[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 105 (Wednesday, July 8, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4816-S4832]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              EVERY CHILD ACHIEVES ACT OF 2015--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
distinguished Senator from the State of Ohio, Mr. Brown, be recognized 
at the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Tragedy in South Carolina

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, before I make my remarks, I would like to 
commend the Presiding Officer and Senator Graham and the people of the 
great State of South Carolina on the way they have handled the terrible 
tragedy that took place in their State.
  I know time and again we have all heard on the floor of the Senate 
and in conversations we have had in private the amazing mercy and grace 
shown by the families of the victims of the terrible tragedy that took 
place, but equally as well the great way in which the elected officials 
in the State of South Carolina, led by the Presiding Officer and 
Senator Graham, have caused a terrible event to be a learning 
experience for all of America and an example for the way in which 
tragedy should be dealt with. I want the Presiding Officer to know how 
much I personally appreciate it, but I know I speak on behalf of all of 
the people of Georgia as well.
  Mr. President, I will speak briefly about two subjects.
  Mr. President, I am one of the two people left in the Congress who 
had something to do with No Child Left Behind. The other one is John 
Boehner, the Speaker of the House. I will never forget that night in 
2001, in the basement of the Capitol, after the conference committee 
finally came to an agreement on No Child Left Behind--us talking about 
how proud we were of what we had done but more how we knew that if we 
did not get it fixed by the end of the sixth year, it would go from 
being a positive change in education to a negative.
  It is now 13 years later. We have gone 7 years without a 
reauthorization. What became a good goal of meeting adequate yearly 
progress, setting standards for schools, and remediating schools that 
were in trouble has become a bill where 80 percent of the school 
systems in America have to ask for waivers to even operate. It is a 
bill that no longer is doing what it was intended to do for the 
education of our children.
  I commend Senator Alexander and Senator Murray for the unbelievably 
good work they have done to bring the new reform of the ESEA to the 
floor of the Senate today. I participated in all the hearings, as did 
the Presiding Officer. The Presiding Officer knows what I know: that we 
brought about compromise and common sense. We created a bill that is 
good for children, good for educators, and good for America.
  First and foremost, it gets us out of the national school board 
business, which is Chairman Alexander's favorite statement for the 
Department of Education.
  People forget that the U.S. Department of Education is not mentioned 
anywhere in the Constitution of the United States. It is mentioned in 
two places. One is in title I in the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s when 
we provided funds for free and reduced-price lunches for poor students 
to give them a leg up and second in 1978 when, in the Carter 
administration, we passed what was known as Public Law 94-192, which 
created special needs children benefits or what is known as the 
Individuals with Disabilities Act. Those are the only two places in 
statute that the Federal Government has a role. Senator Murray and 
Senator Alexander have seen to it that we recognize that fact.
  We enhance education where we are supposed to, but we turn it back 
over to the States, where it belongs and where it should be.
  Secondly, one of the big buzzwords in bad brand labels that have 
taken place in education is Common Core. Common Core is a lot of things 
to a lot of people, but most importantly for many people it is a 
Federal mandate of standards, it is a homogenization of standards, and 
it is a mandate the American people do not like.
  This bill ensures there will be no Common Core mandate by the Federal 
Government to the States and ensures local control of curriculum from 
beginning to end.

[[Page S4817]]

  Then, as I said a minute ago, to ensure that it gives local control, 
it does away with the waiver business and puts all local school boards 
and State boards of education in control of their education.
  On the question of testing, it does away with federally mandated 
tests and says to systems: You develop the test and the assessment 
mechanism yourself. We just want you to have standards that are made 
good for students to improve and grow their education. But we want to 
make sure that every student has the access they can to be tested well 
and improve. For example, we have done some creative things in this 
bill, such as give assisted technology funding capability out of title 
I to handicapped children in title I qualifications so they can use 
assisted technology to take exams they otherwise could not take. A 
student with cerebral palsy, Duchenne, or many other diseases does not 
have the coordination ability to take a paper-and-pencil test; yet they 
can be bright, they can be a genius. Because of technology that has 
been developed in America, assisted technology can allow them to take 
that exam given the disabilities they have. It is only appropriate we 
authorize the use of title I funds to do that.
  Most importantly, though, we keep the parent in control of their 
child's life by giving them the permission to opt out of any State test 
that is mandated where the State allows an opt out, which means the 
parent is in control of the testing, the State is in control of the 
assessment and the type of model that takes place, and the Federal 
Government is saying to the local schools and State boards of 
education: You take our children to the next level. We will assist you, 
but we are not going to govern you, we are not going to ruin you.
  I commend Senator Alexander and Senator Murray for bringing together 
a bipartisan approach to education reform that works. I thank the 
American Federation of Teachers, the national association of educators, 
the National Association of School Superintendents, and the National 
Governors Association. Every vested organization in education in the 
United States of America has endorsed this bill. They have because they 
know it is time for education to be enhanced and improved from the 
local level up. They know the benefits that may have come from No Child 
Left Behind have long since passed. We are now disaggregating, we are 
now measuring, and we are doing all the things we should have been 
doing all along. Let's take what is a good platform and make it even 
better to ensure that every child learns, every child progresses, and 
every child succeeds.


                             Military Cuts

  Mr. President, I want to make note of the announcement today by the 
Department of Defense on the dramatic cuts to our military--40,000 
people over the next 2 years.
  Mr. President, I am a pretty easygoing guy, but I am really angry. I 
am really mad. I know it is ironic to me--and it is one of the reasons 
I put a hold today on an appointment--but it is ironic, on the day we 
all learn by reading the newspaper, not by being advised by the 
Department of Defense, that we are going to lose 40,000 soldiers over 
the next 2 years--Georgia is going to lose 4,350 soldiers over the next 
2 years. Nobody did the courtesy of calling us. But on the day when 
they did not call us, they also send up for confirmation a legislative 
affairs official for the U.S. Department of Defense in the 
administration.
  I have a hold on that person for one simple reason: I want to meet 
with them and to see to it that if they in fact do get in control of 
congressional liaison and congressional affairs, they make sure we are 
the first to find out, not the last to find out.
  Our military is critically important to my State, as it is to the 
Presiding Officer's State. It is important that we know what the 
government's plans are, and it is important that we have a chance to 
have a say. I know the President does not like to use the legislative 
body very much. He would rather regulate and do Executive orders. But 
when you talk about our military and you talk about the investment in 
our military, every Member of this Senate, every Member of the House--
all of us ought to be together with all our oars in the water rowing in 
the same direction, not in misdirection.
  I want to make one note here. It is also ironic that last week the 
President for the first time went to the Pentagon to talk about the 
strategy in the Middle East, particularly with regard to ISIL. It took 
18 months to go talk about a situation that has grown from being an 
irritant to a crisis. When we left Iraq and left all the equipment that 
we had there and left the Iraqis to fend for themselves, we created a 
vacuum. And what happened? In came ISIL. And now they are in 16 
countries in the Levant and in the Middle East right now. We created a 
vacuum that they filled and are continuing to fill, and we are talking 
about reducing our manpower over the next 2 years to a point that we no 
longer can confront an enemy on two fronts; we are going to have a 
tough time doing it on one.
  A vulnerable and a weak American defense and military allow and 
encourage people who might have nefarious goals and dreams to take 
advantage of America's weakness. We should be very careful about 
diminishing our resources and our military to levels that are not in 
the best interest of the American people or their security.
  I want to ask the administration to be sure to give us information in 
advance rather than after the fact, to include us wherever possible in 
the decision, and to see to it that the Congress is once again a 
partner with the Commander in Chief and to see to it that we confront 
our enemies and have the manpower and the troops to do it.
  I, for one, have thought for a long time that we should be doing more 
to confront ISIL in the Middle East. I think that is being borne out 
every day. Hopefully the President is coming to that realization as 
well. But whatever we do, we should not be telling the world we have 
problems but we are going to cut some more.
  It is time we made an investment in the security and peace of our 
country and our military, and it is time we worked together--the 
President and Congress alike--to do what is right for America, its 
defense and its freedom and its liberty, which we just celebrated over 
the past weekend on July the 4th.
  Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time and defer to the 
Senator from Ohio.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I always appreciate the words of Senator 
Isakson, who was the cochair of the Ethics Committee, where I served 
with him, and now on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and I appreciate 
his work and Senator Blumenthal's work on one of the most important 
committees in this Senate.
  Mr. President, about a year and a half ago, on a cold January morning 
in Cleveland, where I live, at a Martin Luther King breakfast, I heard 
a speaker say: Your life expectancy is connected to your ZIP Code. 
Think about that. Whether you grow up in Columbus or Canton or 
Appalachia, whether you grow up in a city or a prosperous suburb or a 
low-income suburb or a small town or a rural area, so often your ZIP 
Code determines whether you have access to quality health care, to good 
education, to good jobs, and to the social support necessary to 
succeed. That is particularly true when it comes to education.
  The quality of our children's education should not be determined by 
their ZIP Code. Too often that is the case. Teachers and schools in far 
too many cases lack the resources necessary to ensure students can grow 
and succeed.
  Achievement gaps persist between economically disadvantaged students 
and their more advantaged peers. These gaps persist between Black 
students and White students, Latino students and White students. They 
persist between native and non-native English language speakers. They 
persist between students with disabilities and those without.
  These achievement gaps inevitably, predictably almost always lead to 
opportunity gaps. We know education is the surest path to success--we 
say that around here ad nauseam--regardless of where you come from. 
That is why closing these gaps is vital to ensure children--all 
children--have the opportunity to succeed.
  These achievement gaps are not caused by failings in our students. 
They are usually not caused by failings

[[Page S4818]]

with our teachers. They are the result of policies that leave schools 
with massive resource gaps.
  The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights conducted a 
comprehensive survey of schools across the Nation.
  Some of the results they found were appalling. Black, Latino, Native 
American, Native Alaskan students, as well as first-time English 
learners attend schools with much higher concentrations of 
inexperienced teachers. One in five high schools in this country lacks 
a school counselor. Around 20 percent of high schools do not offer more 
than one of the typical core courses for high school math and science, 
such as algebra I and II, geometry, biology, and chemistry.
  We cannot call our country ``the land of opportunity'' while we 
fail--we, policymakers, communities, leaders, activists--while we fail 
to provide too many of our children with well-equipped schools.
  The bipartisan opportunity dashboard of core resources amendment will 
help us close these gaps. It will strengthen transparency provisions in 
the Every Child Achieves Act so parents and taxpayers know how schools 
are performing on key measures of success--measures such as contact 
with effective teachers, access to advanced coursework, and 
availability of career and technical opportunities and counseling. It 
will ensure that States hold schools accountable when inequities exist.
  Reporting is an important and helpful tool but surely not enough. If 
this new data shows persistent disparities, States and school districts 
need to take action. This amendment requires States to develop a plan 
to ensure that resources reach districts that are most in need. States 
will have flexibility to design these plans in a way that works for 
local communities. The amendment does not tell States how to address 
inequities; it just requires States to identify those disparities and 
work with communities to fix them in whatever way works for those 
communities in that State.
  We must move beyond simply using test scores when we assess our 
schools. Tests are an important benchmark of success, but they are by 
no means the only one. To succeed in life and in school, students need 
access to dedicated literacy programs, to music and the arts, to 
advanced classes, to college and career counseling. We need to measure 
access to all of these opportunities, not only math and reading scores. 
Improving access to core resources will not close the achievement gap 
overnight, but it puts us on the right track.
  Our amendment has the support of teachers and civil rights 
organizations. I want to thank Senators Reed, Kirk, and Baldwin for 
their bipartisan help and support in getting this amendment to this 
place.
  I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment to ensure that all 
children, regardless of their ZIP Code, have access to the core 
resources needed for a quality education.
  Unfortunately, instead of strengthening our public education system, 
some of my colleagues want to, as we say around here, ``voucherize'' 
the public school system, privatize, spend resources elsewhere 
primarily. We have seen how so many of our public schools serving 
vulnerable populations are already in dire need of resources, yet 
vouchers would divert more of these resources away from public schools, 
reroute those resources to for-profit schools, in some cases, that 
simply are not accountable to the public.
  Vouchers do not provide a real choice for the majority of 
students. They may cover some--but usually not all--of the tuition of 
private schools, meaning the students who need help the most often get 
little choice at all. Study after study shows that private school 
vouchers don't improve student achievement. My State, by some rankings, 
is the next to worst--next to last in the country--in the quality of 
charter schools and the accountability of charter schools, in large 
part because there is a huge network of for-profit charter private 
schools in our State that simply have not served students that well.

  That is why I urge my colleagues to vote against any proposal to 
voucherize our schools. Instead, we need to strengthen our public 
school system, which educates the vast majority of our children. That 
is why schools across the country, especially those with high 
concentrations of poverty, need more funding--not less. For 50 years, 
the Federal Government has helped level the playing field for students 
by directing funds to schools in areas that lack resources. 
Unfortunately, some of my colleagues are trying to dismantle this 
system by taking away funding from high-priority schools to more 
affluent schools, a bit of a reverse Robin Hood.
  They call this proposal portability. But no matter what you call it 
and why you call it that, taking funding away from the schools that 
need it most and sending it to the schools that need it least is wrong. 
I will urge my colleagues to oppose this effort. In our country, all 
students should have access to a high-quality education, regardless of 
how much money their parents make, regardless of how much education 
their parents have, regardless of what ZIP Code they live in. We must 
invest Federal resources in schools and districts that need the most 
and where they can make the most difference.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I do want to compliment the HELP Committee 
and Senator Alexander, who chairs that committee, for the great work 
they have done in bringing the Every Child Achieves Act legislation to 
the floor of the Senate. This is long overdue. Anybody who meets with 
school administrators, teacher groups, parents or school boards 
realizes that people for a long time have been looking for us to 
reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and to make 
reforms that are important and that will return control and power to 
school districts, to parents, to teachers, and to administrators, 
rather than having it here centralized in Washington, DC.
  So I am pleased that we can have this debate. I am encouraged by the 
discussion that has already been held and by the willingness of both 
sides to work together to allow amendments to be considered. This is an 
important issue--how we educate our children, equipping them, preparing 
them for the challenges that will be ahead of them. There is no more 
important task that we have. So to the degree that this legislation 
makes it more possible for our kids to learn at the very fastest rate 
possible, this is something that this Senate ought to be focused on.
  I am hopeful that we will be able to get through the amendment 
process and be able to move this bill across the floor of the Senate 
and to the House, and hopefully, eventually, to the President's desk. 
But I think it is also an example of what happens when you get people 
who are willing to open the Senate process up and allow legislation to 
be considered.


                         Republican-Led Senate

  The Senate has now been under Republican control for a full 6 months. 
Those months have been some of the most productive that the Senate has 
seen in a long time. So far this year, the Republican-led Senate has 
passed more than 45 bipartisan bills, 22 of which have been signed into 
law by the President. Committees have been hard at work and have 
reported out more than 150 bills for floor consideration by the full 
Senate. In May, the Senate passed the first 10-year balanced budget 
resolution in over a decade--over a decade.
  One reason the Senate has been so productive is because the 
Republican majority has been committed to ensuring that all Senators, 
whatever their party, have the opportunity to have their voices heard. 
Under Democratic leadership, not only Republicans but many rank-and-
file Democrats were shut out of the legislative process in the Senate. 
As an example of that, the Democratic leadership allowed just 15 
amendment rollcall votes in all of 2014--an entire year. That is barely 
more than one amendment vote per month here in the Senate.
  Republicans, by contrast, had allowed 15 amendment rollcall votes by 
the time we had been in charge here for merely 3 weeks. In all, 
Republicans have allowed more than 136 amendment rollcall votes so far 
in 2015. That is not only more amendment rollcall votes than in all of 
last year, but it is more amendment rollcall votes than the Senate took 
in 2013 and 2014 combined. We still have 6 months to go in 2015.

[[Page S4819]]

                      Nuclear Agreement With Iran

  Mr. President, one of the most important bipartisan bills the Senate 
has passed this year is the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. This 
legislation, which was signed into law in May by the President, ensures 
that the American people, through their representatives in Congress, 
will have a voice in any final agreement with Iran. Specifically, the 
law requires the President to submit any agreement with Iran to 
Congress for review and prevents him from waiving sanctions on Iran 
until the congressional review period is complete.
  The bill also requires the President to evaluate Iran's compliance 
every 90 days. I am particularly glad that this legislation is in place 
because the negotiation process so far has given cause for deep 
concern. The primary purpose of any deal with Iran is to prevent Iran 
from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But the interim agreement the 
President unveiled in April casts serious doubt on the administration's 
determination to achieve that goal. The framework does not shut down a 
single nuclear facility in Iran. It does not destroy any single 
centrifuge in Iran. It does not stop research and development on Iran's 
centrifuges. It allows Iran to keep a substantial part of its existing 
stockpile of enriched uranium.
  It is not surprising that Members of both parties are concerned about 
this agreement. Again and again during the process, Secretary Kerry and 
the President have seemed to forget that the goal of negotiations is 
not a deal for its own sake but a deal that will actually stop Iran 
from developing a nuclear weapon. Administration negotiators have 
repeatedly sacrificed American priorities for the sake of getting an 
agreement.
  In the process, they have created a very real risk that the deal that 
finally emerges will be too weak to achieve its goal. A Washington Post 
editorial this week declared that any agreement with Iran that emerges 
from the current talks ``will be, at best, an unsatisfying and risky 
compromise.'' That is from the Washington Post. The editorial board 
continues by saying:

       Iran's emergence as a threshold nuclear power, with the 
     ability to produce a weapon quickly, will not be prevented; 
     it will be postponed by 10 to 15 years. In exchange, Tehran 
     will reap hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief 
     it can use to revive its economy and fund the wars it is 
     waging around the Middle East.

  Again, that is a quote from the editorial in the Washington Post from 
yesterday. When Iran recently failed to comply with the provision of 
the interim nuclear agreement currently in place, the Obama 
administration, in the words of the Post editorial, ``chose to quietly 
accept it'' and even ``rush to Iran's defense.''
  Again that is the quote from the Washington Post editorial. This is 
an example of what the Post aptly describes as ``a White House 
proclivity to respond to questions about Iran's performance by 
attacking those who raise them.''
  Well that is a deeply troubling response on the part of the White 
House, and it raises doubts about the President's commitment to 
achieving an agreement that will shut down Iran's nuclear program. The 
stakes could not be higher on this agreement. At issue is whether a 
tyrannical, oppressive regime that backs terrorists, has killed 
American soldiers, and has announced its intention of wiping Israel off 
the map will get access to the most apocalyptic weapons known to man.
  Even as negotiations continue, Iran continues to advance its nuclear 
program. If Iran continues its research and development into more 
advanced centrifuges, the breakout period--the time needed to produce 
enough nuclear material for a bomb--could be weeks--weeks instead of 
months or years. If we fail to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear 
weapon, we will not only be facing a nuclear-armed Iran; we will be 
facing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. That is what is at 
stake. Every Member of Congress obviously would like to see the 
President successfully conclude a deal to prevent Iran from developing 
a nuclear weapon. But the President needs to remember that a deal is 
only acceptable if it achieves that goal. We have heard the President 
say that he will walk away from a bad deal. But each time we reach a 
deadline, that deadline is extended.
  As negotiations continue, it is essential that negotiators push for a 
strong final deal that includes rigorous inspection of Iranian sites 
and full disclosure of all Iranian weapons research to date. If the 
administration cannot secure a sufficiently strong deal, then it should 
step back from the negotiation table and reimpose the sanctions that 
were so successful in driving Iran to the table in the first place. No 
deal is better than a bad deal that will strengthen Iran's position in 
the Middle East and pave the way for the development of a nuclear 
weapon.
  For a deal to be acceptable to the American people, it must be 
verifiable, it must be enforceable, and it must be accountable. It also 
needs to promote stability and security in the Middle East and around 
the world. Any deal that does not reach that threshold is a bad deal. I 
hope the President will listen to the American people and reject any 
agreement that falls short of that goal.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I am offering an amendment to the 
Every Child Achieves Act that would allow $2,100 Federal scholarships 
to follow 11 million low-income children to any public or private 
accredited school of their parents' choice. This is a real answer to 
inequality in America, giving more children more opportunity to attend 
a better school.
  The Scholarships for Kids Act will cost $24 billion a year, paid for 
by redirecting 41 percent of the dollars now directly spent on Federal 
K-through-12 education programs. Often those dollars are diverted to 
wealthier schools. Scholarships for Kids would benefit only children of 
families that fit the Federal definition of poverty, which is about 
one-fifth of all school children--about 11 million a year.
  Allowing Federal dollars to follow students has been a successful 
strategy in American education for over 70 years. Last year, $31 
billion in Federal Pell grants, and $100 billion in loans followed 
students to public and private colleges. Since the GI bill began in 
1944, these vouchers have helped create a marketplace of 6,000 
autonomous higher education institutions, the best system of higher 
education in the world.
  Our elementary and secondary education system is not performing as if 
it were the best in the world. U.S. 15-year-olds rank 28th in science 
and 36th in math. I believe one reason for this is that while more than 
93 percent of Federal dollars spent for a higher education follows 
students to colleges of their choice, Federal dollars do not 
automatically follow K-through-12th-grade students to schools of their 
choice. Instead, that money is sent directly to schools. Local 
government monopolies run most schools and tell most students which 
schools to attend. There is little choice and no K-through-12 
marketplace as there is in higher education.

  Former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin often wrote that 
American creativity is flourished during ``fertile verges,'' times when 
citizens became more self-aware and creative.
  In his book ``Breakout,'' Newt Gingrich argues that society is on the 
edge of such an era and cites computer handbook writer Tim O'Reilly's 
suggestion for how the Internet could transform government. ``The best 
way for government to operate,'' Mr. O'Reilly says, ``is to figure out 
what kinds of things are enablers of society and make investments in 
those things. The same way that Apple figured out, `if we turn the 
iPhone into a platform, outside developers would bring hundreds of 
thousands of applications to the table.' ''
  Already, 19 States have begun a variety of innovative programs 
supporting private school choice. Private organizations supplement 
those efforts. Allowing $2,100 Federal scholarships to follow 11 
million children would enable other school choice innovations in the 
same way developers rushed to provide applications for the iPhone 
platform.

[[Page S4820]]

  Senator Tim Scott, the Presiding Officer today, has proposed the 
CHOICE Act, allowing $11 billion other Federal dollars--dollars the 
Federal Government now spends through the program for children with 
disabilities--to follow those 6 million children to the schools their 
parents believe provide the best services. A student who is both low 
income and has a disability could benefit under both of the programs, 
especially when taken together with Senator Scott's proposal, 
Scholarships for Kids constitutes the most ambitious proposal ever to 
use existing Federal dollars to enable States to expand school choice.
  Under Scholarships for Kids, States would still govern pupil 
assignment, deciding, for example, whether parents could choose private 
schools. Schools chosen would have to be accredited. Federal civil 
rights rules would apply. The proposal does not affect the school lunch 
program. So Congress can assess the effectiveness of this new tool for 
innovation, there is an independent evaluation after 5 years.
  In the late 1960s, Ted Sizer, then Harvard University's education 
dean, suggested a $5,000 scholarship in his Poor Children's Bill of 
Rights. That is what he called it. In 1992, when I was the U.S. 
Education Secretary, President George H.W. Bush proposed a GI Bill for 
Kids, a half-billion-dollar Federal pilot program for States creating 
school choice opportunities. Yet despite its success in higher 
education, ``voucher'' remains a bad word among most of the K-through-
12 education establishment, and the idea hasn't spread rapidly.
  Equal opportunity in America should mean that everyone has the same 
starting line. There would be no better way to help children move up 
from the back of the line than by allowing States to use Federal 
dollars to create 11 million new opportunities to choose a better 
school.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am here to discuss the Every Child 
Achieves Act. I think it is significant that for the first time in more 
than a decade, the Senate is considering legislation to make 
significant changes to our Nation's elementary and secondary education 
system, and this conversation is long overdue.
  As a former teacher, I appreciate the challenges our schools have, 
and I am very much looking forward to the debate ahead. I want to 
applaud Senators Alexander and Murray, the chair and ranking member of 
the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, for reaching a 
compromise bill that passed out of their committee with strong 
unanimous bipartisan support.
  Today, I want to focus on some of the provisions included in this 
bill that have to do with STEM education--science, technology, 
engineering, and math. This is an issue I have been working on for a 
number of years--really since I was Governor in the late 1990s in New 
Hampshire. We know the most critical jobs needed to compete in the 
global economy are in the STEM fields, but data consistently shows our 
American students are falling further and further behind in these 
subjects.
  One of the other challenges is that we have an enormous gender gap in 
employment in these fields. Forty-eight percent of the workforce in 
this country are women. Yet only 24 percent of the jobs in STEM fields 
are held by women.
  I had the opportunity last night to cohost a screening in the Capitol 
of an important new documentary called ``Code: Debugging the Gender 
Gap.'' This documentary tells a very powerful story about the lack of 
diversity in the technology industry, outlining the resulting cost to 
our society, and it explores strategies that would solve the problem.

  Last night we had more than 150 people in attendance at the 
screening, which was cohosted by Representative Susan Davis from 
California. The creators of the movie were there, and U.S. Chief 
Technology Officer Megan Smith. What followed the documentary was even 
more impressive, and that was a lengthy and very passionate discussion 
about how much work we have to do on this front.
  We need to give the next generation a stronger educational foundation 
in these topics, and, most important, we need to get them engaged and 
excited to be working in STEM fields. This effort is going to require 
student engagement inside and outside the classroom. It is critical our 
schools have the resources to offer STEM opportunities during the 
schoolday. But of course as most of us remember from our childhood, it 
is sometimes what happens outside the classroom that is even more 
important than what happens inside the classroom if we are going to get 
kids excited about learning.
  Afterschool programs allow students opportunities for more 
individualized instruction, for innovative experiences, and for 
opportunities to build their leadership skills. Afterschool programs 
can be especially successful in inspiring interest in groups that are 
traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields, such as young women, 
students of color, and students from low-income backgrounds.
  So I especially appreciate Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member 
Murray for working with me to include language from my Supporting 
Afterschool STEM Act, which is in the underlying bill and allows 
Federal grants to be used to support STEM-related afterschool 
activities.
  This language will expand student access to high-quality, afterschool 
programs in STEM subjects. It will also promote mentorship 
opportunities and the building of partnerships with researchers and 
other professionals in these fields.
  Again, one of the things we know about helping kids to stay in 
school, getting them excited, is that if they have a mentor, if they 
have someone who is really interested in what is going on in their 
lives, who is supporting them, then they are much more likely to be 
successful. These programs will give students firsthand experience to 
see what careers in the STEM subjects can look like.
  Now, the Every Child Achieves Act also includes language based on a 
second STEM-related bill that I first introduced when I got to the 
Senate back in 2009--the Innovation Inspiration School Grant Program. 
This language would authorize Federal STEM education grants to support 
the participation of low-income students in related competitive 
extracurricular activities, such as robotics competition.
  I am particularly excited about this because in New Hampshire, 
inventor Dean Kamen--also the inventor of the insulin pump and the 
Segway--founded a fantastic program called FIRST Robotics Competition. 
It is now wildly successful. Nationwide, we have nearly 100,000 high 
school students who compete. It is sort of an ``Einstein meets Michael 
Jordan'' kind of competition. Students have just 6 weeks to work in a 
team to design, construct, and program robots, and then they enter 
their robots in regional and championship competitions.
  It is great fun to attend these events because kids are so excited 
about working with these robots and about the STEM subjects. They get 
excited about engineering, about science, about math, and technology, 
and you can see that in the students as they are building these robots. 
They are excited about accomplishing their goals, about being creative. 
When there are last-minute problems with the robots, they have to work 
to adjust. But most of all, whether or not they win, you can see the 
pride they feel for themselves, for their teammates that comes from 
successfully accomplishing their task: building that robot and being 
successful in the competition.
  You can't replicate this kind of experience in a classroom. So I am 
very pleased that support for programs such as FIRST are now included 
in the bill we are considering on the Senate floor. These are 
provisions that I think will take very important strides toward 
inspiring future generations of scientists and engineers, of 
mathematicians and experts dealing with technology.
  Again, I thank Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray for their 
work on these issues and for producing

[[Page S4821]]

a bill we are now debating on the floor that has such strong bipartisan 
support.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from New 
Hampshire for her remarks and thank her especially for her 
contributions to the legislation and her persistent support for STEM 
education. She has been a champion. As a former Governor, she is a 
great help as we seek to remind ourselves that the path to real 
accountability, higher standards, and better teaching really runs 
through the States and local governments, where the creativity is and 
where people are closer to the children.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I rise to speak about my amendment No. 
2110.
  As a fifth-generation Montanan and a product of Montana public 
schools and because my wife is an elementary school teacher and I am 
the father of four children, and one of my children has a degree in 
elementary education as well, I truly understand how important a first-
rate education is to our kids' future.
  As I meet with parents and educators across Montana, they frequently 
share concerns about the one-size-fits-all student performance and 
teacher qualification metrics that currently dictate Federal funding as 
part of No Child Left Behind. While well-intended, many of these 
metrics have proven difficult for schools--and particularly schools in 
rural areas--to achieve. The Federal funding tied to these policies has 
all too often forced States and school districts to adopt policies that 
may not best fit the students' and communities' unique needs.
  As the Senate debates the Every Child Achieves Act to reform our 
Nation's education policies, one of my priorities will be fighting to 
increase local control over academic standards and education policies 
and working to push back against burdensome Federal regulations that 
often place our schools in a straitjacket.
  For example, the U.S. Department of Education has incentivized States 
to adopt common core standards by offering exemptions from No Child 
Left Behind regulations and making extra Federal education funds 
accessible through programs such as Race to the Top to States that 
adopt Common Core. Like many Montanans, I am deeply concerned that the 
Federal Government's obvious efforts to back States into adopting such 
programs is an inappropriate interference in educational policy 
decisions that should be made by States, parents, teachers, and local 
school boards because strengthening our education system is vitally 
important to our country's future.
  If we are serious about wanting to make future generations as 
fortunate as ours, it is critical that we prepare our children to excel 
in a globally competitive economy. Our children should receive a well-
rounded education that focuses on core subjects, such as reading, 
writing, science, and math, as well as technical and vocational 
disciplines and training in the arts.
  A wealth of social data informs us that individuals who do not 
receive a quality education are disproportionately prone to have low 
incomes, suffer from poverty, and land in prison. It is clear that the 
Federal Government's one-size-fits-none approach simply isn't working.
  By increasing local control of our schools and lessening the 
influence of Washington bureaucrats, we can provide States with the 
flexibility needed to meet the unique needs of our students and the 
unique needs of our States as well as our communities.
  Just last year, the New York Times did an assessment of the ``health 
and wealth'' of every county in the Nation--every county. We might 
expect folks living in Silicon Valley to be doing fairly well or 
perhaps see the suburbs of New York City thriving. What shocked me was 
seeing that 6 of the Nation's top 10 wealthiest counties surround 
Washington, DC. This sends a pretty clear message about where 
Washington's priorities really are.
  During the recession, while millions of Americans were struggling to 
make ends meet amidst layoffs and economic instability, Washington, DC, 
thrived. The Federal Government poured millions of dollars into new 
Federal buildings, and salaries kept growing. The average Federal 
bureaucrat in the Department of Education in Washington, DC, makes 
$107,000 a year.
  It is time we stopped building bureaucratic DC kingdoms and returned 
those dollars to the classrooms. That is why I am asking for support of 
the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success--or A-PLUS--amendment to 
the Every Child Achieves Act. This measure will help expand local 
control of our schools and return Federal education dollars to where 
they belong--closer to the classroom. By shifting control back to the 
States, individual and effective solutions can be created to address 
the multitude of unique challenges facing schools across the country. 
Through these laboratories of democracy, Americans can watch and learn 
how students can benefit when innovative reforms are implemented at the 
local level.
  My amendment would give States greater flexibility in allocating 
Federal education funding and ensuring academic achievement in their 
schools. With A-PLUS, States would be freed from Washington's 
unworkable teacher standards, States would be freed from Washington-
knows-best performance metrics, and States would be freed from 
Washington's failed testing requirements. Should this amendment be 
adopted, States would need to adhere to all civil rights laws. They 
have to work toward advancing educational opportunities for 
disadvantaged children as well, of course.
  States would be held accountable by parents and teachers, though, 
because a bright light would shine directly on the decisions made by 
State capitals and local school districts. With freedom from Federal 
mandates come more responsibility, more transparency, and more 
accountability on the issues.
  It would also reduce the administrative and compliance burdens on 
State and local education agencies and ensure greater public 
transparency in student academic achievement and the use of Federal 
education funds.
  Increasing educational opportunities in Montana and across the 
country isn't going to happen through Federal mandates or these one-
size-fits-nobody regulations. We need to empower our States, our local 
school boards, our teachers, and our parents to work together to 
develop solutions that best fit our kids' unique needs. As a father of 
four--and every parent knows this--I know that each one of my children 
is very unique. And that is precisely what my A-PLUS amendment does.
  Washington is the problem. We are ground zero. The problem is here in 
Washington, DC, and we have the solutions in Montana and in our States 
across the country.
  The A-PLUS amendment goes a long way toward returning the 
responsibility for our kids' education closer to home and reduces the 
influence of the Federal Government over our classrooms.
  I thank Senators Grassley, Cruz, Vitter, Johnson, Lee, Lankford, 
Blunt, Crapo, Rubio, and Gardner for cosponsoring my A-PLUS amendment. 
I ask my other Senate colleagues to join us in empowering our schools 
to serve their students, not a bunch of DC bureaucrats, and to support 
this important amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.


                         Distribution of Wealth

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as someone who travels around this 
country, I am always amazed by the huge disconnect that exists between 
what we do here in Congress and what the American people want us to do. 
The simple truth, as poll after poll has shown, is that Congress is way 
out of touch as to where the American people are. Let me give a few 
examples before I get to the thrust of my remarks.
  Many of my Republican colleagues are still talking about cutting 
Social Security--a disastrous idea--but according to a recent NBC News/
Wall Street Journal poll, by a 3-to-1 margin the American people want 
us to expand Social Security benefits, not cut them. How out of touch 
can one be?
  About 2 weeks ago, the same poll told us that while there is 
virtually no Republican in the Senate who is prepared to support 
raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, what the American people 
want by a pretty solid majority

[[Page S4822]]

is not to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour but to raise the 
minimum wage to $15 an hour--something that is occurring now in Los 
Angeles, Seattle, and other places around the country.
  Tragically, this Congress is way out of touch with the American 
people on issue after issue, and it is high time we started to get our 
act together and to respond to the needs--the pressing needs--of the 
American people.
  Between 1985 and 2013, there was a huge redistribution of wealth in 
America. I know my Republican colleagues get very nervous when people 
talk about wealth distribution. Well, guess what, over the last 30 
years we have had a huge degree of distribution of wealth in America. 
Unfortunately, that redistribution went in the wrong direction. That 
redistribution, to the tune of trillions of dollars, went from the 
pockets of the middle-class and working families of our country into 
the hands of the top one-tenth of 1 percent. So if we want to 
understand economics in the last 30 years, the middle class shrank and 
one-tenth of 1 percent doubled the percentage of wealth they own.
  Today the United States has more wealth and income inequality than 
any other major industrialized country on Earth. The top one-tenth of 1 
percent now owns 22 percent of all the wealth in this country, while 
the bottom 90 percent owns 22.8 percent. In other words, the top one-
tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, 
and the trend is toward more and more wealth and income inequality. 
That is the economic reality we are looking at now.
  But let me talk for a moment about another reality which saddens me 
very much and which we cannot continue to ignore. We are the wealthiest 
country in the history of the world. Yet we have the highest rate of 
childhood poverty of any major industrialized nation on Earth, with 
almost 20 percent of our kids living in poverty.

  In recent years we have seen a proliferation of millionaires and 
billionaires in this country. Yet over 50 percent of the children in 
our public schools are so low-income that they are eligible for the 
free or reduced-price School Lunch Program.
  As a result of the collapse of the American middle class over the 
last 40 years, men and women in this country are working longer and 
longer hours in order to cobble together enough income to sustain their 
families. Yet while over 85 percent of male workers are working more 
than 40 hours a week and over 66 percent of working women are working 
more than 40 hours a week, we have a dysfunctional childcare system 
which denies millions of working families the ability to secure high-
quality and affordable childcare.
  Last week I spoke to a woman who lives right here in Washington, DC, 
and she told me that to get her 1-year-old child into quality daycare 
here in the Nation's Capital, she and her husband are spending close to 
$30,000 a year for one child. DC childcare is probably more expensive 
than other parts of the country, but millions of parents are struggling 
with childcare bills of $15,000, $20,000 or $25,000 a year when their 
income is $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000 a year. If you have two young 
kids, I don't know how you manage.
  The truth of the matter is that while working families are 
desperately trying to find quality childcare at an affordable cost, we 
are turning our backs on those families. The result is that millions of 
children in this country are not receiving the quality childcare or 
early education they need when the psychologists tell us that ages 0 to 
4 are the most important years of a human being's life in terms of 
intellectual and emotional development.
  What sense is it that we ignore the needs of millions of working 
families and their children? What sense is it to tell working moms and 
dads that they cannot get the quality and affordable childcare they 
need? What sense is it to send many children into kindergarten and 
first grade already far, far behind where they should be intellectually 
because they had inadequate childcare?
  This is not what a great country is supposed to be about. When we 
talk about the future of America, we cannot be talking about turning 
our backs on the children of this country. That is why we should be 
doing in this country what nations all over the world have done, and 
that is to invest in our kids and move toward a universal pre-K 
education system for all of our children.
  I am glad that the Elementary and Secondary Educating Act is on the 
floor right now for debate. I want to thank Senator Murray and Senator 
Alexander for their hard work on this important bill. In Vermont and 
around this country--and I have had town meetings on this issue in 
Vermont where hundreds of teachers, parents, and kids come out--they 
understand that No Child Left Behind has failed, and what we are doing 
now begins to address that failure and move us in a very different 
direction.
  When we talk about the needs of young people--something we very 
rarely do--we should understand that it is not just that we have a 
dysfunctional childcare and pre-K system which must be significantly 
improved, it is not just that No Child Left Behind must be reformed, 
and it is not just that a college education is now unaffordable for 
millions of working-class and low-income families. All of those are 
terribly important issues that we must address. But I hope very much 
there is another issue that we will finally start to pay attention to. 
This country, this Senate, and the House of Representatives must come 
to grips with the fact that today in America we have a horrendous, 
horrendous level of youth unemployment in this country. This is an 
issue that gets virtually no discussion at all. This is an issue of 
crisis proportions that we are not addressing. For the future of this 
country, not to mention for the future lives of millions of our young 
people, we cannot continue to sweep the issue of youth unemployment 
under the rug.
  Last month the Economic Policy Institute released a new study about 
the level of youth unemployment in this country. What they found should 
concern every Member of the Congress and, in fact, every person in our 
country. The Economic Policy Institute analyzed census data on 
unemployment among young people who are jobless--who have no jobs--
those who are working part time when they want to work full time, and 
those who have given up looking for work altogether. This is what they 
found. From April 2014 to March 2015--a 1-year period--the average real 
unemployment rate for young, White high school graduates between the 
ages of 17 and 20 was 33.8 percent. The jobless rate for Hispanics in 
the same age group was 36.1 percent. Unbelievably, the average real 
unemployment rate for Black high school graduates and those who dropped 
out of high school was 51.3 percent.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the EPI's 
findings.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 [From the Working Economics Blog, Economic Policy Institute, June 8, 
                                 2015]

     Young Black High School Grads Face Astonishing Underemployment

                           (By Alyssa Davis)

       Last week, I wrote about how high school graduates will 
     face significant economic challenges when they graduate this 
     spring. High school graduates almost always experience higher 
     levels of unemployment and lower wages than their 
     counterparts with a college degree, and their labor market 
     difficulties were particularly exacerbated by the Great 
     Recession. Despite officially ending in June 2009, the 
     recession left millions unemployed for prolonged spells, with 
     recent workforce entrants such as young high school grads 
     being particularly vulnerable.
       Underemployment is one of the major problems that young 
     workers currently face. Approximately 19.5 percent of young 
     high school graduates (those ages 17-20) are unemployed and 
     about 37.0 percent are underemployed. For young college 
     graduates (those ages 21-24) the unemployment rate is 7.2 
     percent and the underemployment rate is 14.9 percent. Our 
     measure of underemployment is the U-6 measure from the BLS, 
     which includes not only unemployed workers but also those who 
     are part-time for economic reasons and those who are 
     marginally attached to the labor force.
       When we look at the underemployment data by race, we often 
     see an even worse situation. As shown in the charts below, 
     23.0 percent of young black college graduates are currently 
     underemployed, compared with 22.4 percent of young Hispanic 
     college grads and 12.9 percent of white college grads. And as 
     elevated as these rates are, the picture is bleakest for 
     young high school graduates, who are majority of young 
     workers.
       51.3 percent of young black high school graduates are 
     underemployed, compared

[[Page S4823]]

     with 36.1 percent of young Hispanic high school grads and 
     33.8 percent of white high school grads. This means a 
     significant share of young high school graduates in all 
     racial groups either want a job or have a job that does not 
     provide the hours they need. A majority of young black high 
     school graduates wish they could work more but can't because 
     of weak job opportunities.
       While there has been real progress in healing the damage 
     inflicted on the labor market by the Great Recession, these 
     underemployment rates among young high school graduates 
     remain quite elevated relative to pre-recession levels. In 
     order to correct these high rates, we need to prioritize low 
     rates of unemployment and boost aggregate demand for workers. 
     Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative John 
     Conyers introduced the Employ Young Americans Now Act to help 
     young Americans find pathways to employment. This bill is a 
     necessary first step to putting young high school graduates 
     back to work and to put our economy on the road to full 
     employment.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, today in our country over 5\1/2\ million 
young people have either dropped out of high school or have graduated 
high school and do not have jobs. It is no great secret to anyone that 
without work, without education, and without hope people get into 
trouble. They get into destructive activity or self-destructive 
activity. The result of all of that is that, tragically, here in the 
United States today we have more people in jail than any other country 
on Earth. We have more people in jail than in the authoritarian 
Communist country of China, with a population over three times our 
population. Today the United States represents 4 percent of the world's 
population. Yet we have 22 percent of the world's prisoners. 
Incredibly, over 3 percent of our country's population is under some 
form of correctional control. According to the NAACP, from 1980 to 
2012, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled from 
roughly 500,000 to over 2 million people.
  A study published in the journal Crime & Delinquency found--this is 
really quite unbelievable and quite tragic--that almost half of Black 
males in the United States are arrested by the age of 23. If current 
trends continue, one in four Black males born today can expect to spend 
time in prison during his lifetime. This is an unspeakable tragedy. It 
is something we cannot continue to ignore. But this crisis is not just 
the destruction of human life. It is also very, very costly to the 
taxpayers of our country. Locking people up in jail is a very expensive 
proposition.
  In America we now spend nearly $200 billion on public safety, 
including $70 billion a year on correctional facilities. It is beyond 
comprehension that we as a nation have not focused attention on the 
fact that millions of young people are unable to find work and begin 
their adult lives in a productive way. We cannot continue to turn our 
backs on this national tragedy.
  Let me be very clear. I think I speak for the vast majority of people 
in this country and I hope the majority of Members in the Senate. It 
makes a lot more sense for us to be investing in jobs and in education 
than to be spending billions of dollars on jails and incarceration. We 
have to start creating the situation where our kids can leave school 
and lead productive lives and not have them arrested and incarcerated.
  I have introduced legislation along with Representative John Conyers 
in the House that would provide $5.5 billion in immediate funding to 
States and cities throughout this country to employ 1 million young 
Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 and to provide job training 
opportunities to young adults.
  Some people may say $5.5 billion is a lot of money. It is. But it is 
a lot less expensive to provide jobs and education to our young people 
than to lock them up and to destroy their lives.
  As we debate ESEA--again, I want to thank Senator Murray and Senator 
Alexander for their important work--I want this issue to be on the 
table. I intend to offer an amendment that says that in this country we 
are going to put our young people to work and we are going to get them 
an education rather than lock them up.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, since our Nation's founding, the idea of 
a strong public education for every child has been part of the fabric 
of America. In the late 1770s, Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill in 
Virginia that outlined his plan for public schooling. At the time he 
wrote: ``By far the most important bill in our whole code is that for 
the diffusion of knowledge among the people.''
  Jefferson knew that educating children would strengthen our country. 
That is still true today. Today a good education can provide a ticket 
to the middle class. When all students have the chance to learn, we 
strengthen our future workforce and our economy. But nearly everyone 
today agrees that the current education law--No Child Left Behind--is 
badly broken.
  The bipartisan bill we are debating on the floor today--the Every 
Child Achieves Act--is a strong step in the right direction to finally 
fix that law, and it will help continue our Nation's tradition of 
making sure all students have access to a quality public education.
  Some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are interested 
in voucherizing the public school system. Instead of investing in our 
public school system, they want to send Federal resources to private 
schools. That would be a major step backward. Vouchers undermine the 
basic goals of public education by allowing funding that is designated 
for our most at-risk students to be rerouted to private schools. I urge 
my colleagues to oppose any attempt to use Federal education funds for 
private school vouchers.
  I strongly oppose vouchers for several reasons. For one, vouchers 
divert much-needed resources away from our public schools and reroute 
them to private and religious schools. Today public schools across our 
country, and particularly those schools with high concentrations of 
students in poverty, need more funding, not less. We can't afford to 
send scarce Federal resources away from our public schools to benefit 
private schools.
  Secondly, vouchers would send Federal taxpayer dollars to private 
schools that are in no way accountable to the public. Proposals to 
create vouchers do not require private schools to adopt strong academic 
standards or provide students with disabilities the same services they 
have in public schools. Unlike public schools, private schools do not 
need to serve all of our students. There is no guarantee that private 
schools would make sure students have access to State-licensed 
teachers, and they would not administer the same assessments as public 
schools, which would diminish our accountability of Federal tax 
dollars.
  I can tell you, as a former school board member, when people in my 
community were unhappy with how their taxpayer dollars were spent, they 
would find me in the grocery store, at the school board meeting or call 
me at home at night. But if Federal tax dollars go to private schools, 
there is no elected official that a public citizen can call and say: I 
don't like how you are spending our tax dollars, and I want you to look 
at this.
  Many of our colleagues today demand evidence and accountability in 
other programs. I hope they do it in education as well. Some of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to argue that vouchers 
create options for students and families. Well, that might be true for 
students of more affluent families, but vouchers don't provide a real 
choice for the overwhelming majority of students. Vouchers might cover 
some but usually not all of the tuition of a private school. In some 
cases a voucher would make just a small dent in the full cost of a 
private school. That would enable students from more affluent families 
the ability to afford private schools because they personally have the 
means to make up the difference. But students from low-income 
backgrounds would still be priced out of that choice.
  Vouchers only provide the illusion of choice to students from low-
income backgrounds, and it is those low-income students who ultimately 
lose out when funds are siphoned away from the public schools that they 
attend. Perhaps the most important reason I oppose private-school 
vouchers is because they do not improve student achievement. Study 
after study has shown that vouchers do not pay out for students or for 
taxpayers.
  In 2012 researchers compared students enrolled in Milwaukee's voucher 
program compared with students in

[[Page S4824]]

Milwaukee's public schools. The researchers found little evidence that 
the voucher program increased the achievement of participating 
students.
  The District of Columbia's voucher program has gone through four 
congressionally mandated studies from the Department of Education. Each 
of those studies concluded that the program did not significantly 
improve reading or math achievement, and that program came at the cost 
of funding that could have helped improve local public schools.
  There are a number of reasons to oppose any amendment that redirects 
Federal funds to private schools. Public schools already have to deal 
with scarce Federal resources. This would exasperate the problem. 
Private schools would not be accountable for the Federal taxpayer 
dollars they get. Vouchers do very little to expand choices for low-
income families. Finally, as I said, studies have shown that vouchers 
do not increase student achievement.
  An amendment to allow public funds--taxpayer dollars--to flow to 
private schools would be a step in the wrong direction. I strongly urge 
our colleagues to oppose any amendment that works to voucherize any of 
our Federal dollars.
  I believe that real improvement in student achievement comes when our 
teachers and school leaders have the resources they need to help our 
students succeed. We have to work together to strengthen our public 
school system, not dismantle it.
  I hope we can continue our bipartisan work together--we have done 
well--to help ensure all students have access to a quality public 
education regardless of where they live or how they learn or how much 
money they make. That should be our mission.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about an 
amendment that I am offering with Senator Kirk, Senator Brown, and 
Senator Baldwin, which would establish an accountability mechanism for 
student access to the core resources necessary for learning.
  First, I wish to thank Senators Kirk, Brown, Baldwin, and others for 
helping with this very important matter.
  More than 60 years after the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of 
Education, one of the greatest challenges still facing this Nation is 
stemming the tide of rising inequality. We have seen the rich--in fact, 
really the very rich--get richer while middle-class and low-income 
families have lost ground. We see disparities in opportunities starting 
at birth and growing over a lifetime. With more than one in five 
school-age children living in families in poverty and roughly half of 
our public school population eligible for free or reduced-priced 
lunches because they come from low-income families, we cannot afford 
nor should we tolerate a public education system that fails to provide 
the resources and opportunities for the children who need them the 
most.
  When President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Act into law 50 years ago, he described education as the ``only valid 
passport from poverty.'' He noted:

       From our very beginnings as a nation, we have felt a fierce 
     commitment to the ideal of education for everyone. It fixed 
     itself into our democratic creed.

  I believe this amendment will help us stay true to that ideal. There 
are other amendments we will consider that, frankly, will do just the 
opposite, such as those that would divert scarce resources from public 
schools to private schools through vouchers or so-called portability 
amendments that Senator Murray so eloquently spoke about. Rather than 
transferring resources away from our public education system, the 
passport to opportunity in our country, we should be doing more to 
ensure they have adequate resources. We have to do work to achieve real 
equity in educational opportunity.
  Survey data from the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights 
showed troubling disparities, such as the fact that Black, Latino, 
American Indian, Native Alaskan students, and English learners attend 
schools with higher concentrations of inexperienced teachers. In fact, 
nationwide one in five high schools lacks a school counselor, and 
between 10 and 25 percent of high schools across the Nation do not 
offer more than one of the core courses in the typical sequence of high 
school math and science, such as algebra I and II, geometry, biology, 
and chemistry. Their curricula are very limited, and, indeed, perhaps 
inadequate.
  The Education Law Center reports that a majority of States have 
unfair funding systems with flat or regressive funding distribution. 
For these reasons, I introduced the Core Opportunity Resources for 
Equity and Excellence Act, or the CORE Act. Senators Brown and Baldwin 
were my cosponsors. This bill would establish an accountability 
mechanism for resource equity. This was the first education bill 
introduced in this Congress, and we are very proud of that.
  Holding our educational system accountable for both results and 
resources is paramount. The No Child Left Behind Act looked at results, 
outcomes, testing, and measurement. What it failed to grasp is that we 
need resources also. We need the inputs. The Every Child Achieves Act, 
the legislation we are discussing today, includes important 
transparency on resource equity. I thank Senators Alexander and Murray 
for that. It requires States to report on key measures of school 
quality beyond student achievement on statewide assessments, including 
student access to experienced and effective educators, access to 
rigorous and advanced course work, availability of career and technical 
educational opportunities, and safe and healthy school learning 
environments. However, reporting alone will not ensure that students 
get the resources they need and deserve. I commend the reporting. I 
think it is a necessary but not quite sufficient measure.
  I am pleased to offer this opportunity dashboard of core resources 
amendment with Senators Kirk, Baldwin, and Brown. This amendment has 
the support of dozens of national organizations.
  Specifically, our amendment will require States to develop and report 
on measures of access to critical education resources, identify 
disparities in access for districts, schools, and student subgroups, 
develop plans with school districts to address disparities in access to 
critical educational resources, and include the opportunity dashboard 
of core resources on the State report card so everyone will know where 
the resources are, where they are going, and how we are making our 
commitment to an equitable and excellent education for every American 
child.
  This amendment has bipartisan support, and, more importantly, broad 
support in the communities across the Nation. I urge my colleagues to 
support it when it comes to the floor for a vote.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this week the Senate is considering the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As we have heard from the 
previous speakers, the issues that are involved in this decision really 
go to the heart of America and its future.
  Public education is the avenue to opportunity for most children in 
America, and if that avenue is blocked or if it is inadequate, that 
child will suffer, the family will suffer, and the Nation will suffer. 
There is hardly a bigger, more important assignment that could come our 
way than to consider elementary and secondary education.
  We are fortunate that we have two good leaders on this issue--two of 
the best in this Senate, Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator Patty 
Murray. Senator Alexander is a Republican from Tennessee and a former 
Secretary of Education. He takes this job and assignment very 
seriously, and I have spoken to him many times about these issues. My 
colleague, friend, and fellow leader on the Democratic side, Senator 
Murray of Washington, and Senator Alexander have done an extraordinary 
bipartisan job of bringing this measure to the floor. That is not to 
say that I agree with every provision nor that any Senator does, but to 
have this reported unanimously from committee by both political parties 
with the political climate we have in Washington is nothing short of 
amazing.

[[Page S4825]]

  We find ourselves on the floor debating the specifics of the Every 
Child Achieves Act. I am glad this bill maintains Impact Aid assistance 
for districts such as North Chicago in my home State of Illinois, which 
is a neighbor to the Great Lakes naval training station.
  The bill also preserves the universally agreed upon triumph of No 
Child Left Behind--to disaggregate data among subgroups of students.
  I remember back in 2002, when we passed No Child Left Behind, I was 
relatively new to the Senate, and I sat back there. Directly behind me 
was a Senator from Minnesota named Paul Wellstone. To say that Senator 
Paul Wellstone hated No Child Left Behind is an understatement. Every 
time I got up and appeared to be supporting it, he would be behind me 
whispering: Senator Durbin, this is a mistake. Don't you vote for this. 
You will be sorry. Well, I voted for it.
  As I reflect on it, many good things happened, but a lot of things 
happened that we didn't expect to happen. We had testing, and I think 
testing is an important part of metrics and measurement to see whether 
the students are actually progressing. But some parts of the bill went 
overboard by disqualifying schools and saying they were not up to the 
job because their test scores didn't hit certain numbers. Teachers 
would complain to me that they went through all of this education and 
had experience in teaching, but now they were just teaching to the 
test. They lost the thrill of being teachers and that diminished them 
in their ability to help the children.
  We also know what happened when it came to some of the other aspects 
of this bill. Some of the States started dumbing down their State 
standards so schools would pass the test. It wasn't a pretty sight. It 
is time to rewrite this broken bill, and the bill that we have before 
us attempts to do just that.
  No Child Left Behind made important advances in how we ensure that 
all children are being served by public education. As we debate the 
Every Child Achieves Act this week, we must resist the urge to go too 
far the other way. What happened with No Child Left Behind was a 
political curiosity. Here was a new Republican President, George W. 
Bush, appealing to a Democratic Congress to give the Federal Government 
more control when it came to K-12 education. That was really a new 
approach, and it is one that, frankly, surprised many of us. As a 
result, No Child Left Behind went in directions and to degrees that 
many of us did not expect. Now we are getting a pushback from those who 
say it went too far. The pendulum is about to swing back in the other 
direction. This bill allows States to develop their own State education 
plan, set their own achievement goals, and hold themselves accountable. 
Every Child Achieves does not require States to identify low-performing 
schools or take meaningful actions to provide additional support when 
the schools are consistently not serving their students. Without these 
protections, students of color and low-income students could easily be 
left behind. There are reasonable, commonsense improvements that should 
be made to this bill to enhance accountability. We can have federally 
required accountability and intervention without federally prescribed 
accountability and intervention.

  Let me also say a word about vouchers. The Senator from Washington 
just spoke about vouchers. I asked her when No Child Left Behind was 
written and she told me 2002, and I think it was somewhere around that 
period when we passed the DC vouchers system. We are members of the 
Senate Appropriations Committee. It was Senator DeWine of Ohio who 
offered the DC voucher system as an amendment on an appropriations 
bill. I offered three amendments to his proposal. He proposed that 
Federal tax dollars be given to individual parents in DC to choose the 
school they wish, even if it was a private or religious school--not 
charter schools per se but so-called DC opportunity or voucher schools. 
I offered three amendments in committee to his proposal.
  Here is what they were: First amendment, every teacher in a DC 
voucher school had to have a college degree. The amendment was 
defeated. The Republican majority said, no, we don't want to limit the 
creativity here of these new teachers in voucher schools. The second 
amendment I offered said the students who attend the voucher schools 
will take the same tests as the students attending DC Public Schools so 
we can compare how they are doing. That amendment was also defeated by 
the majority in the Appropriations Committee. They didn't want to be 
held to the same standards of testing and achievement. The third one 
was the most shocking. I said any building used for a DC voucher school 
had to pass the fire safety code in the District of Columbia. That, 
too, was defeated.
  Years later, I sent staff out to take photos of some of the DC 
voucher schools. It was depressing. Many of these schools were just 
schools in name only. They weren't real schools. When we held a hearing 
before the Appropriations Committee, they couldn't even explain what 
standards they were teaching to. Is that the kind of system we want to 
set up nationally and put our tax dollars towards? Is that where 
families want to send their children? So I agree with Senator Murray. 
Before we start talking about voucher schools, let's focus on our first 
responsibility; that is, public education.
  I also want to talk about an amendment that may be offered by Senator 
Burr of North Carolina on Title I formulas. Title I is the single 
largest source of Federal funding for elementary and secondary 
education. It helps States and school districts address poverty and the 
needs of low-income students. This was the inspiration for the Federal 
Government to make a massive investment and commitment to education in 
the 1960s, and the reason behind it was because we saw the gross 
disparities in school districts from State to State and from district 
to district. We believed then, as I believe now, that kids from poor 
families don't have a fighting chance if they don't have the chance of 
a good education. Title I was designed to send those dollars to help 
those school districts educate those children.
  Now, the amendment that is proposed by the Senator from North 
Carolina, Mr. Burr, would devastate low-income students in my home 
State of Illinois. It would reduce Illinois's title I share by an 
estimated $180 million a year. That is a 28-percent reduction in 
Federal assistance in my State of Illinois to help poor, low-income, 
and minority students--a 28-percent reduction. Chicago public schools 
alone would lose $68 million. I just have to say for the record, they 
are struggling even today to meet their budget needs and their pension 
requirements. This kind of cut would be devastating.
  I think about the violence in the great city of Chicago and many 
other cities as well. I think about the responsibility of the Chicago 
public school system which educates almost 400,000 students. A $70 
million cut to Chicago would mean that these kids in low-income 
families would struggle and many would not succeed in achieving a good 
education. Is that the best we can do? I think it is a mistake.
  I have to serve notice on my colleagues. I don't know what procedural 
tools are available to us, but when it comes to an amendment that takes 
that kind of money away from critically important school districts in 
my State, I am going to use every tool in the box to stop this from 
coming to the floor and passing. There is just too much at stake. I 
hope my colleagues will join me in this effort to stop this as well.
  Finally, let me talk about an issue that is near and dear to all of 
us and especially to the Presiding Officer--criminal background checks. 
In the State of Illinois, if you want to be a teacher--before you can 
even be a student teacher--you have to go through a criminal background 
check. What does that consist of? Being fingerprinted and having your 
fingerprints and personal information turned over to our State police 
and the FBI. We take this very seriously in Illinois, and we are not 
the only State. There are many States that do exactly the same thing. 
We don't want anyone in the classroom, anyone in an unsupervised 
situation with small children around, who is going to be a danger to 
those children, period.
  There are two proposals before us. One is being offered by the 
Senator from Pennsylvania, and it is a criminal background approach 
which I cannot support. The reason I cannot support it is because it 
imposes new Federal

[[Page S4826]]

criminal background check standards in addition to what I just 
described in Illinois. We already have fingerprinting and a criminal 
background check that goes to the State registry of crime as well as 
the FBI, which provides the basic information you need to know as to 
whether this potential teacher has anything in their background that is 
worrisome or would disqualify that teacher. It is already being done. 
The amendment being offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania says now 
we are going to make sure they go through a second check, a federally 
mandated criminal background check, which sends the school districts in 
Illinois to the same agencies I just described; in other words, a 
second check which under Illinois law would be at the expense of the 
school district--that goes to the State police, the FBI, and others. 
Come on. Why would we waste our money--precious Federal money that we 
need for education--in duplicating background checks? It makes no sense 
whatsoever.
  So I commend the Senator from Pennsylvania for being concerned about 
this. There isn't a parent or grandparent alive who doesn't share his 
concern, but let's not impose an additional Federal mandate on States 
that are already doing a professional job. If States say we have a 
background check in place that conforms to what the standards are in 
Washington, why should they have to do it a second time?
  Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island makes that proposal. He has an 
alternative amendment. He proposes that the State background checks 
meet a list of Federal compliance requirements, while explicitly 
ensuring that states would not need to duplicate background checks for 
current employees who have already met these requirements and have been 
cleared. I think that is better. That eliminates the duplication and 
eliminates the wasted dollars on a second, unnecessary duplicative 
background check.
  I might add that the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from 
Rhode Island addressed the concern about mistakes. If there is a name 
sent in by mistake and a potential teacher is disqualified and it turns 
out the information is erroneous, there is a due process provision in 
Senator Toomey's bill and one that I think is more complete in the bill 
offered by Senator Whitehouse.
  It wasn't that many years ago, our colleagues may remember, that our 
colleague Senator Ted Kennedy ended up on a no-fly list. He kept 
saying: Why am I on a no-fly list? It was a mistake. It was a 
government mistake that identified him as a danger to the country. 
Mistakes can be made. There needs to be a due process requirement in 
here so those accused of something that they are not guilty of have a 
chance to have their day to tell their story as best they can.
  The bottom line is that this bill is one of the most important we 
will consider. I thank the chairman and ranking member for the time 
they put into this, and I thank them for their bipartisan efforts. 
There will be some disagreements on the amendments before us, but I 
think we are all in common agreement. If we don't get this right, many 
of the other things we do don't mean much.
  If we don't provide that avenue of opportunity to kids from lower-
income, impoverished families, they are not likely to enjoy life as 
they might with a good education and realize the American dream. This 
is our step in the right direction. I hope we can make it even stronger 
as we consider amendments.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Illinois for his remarks. I 
was thinking, as he was talking about Senator Kennedy, whom we all 
loved, I think the mistake was that he was on a Republican no-fly list. 
That was the mistake. But he loved telling that story and enjoyed it 
very much. It is nice to be reminded of him today because he was 
chairman of this committee that is producing the fix for No Child Left 
Behind.
  He would make, in my view, the most outrageous liberal speeches from 
the back of the Senate, and then he would come to the front of the 
Senate and would work out a good bipartisan agreement and get a good 
piece of legislation. He set a wonderful example for us, and it is nice 
to be reminded of him.
  Mr. President, Senator Murray and I have conferred, and I ask 
unanimous consent that the time until 4:30 p.m. today be equally 
divided between the two managers or their designees and that it be in 
order to call up the following amendments: Hirono amendment No. 2109, 
Tester amendment No. 2107, Alexander amendment No. 2139, Murray 
amendment No. 2124, Bennet amendment No. 2115; further, that at 4:30 
p.m. today, the Senate vote on the above amendments in the order 
listed, with no second-degree amendments in order to any of the 
amendments prior to the votes and that the Alexander amendment No. 2139 
be subject to a 60-affirmative-vote threshold for adoption; and that 
there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided between the votes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. For the information of all Senators, we expect a 
rollcall vote on three of these amendments and that the rest will be 
adopted by voice vote.
  PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. HELLER. Mr. President, I rise in support of amendment No. 2109, 
just mentioned by the chairman, the Hirono-Heller amendment which 
addresses Asian-Pacific and Pacific Islander student data.
  In my home State of Nevada, as in many of my colleagues' home States, 
the AAPI population is one of the fastest growing. I can give you an 
example of that according to census data. Nevada's AAPI or Asian-
Pacific and Pacific Islander population grew by 116 percent between 
2000 and 2010. Now, even though this AAPI group represents students who 
come from a variety of different backgrounds--Chinese, Filipino, 
Vietnamese, Korean--current law and the Every Child Achieves Act uses a 
broad ``Asian-Pacific Islander'' category when reporting on student 
achievement. Basically, if you are registering as a student, you have 
one category--one bubble--called Asian-Pacific Islander, regardless of 
whether you are Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean. It doesn't 
matter. It is a single bubble. As a result of this single bubble, this 
student population as a whole seems to perform well, but the broad AAPI 
category hides big achievement gaps between subgroups. The current 
census data gives us this evidence.
  According to the 2010 census, 72 percent of Asian Indian adults have 
bachelor degrees or higher; whereas, only 26 percent of Vietnamese 
adults do. Steps should be taken to help close these achievement gaps 
and create an environment where all students can succeed. This is 
critical to ensuring that our Nation's children are preparing to attend 
college or enter the workforce. That is why the Hirono-Heller amendment 
is so important.
  Our amendment simply requires school districts with large populations 
of AAPI students to show how these subgroups are performing. This 
amendment would also apply in large school districts with over 1,000 
AAPI students. This represents less than 3 percent of the school 
districts nationwide. In fact, 11 States would not be affected at all 
by the Hirono-Heller amendment. It is also important to note that this 
amendment would only be used for public reporting purposes. It would 
not require accountability measures or intervention at any level.
  The bottom line is that having this kind of subgroup data available 
equips parents and local officials with the necessary information to 
determine how their students are doing and how to better support 
students who need the most help. Isn't that what these school districts 
are all about, which is to try to identify those students and to better 
support students of those who need help.
  As a father of four and grandparent of two, I think parents should 
have access to this kind of data, to know how schools are serving these 
children in these specific subgroups, so they can make the right choice 
for their children. School choice advocates agree, charter school 
advocates agree, and the truth is that school districts across the 
Nation are already collecting and reporting this aggregated AAPI 
student data. In fact, just this morning, I sat down with several 
school superintendents from all across my home State who told me that 
access to this type of

[[Page S4827]]

data would be extremely helpful in their districts.
  Principals and teachers also understand the value of this subgroup 
data and how it reveals groups of students who need assistance that 
would otherwise be missed by looking at the broader AAPI category. That 
is why this amendment is also supported by the National Association of 
Elementary School Principals, it is why this amendment is supported by 
the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and why it is 
supported by the National Education Association. I am proud our 
amendment is also supported by over 100 AAPI, Latino, and African-
American civil rights groups, educators, women's groups, and the 
disability community.
  These groups agree with Senator Hirono and me that AAPI subgroup 
disaggregation is a top priority. I thank Senator Hirono for her 
leadership on this issue and her dedication to serving the needs of all 
of our communities. I would also like to thank Chairman Alexander and 
ranking member Senator Murray for their efforts to not only put 
together a bipartisan bill but also to move forward with an open 
amendment process during this debate.
  I encourage all of my colleagues to vote in support of the Hirono-
Heller amendment to ensure that parents have choice and that school 
administrators alike are able to target students who need the most 
help.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, over the weekend, we all cheered on the 
women's national soccer team as they beat Japan 5 to 2 in the World 
Cup. Their teamwork and the skills they displayed on the field were 
years in the making. Many of the players on the women's national team 
developed their skills and a love for soccer while attending their 
public schools growing up.
  In fact, before midfielder Carli Lloyd shattered records in the World 
Cup finals on Saturday, she was the star of the Delran High School 
soccer team in New Jersey. Unfortunately, not all young girls have the 
same opportunities today as young boys do to participate in school 
sports. In our Nation's schools, all girls should have equal 
opportunities to pursue athletics, whether they just want to help their 
high school team have a winning season or whether they dream of one day 
playing in the World Cup final.
  Today, I am offering an amendment to help close the opportunity gap 
in sports between young men and women. Back in 1972, Congress passed 
what is known as title IX. That is the law that bans discrimination in 
education on the basis of gender. This law applies to all educational 
opportunities that have had a huge impact on opening opportunities for 
young women to play sports.
  For the first time, schools were required to provide equal 
opportunity to girls and boys to play organized sports, and they were 
required to provide equal benefits and services, like coaches and 
courts and playing fields. Title IX has truly changed our country for 
the better. The number of women and girls whose lives it touches is 
growing every single day. I have seen that firsthand in my own family. 
When I went to school, the atmosphere was a lot different than it is 
today. Back then, I could participate in just a very few sports, and it 
was simply unheard of for women athletes to receive athletic 
scholarships.
  Now, 15 years later, it was amazing to watch my own daughter choose 
to play soccer, learning to be a part of a team and cheering each other 
on and learning how to be gracious in victory and in defeat. The 
differences between my daughter's generation and my own could not be 
more stark.
  Today, more young women than ever are playing sports, but inequality 
still exists and girls don't have the same opportunities to play sports 
as boys. In fact, if you add up all of the missed opportunities across 
the country, young women have 1.3 million fewer chances today to play 
sports in high school compared to boys. That is according to the 
National Federation of High School Associations. So the amendment I am 
offering that we will be voting on shortly will help ensure that 
schools simply report information about school sports in elementary, 
middle, and high school.
  I thank Senator Mikulski, who has been a champion for title IX, for 
working with me on this amendment. Under our amendment, schools would 
report on both access to girls organized sports and the funding for 
girls sports. For the first time, schools would need to show the 
public, show all of us, what they spend on travel expenses and 
equipment and uniforms for both boys and girls sports teams. This 
information will simply help us shine a light on the persistent 
inequalities in sports between men and women.
  Playing sports isn't just good for a single sports season, it has a 
positive effect on and off the field. According to the National 
Collegiate Athletic Association, when young women play sports, they are 
more likely to have higher grades, and they are more likely to graduate 
from high school than nonathletes. Research also shows that girls who 
have opportunities to play sports have lower risk of obesity later in 
life, lower incidence of depression, and more positive body image than 
nonathletes.
  Congress can help ensure that girls all over our country have the 
chance not only to improve their athletic ability but also to develop 
valuable skills like teamwork and discipline and self-confidence. Those 
skills lead to success on and off the playing field.
  I urge our colleagues to vote for this important amendment. Let's 
give young women and girls equal opportunity in sports. So many girls 
across the country spent this week dreaming of one day being one of 
those women champions they saw on television last weekend. Let's make 
sure they know Congress has their back.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Tennessee.


                Amendment No. 2139 to Amendment No. 2089

  (Purpose: To allow States to let Federal funds for the education of 
disadvantaged children follow low-income children to the accredited or 
otherwise State-approved public school, private school, or supplemental 
               educational services program they attend)

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask to set aside the pending 
amendment in order to call up amendment No. 2139.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Alexander] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2139 to amendment No. 2089.

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')


    Amendment Nos. 2109, 2107, 2124, and 2115 to Amendment No. 2089

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up Hirono 
amendment No. 2109, Tester amendment No. 2107, Murray amendment No. 
2124, and Bennet amendment No. 2115, as provided for under the previous 
order, and ask that they be reported by number.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk will report the 
amendments by number.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray] proposes 
     amendments for other Senators numbered 2109, 2107, 2124, and 
     2115 to amendment No. 2089.

  The amendments are as follows:


                Amendment No. 2109 to Amendment No. 2089

(Purpose: To amend section 1111(b)(2)(B)(xi) to provide for additional 
disaggregation for local educational agencies with a total of not less 
   than 1,000 Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students)

       On page 43, between lines 5 and 6, insert the following:
       ``(VI) for local educational agencies with not less than 
     1,000 total Asian and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 
     students, the same race response categories as the decennial 
     census of the population; and


                AMENDMENT NO. 2107 to AMENDMENT NO. 2089

(Purpose: To restore sections of the Elementary and Secondary Education 
                              Act of 1965)

       On page 654, strike lines 7 through 10.
       On page 683, lines 16 and 17, strike ``7132, as 
     redesignated by section 7001(2),'' and insert ``7135''.
       On page 683, line 18, strike ``7132'' and insert ``7135''.


[[Page S4828]]




                Amendment No. 2124 to Amendment No. 2089

      (Purpose: To require schools to collect and report data on 
                        interscholastic sports)

       On page 82, between lines 23 and 24, insert the following:
       ``(xviii) In the case of each coeducational school in the 
     State that receives assistance under this part--

       ``(I) a listing of the school's interscholastic sports 
     teams that participated in athletic competition;
       ``(II) for each such team--

       ``(aa) the total number of male and female participants, 
     disaggregated by gender and race;
       ``(bb) the season in which the team competed, whether the 
     team participated in postseason competition, and the total 
     number of competitive events scheduled;
       ``(cc) the total expenditures from all sources, including 
     expenditures for travel, uniforms, facilities, and publicity 
     for competitions; and
       ``(dd) the total number of coaches, trainers, and medical 
     personnel, and for each such individual an identification of 
     such individual's employment status, and duties other than 
     providing coaching, training, or medical services; and

       ``(III) the average annual salary of the head coaches of 
     boys' interscholastic sports teams, across all offered 
     sports, and the average annual salary of the head coaches of 
     girls' interscholastic sports teams, across all offered 
     sports.


                AMENDMENT NO. 2115 TO AMENDMENT NO. 2089

  (Purpose: To provide for a study on increasing the effectiveness of 
      existing services and programs intended to benefit children)

       At the end of part B of title X, insert the following:

     SEC. ____. COMPTROLLER GENERAL STUDY ON INCREASING 
                   EFFECTIVENESS OF EXISTING SERVICES AND PROGRAMS 
                   INTENDED TO BENEFIT CHILDREN.

       Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act, the Comptroller General shall provide to the 
     Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the 
     Senate and the Committee on Education and the Workforce of 
     the House of Representatives a report that includes--
       (1) a description and assessment of the existing federally 
     funded services and programs across all agencies that have a 
     purpose or are intended to benefit or serve children, 
     including--
       (A) the purposes, goals, and organizational and 
     administrative structure of such services and programs at the 
     Federal, State, and local level; and
       (B) methods of delivery and implementation; and
       (2) recommendations to increase the effectiveness, 
     coordination, and integration of such services and programs, 
     across agencies and levels of government, in order to 
     leverage existing resources and better and more 
     comprehensively serve children.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, it is fitting and appropriate, although 
it was not coordinated, that I follow on to the comments of the 
distinguished Senator from Washington State, the ranking member of the 
committee, as she was talking about the importance of the amendment 
about young women and athletic opportunities for them on an equal 
basis.
  (The further remarks of Mr. Menendez are printed in today's Record 
under Morning Business.)
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2094

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak on amendment No. 2094, 
which is based on legislation I have introduced with Senator Manchin 
called the Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act. 
This has bipartisan support. This is a commonsense amendment that will 
protect children from child molesters and predators infiltrating our 
schools.
  We all know the overwhelming majority of school employees would never 
harm a child in any way, but we also know pedophiles know where the 
children are. They are in the schools. So schools can be a magnet for 
the very people we need to keep out of our schools. I have been 
fighting this for some time now--over a year and a half--since the 
legislation was first introduced. I am not going to stop fighting this.
  There are a lot of good reasons to make this fight happen, to secure 
the protections for our school kids from these predators. For me, the 
reasons begin with the three children I have, who are 15, 14, and 5 
years old. When I put one of my children on a school bus in the 
morning, I have every right to believe I am sending my child to an 
environment where they are as safe as they can possibly be, and so does 
every other parent in Pennsylvania and every other parent across the 
country. We in Congress have the obligation to make sure we are doing 
all we can to make sure they will in fact be in the safest possible 
environment. Sadly, we know that is just not always the case.

  The motivation and the inspiration for this legislation that Senator 
Manchin and I introduced is a horrendous story about a little boy named 
Jeremy Bell, and that story begins, sadly, at a school in Delaware 
County, PA, where one of the teachers was repeatedly molesting young 
boys, raping one of the boys.
  The administrators of the school figured out what was going on. They 
reported it to authorities, but the authorities were never convinced 
they had enough evidence to mount a strong case. They couldn't 
confidently charge the predator. So the school decided they would 
dismiss this teacher for sexually abusing his students, but shockingly, 
appallingly, they gave him a letter of recommendation to make sure he 
could become someone else's problem.
  Well, given that he was a pedophile and a predator, he surely did 
become someone else's problem. He went to West Virginia, became a 
teacher--based in part on the recommendation he got--and rose, in fact, 
to the level of being a school principal. Along the way, of course, he 
continued to attack and abuse young boys, finally raping and killing 
young Jeremy Bell.
  Well, justice eventually caught up with that monster. He is serving 
the rest of his life in jail, as he should, but it was too late for 
Jeremy Bell.
  The sad truth is this is not as isolated an incident as we would like 
to think and as it should be. In fact, last year there were 459 arrests 
of school employees for sexual misconduct with the kids they are 
supposed to be taking care of. So far this year we are on track to have 
even more arrests than last year. Keep in mind that these are the cases 
where the evidence is so clear the prosecution is confident in making 
an arrest and pressing charges. How many more cases are out there where 
we just don't have enough certainty to actually make the arrest and 
press the charges? There are many more.
  So Senator Manchin and I decided we would introduce legislation that 
would take an important step towards the goal of protecting our kids. 
Our legislation has two big categories, two big features that together 
would go a long way toward ensuring greater security for our kids.
  One is a Federal standard for criminal background checks. Let me just 
respond to the comments made by the Senator from Illinois just a few 
minutes ago, suggesting that somehow my legislation requires a 
duplicative background check. That is factually and simply incorrect. 
There is no duplication. There is no redundancy. What we do in our 
legislation is to establish a Federal standard and say that all of the 
major criminal databases must be checked, but we don't ask anyone to 
check it twice. I don't know how that idea occurred. The checks are a 
sensible way to make sure nobody slips through the cracks.
  We do require there be a periodic review, at the frequency 
established by the States, so we make sure we are checking up on school 
employees periodically. That is not a redundancy.
  The second fundamental aspect of our legislation, after the criminal 
background checks, is that we would prohibit the practice of knowingly 
recommending for hire a predator, a violent abuser, a pedophile. This, 
unfortunately, has its own name. This practice is called passing the 
trash. That recommendation was exactly what allowed Jeremy Bell's 
killer to get a job as a teacher so that he could prey on Jeremy Bell. 
Our legislation would forbid that.
  Both of these protections have broad bipartisan support. The House of 
Representatives, by the way, unanimously passed a bill that is 
virtually identical just in the last Congress. And just last fall the 
House and Senate combined, by a combined vote of 523 to 1, adopted the 
Child Care and Development Block Grant Act, which has the same 
language. It has the same provisions to

[[Page S4829]]

protect children in childcare centers from these kinds of predators. I 
fully support that protection for very young kids. I just fail to see 
why we shouldn't provide the same level of security and protection for 
slightly older kids. That is what this is about.
  So in addition to the bipartisan support, our legislation has been 
endorsed by many, many groups--child protection groups, law enforcement 
groups, prosecutors, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the 
Pennsylvania School Board Association. There is very broad support for 
this because it makes sense.
  Let me go a little bit more into detail about these two aspects.
  First, there is the criminal background check. Let's be clear. Every 
State does some kind of criminal background check on hiring for 
schools. The problem is many are woefully inadequate. In some cases 
they miss entire databases, and so they miss convictions.
  For instance, some States check only their State database. They do 
not check the Federal database so they do not know about the criminal 
convicted two States over who moved into their State postconviction.
  Another fact is that many States don't require background checks for 
their contractors. In our legislation, if you are an adult who has 
unsupervised contact with kids--whether you are a bus driver, a sports 
coach or the janitor in the school--you have to have the background 
check. Some States don't require that.
  We establish a Federal standard so that we are protecting all kids 
uniformly. So this whole background check component is what I consider 
the first part of the bill.
  The second part, which is really a distinct part but still every bit 
as crucial, is this prohibition against passing the trash that I 
alluded to earlier. This is a provision that would have perhaps 
prevented the murder of Jeremy Bell. We simply say if a school wishes 
to receive Federal funds, it has to ban this practice.
  This is so appalling--the idea that someone would knowingly recommend 
for hire a predator who is preying on children. It is so appalling that 
it is hard to believe it happens, but the fact is it does. Sometimes it 
happens across State lines, and there is nothing any State can do about 
the laws of a different State. This absolutely calls for a Federal 
solution.
  For example, recently in Las Vegas, NV, a kindergarten teacher was 
arrested for kidnapping a 16-year-old girl and infecting her with a 
sexually transmitted disease. That same teacher, it turns out, had 
molested six children--fourth and fifth graders--just several years 
before in Los Angeles, CA. Now, the Los Angeles school district knew 
about the allegations. In fact, not only did they know about the 
allegations, but they were so concerned that when a lawsuit was filed 
against them they recommended settling.
  The Nevada school district specifically asked if there had been any 
criminal concerns regarding the teacher who was a candidate for a job, 
and the Los Angeles school district not only hid the truth but provided 
three references for the teacher. I think that makes it abundantly 
clear that this is a problem that transcends State lines. There is 
nothing Nevada could have done about the dishonesty and the deceit of 
the people in the Los Angeles school district who allowed this to 
happen.
  Let me sum this up. The Toomey-Manchin bill offers a simple 
proposition. It says if a school district wants to use Federal tax 
dollars, it has to make sure those dollars are not being used to pay 
pedophiles' salaries.
  I don't think that is an unreasonable demand. To do that, it says 
there are two components. One is that you perform a criminal background 
check that is rigorous enough to catch people who have criminal 
backgrounds and a prohibition against passing the trash.
  Now, we have run into opposition on this, as you know. In fact, there 
was a letter signed by a number of organizations led by the National 
Education Association, the Nation's largest teachers union group. The 
basic thrust of the argument in the letter is that it is unfair to 
exclude even a convicted admitted child abuser from being a 
schoolteacher. Here is the quote from the letter: ``Individuals who 
have been convicted of crimes and have completed their sentences should 
not be unnecessarily subjected to additional punishment because of 
these convictions.''
  Under this logic, an admitted convicted child molester can finish 
their prison term, walk out of a prison, go across the street to a 
school and be hired to be a first grade teacher. That is ridiculous. 
Our kids are not part of some social experiment to see how often 
convicted child molesters will repeat their crimes. I am not going to 
tolerate or risk trapping small children in a classroom with a 
convicted child rapist. That is unbelievable.
  We have a national sex offender registry for exactly this reason. As 
a society, we understand these people commit these crimes serially. 
Even after serving a prison sentence, very often they go right back to 
their old ways. So I think it is perfectly acceptable--in fact, it is 
incumbent upon us--to say that when someone has been convicted of this 
type of crime they are disqualified from being left in unsupervised 
contact with children.
  The same letter from the National Education Association endorsed an 
alternative amendment that has been proposed by Senator Whitehouse. He 
has proposed an alternative to my amendment, and I find it troublesome 
because, among other problems, the Whitehouse amendment actually would 
weaken the protections in existing State laws.
  There are 44 States that currently have a category of criminal 
conviction which precludes a person from ever being hired to teach in a 
school or to have unsupervised contact with kids. What Senator 
Whitehouse would do in his legislation is to require every State to 
give these individuals the legal right to challenge their being blocked 
from being hired. That does not exist in 45 States right now.
  So you have to ask yourself: What possible purpose could there be for 
mandating that States create these minitrials, some little judicial 
mechanism to challenge the notion that they should be precluded from a 
job based on their prior conviction for child abuse? The only purpose 
would be to get an exemption so they could be hired. Well, I am shocked 
Senator Whitehouse would propose legislation that would weaken the 
existing protections we have in 45 States, but that is what he does.
  I would point out that in the case of the Child Care and Development 
Block Grant Act--which passed 523 to 1 and was supported by every 
Democrat in the House and the Senate, by the way, the one vote being 
for unrelated reasons--that language that protected kids did not have 
this mechanism of creating a quasi-judicial entity so that convicted 
child abusers could nevertheless be hired. So if it wasn't a good idea 
then, when we were passing legislation that pertains to daycares, it is 
not a good idea now. So I hope we will oppose the Whitehouse amendment.
  I just want to underscore that there is urgency to this problem. Last 
year alone there were 459 teachers arrested for sexual abuse or 
misbehavior with the children they are supposed to be taking care of. 
We are on path so far, in the 6 months into this new calendar year, to 
have far more arrests than we had last year. Every one of these stories 
is not a statistic. Every one of these stories is a huge personal 
tragedy--a shattered life, a stolen childhood, often a family torn 
apart by grief and misery. How many more of these kinds of arrests are 
we going to tolerate before we establish a better system for preventing 
this from happening in the first place?
  I think it is time for no more excuses. The House of Representatives 
has already passed this legislation unanimously. All we need to do is 
pass this amendment on this bill, and it will find its way to the 
President's desk. It will be signed, and kids across America will be 
more secure.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Toomey-Manchin amendment--
Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page S4830]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 
minute on the Hirono-Heller amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has the time.


                           Amendment No. 2109

  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support the 
Hirono-Heller amendment No. 2109.
  The current AAPI--American Asian Pacific Islander--category hides 
huge achievement gaps among subgroups, i.e., Chinese, Filipino, 
Vietnamese, Japanese, et cetera. With better subgroup data, teachers, 
parents, policymakers, and community organizations will know where they 
can target support to the students who need the help most.
  Our amendment only applies to districts with over 1,000 AAPI 
students. We are not talking about 1,000 students but 1,000 AAPI 
students, which means fewer than 3 percent of school districts 
nationwide would be affected. That is about 400 out of over 16,000 
school districts. Currently, Delaware, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New 
Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and 
Wyoming have no districts that would be affected.
  Our amendment is endorsed by over 100 groups, including teachers, 
principals, school choice and charter school groups, not to mention a 
coalition of AAPI, Latino, African American, women's, and disability 
rights groups.
  This is not an onerous requirement on school districts. They already 
have the capacity to collect this kind of what we call disaggregated 
data, which will enable all of our schools to help the kids who need 
the help the most.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Ms. HIRONO. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I oppose the amendment. Instead of 
lessening the national school board, this would make it more intrusive. 
This amendment would say that instead of schools reporting the academic 
results of five major racial groups, they would do it by country of 
origin. There are 196 countries of origin. So if we apply the same 
thinking to White, Hispanic, Black, Native American, we would have an 
amazing mandate from Washington to States about this amount of data.
  The Senator's argument should be made to a local school board, which 
may do this if it wishes, or to a State board, which may make these 
aggregations if it wishes, but this should not be a Washington mandate 
to increase from 5 to 16 the number of countries mandated under Asian 
American and Pacific Islander and to set a precedent for country-of-
origin reports for 196 countries.
  I urge a ``no'' vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
2109.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Florida (Mr. Rubio).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maine (Mr. King) and the 
Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 47, nays 50, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 223 Leg.]

                                YEAS--47

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Reed
     Reid
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Tester
     Udall
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--50

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Lankford
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Sasse
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--3

     King
     Rubio
     Stabenow
  The amendment (No. 2109) was rejected.


                           Amendment No. 2107

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 2 
minutes equally divided prior to a vote on amendment No. 2107, offered 
by the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, for Mr. Tester.
  The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support amendment 
No. 2107 to restore four title VII grant programs that were removed 
from the Every Child Achieves Act. These initiatives will help Native 
American students who are too often forgotten in the debate about 
improving education in America. Restoring these initiatives will help 
students in Indian Country develop the tools they need to succeed.
  The bottom line is that this authorizes programs that were removed 
from ESEA. These programs help Native American kids succeed, and they 
need all the help they can get. These programs have never been funded. 
This is an authorization bill. If we put it in, these programs will 
continue to be authorized and we can fight about funding later, but to 
take them out of an authorization bill means these programs are dead, 
and I think it would be a disservice to Indian Country.
  I would appreciate a ``yes'' vote on amendment No. 2107.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I urge a ``no'' vote. These programs 
have not been funded for 20 years for a good reason. It is because the 
money for these programs can come through other programs, such as the 
Workforce Innovation Act.
  This bipartisan bill consolidates 49 programs that were authorized or 
funded through No Child Left Behind. This would take us in the 
direction of more Federal programs, not fewer.
  I urge a ``no'' vote so that we can reduce the amount of Federal 
programs from Washington to the States, and let's use the existing 
dollars that we have to help Indians, Native Americans, and Alaska's 
native education programs. That is the most effective way to do it.
  I urge a ``no'' vote.
  I ask unanimous consent that the votes following the first vote in 
this series--that means this vote and the next vote--be 10 minutes in 
length.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 2107.
  Mr. CORKER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Florida (Mr. Rubio).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maine (Mr. King) and the 
Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). Are there any other Senators in the 
Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 41, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 224 Leg.]

                                YEAS--56

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Crapo
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Kaine
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey

[[Page S4831]]


     McCain
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--41

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cruz
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kirk
     Lankford
     Lee
     Manchin
     McConnell
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Sasse
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--3

     King
     Rubio
     Stabenow
  The amendment (No. 2107) was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 2139

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 2 
minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on amendment No. 
2139, offered by the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if you really want to solve inequality 
in America by giving children an opportunity to attend a better school, 
vote yes because that would give any State the opportunity to take 89 
Federal programs, consolidate them into $2,100 scholarships, and give 
one of those scholarships to every low-income child in the State--that 
is 20 percent of the children--for that child to decide which school 
they would attend. It might be public; it might be private. We would be 
using the same policy that we used with colleges and universities. The 
money follows the child to the school that the parent decides that 
child should attend. This is not a mandate; this is an opportunity. The 
schools would have to be accredited.
  If you really want to create equality in America by giving every 
child an opportunity to be at the same starting line, let the State 
decide to give a $2,100 scholarship to follow a low-income child to the 
school that the family decides the student should attend, public or 
private.
  I urge a ``yes'' vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, this amendment would retreat on our 
fundamental commitment to make sure that every child has access to a 
quality education, and it would do it by consolidating almost every K-
12 education program we have and turning that funding into a public or 
private school voucher. It would cut programs for STEM, for literacy, 
for afterschool--priorities that are important to Members across the 
aisle, and it would dismantle the important bipartisan work we have 
done to fix this badly broken No Child Left Behind law in a way that 
works for parents, teachers, and students. It ignores the research on 
the impact of concentrated poverty on student achievement and allows 
States to move Federal resources from our highest needs schools and 
districts to more affluent ones and to unaccountable private schools.
  I know my colleague from Tennessee understands this is a nonstarter 
for me, and I really urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
2139.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Florida (Mr. Rubio).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maine (Mr. King) and the 
Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 45, nays 52, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 225 Leg.]

                                YEAS--45

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Cassidy
     Coats
     Cochran
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Lankford
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Sasse
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                                NAYS--52

     Ayotte
     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Reed
     Reid
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Tester
     Udall
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--3

     King
     Rubio
     Stabenow
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order requiring 60 votes 
for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is rejected.


                       Vote on Amendment No. 2124

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 2 
minutes equally divided prior to a vote on amendment No. 2124, offered 
by the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray.
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I yield back all time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, all time is yielded back.
  The question occurs on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 2124) was agreed to.


                       Vote on Amendment No. 2115

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 2 
minutes equally divided prior to a vote on amendment No. 2115, offered 
by the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, for Mr. Bennet.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I yield back all time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The question occurs on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 2115) was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, this has been a very good day. I 
appreciate Senators coming to the floor. It has been interesting to 
hear Senators' differing opinions on some issues, but there is a 
consensus that runs through this debate, and it runs through the 
Democratic side as well as the Republican side, which is that we have a 
consensus about the need to fix No Child Left Behind and we have a 
consensus about how to do it.
  I thank the senior Democrat on the education committee, Senator 
Murray, for her excellent work, and I thank the majority leader and the 
Democratic leader, who have created an environment here where we can 
get quite a bit done.
  We have continued during the day to agree to a large number of 
amendments. We have pretty well worked through some of the more 
contentious amendments we have had to deal with. We expect to have more 
amendments tomorrow morning before lunch, although it probably will be 
later tonight, even in the morning, before we have an agreement on how 
to do that. So we will continue to work toward that.
  Let me see if the Senator from Washington has any comments she would 
like to make.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Let me say to the Senator from Tennessee that his work 
on this has been really great. We are working hard on both sides of the 
aisle to get a bill to the President, and this is part of that process. 
I concur with him that we are working through this, and our hope is to 
get up some more amendments tomorrow morning. We should be able to 
announce that later tonight or tomorrow morning.
  Again, I thank the chairman of the committee.

[[Page S4832]]



                          ____________________