[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 134 (Friday, September 26, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12051-S12052]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RECAPPING THIS WEEK'S LEGISLATION

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, there are several issues I wish to take 
this opportunity to comment on at the end of this week. First is the 
issue that has been discussed for the last 3 days and which we will be 
coming back to on Monday--the issue of education of young children in 
the District of Columbia.
  With the leadership of the Mayor and working closely with the person 
who day in and day out observes firsthand what happens in the District, 
the head of the school board, and local officials, a proposal has been 
put together, generated at the local level, that we are currently 
talking about and debating before the Senate. That is the issue of 
allowing young children in school who are trapped--for the most part, 
impoverished children--in failing schools and giving them the 
opportunity to expand, grow, learn, and become educated, and thus 
giving them a shot at what we all know as the American dream.
  Yesterday was a unique day in that on the floor of the Senate was 
Mayor Anthony Williams, who made a historic visit to the Senate floor 
at the invitation of Senator Feinstein. From his presence here and in 
our many conversations with him, what is emphasized is how important 
this issue is to the District, to the future of this District, because 
it has to do with children and education. That is how important this 
issue of choice is, empowering the parents to have some sort of say in 
their children's education.
  As Senator Feinstein has so eloquently argued, the District of 
Columbia choice program is the Mayor's program. It is not our program--
the Senate program or the House program, or the Federal Government 
program. It is the program of the District and for the District's 
children and families. It is what the leaders in the District of 
Columbia want.
  We have spent almost 3 whole days on the bill, and we will spend, as 
I mentioned, Monday on it. Today, only one amendment has been offered. 
It is frustrating to me when we recognize the real problems that are in 
the District today in terms of education and we see there is a response 
generated that makes sense and is locally supported, which has new 
Federal dollars, new additional dollars coming in to support the 
initiatives, it is frustrating that if there are 4, 5, 6--I don't know 
the number of people who oppose choice in education and parental 
involvement, but if they have amendments, we can debate them. Then we 
can vote on these amendments, and hopefully defeat them, because I am a 
great believer in DC choice but at least allow us to debate.

  Avoiding offering amendments when time is being made available on the 
floor, in response to the great needs that we know exist, is 
frustrating and in some ways disappointing.
  The only amendment that has passed, in fact, was by Senator 
Feinstein, who is an advocate for this bill. So really there have been 
no amendments proposed from the other side. Yet, as we heard in the 
opening comments a few hours ago, the opposition insists that we cannot 
move this bill anytime soon.
  I say that despite the positive impact that we know this bill can 
make on the District's schoolchildren. I am not exactly sure why there 
is this refusal to offer amendments and live with the outcome, when the 
time is made available and the issue is before us. I hope it is not 
national politics because we are talking about the District's 
schoolchildren. We are not talking about a partisan national debate.
  Our goal is to give children today the very best education possible. 
So we need to debate it, we need to amend it, if necessary, and, if 
not, we need to move on, have a vote on it, and express the will of 
this Senate for the benefit of the kids.
  The Senate Appropriations Committee has passed legislation that does 
offer this city's schoolchildren a genuine opportunity to achieve an 
education. It has been pointed out on the Senate floor, but it is 
important for me to again state it, that this is $40 million of new 
money, that is additional money which, if this legislation passes, will 
come. If the legislation does not pass, that additional $40 million is 
not going to go into education today. The money is to be divided 
between the supporting of public schools, of charter schools which are 
in the District, and then a new nonpublic opportunity scholarship 
program whereby over 2,000 students who are impoverished, who are 
trapped in failing schools by definition in the legislation, are given 
the opportunity to walk, with a check of $7,500, to any nonpublic 
school in the District. If we pass the legislation, they have that 
opportunity. If we do not pass the legislation, they are not going to 
have that opportunity. It is as simple as that.
  That is, again, why this is frustrating to me as majority leader and 
as one who is trying to schedule the Nation's business accordingly.
  It is new money. It is not going to take resources from other 
education. That used to be the argument: There is public education 
moneys and the money will be taken from public education and diverted 
to nonpublic education. That argument is bogus. It does not exist. This 
is new money that is coming into the system.
  The record today in the District, in terms of educating children, has 
been painted pretty well, but in too many ways it ends up being almost 
statistics and coldhearted facts. But the coldhearted facts, I have to 
say, do tell the story. We spend about $1,200 per student right now, 
per capita, per kid, in the District. In spite of that, the outcomes, 
the scores, are lower than any State in the country today. So the 
answer is not just money. We know that.
  Only 10 percent, or 1 out of 10, of the District's fourth graders are 
proficient in math. Less than 12 percent of the District's fourth 
graders can write at grade level. Actually, it is fewer than 10 percent 
of the District's fourth graders are proficient at math, and right at 
10 percent are proficient in reading. That means 90 percent are not 
proficient at reading. Only 6 percent, about 1 out of 20 or 1 out of 
18, of District fourth graders can do math at a proficient level.

  Words were used like ``disgrace,'' which I think it is, and 
``scandal,'' not in the sense that there is misappropriation but a 
scandal in the fact that the outcome is so poor for these students and 
the disgrace is really in some ways ours for not responding and 
responding aggressively and appropriately. That is what we can do by 
passing this bill.
  I should also add that I believe the dropout rate in the District is 
around 42 percent, and nationwide it is about 29 percent. So 42 percent 
do not go on to school. As I mentioned before, the ACTs and the SATs, 
which would allow one to go to college, are the lowest in the country 
as well. So kids who are graduating from public school are graduating 
with an inability to read, write, do math, and to add and subtract, 
really basic measures.
  None of us in this Chamber would tolerate that sort of outcome for 
our own children, unable to complete simple fourth grade mathematics, 
or in the fourth grade an inability to write at grade level. Would we 
tolerate it? The answer is clearly, no.
  It has been pointed out that many of the people who oppose school 
choice for children and parents in the District, in this body and in 
the House of Representatives as well, send their kids to private 
schools, and yet at the same time, when the opportunity is there, they 
do not give that same opportunity to other parents.
  I mentioned Mayor Tony Williams, DC Board of Education president 
Peggy Cooper Cafritz, City Council member Kevin Chavous are all 
courageously advancing the cause of universal education for DC's kids. 
In addition to them are the parents of kids in the District. All across 
the city, parents line up in order to obtain better options for

[[Page S12052]]

their children. The need is so real and so intense that the District 
public school choice programs right now in the District are 
oversubscribed.
  Each year, more than 1,000 schoolchildren are wait-listed for the 
city's magnet programs, those magnet programs which give those unique 
opportunities for parents to choose, with their kids, the type of 
program that best suits their individual needs--again, stressing the 
importance of parental involvement, of matching needs to sources. More 
than 1,000 children are wait-listed trying to get into those programs.
  Right now the District has made more headway than my own State of 
Tennessee in the development of charter schools. About 15 percent of 
DC's kids are in charter schools. About 11,500 are in attendance in 
those charter schools. Once again, because they get that opportunity to 
better match resources to needs in an overall system that is failing 
and involves more choice, there is a waiting list of over 1,000 kids in 
the District for charter schools right now.
  Indeed, in this $40 million there is increased funding for charter 
schools which are part of the public education system in the District.
  Thinking in terms of choice and opportunity scholarships, where 
individual kids have the opportunity to take resources that are already 
being spent on their behalf and allowing them to choose the school they 
could go to, taking that same principle, which is the principle behind, 
the fundamental power behind, DC choice, one need only to look at when 
John Walton and Ted Forstmann invested $2 million in the children's 
scholarship fund in the District. What happened?
  There were 1,000 seats and yet 10,000 kids applied for those 1,000 
seats--again, to show the pent-up demand here for greater choice, 
greater opportunity to choose the type of school that best suits your 
needs.

  On this particular issue, I just want to close and say I do stand 
with those parents, with those people on those waiting lists, because 
we have an opportunity to reverse that and to expand the opportunity 
for families to become involved and kids to have that choice. To me it 
is nonsensical for us to withhold from them that opportunity when it is 
within our power to do so, to support each child's right--and it is a 
basic right--to learn to read and to write and to add and subtract. 
Basic education for our schoolchildren simply just cannot wait.

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