[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 60 (Tuesday, May 10, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3098-H3102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Marchant). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here. I am pleased to 
follow the 30-Somethings, although I am a

[[Page H3099]]

little bit old for them. I think the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Spratt) might be a little bit old for that as well, but I want to talk 
about a different subject matter, as interesting as Social Security is, 
and I will share time with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), my 
distinguished friend, on this subject which is essentially dealing with 
education in the United States of America and the Federal role in 
education which is frankly largely not understood by everybody who 
deals in education in this country. Perhaps we can bring a little bit 
of light to that.
  The starting point here is really the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, which is right now 40 years of age. It was 40 years ago 
last month that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed what we know as 
ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, into law, and the 
core mission of that Act when he signed it into law 40 years ago and 
was really one of the times the Federal Government has really got 
involved in education was to help disadvantaged students improve 
academically, certainly a laudatory goal I think as far as any of us 
are concerned.
  We have now enacted No Child Left Behind, and many people refer to 
that as if it is something separate and different and new. What it 
really is, a lot of the elements of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act with an overlay of some additional requirements as far as 
standards and assessments are concerned.
  President Johnson, when announcing his plans for the Great Society 
touted the goal of an end to poverty and racial injustice. When 
addressing education specifically he said, The Great Society is a place 
where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge 
his talent.
  The ESEA arguably triggered the most significant Federal role in 
elementary and secondary education. When he did sign that Act into law, 
President Johnson explained that, ``By passing this bill, we bridge the 
gap between helplessness and hope for more than 5 million educationally 
deprived children.''
  So where are we now some 40 years later as we look at No Child Left 
Behind? Well, progress has been made since the enactment of the ESEA, 
and sometimes, it is hard to measure that, but I think by any 
standards, if you look at the various aspects of that Act, we can 
certainly claim that there has been progress. Nearly 4 decades later, 
however, poor and minority children still lag well behind the education 
curve. It obviously has been through a lot of cycles, kids going first 
through 12th grade in that 40 years.
  In fact, a huge gap still remains when it comes to ensuring that all 
kids are actually learning. No Child Left Behind built upon numerous 
reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and was 
driven to eradicate this problem and to ensure that every student will 
not only have access but will also receive a quality education.
  The Federal Government has spent more than $300 billion on K-through-
12 education since 1965, which was the date of enactment of the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Yet that significant academic 
achievement gap that I referred to between disadvantaged students and 
their more affluent peers still exists in key subjects, such as reading 
and math.
  According to the recent national data on this subject, 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.
  We have allowed ourselves to believe that some children are simply 
beyond our reach. No Child Left Behind is rooted in the belief, a 
different belief, that all students, regardless of race, background, 
income, geography or disability, can learn and must be given the chance 
to do so.
  In the true spirit of President Johnson's vision, and like many other 
laws that passed during the Great Society, we are helping all students.
  As Brent Staples recently wrote in the New York Times, No Child Left 
Behind happens to be the best hope of guaranteeing black and Latino 
children a chance at equal education. Its core requirements that States 
educate minority children to the same standards as white children 
breaks a century old tradition of educational unfairness.
  I think that captures that as well as it can be captured in a short 
sentence or two.
  For the past 3 years, the Federal Government, States, school 
districts, parents and especially students have been dedicated to 
reforms that ensure no child is limited. We are engaged as a Nation in 
a continuing dialogue about our public education system. Despite the 
often unfavorable tone, the fact remains that people outside the 
education community are focused on reforms established by No Child Left 
Behind. No Child Left Behind has its skeptics, and change is never 
easy.
  Many have complained that the Department of Education has been 
inflexible with implementation. This has not, however, been the case. 
The U.S. Department of Education continues to not only be an important 
voice in helping to implement the law but an ear to some of these 
negative accounts.
  Some of that flexibility I have put on this chart, which I have to my 
left, that they have undertaken, particularly in the last 2 years.
  The first of these is flexibility on testing students with 
disabilities. It has been shown that some of these students simply are 
unable to stay up at a class level with other students, and some 
flexibility was introduced in order to address that, mainly in the 
percentage of children who would be exempted from the testing.
  Flexibility on testing students with language barriers: Again, there 
are demands that the kids be able to master the English language and be 
able to test in that language eventually, but we are seeing the need 
for some slowdown there.
  Flexibility for rural schools on high-quality teachers: High-quality 
teachers mean basically teachers who are proficient in the subject 
matter which they are teaching, and obviously, if you are a math 
teacher, you are proficient in math. You studied math or history or 
English or whatever it may be; you studied that particular subject. But 
obviously it is not always that easy, particularly in rural areas, 
particularly for teachers who are teaching more than one subject, that 
they be highly qualified in that area. So some latitude has been issued 
as far as that is concerned.
  Flexibility of student attendance issues: Some of the attendance 
numbers were high, demanding some flexibility, although not much, was 
introduced in that particular category.
  Flexibility toward raising student achievement, a new path for No 
Child Left Behind, and again, that is an important subject in terms of 
where we are going to advance as far as No Child Left Behind is 
concerned.
  So the Department, I think, has been a lot more flexible than anyone 
has really given it credit for in terms of what they have done. They 
continue to review this, and some say, Well, what is happening in the 
Congress of the United States?
  We, in the Congress, will look at this again, not this year or next 
year but the year after that in what we call reauthorization. So, in 
the meantime, the Department of Education is doing its job, and we are 
preparing to do our job as far as the reauthorization is concerned to 
make sure that this program works.
  The bottom line is that students realize that there are standards in 
place now in all 50 of our States. There are assessments in the form of 
testing in place in all of our States, and probably, this will 
eventually go on as a matter of fact to high school, as well as the 
grades which it is in now, in a more formal sense than it does at this 
point.
  Mr. Speaker, most recently, Secretary Spellings, who is now our 
Secretary of Education, by the way, and, I think, doing a splendid job, 
announced a set of guiding principles to help States implement No Child 
Left Behind while taking their unique situations into consideration.
  I know my State, which is the State of Delaware, is that we have had 
a couple of submittals of different plans that have been accepted, and 
there has been a great deal of flexibility as far as the States are 
concerned, but these principles include ensuring students are learning, 
making the school system accountable, ensuring information is 
accessible and parental options are available and improving the quality 
of

[[Page H3100]]

teachers. To me, it is pretty hard to fight these things. To me, that 
makes a heck of lot of sense in terms of educating the young people of 
America.
  If a State is meeting all of these principles, the Department will 
take that into account when discussing amendments to State 
accountability plans. This approach, if carried out fairly and in the 
true intent of the law, could help some issues that have been raised 
throughout the implementation process.
  So this is being looked at. These demands are being made. In a 
moment, I am going to return to this and talk about the funding and 
talk about some of the student test scores and how they are doing 
better now than they were before as we understand the difficulty of the 
greater demands which are there but of making absolutely sure that that 
is translated into help for our children across the United States of 
America.

                              {time}  2100

  Before I do that, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to my good friend, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers). I must just say this: my 
colleague has a scientific background. He is, I hate to use the word 
fanatic, but I can almost use it in this case, because when it comes to 
math and science, there is no person probably in the history of this 
Congress that has been more of an advocate for this than he has. And by 
an advocate, he goes out to see if there are laws he can change, 
speeches he can make, writings he can pursue in order to shift 
policies. And he has made a difference as far as that is concerned. He 
has been a stalwart friend of mine and a stalwart friend of, I think, 
everybody in education. He has been on the Committee on Education and 
the Workforce with me for a number of years now, and so it is always a 
pleasure to work with him.
  So at this time I will yield to him, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me and 
for the glowing introduction. I would return the compliment, and the 
gentleman from Delaware has done a superb job of chairing the 
subcommittee dealing with education. I appreciate his efforts. He deals 
primarily with K-12 education and is largely responsible for all the 
good things that we have done and that he has been talking about.
  My first comment is simply one I have to get off my chest, because I 
heard so many falsehoods about this last year during the campaign when 
individuals were asserting over and over and over that we Republicans 
had passed No Child Left Behind, but we had not provided funding for 
it. That is just utter nonsense. If you look at the history of what the 
appropriations were from the Federal Government for K-12 education 
before No Child Left Behind was passed and what they have been after, 
it is clear that there is a huge difference.
  I believe my colleague will probably discuss that later and show a 
graph which shows how rapidly it has increased under the Republicans. 
Republicans are the true friends of education and have been for years; 
and this is a dramatic demonstration of it, increasing 148 percent in 
our funding over a short number of years.
  Now that I have that off my chest, I will talk about math and science 
education. The No Child Left Behind bill contains some provisions which 
were not in there before, and that is that students not only will be 
tested on reading but also on math and science. They are being tested 
on mathematics right now to find out how well they are learning and how 
much they are learning. In the year 2007-2008, for the first time, they 
will be tested on science. And States are, as we speak, drawing up 
requirements, standards that the students must meet, and they are 
developing appropriate tests for those standards.
  Now, why is math and science so important? A lot of people think, 
well, it is great if you want to be a doctor or an engineer or a 
scientist, fine, take math and science. But if you do not want to be 
any of those, why bother? Well, I will tell you why it is important. 
Because the jobs of the future are simply going to require that the 
individuals applying for those jobs have an understanding of the basic 
principles of science and mathematics. It is that straightforward.
  I can give a good example of that just in my personal experience. 
Last year, I was driving down the highway and listening to National 
Public Radio, and they were doing a story about grease monkeys, or what 
used to be called grease monkeys, mechanics who work on cars. In the 
course of doing the story, they interviewed a service manager of a 
dealership and asked, what do you look for when you hire a new 
mechanic? He said, first of all, they have to have had high school 
algebra and high school physics.
  That was amazing to me, because when I graduated from high school 
many years ago, those who were planning to become mechanics did not 
take physics or algebra because they did not need it. They were 
planning to be mechanics, so why bother taking it. But the world has 
changed. The cars back then had no computers under the hood. Today, 
there are literally hundreds of microchips under the hood of every car. 
And anyone who wishes to be a mechanic had better understand how to do 
the diagnostics, how to read the curves and graphs the diagnostic 
equipment displays. And so that is just one example out of many.
  My district has a lot of manufacturing, as does much of Michigan; and 
when I tour those factories, it is a different world today. The people 
who work on those machines understand math and science. And if they do 
not, they will not get that job. They are making good money, $60,000 or 
$70,000 a year. But they earn it because they have studied hard to 
learn math and science, and they have learned it well.
  Our country in the future is going to need good technicians, good 
mathematicians, good scientists, good engineers, but also good factory 
workers, because the jobs in the factories are changing. Jobs in retail 
are changing. Jobs in many areas of life are changing, and we have to 
do a better job than we have been.
  How have we been doing compared to other countries? The Third 
International Mathematics and Science Study, which occurred a number of 
years ago, was very revealing. In the United States, the fourth grade 
was a little below average in mathematics. By eighth grade, we were way 
below average. By high school, our students, our high school students 
compared to those of other industrialized countries were second from 
the last.
  Now, I have never regarded America as a Nation to be second from the 
bottom. I have never regarded our Nation to be average. We should be 
better than average. But our students are not performing in 
mathematics.
  A similar test for physics was even worse. We were dead last of all 
industrialized nations in high school physics. More recent tests bear 
the same trend out. We are just not meeting the needs of the future. We 
are not competing with other nations. We are losing ground to them.
  A lot of people say, why do kids really need it? Well, I talked about 
the jobs of the future, but let me outline that it is more than just 
that. We need scientists and engineers to provide the kind of 
innovation that will keep jobs here. We constantly complain about jobs 
going to China, to Mexico, to Thailand, and to India. Why are they 
going there? It is not just the different wage rate. It is the fact 
that they have highly trained scientists and engineers, whereas in 
America, engineering enrollments have gone down steadily for the past 
20 years, just starting to come up the last couple of years.

  In China, they went from producing far fewer engineers than we do to 
producing more than four times as many engineers every year as we do, 
and they are beginning to innovate. They are beginning to develop new 
products. They are developing new factories, and we are falling behind 
in that.
  But there are other reasons to teach math and science. Consumers 
today need to know when they are in the marketplace, they have to know 
something about science to read all the labels on materials and 
understand what there is in these foods and what is in these products 
they are buying, whether they are safe or not, and how do you read the 
labels, the content labels and the warnings.
  Also, voters have to know. Today, with referenda, particularly in 
California, they frequently have referenda on things such as the 
environment. Last election they had one on stem

[[Page H3101]]

cells. How are the people supposed to vote on these if they know 
nothing about math and science?
  Math and science also produces thinkers and learners. It is a 
different learning process to learn math and science. I hear this a lot 
from people: oh, it is so hard. Do our kids really have to take it? Or, 
I just could not get math when I was in school. I hear this over and 
over. What they fail to recognize is that math and science require a 
different mode of thought because science uses a different mode of 
inquiry. I do not think it is any harder than anything else, but it is 
a different way of learning, something most students have not 
experienced before if they have not had good math and science education 
in the first eight grades.
  I recall a case where I was teaching a student when I was a professor 
at the University of California at Berkeley. She came in with a total 
mental block. This was the most elementary physics course in the 
department, Physical Science 10. She said, I cannot get this stuff. I 
cannot get it. I cannot get it. And I worked and worked with her, and 
spent hours with her; and finally she saw the light and learned how to 
think properly. I had not heard from her for years after she left my 
class. When I came to Congress, I got a little note from her. She is 
now the director of a laboratory in Wisconsin. So even someone who felt 
they had no hope of passing learned how to learn, and from then on it 
was good.
  But also we have other reasons for it. Economic security. The better 
jobs go to those who understand math and science. National security. 
The Rudman Report of a few years ago made the most striking statement I 
have heard, and that is that the greatest danger our Nation faces 
beyond nuclear war is the fact our students are not able to compete in 
the world market and, therefore, we are facing dramatic problems in our 
Nation if we do not improve.
  Now, what can we do about this? Everyone always blames the teachers 
first. I have worked with teachers in the classroom for some 30 years. 
I have gone in the classrooms, I have taught myself, I have taught the 
teachers how to teach students, and I will not say a bad word about the 
teachers. Because all the teachers I worked with earnestly wanted to do 
a better job of teaching. The problem is they had not been taught math 
or science properly. They had not been taught how to teach it properly, 
and they just felt it was hopeless. They did not know where to start, 
what could they do.
  So I believe our role as the Federal Government is to provide 
training opportunities, both preservice and in-service training for 
teachers, teaching them math and science, but also how to teach math 
and science. In addition to that, we need improved curricula that 
really teaches science the way it should be taught.
  The way to teach science is by doing it, not by talking about it; and 
that we have to get across. Because the kids love science if it is 
taught by doing it. They love doing the experiments. They love figuring 
it out. But if they have to just sit and read a book and memorize all 
the terms of science, it is not going to appeal to them, and they will 
not learn what science is all about.
  So we need inquiry-centered curricula. We need hands-on curricula, 
where kids actually use materials and work with them; but it also has 
to be based on the concepts of science. Too often education programs 
emphasize either inquiry or they emphasize the hands-on approach or 
they emphasize concepts, and they all argue with each other about what 
approach to take. To me the answer is simple: it is all of them. You 
combine all of those and develop curricula that really meet the needs 
of the kids, keep them excited and interested, and also provide the 
teacher training so the teachers can teach those courses.
  We are facing a crisis because of this. But there is another reason: 
India and China. Almost 20 years ago, India made the decision that the 
only way they were going to compete in the world today is by developing 
strong backgrounds in math and science, and they had a unique way of 
doing it. They set up an institute of science, mathematics, theoretical 
physics, and all these things, similar to MIT and Harvard combined, and 
set that as the goal for every child in the nation to achieve. And it 
really worked. All the parents wanted their kids to go to that school. 
It was the best school in India, and arguably one of the best in the 
world. So the parents wanted their kids to go. They made sure they 
studied math and science hard.
  Now, obviously, not all of them made it; but in the process of 
trying, many of them ended up learning enough math and science so that 
when they got to the university, they could study more math and science 
and choose one of many different careers.
  In conclusion, let me just say that we live in a very competitive 
global economy. If we are serious about competing in this global 
economy, we have to make certain that we work smarter. And to do that 
we have to make sure that our kids are smarter; that they learn the 
right things in school; that they are fit for the job market of the 
future; that we can compete with these other nations and beat them at 
their own game, and that we can maintain our strong economy in the face 
of this global competition.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield back to the gentleman 
from Delaware, and I thank him for accommodating me for such a lengthy 
discourse.

                              {time}  2115

  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for his 
continuing and abiding interest in this subject. I am afraid sometimes 
the rest of us do not take as much note of it as he does. Perhaps we 
had a little trouble with the math and science ourselves, I guess. But 
I understand how important that is. Every time I talk to companies, to 
people who come into Delaware looking to locate in Delaware, they make 
a big fuss about that. We happen to have more Ph.D.'s per capita than 
any other county in the country in New Castle County. As a result of 
that, there is a great deal of interest in research in our area. I 
understand the importance of this. We need to sell the message to a lot 
of people out there. The gentleman from Michigan is the one who really 
helps sell it.
  Mr. EHLERS. If the gentleman will yield, I want to thank the 
gentleman for his comments. It just reminded me of something I often 
say to students when I am in high schools. I tell them, Look, you have 
a choice: You can either be a nerd, or you can end up working for a 
nerd. Which would you rather be? That is what it is likely to come down 
to in the future because, if you do not understand math and science, 
you are not going to have a really quality job.
  Mr. CASTLE. I thank the gentleman for all his help in this area. He 
touched on something that I want to turn to now with these charts 
because some of the strongest criticism that we have heard concerning 
No Child Left Behind has been with respect to the funding, specifically 
the Federal Government's role in funding the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act.
  If we look carefully at these charts, we begin to get the true 
picture of what is happening in the funding. Let me go through it word 
by word. Education Funding, Discretionary Appropriation Increases, 
Fiscal Year 1996 to Fiscal Year 2005. This is what the Federal 
Government has done for the funding of education. Although it says the 
Department of Education here, this money basically flows through to our 
States and school districts throughout this country. Federal funding 
for education has more than doubled over the past 9 years. Under the 
final fiscal year 2005 appropriations bill, discretionary funding for 
the Department of Education climbed from $23 billion in fiscal year 
1996 to $57 billion for fiscal year 2005. That is an increase of 148 
percent. That is a tremendous increase. We are talking about 15 
percent, and maybe the math comes in handy here, 15 percent or more on 
an annualized basis. Most costs of living, when you measure it in 
government programs, is just that; it is cost of living. Usually it is 
2 or 3 percent. So the Federal Government has stepped forward and said, 
We are going to make a larger commitment to education, and we have done 
that in the course of the last 9 years. I do not have the chart here to 
show this, but I would be willing to put a lot of money on the fact 
that the States and the local school districts have not

[[Page H3102]]

been able to keep up with this particular pace of funding that has gone 
into education.
  Just one more chart while we are looking at these charts, and that is 
funding for programs under the No Child Left Behind Act, a 40 percent 
increase in 5 years, showing that, in the last 5 years since No Child 
Left Behind, we have also had very significant increases as far as No 
Child Left Behind is concerned to help with those programs. These are 
programs, by the way, which were being put into place by most of the 
States and most of the school districts in this country even before No 
Child Left Behind came along. I am very dubious of any argument saying 
the Federal Government has not done its share as far as that is 
concerned. I am discouraged, frankly, by States and organizations that 
focus more on the funding levels than on what the law is supposed to 
ultimately be providing to students, which is a quality education and 
the opportunity for future success. Many even argue that it is an 
unfunded mandate, that it is impossible for schools to implement the 
law at the funding levels provided by Washington, D.C.; This is a 
disingenuous argument at the very best.
  The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, which you may know 
as GAO, released a report in May 2004 which discredits comments that No 
Child Left Behind is an unfunded mandate. The GAO reviewed more than 
500 different statutes and regulations enacted in 2001 and 2002 and 
officially concluded No Child Left Behind is not an unfunded mandate. 
Even more clear are the significant increases in Federal funding of 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act programs since the enactment of 
No Child Left Behind as was shown by those charts. According to the 
U.S. Department of Education, Federal funding for programs encompassed 
by No Child Left Behind has increased $17.4 billion, as I indicated, 
representing a 40 percent increase in just 3 years. Included in this 
number is title I funding for disadvantaged students and schools, which 
is funded at $12.7 billion in fiscal year 2005, an increase of 45 
percent since No Child Left Behind was signed into law. That is 
significant, because that is the money that is going to the schools 
that have the most low-income children in their schools.
  It should also be noted that, in 1994, President Bill Clinton signed 
the Improving America's Schools Act, a reauthorization of the ESEA, 
that required States to develop standards and aligned assessments for 
all students. Districts were required to identify schools not making 
adequate yearly progress and take steps to improve them. Bill Clinton, 
1994.
  This makes two important points. First, States across the country 
should already have been implementing accountability systems similar to 
what is required under No Child Left Behind. The previous 
reauthorization included many of the same provisions, just without the 
necessary teeth to ensure compliance. Second, during that time, 
Congress did not appropriate the same levels as were authorized in the 
act. Democrats funded education in the same manner when they controlled 
Congress and the White House.
  Yes, raising the student achievement levels are difficult and 
expensive. The fact remains that the Congress has been funding the 
program. States and organizations should not be avoiding their 
responsibilities to students on the back of a failed funding argument.
  The hard work and dedication of those implementing No Child Left 
Behind is clear, and we can all agree with the law's goals. We are 
beginning to see results. Many educators across the country have 
stepped up to the plate. New test results for the 2003-2004 school year 
show students are posting high math and reading scores on States' 
tests. For example, in my home State of Delaware, scores have improved 
in three out of four grade levels in all three subjects tested, 
reading, writing and math. Fifth grade reading performance in Delaware 
climbed to 85 percent, a seven percentage point increase from last 
year. In Ohio, fourth grade math scores improved from 58 percent last 
year to 66 percent this year. Additionally, according to the Chicago 
Tribune, students in every grade level posted increased scores on 
statewide reading and math tests in the 2003-2004 school year. Finally, 
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 attribute the positive change in 
part to No Child Left Behind.
  We must also recognize that the job is not done. We must see to it 
that all children are receiving a quality education. No Child Left 
Behind is a step in this direction, and we must stay the course. Any 
attempts to change the system would play into the hands of those who 
support the status quo, effectively preserving a failed system that 
does not ask if children are learning.

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