[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 10, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1479-E1480]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              INTRODUCTION OF THE EVERY STUDENT COUNTS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                     HON. ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 10, 2007

  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the 
Every Student Counts Act. In 2001, Congress passed the No Child Left 
Behind Act with broad bipartisan support. The purpose of No Child Left 
Behind was to ensure that every student in America could receive a 
quality education, and over the past 6 years, NCLB has helped shed 
light on many issues facing our education system today.
  However, NCLB has not been without flaw. Certain aspects of the law 
are difficult to implement or are not having the results that we had 
hoped for. One of the major shortcomings of NCLB is the law's failure 
to hold schools accountable for dropouts. Although we believed we 
addressed this issue in the original NCLB legislation, this portion of 
the law has not been implemented as we had hoped. Instead, under 
current law, the only meaningful accountability standard for high 
schools is students' scores on assessments, not how many students 
graduate or drop out of school. Unfortunately, this myopic 
accountability standard has created an incentive for high schools to 
push out students who are struggling academically, so that their tests 
scores are not counted in the assessments. Furthermore, the current 
accountability system also has allowed states to report graduation 
rates inconsistently and in misleading ways. Finally, NCLB does not 
require the disaggregation of graduation rates by subgroup, leading to 
incomplete data on how our schools are doing with all students.
  This current high school accountability system is failing both our 
students and our Nation. Almost one-third of all high school students 
in the United States fail to graduate with their peers--about 1.2 
million every year. In Virginia alone, each year nearly 24,000 students 
do not graduate with their peers. But the numbers are worse for 
minorities--only about 50 percent of African American students and 60 
percent of Hispanic students graduate on time with a regular diploma, 
compared to 75 percent of whites.
  These numbers only show the tip of the iceberg. Research shows that 
each dropout, over his or her lifetime, costs the Nation approximately 
$260,000. At the current rate, more than 12 million students will drop 
out over the next decade resulting in a loss to the nation of $3 
trillion. Statistics also show that high school dropouts are more 
likely to be on public assistance programs--such as welfare--than 
students who complete high school. If high school dropouts do find 
employment, they are much more likely to work at unskilled jobs that 
offer little opportunity for upward mobility or promotions. Indeed, the 
median earnings of high school dropouts remain between $20,000 and 
$30,000 throughout their lives with little increase as they get older. 
Unfortunately, there is also a relationship between high school 
dropouts and prison; one estimate states that approximately two-thirds 
of all prisoners are high school dropouts. In one study in my home 
state of Virginia, 75 percent of the inmates serving life sentences 
were found to have reading achievement levels of 4th grade or worse.

  Madam Speaker, the large number of dropouts in America's school 
system is also troubling in terms of America's position in the global 
economy. The globalization of the marketplace has altered the way the 
United States and other countries have to compete for business. With 
the rapid development of the global marketplace, the United States is 
no longer the single dominant country in the world economy. And in this 
economy, one of the major competitive advantages we have in America is 
our advantage in education. We certainly can't compete with other 
countries with lower wages when many around the world may work for a 
few dollars or even pennies a day. Nor can we compete in terms of 
location. Products can be made anywhere and shipped to customers 
anywhere else overnight. The technology of today--fax machines, cell 
phones, blackberries and wireless Internet--allows any

[[Page E1480]]

worker who can work across the hall to work across the globe. One of 
the main reasons businesses still want to locate in America is because 
we have well-educated workers. Because of this need for well-educated 
workers to keep our country competitive, we can't allow--or afford--
people to drop out and not reach their full potential.
  I am therefore introducing the Every Student Counts Act to bring 
meaningful accountability to high schools for America's dropout crisis. 
The legislation builds on the National Governors Association's 
Graduation Rate Compact, which was signed by all 50 of the Nation's 
governors in 2005. It would ensure that schools are held accountable 
for graduating students by creating a single, accurate, and consistent 
measurement for reporting and accountability of high school graduation 
rates. The Every Student Counts Act would require high schools to 
increase their graduation rates by meeting annual, research-based 
benchmarks with the long-term goal of reaching a 90 percent graduation 
rate. The bill would also require the disaggregation of graduation data 
by subgroup to ensure that schools are held accountable for increasing 
the graduation rate for all of our students. Finally, the bill would 
give schools credit for graduating students who need extra time by 
allowing students who graduate in 5 years to count toward a school's 
successful graduation rates.
  It is my hope that with this bill, we can make great strides toward 
graduating more of America's students and preparing them to succeed in 
college and in life. I would like to thank Ruben Hinojosa, Chairman of 
the Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and 
Competitiveness and an original cosponsor of this bill, for his 
support. I encourage my colleagues to become cosponsors of this 
critical legislation and hope that we will see it become law during the 
110th Congress.

                          ____________________