[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 102 (Wednesday, July 21, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1454-E1455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    HONORING STUDENTS AROUND NEW YORK CITY WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE 
             CONSTITUTION EDUCATION AND ENGAGEMENT PROJECT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ANTHONY D. WEINER

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 21, 2004

  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the over 100 
students from around New York City who participated this year in the 
Constitution Education Engagement Project. The CEEP program, of which 
Carl Bonomo is the founder and Dorothy McCloskey is the director, takes 
secondary school students from around New York City and asks them to 
have hearings, discussions and debates and arrive at a piece of 
legislation for this Congress to consider.
  This year, the winner was from Wadleigh Secondary School. Karen 
Watts, Wadleigh's principal, led a group of students that represents 
the City's best and brightest: Vanessa Reyes, Aaron Gardner, Evelin 
Valladared, and Victoria Bunn. In addition, I want to mention 
individuals who deserve special commendation at two other schools that 
participated in CEEP: principal Joseph Zaza at the Leon M. Goldstein 
School and Susan Getting and Maureen Longeran at the Townsend Harris 
School.
  The legislation that the Wadleigh team has come up with addresses 
problems that affect over 41 States in the United States, and that is 
the inequity between funding among different school districts. In New 
York State alone, $17,000 is spent per student in one district compared 
to $6,000 per student in others.
  Since 1973, 45 different States have had to address the inequities in 
school funding. The students at the Wadleigh Secondary School deserve 
our thanks for their efforts to address the problems we have in our 
country through the legislative process.
  I hope this House joins in paying tribute to their successes.

                Equal Educational Opportunity Act (EEOA)

       To provide equal access to quality education to all United 
     States Citizens and Residents


              Section 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS

       (a) This Act may be cited as EEOA of 2004
       (b) Table of Contents. The table of contents for this act 
     is as follows:
       Sec. 1. Short Title and table of contents
       Sec. 2. Abstract
       Sec. 3. The EEOA
       Title 1. Quality Education--Requirement to provide quality 
     education to all citizens and residents.
       Sec. 101. Definition of Quality Education
       Sec. 102. Establishing a Uniform Standard
       Title II. Funding--Establish permanent funding source that 
     will allow goals of act to be met.
       Sec. 201. Establishing special fund for act
       Sec. 202. Increasing education expenditures on an adjusted 
     per student basis


                          section 2. abstract

       We live in a time when only the educated are free. As we 
     become more technologically advanced and information plays 
     more of a critical role, only those individuals who have had 
     a sound education will be able to compete and succeed in the 
     global marketplace. This need for a quality education is most 
     critical for those people who are on the lowest social and 
     economic levels of our society. Now more than ever all must 
     have access to a good education in order to have a fair 
     chance in life. Sadly, those who are most in need of quality 
     education have the least amount of access to it.
       The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution 
     provides that every citizen will have equal protection of the 
     law, but a Supreme Court decision in the case of Plessy v. 
     Ferguson (1896) almost erased the protections provided by 
     this amendment. The Plessy decision created the system of 
     separate but equal and allowed for the legal separation of 
     people based upon nothing but the color of their skin. This 
     ruling allowed for the establishment of separate school 
     facilities for white people and people of color. These 
     facilities were anything but equal. Schools that served 
     students of color were inferior in many important aspects. 
     The physical conditions of the schools were poor, books and 
     other materials were in poor condition, outdated or not 
     available at all. The teachers were paid less than their 
     white counterparts. The landmark ruling in the Supreme Court 
     case of Brown v. the Board of Education (1954) ended the 
     practice of legal segregation in public schools and struck 
     down the Jim Crow laws that forced second-class citizenship 
     on people of color. Despite this, American society in many 
     ways remains as segregated as it was before 1954. Nowhere is 
     this segregation more evident than in our public schools. 
     Even though great people such as Charles Hamilton Houston the 
     architect of the argument for the Brown case, Supreme Court 
     Justice Thurgood Marshall, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 
     dedicated their lives to ensure that there would be equal 
     educational opportunities for all Americans, we have yet to 
     see this become a reality.
       Recent studies show that the country's largest inner city 
     school districts remain dramatically divided along lines of 
     race and economic class. These studies find that the poorest 
     school districts have a population that consists mostly of 
     minority students while white students make up the majority 
     of wealthy districts. The difference in the funding received 
     by school districts is also very surprising. In New York 
     State alone, $17,000 is spent per student in the wealthiest 
     districts while only $6000 per student is spent in the 
     poorest districts. This stark difference led to the creation 
     of the Campaign for fiscal Equity (CFE), a group of parents, 
     businessmen and politicians who sued the state of New York to 
     get more funding for the poorer school districts. After a 
     long battle that lasted for several years, the New York State 
     Courts ruled that the state must provide equal funding to 
     those poor school districts. But New York is not the only 
     state where we see this type of inequality--41 out of 50 
     states in the country have a similar situation.
       Unequal funding has had a direct impact on the academic 
     achievement of under funded schools and students. Students 
     who attend schools located in districts that receive less 
     funding also have lower scores on standardized tests and are 
     more likely to be below grade level in reading and math. 
     Students from these under-funded schools are also more 
     likely to drop out of school and fewer students from these 
     attend and graduate from college.
       Recently, the federal government has tried to address the 
     problem by the passing the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). 
     NCLB requires all school districts to achieve minimum 
     academic standards as measured by standardized tests. Those 
     states whose school districts do not meet these standards 
     would lose some of their federal funds. The NCLB Act has been 
     criticized because it does not provide the funding that 
     schools would need to meet the standards set by the law. In 
     fact, those school districts whose students are the most in 
     need of additional funding would likely be the first ones to 
     lose funding if their students, who also have the greatest 
     academic deficits, do not achieve satisfactory scores. Many 
     parts are NCLB are good and should be expanded, but a couple 
     of the things that the law does not do is provide funding 
     that is substantial enough to achieve it's goals, and it does 
     not require that states provide equal funding. It is the goal 
     of the EEOA to address the problems that NCLB does not.


            section 3. the equal educational opportunity act

       Title I.--Quality Education For All Citizens and Residents. 
     The federal government will be required to ensure that every 
     child within the boarders of the United States is provided 
     with the opportunity to receive a ``quality educational 
     experience.''
       Sec. 101. Definition of ``Quality Education''--For the 
     purposes of this Act, a ``quality education'' will be defined 
     as: (1) An education that provides each student the 
     opportunity to develop the skills that are necessary to 
     become a productive member of their local, national and 
     global communities. (2) Developing the skills and knowledge 
     necessary to effectively participate in the global 
     marketplace. (3) Adequate physical facilities to meet the 
     demands of the uniform distribution of funds. (4) Well-
     trained certified teachers who are paid at a competitive 
     rate. (5) Providing a variety of learning experiences that 
     include opportunities for extracurricular interests and 
     social development.
       Sec. 102. Establishing a Uniform Standard--To ensure that 
     each child receives a quality education this act shall 
     establish a framework for the equitable distribution of 
     funding to create the programs and curriculum necessary to 
     meet the goals of a

[[Page E1455]]

     quality education as defined in Sec. 101 and to provide 
     states and local school boards with the resources to address 
     each school's unique challenges in meeting the requirement 
     for a quality education through a flexible and equitable 
     distribution of dollars so each school has an equal 
     opportunity to shore up its curricular weaknesses as they 
     define it in their local communities once the basic national, 
     state and local requirements and standards have been met, a 
     standard by which individual state education programs will be 
     measured.
       Title II.--Funding. A special fund will be established to 
     fully implement all aspects of the EEOA. Additionally a 
     special committee will be created to develop a formula for 
     per student expenditures that will result in equal spending 
     for all students.
       Sec. 201. Establishing a Special Fund to Fully Support the 
     EEOA--A fund will be created that will be used solely for the 
     purpose of providing support of the EEOA. The fund is to be 
     developed and established by appropriate legislation.
       Sec. 202. Increase in Per Student Expenditures--A 
     commission will be created to determine per student 
     expenditure required to support the provisions included in 
     Title I of this act. Several factors will be taken into 
     consideration when making this determination, including: 1) 
     economic and social conditions that exist in a student's 
     school district 2) the academic and social circumstances of 
     the student 3) the ability of the student's school and 
     community to raise funds independently. Taking these factors 
     into consideration will insure that the schools and students 
     who have the greatest need will receive the greatest amount 
     of funding and support. School districts that have adequate 
     spending for each student will not be required to reduce 
     their expenditures. When developing the per student spending 
     formula, the commission shall also consider external factors 
     such as the cost of living in each school district, property 
     values in the district and additional community resources. 
     This will allow the amount distributed to each school 
     district to be prorated according to these factors. (Building 
     a school in Georgia does not cost as much as building a 
     similar facility in New York City, therefore the actual 
     dollar amount spent on a student in Georgia may be less, but 
     the value received from the expenditure is equivalent).

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