[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 24185]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



           CONGRESS NEEDS TO TAKE UP A SCHOOL FACILITIES BILL

  (Mr. THOMPSON of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, modern well-equipped schools 
in good repair are an important part of a good learning environment, 
yet we are lacking badly in our efforts to keep up with school 
facilities needs.
  In my home State, California, we need 10,791 classrooms in the next 5 
years in order to keep up. That is 6 classrooms per day that we are 
going to need to build for the next 5 years.
  Facilities are necessary to keep up with the new technology that we 
are putting in schools and to meet the needs of the growing student 
population, enrollment that grew to a record high last year of 53.2 
million students. And it is projected that next year it will grow by 
another 440,000 students.
  Mr. Speaker, it is paramount that we have a school facility bill on 
this floor to address these needs.

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