[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19458]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



           BRING SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION LEGISLATION TO THE FLOOR

  (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, today millions of Americans will go to work 
and conduct business on the World Wide Web. Millions of Americans will 
send e-mail messages to each other. Millions of consumers will buy 
goods and services over the Internet.
  But next month, millions of American children will go back to schools 
that are out of the 1950s where they get half an hour a week on a 
computer if they are lucky. What is worse than that, there will be 
students going to schools that were built during the Civil War. There 
will be children taking gym class in the hallway, children taking 
reading classes in broom closets.
  America's schools need to be modernized. We certainly can take just a 
piece of the largess of the Federal surplus and invest it back into a 
quality public school system.
  I stand before my colleagues as one of the proud cosponsors of the 
Democratic school construction legislation. I just signed a petition 
which said bring that bill to the floor. Give us a vote so we can 
modernize and improve America's schools.

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