[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 33 (Thursday, February 26, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H1168-H1169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  ESEA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, like many of you, as a kid, I learned about 
Robin Hood. You know the story: he stole from the rich and gave to the 
poor.
  But today, I come to talk to you about something a little less 
storybook. In this case, my friends on the other side of the aisle are 
supporting a bill that robs from poor schools and gives to rich 
schools.
  The so-called Student Success Act that we are debating today takes 
money from schools with the greatest need and redistributes it to less 
needy schools in more affluent communities, hurting students and 
teachers in its wake. That is hardly the definition of success the bill 
claims to make.
  The Student Success Act would reauthorize education funds first 
signed into law in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson, who said that 
``full educational opportunity should be our first national goal.'' But 
the Student Success Act completely misses the mark of what LBJ was 
trying to accomplish.
  A former teacher, LBJ believed that equal access to education was the 
key to success, and that the vital education funding that the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act provided would help millions of 
``children with poor families overcome the greatest barrier to 
progress: poverty.''
  For 50 years, the ESEA has provided essential funding for school 
districts that serve low-income students as well as aid to State 
education agencies to help them improve the quality of elementary and 
secondary education around the country. But the robust progress that 
our schools made in the first 40 years after the passage of the ESEA 
has slowed over the last decade.
  Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, we have seen both sides 
acknowledge the problems that have resulted and commit to fixing them. 
But rather than fixing those problems and redoubling our commitment to 
equal access to education, the Student Success Act actually creates 
more problems, moving even further away from what we know is best for 
students, is best for teachers, and is best for our country.
  In its current form, H.R. 5 undermines the progress our Nation has 
made in providing a high quality education for all Americans, 
regardless of their ZIP Code. If we allow H.R. 5 to become law, school 
districts in Illinois and across the country will see their funding cut 
exponentially. Nationally, this will cut education funding by over half 
a billion dollars in 2016 alone.
  Chicago public schools, where over 60 percent of students are below 
the poverty level, will lose over $64 million in title I funding. That 
is a 23 percent cut in Federal education dollars at a time when Chicago 
schools need it the most.
  But wait, there is more. This bill eliminates qualification 
requirements for paraprofessionals, teachers' aides, and support staff, 
who provide vital assistance to classrooms across the country. It 
eliminates requirements to ensure quality professional development for 
teachers.
  It directs 1 out of every 10 dollars away from public schools and 
directs it to private companies. It allows students with disabilities 
to be taught

[[Page H1169]]

with separate, lower standards. The bill fails to ensure that students 
succeed in the classroom or after graduation by gutting accountability 
standards. These are standards that help ensure that students graduate 
from high school, which we know is so intimately linked to economic 
success.

                              {time}  1015

  This bill simply fails to provide our teachers and students with the 
resources they so desperately need to succeed.
  It is time to go back to the drawing board. It is time to actually 
focus on providing students, schools, and teachers the ability to be 
more successful with an ESEA that puts the focus where it belongs, on 
investing in education.
  We need an ESEA that returns to its original purpose of fighting 
poverty and ensuring equity, one that holds States and districts 
accountable for providing equitable resources, one that includes a 
system of supportive interventions for struggling schools and students, 
one that deals with the fact that two-thirds of the achievement gap is 
due to poverty--and does something about it--such as funding community 
schools, one that provides our teachers with the resources and support 
they need to help our young people succeed.
  We can do better, Mr. Speaker. We must do better. This is simply too 
important.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the so-called Student Success 
Act.

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