 
you do

[[Page H3141]]

not have food and then walk off and leave them with their stomach 
grumbling. It is another thing to help.
  I do not know that building schools is exactly like that, but I truly 
believe that if we do the things for children, we have quality 
facilities, good teachers, a good environment for them to learn, reach 
out to their parents and invite them to be part of the educational 
establishment, schools will be better, educational attainment will 
increase and America will be a better place in the future, and our 
democracy will stand for a long, long time.

  If we do not, as our Founding Fathers challenged us long ago, we have 
a democracy but we are the only ones who can determine whether it will 
last. I really believe that we have it within our destiny.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to offer my views on reform of Federal 
support for kindergarten through 12th grade education. As I said at the 
outset, I spent a number of years, and as I told my colleagues when I 
came here, as the only chief in this body, former chief. I do not know 
that I have all the answers but I know some of the things we ought not 
be doing and sometimes we do some things on this floor that I know we 
should not be doing. I believe I have a little different perspective as 
we look at it than others in this town about what it takes to improve 
schools for our children, and my State has repeatedly been cited as a 
model for reform by everyone from the Bush White House to Democratic 
leaders in the Congress, to the nonpartisan Rand Corporation that has 
done a number of studies in education across America.
  H.R. 1 as passed by this House may prove to be a decent education 
reform. I sure hope it does. There are some things in it that I would 
not have put in it, I would have written differently, but I voted for 
this bipartisan bill because I support the concept of greater 
accountability with greater resources to get the job done.
  Let me say again so no one misunderstands, one cannot, one will not, 
improve schools and education on the cheap. In the 1980s, we decided we 
were going to rearm the military and the last time I checked we spent 
hundred of billions of dollars and we won the Cold War. We did not win 
it on the cheap. It will not even take that kind of money to turn 
education around.
  I get amused when people talk about how much we are spending, and we 
do spend quite a bit, but the truth is at the Federal level in most 
cases it is less than 7 percent of all the money going to education. If 
one goes back to the 1960s, when we really increased in science and 
math education, when Sputnik went up we were spending closer to 12, 15 
percent, depending on which system you were in.
  So we have gone backwards. Our schools today face daunting 
challenges, among them record enrollments, run-down facilities, 
incredible diverse bodies with special needs. And, yes, we have higher 
expectations, to name a few. We have more children showing up at the 
schoolhouse door today who do not speak the language of the school 
system than ever in history, but if we will do a few things we can help 
those children. They will be capable. They will be prosperous. They 
will be our next generation of doctors, lawyers and teachers. We have 
to give them an opportunity. Education is the key to opportunity. 
Education is the door through which all of us walk into the middle 
class. We do not get there without it.
  The days are gone when you can be a dropout and become a millionaire, 
but you can do it with education. That is still the American dream.
  Before we put new requirements on our schools and on our children, 
the schools are not going to be able to meet those strident new 
standards if we fail to provide the resources that they are going to 
need to achieve those goals. It is one thing to say jump and then you 
put a millstone around their feet. It is another thing to give them 
wings. I am very concerned that we may not put the resources behind it.
  Congress may fail to do that. If we do, we will pay a heavy price. 
The resources that we are going to need to invest in better schools can 
only come from the budget we have. The Bush budget request provides the 
smallest educational increase in percentage terms in 6 years, in 6 
years. In fact, the final budget that we passed eliminates all the 
education funding that the Senate Democrats added and cuts education 
funding even below what the President's budget had requested, $1 
billion less than the President's budget this year, and $20 billion 
less over the next 10 years.
  Now, that does not sound like folks who are really committed to 
improving education in this country. I cannot imagine this body saying 
we are going to improve our military and scale up to meet the needs of 
the 21st century and the challenges around the world but we are going 
to give you $20 billion less money. That is not going to happen.
  To do it to our teachers and to our children is akin to being sinful. 
If we are to realize our potential as a country, we absolutely must 
reverse this course and rededicate ourselves to real education reform. 
We must provide the tools to get the job done. If you are going to dig 
a hole, you give somebody either a shovel or you give them a tool to 
dig a hole with. If you are going to dig a big enough one, you may want 
a piece of power equipment. But if we are going to raise the bar on 
every child in America, and I happen to believe we can and should, we 
need to make sure that they are strong enough to jump over that bar.
  It reminds me of something one of my farmer friends told me one time. 
He said, if all you do to a pig is weigh him every day and you do not 
feed him he is not likely to get much bigger. Well, if all we do to 
young people is we test them every day and we do not give them the 
resources to help those that have the greatest need, they are not 
likely to improve a whole lot. We need to be able to put the resources 
there to get the job done. Tough reform without real resources will be 
nothing but a cruel hoax on our children. Reform without resources will 
condemn an entire generation of American children to failure at a 
critical time in our Nation's history by frittering away an 
unprecedented budget surplus.

                              {time}  1915

  In North Carolina, when we started doing our assessment program, we 
put resources in to help those children who were not up to scale. We 
put in summer school so they can go back and catch up so they do not 
get failed, because once a child fails and he fails to pass a grade, 
the likelihood of that youngster dropping out increases dramatically. 
It is important that we do the things that need to be done.
  We know what needs to be done. We may not know everything that works, 
but we can find the best ideas and put them in there.
  Madam Speaker, we have a chance before this Congress adjourns this 
year to get this discharge petition before this body, to vote on it, 
send it to the Senate, let them vote on it, and I have every belief 
that they will pass it, and send it to the President for his signature. 
It will make a difference in the quality of schools in America and the 
modernization and the technology that is needed; but more importantly, 
it will make a difference in the lives of children in America.

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