[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 65 (Wednesday, April 23, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H2634-H2641]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             EDUCATION: THE QUALITY OF OUR NATION'S SCHOOLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order this 
evening.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to have this opportunity to 
discuss an issue that's important to every single American family: the 
quality of our Nation's schools.
  Twenty-five years ago this week, the National Commission on 
Excellence in Education issued its landmark report entitled ``A Nation 
at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.'' I would like to read 
an excerpt from the opening of that report:
  ``Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in 
commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being 
overtaken by competitors throughout the world . . . While we can take 
justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically 
accomplished, the educational foundations of our society are presently 
being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very 
future as a nation and as a people. What was unimaginable a generation 
ago has begun to occur. Others are matching and surpassing our 
educational attainments.''
  Again, this report was written 25 years ago. And some of the things 
we're going to talk about tonight are about what little improvement we 
have made in that 25 years.
  When this report was released, it sent shock waves through our 
educational system. For the first time, we recognized the threat of 
educational failure as a threat to our national security. And to be 
frank, I don't think that was overstating the case. I have personally 
traveled to China with other Members of Congress and seen the progress 
they are making scientifically, technologically, and, yes, 
educationally. And China is not alone. All around the world, nations 
are realizing that educational excellence today will mean competitive 
dominance tomorrow.
  ``A Nation at Risk'' was issued nearly two decades after enactment of 
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The ESEA, which was the 
precursor of No Child Left Behind, dramatically increased Federal 
funding for education. Unfortunately, it didn't link that funding to a 
demand for results. From 1965 until enactment of No Child Left Behind 
in 2002, the Federal Government spent more than $227 billion on the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Yet despite that considerable 
investment, academic achievement flatlined during that time period.
  As you can see here, the graph shows the amount of money appropriated 
year by year, and the blue flat line is the test results during that 
period.
  This is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to the taxpayers, being asked 
to fork over their hard-earned dollars to a bloated Federal bureaucracy 
that fails to produce results. It is unacceptable to parents, who 
should be empowered to seek out a quality educational experience for 
their children. And it is unacceptable to our citizenry as a whole, who 
deserve an educational system that strengthens our prospects for the 
future.
  ``A Nation at Risk'' outlined dire consequences if we, as a nation, 
failed

[[Page H2635]]

to improve our schools. In the quarter century since that report was 
issued, we have seen a number of positive education reform movements, 
each of which, if allowed to succeed, could make a real difference to 
students.

                              {time}  2115

  I would like to discuss just a few of those reform movements now. 
First, A Nation at Risk energized those who support educational 
freedom. There are many that believe a lack of competition in our 
public schools is a major force behind their stubborn lack of 
improvement. Rather than permitting the educational establishment to 
maintain its stranglehold on educational options, we need to give 
parents the right to decide how their children will best be educated.
  Another key education reform principle that emerged in the wake of A 
Nation at Risk was the drive to improve teacher quality. In fact, an 
entire section of the report was dedicated to improving teacher 
quality. In 1983, the report highlighted a shortage in highly qualified 
teachers of key subjects like math, science, and key foreign languages. 
It also called for innovative strategies like performance-based pay to 
recruit and retain effective teachers. Twenty-five years later, we are 
still facing a shortage of teachers in these critical subjects, and we 
are still fighting to be able to treat teachers as the professionals 
that they are by rewarding them for their performance.
  Perhaps the most fundamental education reform movement that has come 
about in the years since A Nation at Risk is the No Child Left Behind 
Act. That is because NCLB sought to change the expectations at the very 
core of our education system. Instead of accepting mediocrity, NCLB 
demands that every child in America be given the opportunity to 
succeed.
  You know, it's a real indictment of the educational system of the 
past that it was considered radical to expect every child to merely be 
able to read and do basic math. But that is the mentality that NCLB is 
trying to change. Unfortunately, despite these and many other efforts 
to improve our Nation's schools, we are still a long way from 
educational excellence. And so I would submit that our Nation is still 
at risk.
  We have an education establishment that puts preservation of the 
system above elevation of the student. We have children trapped in 
chronically under-performing schools and parents with little or no 
ability to send them elsewhere. We have teachers leaving the profession 
because they are frustrated with a system that fails to recognize and 
reward success. And we have a majority in Congress that has refused to 
take the next step toward education reform by making much needed 
reforms to No Child Left Behind.
  Tonight, some of my friends and I on the Education Committee are 
going to take a look at A Nation at Risk: 25 Years Later. From where I 
sit, the education landscape in this country is often disappointing, 
yet hopeful as well. Reformers from all ideological perspectives 
continue to push for better schools, greater education reform, and a 
commitment to competitiveness that will allow us to thrive in the 21st 
century and beyond. Education reform is a daunting challenge, but one 
that cannot be ignored.
  I would like to give the time now to a good friend from Delaware, the 
ranking member over the Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary 
Education, Mr. Castle.
  Mr. CASTLE. I thank the distinguished ranking member of the education 
committee for yielding time to me, and I would like to share in his 
message which we have tonight. I remember 25 years ago when Secretary 
Bell issued The Nation at Risk and we had the whole discussion about 
the fact that America perhaps is not doing as well educationally as 
were other countries. I am not sure before that time that anybody had 
ever really tried to point the finger at that and to really reach that 
conclusion. We looked at our fine schools, our excellent colleges and 
universities, and we didn't look at some of the problems behind, and we 
didn't look perhaps at the fact the economy was growing on us in a way 
that demanded education of all children, not just of the kids that 
could go to the very best schools in the United States of America. But 
from that point on, I think there has been a focus on this.
  The Congress has essentially done its job. There has been a great 
increase in funding of education, not as much on the local and State 
level, but at the congressional level there has been a great deal of 
funding increases. But we have seen many studies now which have 
indicated that the funding increases do not necessarily end up with a 
bottom line of our young students being educated better.
  The bottom line is that we need a tremendous commitment from anybody 
who touches on their lives. Obviously, their parents, the teachers, the 
administrators in the school, the other personnel in the schools, 
elected officials both here in Congress and throughout the United 
States of America, and I think a broader understanding among all 
Americans, perhaps even the media, of the significance of education and 
how that ties in economically to what children may do in the future and 
to the entire future of America.
  We have for many years now here in Congress under the leadership of 
Mr. McKeon and other leaders looked at education and made efforts to 
try to improve our educational status in our country. There is a 
distinct recognition of we need to do more in math and science, perhaps 
in geography and other areas as well, but that has not happened at the 
levels which we would like it to happen. The Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, which has been with us for some time, has worked to help 
in that area somewhat, but it wasn't really until No Child Left Behind 
came along some I guess 6 years ago now that we really started to make 
a difference as far as education is concerned.
  All of a sudden, now our test scores are going up in various parts of 
the country. In addition, some schools who are educating their best 
students very well are being exposed as not doing as good a job with 
some of their lesser students. We now have to examine these students by 
various categories and we have various numbers and achievement levels 
that have to be met for schools to make adequate yearly progress, and 
that has shown that in some areas of the country and in some certain 
school districts, that is simply not happening. In others, it is.
  I can tell you that in my State of Delaware that I have visited many 
of our schools. In fact, at one time or another I visited every school 
in our State. It's a small State. I will tell you that some of those 
districts have done just a wonderful job of grabbing hold of the need 
to make improvements in education, of getting commitment, of getting 
parents involved, making sure the courses are laid out in such a way 
that those kids could improve. As a result, we have seen test scores 
grow, particularly in our elementary and middle school levels, and 
these kids are now doing considerably better than they had been doing 
before, simply because they have made that commitment.
  It does involve standards, it does involve assessments. Some people 
don't like that, and we hear some concerns about it. But the bottom 
line is that we are making the progress that we felt that we had to 
make in order to improve our schools. This must continue, and I believe 
strongly that we have to do a variety of things to do this. We have to 
strengthen the parental options which are out there, make sure they 
understand what they can do in terms of helping education.
  We still have State and local flexibility. That is another area that 
we have to continue to work on, and we have passed legislation to do 
that. No Child Left Behind is very demanding in terms of teacher 
quality, and some of the aspects of teaching, which is important as 
well. We have encouraged the establishment of more charter schools. 
That is not just to establish charter schools, it is so that they can 
perhaps show us the way or set an example for our other schools. For 
that reason, the charter school movement has had a beneficial effect on 
education in ways beyond just the charter schools themselves.
  We need to be careful with our dollars, obviously. We know that is 
important. The whole business of standards and assessments and growth 
models is important too. We need to be able to

[[Page H2636]]

measure how we are making progress. I am not sure that we do that quite 
as we should. We need to do better with reading. We have learned that 
if we do not teach these children how to read early on, it is going to 
be problematic in terms of their future education. So that is 
extraordinarily important.
  We just had a call for more effective measurement of graduation rates 
by the Secretary of Education. And I have actually introduced 
legislation along those lines previous to that. I am a strong believer 
that we need to be able to measure graduation equally throughout all of 
our State so we can determine what the graduation measures truly are.
  I believe that dealing with No Child Left Behind has not been easy. 
There is opposition to it. There are those that believe it is too 
demanding. They are reluctant to try to undertake to meet the standards 
that are there. Many of us who will speak tonight believe we can make 
improvement in No Child Left Behind. As I indicated, Secretary 
Spellings just in the last 2 days has issued a series of regulatory 
changes which she believes she can make, and she has already made some, 
in order to improve No Child Left Behind.
  I believe that we in Congress should assume that responsibility too. 
That we should not just say we don't like it, we are not going to 
change it, because if we don't like it and we are not changing it, it's 
going to stay the same. We should look at the various things that we 
can do in order to make No Child Left Behind more meaningful if indeed 
there are problems as far as that is concerned.
  I mentioned a growth model. That is a significant aspect of this. If 
we measure growth, we don't have to measure that everyone has achieved 
the way we would like them to, but how much they have grown, which 
could be a factor. I mentioned the graduation rate, which is important. 
A clarification of multiple assessments might be important as well.
  Obviously, information to parents is also vitally important at all 
times to make sure that they are involved and engaged in terms of what 
is happening in our schools. I have seen a program in schools just the 
last couple of days in Delaware, and I have seen what one person in a 
school can do in terms of communication between the school, the 
parents, and the outside. I think it makes all the difference in the 
world, and that is something that we should be pursuing. Supplemental 
education services is included in No Child Left Behind, and that is 
another area in which we can provide services to those kids who need it 
the most.
  These are the kinds of things we need to boost. We don't need to 
dismiss them or throw them out because we feel that perhaps they don't 
work as well as they should. They do work. They make a difference as 
the education of our young children is concerned.
  I would call on the media to get involved with this. I think we need 
to look at the comparisons with other countries, we need to look at the 
significance of education as it applies to the economics of what kids 
are going to be doing in the future. There just needs to be a greater 
understanding among our young people that with good education, their 
opportunities explode in terms of what they might be able to do.
  So these are all things that I think we all have a responsibility 
for, Republicans and Democrats alike, in Congress. I believe the 
Secretary of Education is doing all that she can. I believe we are 
still at risk 25 years later. I don't want to be at risk 25 years from 
now. Hopefully, together we can continue to work to make sure that 
American education is improved to the point that we can look at 
everybody else and say we have without a doubt the best education 
system in the world.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding time. I yield back to him.
  Mr. McKEON. The gentleman didn't mention that he used to be Governor 
of Delaware and had occasion to visit every school. I have had the 
opportunity to visit his district a couple of times and it's always a 
real pleasure. It's interesting to be able to drive across the whole 
State in less time than it takes me to get from one part of my district 
to another.
  Ms. Biggert, a member of the committee from the State of Illinois, I 
yield time to you.
  Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you. I thank the gentleman from California, Mr. 
McKeon, for facilitating this discussion on the 25th anniversary of 
President Reagan's A Nation at Risk report and the importance of 
education to our economic future. I appreciate your leadership on the 
Education and Labor Committee. I can't think of a more appropriate 
event than the 25th anniversary of the report, A Nation at Risk, to 
review our education system and our global competitiveness. I think 
this report outlined the dire consequences if we as a Nation fail to 
improve our schools. In the 25 years since that warning, a number of 
things have changed. But we still face many of the same concerns raised 
by the report.
  I remember well when this report came out. In fact, I was president 
of my local high school board at the time, and I know how devastated we 
were to find out how badly we were doing. People asked me why I wanted 
to be on the school board. I wanted to be on the school board because I 
wanted to make sure that my children got the best education available, 
and I wanted to work to make sure that that happened. So I was 
concerned about this.
  I thought back on my family, and the thing that was always so 
important to our family was education. In fact, my father told all of 
us, there were four of us, that education was the most important thing, 
and if you got a good education, you could do most anything that you 
wanted. I don't think I would be here if it hadn't been for that. But 
he also was a very great man, and he said, And I will pay for it.
  Now when you look back at that time, it wasn't as expensive, and we 
think of all of our kids and grandchildren in schools now.

                              {time}  2130

  But my older sister went to medical school, I went to law school and 
became an attorney, my brother went to law school and became a judge, 
and my little sister got her master's in Latin and Greek. Now, she 
doesn't use that too much anymore, but I think the point is that is how 
important education is and how it remains.
  I really do worry, because it is at a time now when we have to 
compete on a global scale. Americans have shown their entrepreneurial 
skills and leadership, making the U.S. the largest and most robust 
economy in the world. However, we are seeing that Asia and Europe, our 
economic competitors, are making significant new investments in their 
infrastructure and human capital.
  In a recent report, ``The Gathering Storm,'' in looking at what is 
happening, this report shows that our competitors' investments are 
beginning to pay off and they are challenging the U.S. leadership in 
sciences, no matter how it is measured: By the number of patents, they 
are having more and more patents they are gaining; articles written in 
the scientific journals; Nobel Prizes won; percentage of the gross 
domestic product dedicated to research and development; and even the 
number of degrees.
  We all know that our graduate schools have been filled with graduate 
students who have come from foreign countries. In the past they have 
been staying in our country. Now we are seeing the brain drain with 
them leaving.
  So despite the evidence that science and education is responsible for 
America's preeminence in so many areas today, the 2000 Hart-Rudman 
Report on National Security found that ``the U.S. Government has 
seriously underfunded basic scientific research in recent years. The 
quality of the U.S. education system too has fallen well below the 
scores of other nations.'' In fact, in one of the reports, we find that 
with other countries, we rank number 28, that is 28 under all of these 
other countries for our educational system.
  I believe that now, more than any time in our history, we are at a 
crossroads. The economic prosperity of this country is the product of 
our well-trained workforce, and if the United States is going to be 
able to continue as the economic leader and have the creativity and the 
innovation that we need in technology, we have to ensure that our 
current and future workers have the tools necessary to compete.
  There is not a quick fix to this problem, but there is no question 
that by providing the quality education to the

[[Page H2637]]

next generation of workers, that we are going to ensure the success of 
our country, and without a well-trained workforce, we could see 
employers moving the best jobs to other countries where workers have 
the skills necessary to perform that work. So we can't allow this to 
happen.
  We have the building blocks necessary for the best education system 
in the world, but when we compare American students to other students, 
there is no question that there is room for improvement. Just ask the 
employers in our districts or area colleges and universities where 
employers are finding it more difficult to find skilled workers and 
where college students are having to take remedial classes when they go 
in as freshmen because they are not at the point where they can really 
do the first level of college education.
  I think that certainly Congress has recognized the importance of 
addressing this issue. In 2001, along came No Child Left Behind. Our 
intention was to address the achievement gap that exists in our country 
between the disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers by 
holding the States and schools accountable for the education of all 
students. This law also gives parents and taxpayers information on the 
education that their children receive compared to other schools. So I 
believe that this goal continues to be supported in Congress and in the 
schools and communities across the country.
  Now, 7 years after the passage of No Child Left Behind, I think we 
are now reflecting on where things are working and how we can improve 
the law.
  I know, Mr. Chairman, you have spent so much time on this issue, and 
we have had numerous, numerous hearings in the last few years and this 
session of Congress, but also in the 109th and the 108th, and always 
working, and even before that since 2001, to make sure how we can 
improve the law. But I had thought that we would be reauthorizing this 
system last year, and, unfortunately, it has been held up. But it has 
given us time.
  I remember we had one hearing with 46 people that came in to testify. 
It was kind of the last hearing before we thought we were going to get 
this bill out. I think I sat through the whole thing. But also I have 
and a lot of the other Members have held roundtables in our districts 
to talk to superintendents, to talk to teachers, to talk to parents, to 
talk to businesses, to talk to Chambers of Commerce, to talk to 
students as well, and the community, because that is what it takes to 
make our schools the best that we can have.
  So I think that this discussion tonight will demonstrate the need to 
reauthorize No Child Left Behind sooner rather than later. I guarantee 
that our international competitors are not waiting for the U.S. to 
catch up. I think that we need to really proceed, really with the hope 
that everyone will realize that education is the basis of everything 
that evolves for our children and our grandchildren to be a success and 
have a very successful life and really contribute to our country in 
moving ahead.
  I would like to thank you for hosting this discussion tonight. With 
that, I will yield back so some of our other Members have an 
opportunity.
  Mr. McKEON. Thank you very much. I really learned from your remarks. 
I knew you were an attorney, but I didn't know how the rest of your 
family had been benefited from education. It is good to learn about 
each other, and, again, as you said, the importance of education, to 
get on the ladder to climb to achieve the American dream. We here 
tonight, all of us, want to see that every child in America has the 
full opportunity to achieve their full potential.
  Now let's hear from Mr. Davis, the gentleman from Tennessee. I am 
glad to have you with us.
  Mr. DAVID DAVIS of Tennessee. Thank you, Mr. McKeon. Thank you for 
your leadership in the committee.
  No Child Left Behind was signed into law before I was elected to 
Congress. It was signed into law in 2002 with the intent of increasing 
the overall achievement of students in elementary and secondary 
schools.
  As written, the law requires the following: Annual assessments in 
math and reading in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school; reports 
on overall achievement and progress made by different groups of 
students; school accountability; high quality teachers in every 
classroom; increased parent information and choice; and State 
achievement standards and testing.
  This law has far-reaching implications. I wanted to hear from the 
people both directly and indirectly involved with No Child Left Behind, 
also known as NCLB, so last year I held a roundtable discussion on NCLB 
in my district. Participants included parents, teachers, school 
superintendents, school board members, members of the business 
community and Chamber of Commerce, and representatives from the House 
Education and Labor Committee and the State and Federal departments of 
education. Most people agreed that No Child Left Behind is working, but 
reforms are necessary.

  As I came to Washington, I found Washington is the only place where 
when something is supposed to expire, it doesn't expire. It just 
continues to move on. No Child Left Behind should have been 
reauthorized last year. It has not come up for reauthorization yet, and 
I think that should happen.
  Many important issues were raised during my town hall meetings. A few 
of the main concerns were schools and school districts making adequate 
yearly progress, or AYP; meeting the teacher qualifications as set 
forth by No Child Left Behind; and the impact that special education 
students and Limited English Proficient students are having on local 
schools and school districts.
  There are a lot of people with a lot of common sense back in the 
mountains of East Tennessee. Most teachers in my district believe they 
should be held accountable. That is just common sense. But it is like a 
three-legged stool. You can't only hold a teacher accountable and 
expect to get good results. It is like a three-legged stool. Teachers 
need to be held accountable, but also you need moms and dads to be 
involved in the education of their students, and also you need the 
students to become involved and work hard to make a difference. It 
really doesn't matter how good the teacher is. If you don't have moms 
and dads and the student involved, you will still get poor results. 
Teachers need to teach, not parent.
  Ideally you will have a good teacher, you will have parents that are 
involved, and a student who is willing to work hard. While this isn't 
always the case, we must do everything we can in our power to see that 
it is there for most children. We need to continue to move every child 
forward, and bring those in the lower end of the percentile forward, 
but without holding those at the higher end back.
  Students must be challenged and encouraged to learn. Students should 
not be counted in several subgroups. For instance, one child may be in 
both the English as a second language and children with special needs 
categories. Every student should be moving forward, but not every child 
can get to the same point. Most students can get from point A to point 
Z, but there are some students, special needs students come to mind, 
that may only go from A to B to C. They all should be moving forward, 
but you have to use some common sense when you pass legislation.
  Also the way graduation rates are calculated need to be reviewed. 
People who decide to make the effort to go back to school and get their 
GED should be included in the graduation rates.
  Let me give you an example. I have a school in my district in Hawkins 
County, Tennessee, that only had eight graduating students, eight 
students in their 12th grade. Four of those students received college 
scholarships. Doesn't that sound amazing? You have 50 percent of your 
students receiving college scholarships. However, one student dropped 
out, so now you have seven students and four students out of seven 
receiving college scholarships. So fully half of that class received 
scholarships. But one student didn't graduate, and because of that and 
the small number of students in Clinch School back in Hawkins County, 
Tennessee, that school is considered a failing school.
  We need to reauthorize No Child Left Behind, and we need to fix some 
of these problems that I have mentioned tonight. Graduation rates, GED, 
English as a second language, those are some of the things that I hear 
that need to be fixed as we move forward into reauthorizing No Child 
Left Behind. These problems are fixable, and

[[Page H2638]]

we need to fix them soon. We need to address these problems and 
reauthorize No Child Left Behind quickly.
  Thank you for yielding your time, and I yield back.
  Mr. McKEON. Thank you. Now I am happy to yield to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Walberg).
  Mr. WALBERG. I want to thank my colleague and friend and ranking 
member from California (Mr. McKeon) for allowing this discussion 
tonight, and to start off I think by portraying reality here of the 
billions of dollars that have been invested. And I certainly wouldn't 
say wasted, but the investment of billions of dollars into education 
certainly has not, according to this chart, and I think reality, shown 
the impact we would have dreamed of, expected and desired.
  I think that is why the discussion that we are having tonight is so 
good, especially centered around reauthorizing a major component that 
there has been a lot of hopes and dreams about, No Child Left Behind, 
producing in this country a greater quality and achievement in 
education.
  I don't pride myself in being a contrarian, but on this issue, I am 
somewhat of a contrarian.

                              {time}  2145

  I hearken back to the Northwest Ordinance, that great statement that 
is included in many of our State Constitutions that says religion, 
morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the 
happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever 
be encouraged.
  And I think that last section, where it says schools and the means of 
education shall forever be encouraged, is where we are interested in 
tonight. It is our concern. It is our desire to encourage schools and 
the means of education.
  That statement, that directive from the Northwest Ordinance is found, 
as I said, in many State Constitutions including that of my own State 
of Michigan.
  The fact of the matter is that as a result of many redundant 
programs, well meaning though they may be, and yet programs and 
mandates that are put on our system, we have encumbered education to 
the point that it is very difficult on the ground in the unique 
classrooms that we have in every school district, with every student in 
the classroom who is a different student than the student sitting next 
to them.
  Having three children and having gone through the public education 
system, the private education, and alternative system at some point in 
time in their educational experience, I know that even those three 
children from the same family learned in different ways and thankfully 
had the options available to them that met their needs at each step 
along the way, at least as much as possible, allowing achievement.
  So, frankly, as we come to reauthorizing No Child Left Behind, it 
would be my preference that we would not; that we would end No Child 
Left Behind and turn it back to the States, turn our dollars and our 
interests toward giving opportunities for higher education, which in 
this country sets the standard for the rest of the world. Industry and 
business technology, working hand in hand with higher education, then 
to be an assist to establish patterns for our elementary and secondary 
education to bring them to the point of a completion, at least to that 
point, so that they can go on into higher education, trade schools, or 
in industry and business, and achieve, knowing reality and to a point 
as well, I understand that No Child Left Behind will most likely be 
reauthorized in some form. So, for that reason I would certainly plead 
for flexibility.
  Having done that, I have cosponsored legislation that has been given 
the name A-PLUS, which would allow that flexibility for States to be 
brought forward, that would allow States that had taken a purpose 
statement to produce schools and the means of education that would 
foster growth in our government, in our society, in our educational 
classrooms, that would give opportunities for States to opt out of No 
Child Left Behind having proven that they had in place a plan for 
providing data that was good, evaluation that was quality, and an 
educational program that was moving toward excellence.
  For example, I was the product of public education all the way 
through and even entering into university. My mother and three aunts 
were public school educators, beginning most of them in one-room 
schools teaching, and then moving into the Chicago public school 
system.
  My daughter-in-law is a public school teacher on the south side of 
Chicago, a gifted teacher, a teacher who her first year taught as a 
full-time substitute because of the need in a special needs classroom 
where the teacher, out of frustration one day, got up, walked out of 
the class, and never came back. My daughter-in-law was given the 
opportunity to work with these young people who needed an education, 
needed someone who would invest themselves in their little lives, a 
fourth grade classroom.
  My daughter-in-law Erin absolutely loved her first year of teaching 
as a substitute, a full-time substitute. She had the freedom without 
some of the paperwork, some of the criteria, both of the Illinois and 
Chicago public school systems, but also No Child Left Behind. She saw 
achievement with the opportunity to meet with parents, to provide 
expectations, but also the opportunity to work in partnership with them 
and working with these special needs students to see improvement along 
the way.
  Thankfully, she received a full-time appointment to that same 
classroom the next year as a full-time teacher, and soon found out 
that, with the weight of paperwork and regulation that was redundant 
upon each other coming from the Federal on down through the State and 
through the Chicago system as well, she was greatly frustrated to the 
point of wondering whether she was cut out to be a teacher. 
Fortunately, with good counsel from her administration and, I must 
admit, from my wife and myself as well, she continued and saw impact. 
And yet, the frustrations of not having the flexibility to deal with 
individual needs almost scuttled her attempt at teaching.
  One final point I would make, Mr. McKeon, is from my own experience 
in going through seven No Child Left Behind hearings across my district 
in each of the seven counties, and having teachers, administrators, 
school board members and parents speak to the issue of No Child Left 
Behind and reauthorization, speak to the issue of highly qualified 
teachers and the frustration that that produces in some of our smaller 
school districts, rural school districts in trying to deal with that, 
yet having qualified teachers who are achieving well in the classroom, 
and yet because of the requirement for highly qualified that No Child 
Left Behind puts in place, the frustration that comes.
  I stood in a special needs classroom at a local intermediate school 
district, and I watched a young man who, as I understand it, had no 
mental difficulties but great physical difficulties to the point that 
the only way that he could be administered a test was by verbal 
administration of that test from his teacher. And with his blinking of 
his eye once for yes, two for no, he took the test. But then I watched 
as the teacher went through that same test a second time to make sure 
that she had achieved answering right according to what he had 
indicated. Now, that adds time. And when you add redundancies and lack 
of flexibility all the way from the Federal Government on down, it 
frustrates education and it takes away the opportunity of some of these 
great teachers out there and committed parents, school boards, and 
students to meet the needs of their students, in their classrooms, in 
their communities.
  So my friend from California, I would applaud you in pushing further 
that, not only would we most likely reauthorize, but that we would 
produce the flexibility that allows creativity to abound in our 
classrooms, parents to be involved, teachers who want to teach and not 
just be social workers or mother confessors at times, but to be in the 
role of teaching and working side by side with parents and the 
flexibility that can only come by understanding that schools and the 
means of education shall forever be encouraged.
  Mr. McKEON. I thank the gentleman. And as Mr. Davis said earlier, in 
the meetings that he held with his people

[[Page H2639]]

in his district he heard some of these same problems, some of the same 
complaints. And that is why we really need to reauthorize the bill to 
fix those problems.
  I have been here now almost 16 years, and I have yet to see a perfect 
bill. And when a bill is passed, by the time it goes through the 
process here and finally is passed and signed into law, and then the 
regulators get their shot at it, write the regulations, and then by the 
time it is implemented throughout 50 States across this great country, 
it doesn't necessarily finish up the way you started out or even to 
achieve the goals that you had.

  And so we have a process where every 5 years on our committee we look 
at the bill again and we go through a reauthorization process, and say, 
what did we do wrong? What can we do to fix this? What can we do to 
make it better?
  And you brought up the point, special needs students. Definitely 
something needs to be done there. I remember visiting a school in my 
district and going into a special needs class and seeing a student 
there that was carried in on a gurney. And the teachers, the caregivers 
there that day spent their time just making sure that the child is 
given the things that are needed for life; they fed him through a tube. 
There wasn't much education going on there. I think that was a very 
important program, but maybe it should be considered a help program to 
give the parents a little relief at that time. But, to say that that 
child is going to learn to read, common sense would dictate that is not 
the fact. So, we have a 3 percent waiver for some of those students. 
Maybe that should have been larger. But that is what we addressed 
through the reauthorization, and that is why it is very important we 
get that done.
  I would like to yield now to the gentlelady, Mrs. Foxx, who has been 
a teacher, been a college administrator, and done a lot of things in 
education.
  Ms. FOXX. I want to thank the gentleman from California for his 
leadership on this special order tonight, and thank him for his 
leadership on the Education Committee as chairman and now as ranking 
member.
  I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina in a house with no 
electricity and no running water, with parents with a sixth grade and 
ninth grade education. My husband grew up in a similar situation, both 
his parents totally illiterate. But we both give credit for the success 
that we have had in life to public school teachers and principals who 
took an interest in us when we were in school and encouraged us to 
utilize our talents by staying in school and by going on to college. So 
I in no way disparage the role of teachers or the role of education in 
our society. In fact, I trumpet it because it has been so important to 
me. And I spent most of my life working in education, as the gentleman 
from California said, and it has been a wonderful opportunity for me.
  However, I have great concerns about the role of the Federal 
Government in education in our country, and I will continue to express 
those concerns because I remember very well my own excellent education 
in a county that had very little money. The school buildings weren't 
wonderful, we had almost no science lab, but we had excellent teachers 
again who cared about the students. And I would put up that education 
against anything that is happening in the country today.
  Now, I am happy to serve on the Education and Labor Committee. And 
last year, when talks began in the committee on the reauthorization of 
No Child Left Behind, I did what I often do, and that is to look at the 
genesis and the history of the legislation. And it was a real 
revelation to me at the time that No Child Left Behind legislation is 
simply the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, called ESEA by people in education, which was created in 
1965 by President Johnson in the midst of the war on poverty. Most 
folks are unaware that the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was in fact 
the seventh reauthorization of this 1965 legislation. So when you hear 
it talked about, very few people ever make that connection.
  Now, I heard a lot of criticism of No Child Left Behind before I was 
elected and after I was elected. And so one of the things that I did 
last year in my district was to have a forum with parents, teachers, 
and administrators about their concerns with No Child Left Behind; and 
the people who came to that forum gave me a lot of information that has 
been very helpful to me in helping to formulate what I think we ought 
to be doing with No Child Left Behind.
  Part of the very important feedback that I received is that teachers 
and principals welcome appropriate accountability for Federal education 
funding. Teachers and administrators don't want to do away with 
accountability. What they are concerned about is having appropriate 
accountability.
  Now, I want to talk a little bit about title I, and I know some of my 
colleagues have mentioned this before. Title I of No Child Left Behind, 
or the ESEA Act as it used to be called, is the largest single grant 
program in the U.S. Department of Education. It has been around since 
1965. But between 1965 and 2002, American taxpayers funded almost $200 
billion through title I spending with little or no discernible effect 
in improving the educational opportunities for disadvantaged children, 
which was the original intent of the law.
  I think most of us realize that it is not just funding that improves 
academic performance or gets anything out of programs. But, many of the 
Federal programs and regulations have simply not improved the 
performance of disadvantaged children as a group.
  My long-standing position has been, and continues to be, that the 
education of America's youth would be better served if Washington 
bureaucrats were removed from the equation. Control and accountability 
should be returned to local communities, where they can effectively 
make changes in the areas they know need it most.

                              {time}  2200

  So I am disappointed in what looks like the direction that the 
majority is taking in Congress now, which is to eliminate much of the 
accountability that was put into No Child Left Behind, or the ESEA, 
when it was reauthorized in 2001, but simply put more funding into it. 
I think that is going in the wrong direction. We know that 9-year-olds 
have made more reading progress in the last 5 years than in the 
previous 28 years combined.
  We can achieve excellence in education by encouraging the kind of 
accountability that promotes locally focused education and ultimately 
well educated young people. Parents, students and educators need more 
choices in the way No Child Left Behind is administered. The current 
my-way-or-the-highway approach to the Federal funding of education is 
broken, and imposing a top-down mechanism shortchanges millions of 
students and parents.
  A good system will have more flexibility and will put the best 
decision makers in the driver's seat. Those are the parents and local 
educators who know what works best for students and should have the 
greater control and input.
  We know in almost every program that a Federal Government one-size-
fits-all approach does not work. It doesn't allow for tailor-made 
solutions to the unique situations facing school systems in every 
single district in America. What works in one State doesn't work in 
another one.
  Reducing the role of the Federal Government makes sense for students 
who are not served by cookie-cutter policies promulgated by Washington 
bureaucrats.
  There are many of us who believe that education is not the province 
of the Federal Government at all. However, we also know that efforts to 
remove the Federal Government from education have not passed and they 
are not going to pass. So the best thing that we can do is to make sure 
that we have accountability for the money that is spent in education, 
as we should have accountability in every program that takes Federal 
dollars.
  Mr. Ranking Member, I am going to yield back to you.
  Mr. McKEON. Thank you very much, and I would like to yield now to the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I thank the ranking member for all of your 
work in the area of education.
  I think the chart at my left points out the dilemma that the previous

[[Page H2640]]

speakers have been making. This chart shows the involvement of the 
Federal Government with regard to dollars, and it also reflects the 
issue with regard to their involvement with regulation and the like.
  From 1966 up to 2000, as the Federal Government became more involved, 
dollars spent increased. And as the years have gone on, what is the 
result of that, basically a flat or no increase in education.
  Two points, one point on the issue of accountability, and the other 
on new approaches. In the area of accountability, the question we have 
to ask is accountable to whom? The gentlewoman from Illinois made my 
case for me when she said that she was concerned about her kids and 
therefore she decided to run for the local school board.
  I would suggest that the best place to get accountability is just as 
she did, locally, from the local school board, teachers, principals and 
the like. If you ask most parents who is a local teacher, they will 
know. If you ask who is the local principal, they will know. Ask most 
parents who is the Secretary of Education in Washington or the 
bureaucrats down here making the rules, they unfortunately will not 
have a clue. And yet what we have been doing over the last several 
decades is having them have greater accountability and responsibility 
than the teacher and the principal.
  The second point is the approaches. I agree with the ranking member 
on this in that it is great that we have so many new approaches tried 
in schools across the country. The problem is when you get to a Federal 
level, two things happen. Sometimes you potentially nationalize some of 
these, and that is good if you pick out the good ones. But if you 
happen to pick out some of the bad ones, such as whole language in 
California, and that had a dismal track record and result, you can end 
up having a terrible effect on the entire national education system.
  My second point is, and the ranking member made a good point on this, 
Washington doesn't move as quickly as local school boards. Sometimes it 
takes 5 years or more to reauthorization and even more years to get 
something done in the district. We can move more quickly at the end of 
the day.
  I conclude with this. Accountability to whom, it should be 
accountable to the local teachers and the principals, not to somebody 
in Washington.
  New approaches, it is better to be done locally. And as we move 
forward and move to reauthorize No Child Left Behind, I just throw out 
a modest, simple proposal, allow those States who need the Federal 
Government to tell them and dictate to them how to run their schools 
and so forth to stay in No Child Left Behind. But allow those States 
who have parents or community leaders or principals who feel that they 
can get it done by themselves without the Federal Government, allow 
those States to opt out, but also to keep their own tax dollars in that 
State so they can decide how their education money will be spent.
  Mr. McKEON. I am happy to yield to another member of the committee, 
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).
  Mr. SOUDER. I thank the ranking member, and I just wanted to share a 
few thoughts.
  Many of us on the Republican side have been involved with education 
for many years. It was my first choice when I was elected in 1994 to go 
on the Education Committee, much to the shock of everybody on our side. 
And it has been a challenge because I believe education is the 
responsibility of the States and local; and yet I passionately believe 
in the importance of education.
  I don't know how we are going to compete in the international 
marketplace if we don't compete on math and science, and if we don't 
have everybody at basic reading levels where they have an opportunity 
to blossom. If they don't know how to read, they will not be able to 
learn how to compete in a worldwide marketplace.
  And frankly we are not going to do it with cheap labor. We have to do 
it with value-added labor. We have to have education at the core of any 
system that we have. The challenge we have in the Federal Government is 
that the State and local seem to not want to raise their taxes. They 
don't want to do the funding. They want to come to the Federal 
Government for the money, and then they don't want any strings with the 
money.
  If you ask the Federal Government for money, you are going to get 
strings. Many of us want to minimize those strings where the thousands 
flowers bloom, but we are still going to have measurement.
  I was one who didn't like the national testing idea because I am 
afraid that a national curriculum is going to be abused by either side 
to try to drive their ideological agendas. Nevertheless, there has to 
be some kind of measurement. We need some measurement. If we keep 
increasing Federal aid to education, then we need to increase 
accountability.
  In the parts of No Child Left Behind that are difficult, I know the 
administration likes to ask, Well, which child would you leave behind? 
But the problem is if your goal is just to focus on those who are going 
to be at the lower echelons, we have diverted money to minimal gains in 
some cases at that level, and backed off in our math and science and in 
our upper and middle end to the net result that we haven't really moved 
the system.

  Nobody argues that No Child Left Behind hasn't made tremendous 
progress at the lower echelons. Part of the question that schools are 
legitimately asking right now with the special needs kids, with English 
as a second language kids, how can they meet continually higher 
standards? At some point we are more likely to get slower progress or 
hit a wall, and we are trying to work that through with any new bill.
  But there are going to be measurements, and measurements are never 
completely fair. But he who pays the piper picks the tune. To this 
degree, you want more money from the Federal Government, you are going 
to get more regulation. We need to be responsible.
  I hear people say, My daughter is a teacher. She gets frustrated with 
this because they have to teach to the test. That is partly why I have 
a concern about the test. I went to an amazing school in New Orleans 
that got hit by Hurricane Katrina. It is a 100 percent school lunch 
program, and nobody is failing to pass the test.
  I asked, Do you teach to the test? She said, No, these are principles 
that we should have been teaching anyway. So if we teach the 
principles, they will pass the test.
  What we are really commenting on, is the test measuring what we want 
to have, and is that the skill. And if the test is in fact measuring 
that, then you aren't teaching to the test. But it needs to be fair. 
Schools with high ESL, schools with high special needs kids are going 
to need accountability.
  I thank you for your time and your leadership.
  Mr. McKEON. Let me just say No Child Left Behind I think has made a 
good improvement for the purpose that it was originally passed for. The 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed in 1965 to help, as 
was stated earlier, the have-nots, to help them get up to where the 
haves are.
  The test scores show that since No Child Left Behind has been put in, 
we have the highest testing for African American and Hispanic children 
in the history of the testing. A lot of things have been misunderstood 
about NCLB. What it was was a law that said we want kids to learn basic 
math and we want them to learn to read, and the States set the 
standards and implement the bills. Some States went much further, and 
the Federal Government got blamed for what we actually did. The 
important thing is that we get it reauthorized, that we fix the 
problems that have been mentioned many times here tonight.
  I thank the Speaker for his patience, and those who have been 
listening, I thank them and I think we will follow up with another one 
of these because there is much more to be said about education and the 
reauthorization of the ESEA, better known recently as No Child Left 
Behind.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, with the enactment of the No Child Left 
Behind Act, NCLB, our nation made a commitment to closing the 
achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their 
peers and to changing the culture of America's schools so that all 
students receive the support and high-quality instruction they need to 
meet higher expectations.
  The critical part of this challenge, at the high school level, is 
reducing the number of young

[[Page H2641]]

people who disengage and drop out of school and, conversely, increasing 
the number of students who graduate from high school and go on to 
higher education or get a job in the workforce.
  Because of the importance of improving high school performance, NCLB 
requires secondary schools to meet reading and math targets for all of 
its students that are established by the State--just like all public 
schools. However, secondary schools must also meet State-established 
graduation rate targets in order to meet the requirements of the law. 
The law also authorizes the School Dropout Prevention Program whose 
purpose is to provide grants to States and school districts to assist 
in the dropout prevention and school re-entry activities.
  As several national studies have found, a staggering number of youth 
fail to graduate on time. For example:
  About one-third of our students--approximately 1.23 million each 
year--leave high school without a diploma.
  Black and Hispanic youth are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to 
drop out of high school. In 2005, 6 percent of non-Hispanic whites ages 
16 to 24 were not enrolled in school and had not completed high school, 
compared with 11 percent of blacks and 23 percent of Hispanics.
  A student's decision to drop out of school has long-term consequences 
that not only affect the individuals themselves, but the society at 
large:
  Dropouts from the class of 2006 cost the nation more than $309 
billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes.
  If the nation's likely dropouts from the class of 2006 graduated, we 
could save more than $17 billion in Medicaid and expenditures for 
uninsured care over the course of those young people's lifetimes.
  If high schools and colleges raise the graduation rates of Hispanic, 
African-American and Native American students to the levels of white 
students by 2020, the potential increase in personal income would add 
more than $320 billion to the U.S. economy.
  Increasing the graduation rate and college matriculation of male 
students in the U.S. by just 5 percent could lead to combined savings 
and revenue of almost $8 billion each year by reducing crime-related 
costs.
  A high school diploma and further postsecondary education or training 
is critical in today's global economy. Dropouts are unlikely to have 
the minimum skills necessary to function in today's increasingly 
complex and technological workforce.
  Graduation rates are a fundamental indicator that our nation's public 
schools are doing what they are intended to do: Enroll, engage and 
educate youth to be productive members of society.
  However, there have been some concerns raised over the availability 
and quality of data on graduation and dropout rates and how they differ 
from State to State. This is based largely on whether the individual 
State has developed strong standards for its high schools. For example, 
even though NCLB has improved the reporting of data, a few States 
continue to have wide gaps in their data and can not accurately 
calculate graduation or dropout rates from 1993 to 2002.
  To deal with this problem, yesterday, Secretary Spellings issued 
proposed federal regulations to establish a uniform formula to 
calculate graduation rates. In particular, States would be required to 
adopt the formula, largely based on a rate agreed to by the National 
Governors Association, NGA, by 2012.
  I agree with the Secretary that this must be done. Only by knowing 
how well or how poorly States, schools, and school districts are 
educating students can we ensure that every student receives an 
excellent education.
  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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