[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 131 (Wednesday, October 3, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H6252-H6258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE EFFECTS OF TERRORISM ON EDUCATION POLICY IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Grucci). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about three important
items which definitely overlap: education, reparations and terrorism.
As a member of the House and Senate Conference Committee on H.R. 1, the
Leave No Child Behind Act, a major initiative of President Bush that
probably will come to the floor in the next 10 to 15 days, I would like
to emphasize the fact that this legislation focusing on education,
which will probably set a tone and establish some basic principles and
concepts and procedures and movements for the next 10 years, is very
important legislation. It is still important today, despite the
pressures that we feel as a result of the tragedy of September 11. In
fact, after September 11, education becomes even more important in
general; and specifically, as we move toward creating recovery and
construction programs, education must play a major role in this process
of creating recovery and restructuring and construction programs.
September 11 presented us with a tragic and compelling landmark
event. It said to us that terrorism will be a scourge on civilization
for a long time. Modern societies are amazingly vulnerable to
terrorism. The domino impact of the destruction of the World Trade
Center towers overwhelms the mind. How can one event have so many
repercussions? How can one event, one destructive, heinous event lead
to the collapse of so many life elements of our economy and of our way
of looking at certain civil liberties, and a number of other major
tenets of our society? One event.
During World War II when targets were picked to cripple the
industrial might of Germany, they bombed the oil fields in Romania and
they bombed the industrial complex in Hamburg and a number of different
targets, they had definitely aimed at crippling the industrial might of
Hitler, not any one target ever had that kind of an impact. But in our
present society we have constructed, it is so fragile in one sense that
a strike at one point can lead to the tremendous repercussions which
impact not just my City of New York or the State of New York, but the
entire Nation and the economy of the entire world. So I want to
highlight the fact that this event let us know that
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we can have people with cavemen mentalities.
In fact, Osama bin Laden, and I say bin Laden because The New York
Times said that he pronounces it as Sadden; their pronunciation guide
said it rhymes with Sadden, and I think it is ironic that it rhymes
with Sadden, S-A-D-D-E-N. Osama bin Laden is supposed to live in a cave
and there are people surrounding him in a cave; but, nevertheless, out
of that cave, we do not get a caveman mentality, we do not get an
illiterate. We get an evil genius, an evil person with totally no
regard for human life who can strike at one of our vulnerable points
and cause so much harm. Educated people surround bin Laden; educated
people who know how to use computers and know how to communicate all
over the world and who are very patient and very well organized, who
know how to take advantage of every soft spot in our society; educated
people who can only be corralled and only be matched by educated
people. We say, well, we have plenty of educated people. We do not need
to worry about that. But I want to take a few minutes to examine some
of the institutions of our society.
Just as my predecessor was examining INS, I think unfairly in so many
ways, but just as he examined INS, I want to examine some of the
institutions in our society which are constructed to protect us. Those
institutions are run by very well-educated people, run by very well-
trained people, scientists, specialists, maybe some geniuses are in the
CIA and FBI. So where did we go wrong and what are we as citizens
supposed to do?
In my district, I assure my colleagues, we have lost many wonderful
human beings. All human life is sacred and every soul that died in the
World Trade Center was sacred. I have gone to many memorial services. I
experienced firsthand a situation where my daughter-in-law, who worked
in the World Trade Center on the 68th floor of the first tower, was
supposed to be at work at 9:30 instead of 9 o'clock, her usual time.
Because she was due at 9:30, she heard the plane hit the building from
the ground. She was not in the building at that time. But for 4 hours,
I did not know where she was. We did not know where she was. And the
kind of anxiety that I went through, we went through, for 4 hours is
just a tiny, tiny portion of the kind of anxiety that others have
suffered over these last few weeks.
When we finally found out where she was, I confess, I cried
uncontrollably for a while. I found myself crying often uncontrollably
for those others who did not get out and for various stories that I
hear; and I cry when I realize that probably this great catastrophe
could have been avoided. I have the same experience that every other
human being has in terms of the loss of immediate people that I know,
the loss of heroic firemen and policemen, and I react like everybody
else.
But on top of that, as an elected official, I wake up at night and I
feel something else. My post-traumatic stress has another element. And
I have noted in conversations with some of my colleagues that they are
probably feeling the same thing. We are the Government. We are
responsible. Therefore, when the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt)
stood on the floor and said, we failed to keep our people safe from
harm, we have to accept that, in some way, we are failing and have
failed.
I am going to have a series of town meetings, not memorial services.
Other people are doing that very well, and I have attended those. If
people who have lost relatives want to come to town meetings, they
certainly are welcome; and we can take time out to deal with their
concerns. But I want to have a series of town meetings that are
probably very small, because I am not going to take a long time to plan
them and look for a big audience; but I want my constituents all over
the district to come and talk to me about their reaction to what has
happened. I want them to hear that I feel, as a tiny portion of the
total apparatus of government, I feel guilty. I want them to hear that
I feel that we as Americans have a job to do; we have a new mission in
this complicated world, very complex. Our society is far more complex
than any nuclear physics apparatus or any ballistic missile apparatus.
The society and the functioning of the society like ours is very
complex, and it must have well-tuned, well-lubricated institutions
which deal with that complexity. I want to talk to them about it and I
want them to hear me, and I want to hear from them.
In elections, we often hear our constituents talk endlessly about
what have you brought home to the district. How many buildings have you
gotten, Federal buildings have you gotten built? How many grants from
the Federal Government have you brought home? What benefits directly
and concrete can you offer? And the orientation of most of us has to be
in the direction of what can I do for my district in a very concrete
way.
{time} 2030
So who wants, in this situation, to spend time on the floor of the
House or in any other way confronting institutions of our government
that are not functioning properly and which are not under the
jurisdiction of our committees?
I am on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. I am willing to
talk to you all day about the Department of Education and the various
ramifications of what they have done or not done, but I am not on the
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. I am not on the Committee
on the Judiciary.
Often when I come to the floor and talk about those items, my
colleagues do tell me that, Well, you are out of your league. Other
folks know more about that. I have been sort of driven away from a
discussion of certain items as a result of being reminded that I am not
the expert.
Well, I am not the expert, but from now on I intend to be like the
child in Hans Christian Anderson's ``The Emperor Has No Clothes.''
Because I am not the expert, I am going to ask the questions that the
fresh eye and fresh ear can afford to indulge in. It is very important
that I tell my constituents a year from now that I asked all the
questions, I sought the answers, I did the best I could, even though
these things were not directly under the jurisdiction of my committee.
I am going to ask some questions of the CIA and the FBI. I have done
that before, I think 3 or 4 years ago. For several years in a row,
several colleagues would join me, or I would join them in using the CIA
appropriations as an opportunity to discuss the function of the CIA, so
we would always offer an amendment to cut it by 10 percent or 1
percent. We do not know exactly what the budget is, but the New York
Times consistently says it is $30 billion plus. So we used to come to
the floor. It was an opportunity to talk about various problems.
Mr. Speaker, our amendment got fewer and fewer votes. It was one of
those items where I felt a little guilty about discussing it because I
am not on the committee and I do not have the expertise, so I
retreated. I have not talked about the CIA in several years, but I
intend to talk about it tonight.
Education, terrorism, and reparations. The last part of that is
reparations. The treatment of the subject of reparations at the World
Conference Against Racism in Durbin, South Africa, this past summer is
evidence that freedom-loving societies are carrying unnecessary baggage
as we seek a more just world. It is as much a part of the dialogue on
what our role is and where we go now as we search for the terrorism
network and the terrorism, the individuals who guided that network, and
we do things that are unusual, and in some cases incurring collateral
damage that is unavoidable.
What is our moral mission here? How are we going to justify that? We
can justify it only if we reassert the fact that we stand for freedom;
we stand for democracy; we stand for the pieces of the Declaration of
Independence that people like to push aside. We still believe that
everybody has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We really believe that. We have the right to hoist a flag and march
behind that flag and to deal with those perpetrators who are determined
to knock down those principles.
We have a right to have as much fervor and as much zeal as anyone
else, but we have to understand that the lack of fervor and the lack of
zeal makes us more vulnerable. We have not pursued the perfection of
our institutions with the right amount of fervor
[[Page H6254]]
and zeal. Too many of us, Member of Congress, have run away, backed
down, as I did: ``The CIA is someone else's job; the FBI is someone
else's job.''
Yet in this calamity that we have just begun to live through, there
are critical questions that somebody must answer. The INS was being
blamed by the previous speaker, my colleague on the Committee on
Education and the Workforce. I know all about H-1B visas and the kinds
of things that he was talking about, but his overall thesis was that we
were in the present predicament because there are too many people from
outside the country being let into the country.
That sounds like something that Sitting Bull might have said, or
Chief Joseph. The Native Americans probably had real justification for
making that kind of statement: Too many people have been let in the
country, and it is our country.
I reject any blanket statement that says that as a nation of
immigrants we are at a great disadvantage. We are not at a great
disadvantage as a nation of immigrants; we are at a great advantage.
President Clinton has often said that diversity, diversity is one of
our greatest strengths. As we seek world markets, as we seek the good
will of people all over the globe, and as we seek right now these
various alliances and coalitions to fight terrorism, our diversity is
our greatest advantage.
I recall seeing not too long ago, a few months ago, an old movie, one
of those old thrillers. The movie was all about during World War II
they were trying to break the German code. In order to do that, they
came up with a daring plan in Washington where they went out and
recruited ethnic Germans, American Germans who were all put together on
an American submarine, and they were put into a situation where they
encountered a U-boat. And actually were able to fool, with their
tactics, the people in the U-boat, and they took over the U-boat.
The point is that the whole project depended on the recruitment of
ethnic Germans, people that we were at war with, but American Germans
were Americans first. It is a good example of what is happening in many
economic ventures. We have overwhelmed some of our opponents. The
Japanese do not really know what has hit them in certain markets
because they have very little diversity, but we have diversity which
allows us entry into all kinds of markets and situations.
Likewise, if the CIA and the FBI made use of it, that same diversity
could help us infiltrate spy rings and infiltrate terrorism rings, and
provide better protection for us. At least it could provide us with
translators.
One of the real scandals of the present situation is that the FBI was
on television and the radio in my city 2 weeks ago advertising for
people, they are probably still on but I just have not heard them
recently, advertising for folks who could speak Arabic or Farsi. Well,
better late than never, but I thought it was strange. We have been
fighting an Arab-based terrorist ring for a long time. We knew that
when they bombed the barracks in Beirut under Reagan. We knew that when
they bombed the barracks in Saudi Arabia. We knew that when they bombed
the Cole battleship. Why is it that we are not equipped with a
sufficient supply of Arabic translators?
I have heard from the talking heads on television, and I have read in
several articles, that this is a real problem; that there were
documents and communications that lay there undeciphered, unread, not
interpreted, because there were no translators. There were no analysts.
In this great country of ours, we ought to have groups of people who
speak practically any language in the world. I went to my staff and
asked, in New York City, how many colleges are there where Arabic
instruction is provided? New York City has about 20 city universities,
20 colleges and city universities in the system, more than 20, and then
there are other colleges; a total of about 40 different higher
education institutions. We found only six, only six that had some
courses in Arabic, only six. Let us not even go to Farsi, which is what
some folks in Afghanistan speak, or Pashtu in Afghanistan, Urdu in
Pakistan.
In this great Nation of ours, with 3,000 universities and colleges,
more than 3,000, there should not be a single language that we do not
teach somewhere. There should not be a single culture that is not being
thoroughly explored by some group in one of our great universities or
colleges.
But we need to understand our mission. We need to go back and
understand that in this global community that we have helped to create,
we made the WTO, we did Fast Track and NAFTA, we have argued that the
markets of the world belong to us, and therefore we are willing to have
an interaction with the rest of the world unlike any ever known before.
If we are going to do that, let us use some of our magnificent
resources. We have foundations that are loaded with dollars,
foundations which certainly could have programs on culture and
languages that they finance in our various universities. I am not
talking about a government program or a government initiative; but our
universities and colleges and foundations should have an initiative
which guarantees that no matter where we go on this globe, we have a
body of people who understand the culture and the language of those
people.
For the CIA, it becomes an immediate need; for the FBI, it becomes an
immediate need. I will submit this article from the New York Times on
Wednesday, October 3, in its entirety. I will read some excerpts from
it.
Mr. Speaker, this is an article that appears today in the New York
Times, Wednesday, October 3, entitled ``House Panel Calls for Cultural
Revolution in FBI and CIA.''
Now, I am still a little reluctant to do too much criticism of these
venerated institutions here on the floor because I have had these
comments from my colleagues. One colleague said to me that I
embarrassed him by, at a time like this, bringing up possible
inadequacies in the CIA or FBI. He was embarrassed. His naivete
embarrasses me, because here in the New York Times today it shows that
there are a lot of people who are members of the intelligence
community, very much pro the CIA and the FBI in every way, who are
embarrassed and want to see something done.
This is an article by Alison Mitchell:
``The House committee that oversees the Nation's intelligence
agencies has called for far-reaching changes in intelligence operations
and for an independent investigation into why government did not
foresee or prevent the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Reflecting the mood since September 11, the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, in a report accompanying a classified
intelligence bill expected to be taken up by the House this week, says
it is a matter of urgency `like no other time in our Nation's history'
to address the `many critical problems facing the intelligence
agencies.'''
Now, these are people who are friends and protectors of our
intelligence agencies talking. This is the committee of responsibility,
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
``The bill approved by the committee late last week would create an
independent 10-member commission to study `preparedness and
performance' of several Federal agencies during and after the September
11 strikes. It would also increase the roughly $30 billion intelligence
budget, but the exact dollar sums the bill contains are classified.''
There are always increases; $30 billion is not enough, even though
that was roughly the amount we had during the Cold War when we had the
evil empire of the Soviet Union to battle. But $30 billion is not
enough; we need more.
``The committee calls for a cultural revolution inside agencies like
the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and a thorough review of the Nation's national security
structures.''
This is the House committee itself responsible for this. In the past
they have been rather soft on the CIA. The man who heads the Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence is the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Goss). He is a former CIA agent. But here is the problem. In a later
paragraph in the same article, we run into the problem: ``The House
committee chose its words carefully. In the report that accompanies its
bill, the committee says it does not in any way lay blame to the
dedicated men and women of the U.S. intelligence community for the
success of these attacks.''
[[Page H6255]]
{time} 2045
``If blame must be assigned, the blame lies with a government as a
whole that did not fully understand nor wanted to appreciate the
significance of the new threats to our national security despite the
warnings offered by the intelligence community.''
How is that for a turn of logic in terms of, no, the agency that is
directly responsible is really not responsible? It is the government as
a whole. Well, we are right back to me. I am part of the government as
a whole. Every Congressman is part of the government as a whole. We are
to blame. But we are not going to accept the blame by ourselves. We and
the CIA and the FBI, the staff, the policy-making structure, we are all
to blame. Do not say that the wonderful dedicated men and women of the
U.S. intelligence community cannot be blamed.
When we talk about reform of welfare programs, any mother who
deliberately got more food stamps than she should have we put her in
jail. We call for maximum responsibility. So why are we running away
from maximum responsibility and maximum accountability for people who
are in such a critical position?
I will not read the entire article but I do want to complete just a
few other choice paragraphs. ``The commission would be appointed by the
President and congressional leaders; and the commission would examine
the performance of several Federal agencies responsible for public
safety, law enforcement, national security, and intelligence gathering.
It would have subpoena powers and would report back in six months of
its formation.''
I think it is important to note that our previous speaker who laid a
blistering attack against the INS, the INS which brought all of these
immigrants in and is not doing a good job to keep people out, he holds
them responsible, they are not mentioned in this article. They are not
mentioned as an intelligence gathering agency or a national security
agency. In fact, repeatedly, it has been noted that in terms of
processing the terrorists that have been identified, the INS did its
job. But it was a failure of communication between the FBI and the CIA
after the INS pinpointed the people were in the country, the failure of
communication that resulted in two of them not being apprehended.
``President Bush has already ordered internal reviews of intelligence
gathering.'' President Bush has already ordered internal reviews of
intelligence gathering. But the committee said, ``If history serves,
however, no substantial changes will occur after these internal reviews
are completed. The committee believes that major changes are
necessary.''
Another way to interpret that is the usual response to any
embarrassment experienced by the CIA or the FBI is to have an internal
review. For the 19 years that I have been here, there have been several
internal reviews of the CIA and FBI. Now this committee, this friendly
committee is saying, look, we will not go for this. It is not going to
result in any major difference. We need the independent investigation.
I agree with the committee.
I applaud the fact that they are willing to tell the truth partially,
but they are wrong in not assuming that we can hold accountable the CIA
and FBI.
Further quoting from this article, ``While the intelligence bill is
not expected to be controversial, some amendments could prove to be
controversial as Congress contends with how much it wants to rethink
the limits on covert operations. The House committee focused in its
report on the shortage of intelligence analysts and case officers with
foreign language skills.''
This is where I want to end. ``The House committee focused in its
report on the shortage of intelligence analysts and case officers with
foreign language skills. At the NSA and the CIA, thousands of pieces of
data are never analyzed or are analyzed after the fact.'' It said,
``Because there are too few analysts, even fewer with the necessary
language skills. Written materials can sit for months and times years
before a linguist with proper security clearances and skills can begin
the translation.''
Mr. Speaker, I want to go back and tell my constituents that we have
a $30 billion agency that cannot find and hire linguists and analysts,
and that documents which might have uncovered this plot have been
sitting there all this time, and we do not want to blame anybody. The
brave men of the CIA should not be blamed for allowing a situation like
this to take place?
``The committee recommended that intelligence agencies offer bonuses
for language proficiency. They are considering creating their own
language schools.''
We do not to create language schools. There are languages schools out
west. The military uses them. They can train anybody in any language.
We need to have decision-making at the top that it is important for
people to learn certain languages and to send them out there so you
will not have a gaping hole in the operations of this magnitude.
``The committee also said that the Nation needed to increase its
frontline field officers, clandestined case officers and defense
attaches. It said a fresh look should be taken at restructuring the
CIA.''
Where does education come into all of this? I started by saying I
wanted to talk about education. They should have no problem finding the
people they need in this great Nation. But I know one of problems they
encounter if they find somebody who speaks the language, they have to
go through a series of checks in terms of loyalty, et cetera. They find
somebody who speaks the language, they may not write English well
enough or they may not use computers well enough. They may not be
appropriately educated.
We do not have a pool of educated people to draw from for those kind
of jobs. We are headed toward a great calamity in the United States of
America for a lack of educated people, people with college educations
who can part of a pool from which you draw all the professionals you
need. There is a teacher shortage of great magnitude. There is a law
enforcement shortage. Law enforcement agencies are having trouble
recruiting people. There is a shortage in the military in terms of
people who are educated enough to operate very sophisticated high tech
weaponry. Everywhere there is a shortage of people who are properly
educated. So we are back to education. We do not need at this point to
say that we have a major crisis created by September 11. And therefore,
we should ignore the education bill that is being considered by the
Senate and the House at that point or that we should downplay it and
not give it the increases that were foreseen before September 11.
In New York City, there is a rush to cut the education budget. First
thing they want to cut because we have less revenue coming in, we have
a lot of problems. So education is the first agency on the chopping
block. That is a primitive, backward reaction and failing to understand
where we are.
Our law enforcement agencies, our CIA, our FBI, needs trained people
to draw from, from diversified backgrounds. We cannot penetrate certain
groups unless we have somebody who looks and acts and has the
background and culture of that same group, but America is rich because
of immigration. The immigration that has been criticized before has
given us practically every religion, every ethnic group, every language
in the world. We have to open our institutions to a process that allows
these people to come in.
The CIA was sued by women and minorities. The FBI was sued by
Hispanics and African-Americans. In the last 5 years, there have been
suits brought against them for their discrimination. We are back to my
third subject now, reparations.
The World Conference on Racism and how racism is a problem that keeps
us from maximizing our resources, our human resources on our maximizing
in this country because there are these layers of racism, and racism is
worse in the law enforcement community than in any other sector of our
society, whether we are talking about local law enforcement, state
troopers or the Federal level. Racism is a major problem. We have to
confront this and stop carrying the baggage of racism. We have to force
the intelligence community to stop being so incestuous, incestuous, and
open up so that they have the tools that are needed, the human
resources.
Our electronic surveillance systems are magnificent. It can pinpoint
people, objects, anywhere in the world, but this incident, this tragedy
shows that
[[Page H6256]]
we have to get down on the ground, and we have to have human beings
face-to-face, whether they are agents or assets or people back in the
office, analysts, good librarians.
I am a librarian. What they needed in many cases was good librarians
to organize the information, librarians who also could speak the
language, who would help them recruit people who speak the language.
Arrangements could have been made to set up a first class translation
system if the decision-makers on the top had considered it important.
So one of the questions I asked, which embarrassed one of my
colleagues, the CIA and the FBI, do they have decision-makers who
understand the cultures of our enemies? Is there anybody in the high
place in the CIA or the FBI who understands the culture of Islam? Or
who have a pool of people relating to them that they can rely on to
give them up-to-date firsthand ongoing interpretation of what is
happening?
Simple questions. I do not think I in any way endanger national
security by asking the questions, and I said to myself, well, I may not
push anybody to answer it because that might endanger national
security, but now, since newspapers and talking heads and everybody is
asking the same question, why do we not have people who understand the
cultures, people who speak the language? We are asking the obvious
questions.
Education would give us a pool of people who are in a position to be
trained to take these positions. We cannot ever eliminate racism, but
if we had less racism we could develop those diverse groups. Whether it
is people who speak Islamic or different colors, whatever, if there was
less racism we could make use of our great advantage of diversity which
President Clinton so often talked about.
The conference on world racism which talked about reparations was
hijacked by some selfish Arabs who forced the issue, twisted the issue
and made it part of the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. So
there was no real discussion of the ramifications of reparations, but
reparations is something that we have to get off the table, an apology
for slavery, something to get off the table. We ought to go on and do
those things, apologize for slavery, just as the Japanese were asked to
apologize and the Germans apologized to the holocaust victims. There
have been a lot of apologies to people who have been wronged.
Let us apologize for slavery. Let us talk about reparations in some
sensible way. It may mean just the creation of an education system
which guarantees the descendents of slaves who were economically
disadvantaged will always have the opportunity get the first class
education, and by helping them get the first class education, we help
to enlarge the pool of people we need.
There was a time when I heard frequently when I was younger in high
school, I heard people say that the society only needs so many educated
people, and therefore, if you educate too many people, there will be no
jobs for educated people. I heard that at one of the colleges. I heard
it as early as 10 years ago. People feeling that we have got enough
educated people, but the needs have been mushrooming.
One of the characteristics of this very complex modern world of ours
is that it needs so many more educated people. You cannot get educated
people, of course, by giving more scholarships and fellowships at the
college and university level if you do not have the raw material coming
up from elementary and secondary schools.
Our problem in this country is not the opportunity for people who
make it to college. There are all kinds of benefits, all kinds of
opportunities for people who qualify to go to college. The problem is
that there are too few among certain groups that are very much needed
in this society who are able to qualify for entry into college.
So education, the kind of bill we are considering now, what President
Bush chose to call leave no child behind becomes as vital as anything
we are doing. The terrorism bill is not more important than the
education bill. The stimulus bill that we are talking about, a package
to help boost the economy at a time like this, it is not more important
than the education bill.
In order for all of these things to work, we have got to have a
continuing flow up from the pool of people with good education.
{time} 2100
H. G. Wells said, and I often get the quote wrong, I am not sure I
have it right, that ``civilization is a race between education and
chaos.'' I think I came close to what he said. ``Civilization is a race
between education and chaos.'' And it is even more true as our society
becomes more complicated.
There are people who can wreck our computer systems and our whole
cyber-networks, and we need people who are as smart as they are who are
constantly able to have a counteraction and monitor these things. We
need large numbers of young people with those kinds of minds. Large
numbers. What happened at the World Trade Center showed how vulnerable
an attack on a physical facility can be; but Y2K, which I understand, I
do not know the details, but I understand we must give credit to the
CIA and FBI for stopping some plots related to the sabotage of our
whole computer system at the changing of the century. The Y2K problem
that we were so concerned about.
Education is relevant today just as it was a few weeks ago. We have
just completed a Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Weekend
where we come together from all over the country and we talk about
certain issues and problems. I serve as the chairman of the
Congressional Black Caucus Education Brain Trust. I am going to just
read a statement that I made at the opening of our brain trust:
``As we assemble on this historic legislative weekend, we must all
resolve that no emergency situation or special event will be allowed to
lessen the priority we assign to the education emergency in the African
American community. The nature of the critical problems that we
presently face reemphasizes the need for America to have the most
diverse and best educated population possible. In order to improve
their operations and to achieve greater efficiency and excellence,
every profession needs more and better educated recruits. Law
enforcement and military agencies have a mushrooming need for personnel
with information technology know-how. Unless we create and maintain a
rapidly expanding pool of high quality students, the effectiveness of
the military as well as intelligence operations will continue to be
inadequate.
``Our Nation's needs for digital expertise will increase for a long
time in the future. Activities similar to the recent terrorist act and
other pressures on America will last into the next decade. Our school
system has a new challenge and thus will need new resources. Advocates
for education must focus intensely on current legislation at every
level beginning with President Bush's 'Leave No Child Behind Act,'
which is now under consideration. As America marshals its resources to
fiercely fight new threats to our way of life, our greatest weapon
remains our educated citizens. We shall overcome.''
Our educated citizens are our greatest weapon. This bill is not just
any other bill. President Bush has led the creation of landmark
education legislation. The bipartisan effort that went into this
legislation is unprecedented.
There are pieces that I do not like. I do not like the fact that it
has a great deal of emphasis on testing. I do not like the fact that it
calls for a testing program for students in grades 3 to 8 every year;
that there must be a testing program and the results of those tests
will be used to judge the effectiveness of the schools. If a school is
not doing well, after 2 years it will be put into a probationary
program. After 3 years they may choose to reorganize the school, wipe
it out and start something new, or send the kids off somewhere else.
It has some real harsh measures. Three years is not long enough. We
do not really pass judgment on most projects at 3 years. A school and
the process of education is very complicated. In the conference
committee we are now trying to ameliorate some of the harshness. But
basically that is a feature I do not like.
I do like the fact the President proposed that we double title I
funding. Title I funding in 5 years is supposed to go to $17.2 billion.
That makes the bill worthwhile. We have some problems between the
Senate and the House in
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terms of overall funding authorization. I like the Senate figure of $32
billion versus the House figure of $23 billion. We can do so much more
with the $32 billion in terms of meeting the education crisis that we
face.
I propose that we support efforts in this bill to double the funding
for school renovation. Unfortunately, the House bill had zero dollars
for school repairs, construction or renovation. The Senate bill had
$200 million for charter school construction. But since the item of
construction is included, it is fair game for discussion, and I am
proposing that we accept the charter school construction.
But there is another construction item that we have in operation at
this point, and that is a program that is underway, which most Members
of Congress do not know about, and that is the program to repair and
renovate schools with $1.2 billion that was included in the omnibus
appropriations bill last fall. President Clinton signed it on December
21.
H.R. 4577 had a provision for $1.2 billion for school renovation and
modernization. I am happy to report, and most people do not know about
it so I am taking this time to talk about it, because I want the
children of America to celebrate with me, it is a hidden victory, but I
am happy to report that the distribution of the $1.2 billion for school
repairs and renovation is going forward. I have a list of the amounts
of money that each State will get.
New York will get $105 million. You can build a few schools with $105
million. California, of course the largest population, gets $138
million. On and on it goes. It is a small amount of money, $1.2
billion, because we need about $200 billion to rebuild our schools
across America; but this was a breakthrough. We persisted. We said our
institutions are not working properly. The Department of Education did
not support school construction. We took our case straight to the
President. And finally, in his last month, we got the President to
approve $1.2 billion.
It is a good example of how citizen scrutiny, citizen push makes a
difference. Just like the Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD, made a
big difference with regard to policies on drunk driving. The Million
Moms March started us on the road to more reform toward gun safety. We
need a citizens group that is watching our law enforcement agencies at
the national level. Citizens, ordinary people, should be asking
questions about the way the CIA operates and the way the FBI operates.
The fine-tuning of these vital institutions, the lubrication, the
guarantee that the very best that we can get is occurring in these
agencies is a life and death matter. It is a life and death matter.
Another item in the education bill is increased funding for IDEA,
special education. The Senate has taken a position that we need to have
the funding for special education as a mandatory expenditure off the
budget, not competing with other budget priorities in education. I
wholeheartedly support that. The Congressional Black Caucus
wholeheartedly supports mandatory expenditure of IDEA; that the special
education programs should be covered with mandatory expenditures and
not part of the regular budget.
We insist that the Federal Government pay for any costs of these new
tests. I do not like the test, but if we are to have the tests from
grades 3 to 8, the costs should be paid for by the Federal Government,
which mandates them.
We support the inclusion of two very effective programs that we
helped to create, Community Technology Centers and 21st Century
Community Learning Centers, which have after-school components and
Saturday workshop components and summer school components.
We support funding for Teaching Quality Grants, Troops to Teachers,
which is a program which allows people in other careers to become
teachers with a minimum amount of red tape. We support HBCUs.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities should be involved in
these teacher recruitment programs, teacher training, teacher
orientation, so that there are more minority teachers brought into the
education field.
We also support the funding of a special initiative by the
information technology industry and the computer industry to assist in
establishing functional technology programs in schools. During this
period of slow activity within that industry, such goods and services
should be provided at a discount rate. An authorization program of this
nature, if we authorize it in the education package, it will be
eligible for additional funding in the economic stimulus package. I
think it would contribute greatly to closing of the digital divide to
have those high-tech agencies in the computer industry, in the software
industry, who have a lot of idle workers and who are going through a
crisis, to have them at this point bring all of our educational
institutions up to date at cut rates. Let them do it at very low rates
as a contribution, but it also would give them work.
Returning to the Congressional Black Caucus weekend, on Saturday we
had a special tech fair, and I talked about the digital divide:
``Closing the digital divide, building schools first must be a
continuing priority for all of us who welcome the new cyber-
civilization and who are determined to rescue the communities and
students that are being left behind. Partnerships to promote school
construction and education technology are absolute necessities. Uniting
labor unions and underserved schools and communities to gain repairs,
wiring, and new schools is one kingpin goal of education. Fostering
private sector partnerships to assist in carrying the initiatives of
the Federal Government forward to practical utilization is a high
priority of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual
Legislative Weekend.
``One of the boldest and most vital proposals of the Congressional
Black Caucus during the 106th Congress involves the heart of the
national debate on education: funding for school construction. Time and
time again, poll after poll, the American people have identified
education as our number one priority. And during a recent debate on the
floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, more than 70 Members of
Congress endorsed the caucus's alternative budget that called for a $10
billion increase over the President's budget for school construction.
In a period of unprecedented wealth and opportunity, the caucus
believes that this amount should be taken from the $200 billion budget
surplus.
``I believe an investment for the future should be our first
priority. Maximizing opportunities for individual citizens is
synonymous with maximizing the growth and expansion of the U.S.
superpower economy. It is the age of information. It is a time of
computer and digitalization. It is the era of thousands of high-level
vacancies because there are not enough information technology workers.
With enlightened budget decisions, we can, at this moment, begin the
shaping of the contours of a new cyber-civilization. If we fail to
seize this moment, to make investments that will allow a great Nation
to surge forward in the creation of this new cyber-civilization, then
our children and grandchildren will frown on us and lament the fact
that we failed, not because we lacked fiscal resources, but because our
very devastating blunder was due to a poverty of vision.''
At our decision-makers lunch we had as a guest the honorable Dan
Goldin, who is the administrator of NASA. Dan Goldin has visions for
where we should go in space. And unlike any other administrator in
government, Dan Goldin understands that in order for us to realize our
ambitions and our dreams for outerspace, we must have a firm foundation
of education which is constantly creating new pools of recruits to go
into our various professions.
Dan Goldin pointed out that at NASA there are twice as many people
over 60 as there are under 30. The space program faces a critical
shortage. If that agency faces a critical shortage, imagine all of our
other priority projects and industries where that must be so.
In conclusion, it may be that these three topics do not really
relate, but I think that it is time that we put forth the energy to
make it merge. We must merge them and understand the complexity of our
society.
My message is our institutions are vital. But to keep them
functioning properly, they must have the scrutiny of the American
people at all times. They must be kept in good tune, well tuned and
well lubricated, to do the job they are set up to do.
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{time} 2115
If they do not do that, it is a life and death matter, and we have
just experienced an unfortunate matter where thousands of people died
because we in the government could not keep our people safe from harm.
Mr. Speaker, we feel guilty about that, but the important thing is to
look forward and make certain that it never happens again.
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