[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13866-13867]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



             INTRODUCTION OF THE TRANSITION TO TEACHING ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROEMER. It has been said, Mr. Speaker, that as education goes, so 
goes America. Whether we are talking to a labor union in South Bend, 
Indiana, or a small business in Elkhart, Indiana, and with an 
unemployment rate of about 3 percent, everybody is saying the same 
thing across our State, that we need to work together in the United 
States Congress to improve education, not just simply improve it, but 
to creatively and boldly improve education for every single one of our 
Nation's children.
  Now the new Democrat coalition, which I helped start and found, has 
taken the approach that we need to do a host of creative and bold new 
things. Certainly we all agree that parental involvement and community 
concern is the Number one issue, and in addition to that we need more 
charter schools and public school choice. This was a bill that I wrote 
and drafted with new Democrat help and with the help of Mr. Riggs from 
California, and we passed this bill in 1997. This is a bipartisan bill 
to provide more public choice for all our Nation's children and 
parents.
  Secondly, we need more teachers, not just more of them, but better 
quality of teachers to compliment and supplement the number of teachers 
that are working so hard in America today, and my good friend from 
Florida (Mr. Davis) and I have introduced a bill called Transition to 
Teaching Act that will boldly improve on the Troops to Teachers bill to 
try to build relationships with the private companies and foundations 
to help transition people from their first career, as maybe a 
businessman or a businesswoman, somebody in science, somebody as a 
police officer or a fireman, and transition them into a second career 
of teaching. This is a dream for many people when they are in their 40s 
or 50s or 60s, to enter the teaching profession, and my colleague from 
Florida (Mr. Davis) and I will introduce this bill on Thursday, the 
Transition to Teaching Act.
  Thirdly, we need technology. The E-rate, which I would say the E 
stands for equality or education, the E-rate needs to make sure that we 
win the battle of connecting up our schools and libraries to this 
exciting new technology of the Internet. It is not the answer, the 
panacea, to all our Nation's questions of research, but it does provide 
us some interesting opportunities for helping with new curriculum, 
helping develop role models for new teachers, helping share information 
from one classroom to another. The E- rate is the battle of the new 
century to make sure that all of our Nation's children in the inner 
city, in the rural communities which I represent in Indiana, that they 
all have access to get to this technology and that our teachers, that 
our teachers are equipped with the sufficient skills to learn this and 
teach it and convey it to our children.
  Fourthly, when we just succeeded on this, and I worked closely with 
my good friend from Delaware (Mr. Castle), a Republican, on the 
education flexibility bill, we will give our local communities 
additional waivers from Federal and State regulations if they attach 
more success to that student, that student that gets better scores and 
graduates from year to year and out of high school into college.
  That education flexibility is directly tied to the success of the 
student and not to more and more red tape, regulations, and 
requirements. And, Mr. Speaker, we need to do more. We need to look at 
bolder and newer and more creative ideas, teacher academies set up with 
our universities and colleges. We need to look at preschool initiatives 
when we are hearing that our children are learning more and more at 
earlier and earlier ages and they are capable of more and more.

[[Page 13867]]

  We need to look at helping provide the resources to our local 
communities to stop social promotion. It does not do our children any 
good to be promoted from grade to grade to grade when they cannot 
provide, they cannot read, they cannot provide themselves with the 
opportunity to learn more about geography and math and science.
  So, Mr. Speaker, as paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln in conclusion, 
Abraham Lincoln talked about making sure that we all have the 
opportunities not to guarantee that we will all finish the race of life 
at the same time. No, nobody can guarantee that, but at least we get 
the opportunity for an equal start in life, and that comes back to 
education.
  Let us work together across the aisle, Democrat and Republican, for 
creative bold new reforms in education as the new Democratic coalition 
has sought to do.

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