[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 69 (Monday, May 17, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3059-H3062]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                RECOGNIZING BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to be here to 
share some thoughts and share my time with the gentleman from Nebraska 
(Mr. Osborne) concerning Brown v. Board of Education, what it has meant 
to us as a country, what it has led to, and where we are today. And 
then I would like to take some time and tie it in with No Child Left 
Behind, which I think perhaps is the most significant measure we have 
taken since Brown v. Board of Education to truly educate all of the 
young people in the world today.
  I think most of us recognize by now because of all of the news and 
publicity that Brown v. Board of Education was decided 50 years ago. A 
lot of people may not know all of the States involved, but one of them 
happened to be my State, Delaware. Kansas is most often cited, but it 
was a decision made in the State of Delaware that first said separate 
but equal, Plessy v. Ferguson should no longer be the law of the land, 
but indeed we had to have integration in our schools, not just separate 
but equal facilities; and quite frankly, most of the facilities were 
not equal anyhow.
  From that went the Supreme Court decision argued by Thurgood Marshall 
and others in which the case of Brown v. Board of Education actually 
found that the doctrine of separate but equal was unconstitutional in 
the sense it did not give everyone equal opportunity, and came forward 
with the new policy of full integration for everybody.
  At the time it caused, frankly, some upheaval. Some were disturbed 
about it. Others embraced it as a solution to a lot of societal and 
educational problems in the United States of America. But the bottom 
line was that it was the law of the land. The law of the land, however, 
does not necessarily mean that it was carried out in that way, because 
even though that was the way it was stated, there were only a minimal 
number of students that came forward, often with a lot of publicity, 
police sometimes accompanying them as they went into their schools. 
And, indeed, some took advantage of it, but many did not.
  In Delaware, other things happened later in terms of desegregation 
suits, bussing issues, and eventually we got to the point of full 
integration in Delaware, so we became at one point the second most 
integrated State in the United States of America. Others struggled for 
a longer time.
  There are pockets in this country where integration took place on a 
sound basis in terms of bringing our schools together, but it was soon 
realized that all of the goodwill from Brown v. Board of Education 
would not be realized in full, at least any time soon, so we struggled 
continuously in terms of educating our young people.
  But something else happened which was very interesting. It was Brown 
v. Board of Education, decided 50 years ago, which really paved the way 
for a number of other acts which are of extraordinary importance to 
Americans today. One is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and then shortly 
thereafter the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 
1968. These in combination with Brown v. Board of Education have helped 
to integrate America to a degree America had not been previously 
integrated. They are certainly landmark laws and have helped turn the 
tide of racism which existed in our country prior to that time.
  The Supreme Court revisited the ruling in 1955 to resolve some of the 
difficulties that were involved. As we look back at that segment of 
what we have done and what we are doing in the year 2004, there is 
recognition of a couple of things. One is in the Brown v. Board of 
Education suit, we were dealing primarily with African Americans. In 
America today, we are dealing with a greater number of minorities than 
we were before, as well as a greater percentage of minorities, but 
particularly Hispanic Americans, some Asian Americans, and a whole 
variety of other minorities who become actual larger numbers in our 
school districts. So we deal with broader issues as we deal with the 
questions that were raised by Brown v. Board of Education.
  I think there is also a greater realization, decade by decade, maybe 
not year by year, of the significance of education. As I go through my 
communities in Delaware, as other Members go through their communities, 
I think there is an understanding that you can tie education into 
economic opportunity in America. If we do that, the issue of race, the 
issues of gender and geographical location, poor income, backgrounds, 
the various things that have been a problem before seem to melt away if 
we can educate all of our young people.
  I would say, in 2004, there is greater emphasis on educating each and 
every young person in our community than there has ever been before. So 
Brown v. Board of Education has not been perhaps the great success that 
everyone would have liked it to be. We recognize this anniversary; we 
do not really celebrate it because a celebration would involve pure 
integration and no problems, and there are still some problems, but it 
is of overwhelming importance in the history of the United States of 
America. It has been extremely positive in many ways, and all of us 
have a responsibility to try to continue it forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. 
Osborne), but before I do that, I am going to come back and talk about 
No Child Left Behind because I am firmly convinced that the only act 
which has really made the kind of impact difference or can at least 
make an impact difference similar to what we had in Brown v. Board of 
Education is No Child Left Behind, and they are very closely tied 
together.
  But I would like to yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. 
Osborne) who obviously, through his coaching career, has dealt with 
many, many young people in terms of their educational concerns, as well 
as being a distinguished member of the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce and the vice chairman of my Subcommittee on Education Reform 
where we deal with kindergarten through 12th grade education, and is 
someone who knows as much about education and as much about young 
people in this country as anyone I know.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. OSBORNE. I certainly appreciate the gentleman's leadership on the 
subcommittee and in the area of education in general. As he mentioned, 
in the late 1800s, Plessy v. Ferguson set forth the separate but equal 
doctrine which really codified and legitimized segregation in the 
schools, and we ended up living with that for about 60 or 70 years. Of 
course, that was devastating to not only African Americans but all 
minority groups. The gentleman has done a good job of explaining Brown 
v. Board of Education in 1954, overturning the separate but equal 
ruling. Of course, this was a landmark decision that formally ended 
segregation in the schools.
  Yet as the gentleman has also pointed out, inequities in education 
still remain over this last 50 years, and I guess we are today 
celebrating the 50th year anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. 
Some groups in our schools are still achieving at much higher rates 
than others. Statistics indicate that in the fourth grade, Caucasian 
students are performing on achievement tests about 30 percent higher 
than African American and Hispanic students. This gap obviously is 
unacceptable. Some of these differences, I believe, are due to 
socioeconomic factors, but many are differences simply due to 
inequities and differences in the schooling and the schools that they 
are attending.
  Since 1954, over 300 billion Federal dollars have been spent on 
education. With that type of expenditure, we would expect to see that 
achievement gap narrowing rather dramatically and probably 
disappearing. Yet the academic achievement gap is still persisting. 
Until just the last couple of years actually in many cases it has 
widened. Another inequity that I have noticed through my personal 
experience, the gentleman mentioned that I used to work on a college 
campus and

[[Page H3060]]

I traveled throughout the country. I visited each year annually 
probably 60 or 70 high schools. Over 36 years in the coaching 
profession, I probably evaluated hundreds of transcripts. One of the 
disconcerting things that I ran into was that occasionally I would run 
across a transcript that by all measures and all standards looked 
pretty good. The young person graduated from high school, had the right 
courses, had reasonably good grades; and then you discover that that 
young person could not read or could not do basic math. Of course, this 
has become a major problem in terms of the well-being of our country.
  Another problem that we ran into quite frequently was simply 
comparison with other nations. Within the last couple of years, I 
believe we have had some international tests. The United States ranks 
19th out of 21 nations in advanced math and science. Of course, when 
you attempt to compete on the international scale, it is almost 
impossible to do well ranking in those areas. Alan Greenspan recently 
indicated in a hearing before the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce that we are not producing enough high school and college 
graduates with technical skills to fill the jobs that we have in this 
culture. As a result, we are having to import a fairly high number of 
people to fill these jobs.
  All of these things, I think, have made, as the gentleman mentioned, 
the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act particularly important. Oftentimes we 
hear this referred to as the President's bill or a Republican bill. I 
would like to point out that this was a bipartisan bill. I believe that 
it passed the House with about 90 percent of the Members voting for the 
bill, and in the Senate it was just about the same way. This was 
certainly authored by both sides of the aisle.
  As my colleague knows, a couple of the major provisions of the act 
that I think address some of the previously mentioned failings of our 
educational system are, first of all, accountability on the part of the 
students. Obviously, the testing in math and science, grades 3 through 
8, is critical. It provides some standards, some evaluation because so 
often we found that students were simply being passed along because 
they were a certain age or had attended the grade before and had not 
really mastered the fundamentals. I guess again as a former coach, I 
knew that if you did not master the basics, the fundamentals, you were 
not going to go any higher. You were pretty limited in what you could 
account for.
  Then also, of course, the parents many times were deceived because 
the child would simply be passed along. They would not realize really 
where that young person ranked in terms of his understanding of basic 
math and science. These schools also now, of course, are being held 
accountable. This has caused a great deal of anxiety and discomfort, as 
I am sure my colleague has heard and run into.
  I think one thing that I would like to point out is that the bill 
does not label schools as failing. It simply says that those schools 
that are not performing in an adequate way will be given extra 
resources; and after 3 years of underperforming, a student may transfer 
from one school to another so they will not be trapped in an 
underperforming school. The State where I operate most of the time, out 
in a rural area with small towns, there really are not very many 
choices. You either are going to go to the local school or no other 
school at all. We find that most of those schools do a great job.
  I would like to mention just three or four other things, and then I 
will turn it back over to the gentleman from Delaware. I think one 
element of No Child Left Behind that really addresses some of the 
issues in Brown v. Board of Education has to do with the disaggregation 
of statistics. We found that many schools on the face of it were doing 
quite well; and yet when you began to break it down, you began to 
realize that some of the subgroups, maybe those students who were 
disabled in some way, or maybe those students from different ethnic 
minorities, were really not making any progress, but there were enough 
students in the school that were scoring well to indicate that that 
school was doing well.
  Under No Child Left Behind, the subgroups are required to make 
adequate progress as well. We think that this will really do some 
significant things in narrowing those achievement gaps.
  Another misconception that I often run into as I travel my district 
regarding No Child Left Behind is that somehow the Federal Government 
is not doing an adequate job of funding. There is some debate in terms 
of the testing and all that type of thing as to whether it is 
adequately funded. The General Accounting Office indicates that it is. 
But still I think it is important that we point out that over the last 
2 years since No Child Left Behind, the Federal funding has increased 
by $9.7 billion, which is a 35 percent increase. When you figure the 
cost of inflation is maybe 5 or 6 percent over that 2-year period, this 
is one of the largest bumps in education spending that we have seen in 
any 2-year period. We feel that certainly the funding has been very 
adequate.

  I think one reason why so many people feel that the Federal 
Government is not holding their end up on this is that the States have 
lost so much funding and they have had to cut their spending on 
education; and even though the Federal Government is increasing, 
sometimes our increase is not as fast as the States are cutting. 
Greater flexibility, I think, is an important part of this bill.
  Again, I will just address some rural issues which my colleague may 
not run into as much. We often find in small rural schools that they do 
not have grant writers, and whatever pots of money they access from the 
Federal Government are so small that they are hardly worth going after. 
In the No Child Left Behind Act, we are able to pool those moneys and 
use them in useful ways. That has been very helpful. We have also done 
some things where any school district with less than 600 students is 
able to qualify for an extra $20,000 to $40,000, which really has made 
a huge difference in those schools.
  Then one thing that has been very important to me is the issue of 
mentoring, because we have seen so much more dysfunction over the years 
with our young people. When I first started coaching in 1962, I would 
say that maybe one out of every 10 young people was from a 
dysfunctional situation. When I ended up my coaching career in 1997, I 
would say that was pretty close to 50 percent. Roughly one-half of our 
young people grow up without both biological parents. As a result, many 
times schools are dealing with problems that parents at one time dealt 
with. If a child comes to school with a lot of unmet emotional needs, 
maybe he is being abused at home, maybe he is hungry, whatever, that 
child is not going to learn very well. We have found that it is very 
important that you provide a caring adult in that child's life. We have 
in No Child Left Behind provided some pretty significant resources for 
mentoring, including children of prisoners. Often a child of a 
prisoner, his main goal is to do hard time. That cycle has to be 
broken.
  I guess the last comment that I would make is simply something that I 
think my colleague probably will flesh out a little bit in greater 
detail, simply that we are beginning to see the achievement gap 
narrowing a little bit, at least in some areas. That is in a relatively 
short period of time. That is encouraging. I think, as the gentleman 
has pointed out, there is definitely a link between the Brown v. Board 
of Education ruling 50 years ago and No Child Left Behind, which was 
passed in 2001. I think a lot of people may not make that link, but I 
think, as the gentleman said, that the No Child Left Behind legislation 
may be the most significant thing in terms of equality in our country 
since that ruling of Brown v. Board of Education.
  I appreciate the gentleman having this Special Order tonight, and I 
thank him for giving me the opportunity to make a couple of comments.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's insight into this is as 
helpful as anybody I know in the entire Congress. His comments are 
highly appreciated. His continuing concern about the young people, the 
mentoring, the things that he cares so much about I think makes a huge 
difference in this country. We thank him for all his service.
  I would like to just go back a little bit, Mr. Speaker, if I may. I 
was in State government for a long time, being a State legislator and 
then a lieutenant governor and a Governor. I always found it was very 
hard to

[[Page H3061]]

change education. Although I felt we really needed to change education, 
we needed to be more challenging in education, but there are those who 
felt that the status quo was the way to go. It was hard to get done. It 
was not Republican or Democrat. It was just very hard to deal with the 
subject matter of education.
  I was invited in December of 2000 to go to Austin, Texas, to meet 
with the President-elect, who at that point had been declared the 
President-elect. I sat at a table with him. There were, I guess, four 
tables in the room and about 40 Members of the House and Senate or 
Members-to-be of the House and Senate. I remember that the gentleman 
from California (Mr. George Miller) was there sitting right next to the 
President and others were there. During the election, I heard the 
promises about education, but I did not pay a lot of attention because 
it is an election, after all, on all sides. But when I sat there, I 
realized that here is an individual who really does care a lot about 
education and that maybe I better start listening to exactly and 
precisely what he was saying.
  He started talking about No Child Left Behind. I cannot recall if it 
was called No Child Left Behind then, but he talked about lifting every 
student. My recollection from being in State government was that we 
could never lift every student. We could always prepare the students 
for the Ivy League schools, we could help some other students, but we 
never really helped those students who needed help the most. I always 
felt that we needed to do that in terms of early education, day care, 
Head Start. Now we have an Early Reading First program. You name it. 
Parents had to be more involved. A whole lot had to happen in early 
education. We needed full-day mandatory kindergarten if we could get 
it. We needed to give those kids that opportunity.
  Frankly, it just simply was not happening, and it was a matter of 
great consternation to me. For the first time in a long time a light 
went off. I realized that what he is saying really makes some sense. We 
can really truly challenge in terms of what is happening in education. 
We had spent $300 billion on K-12 education since 1965. Yet there was 
just no really significant academic improvement in the achievement gaps 
between minorities, particularly African Americans and our Caucasian 
students and disadvantaged students and the affluent students in 
general just was not where it should be. We really had to do something 
about it. We had, frankly, in this country a two-tiered education 
system, and it is just simply not acceptable.
  In fact, according to the most recent national data, by the time 
African American students reach eighth grade, only 12 percent can read 
proficiently and only 7 percent are proficient in math. Nationally, the 
achievement gap between Hispanic and Caucasian fourth graders is 29 
percentage points. Those are deplorable statistics. They simply are 
unacceptable.
  And No Child Left Behind came along. As the gentleman from Nebraska 
said, there are a lot of things in there that make a difference, but 
one of them is this, that is, that each individual would be put into a 
subgroup of one kind or another. If you have a subgroup of, in 
Delaware's case, 40; I think it is 35 in other States, individuals in 
that subgroup, be they low-income, African American, Hispanic American, 
learning disabilities, whatever it may be, that group is going to be 
rated on its testing. That school is indeed going to be rated as to 
making adequate yearly progress on the basis of each of those 
subgroups, and then the school district is going to be rated on all of 
the schools in that particular district.

                              {time}  2015

  So, as a result, you had a circumstance in which literally everybody 
was going to be looked at in terms of their educational process. It is 
obviously much more complicated than that, but that was the basic 
thesis behind this particular piece of legislation. Indeed, we passed 
it, as was indicated, by about 90 percent of the House and the Senate, 
Republicans and Democrats, because we all felt education had to be 
better.
  Well, it has been in place now for a couple of academic years, and 
indeed there are those who probably were opposed to it to begin with 
who are still raising questions about, are we spending our money 
correctly, is there enough money here, is this too demanding on the 
students, can they take these tests, because it does demand standards 
and assessments, and that involves testing in grades 3 through 8 and 
once again after 8th grade, or is this more than these kids can handle, 
is this really working or not.
  But every time I read one of these stories of criticism, Mr. Speaker, 
I also read about what the various schools are doing to give those kids 
a better opportunity, and I see hope in that. I see for the first time 
in many, many generations of educating in America, that we are paying 
as much attention to the lower income, neediest academic students as we 
are to everybody else, and we are making special exceptions, and we are 
looking at various ways in order to really help these children improve 
from an academic point of view.
  So, for that reason, I believe this disaggregation of statistics, 
breaking it down into subgroups, has made a tremendous difference as 
far as education is concerned. Yes, there are skeptics, and, yes, it is 
not easy, and, yes, there are those who would like to overturn it, but 
the bottom line is, in the lives of some people, it is making a 
tremendous difference.
  Now, as to some of the flexibility issues, as was touched on by the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), I would like to comment on two 
or three of those. In the past 6 months, the Department of Education 
has issued three different rulings that exhibit the inherent 
flexibility in No Child Left Behind, as well the Department's 
willingness to respond when warranted. I would just like to go over 
these, and they are right here alongside of me.
  The first one says under No Child Left Behind being flexible, 
flexibility on testing students with disabilities. This gets a little 
bit complicated, but we have essentially opened up the percentage of 
students that would be exempted from taking the tests, and it is 1 
percent, or 10 percent of the students with disabilities in the school, 
and then the schools can apply for even more if need be, on the basis 
that not all these kids are in a position to handle the tests. And that 
has got to be found as to the right chord, so we have the right answer 
with respect to that, and we will continue to work on that. But the 
Department has shown some great flexibility.
  Second, in February, the Department announced a flexibility policy 
with respect to how limited English proficient students are included in 
the school's adequate yearly progress. Really, to make a long story 
short, we are basically allowing those students to stay in that 
category for 2 years, so that even after they learn English, it would 
count in the second year, as well, to help with the scores in that 
area.
  Third, in March, the Department responded to concerns on how to 
define a highly qualified teacher, still ensuring that every child in 
America is taught by a teacher who is skilled in his or her subject.
  Pretty simple stuff. You want the teachers to be able to teach these 
subjects that they have studied to the students, and that is basically 
what the law says. But it also recognizes when you get to certain rural 
areas and other parts of the country, they may not be able to find 
teachers who are that specialized, so we have made some exceptions as 
far as that is concerned.
  Then, finally, in late March, the Department issued a flexibility 
policy for how schools calculate student participation rates, which had 
to be 95 percent, when determining adequate yearly progress, again 
liberalizing that slightly in order to meet what we have to do.
  It is also important to understand that each State has submitted a 
plan. I am very proud of my State of Delaware. I think they have 
submitted both a good plan, and they are looking at revising the plan 
to improve it based on 1 year's experience.
  That is exactly what should be done, because we do need to get all of 
this in sync between the Federal Government and the State governments 
with respect to the planning, if we are going to be able to move ahead.
  So I feel that No Child Left Behind has been a tremendous adjunct to 
Brown v. Board of Education for all of these reasons.

[[Page H3062]]

  The funding issues have been raised by a number of individuals, and I 
need to share some of that information here, Mr. Speaker, if I may, 
because, and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) said this, the 
funding has been well done as far as the Federal Government is 
concerned. The problem lies more at the State and local levels, simply 
because they do not have the money they need at this point. I 
understand that. That will probably come back.

  But this shows the funding for programs under the No Child Left 
Behind Act has an increase of 42.5 percent in 4 years. That is over 10 
percent a year. Some States vary. My State happens to have a little 
more than that percentage, so it does vary a great deal.
  According to the U.S. Department of Education, Federal funding for 
these programs encompassed by No Child Left Behind has risen from $17.4 
billion in 2001 to $24.3 billion; $17.4 billion to $24.3, 2001 to 2004, 
which represents in excess of a 40 percent increase in just 3 years.
  Included in this number is funding for Title I, which is a 
significant part of all of this. You can see by the red lines which we 
have here how much Title I has gone up since No Child Left Behind 
passed.
  That is basically, for those who do not know, the funding for 
disadvantaged students and schools. That was increased by more than 
$650 million this year, for an increase of $3.5 billion, and we have 
been increasing that on a rapid basis over the past several years, 
knowing that that money is needed in order to implement No Child Left 
Behind.
  The gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) also pointed out that in 
certain circumstances, schools can qualify for extra funding. Indeed, 
if schools have not made adequate yearly progress, then they have the 
ability to have more flexibility in their Federal funding so they can 
take money from various other programs, although not Title I, but other 
programs and move it around, up to 50 percent, in order to help them 
with their programs as we move forward.
  We are beginning to see results. Remember, it has only been in place 
for 2 academic years. According to a 2004 study by the Council of Great 
City Schools, the achievement gap is narrowing in both reading and math 
between African American and Caucasian, and Hispanic and Caucasian 
students in our Nation's inner-city schools, and they attributed the 
positive change, in part, to No Child Left Behind; and just last week, 
Florida and Michigan reported decreases in the achievement gap between 
African American students and their Caucasian peers.
  This is an important day, and we should all honor the anniversary of 
Brown v. Board of Education and those that were so instrumental in the 
Brown movement. I have had an opportunity to meet many of them in the 
last year and to reflect with them on how far we have gone in ensuring 
educational access; and yet everyone says that we need to do more to 
ensure educational success, and that is something we do need to 
continue to work on.
  But, indeed, the ball has started to roll. No Child Left Behind is 
the next step, which was absolutely essential if we are going to be 
able to make this work.
  Now, for those who would argue that No Child Left Behind is not a 
step in the right direction, I would ask them to do a couple of things: 
One, I do not want to really argue with them. I want really for them to 
study No Child Left Behind, to truly understand what is in there and 
how they can work it to their advantage.
  Secondly, to see what it can do to help a lot of children not being 
helped otherwise who, I think, for the first time ever, can be helped 
by No Child Left Behind, to study those individual schools, classrooms 
and school districts who have understood that and have made a 
difference as far as No Child Left Behind is concerned, and helping all 
of those kids, remember, in all those subject groups, particularly the 
lower-income kids; and then perhaps to look at the funding mechanisms 
and realize, gee, there is a heck of a lot more money going into 
education from the Federal Government level than we ever realized. Then 
they would realize that this truly is a step, is truly a giant step in 
the right direction, as far as education is concerned, and we must stay 
that course.
  I think any attempts to change this system, to return to the old 
methodologies or the status quo, would be effectively preserving a 
system which has not worked as well as it should for all the young 
people of our country.
  America today in 2004 is a true polyglot. We are indeed a country in 
which people have come in from a variety of other countries. They speak 
different languages, their color of skin can be different, their 
religions can be different, their educational opportunities 
historically in their families may be different.
  But we have a responsibility to give them that opportunity in life, 
which has always been what we have done in America, and we needed to 
challenge education in order for that to happen. Indeed, I think that 
Brown v. Board of Education was a challenge, and a welcome challenge, 
but a new challenge was needed, and No Child Left Behind did that. And 
I believe it is in the interests of our young people, and I believe if 
we stay the course, if we do this properly, that we will again rise to 
the top, where we used to be on all educational standards in this 
world, and not just for those top students, but for each and every 
student in our schools in America.
  So I urge all of us to pay a lot of attention to what we are doing on 
the Federal, State and local levels, and make absolutely sure we are 
doing all we can to help the children of America.

                          ____________________