[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 171 (Tuesday, November 6, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H12800-H12802]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 1429, IMPROVING HEAD START ACT OF 2007

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent 
to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 1429) to reauthorize 
the Head Start Act, to improve program quality, to expand access, and 
for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the 
Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.


                Motion to Instruct Offered by Mr. Castle

  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Castle moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the House bill (H.R. 1429) be 
     instructed--
       (1) to insist on subsection (b) of section 653 of the Head 
     Start Act as added by section 21 of the House bill, 
     restricting the use of Federal funds to pay the salary of any 
     Head Start employee at a rate in excess of level II of the 
     Executive Schedule;
       (2) to disagree to subsection (b) of section 653 of the 
     Head Start Act as added by section 22 of the Senate 
     amendment, relating to wages and compensation for individuals 
     employed by a Head Start agency compensated at a rate in 
     excess of level II of the Executive Schedule; and
       (3) insist that the differences between the two Houses on 
     wages and compensation of Head Start employees be open to 
     discussion at any meeting of the conference and, that all 
     meetings thereon be conducted under circumstances in which 
     every manager on the part of the House has notice of the 
     meeting and a reasonable opportunity to attend, pursuant to 
     House Rule XXII, clause 12.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 7 of rule XXII, the 
gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentleman from California 
(Mr. George Miller) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Delaware.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to the distinguished 
ranking member of the full Education and Labor Committee from the State 
of California (Mr. McKeon) for such time as he may consume.
  Mr. McKEON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, since 1965, the Head Start program has provided 
comprehensive health, developmental and educational services to 
disadvantaged, 4- and 5-year-olds. Head Start involves parents and 
communities in helping to prepare needy children to succeed in school 
and beyond.
  Because this program served such an important purpose, the notion 
that it could be abused to enrich the lifestyles of individuals rather 
than the lives of children is particularly shocking to the conscience. 
It's hard to imagine that any individual would seek to divert precious 
resources away from disadvantaged children in order to finance lavish 
cars, homes and travel; yet that's exactly what has happened.
  I would like to share two examples of these reported abuses which 
began coming to light almost 5 years ago. The head of a large 
organization of child care centers that operates Head Start programs in 
Ohio received pay that amounted to about a quarter of the public money 
that the centers receive each year. She owned a house in Aurora and 
another in Arizona. A Mercedes Benz and a Hummer were registered in the 
name of her centers. A portion of her salary came from Federal Head 
Start funds.
  The executive in charge of the Kansas City Head Start operation was 
revealed to have been earning a salary in excess of $300,000 annually 
and driving

[[Page H12801]]

a Mercedes luxury sport utility vehicle leased, in part, with Federal 
Head Start funds meant for disadvantaged children.
  The executive resigned after questions were raised about his salary, 
which totaled more than $814,000 in fiscal years 2000, 2001 and 2002. 
The Improving Head Start Act takes steps to clamp down on financial 
abuses. Included in the bill is a reform Republicans have championed 
since these financial abuses were revealed; establishment of a cap on 
the amount Head Start executives can earn.
  We believe the compensation paid to a Head Start program director 
should be no higher than that paid to an assistant secretary at a 
Federal agency. Put another way, we do not believe local Head Start 
executives should be paid more than the Federal official confirmed by 
the Senate to oversee the entire program. The average Head Start 
teacher earns approximately $25,000 annually.
  The Head Start program can serve a disadvantaged child for just a few 
thousand dollars per year. Allowing these programs to divert resources 
from children and teachers in order to inflate the salaries of top 
executives is unconscionable.
  Head Start is a program intended to help disadvantaged children 
prepare for school. The House has already voted to protect Head Start 
children and teachers by explicitly prohibiting salaries in excess of 
that earned by Federal agencies' assistant secretaries.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on this motion to 
instruct conferees to maintain this commonsense proposal.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of our time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such 
time as I might consume.
  I want to begin by thanking Mr. Kildee, Mr. McKeon and Mr. Castle and 
all of the members of the Education and Labor Committee for their hard 
work on this legislation, for all of their input and their suggestions.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill has been a very long time coming. It has been 
coming to the floor of this House since 2003, and we have an 
opportunity tonight to begin the final part of that process, which is 
to go to conference on this legislation. This is an important piece of 
legislation, and this is an important program. In fact, it's this 
Nation's premier program with respect to the early education and the 
development of our children in this country, and it has been for more 
than 40 years. It has served more than 20 million children and their 
families in that time.
  Head Start has remained during that time, and continues to remain 
today, as the cornerstone of this country's efforts to close the 
achievement gap, to combat poverty, to provide all of its citizens with 
an opportunity to thrive and to get parents more involved in the 
education of their children and to show them ways in which they can 
help in the development and the educational skills necessary for their 
children.
  Head Start's design has always been a science-based program, and this 
reauthorization builds on the strong foundation by, again, turning to 
the best science to renew and improve the Head Start program. Both Head 
Start and Early Head Start programs prepare our country's most 
disadvantaged children to succeed in school and in life by addressing 
the needs of the whole child by providing services such as health and 
nutrition, in addition to the educational curriculum, because Head 
Start knows and discovered, and based upon fact, that the health and 
the nutritional well-being of these children determines the outcomes in 
the schools that they attend and the programs that they attend and in 
their participation.
  Recent findings from the congressionally mandated impact study found 
that in less than a school year, Head Start narrowed the achievement 
gap by 45 percent in the prereading skills and by 28 percent in 
prewriting skills of the children that attended the program.
  Head Start also works closely with parents, as I pointed out, 
empowering them to understand what their involvement can mean to the 
success of their child and to the long-term educational outcomes of 
that child. This reauthorization will help more children arrive in 
kindergarten ready to succeed by improving program quality and 
expanding the access to more children. We will improve teacher and 
classroom quality by strengthening the Head Start standards and 
supporting the best practices in the classroom.
  We will end the inappropriate testing of 4-year-olds that has been 
undertaken by the administration in 2003 over the objections of 
hundreds of experts in child development and early education and over 
the bipartisan objection of many Members of Congress.
  We will better target available funds to the underserved communities 
and prioritize the expansion of early Head Start so that more of our 
Nation's youngest children, will receive this program during the years 
when their brains are growing the fastest. We will strengthen program 
accountability at the Federal, regional, and local levels due to the 
changes made by the members of this committee and the operations of 
this program to assure that taxpayer dollars are being used wisely. In 
fact, in the example that was cited by Mr. McKeon, the senior 
Republican in the committee, is an example that was dealt with a number 
of years ago, hopefully by the administration but also in this 
legislation. Amendments that were offered in earlier iterations of this 
legislation are reoffered again as part of this bill as introduced by 
Mr. Kildee.
  We have, I think, been very diligent in looking after that effort. I 
would hope that the administration, who has full authority on the 
oversight of the use of these funds, I wish they had been more diligent 
at that time.
  As the GAO found, they failed in their oversight responsibility of 
the disbursements of this fund. But that is the past. We are assuming 
that the administration takes the wise use of these funds, the proper 
use of these funds very seriously, and that they pursue those who 
choose to do otherwise with these funds. Head Start dollars are very 
precious in the budget of this Nation. They are very precious to the 
families of these children, to these children and to those who 
dedicated their lives to the educational improvement, to the healthy 
child development of each and every one of these children. We are not 
to be frivolous with those dollars.
  The minority has offered a motion to instruct. We agree with that 
motion. We think if there are differences, those differences are very 
narrow. They will be discussed; they will be voted upon in the 
conference committee, and that is our intent. We think that is 
consistent with the wording of the motion to instruct. When the proper 
time comes, we will urge Members to support that legislation.
  Given the scarcity of these dollars, the importance of these dollars 
and the effectiveness of these dollars, we have no alternative but to 
be very tough on the accountability sections for this program. This is 
a trust not only of the children in the care of the Head Start program 
for the children of this Nation, it is a trust, too, for the taxpayer 
dollars, because this is a program that we have seen now over these 40 
years has continued to receive bipartisan support, not only in the 
Congress but from every President of the United States. That's why this 
legislation is so important.
  Hopefully, with this conference committee, we will be able to report 
back to the House and to the Senate legislation that can be sent to the 
President's desk hopefully in the next week or 10 days. That is our 
goal, and I thank the gentleman for his motion to instruct.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  And let me just start by saying that I'm in total agreement with the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller). I'm also in total 
agreement with Mr. McKeon. I think we all here who've worked in this 
area understand the importance of Head Start and understand how it can 
give young children an opportunity to be able to advance enough in 
school to be able to succeed in school. And maybe early Head Start 
could do even more. But we also all agree that we need to be very 
careful about our dollars and how we manage them. And that is the whole 
purpose of this motion to instruct conferees.
  We have, as Mr. Miller has well indicated, made important reforms for 
the children who are served in the program. I'm delighted the Senate 
bill is

[[Page H12802]]

very similar to the House bill, and I have high hopes that we are going 
to be able to pass legislation that we can all agree on in the House 
and the Senate ultimately.
  Here, basically, we're instructing conferees to adhere to the House 
provisions for a reasonable salary cap prohibiting Head Start 
executives from collecting a salary higher than an assistant secretary 
of a Federal agency, which is currently $168,000.
  Although the House language contained in H.R. 1429, the Improving 
Head Start Act of 2007, effectively prohibits any official from 
receiving compensation above that of an assistant secretary, 
legislation approved by the Senate leaves open a glaring, lavish salary 
loophole by allowing programs to divert their own non-federal resources 
away from other uses in order to pay Head Start programs operators more 
than top officials. We think that's wrong. We think that money should 
be used for the kids, for the recruiting and development of the kids, 
for the students who are going to be in the Head Start program to pay 
their teachers.
  So for all those reasons I think we all agree that executive salaries 
and other benefits which are out of the ordinary should not be allowed 
in the Head Start programs; that we should obviously compensate people 
as well as possible, but make sure that after that is done, that the 
money that is there, be it State money or local money, is channeled in 
the direction of helping these young children who need so much help in 
order to prepare them to get ready for school. And that is something I 
think we all agree on.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Just quickly, I yield myself 30 
seconds to say that, as I said, this bill has been a long time coming 
to where we think we can get it to the President's desk. I certainly 
want to thank the staffs on both sides of the aisle for all of their 
expertise, experience, and knowledge about this program. And we've been 
working together to get to this point in the conference committee.
  I would urge passage of the motion to instruct.
  I reserve my time.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop), and I ask unanimous consent that he 
be allowed to control that time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Delaware?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer my 
support for this motion to instruct conferees which will cap the amount 
Head Start employees may be paid at the executive schedule level to an 
amount currently equal to $168,000.
  I want to thank my colleague, Congressman Mike Castle, the former 
Governor of Delaware, who is a champion for education, for offering 
this motion. This is a commonsense motion. It is fiscally responsible 
for us to use taxpayers' money, and it is a fair compromise for the 
Head Start employees.
  If this cap is not adopted, a Head Start employee could be paid up to 
$186,000, an $18,000 difference and a substantial amount of money that 
would be better spent on Head Start classroom teachers and other 
aspects of this program.
  Fiscal responsibility means not just being cautious in how much we 
spend. It is just as important to be responsible in where we spend.
  When you have Head Start classroom teachers making an average of 
$25,000 annually, it is disrespectful to divert more money and give it 
to employees already making well over six figures.
  As the husband of a teacher, I hope my colleagues will join me in 
being effective about how we spend the taxpayers' money for the 
children.
  Again, I want to thank my colleague, Mike Castle, for bringing this 
motion to the floor.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Could I ask the gentleman from California if he 
has other speakers.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. No, I have none.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Then I'll be the last speaker, and I think we're 
ready to move on with that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume at this time.
  I think in closing on this particular issue, I would like to speak 
also in favor of the motion to instruct of the gentleman from Delaware 
(Mr. Castle). It's a wise motion. I don't think I or anyone else here 
objects to any administrator making an adequate compensation. But I 
also think that six figures is an adequate compensation, especially 
when the teachers in Head Start are averaging 25 grand a year.
  In 2005, the independent General Accountability Office did issue a 
report that warned that their financial control system in the Head 
Start program is flawed, failing, and it did fail to prevent multi-
million-dollar financial abuses that do cheat children in this 
particular program.
  It is important that the resources that we have go to increasing 
teacher salaries, hiring more teachers or supplies that directly go to 
help the kids in the Head Start program. And it's important that in 
conference we make it very clear that our resources should be targeted 
to those who are simply in need.
  Sparky Anderson was once asked why he was such a successful manager, 
and he simply responded that baseball is a simple game. You have good 
players you keep in the right positions, and then the manager is a 
success.
  Even Earl Weaver once said that if you do the dull things right, 
extraordinary things won't be required. This motion to instruct may be 
one of those dull things, that if we do it right and do it right in 
this bill, we won't have to come back here and do the extraordinary 
things. The extraordinary things will be done by the teachers in the 
classrooms who are helping these kids who need this help in the Head 
Start program so desperately.
  I urge a favorable vote on the motion to instruct.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on 
this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________