[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 28187]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                CONGRESS SHOULD PASS SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION

  (Mr. ETHERIDGE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call on this House to 
pass school construction legislation before we adjourn for the year. We 
should not even consider ending this session until we tend to the needs 
of our children for new school construction.
  Across the country at this very moment more than 53 million children 
are attending classes in our Nation's schools. We now have more 
children in our schools than we have had at any time in our history 
even at the height of the baby boom.
  Our schools are bursting at the seams and we know that the explosion 
in enrollment growth we are experiencing and will experience over the 
next 10 years is going to stretch local communities even farther.
  Today many of our children are in overstuffed classrooms. Too many of 
our teachers are forced to struggle in cramped trailers instead of a 
quality facility, and too many parents must


watch helplessly as their children are condemned to attend a run-down 
school because Congress refuses to act.
  Mr. Speaker, this Congress must not leave town without addressing 
this crisis. We must not sneak out the back-door without passing 
commonsense school construction assistance.

                          ____________________