[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 12, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5343-S5346]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         EDUCATION REPORT CARD

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, after 100 days, there have been a lot 
of report cards on the Obama administration. I would like, with 
respect, to offer one on a subject both the President and I think is of 
crucial importance: the education of the American people.
  As a good teacher would--or as my late friend Alex Haley used to say: 
Find the good and praise it--I would like to start with the good grades 
on this report card. So to begin with, I give President Obama an A-plus 
for recruiting. His best appointee, in my opinion, is the new Education 
Secretary, Arne Duncan from Chicago. The Acting President pro tempore 
might agree with that. The new Education Secretary grew up, as I did, 
in a family where the mom was a preschool teacher--my mother in the 
mountains of Tennessee, his on the South Side of Chicago. He has a 
background for leadership. He has an agenda for rewarding outstanding 
teaching, an agenda for encouraging the largest number of charter 
schools possible, an agenda for encouraging States to set higher 
standards. He has a close relationship with the President. He is truly 
a blue-chip recruit. On the subject of rewarding outstanding teaching 
and charter schools, if he succeeds with that in 4 years or 8 years, it 
could be a Nixon to China exercise in education. So an A-plus for 
recruiting.
  Then, here is another A-plus: for rewarding outstanding teaching. 
This is the greatest need we have in kindergarten through the 12th 
grade in America. Every problem we are faced with--after you deal with 
the question of having a good parent--has to do with a good teacher. 
Whether we are talking about a gifted child or the needs of a child 
with a disability or of a child who has come from a home where a book 
has never been read to them or whether they are in the mountains of 
Tennessee or on the South Side of Chicago, put a child with the best 
possible teacher, and the child almost always succeeds.
  In 1983, when Tennessee became the first State to pay teachers more 
for

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teaching well, not one teacher was being paid more for being a good 
teacher. Many good people have worked hard on that: Governor Jim Hunt, 
Governor Bob Graham, Senator Bennet of Colorado, Senator Corker of 
Tennessee when he was mayor of Chattanooga. But it is hard to do, to 
find ways to reward outstanding school leadership and outstanding 
teaching, to pay some teachers more than others. But if we do not, we 
will not be able to attract and keep the best men and women in our 
classrooms and in our schools.
  The President's new budget increases from about $100 million to $500 
million the Teacher Incentive Fund, which has been a big success across 
this country. Thirty-four grantees--cities, school districts--across 
the country are experimenting with different ways of rewarding 
outstanding teaching. There is not necessarily one way to do it. It 
almost always has to be worked out locally. Most of these cities are 
working with their unions to make this happen. Memphis city schools are 
using their funds to train principles. Philadelphia's grant application 
was co-written by the local teachers union. The Northern New Mexico 
Network for Rural Education is working with four school districts.
  As I said earlier, if Secretary Duncan and the President can leave a 
legacy of dozens or hundreds of school districts, or even States, where 
outstanding teachers are paid more for their skills--not just for being 
there a long time or for going back to school--that would be the single 
most important legacy they could leave.
  Then, here is one more good grade: an A-minus for charter schools. 
Charter schools also have a little history behind them. They began in 
Minnesota. The last act I took as Education Secretary, in 1992, was to 
write every school superintendent in the country and encourage them to 
start charter schools. Albert Shanker, the head of the American 
Federation of Teachers, asked ``If we can have a Saturn plant, why not 
a Saturn school?''
  What he meant was, why not start from scratch and take the union 
rules and the Government regulations off teachers and let them use 
their own good judgment to deal with the children who are assigned to 
them. The charter school is a pro-teacher idea. It has greatly expanded 
over the years, but it still runs into substantial opposition, usually 
from the National Education Association or other educators who do not 
like it. But these are public schools. These are designed to free 
teachers so they can use their judgment to help children. Secretary 
Duncan and the President are committed to them.
  The Secretary and I cowrote an op-ed for a Tennessee newspaper 2 
weeks ago, which apparently helped to influence the vote of the 
legislature to begin to move along raising the cap on charter schools 
in Tennessee. I hope it did. I thank the Secretary for his bipartisan 
support and commitment. Again, if he is able to succeed, working with 
the President, and leaves a large number of public charter schools in 
our country when he leaves office, it will again be a ``Nixon to 
China'' experience and the country will be deeply grateful. The only 
reason why it is an A-minus is there is not much support in the budget 
for the major obstacle in creating more charter schools, which is 
support for financing for new facilities.

  Now for the bad news. Every parent has had this experience with the 
child's report card. Here is a D. That is for spending $80 billion over 
the next 2 years for more of the same in the Department of Education 
without even asking the question: Is what we are doing working? That is 
hard for me to imagine.
  The budget for the Department of Education would be at about $70 
billion, so we are adding $40 billion to it this year and $40 billion 
next year for more of the same. Is everybody delighted with the way our 
K-12 grade system is working in America? I don't think so. We are 
challenged by it. We need to change it. So then why in the world would 
we put more money in for more of the same?
  The only thing that saves the grade from being an F is that there is 
$5 billion for the Secretary's Race to the Top, which is a good idea 
based on the agenda I described.
  What would we have done with the money? Well, I would have suggested 
we give a Pell Grant for Kids to every middle- and low-income child in 
the country and $500 for a state-approved afterschool program. Let the 
parents choose: for music, for art, for catchup, for academic 
improvement. It would have poured billions into the school districts. 
It would have created some competition and middle- and lower income 
children would be given more options. That would be what we could have 
done.
  Here is another unfortunate grade: D-minus. That is for the DC 
voucher program. I see the Senator from Illinois. I had this all 
prepared. I had no idea he would be here. He has been a major 
participant in this. What keeps this from being an F is that the 
President and the Secretary have said they will continue funds for the 
1,700 children in the District of Columbia who are now in high school 
and who are continuing, but after that, it is gone. This is a death 
sentence for the program. This is a death sentence for the model of 
giving low-income parents choices of better schools--schools such as 
middle- and higher income parents have. It is the model that made our 
higher education system the best in the world.
  Senator Lieberman has said he will have a hearing on this DC voucher 
program. I hope he does.
  Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I will after I am finished. Well, of course, I will. I 
will be glad to do that as a courtesy to my friend.
  I would say, first, the Senator from Illinois missed my first two 
grades, which were A-pluses to the President for recruiting--for blue 
chip recruiting of Arne Duncan and for the teacher incentive program, 
so he may have come in as I was giving the bad news.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would say the Senator from Tennessee, as 
always, has been fair and balanced. I wish to ask him a question. Is he 
aware of the Department of Education's analysis of the DC voucher 
program and the results in terms of student achievement?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I am aware there are--the answer is yes.
  Mr. DURBIN. If I could ask a further question: Is the Senator from 
Tennessee aware that when they surveyed the 1,700 students after 3 
years in that DC voucher program, they found there was no measurable 
improvement among male students?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Well, I am not going to get into a detailed analysis 
with the Senator. I would say this: My view of American education is 
that we should give parents and students the opportunity to choose 
among the schools they go to. If there are four times as many children 
and parents who apply for this program than can be accepted, that would 
indicate to me that these parents and these families and these children 
think this is an opportunity they would like to have to improve their 
lives and improve their future.
  Mr. DURBIN. I wish to ask the Senator from Tennessee if he feels we 
should hold those voucher schools accountable in terms of whether they 
are improving the education of the students who are sent to them with 
Federal support?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Oh, of course we should.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would ask the Senator from Tennessee if he is aware of 
the fact that there was no improvement of math scores of the students 
in the DC voucher schools over a 3-year period of time?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator for his questions. I know he is 
the most ardent supporter of the idea of not using Federal dollars to 
give poor children the same choices that middle- and higher income 
children have. I respect that difference of opinion. I am going to go 
on with my remarks. But I believe it is a wise--
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has spoken for 10 
minutes.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much. I am going to continue with the 
time on the Republican side, if I may. I look forward to a longer 
discussion with the Senator from Illinois on this subject. I would hope 
that when Senator Lieberman holds his hearing, we will have a full 
discussion of why it is a good idea to say to poor kids and poor 
families: You can't have a choice of a better school, but people with 
money can. That is not the way we operate our college system.

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  This is our Nation's Capital. We are 3 years into a program. I have 
met with many of the children. Their lives are not going to be 
instantly changed in 3 years. There was much in the analysis that was 
completed by the Department of Education that showed the choices they 
made were helping the students academically and otherwise, and I will 
be glad to come back to the floor and discuss that when I have more 
time.
  But let me go on to my concern beyond the DC voucher program to the 
bad news. I regret to say this, but the bad news has to do with Pell 
Grants and student loans. Pell Grants, of course, are the 5 million 
grants or scholarships that were made to low-income students this year 
to help them pay for college, with $19 billion that we have 
appropriated for that purpose this last year. Almost on the day it was 
announced that we had a $1.8 trillion deficit for this 1 year--four 
times bigger than it was last year--the President's budget wants to add 
$293 billion over 10 years to entitlement spending. That is automatic 
spending. That is the reason the country's debt is so high. Sixty 
percent of our spending is entitlement spending. I think the punishment 
for the administration should be that they should all be made to stay 
after school and write on the blackboard, each, 100 times: I will 
never, ever again add to entitlement spending, even for a worthy 
purpose. It is no gift to students to give them a scholarship to live 
in a country they can't afford to live in because it has an interest 
payment of $800 billion a year, which it would in the 10th year of the 
President's budget.
  It is not as if the Congress has been stingy with Pell grants. They 
have gone from $7.7 billion 10 years ago to $19 billion today, and 5 
million students are getting them. All we say today is if we don't have 
the money we have appropriated, we can't spend it on scholarships.
  The President's proposal would say we are going to spend it whether 
we have it or not. Spend it whether we have it, despite the fact that 
our debt has grown to such levels that we couldn't even qualify to be 
admitted to the European Union, which is a huge embarrassment. That 
deserves an F and a stay after school and detention, as far as I am 
concerned.
  Here is another F, and it is for student loans. There are 15 million 
of those student loans--about $75 billion--and what the President's 
budget proposes to do is turn this great recruit--this blue chip 
recruit, who I think has a good chance of being ``Educator of the 
Year,'' into ``Banker of the Year.'' He wants another Washington 
takeover, this time of student loans. Instead of letting 12 million 
students decide they would prefer to borrow from 2,000 institutions on 
4,400 campuses all across America, they are saying: No--everybody just 
line up at the U.S. Department of Education to get your student loan.
  The only justification for that, that I can see, is the 
administration says it might save the taxpayers money because the 
Federal Government can borrow cheaper than the banks can. Well, if that 
is true, then we ought to not have any private financial institutions 
in America; we ought to turn every financial institution into a 
national bank and let the President run them. Andrew Jackson, the 
founder of the Democratic Party, would turn over in his grave because 
he ran against the national bank during his whole political career.

  It makes no sense to turn the U.S. Department of Education into a 
national bank for student loans. It should not be done. The savings are 
illusory. In the President's budget they say $94 billion is what will 
be saved, but they leave out the administrative costs which could go as 
high as $32 billion, and they leave out the fact that what they are 
doing is borrowing money at one-quarter of 1 percent and loaning it to 
the students at 6.8 percent.
  So they are taking money from the students and using it to pay 
somebody else a scholarship, with the Congressman taking the credit. 
There needs to be some truth in lending here so that when students line 
up to get their student loans, somebody says: Did you know that the 
interest you are paying by working an extra job or by going at night is 
being used to pay somebody else's scholarship? If we take that part out 
of it, we could leave the program just like it is.
  Twelve million out of fifteen million students prefer to have a 
private choice. They have had 15 years to choose either the public 
option or the private choice, and they have consistently decided they 
would rather deal with the community bank than a Federal agency.
  Well, I am about through with the report card. The rest I would put 
under ``incomplete.'' There is still a lot of good-faith effort: 
Deregulating higher education is a goal of mine and Senator Mikulski's 
as well, and the new Secretary of Education has said he will work on 
that. More flexibility in No Child Left Behind is a goal of mine; it 
may be of the Secretary's as well. We can work on that.
  My respectful suggestion to the President would be, instead of trying 
to make a tackle out of this wide receiver you recruited, instead of 
making Banker of the Year out of your Education Secretary, why don't 
you let him work on the education agenda? Why don't you let him focus 
on paying teachers more for teaching well and charter schools? If he 
runs out of things to do, to help parents, he could work on a tax 
system that is more favorable to parents with children; we used to have 
that in this country.
  He could work on encouraging perinatal care so every child has a 
medical home or helping nurses to help parents in their homes so 
children can grow up healthy or to make sure we do nothing to 
discourage home schooling for dedicated parents or helping adults learn 
English. There are lines in Nashville and in Boston and in other cities 
of adults who wish to learn English.
  He could encourage worksite daycare for parents who work and might 
take their child to work with them so they would be closer together. 
All that would be to help better parenting or to help create better 
teachers or better school leaders.
  The Pell Grant for Kids I mentioned for afterschool programs or 
higher standards in data collection, I know the Secretary is interested 
in that. Teach for America, that is an important part of new energy in 
our schools. The Secretary, instead of trying to be ``Banker of the 
Year,'' could take on the teachers colleges which have had a hard time 
spending their time on such things as how to give parents more choices, 
how to reward outstanding teaching, how to make charter schools 
successful, or how to help newly arrived children learn English. He 
could expand the UTeach Program started at the University of Texas and 
which our America COMPETES legislation put into national law. That 
needs to be implemented.
  Then, the summer academies, to help outstanding teachers and 
outstanding students of U.S. history so our children can grow up 
learning what it means to be an American. That would be a good thing to 
do.
  I look forward to working with this new Secretary of Education. I 
give the President credit. I give him an A-plus for his recruiting. I 
give him an A-plus for his agenda for rewarding outstanding teaching 
and a high grade for his focus on charter schools. I am grateful for 
that. I stand ready to work with him.
  I give him horrible grades for stopping the DC voucher program and 
another Government takeover, this one of student loans, and of taking 
money away from students who are getting loans to pay for scholarships 
for other students. That is not right. I think, in this day and age, 
when we are adding $1.8 trillion to the debt in 1 year, it is certainly 
no time to add $293 billion in entitlement spending to the budget over 
10 years. The whole administration ought to write on the blackboard: I 
will never, ever again add to entitlement spending.
  I look forward to working with the President and his outstanding new 
Secretary on that incomplete agenda. Many of the items I mentioned are 
things in which they are interested in as well and things which all of 
us in the Senate would want to do to help improve our system of 
elementary and secondary education, as well as our excellent colleges 
and universities.
  I thank the President, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in 
morning business on the Democratic time and that the Republican time be 
reserved.

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  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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