[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 133 (Thursday, September 25, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11971-S11978]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004--Continued

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I thank the leadership on both sides for 
allowing us the opportunity to get back to the DC appropriations bill, 
a bill Senator DeWine and I have worked very hard on over the last, 
actually, several months. We are very proud of so many portions of this 
bill that do such good work for the District, and do so in conjunction 
with the leadership of the District and the residents of the District. 
So we are thankful that as it has worked out today, we can actually get 
back on this bill.
  It is my hope, and I think the chairman of this committee shares this 
goal, since there are a couple of points in this bill that warrant 
further debate, the most obvious one being the issue of education 
improvement in the District of Columbia, it would be my idea, and I 
hope it is shared by my colleagues and even on the other side, that we 
give as much time to this debate as possible because it is a very 
important issue, not just for the District but for the whole Nation. As 
a public policy, we would be hard pressed to find a public policy that 
is more important right now, other than, of course, national defense 
and homeland security. I think we all agree the challenge to our public 
education system is one that continues to warrant our attention.
  Tonight it is my intention, and Senator DeWine understands, to speak 
for a minute about an amendment Senator Carper and I want to lay down 
at some time, and to talk in detail about what that amendment is. He 
and I are prepared to talk for maybe an hour about the details of it.
  I understand there are other Members who might want to speak tonight. 
We have no intention, obviously, of having the vote tonight or 
tomorrow, but we hope next week to proceed with some voting on this 
very important bill.
  The way I would like to start, just for a few moments, though, is to 
say the reason our amendment would be necessary and other amendments 
would be warranted is because the debate will show the publicly stated 
goals, however laudable--and we have read those goals in the newspaper, 
we have read them in press releases, we have heard the goals stated by 
the voucher proponents, that the aim of this is to help children in 
failing schools, poor children in failing schools have options--this 
debate will show the bill itself does not actually do that. Even with 
the Feinstein amendment, the bill does not do that.
  There is another really puzzling aspect to this. I want to submit 
something for the record to show why I will say it is puzzling. We 
received today the Statement of Administration Policy. I would like to 
read it for the record and then explain why it is confusing. This is 
the Statement of Administration Policy that was issued today on the DC 
bill. This policy, not from the House but from the White House, says 
this: We like the DC bill, basically. I am paraphrasing the first part. 
The administration looks forward to working with Congress to ensure its 
priorities and amounts of money are within the overall budget goal.

       Additional Administration views regarding the Committee's 
     version of the bill are, [No. 1], School Choice Incentive 
     Fund.
       The Administration is pleased the Committee bill included 
     $13 million for the President's School Choice Incentive Fund. 
     This innovative reform will increase the capacity of the 
     District to provide parents--particularly low-income 
     parents--with more options for obtaining a quality 
     education for their children who are trapped in low-
     performing schools. The Administration appreciates the 
     Committee's support for strengthening the District's 
     school system and strongly urges the Senate to retain this 
     initiative.

  The puzzling thing about this is the White House has said they 
support the Mayor's position. The Mayor was on the floor today. Mayor 
Williams is one of the most honorable people I know. He is a reformer 
for public education. But I don't know if the White House realizes that 
is not the Mayor's position.
  The Mayor's position is a three-pronged approach: A third for 
vouchers, a third for charter schools, and a third for improvements to 
public schools. That is because the Mayor has suggested that vouchers-
only is insufficient, and the Mayor has also said some other things 
about the voucher-only proposal. So I just lay this down.
  I ask the chairman if perhaps he could get to the bottom of this. I 
don't know why the White House wouldn't say we understand the Senate 
bill has three clear sections on this issue. We like all those 
sections. We ask you to keep them all in the bill. But it doesn't say 
that.
  I am going to have this printed in the Record. That is why we are 
going to have a lot of debate on this, because we have to get clear 
what the administration is really asking for or advocating.
  I ask unanimous consent to print the Statement of Administration 
Policy in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         Executive Office of the President, Office of Management 
           and Budget,
                               Washington, DC, September 24, 2003.

                   Statement of Administration Policy

    (This statement has been coordinated by OMB with the concerned 
                               agencies.)


       S. 1583--District of Columbia Appropriations Bill, FY 2004

        (Sponsors: Stevens (R), Alaska; Byrd (D), West Virginia)

       The Administration supports Senate passage of the FY 2004 
     District of Columbia Appropriations Bill, as reported by the 
     Appropriations Committee.
       While this bill exceeds the President's request by $145 
     million, the Administration looks forward to working with the 
     Congress to ensure that the FY 2004 appropriations bills 
     ultimately fit within the top line funding level agreed to by 
     both the Administration and the Congress. The President 
     supports a discretionary spending total of $785.6

[[Page S11972]]

     billion, along with advance appropriations for FY 2005--
     consistent with his Budget and the FY 2004 Congressional 
     Budget Resolution. Only within such a fiscal environment can 
     we encourage increased economic growth and a return to a 
     balanced budget. The Administration looks forward to working 
     with the Congress to ensure that its priorities are met 
     within that overall total.
       Additional Administration views regarding the Committee's 
     version of the bill are:


                      School Choice Incentive Fund

       The Administration is pleased the Committee bill includes 
     $13 million for the President's School Choice Incentive Fund 
     initiative. This innovative reform will increase the capacity 
     of the District to provide parents--particularly low-income 
     parents--with more options for obtaining a quality education 
     for their children who are trapped in low-performing schools. 
     The Administration appreciates the Committee's support for 
     strengthening the District's school system and strongly urges 
     the Senate to retain this initiative.


                         Federal Funding for DC

       The Administration applauds the Committee for fully funding 
     the President's request for $17 million for District resident 
     tuition support, as well as $15 million for emergency 
     planning and security costs in the District.


 Attorney's Fees under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 
                                 (IDEA)

       The Administration is pleased that the Committee has 
     retained the provision that caps the award of plaintiff's 
     fees in cases brought against the District of Columbia Public 
     Schools (DCPS) under IDEA. The Administration strongly 
     supports the education of children with disabilities 
     according to the principles embodied in IDEA, and it is in 
     the best interest of the District's children if DCPS uses its 
     limited resources to improve its special education programs 
     rather than pay excessive attorneys' fees.


                         local budget autonomy

       The Administration continues to support local budget 
     autonomy, which would free the District's local funds from 
     any delay in the appropriations process past the beginning of 
     the fiscal year. We appreciate Congress' consideration of 
     this proposal and recognize Congress would continue to ensure 
     responsible use of Federal and local funds through the 
     enactment of the District's annual appropriations bill.


                              other issues

       The Administration is disappointed that the Senate version 
     of the bill modifies current law with respect to allowing 
     local funds to be used for needle exchange.
       The Administration is concerned with the number of 
     unrequested earmarks contained in the Committee bill, 
     including $20 million provided to the District of Columbia 
     Chief Financial Officer for a variety of unspecified 
     projects.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. I would like to start with the Landrieu-Carper 
amendment that we will offer at some time, and describe again why it is 
puzzling that we are having difficulty with the administration and the 
voucher proponents coming to some agreement. I am going to read the 
simple text, and without any rhetoric or signs or charts or anything, I 
am going to read the text of it because it is quite simple. I want the 
people who are listening--and, of course, there is alot of interest in 
this--to understand what basically has been rejected.
  Before I do that, I will give a very brief history of how we got here 
because it will help to set this debate.
  Three years ago we were in what I would call a quandary in public 
education in the Nation. That quandary was this: Our schools were 
improving but not fast enough. We had a lot of kids who needed help. We 
really had to do something.
  There were a group of people who wanted to give up on public schools 
and go to vouchers and say we can't, we tried, nothing is working, 
let's go to vouchers. There was a group of people who said no, what we 
need is just more money, the same thing, pump the money in and more 
resources will do it.
  Both proposals were rejected. They were rejected by a broad-based 
coalition of Democrats and Republicans who rejected both. We said no to 
vouchers which will undermine public schools; no, vouchers will not 
work. And, no, just dumping more money in the system, as much needed as 
the money is, just dumping money is not going to help.
  We found a third way called Leave No Child Behind which the President 
himself led. Many of us were proud to work with him to do that. We 
crossed party lines. Republicans went to the Democratic side. Democrats 
went to the Republican side. There were great coalitions forged to get 
that done.
  Here we are not even 2 years into Leave No Child Behind and there are 
still grumblings on both sides. You can understand why. The money we 
promised isn't forthcoming. So people have a legitimate argument. They 
say: We haven't received the money. I understand. I keep saying: Let us 
go forth.
  I know people want vouchers. No matter what we do, they want 
vouchers. They want them yesterday, today, and tomorrow. That is just 
what they want.
  Here we are with Leave No Child Behind. One would think if the 
administration wanted to prove something, they would try to prove it 
anywhere in the country--the District, New Orleans, Louisiana, Ohio--
that Leave No Child Behind could work.
  There is some confusion. From my point of view, I think what would 
come out of the President's proposal is something like this: I am 
sorry. We are short of money. I am sorry. We can't fund everything that 
we thought we could fund, but let me just give enough money to the 
District of Columbia, which is a city and a symbol, and let me fully 
fund Leave No Child Behind. Let me double the amount for charter 
schools. Let me push contracts for public schools. Let me increase 
tutorial services. Let me have afterschool and let us implement early 
childhood education.
  As a person who helped write the bill that laid those principles 
down, that is what I would fully expect. I would have stood shoulder to 
shoulder with him, and I would have said with the Mayor's help, with 
the Congresswoman's help, with the Republicans' help and the Democrats' 
help, let us show the country what we meant when we passed the bill. 
They don't believe it. Neither sides believes it. So let us show them 
what we meant. Instead, we get the same old, tired, worn out, 
inadequate vouchers--vouchers, vouchers.
  Mr. Carper, the Senator from Delaware, and I, and others who worked 
very closely, think we are not hearing correctly. We think this 
couldn't possibly be. So we tried. The chairman could not have been 
more gracious. We tried. We think maybe it is something we don't 
understand. So we tried to talk. The talks aren't going very well.
  So we think: Let us just put it down in an amendment form and see 
maybe if we are missing something. This is our amendment. I will read 
for the Record what the gist of the amendment is because it is very 
simple. Tomorrow I will have this blown up so when I speak on it next 
week people can see what it is.
  This is what we said. Even though you don't want to fund title I in 
the District, you don't want to double the amount of charter schools, 
you don't want to have private contracts which the law allows, you 
don't want to increase tutorial services, you don't want to have 
afterschool, you don't want to have early childhood, we will just take 
what the administration thinks--or what the voucher proponents think--
and we will just go back to see if we can make vouchers work.
  We say: OK. We will do a couple of things. If you will agree that the 
same children will take the same test because the administration was 
very strong on tests--they wanted the same test--that took a little 
work but we finally got the same test.

  Then they said last year that it is very important for teachers in 
public schools to have a college education. That was a big deal. We 
said, yes, at a minimum. They can have alternative certifications but 
you have to have a college education. Let us have a college education 
for teachers who would be teaching students using public money to go to 
private schools. That has been agreed to.
  Because one of the problems with this debate is that nobody has the 
research to tell whether it really works or not--we agree with that--we 
said, let us have a very rigorous evaluation so that after 5 years we 
would know for sure, I mean for positive.
  Let me speak for a minute about this. The Milwaukee program has been 
going on for 13 years. There are 11,000 children in vouchers and there 
are 89,000 children who aren't in vouchers. The Senators from that 
State can talk more about the details than I can. But what I do know 
about it is many studies have been conducted, and there is still no 
definitive data that I have been able to find--that anybody has been 
able to find--about whether those children are doing better 
academically. There is some evidence to suggest that

[[Page S11973]]

some parents are happier and more satisfied. I acknowledge that. That 
is very good.
  I remind this body that we did not start down this road to make 
parents happy. That is not what the President said. We want parents to 
be satisfied. We want parents to be satisfied, but that is not the 
goal. It is desirable. But the goal is a quality education with public 
accountability because public dollars are being spent. We don't know 
after 13 years.
  We said: OK. Let us have an evaluation component. The evaluation 
component in this bill, to date, is inadequate to, even after 5 years, 
give us those answers, and we think that is a real problem.
  This is the most important. All of these are important, but this is 
really the telling portion of why I think we are at a real standstill 
and a crossroads.
  We said in our amendment that you say you want to limit this or you 
want to help children who are in a trap. That is what this says. I want 
to read it again. This is the administration's policy. This is for 
children who are trapped in low-performing schools, which would mean 
trapped in failing schools. That is what we can do in Leave No Child 
Behind. We said no more of this. You have to be good. If you are not 
good and you are a failing school, you need improvement or you have to 
close and be reconstituted. We said let us limit it to children in 
failing schools. That is part of our amendment.
  The word back so far is, no, I am sorry we can't limit this to 
children in failing schools because we want this to be available to 
children in all schools.
  The sixth provision that we asked is to make sure all the civil 
rights laws which are required in Leave No Child Behind are adhered to. 
The other side said that wouldn't be a problem. We assumed that would 
be fine. But it is not in this bill.
  The other part of our amendment says make sure the scholarship 
itself--whether it is $7,500 or $3,500 or $1,000--is sufficient to 
actually get a child by lottery from a failing school into another 
school. The school can't discriminate. The child gets to go. But that 
language was rejected.
  I don't know what the other side is thinking. If a school costs 
$15,000 and the voucher is only worth $7,500, we can't figure out how 
that child gets to the school if their voucher is only worth $7,500. We 
wanted to make sure that the voucher would be received as payment in 
full so a parent couldn't be told: We would love to take your child 
into the school but your voucher is only worth $7,500 and we need 
$15,000. I am sorry. Our private scholarship fund is out of money. We 
would love to help you, Ms. Jones. We really know that your two sons 
would do great in our school. We would love to give them vouchers. You 
can either have a bake sale or raise money from your neighbors or go 
into your savings account, but we can't put up the other $7,500.
  Senator Carper and I thought it would be reasonable to say the 
voucher--no matter where you get the money--has to get the kid in the 
school.
  The seventh thing we asked was--because this White House, when we 
were debating Leave No Child Behind, insisted on yearly progress 
reports for children in public schools--we would like to craft a way to 
make sure these 2,000 slots available that we are talking about, where 
they take the same test that has been agreed to--we would have these 
yearly progress reports as defined by Leave No Child Behind. The same 
reports, no difference. No, I am sorry, we can't do that. We cannot 
have yearly progress reports. So, again, accountability is out the 
window.
  And finally, our amendment said, OK, we do not believe this should be 
a Federal mandate. We are being told by the voucher opponents, that the 
city wants this; it is the choice of the city. I said, fine, remove the 
language that makes the money contingent because in committee I asked 
the Senator handling the bill if he could just state for the record: 
Does Mayor Williams have a choice? In other words, in order to get any 
money, does he have to take the voucher money? To get any money, does 
he have to take vouchers? The answer was yes.
  I and others strongly opposed forcing any city, anywhere, at any 
time, being held hostage by voucher opponents that would say: We are 
happy to give you $40 million; we are glad to give you $20 million; we 
are glad to give you $8 million; but you have to institute a voucher 
program. And not just vouchers for children in failing schools, but you 
must have a voucher program for children in all schools.
  That proposal will not pass with much Democratic support, let me 
assure Members.
  This has been rejected today. Maybe cooler heads will prevail. The 
Senator from Delaware and I are still open to discussion. Why? I would 
stay here all night, all next week, all next month, all next year. My 
children are home; I would like to get home. His children are home. But 
that is how important this education reform is for this country. It was 
a hard fought victory and a wonderful victory and a powerful victory.
  The ink is not even dry and we are talking about undoing it, 
unraveling it, undermining it. I don't understand it.
  Senator Carper will talk, and then I will finish with a few more 
comments about our amendment. I would like Senator Carper to explain 
from his perspective what our amendment hoped or sought to do.
  Mr. CARPER. I thank the Senator from Louisiana for yielding. Before I 
was elected, I served as Governor of Delaware for 8 years, following 
Mike Castle, who launched near the end of his second term education 
reform. What we began in his last term and I tried to do in the 8 years 
I was privileged to serve as Governor was to focus more on raising 
student achievement than on anything else. We were willing to 
experiment rather boldly to try to accomplish that. We established 
rigorous academic standards, not standards in math, science, English, 
and social studies that the politicians thought were important, but we 
gathered the best teachers in the State, the best scientists, to 
develop academic standards of what we expected kids to know at 
different grade levels in their academic careers.
  We wanted to test students objectively, measure whether they were 
making academic progress to the standards. We wanted to be objective.
  And, finally, we wanted to make sure we held everyone accountable--
students, schools, school districts, even the educators. Trying to hold 
parents accountable would be the hardest part of all.
  During the course of those reforms, we sought to identify what was 
working to raise student achievement. Did smaller class sizes work? If 
so, the idea was to replicate that and do that in other schools. We 
eventually found that smaller class sizes in kindergarten and classes 
for age 7 had the most impact.
  We learned investment in early childhood paid huge dividends and 
concluded that in the first 6 years of our life, by the time we are age 
6 and in first grade, we have learned about half of what we are going 
to learn in our lives. If we waste the first 6 years, it is hard to 
catch up later on.
  We learned that if we can harness technology, we can help equalize 
the playing field for a whole lot of kids. We learned that it is not 
just enough to hook up classrooms to the Internet. It is not enough to 
have even decent computers. If you do not have teachers comfortable in 
using the technology to bring the outside world into the classroom and 
making the learning come alive and using it effectively as a tool, the 
money for all the wiring and the computers is money that is not well 
spent. Teachers have the professional development and the familiarity 
of using this technology lining up with the curriculum, the lesson 
plan, and making the learning come alive.
  We learned in the course of our experiments in Delaware that all kids 
can learn. Some learn more quickly than others. Mary might learn faster 
than Tom, but Tom could learn. He just might need extra time or be 
taught in different ways. We learned maybe longer school days are 
helpful for doing that, afterschool programs, and maybe summer schools. 
We have schools, for example, for kids who are entering ninth grade. We 
can bring those kids in for a month or so in the summer before they go 
into ninth grade, put them in a summer academy, and they have a better 
chance of helping the kids to meet the standards they need in ninth 
grade.

[[Page S11974]]

  We did all this in an effort to try to learn what worked to raise 
student achievement. We did so because we wanted to be able to invest 
the limited dollars that we had in programs that would raise student 
achievement. Of all the things we did in my State during the time that 
I served as its Governor, preparing the workforce for the 21st century 
was most important. If we are going to be successful as a nation, it 
will be because we prepare and create a workforce that is able to beat 
any workforce in the world.

  What does that have to do with what we are talking about? The schools 
in the District of Columbia are not doing the job for many of the kids 
who live there. The public schools in this District are not doing the 
job for many of the kids who live there. And a good deal is being done 
to try to turn that around. This District has begun to experiment 
rather boldly with charter schools, some of the things I talked about 
earlier--extra learning time, technology, and professional 
development--in order to raise student achievement. They have a long 
way to go.
  As we dealt with the issue and tackled the issue of leaving no child 
behind in a failing school, we did not say that the Federal Government 
would go out there and establish academic standards. We said, we will 
let the States establish their own academic standards. Let them figure 
it out and know what they should be doing. We said the same thing about 
the District of Columbia. They develop their academic standards in the 
District of Columbia. We do not do that.
  No Child Left Behind also says we expect kids to make progress every 
year. We expect all kids can learn, and over a period of a decade or so 
we expect virtually all children to be able to reach the academic 
standards, whether it is the District of Columbia, Delaware, Ohio, 
Louisiana, or Alabama. Of the public schools in the District of 
Columbia, or Minnesota or Delaware, under No Child Left Behind, if a 
school does not meet adequate yearly progress for 1 year, that school 
is essentially put on notice that they are deficient.
  If they continue to not meet the adequate yearly progress for a 
second or a third year, there are consequences for the failure to do 
so. By the fourth year, if a public school--4 years in a row, in any of 
our States or in the District of Columbia--fails to meet adequate 
yearly progress, there are consequences that can be rather severe. The 
school can be closed and restructured, the faculty changed, leadership 
changed. The school can be transformed into a charter school. Public 
school choice can be demanded, required, including the funding of 
transportation to other public schools. But the consequences are 
severe.
  If a charter school in Minnesota, where I think charter schools may 
have originated, or in any of the other States that are represented 
here is deficient, and the students there--for 1 year or 2 years or 3 
years or 4 years--do not demonstrate adequate yearly progress, or those 
schools do not show progress year after year, then there are 
consequences as well. There is also help. We try to provide extra help: 
extra money, tutorial assistance, that kind of thing. But in the end, 
if there is not progress, we do not want to continue to throw good 
money after bad.
  I want to talk about an area we got hung up on, and it is a little 
complicated; but I want to take a minute to talk about it anyway. I 
said earlier, if you have kids in public schools in this District of 
Columbia who are not making adequate yearly progress, there are 
consequences for those schools. There are efforts to help them, but 
there are also consequences.
  For charter schools here, if kids are not making progress, if you 
continue year after year to fall short, there are consequences for that 
school, and in the end fairly severe ones. If instead of taking this 
$13 million and distributing it in vouchers to send the kids to, let's 
say, 80 different schools--instead of doing that, with maybe 25 kids to 
a school--instead, we are going to take that $13 million and fund one 
new school for 2,000 kids, and maybe have 80 classrooms, with 25 kids 
in a classroom, if we use the $13 million in that way, we would expect 
that school and those students under No Child Left Behind to make 
progress and to make adequate yearly progress. And if they did not, 
under No Child Left Behind, that school would get help. And eventually, 
if they continue to fail, they would face dire consequences.
  Stick with me on this, if you will. What we propose to do with this 
voucher demonstration is to take $13 million, and instead of creating 
one school with 80 classrooms, we might take the $13 million and give 
it to kids who will go to 80 different private schools somewhere here 
in the District; and it might be roughly 25 kids in each of those 
schools, but they add up to 2,000.
  Some will go to schools, and they are going to be tested, and they 
will do pretty well. Some will go to schools, and they will be tested, 
under the District's test, and they are not going to do so well; and 
they may not do so well next year and the year after that and the year 
after that.
  I wish it were possible somehow to take the results of those 2,000 
kids who are going to be spread, in this example, in 80 schools across 
the District to actually bring back, to aggregate, and to see how well 
they did in making adequate yearly progress. And as it turns out, we 
could actually do that. We would not have to impose No Child Left 
Behind on the individual private schools. I would not want to do 
that. But we can certainly find out how those kids are doing in those 
private or parochial schools, and see if they are making, collectively, 
adequate yearly progress.

  Earlier this year--I wish I could find the quotation--President Bush 
was talking--I think it was maybe in July--about this experiment with 
vouchers in the District of Columbia.
  If you bear with me, I want to see if I can find that quotation. At 
the very least, I will give you part of it. He said words to this 
effect: It is the taxpayers' money. We want to know. We want to know in 
a public school or in a private school whether or not the children are 
learning.
  Bear with me just for one moment. The quote is too good to miss. I 
will find it, and then I will be able to read it in its entirety. Here 
is what the President said. And again, this is from July of this year. 
I am going to read it because I think he has it right. This is 
absolutely on the money talking about his vision for a DC voucher 
program. This is what he said:

       The same accountability system applies to the recipient 
     school as it does the public schools in Washington. After 
     all, it's taxpayers' money. We want to know. We want to know 
     in a public school or a private school whether or not the 
     children are learning.

  I could not have said it better myself.
  The negotiations we have had with our friends on the other side--and 
I just want to say to Senator DeWine, I said this privately, and I will 
say it publicly, I very much admire the way he and Senator Landrieu 
work together as the chairman of the subcommittee and as ranking 
member. I thank them very much for the good faith that I think they and 
their staff demonstrated in trying to find a middle ground on some of 
these complex and admittedly difficult issues.
  While I believe it is important that the kids who will use these 
vouchers in this experimental program come out of schools that are 
failing--not everyone thinks that; I think so--I think it is important 
that the voucher actually offsets the cost of the tuition fully. Not 
everyone agrees with that. I certainly think so.
  I think the teachers in those private and parochial schools have to 
meet certain standards or credentialing qualifications. We could 
probably work through most of that.
  We fell apart in our negotiations on three points. One was this idea 
of: Is there some way we can fairly reasonably make sure we hold those 
who are using public dollars, Federal dollars--for the first time, I 
think, for vouchers--can we hold them accountable under No Child Left 
Behind, and in a way somewhat as we hold charter schools and other 
public school kids accountable?
  I had a conversation with an administration official this afternoon, 
and I thought it was a telling conversation. She said to me--words to 
this effect--we can't agree with doing what you and Senator Landrieu 
want because the kids who are coming from these schools, who will be 
using these vouchers--falling under certain income limits; 185 percent 
of poverty--they are going to be some of our toughest kids

[[Page S11975]]

to help raise student achievement and to demonstrate adequate yearly 
progress. And there was just a reluctance and a fear they were setting 
themselves up for failure under this demonstration program.
  What the President said is the same accountability system applies to 
recipient schools as it does to the public schools of Washington, DC.
  We have to be smart enough to figure out a way to put that kind of 
accountability plan in place in a voucher program so that it does not 
discourage private or parochial schools from joining in this 
experiment. And if the kids who use those vouchers and go to the public 
and private schools don't make adequate yearly progress, we should not 
continue to fund those programs.
  One of the great frustrations for me with what we are setting up 
here, without the kind of provisions Senator Landrieu and I are talking 
about, is we will end up not knowing for sure at the end of the day, 
and for 5 years, or whatever, whether this actually works to raise 
student achievement, comparing apples and apples, oranges and oranges, 
being able to compare those 2,000 kids with another 2,000 kids in 
charter schools and 2,000 kids in public schools. We will not know 
absolutely. And we should know.
  For people who don't like vouchers, for those who think we should not 
put a dime in vouchers, they should know after 5 years that it works. 
And maybe we should consider, as we said, other school districts. By 
the same token, for those who think vouchers are the best thing since 
sliced bread, it would be great to have an experiment that demonstrated 
that at the end of 5 years, maybe it does not work. And other schools 
around the State, other cities or school districts would say: They 
tried it in DC. It was a fair experiment, and it didn't work. They 
could decide to go ahead and have their own experiment and do it 
themselves. But we need a test and experiment that nobody can question 
at the end of the day that it wasn't done fairly and squarely on all 
counts.
  I feel disappointed tonight. I really do. I am not angry, but I am 
disappointed. I have invested some personal time. My staff has. Senator 
Landrieu has invested a whole lot more. I know Senator DeWine has. I 
don't feel good about this because we ended up having spent all this 
time without coming to the kind of consensus I hoped we could. I fear 
we will pass a bill ultimately that will be flawed, not flawed in the 
sense of the Senate version, but the House version, because that is a 
badly flawed voucher proposal. I fear we will pass something that is 
not what it could be. We will go to conference and what comes out of 
conference will be a whole lot worse than what is being contemplated 
here in the Senate.
  The last thing I want to say is this: If we had been able to reach 
agreement that these vouchers would only be used for some of the 9,400 
kids who are today in failing schools in the District, we would have 
eliminated a real stumbling block going forward. If we had been able to 
work out with smart people in the administration, smart people who work 
around here, a way to make sure that the same accountability or some 
comparable accountability system that we used under No Child Left 
Behind for charter schools and public schools--that we can apply that 
in the way I described earlier for these 2,000 kids--if we can do that, 
we have eliminated a major stumbling block.
  Senator Landrieu and I are reluctant, though, even if we passed a 
measure that had those provisions in it and the other principle she has 
talked about already, to go to conference even with a good bill without 
the assurance that what is going to come out of conference will be 
consistent with those principles. I would feel pretty foolish if we 
struck a good agreement, a sound agreement that we felt proud of, and 
went to conference and ended up with something else that was a horse of 
a different color.
  We are not going to come to agreement, I am afraid, on those two 
major principles that we talked about here tonight, if our friends on 
the other side can't give us an assurance that even if we were, those 
principles would survive the conference. I understand that is a 
difficult thing to do. Having said that, I must say that that 
understanding doesn't diminish at all my disappointment that we have 
fallen short.
  I yield back.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware who, 
as usual, has described beautifully his position and the position which 
several of us on this side, who are cosponsors of the No Child Left 
Behind Act, believe in strongly. I would like to add to what he said 
briefly by referring to what President Bush, 2 years ago in August, as 
we were preparing for this debate, wisely said:

       Accountability is an exercise in hope. When we raise 
     student standards, children raise their academic sights. When 
     children are regularly tested, teachers know where and how to 
     improve. When scores are known to parents, parents are 
     empowered to push for change. When accountability for our 
     schools is real, the results for our children are real.

  This would be part of the Landrieu-Carper amendment that was, in 
essence, rejected. So it becomes a question, Is it just accountability 
for taxpayer money when it comes to public schools but not taxpayer 
money when it goes to private schools? Again, let me say, if we started 
out on this course with a goal, the only goal being parental 
satisfaction, we should never have started, because no amount of money 
in the Treasury will ever make every parent in America happy. It would 
be a false, foolish journey to that end.
  That wasn't why we started. We started to say the public money, if 
spent and managed correctly, could provide a very good education 
measured by academic performance. And along the way, if we could 
increase parental satisfaction and taxpayer confidence, that would be 
the best we could hope for. Yet proponents want to twist that debate, 
forget the accountability piece, and just keep saying: If parents are 
happy, we have accomplished our goal. That is not our goal. We want 
parents to be satisfied, but that is not our goal.
  Accountability is an exercise in hope. When we raise student 
standards, children raise their academic sights. When children are 
regularly tested, teachers know how to improve. When scores are known 
to parents, parents are empowered to push for change. When 
accountability for our schools is real, the results for our children 
are real and the taxpayers get their money's worth. That is what this 
issue is about.
  I will close, because my chairman has been very gracious, with a 
quote from another President, John Kennedy, on a similar subject.
  I thank, again, my chairman, who has been more than gracious in terms 
of the time on this, and his staff. The two of us can come to a lot of 
agreements. It is just other Members, other interests. So we will 
soldier on. But I just want him to know that he continues to have my 
greatest respect as we work through this very important debate.
  Let me close with a quote from a former President on another equally 
urgent matter to sort of capture my disappointment. I am not angry, but 
I am disappointed. President Kennedy, many years ago when our Nation 
was faced with being left behind in the space race, as we are 
challenged today being left behind in public education, to marshall the 
forces necessary to achieve the goal at that time, which was to win the 
race to space and put a man on the Moon, said:

       We possess all the resources and all the talents necessary. 
     But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the 
     national decisions or marshaled the national resources for 
     such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on 
     an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our 
     time so as to ensure their fulfillment . . .
       Let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the 
     country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of 
     action--a course which will last for many years and carry 
     very heavy costs . . . [but] if we were to only go halfway, 
     or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, it would be 
     better not to go at all.
  He was right. We didn't go halfway; we didn't go part of the way. We 
didn't go for 2 years and then say I am sorry, we made a mistake, let's 
go to another proposal. We stayed the course and, because of that, less 
than 8 years later, we landed a man on the moon. In June in 1969, 8 
years and 1 month after the speech, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin 
landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong said, ``One small step for 
America, one giant leap for mankind.''
  Mr. President, I will tell you as firmly--as I represent the people 
of my State--and as strongly as I can express

[[Page S11976]]

it, if we would stay the course, we would meet the goal. If we would 
marshal the resources, we would meet the goal. But this debate, getting 
us off course, going in a different direction, undermining what we are 
doing and underfunding what we are doing, will never get us there. That 
is what this debate is about.
  I thank the chairman for allowing us to talk tonight. We will proceed 
with this debate over the course of the next week until we can come to 
some agreement as to how to proceed.
  I yield back my time, and I thank the Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, again, I thank the ranking member, Senator 
Landrieu, for her good comments and, more importantly, I thank her for 
her good work on this bill.
  There is a lot more to this bill, frankly, than just the scholarship 
portion of the bill. You would not know that by the debate, but there 
is an awful lot in this bill on which we all agree. Frankly, there is a 
lot on the education part we agree on as well.
  I thank my colleague from Delaware for his good statement. They have 
both contributed a lot to the debate tonight. I appreciate their good 
faith and their commitment to the children and their good comments.
  I want to take a moment before my friend from Alabama speaks, who has 
been on the floor for some time, to, at least from my perspective, 
explain where I think these negotiations are and what happened with 
them. I am afraid my perspective is a bit different than what my 
colleague said, but I hope not too different. We negotiated in regard 
to the topics my colleagues have just discussed for 2 or 3 days. These 
were negotiations that went on at the staff level, but they also went 
on at the Member level. All three of us were directly involved. We 
spent all day yesterday involved in negotiations.
  Quite frankly, the issues they have raised on the floor, I felt, and 
continue to feel, are very legitimate issues. These are not trivial 
issues; these are important issues. I felt and still feel at this 
moment--I guess I am an eternal optimist--that these issues could be 
resolved on a policy basis among the three of us. I still feel they can 
be resolved. The negotiations, candidly, broke down, as my colleague 
from Delaware said, when my two colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle came to me and said there is one condition you have to meet that 
is not negotiable, and that condition is you have to guarantee these 
items will come out of conference. That is one thing as chairman of the 
subcommittee I cannot guarantee. I can guarantee I will fight for them 
in conference. I can guarantee I will represent the Senate position and 
that I will do everything I can to get as much of what we agree on 
through the conference; but what I am not in a position to do is to 
give any kind of ironclad guarantees to my colleagues--as much as I 
would like to--that every single thing we would agree to, every single 
sentence, paragraph, word, comma, will come out of the conference 
committee with the other body. That just cannot be done. I am not in a 
position to do that and to tell them that in good faith. I suppose I 
can tell them that and it would not happen, but I am not going to do 
that. So that is when the negotiations broke off.

  I want the other Members of the Senate, both on my side of the aisle 
and the other side of the aisle, to understand that that is when the 
negotiations broke off. If that is the condition of making an agreement 
on this amendment we all could agree on, and that we can get this bill 
passed, then that is not going to happen.
  Now if it is trying to work out all the very legitimate issues my 
colleagues have just raised, then we can continue these negotiations. I 
am an eternal optimist, and I think we can work these out. I have told 
both of my colleagues that. I don't think we are that far apart. These 
are legitimate issues, and we can work them out.
  I see my colleague on her feet. I will not yield the floor, but I 
will yield for a question.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, did the Senator know--and I fully 
appreciate his position and I most certainly understand that even as 
the powerful chairman he is, he is not able, of course, to make those 
confirmations. I also know there are powers that can make such 
arrangements, and the chairman is well aware of that. So we offer this 
amendment in good faith, recognizing that if there truly is a view or a 
desire to create a real, accountable pilot for children in failing 
schools in the District of Columbia that would show definitively 
whether it works or not in 5 years, that meets the parameters of Leave 
No Child Behind, that could be something that could be reached. That is 
what my intention would be. That is not the position of every single 
member of the Democratic caucus. So as ranking member, I will also 
represent their position. But at this point, we don't see the 
possibility of that. I thank the chairman. I understand his position.
  We look forward to continuing to lay down amendments that will try to 
improve and perfect this proposal, or eventually to strike the language 
and try to move on a bill without any reference to the voucher 
proposal.
  Mr. DeWINE. I appreciate my colleague's comments. Let me take a 
moment to state where I think this bill is. My colleagues have talked 
about some of the improvements they would like to make in the bill. I 
was given a list here. We don't have an amendment before us. At this 
point we don't have an amendment, but I think they are going to present 
one at some point. So we don't have all the language to go through, but 
we have talking points or some power points to look at. I will go 
through a couple of these points.
  The first point is that eligible participating students must take the 
same tests as kids in public schools. That was met and that is now part 
of the bill, as amended by Senator Feinstein's amendment. So we 
appreciate that contribution that now is a part of the bill as amended 
by Senator Feinstein, which the Senate just adopted about an hour ago.
  The second provision talks about eligible participating students are 
taught by a teacher who holds a college degree. That part of No. 2 is 
now in there as far as Senator Feinstein had that in the amendment.
  No. 3 requires a full and independent evaluation for the scholarship 
program. The Feinstein amendment that was passed by voice vote by this 
body about an hour ago does require a full, independent evaluation.
  I say to my colleague, the ranking member of the subcommittee, Ms. 
Landrieu, that we are more than happy to incorporate the Senator's 
specific evaluation concerns that she has outlined and to work with her 
on additional language as far as incorporating that into the bill.
  Her fourth point, scholarships are limited to students attending 
failing schools, the bill's language provides priority for students who 
are in failing schools. They are going to be the ones who get the 
priority. I point out to my colleagues that they are going to be the 
ones who are going to be first in line. So that is the state of play. 
That is where we are.
  Let me make a couple of other additional points before I turn to my 
colleague from Alabama. One is, my colleague asked, what is the 
administration's position? Reference was made to the fact that in their 
letter the administration did not say they were for this three-pronged 
approach.
  My colleague will be getting a letter from the administration 
outlining that, yes, they very definitely are for this three-pronged 
approach. They are for it. They are 100 percent behind it. They back 
it, and there will be a letter coming to her shortly and to this Senate 
outlining the administration's support of the three-pronged approach.
  Earlier today we talked about the fact--I think it is significant--
that it was the Mayor and the Mayor's team who originally decided and 
came to the Senate and the House and said: This is what we want; we 
want this three-pronged approach. We want the additional money, this 
add-on money, for the public schools.
  We need to keep in mind that it has been this Mayor who has sought 
out additional money for the last several years for the public schools 
in the District of Columbia. So this is consistent with what he has 
done in the past. He sought this additional $13 million. It is 
consistent with what he has done when he has asked for additional money 
for the charter schools. So in this bill we have an additional $13 
million for the charter schools, again what the Mayor requested.
  The third prong, of course, is the $13 million for the scholarships. 
So it is

[[Page S11977]]

the program of the Mayor of the District of Columbia. It is a very 
balanced approach, new money, not taking any money away from the public 
schools but, in fact, doing just the opposite, new money for the public 
schools, new money for the charter schools, and new money for this new 
scholarship program. I think it is very important for us to keep this 
in mind.
  My colleagues who are concerned about this bill have talked about No 
Child Left Behind. My esteemed colleague from Louisiana has talked 
about this and has inferred that this is not really consistent with No 
Child Left Behind. It strikes me, with all due respect, that this is so 
consistent with our program of No Child Left Behind, because if there 
is anyplace in this great country of ours where children have been left 
behind, it is the District of Columbia. Through no fault of their own, 
the children of the District of Columbia have truly been left behind.
  What a great tragedy it is, when people come to the District of 
Columbia, they come to our Nation's Capital and they see the great 
monuments, they see this great building, they see the great White 
House, they see this body, and yet if they truly understand what is 
going on here, they understand that there are children who are not 
getting the education they deserve. They are not getting the education 
other children across this country are getting.
  With this bill and with this very balanced approach, we are taking a 
step towards giving the parents of these children more choices and 
giving more opportunity to these children. I truly believe this is 
consistent with our idea that there should be no child in this country 
left behind.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio for his 
leadership and hard work on this issue and the Senator from Louisiana 
who, I know, has also worked hard.
  Education is a very important thing in this country. The title of the 
original education program proposed by President Bush, No Child Left 
Behind, is a powerful phrase. As the Senator from Ohio explained, this 
nation does not need to allow children to fall behind. We need to know 
what is going on. We need to find out how they are doing.
  President Bush has proposed, and this Congress has passed, larger 
increases in funding for education in the last three years than we saw 
in the previous eight. We have had a tremendous increase in education 
funding from the Federal Government, but the problem was, and the 
challenge and the important impact of No Child Left Behind is, that we 
are not just going to put money into systems that are not operating 
effectively and efficiently; systems that are allowing children to fall 
behind.
  Parents wake up, and their child is in the ninth or tenth grade and 
cannot do basic reading or basic math. They drop out of school, become 
a discipline problem, and the child's life is not what it ought to be. 
They will not reach the full potential that they ought to reach.
  My wife taught four years, and I taught one year in public schools. 
We care about education. Good friends of mine, as well as people we 
associate with, are full-time teachers and we try to keep up with 
education. We were active, particularly my wife, in our children's 
education. We talked about how things were going at the school. We 
wanted to know.
  My two daughters graduated from a large inner-city high school, 
racially fifty-fifty, in Mobile, Alabama. They have done very well. 
They loved that high school, and it was very important to them. They 
are still loyal to Murphy High School.
  This is a defining issue. That is why it has received so much 
attention. The Senator from Ohio is exactly correct, there are a lot of 
good things in this bill other than just the scholarship portion. 
However, it is a big deal. What we are saying is that we care about 
children more than we care about bureaucracies, laws and regulations 
that do not work. We are saying that what life gives in the form of 
education to children is important.
  Make no mistake about it, this is about power. A middle-income child 
or a poor-income child in this city is in a certain school district. 
They cannot do anything with that. Maybe their parents bought a house 
there 10 years ago. Maybe they can't afford to sell it. Maybe the price 
has gone down. Or whatever--they are in that district. Then they are 
assigned to a certain school. If that school does not perform, what 
happens? They go to the school board, and they say sorry, that is your 
district.

  The parent says: I don't like this school.
  It doesn't make any difference. Doesn't make any difference to us. 
You don't like this school? By law you must go to this school. They are 
sent there by order of the State or the city or the school system, and 
they have no choice in the matter.
  Some schools in this very District, and some schools all over the 
country, are not working. Some of them are not safe. Some of them are 
not effective or efficient. Some of them are not producing the quality 
of education they could produce. The children who are sent to those 
schools are sentenced to a situation that makes it far more difficult 
for them to achieve success in their educational life than they would 
any other way. It is a big deal.
  What happens when Senators and Congressmen are in that situation? 
They just decide to move out to the Maryland or Virginia suburbs and 
buy a $300,000 or $500,000 house and they put their kids in a school 
they like. Vice President Gore sent his kids over to St. Albans. That 
probably costs as much or more than the University of Alabama for a 
year. That is what they do because they can do those things.
  But what happens to average Americans who cannot do that? They are 
stuck where the State sends them.
  Dr. Paige, our Secretary of Education, himself a teacher of education 
and a former superintendent of the Houston school system, reformed that 
school system dramatically. Do you know what he said about it? He said: 
When I was there and we were losing students to private schools, my 
view was I cared about the kids. If they could get a better education 
in a private school, so be it. I hope they can go there. It doesn't 
hurt me. My job is to make this system work so they can be educated 
here. He said: With the money we have from the Government and 
advantages we have, there is no way we ought not to be able to compete 
with the private school system.
  He said we lost kids, but he took firm control of discipline. He took 
firm control of the mismanagement. He took firm control by testing, and 
he made sure test scores were going up. He said in 5 years we were 
gaining kids back from private schools. They were happy to be in our 
school system. Not that it was a huge number one way or the other, but 
people did choose in that fashion.
  But the average working American does not have those choices. It is 
just not financially possible for them. The wealthy can do it but not 
the poor. They are stuck. So this is what it is all about. You have the 
Mayor of this city, the leader of the school board of this city, and 
they care about children, too. They love the children; they want to see 
them succeed. When they have concluded that this program would help the 
children, why are we so upset about it? Why are we so determined and 
frustrated about it? Why do we get frustrated about it? I ask that 
question.
  I think there is a resistance to change here. It has been said that 
they have totally eliminated religion from public schools. But within 
the establishment of the public schools, I would say that is not true, 
really. There is at least some religion left. There is one law that 
goes beyond logic to the point I would say of religion, and that is: 
Thou shalt not spend one dollar on schools that doesn't go through a 
system that the American Education Association doesn't have something 
to do with.
  It is our money, they think. It has to be spent on our schools. Not 
one dime can be allowed to be spent by a child who might want to have 
an alternative or choice in their education. Frankly, I think we do not 
need to be that uptight about it.
  The way this thing came up, we talked about it in the Senate and 
there was an effort in the No Child Left Behind bill to allow all the 
States to have scholarship programs. That did not go into the bill. It 
just was a fight we were not prepared to make at the time.
  There was not agreement or consensus on it. But this is not a State. 
It

[[Page S11978]]

is the Federal District of Columbia. It is part of the Federal 
Government. It is an area that we do not have a separation of Federal 
and State governments, where there is not a State's rights question 
about these matters. It is a matter within our jurisdiction, No. 1.
  No. 2, the Mayor and the school board president want it. They asked 
us for it.
  The people want it. They have children lined up to get into this 
program. I love educators, and I love and appreciate education. I 
believe the public schools do a terrific job for the most part in 
America. I have been pleased with the public schools my children have 
attended. But if they were not getting a good education there, one that 
was sufficient, I would have done what I could to make sure they got a 
good education. I think most Americans would. But for the poor, they 
don't have that option. They can't send their children to St. Albans. 
They can't send their kids to some other school if they are not happy, 
and I think we need to deal with that.
  I salute the chairman, Senator DeWine. I suggest the Feinstein 
amendment does many of the things that Senator Landrieu wants to do. I 
could support that, and I am comfortable with the Feinstein amendment. 
But if we are going to come up with an amendment that makes it so 
difficult for the schools in this area who have agreed to take children 
at a discount of 40 percent or more from the cost that is being 
expended for education in the District, that they will not accept them 
or it creates a bureaucracy--which is one of the things that makes it 
more difficult for public schools to perform well--if we are going to 
do that, I am not for it.
  I know Senator DeWine will be wrestling with that and listening to 
the Senators and their suggestions. But I would note we have a reality 
and that is there are two bodies, a House and a Senate. The House of 
Representatives deserves equal sway in these matters. That shouldn't 
change just because a few Senators believe something is important--I 
believe a lot of things are important and I have not been able to have 
them come out exactly as I want.
  I think the Feinstein amendment does what Senator Landrieu wants. We 
have not seen the exact wording of Senator Landrieu's amendment, so I 
guess we will have to look at it to know. This body needs to act in the 
best interests of the schoolchildren of the District of Columbia. We 
have a Mayor elected to take care of them. We have a school board 
president who loves our children and wants them to succeed. They have 
said this program is the way to do it. This is what we need to improve 
their chances at a better life. I believe it is, too. I see no danger 
in going forward with it.
  If the program turns out to be a failure, so be it. We will end it. I 
don't know that it will. Frankly, I think it is more likely to be a 
success than not.
  I am glad the Senator from Ohio is leading this effort, and I look 
forward to working with him.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alabama for his 
very fine statement. I think he is absolutely right. This is a pilot 
program. But it is a chance we have to take. These are children who 
need this opportunity. Their parents need this opportunity.
  As we have talked about before on the Senate floor, you have the 
Mayor of this city coming to this Congress and saying: Give me the 
tools. Give me the tools to help shape the educational system in the 
District of Columbia. For us to turn our back on the Mayor, to turn our 
back on children, and the parents, I think would be a very serious 
mistake.
  We have the opportunity to do something very positive. I think we 
should take that opportunity.

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