[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 87 (Wednesday, June 26, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6050-S6051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           HISPANIC EDUCATION

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, over the period of these past weeks, a 
number of us have tried to report to our Senate colleagues and to the 
American people about the state of education in the nation, and of our 
public school system. We had supported and passed a very important 
piece of legislation last year called Leave No Child Behind. That was a 
bipartisan effort.
  We take a great deal of pride in working together to achieve what I 
think is most families' number one concern. Perhaps lurking in their 
minds are questions about terrorism, but if you go beyond that, if they 
are young couples, they are concerned about education. Perhaps if they 
are older, they are concerned about prescription drugs and the issue of 
health care. But the quality of education is something that is 
universal in terms of the concerns of families across this country.
  Most parents want their children educated. They want their schools to 
teach. And the actions that were taken last year gave us a great 
opportunity to achieve this goal.
  Over the period of the past weeks, we have tried to point out where 
we are on this road toward achieving quality education. We have tried 
to go over the various aspects of the legislation.
  Our committee is now focused on implementation, and following the 
administration's proposal as it is drafting the rules and regulations. 
We want to make sure they are going to be in accord with the law that 
passed. There is no reason to doubt that will be the case, but it takes 
careful review. Our constituents want us to make sure that is the case.
  Secondly, as we saw during the course of the debate, money in and of 
itself is not going to provide reform. But reform without resources is 
no reform at all.
  Last year we had education reform, and we had resources. But we are 
now in a situation, as we are looking forward to this fall--and it is 
not that far away; many children will go back to school in August; and 
we are almost to the 1st of July--that at the present time we have to 
ask ourselves, how did we end up last year, and what can we look 
forward to this coming year in terms of our public school system?
  This morning I would like to talk about what is happening in the 
public school system to a very special group of children--Hispanic 
children--that are emerging as an enormously important force. Hispanics 
are already an important force in every aspect of American life.
  Last week our Committee released ``Keeping the Promise: Hispanic 
Education and America's Future.'' When we talk about the words, ``no 
child left behind,'' we mean no child left behind. No child in any part 
of our country being left behind.
  This excellent report, which was co-authored by the Congressional 
Hispanic Caucus, and our Democratic Hispanic Education Task Force, is 
an excellent report that is available to our colleagues in the Senate 
and also to the American people, to tell us about what is happening. 
The news is not good.
  We are committed on our side of the aisle, and we hope we will be 
joined by others, to try and do something about it. Because if we are 
truly going to be committed to leaving no child left behind, we do not 
want to see Hispanic children being left behind. But that is what is 
happening.
  We have legislation that has the title, ``No Child Left Behind,'' but 
it is irresponsible to not live up to our commitment. Look at what is 
happening in the schools across the country. When you look at the state 
of education, you'll find that we are leaving Hispanic children behind.
  The fact is, we have seen, over the period of the recent years, an 
important growth in terms of those Hispanic children.
  The number of Hispanic school children has grown by 61 percent since 
1990--a rate faster than any other community. If we look at the growth 
in the immigrant student population from 1970 to 1995, that population 
has grown from 3.5 million to 8.6 million. If we look at the growth in 
limited English proficient students, we see, again, the dramatic growth 
by 105 percent and these are children that are attending our public 
schools. So, we have seen the growth in the numbers.
  It is interesting, a great deal of that growth has been in different 
areas of the country. We have had an over 250 percent growth in the 
population of Hispanic children in Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, 
and Tennessee; a growth of over 140 percent in Iowa, Kentucky, 
Nebraska, Minnesota, Nevada, and South Carolina. Many of those school 
districts have not had the opportunity of developing either bilingual 
or language support programs to help these children develop their 
English and other academic skills. They need help and we can't set them 
adrift.
  As a result, we find many of these communities are not serving these 
population. The results are coming in, and they are enormously 
distressing. Across the country, Hispanics--Hispanic children in the 
Nation's largest Hispanic serving school districts--are trailing Anglo 
students in reading achievement by an average of 30 points. In math, 
they fall behind by an average of 27 points. We also have the rather 
startling statistics that on average across the country we are spending 
$1,000 less per student in economically disadvantaged schools than in 
schools with large concentrations of high-income students, in terms of 
investing in those children for education. Again, not that money is 
everything, but we're finding out that students are being shortchanged, 
not only in terms of investment, but in terms of qualified teachers 
instructing Hispanic students in many classrooms.
  Those teachers who are working in some of the most difficult 
circumstances often need training and support to help those students, 
and may not be qualified in terms of technical training. We want to 
make sure they are going to get that training. But these are dedicated 
people working in very difficult circumstances. The fact is, they lack 
those kinds of professional qualifications. The number of unqualified 
teachers working with Hispanic students in predominantly minority 
schools is twice the national average.
  We have unqualified teachers, we are not investing in these children, 
and we are seeing the results.
  The fact is, you can say there must be other circumstances 
contributing to it. Sure, there are circumstances. But the good news 
is, when you invest in these children, you find that they make progress 
towards meeting high standards. We have seen examples of that. In 
Miami, the gap in math between Hispanics and Anglos has been narrowed 
by 6.7 points--faster than the progress made in the state of Florida. 
In the most recent years Houston has narrowed their achievement gap in 
math by 6.5 points over Texas. The gap has been narrowed very 
significantly in recent years, and that is because we have invested in 
those programs, have invested in an infrastructure to serve Hispanic 
kids in those districts, and that has made a difference: extra academic 
assistance for those children; supplementary services; afterschool 
programs; upgrading the skills of their teachers; and reducing class 
size.
  As a Nation, we are moving away from that. Instead of moving in the 
correct direction, we are moving in the wrong direction.
  We have a responsibility here. When we look at the budget submitted 
by the administration in key areas of investment in quality teachers, 
in recruitment and professional development and retention of teachers, 
we find there is an empty promise. We had a significant increase that 
was worked out by the Democrats and Republicans last year, some $742 
million. The increase this year is effectively zero.

  We have to ask ourselves: Don't we need to invest in quality 
teachers? The answer is yes. Are there results if we do not? The answer 
is yes. How is it reflected? By the deterioration in the quality of 
education that is reaching a major constituency.
  We can ask: Does the administration understand what is happening out 
there in terms of children, in terms of limited English proficient and 
immigrant children? Last year we had an increase of $219 million in 
programs to serve those children, empowering local communities to 
implement proven, effective programs to help in the successful 
transition of these children into American Society.
  What do we have this year? Zero. Don't we take into consideration the

[[Page S6051]]

results of what is happening across the country? Last year we saw a 
downpayment. This year ``no child left behind'' ought to be a priority 
instead of some of the tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals. That 
is the result. We have zero. We have zero in terms of the quality of 
teachers, zero in terms of helping these children move into the 
education system.
  This is one of the most discouraging aspects of the President's 
budget. Let's look at the dropout rate by ethnic group. What every 
educator will tell you, if these children are 20 to 30 points behind in 
terms of a particular grade level and they slip one grade and perhaps 
two, you can predict, as certain as we are standing here, that child is 
ready to drop out. One-third of Hispanic high school children are 
enrolled below grade level.
  What has been happening in recent times? We find out we are not 
investing in these children. We are not giving them the teachers, not 
getting the smaller class sizes. What is the result? We see a dropout 
rate by ethnic group. Over four million Hispanic immigrant children--
800,000 migrant children. We made a commitment in that bill last year 
to help States, as many of these children are moving among the States, 
to assist the States in terms of following records and coordinating 
their academic efforts. Without that, we see what happens: a 44 percent 
dropout rate for the children of immigrant students.
  Many of these are legitimate immigrants who come here whose children 
are American citizens. These are American citizens that are going to be 
a part of the American dream. They are dropping out at 44 percent, 
Hispanics at 28 percent, which is four times the rate of Anglo 
students.
  Our leader on this issue has been the Senator from New Mexico, Jeff 
Bingaman, who has made the most compelling case about trying to develop 
a program to identify the dropouts, to figure out what can be done, 
model programs that can assist school districts.
  Last year we had a very modest program. Unfortunately, this is one 
area where we could not get the administration to agree. We did have 
inclusion of a dropout prevention program--a very modest program of $10 
million. But this year, zero. Here we go, with a 44-percent dropout 
rate, and now we see how we are going to respond to that. The 
administration says zero. It is not important; it is not on our 
national priorities.
  This is going to mean, we all ought to understand, when we are out 
here making statements and speeches about the conditions and what are 
the tests and what others show, the challenges out there in terms of 
Hispanic children, they are going to slip and fall further and further 
behind. Unless we are going to address these issues, this promise about 
no child left behind is an empty promise.
  I want to mention one of the most distressing and disturbing 
developments we have seen with the cutbacks taking place. This is with 
regard to Los Angeles County. They are reducing their school year by 17 
days because they haven't got the resources to hold classes for 187,000 
of the children just in Los Angeles County. We have the facts about 
different communities that are under a similar situation, and that 
replicates this.
  So, Mr. President, I think this is the result of a really almost 
indifference by the administration in terms of this commitment. I see 
my friend from Nevada who is also a key figure in the whole issue on 
the dropout prevention. He has spoken eloquently about this. I am so 
grateful for his work. I hope he will continue to take that interest in 
this issue. We cannot let this continue to fester.
  Mr. REID. May I ask a question?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.
  Mr. REID. The reason the Senator has talked about dropouts is because 
by keeping a child in school we save our society money, time, and 
aggravation; is that a fair statement?
  Mr. KENNEDY. That is exactly correct, Mr. President. If we have a 
troubled youth, for example, who is held in Massachusetts inside route 
128, it is about $80,000 a year; it is anywhere from $35,000 to $45,000 
outside of route 128. We need to make sure we are going to have 
programs that are going to encourage those children to stay in school, 
and work with them for supplementary services and develop programs that 
can be helpful to parents and members of their family to keep them 
motivated.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. May I add 10 seconds to what Senator Kennedy said. 
This would have to be confirmed. There was a wonderful judge in 
Minnesota who said to me there is a higher correlation between high 
school dropouts and incarceration than cigarette smoking and lung 
cancer. Just think about that.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, 87 percent of the people in our prison 
system are high school dropouts. I think that says it all.
  We have a number of Senators in the Chamber. It is my understanding 
the Democrats have approximately 15 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 12 minutes 40 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. REID. I know the Senator from Minnesota wishes to speak for 5 
minutes, and the Senator from Vermont wants 10 minutes. I ask unanimous 
consent, even though this will go over into the Republican time for a 
couple minutes, that the Senator from Minnesota be recognized for 5 
minutes and the Senator from Vermont be recognized for 12 minutes.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if I am inconveniencing my colleague, I 
will follow him if that is better.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. No, that is fine.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that be the order.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.

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