[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 118 (Tuesday, September 20, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10207-S10210]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
KATRINA'S DISPLACED SCHOOLCHILDREN
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I will talk this morning about helping
all of Katrina's displaced schoolchildren. Each weekend when I go home
to Tennessee, the people who elected me teach me about how we should be
doing our jobs in Washington, DC. This is not a lesson they shout from
the rooftops. It is a lesson they live by their own example, and we
would be wise to follow.
Two weeks ago in Maryville, my hometown, it was Al Gore flying a
planeload of evacuees from New Orleans into one of Tennessee's most
Republican counties. Nobody asked about anybody's politics. Everybody
just pitched in to help.
Last weekend, members of the church where I am an elder, Westminster
Presbyterian Church in Nashville, sent $80,000 and a truckload of
clothes and Clorox to southern Mississippi. ``The Presbyterians are
here,'' one grateful Mississippi man relayed to his friends on his cell
phone to say, ``and they have Clorox.'' When the Clorox was passed out,
nobody asked if anybody was a Presbyterian.
And now this Sunday, the headline in the Tennessean, the Nashville
newspaper, was:
Private schools Welcome Those Displaced by Katrina.
According to the newspaper:
A growing number of private schools in Middle Tennessee [in
the Nashville area] . . . have volunteered to help students
displaced by Katrina. Many of them are also waiving or
drastically discounting tuition and fees for these students
and some also accept evacuees from public schools.
Continuing the quote, ``These children are in crisis. They have been
displaced, but they have found a home,'' said the principal of Father
Ryan High School who has accepted 20 students and is trying to
accommodate every student who shows up.
Father Ryan High School is waiving the $6,880 tuition, the $350
activity fee, and the $500 in books for displaced students it simply
calls ``transfers.'' ``It's not all about money,'' said the principal.
``There is no amount of money that equals being family,'' he said.
Public schools, by law, have to accept all children. And Tennessee's
public schools have made room for more than 3,000 of Katrina's
displaced school children.
Our public schools have been greatly helped by these private schools,
who do not have to accept anybody. In Tennessee, private schools have
accepted at least 400 students, and probably many more.
``We couldn't sit quietly and do nothing. We felt a need to reach
out,'' said the headmaster of Webb school in Bell Buckle, which is
waiving the $29,500 room and board for up to 30 students. ``No one
flinched. Everybody just responded with, what can we do to help?'' said
the headmaster at Webb school in Bell Buckle.
Especially in Memphis and Shelby County, where so many displaced
students have gone up the Mississippi River from New Orleans, the
willingness of private schools to accept these students is a huge help
to overcrowded public schools.
In Baton Rouge, according to a report this morning on National Public
Radio, there are 5,000 to 10,000 of these displaced private school
students who have no school to attend. To accommodate them, the
Catholic Diocese in Baton Rouge is struggling to establish satellite
schools, some located great distances away, which these students will
have to attend at night.
These private schools that reach out are filling a huge need because
the four Louisiana parishes hit the hardest had nearly one-third, or
61,000, of their 187,000 students in private schools, according to the
U.S. Department of Education.
That is the story and the lesson from Tennessee.
The story in Washington last weekend, unfortunately, was different.
According to Saturday's Washington Post, when the President proposed
temporary emergency disaster legislation that would help all of
Katrina's 372,000 displaced school children during the rest of this
school year, the Senator from Massachusetts and some teachers' unions
objected. Senator Kennedy said:
I am extremely disappointed that [the President] has
proposed this relief using such a politically charged
approach. This is not [the] time for a partisan political
debate on vouchers.
I absolutely agree with that last sentence. This is not the time for
a partisan political debate on vouchers.
This is the time for those of us in the Senate to do what Tennesseans
and Americans all across our country are doing: opening our arms and
asking what we can do to help all displaced children not just some
school children.
As the Presiding Officer knows so well, Katrina displaced 20 times
more families than any natural disaster in the history of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. Mr. President, 372,000 of those displaced
persons are children who were just beginning the K-12 school year, and
73,000 more are college students.
The President has proposed $2.6 billion in funding for students in
elementary and secondary schools and colleges. Under the President's
proposal, colleges and universities would receive $1,000 for each
displaced student enrolled; no person in an affected area in Louisiana,
Mississippi, or Alabama would have to pay interest on their student
loans for the next 6 months; public school districts would receive up
to 90 percent of the State's per-pupil expenditure, up to $7,500 per
student; and $488 million would go to help displaced students who
attend private schools.
The President is not throwing out a lifeline to just some displaced
students. He is trying to help them all. The private schools in
Tennessee are not turning their backs. They are opening their arms.
Katrina did not discriminate among children and neither should we. The
only politically charged approaches around here are coming from those
who oppose helping every child.
For Heaven's sake, this is not the beginning of some big, new voucher
program. It is the beginning, hopefully, of a big, new 1-year effort to
help children who are in desperate trouble. The best way to do it, in
most cases, is simply to let the money follow the child or the person
who needs help.
We have already approved vouchers that follow displaced persons for
housing in this exceptional case. Food stamps are vouchers, and they
are helping in this exceptional case. No one is suggesting a displaced
mother cannot take her Federal daycare voucher to a Catholic daycare
center in these exceptional cases. No one is suggesting we cannot pay
Boston College or Harvard University $1,000 for enrolling a displaced
student who was set to attend Loyola or Xavier in New Orleans.
Scholars agree there is no constitutional issue here. So are we going
to stand here and argue about old ideologies and leave these displaced
children standing on the levee because the only doors that are open to
them for this 1 year happen to be to a private school?
At the end of World War II, a grateful Nation enacted the GI bill,
giving veterans scholarships for college. A lot of veterans had these
vouchers for college but no high school degree. So thousands of
veterans took their GI vouchers to Catholic high schools to earn their
high school diploma. That did not create a big, new voucher program for
high schools, this will not either. This is a one year exceptional
disaster relief program for kids from the gulf coast who desperately
need help.
The public schools are brimming over. They need help from private
schools. I hope those who are objecting to helping all displaced school
children will think again. We can have our debates about vouchers next
year when the floodwaters subside and the schools are open again. Right
now we need to be throwing out every lifeline we can for all of
Katrina's displaced schoolchildren, not just some.
Mr. President, in Time magazine this week, there is a story on this
subject. It quotes Andrew Rotherman, a codirector of a think tank here
and a former Clinton education adviser. Mr. Rotherman, who is not a fan
of public school vouchers, says:
[[Page S10208]]
As a temporary initiative to help families in exceptional
circumstances, it's reasonable.
He is talking about the President's proposal. He says:
But if they use this disaster as a beachhead to establish a
longstanding voucher program in the Gulf region, it would be
wildly inappropriate.
I would agree. This is a temporary initiative to help families in
exceptional instances.
Time goes on to say:
For evacuees, the constitutionality of assistance matters
far less than the assistance itself. The day before Katrina
hit, Albert and Anne Betz moved with Jane Todd, 10, and Owen,
7, out of soon-to-be-drowned Pass Christian, Miss., and into
a condo in Sandestin, Fla. Back home, Anne had taught at the
children's private Episcopal school, but the couple heard
that the best schools near Sandestin were public and were
happy with the one to which their kids were assigned. Within
days, however, Anne received a letter from the Walton County
School District stating that the onslaught of evacuees had
caused overcrowding, and her children would have to study
elsewhere. Now they are bused daily to one school, only to be
placed on a second bus to another. At this point, all Anne is
asking for is normality. ``It does not matter if it's private
or public school,'' she says. ``The most important thing is
my children's happiness.''
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the entire article from Time, and also the story from Sunday's
Nashville Tennessean about the generosity of private schools all across
Tennessee. I hope the example they are setting will be a good lesson
for all of us in this Chamber.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Time Magazine, Sept. 19, 2005]
Public Bailout. Private Agenda?
(By David Van Biema)
Houston Independent School District superintendent Abelardo
Saavedra's week started poorly, got worse and then, thanks to
the healing powers of federal dollars, took a turn toward the
jubilant. Saavedra's 305 schools are educating more of the
Gulf Coast's evacuee students than any other district in
Texas, which in turn is housing more evacuees than any other
state. On Tuesday, all that generosity seemed to backfire
when a group of Katrina kids billeted in the Astrodome
rumbled with local Texans at one of Saavedra's schools,
sending five students to jail and three to a hospital. The
scene did not recur, but by Thursday, Saavedra had an even
greater problem: math. The long-term cost of serving 4,700
evacuee students, times an average estimated annual student
cost of $7,500, equals a total of $35.2 million--and the pre-
hurricane Bush Administration commitment was only 9% of pupil
cost.
On Friday, however, Saavedra was ecstatic. At a press
conference in one of the Houston district's middle schools,
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced that the
Federal Government would request $2.6 billion from Congress
to pay 90% of the average cost of educating each Katrina
student, whether publicly or privately, up to a ceiling of
$7,500 apiece. ``From 9% to 90%,'' Saavedra said afterward,
with the dazed elation of a lottery winner.
Spellings' announcement had a lot of school administrators
smiling--although a key component angered some of the
legislators who will eventually have to vote on it. A
proposed set-aside of $488 million for private schools
(which, if private-leaning evacuees seek out the kind of
education they left behind, would be mostly Catholic)
represents a historic federal bankrolling of those
institutions and their overtly religious subset, and it drew
quick fire from Democrats like Massachusetts Senator Edward
Kennedy. He pronounced himself ``disappointed'' that ``[Bush]
has proposed. . . relief using such a politically charged
approach,'' while California Representative George Miller
complained that ``to launch a new private-school voucher
program in the midst of a disaster response creates a
quagmire that could hinder rather than expedite the return to
school for tens of thousands of students.''
The ramifications of Spellings' bombshell will take months,
if not years, to sort out, but most agree that a major
federal foray into emergency school funding was desperately
needed. The fate of 372,000 displaced children is at least as
important to the nation as the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast,
and unlike the payment of rebuilding costs, education isn't a
choice--it's a government guarantee. Yet for days it appeared
the feds might foist much of the obligation on state
school systems, 47 of which are hosting Katrina students.
Most evaluated the problem and decided to teach first and
ask questions later. ``If that 6-year-old kid coming off
that transport plane was yours, how would you want him
taken care of?'' Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee asked
TIME. Huckabee hopes for federal reimbursement, ``but if
not, we will have done the right thing, and I believe we
will have no regrets about how we handled matters.''
But Huckabee was tutoring only 1,755 Katrina kids. Texas
has 41,000, with 19,000 more expected to arrive. Those
numbers left some state officials skeptical that the feds
would really come through. Comptroller Carole Strayhorn, who
will run against incumbent Rick Perry in the state's
Republican gubernatorial primary, challenged him to ask the
legislature for $1.2 billion in hurricane-related funds. (He
declined.) Texas educators are worried that they will be
punished in the form of even less federal cash if Katrina's
influx keeps them from meeting the conditions of Bush's No
Child Left Behind Act and an earlier law that benefits the
children of the homeless.
Spellings' proposal eased those tensions while creating
others, most sharply over the possible erosion of the church-
and-state barrier. Her department noted that in Louisiana's
flood-impacted communities, 25% of the students had been
enrolled in private schools--should government simply ignore
them? ``We are not provoking a voucher debate,'' Spellings
contended, ``as much as trying to provide aid for these
displaced families, whether they have been in private schools
or public schools.'' Her proposal seems carefully crafted to
avoid substantive constitutional objections. Although it
calls for the distribution of the public-school funds
primarily through districts, the private-school money is
directed not to schools but to families, in keeping with the
concerns of the 2002 Supreme Court decision allowing private-
school vouchers so long as the parents retain a ``true
private choice'' as to where their children learn.
Nonetheless, the proposal represents a major, if legal,
shift toward government activism. According to Chester E.
Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation,
which promotes school reforms, the number of children
receiving government money for private school is roughly
30,000, with a ``handful'' involving federal funds. The
Spellings plan assumes roughly 60,000 federally funded
private-school placements. Finn, an Assistant Education
Secretary under Ronald Reagan, approves of it as
``compassionate and constitutional.'' Andrew Rotherman, a co-
director of a think tank called the Education Sector and a
former Clinton education adviser, says the proposal's
eventual legitimacy may depend on details Spellings has not
yet made available. ``As a temporary initiative to help
families in exceptional circumstances, it's reasonable,'' he
says. ``But if they use this disaster as a beachhead to
establish a longstanding voucher program in the Gulf [Coast]
region, it would be wildly inappropriate.''
For evacuees, the constitutionality of assistance matters
far less than the assistance itself. The day before Katrina
hit, Albert and Anne Betz moved with Jane Todd, 10, and Owen,
7, out of soon-to-be drowned Pass Christian, Miss., and into
a condo in Sandestin, Fla. Back home, Anne had taught at the
children's private Episcopal school, but the couple heard
that the best schools near Sandestin were public and were
happy with the one to which their kids were assigned. Within
days, however, Anne received a letter from the Walton County
School District stating that the onslaught of evacuees had
caused overcrowding, and her children would have to study
elsewhere. Now they are bused daily to one school, only to be
placed on a second bus to another. At this point, all Anne is
asking for is normalcy. ``It does not matter if it's private
or public school,'' she says. ``The most important thing is
my children's happiness.''
____
[From the Tennessean, Sept. 18, 2005]
Private Schools Welcome Those Displaced By Katrina
(By Claudette Riley)
Teresa Castellon is more than 500 miles from her parents,
her friends, her flooded New Orleans home and the now-closed
private school she was attending just three weeks ago.
The sophomore was eager to go back to class. But, after
years of going to private schools--and with so much of the
rest of her life up in the air--she just couldn't handle
making the switch to public schools right now.
Luckily, she didn't have to.
A growing number of private schools in Middle Tennessee,
including the prestigious Webb School that Teresa now
attends, have volunteered to accept students displaced by
Hurricane Katrina. Many of them also are either waiving or
drastically discounting tuition and fees for these students,
and some also accept evacuees from public schools.
``It just happened immediately. They're just really
welcoming and accepting,'' said Teresa, 15, one of four
evacuees now attending the private boarding school for grades
6-12. ``The students and teachers are very nice and always
want to help us with whatever we need.''
At lease 50 private schools in Tennessee--including the 22
Catholic elementary, middle and high schools in the
Midstate--have expressed a willingness to help. No one is
required to track displaced students who enroll in private
schools statewide, but 390 have enrolled in the dozen or so
schools that reported their numbers to the state Department
of Education.
Some schools have room only for a few. Others, including
Father Ryan High School in Nashville, are trying to
accommodate all who show up.
``Our school's mission is to be an example of the living
gospel, and these children are in crisis. They have been
displaced, but they have found a home,'' said Jim McIntyre,
principal of the 995-student Father Ryan
[[Page S10209]]
High, which has 20 displaced students. ``Even though we don't
know these people, we know these people. We are these
people.''
The high school is waiving the $6,880 tuition, the $350
activity fee and the $400 to $600 in books for displaced
students it simply calls ``transfers.''
``It's not all about money. There's no amount of money that
equals being family,'' he said, noting that the school has
accepted Catholic and non-Catholic students. ``I've told
these families that they're a blessing to us because they're
giving us a chance to live our mission.''
Private schools don't fall under the federal law that
requires public schools to immediately enroll displaced
students and give them busing, free meals and any required
services. However, many private schools are opening their
doors and going the extra mile anyway.
``We couldn't sit quietly and do nothing. We felt a need to
reach out,'' said Albert Cauz, headmaster of Webb School,
which is waiving the $29,500 room and board for up to 30
students. ``No one flinched. Everybody just responded with
`What can we do to help?' ''
The boarding school south of Nashville even allowed Teresa
Castellon's little sister, Madeline, to stay in her private
dorm room even though she's too young to attend the school.
The fourth-grader attends nearby Cascade Elementary and has
found a surrogate family in the Webb faculty members, who
regularly invite her to dinner and take her on outings.
``I like it here,'' said Madeline, 9, who misses her
parents, involved in salvaging and rebuilding their home in
New Orleans.
The private schools that do reach out are filling a huge
need because the four Louisiana parishes hardest hit by the
storm had an above-average number of students enrolled in
private school. They had 61,000 of the 187,000 students
there, or roughly 32% of students in kindergarten through
grade 12, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Shane Persich, 17, said his New Orleans school, Brother
Martin High, is underwater and he appreciated being able to
go to Father Ryan. He started his senior year at the all-boys
school shortly before his family evacuated and ended up in
Nashville, where they're staying with family.
``I like it a lot but sometimes after class you get a
little lonely. I do. And you want to go home but then you
don't want to be home.'' he said, adding that his home has
severe wind damage. ``Your senior year you're supposed to
rule the school. Now it's like starting all over again.''
Many displaced students who enroll in private and public
schools don't have access to their medical or academic
records so counselors have to help them reconstruct their
transcripts and find classes they need to graduate.
``We want to get their schedule identical to the one they
had. We don't know if they're going to be here on week, two
weeks or a year,'' said Connie Hansom, Father Ryan's director
of admission, who assigns two students ambassadors to help
each displaced student. ``We do whatever we can do to make
them feel a part. We don't want them to stand out.''
Olivia Milton, a sophomore at Father Ryan, will soon return
to Covington, La, because her all-girls Catholic high school
is reopening and taking in students from surrounding high
schools. She said her time at Father Ryan and the way she was
welcomed will help her reach out to the displaced students
who transfer into her high school back home.
``I'll get to return the favor,'' said Olivia, 15, who will
be back in Louisiana in the coming weeks. ``I like it a lot
here. I don't want to go back.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2 minutes remaining.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, on Thursday, at 3 o'clock, the Education Subcommittee
of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will be holding
a hearing on helping all of Katrina's displaced schoolchildren, with
the hopes that we can come up with a temporary exceptional way to do
this, not as a way of establishing a long-term change in Federal
policy, but as a way of helping all schoolchildren today who were
displaced by Katrina who need help--whether they are going to public
schools or private schools.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, we have all been saddened to see the
images of Hurricane Katrina's devastation. I know the Presiding Officer
has seen more of these images than perhaps anyone in the Senate. We
have seen images of children who have lost their parents and families
who have lost their homes. These images break the heart of every
American.
Hurricane Katrina created an area of destruction that is 90,000
square miles, roughly the size of Great Britain. Homes have been
leveled, roads are unusable, bridges have crumbled, and hundreds of
thousands of lives will be forever changed.
As the chairman of the Commerce Committee's Disaster Prediction and
Prevention Subcommittee, I traveled with the Coast Guard to the gulf
coast earlier this month. We viewed the coasts of Mississippi, Alabama,
and Louisiana.
What became immediately clear to me was that television cannot
accurately convey what happened. The devastation is massive and
comprehensive. Seeing a home demolished on television begins to
communicate the tragedy, but seeing 60 to 70 miles of that repeated
over and over again is heartbreaking and almost impossible to
comprehend.
As we can see from these slides, beginning in New Orleans, during the
helicopter trip, from a distance, we could see the waters covering
everywhere. From a few feet above the water, you could also smell the
contamination from oil and sewage. It is unbelievable what the folks
there are having to deal with.
To continue, at the time, the water was still up to the rooftops. The
Coast Guard captain who was with me told me when they first arrived the
day after the hurricane, about 70 percent of these roofs had people on
them who needed to be rescued.
We became very aware that we had two disasters: in New Orleans,
continued flooding; and along the entire coast of Mississippi, it was
as though a hand had wiped everything off a table. Everything was
completely destroyed. Not a house along the beaches was either there or
inhabitable. And we continued to see the same thing all along the
coast.
Again, television can capture one or two homes, but the concretelike
``gravestones'' showed where homes used to be, and trees are already
dying from the saltwater, which will damage the whole coastal area for
many years to come.
These are completely different disasters and different challenges for
our first responders.
In Mississippi, the houses themselves have been demolished by the
wind and storm, as we can see. In New Orleans, the flooding has
severely damaged the homes.
One thing both locations have in common is that the homes will never
again be inhabitable. The wind-damaged homes, those that still stand,
will likely be declared a complete loss.
In New Orleans, the homes that were flooded are permanently damaged
and are beyond repair.
One of the positive stories that is often lost in this tragedy is the
amazing work performed by first responders, especially those from the
U.S. Coast Guard.
Working hours on end in awful conditions, they rescued thousands of
people and are, without question, true heroes. I visited the Coast
Guard aviation training center in Mobile, AL, which was transformed
from a few hundred personnel before the storm to nearly 1,200 personnel
after the storm. The Coast Guard sent people from all around the Nation
to run rescue operations 24 hours a day. Coast Guardsmen from all over
the Nation, as far away as Alaska, answered the call and came to the
rescue of their fellow citizens. To date, first responders have been
responsible for saving approximately 49,000 lives, 33,000 by the Coast
Guard alone. That is more than six times the number they saved in all
of 2004.
The impact to the coast is going to be a long-term issue. The storm
has had a significant impact on the trees in the region. You can see
significant portions of the area along the coastline where trees are
dead. These trees were a natural obstacle to erosion, and now that
protection will be missing for a number of years. Boats can be seen
among the trees far inland. The gulf coast is our Nation's largest
provider of shrimp and oysters. Their way of life has been destroyed.
It was clear from the boats I saw stranded inland, sometimes on
rooftops, that the gulf's fishing industry will need years to recover.
But while Hurricane Katrina was certainly one of the worst disasters to
ever hit our Nation, it has also brought out the greatest outpouring of
compassion from American citizens.
In my State of South Carolina, families have opened their wallets and
homes to affected people. Our State knows all too well the tragic
effects hurricanes can bring, and we have often been the recipient of
help from
[[Page S10210]]
other States. We remember the show of support from the gulf when we
were struck by Hurricane Hugo, and South Carolinians have not been
hesitant to come to the gulf's rescue. Well over 2,000 South Carolina
families have contacted our Red Cross to offer whatever assistance is
needed. It is now estimated that up to 5,000 evacuees are being hosted
in South Carolina, either by individual families or in shelters such as
the Palmetto Expo Center in Greenville.
The South Carolina National Guard has also joined in the relief
effort. Nearly 350 of them have been to the gulf to help. Countless
churches and civic organizations have taken their own initiatives to
organize relief efforts. From fundraising drives to collections and
delivery of supplies, to driving to the region to volunteer in any
capacity needed, the people of South Carolina have risen to the
occasion. This show of support is so encouraging to me about our State
and the state of our Nation. Americans are caring and compassionate,
and we will work side by side with our fellow citizens to rebuild and
bring hope back to the gulf coast.
This afternoon my Subcommittee on Disaster Prevention and Prediction
will be hearing from the Director of the National Hurricane Center and
witnesses from the gulf coast region on what the Government got right
in advance of the storm and how we can replicate that in the future to
protect our Nation's coastal communities. Our most powerful defense
against hurricanes is accurate prediction and effective evacuation. I
look forward to their testimony and am confident it will provide
important lessons for America's emergency planners.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________