[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3597]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                              {time}  1030

 POPULATION PRESSURES IN SCHOOLS MEAN STATE AND FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITY

  (Mr. WEINER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I would invite my colleague to visit some of 
the schools in my district in Brooklyn and Queens. I think what they 
will find are some great teachers and some eager students. They will 
probably find them not only in classrooms, but they will find them in 
gymnasiums, they will find them in storage closets, they will find them 
in lunch rooms, stuck in nooks and crannies in virtually every 
building.
  Why is that? It is because in places like Community School District 
24 and 27 in Queens, Districts 21 and 22 in Kings County, we have 
populations in those schools in the neighborhood of 120 to 140 percent 
of capacity.
  This is an extraordinary blessing. These students represent the best 
hopes for our country and best hopes for our community. But with that 
blessing comes a certain responsibility that we must face, not only in 
localities but here in Washington. That is to support school 
modernization. If we can build roads that go by these schools, we 
should be able to build roofs and extensions on these schools and make 
sure they are wired for the Internet.
  School modernization represents our national defense for the 
generations to come. We should support it heartily on both sides of the 
aisle.

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