[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 15, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3980-S3981]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Murray and I rise today to
speak about our shared concerns with language included in this year's
National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA.
Section 578 of this year's National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA,
is an inappropriate place from which to impose mandates on nearly
20,000 public elementary and secondary schools in 1,225 public school
districts across the country.
Legislative language is included in the NDAA this year that dictates
disruptive policies on public schools that would create a complicated
and confusing system where one school system follows established
background checks under State or local law, while a neighboring county
must now comply with a new unfunded Federal mandate. This language
should not be included in the final version of this bill.
The U.S. Senate takes seriously the goal of ensuring the safety of
the more than 50 million children in our 100,000 public schools,
including federally connected children. These issues have been and
should be discussed, debated, and legislated within the appropriate
committees of jurisdiction. Measures related to education are within
the jurisdiction of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee under Rule XXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate, as well
as within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Education and the
Workforce under Rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives for
the 114th Congress.
So while it may be appropriate for the Armed Services Committee to
dictate background check policies for the 172 schools operated by the
Department of Defense, it is not appropriate to use the authorization
bill for the Department of Defense to impose mandates on nearly 20,000
public elementary and secondary schools in 1,225 public school
districts across the country.
These 20,000 public schools, out of 100,000 total, are being singled
out because they receive ``Impact Aid'' funds from the Federal
Government under title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act, ESEA, of 1965. The purpose of the program is to ``fulfill the
Federal responsibility to assist with the provision of educational
services to federally connected children in a manner that promotes
control by local educational agencies with little or no Federal or
State involvement.''
According to the Government Accountability Office, 46 States already
require background checks of some kind for all public school employees,
and 42 States have established professional standards or codes of
conduct for school personnel. Section 578 of the NDAA would create
confusion for all those States and localities, as they are forced to
navigate two sets of potentially conflicting background checks
policies.
As chairman and ranking members of the Senate HELP Committee, Senator
Murray and I worked tirelessly last year to pass a long-overdue
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Our law,
called the Every Student Succeeds Act, addressed the issue of
background checks.
I now want to yield to my colleague, Mrs. Murray, to speak on this
issue.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank the Chairman of the HELP
Committee, Senator Alexander, for his comments.
I share his concerns that section 578 of the National Defense
Authorization Act bill is not the right way to ensure students can
learn in safe and secure school environments, and will impose unfair
and unreasonable requirements on more than 1,200 schools districts
across the country. Criminal background checks are a critically
important means to ensure that students are safe in our schools, and
that is why they are required in 46 States. But the language of section
578 will force the 1,225 school districts that receive Impact Aid
funds--and which are in almost every State--to have two separate
criminal background check systems for different schools and different
employees within a single school district. It is costly, duplicative,
poorly conceived, and should not be part of a Defense authorization
bill.
In my State of Washington 628 schools, about a quarter of our public
schools, receive Impact Aid funds and would be subject to a separate
expensive set of background checks that differs from the background
checks already conducted. In the chairman's State, 571 schools receive
Impact Aid funds and would be subject to this different standard. It is
fundamentally unfair and not beneficial to students to ask our schools
and our school districts to assume the costs of these checks, which are
similar to but not exactly the same as those already conducted in our
States.
[[Page S3981]]
Our highest priority is making sure students in schools across the
country are protected. But I agree with the chairman that section 578
of the National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, is not the right way
to help schools effectively protect their students. As the Chairman
already noted, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act that occurred less than a year ago took a major step
forward in protecting unsuspecting students and families from school
employees suspected of abuse in previous positions. We incentivized
schools and districts to report cases of suspected abuse to law
enforcement and made it far more difficult for schools to quietly allow
suspected abusers to seek employment in another State or school
district. The amendment that provided those protections was adopted by
a vote of 98-0.
While this was an important step forward, I continue to look for ways
to build on it and continue our work making sure students are being
protected most effectively. Unfortunately, rather than taking the
important step of extending similar protections for students to schools
operated by the Department of Defense, the bill instead overrides a
comprehensive Department of Defense criminal background check
regulation that provides strong new protections to students and is less
than a year old. NDAA section 578 imposes a background check system
with serious problems on DOD schools and then further extends that
problematic background check system to non-Department of Defense
schools all over the country.
Section 578 imposes a system of criminal background checks that
prohibits people from working in any capacity in these schools if they
have committed low-level offenses having nothing to do with violence or
children. Unlike the laws in 29 States, as well as the new Department
of Defense regulation, section 578 of the NDAA offers employees no way
to demonstrate mitigating circumstances and requires that employees are
terminated while appealing a finding, even though these records are
often inaccurate or incomplete.
Section 578 is unnecessary, expensive, unfairly creates competing
background check systems in States across the county and, most
importantly, is not the right way to ensure our schools are safe. This
provision is not within the jurisdiction of the Armed Services
Committee, and I join the chairman in his position that it should not
be included in the final bill.
Mr. President, I thank the Senator for engaging in the colloquy.
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