[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22639-22643]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                               EDUCATION

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we are facing the last week for the 
consideration of appropriations bills for the next fiscal year. I 
expect we will end up having a continuing resolution--I hope so--so we 
can finish our work without an interruption, the closing down of the 
Government.
  One of the issues, of course, that is most important to all of us is 
that of education. I wanted to talk--and will be joined by several of 
my colleagues during the course of this hour--a little bit about 
strengthening education.
  The Republicans have had, and continue to have, a strong education 
agenda, one that reflects the view we share on this side of the aisle, 
that of returning control to the State and local levels so more of the 
decisions can be made by the school boards, by States, by parents, 
making Federal programs more flexible so there can be assistance from 
the Federal Government but at the same time allowing local governments 
to have the flexibility to adjust educational programs and school 
programs so they fit.
  My State of Wyoming is unique in that we have lots of space and not 
too many people. Chugwater, WY, would have quite a different 
educational approach than Philadelphia. I think those differences need 
to be recognized. We have worked hard to move towards block granting of 
Federal money directly to States and to local school districts. I 
happen to believe that is a very important item in terms of Federal 
participation in elementary and secondary education.
  There are differences of view as a matter of fact as to what the role 
of the Federal Government is with regard to elementary and secondary 
education. Many believe, of course, that it is the primary role of the 
local governments. I share that view. I share the view, however, that 
the Federal Government can assist, and in doing that, it needs to 
assist in a way that local officials can prevail.
  Underlying this debate that we will hear a great deal about today and 
every day is a fundamental philosophical difference as to how you 
approach education. The Democrat approach is to create a series of new 
mandates and new programs such as 100,000 federally funded teachers to 
deal with class size. There is a different approach as to classroom 
units depending on where you are. Most States--I believe 43 out of 50--
have this 18 to 1 ratio about which they talk. The Democrats are 
talking about federally funded school construction and afterschool 
programs, all of which sounds great and probably has some merit, but 
the fact is we ought to be thinking more about funding the programs 
that are already there, such as IDEA, those kinds of programs, than we 
should be talking about expanding into new programs. Democrats don't 
like the idea of letting local people make the decisions. They continue 
to want the educational bureaucracy in Washington to call the shots.

[[Page 22640]]

  That is a fundamental difference, legitimate difference of views. 
There are those who generally respect that idea and those of us who do 
not. Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between the basic 
differences of view as they get tangled up with the details of dollars.
  But it is the local people, it is you and me as we serve on the 
school boards, as I have and many of you, not the bureaucrats in 
Washington, who really need to decide what the classroom unit in our 
schools ought to be, whether they need a new gymnasium or something 
else.
  Those are the key issues about which we need to talk. It is not the 
issue of whether or not we want the Federal Government to participate. 
The issue is how it participates, how much more regulation goes along 
with this participation, and taxes, of course, as well.
  The Taxpayer Relief Act, which was vetoed last week by the President, 
had over $500 billion in family tax relief. Parents could have used 
this money to help educate their children. Specific educational 
provisions totaled $11.3 billion in this tax bill the President 
vetoed--educational savings accounts, interest deductions for student 
loans, deductions for employer-provided tuition assistance, these kinds 
of things that would give families the opportunity to do more with 
their educational programs.
  Congress had made substantial progress earlier this year with the 
passage of the Ed-Flex bill. I am hopeful the principal sponsor of the 
Ed-Flex bill, who is now presiding, will have an opportunity to share 
with us a little more of what that means. It is one of the big things 
we have done this year in terms of education. It allows district 
waivers of Federal requirements. This is the direction we really need. 
We need to let the schools and the districts make their decisions. That 
is really where we are in much of the discussion at this time.
  There will be some resolutions talked about today, introduced by the 
majority leader and the minority leader, which deal directly with the 
funding and how the funding is handled. I think they are extraordinary 
items we will discuss in relation to whether or not this administration 
has listened more to the polls and tried to do things that kind of pick 
up the people's attention or whether they really have been involved in 
seeking to strengthen education through the kinds of activities we have 
had.
  I yield to my friend, the Senator from Alabama.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Wyoming and appreciate so much 
his leadership on so many different issues. His steady hand, his wise 
insight, and determination to make education better in America--I 
certainly share that.
  Education is critical to our Nation's strength, economically, 
intellectually, and morally, and in relation to our character and other 
things. Unity in a nation depends on good education. It includes high 
technology, but it also includes history, literature, art, and those 
kinds of things.
  I strongly believe in public education. I am prepared to support it 
and do support it. I think we can do a lot for our country.
  I was a product of public education. My wife was the product of 
public education. My wife taught a number of years in public schools. I 
taught 1 year in public schools. Our daughters graduated from a major 
public high school in Mobile, AL. They were active in all of the 
school's activities. They were annual editors of the yearbook there. It 
was a big part of our lives. We participated in the PTA. My wife has 
volunteered on regular occasions in the classroom, assisting teachers 
as an aide, as is done in many schools today.
  I think those ideas are oftentimes better than spending endless 
amounts of money. Too often parents are not encouraged to be a part of 
the education process. I think they can contribute to that. So 
educational excellence in the classroom is what it is all about.
  What our goal needs to be is to enhance that magic moment that occurs 
in a classroom between a teacher and a child when learning occurs and 
where excitement is present. That will benefit our children. Some of 
the things we have done in education over the years really cause me 
concern.
  I think it is important for us, as a nation, to recall another point, 
and that is that the Federal Government is not the primary focus of 
education in this country. Ninety-three percent of the money spent on 
education comes from our States and localities. That is where education 
is run. That is a historic, fundamental view in America--that education 
ought to be a local process and that we do not want the Federal 
Government dominating all of our education and telling us how 
everything ought to be run.
  But what we have learned is, over the years, for the little money the 
Federal Government does put forth--the 7 percent that it contributes--
so much of that money goes into regulations and burdens on local 
schools. We understand that 50 percent of the regulations for public 
schools in America come from Federal programs where only 7 percent of 
the money is provided.
  Currently, there are 788 Federal Government education programs. 
School systems, small and large, have to employee teams of people just 
to write grants, to figure out how they can get some of this Federal 
money for their school systems. And when they get the money, they 
cannot use it as they wish; they have to comply with burdensome federal 
regulations, essentially fitting some bureaucrat's idea of what ought 
to be done in that school.
  One thing I have learned here is that schools across this country are 
different. In the school I attended in the town of Camden, AL, 30 of us 
graduated from high school together. Well over half of us started the 
first grade together in that school. It was an excellent high school. I 
was blessed.
  I was at the University of Alabama this weekend, and I met the dean 
of the human services department there; she was my classmate in our 
little class of 30. Another member of that group went on to Annapolis. 
And others have done well. But it was a public school, a small school.
  My daughters went to a high school that had 2,000 students. So 
schools are different. The needs are different in each of the States. 
It is very difficult for the Federal Government to control and dominate 
and say precisely how learning should occur in every classroom across 
this country. I fundamentally believe that decisions about our 
children's education must be made by individuals who know our 
children's names.
  We need to be sure that what we do in this Nation is a benefit to 
children and not a burden. I am really pleased to see Dr. Bill Frist, 
the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, who previously presided in 
the Chair, because earlier this year he led the fight for a bill we 
called Ed-Flex that would say: We are going to give schools more 
flexibility to utilize Federal dollars than they have had before in 
return for strict accountability.
  It was a tough fight. Those on the other side of the aisle, the 
President, and all his staff, fought that bill tooth and claw--even 
though the educators and the teachers and principals were telling us: 
We badly need it. It was a battle. We did not get to go as far as we 
would have liked, but it was a good step in the right direction. We 
need to do more of that.
  Do we really care about our children? Do we want to make sure they 
learn as best they can? Let's give the money to the people we elected 
as our school board presidents and commissioners and superintendents to 
run our school systems; the people who know our children's names. Those 
people care about children; it is not just people in this body.
  Many of us who have little or no knowledge about education, how is it 
we think we know all there is to know about education? We can read a 
newspaper article about somebody having a good idea, so we pass a 
Federal program to fund it, and we end up with 788 programs that really 
burden education.
  Let me tell you about a number of things that are out there. I had a 
letter from a good, long-time friend of mine.

[[Page 22641]]

I was a Federal prosecutor and attorney general of Alabama. This 
friend, Dave Whetstone, was a district attorney in one of our larger 
counties for quite a number of years. Dave Whetstone ran into the IDEA 
Act. Based on what IDEA says, children with disabilities ought not to 
be separated. They are supposed to be kept in the classroom. That is 
certainly a good principle. We ought not to separate children who don't 
need to be separated. But the act says, no matter what you do or how 
violent that child may get, they can't be removed from the classroom 
for more than 45 days. They have to be put back in there because of 
Federal law.
  During committee hearings this year, we heard from a superintendent 
from Vermont who told us that over 20 percent of the education costs in 
the school system with which he was involved went to funding the 
regulations of this program. One cannot believe what it demands. In the 
Alabama case, there was a young man who was the subject of a Time 
Magazine article, ``Is This the Meanest Kid in All of Alabama?''
  I have met with District Attorney Whetstone to discuss this very 
problem because he raised the question. He wrote me a letter in late 
April. He said:

       I am writing you this letter concerning my general outrage 
     over the laws of the Federal Government and how they are 
     being administered in relation to school violence.
       I had already been having meetings . . . concerning the 
     Federal Disabilities Act.
       The general thrust of the matter is that violent children 
     are being kept in school because of the new Federal Rules 
     relating to disabilities.
       I can point to at least seven to nine occasions in Baldwin 
     County in which I believe expulsion was called for, but could 
     not be accomplished because of the interpretation of the 
     Disabilities Act.

  He goes on to talk about the story of this one child.
  In summary--Americans may not understand this--with regard to 
children who are really disruptive, they hire aides to not only be in 
the classroom to help the teacher for this one child who is disruptive, 
the aides go to their homes, ride the school buses with them to keep 
them from disrupting the bus, stay with them all day, and ride the 
school bus home at night.
  That is what they were doing with this young man. He had violent 
tendencies. In one case on the school bus, he had an incident, and the 
aide tried to stop him from wrecking the school bus. He tried to wreck 
the school bus, and he attacked the aide. That is when the district 
attorney got involved and filed legal action to try to overcome this 
thing.
  That is the problem we are living with, and that is driven by Federal 
regulations that are, in fact, reducing our ability to educate. I don't 
know which children ought to be kept in the classroom and which ought 
to be removed. I would like to see every child who can stay in a 
classroom stay in a classroom. I think that is extraordinarily 
important. But some children are so disruptive that it undermines the 
whole teaching process. I believe the decision must be left to the 
local principals and school boards.
  I have had teachers tell me: Jeff, I can't put up with it anymore. It 
is too stressful for me. I am going to get out of this profession that 
I love as soon as I can.
  Much of it is driven, if you talk to your friends and neighbors who 
teach, by discipline problems. You would not know, if you listened to 
these education bureaucrats in Washington, that a lot of it is driven 
by burdensome Federal education rules and regulations.
  This Congress, since the Republican Party took the majority, has 
increased Federal funding for education 27 percent. All this talk about 
slashing funds for education is not true. We do believe--I certainly 
believe--in public education and helping public education to flourish, 
but we need to do it the right way. We need to do it in a way that 
helps teachers to achieve that sublime moment when the learning occurs 
in a classroom and kids are motivated and they get that insight that 
may lead them on to a lifetime of learning.
  I am not sure the 788 programs we have now are working. I pledge to 
the people of the United States, I am going to work to do all I can to 
continue to support our States in their efforts to educate, but I am 
going to try to reduce Federal regulation and Federal intervention in 
their schools and give them the kind of opportunities they have not had 
in many years to improve education in those schools. Each school does 
it differently. We can't mandate it from here.
  It worked for welfare reform. Do my colleagues remember that? We 
said: We are going to stop mandating all these rules for every 
community in America. We are going to challenge the States to take the 
welfare money we have been spending and create programs they believe, 
in their State, are comprehensive and will get people off welfare and 
back to work. It has worked, and we have had a massive reduction in the 
welfare rolls. It has been good for America.
  We can do the same for education. The Senator from Tennessee has been 
a national leader for education reform. He is on the Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee. He has been a national spokesman for it, 
and it has been a pleasure for me to join that committee and work with 
him.
  Mr. President, I have concluded my remarks. I am pleased to yield to 
the distinguished Senator from Tennessee on this subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Alabama for his 
outstanding leadership in the field of education, preparing our 
children for tomorrow, for that next millennium. He has done 
outstanding work. We work almost on a daily basis on this very issue.
  I also commend the Presiding Officer for his leadership on this issue 
which, again, means so much to the future of our country.
  Earlier this morning I was talking to a group of people who came up 
to visit from Texas. They said: Senator Frist, what in your mind is the 
most important thing that society must do to prepare our country for 
this new millennium that is upon us?
  I very quickly turned it back to the audience and said: What do you 
think?
  When we came to education, every hand went up in the air. Indeed, 
according to every public opinion survey, education is the No. 1 issue 
when people ask what the responsibility of the public--not necessarily 
just the Federal Government but of the public--is in terms of promoting 
more fulfilling lives in the future. If we look a little bit further at 
those town meetings, we say: What really can be done? People very 
quickly come back to our education system, to our public school system. 
About two out of three Americans are very supportive of public schools 
but do believe that our public schools will require some major change, 
some major innovation, some creativity. Just more of the same is simply 
not going to work.
  We only have to look at how we compare to our international 
counterparts. When we look at reading, math, or science at the fourth 
grade, the eighth grade, and at the twelfth grade, we are failing 
compared to other countries all around the world. What is even sadder, 
if we look at subjects such as reading or math, we fail in the fourth, 
eighth, and twelfth grades. If we do OK in the fourth grade, we do 
worse in the eighth grade, and we do miserably in the twelfth grade. 
The longer someone is in school, when we compare ourselves 
internationally--we all know our world is becoming smaller, and our 
borders are beginning to fall in this global economy--when we compare 
ourselves internationally, we are failing and failing miserably.
  Republicans have set forth very solid proposals based on three pretty 
simple, straightforward priorities. Mention has already been made about 
the Ed-Flex bill, the Education Flexibility Partnership Act, which was 
signed by the President, debated on this floor, and involves these same 
principles.
  Those three principles are, No. 1, take education out of the hands of 
the Federal bureaucrats and return it to the local level, to parents, 
to teachers, to school superintendents, to local officials, where it 
belongs.

[[Page 22642]]

  No. 2, since what we are doing is not working, based on the 
statistics I just related, let's unleash the spirit of change, of 
innovation, of doing something a little bit different. We can begin by 
untying those Federal strings, those Federal regulations which are 
restricting that change, which are holding back innovation.
  No. 3, raise the standard of education excellence so every child gets 
the education he or she needs and deserves.
  For over three decades, we have seen this progression of Federal 
involvement in our educational system today. As the Senator from 
Alabama just pointed out, there are over 780 separate Federal education 
programs. It really comes from a lot of people in this body and other 
bodies who came up with good ideas to cure particular problems. The 
result is that you get a layering of these Federal programs, one on top 
of each other, until you get this whole spider web of good intentions. 
But these good intentions have increased Federal bureaucracies, each 
with its own set of regulations, hierarchy, own buildings, own section, 
each trying to educate people in a better way. These over 780 different 
Federal education programs are spread across over 40 entirely separate 
bureaucracies. So it is time to step back, streamline, and better 
coordinate the resources that we are directing toward education.
  Now, it is interesting that, in the Ed-Flex debate, a lot of things 
were talked about on the floor of the Senate, and one was apparent to 
me. The statistic was that educators spend over 48 million hours 
churning out paperwork and red tape because of these Washington-based 
regulations.
  Now, 48 million hours sounds like a lot. How much is it? It is the 
equivalent of 25,000 teachers working 40 hours a week for 1 year--not 
in teaching that student but in filling out paperwork and regulations. 
It is this excessive regulatory burden that we in Washington, DC, 
impose on them. It is what the Federal Government pushes down on that 
teacher in that school in Alamo, TN.
  How does it translate into taxpayer dollars? That $1 that is sent, on 
April 15, to Washington, DC, filters down through the bureaucracy and 
is only worth 65 cents by the time it gets down to the classroom; that 
is, 35 cents of every taxpayer dollar that comes up to the Federal 
Government is lost in these 780 programs through 40 different 
bureaucracies.
  The real question is, Can this be modernized? Is there something we 
can do? The answer is absolutely. Ed-Flex is that first step. It shows 
that we can make progress by doing what? Education flexibility--giving 
more flexibility, providing for more accountability; those are two 
fundamental principles.
  As Ronald Reagan said, ``There is nothing closer to eternal life than 
a Government bureaucracy.'' So, yes, No. 1, we have to address the 
issues of the bureaucracy. How can we streamline and better coordinate 
to get more value out of the resources that we put into education? Ed-
Flex attacked the issue of improved accountability and improved 
achievement by looking at those three Republican principles. Individual 
classrooms have individual needs. Classrooms in Alamo, TN, are 
different from those in Memphis, and different from Bristol, TN, and 
different from those in New York City, or San Francisco. Some schools 
stress technology; some have computers; some are in a rural area and 
don't have the technology.
  The whole point is each school is different, and we in Washington, 
DC, must recognize the solutions to an individual school's challenges 
to educate a student have to be based on local concerns, local input, 
on what those teachers need, on what advise and counsel parents offer 
to that particular school.
  What did Ed-Flex do? As I said, it is the Education Flexibility 
Partnership Act. No. 1 is flexibility. It gets rid of a lot of the 
Washington red tape. It comes down from the 780 different programs. You 
have absolutely the same goals, but how you reach those goals is 
determined at the local level. Ed-Flex has strong flexibility but also 
strong accountability. Strong accountability, in that if you have an 
Ed-Flex program in your State, you must say specifically how that plan 
will be administered, how achievement will be measured, and you will be 
held accountable for accomplishing that achievement.
  In return, you are given flexibility. Ed-Flex started as a 
demonstration project in six States, and it was expanded to 12 States. 
Now, through a bipartisan effort, we are able to expand that to every 
State in the Union.
  Another way to achieve the three principles we are working on is the 
authorization process--a process that is looking at the reauthorization 
of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This is the big bill 
that authorizes how we spend all kindergarten-through-12 funding. The 
purpose of going back and looking at that authorization is to modernize 
this system, to allow some innovation and creativity, to take it back 
to local control, instead of Washington, DC, control.
  Republicans have designated this legislation as the vehicle to 
address two principles: No. 1, to retain the same basic elements of 
education funding through ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Act, but eliminate the red tape that tells localities specifically how 
to spend it. The bill, as we go forward, needs to stress local control. 
I believe, and most Republicans believe, that we need to free States 
and free localities from red tape, from that lack of innovation, from 
that rigidity, in return for improvements in achievement. We must make 
sure our students are really learning and progressing over time. In 
addition, we have to reduce that paperwork by focusing on not just the 
process but the actual performance of those students who will leave 
that school and go on to higher education and to competition in our 
national marketplace and in a global marketplace.
  We need to allow States, I believe, to consolidate some of these 780 
programs at the State and local level if they believe they can have 
greater achievement, and if they have a specific plan to do so, and are 
held accountable for that. We need to empower parents, we need to 
empower local educators, and then we need to hold them accountable for 
their results.
  Another issue that we absolutely must focus on, and we are focusing 
on, is the quality of our teachers. There are some people who say the 
answer to all this is 100,000 more teachers. That makes a good sound 
bite because more of anything sounds good to people. But I believe we 
need to go back to that Republican fundamental belief that more can be 
helpful, but what is more important is the quality of that teacher in 
that classroom talking to those 10 students or 20 students or 30 
students. Just having more of something there isn't necessarily the 
answer. The answer is in teacher quality.
  A researcher from the University of Tennessee put it quite well when 
he said to me that teacher quality has a greater effect on performance 
than any other factor, including student demographics or class size. If 
you have to pick one, it is the quality of that teacher in the 
classroom. He said--and these are exact words--``When kids have 
ineffective teachers, they never recover.''
  Think about that. Other than parents, no other intervention equals 
the effect on a child's capacity to learn, to assimilate than that of 
his teacher. Every classroom should have a qualified teacher, 
proficient in the subjects they teach. Now, one might say, well, no, 
that is not it; we need more warm bodies in the classroom and that is 
the answer.
  Listen to these statistics. Today, over 25 percent of all teachers 
are poorly trained to teach; 12 percent have no prior classroom 
experience before beginning to teach; 14 percent have not fully met 
State standards. In Massachusetts alone, 59 percent failed the basic 
licensing exam; 54 percent failed a 10th grade level competency test. 
If we look all across America, 18 percent of all social studies 
teachers have neither majored nor minored in the subject they teach; 20 
percent of all science teachers have neither majored nor minored in 
science; 40 percent of all math teachers have neither majored nor 
minored in mathematics.

[[Page 22643]]

  Is it surprising, then, when you compare the performance of 12th 
graders in this country in math and science to other countries around 
the world that we are not 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, or 20th in math and 
science, but we are 21st? We are 21st among our competitor nations 
around the world. Is it surprising when 40 percent of all math 
teachers--the person actually teaching in that room with the 12th 
graders--did not major or minor in the field of mathematics? We hear 
about ``100,000 new teachers.'' That is a short sound bite, but I think 
the focus you will see from our side of the aisle is on the quality of 
teachers and not on numbers alone.
  The Teacher Quality Act works aggressively on directing Federal 
resources to help attract the very best, to help train and retrain 
those very best teachers. Funds will be available in several areas, 
including establishing incentives to teachers with advanced degrees in 
core subjects, or implementing teacher testing with bonuses for those 
who score well, or expanding the pool of teachers by certifying 
qualified retired military personnel.
  Another issue in our schools today, an issue we hear about all too 
often, is school violence. Again, the reasons are as many and numerous 
as the incidents themselves. Common sense says fix the obvious problem. 
One obvious problem is drugs. A long-term study showed most drug use 
starts at age 12 or 13. When the White House took a high-profile line 
on this, illicit drug use declined consistently from 1979 to 1992 and, 
over that period of about 13 years, fell from 16 percent to 5 percent. 
However, in the first 5 years of the current administration, over half 
of that progress has been lost. The latest National Center for Alcohol 
and Substance Abuse poll shows 35 percent of teens believe drugs are 
the most important problem they face.
  We are responding again under an initiative being put forward through 
the Youth Drug and Mental Health Services Act. That act will add 
financial assistance for community programs for violent youth and will 
add technical assistance to create community partnerships to look at 
youth drug issues and youth mental health.
  An area of discipline we will have to come back to is loopholes in 
the current law, including the act mentioned this morning, the 
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a bill in which I believe 
very strongly and which was strongly supported in the efforts of the 
past Congress. There is a problem in that particular bill regarding 
violence--violence and discipline in our schools. The fact is, one 
group of students is disciplined in a different manner from other 
students. That is unfair and has to be changed. It has not yet been 
changed.
  In my own county, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, there were 
eight firearms infractions, meaning there were eight children who 
brought either guns or bombs to school; six of those were special ed 
students. Three of those special ed students were expelled, but three 
were not expelled and came back to the classroom. In Tennessee, the 
general law is, if a student brings a gun or a bomb into the classroom, 
they are expelled for that year. Because of the Federal law, we say all 
students are not treated equally. There is a special class of students 
who, even if they brought a gun or a bomb to the classroom, may return 
in 45 days. I see no reason why all children should not be subject to 
the very same disciplinary action.
  Education is the most important gift we can give our children. The 
time to act is now. We are doing that with Ed-Flex as the first step, 
with reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and 
with the Teacher Quality Act.
  I have an 11-year-old, 12-year-old, and a 14-year-old. I don't want 
to be too pessimistic. When we look at this generation that is coming 
through, the overwhelming majority of America's children are good, with 
good intentions, and are working hard. In fact, when comparing the so-
called millennial generation with the preceding generation, statistics 
are improving:
  Teen sexual activity is down; teen pregnancies are down, especially 
in the inner cities; teen drinking is down; teen drunk driving is down; 
TV time is down; high school dropout rates are down. More time is being 
spent on homework today. Academic standards are slowly rising; time 
spent on chores is up; church-going is up. High-tech skills are rising 
sharply. Most teens today trust institutions; they agree with their 
parents on core values.
  As for violence, the high school murder rate has indeed fallen 50 
percent since 1993, the steepest decline in any age bracket. School-
related violent deaths are declining. There has been an overall 
improvement in teen crime. I say that because we have this interesting 
juxtaposition of great opportunity in our system, but when we compare 
ourselves internationally, we are failing if performance is the 
measure.
  Again, looking back to the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade, we are 
failing our children today, but we are doing it in an overall framework 
which says that it is possible to succeed. We need to be committed. We 
need to do it in the right way, using the three Republican principles I 
put forward. Our children are America's future, they are America's 
pride, and Republicans intend to do everything we possible can to help 
them stay that way.
  I ask unanimous consent, following the remarks of Senator Dorgan 
today, at approximately 2:20 p.m., Senator Hatch be recognized for up 
to 25 minutes in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. How much time remains for morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Nineteen minutes.

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