[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 1, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S182-S183]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               EDUCATION

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, Louisiana, like all of our States, is 
working as hard as we can to improve K-12, elementary and secondary 
education. We used to have the best system of elementary and secondary 
education in the world. We still have the best system of higher 
education in the world, bar none. Kids from all over our planet want to 
come to America to go to college.
  I know our universities have problems. We have to do a better job, in 
my judgment, with encouraging our universities to allow the free 
exchange of ideas, the dialectic through which we get the truth. I will 
save that topic for another day.
  Our problem in America is elementary and secondary education. It is 
frustrating. We made some improvements, but not nearly enough. It is 
frustrating. Americans can do extraordinary things. Americans can 
unravel the human genome. Americans can take a diseased human heart and 
replace it with a new one and make the thing beat. Americans can send a 
person to the Moon and bring that person back safely. But we can't seem 
to teach all of our kids how to read and write and do basic math when 
we have 18 years to do it. I know the Presiding Officer knows what I am 
talking about because you, in a prior lifetime, have been in the 
trenches. Yes, we made progress, but it is so, so frustrating 
sometimes.
  We have made progress. I know in Colorado, in part under your 
leadership--in large part under your leadership--Colorado has made 
strides. We made strides in Louisiana. We started--we have made efforts 
to improve for many, many years, but we started in earnest under a 
Governor in Louisiana called Governor Buddy Roemer, back in the late 
eighties, early nineties. I am not saying other Governors before and 
after Buddy didn't contribute mightily, but Buddy made education a 
major goal of his administration. And we have made progress, but it is 
fits and it is starts.
  Here is our problem today. Some years ago, we started grading our 
schools. We graded our schools in Louisiana, our elementary and 
secondary school for two reasons. First, because we want education 
quality and, No. 2, transparency. We want parents to know where their 
child is going to school. We grade our schools A, B, C, D, E, F, and it 
is tough because everybody wants to be the best, but that which is 
measured gets done.
  Today, we still grade our schools and we should continue to grade our 
schools. But here is the problem: Forty-one percent of our elementary 
and middle schools get As and Bs. I think that is probably pretty 
accurate. We are going to get that number up, those letter grades up, 
but about 41 percent of our elementary and middle schools grade ``A'' 
or ``B.'' Seventy percent of our high schools grade ``A'' or ``B.'' 
Something is not mentioned here. I wish I could say that 70 percent of 
our high schools were ``A'' or ``B'' schools, but we all know in 
Louisiana that they are not. If you look at our college entry scores, 
if you look at our ACT scores, if you look at other objective 
assessments, they are not in line with 70 percent of our high schools 
being ``A'' schools or ``B'' schools, while only 40 percent of our 
elementary and middle schools are. And that is just a fact. I hope 
there will come a time in my lifetime when I come here and say we have 
90 percent or all of our schools are ``A'' or ``B'' schools, but I 
can't do that today. I wish I could, but I can't.
  We need to look reality in the eye and accept it--not like we do in 
Washington, look reality in the eye and deny it. In Louisiana, we 
believe in looking reality in the eye and accept it. I know it is hard.
  Right now, our teachers and our principals and our superintendents 
and our legislatures and people of Louisiana who care about education 
are trying to reform the system and come up with a new methodology, an 
objective methodology that properly grades our high schools; and it is 
hard. I know. I get it.
  Here is the undercurrent. A lot of our teachers and our principals 
and our school board members are concerned that if the grades go down 
to reflect reality, they are going to get blamed. They are going to get 
blamed, and I get it. And it is wrong to blame them.
  I will just mention our teachers. You know, for a kid to learn, 
somebody has to make him do his homework. Teachers can't do that. For a 
kid to learn, someone has to make that child go to bed at night and get 
a full night's sleep. For a kid to learn, someone has to feed that kid 
breakfast in the morning. For a kid to learn, someone at home has to 
enforce and reinforce to that child that he or she has to mind his 
teachers. It is called ``parents.''
  In Louisiana, as in other States and as throughout the world, 
unfortunately, we have some parents who don't seem to care. I don't 
know what to do about that. I don't know why it is, but we do. And we 
can't expect teachers and superintendents and school board members to 
take the place of parents, but too often, they are blamed for all of 
the problems when, really, it starts with the parents. And the fact of 
the matter is, if a parent--if a parent doesn't love his kid--I can't 
imagine that, but it happens--if a parent doesn't love his kid, the kid 
is not going to stop loving his parent; the kid is going to stop loving 
himself. So I get it. We can't hold our teachers and our 
superintendents and our school board members responsible for fixing the 
impossible. We just have to figure out a way to work around it.

  It is not just money. The Federal Government, State government, local 
government last year spent somewhere in the range of $760 billion--
three-quarters of a trillion dollars--on elementary and secondary 
education. In Louisiana, we spent about $12,000 per year, per child. 
That is a lot of money in my State, given the standard in cost of 
living. By way of comparison, Florida spends about $10,000. It is not 
just money. I read a statistic one time--it is several years old. I 
don't know if it is accurate today or not. But I read several years ago 
that we spend twice as much--we, in America--spend about twice as much 
on elementary and secondary education as Slovakia does, yet we rank 
about the same. I don't know if it is still accurate, but it was then. 
It is not just money. It is also will. It is commitment.
  I want to emphasize one more time that we need to come up with a new 
system that doesn't just blame the teachers and the superintendents and 
the school board members. I don't blame them for not wanting to be the 
scapegoats. About--I don't know--it was 2002, 2003, I was State 
treasurer. One day, I was listening in on a legislative hearing, 
listening to all these experts testify about how we fix these schools. 
There was not a teacher among them. I remember thinking, you know, I 
wonder how many of these folks really know what public schools are like 
today. So I went back to my office, and I made a phone call to these 
Baton Rouge Parish School systems where our State capital is located, 
and I said: What does it take to be a substitute teacher? They said, 
man, we need substitutes. All you have to do is have a college degree 
and go to a short orientation. We need substitutes so bad, we will take 
politicians. I said: Sign me up.
  Every year since then, I try to do it three times a year. Sometimes I 
try to do it more. I have done it less this year. I will make it up 
this spring. I have been a volunteer substitute teacher. Every time, I 
insisted I really want

[[Page S183]]

to be the substitute. I don't want somebody there with me. I don't want 
to just go and talk about how a bill becomes law. I want to be a 
substitute. If you do it--I encourage everybody to do it--you start 
about, I don't know, depending on the school, quarter to 7 and go to 
2:45, maybe 3, 3:30. You have lunchroom duty or bus duty.
  Let me tell you something. You are worn out. The first time I did 
it--I will never do this again. They gave me 11th grade chemistry. 
After about 2 hours--nobody told me this, I realized, man, you have got 
to go to the bathroom before you start class.
  The next time I taught, I remember I brought a thermos of coffee 
because you get so tired. But my point is, after starting--I think 
then, we started at 8 and I went to 2:45. My plan was to go home after 
substitute teaching this chemistry class--my plan was to go to my 
office at the State Capitol there and work. I went home. I was dead-
dog, down-to-the-marrow tired. It is hard being a teacher. It is hard. 
We have done a better job in Louisiana, with our teachers' cooperation, 
finding out which of our teachers can teach and paying them. And we 
also worked hard to find out which of our teachers can't teach and 
either teach them how or find a new line of work. I am not going to 
stand here and blame the teachers.
  But I return to where I began. Seventy percent of our schools are not 
``A'' and ``B'' schools. I wish they were. Some day they will be, but 
they are not. All I am asking today to my people back home who are 
listening, to the people in Louisiana who care about education--and 
most of them do--to our teachers, to our principals, to our 
superintendents, to our school board members, to our board of 
elementary and secondary members, to our legislators: Let's work 
together. Let's look reality in the eye and accept it. Let's understand 
that we need a new methodology to try to grade our schools. Let's look 
reality in the eye and accept the fact that our parents deserve to know 
the quality of school that their kids are attending, and let's come up 
with a new system that is accurate but that is fair to everybody. Let's 
stop blaming people and regretting yesterday and start creating 
tomorrow.
  Because in my State--and I bet it is true in the Presiding Officer's 
State--the future of my State is education. It is not the price of oil, 
it is not the unemployment rate, it is not who the Senators are. It is 
education.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.

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