[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.
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