[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17576-17578]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                               EDUCATION

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I know we are very much involved in this 
extremely important decision on the question of trade with China, but I 
do want to take a few moments this morning to address another issue 
which I think is of central concern to families across this country.
  I think it is particularly appropriate that we give additional focus 
and attention to the priority of education policy as we are coming into 
the final days of this session of Congress. I think there is a 
heightened interest in this issue as some 53 million children are going 
back to school. They have started going back to school in the last 10 
days and are going back to school this week. And, fifteen million 
children are going to colleges, going back to school now, this week and 
next.
  Parents are wondering what the circumstances will be for their 
children this school year and in the future, and who is going to ensure 
their children are going to get an adequate education and will move 
ahead. Parents understand full well that education is key to the future 
for their children and, obviously, education is key to our country's 
future as we are moving more and more into a new information-age and 
technologically-advanced global economy. This is a matter of enormous 
urgency.
  We understand that there is a fundamental responsibility for the 
education of children in the elementary and secondary high schools of 
this country at the local and State level and that the role of the 
Federal Government is much more limited. Approximately 7 cents out of 
every dollar that is spent locally actually comes from the Federal 
Government.
  In my travels around my State of Massachusetts, in talking to 
parents, they are interested in a partnership. They are interested in 
their children doing well. They want support for programs that work, 
and they are less interested in the division of authority between local 
and State governments and the participation of Congress in assisting 
academic achievement.
  The backbone of congressional participation in the education of 
children is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. That is an act 
of enormous importance. It is not only myself who is saying this, but 
we have the statements of the majority leader, Senator Lott, who in 
January 1999 indicated:

       Education is going to be a central issue this year. . . . 
     For starters, we must reauthorize the Elementary and 
     Secondary Education Act. That is important.

  Remarks to the Conference of Mayors on January 29, 1999:

       But education is going to have a lot of attention, and it's 
     not just going to be words. . . .

  Press conference, June 22, 1999:

       Education is number one on the agenda for Republicans in 
     the Congress this year.

  Remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, February 1, 2000:

       We're going to work very hard on education. I have 
     emphasized that every year I've been majority leader. . . . 
     And Republicans are committed to doing that.

  A speech to the National Conference of State Legislatures, February 
3, 2000:

       We must reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education 
     Act. . . . Education will be a high priority in this 
     Congress.

  Congress Daily, April 20, 2000:

       . . . Lott said last week his top priorities in May include 
     agriculture sanctions bill, Elementary and Secondary 
     Education Act reauthorization, and passage of four 
     appropriations bills.

  Senate, May 1:

       This is very important legislation. I hope we can debate it 
     seriously and have amendments in the education area. Let's 
     talk education.

  Press Stakeout, May 2.

       Question: Senator, on ESEA, have you scheduled a cloture 
     vote on that?
       Senator Lott: No, I haven't scheduled a cloture vote. . . . 
     But education is number one in the minds of the American 
     people all across the country and every State, including my 
     own State. For us to have a good, healthy, and even a 
     protracted debate and amendments on education I think is the 
     way to go.

  Those are the assurances we have been given by the majority leader, 
and we have had 6 days of discussion about elementary education. Two of 
those days were discussion only. We had a total of eight amendments, 
seven rollcalls, one voice vote, and three of those seven were 
virtually unanimous. So we have not had this debate which not only the 
majority leader has said is important, but which families believe is 
important. The reason they believe it is important is because of the 
substance of education policy that will be included in that debate. I 
remind the Senate where we are on the expansion of the number of 
children enrolled in school. In K-12 enrollment, it is at an all-time 
high. In 1990, 46 million K-12 children were enrolled, and by the year 
2000, 53 million children. There are increasing pressures on local 
communities across the country.
  This chart shows that student enrollment will continue to rise over 
the next century. There are 53 million students enrolled in the year 
2000, but if you look at the projections, 94 million are estimated to 
be enrolled by the year 2100--41 million more students over the next 
century, virtually doubling the Nation's population in education which 
will require building schools and hiring more qualified teachers all 
across this country.
  This is a matter of enormous importance to national policy and family 
policy. We believe we should not give short shrift to debating what our 
policies may be. We may have some differences on different sides of the 
aisle, but we should be debating these policy issues.
  On the issue of priorities this year, such as bankruptcy--which we 
debated for 16 days, we had 55 amendments; 16 days on bankruptcy, 55 
amendments. As I mentioned, we had eight amendments on elementary and 
secondary education. Three were unanimous and one vote was by a voice 
vote. So we really have not met our responsibilities, I do not believe, 
on debating education policy.

       I strongly favor Federal commitment and investment in 
     programs that have been tried, tested, and proven to be 
     effective and that can be implemented at the local level and 
     have a positive impact on the children.

  I want to take a moment to bring the Senate up to speed about what is 
happening in schools across the country. More students are taking the 
SAT test: In 1980, 33 percent; 1985, 36 percent; 40 percent in 1990; 42 
percent in 1995; 44 percent in 2000. More and more of the children in 
this country are recognizing the importance of taking the scholastic 
aptitude test. Children are aware they have to apply themselves, as 
reflected in the number of students taking the test, and that college 
education is the key to success in America. Also, the results have been 
positive. Even though more students are taking the SAT, and the 
students are more diverse, math scores are the highest in 30 years. 
But, in order to sustain the gains made, children need to continue to 
have well-qualified teachers, they need an investment in preschool 
programs, they need afterschool programs, they have to have available 
to them the latest technologies so they can move ahead in their 
academic work.
  This is another chart showing more students are taking advanced math 
and science classes. This reflects 1990 to 2000: Precalculus, in 1990, 
was 31 percent. It is now 44 percent. Calculus, 19 percent in 1990; 24 
percent in 2000. In physics, 44 percent in 1990 to 49 percent in 2000.
  We are finding more students are taking college level courses, 
advanced placement courses, the more challenging courses, and they are 
doing better and better in these undertakings.

[[Page 17577]]

  However, our work is far from over. We cannot get away from the fact 
that there are many others in our country, in urban areas and rural 
areas, who are facing extraordinary challenges. Those disadvantaged 
children are really the ones on which we are focused in terms of the 
Federal elementary and secondary education programs.
  Basically, there are important ways in which we can give some help 
and assistance to these children. We believe in smaller class sizes, 
with well-trained teachers, and afterschool programs. We believe in 
making sure the children are going to be ready to learn, either through 
the Head Start Program or through helping and assisting local groups to 
try to give help and assistance to those children as they are 
preparing, even for Head Start, the ready-to-learn program, which 
basically was a goal we agreed to--Democrats and Republicans alike--in 
their conference in Charlottesville about 10 years ago. That is an area 
in which we have not been able to gain support, although we have a 
bipartisan proposal that is actually currently pending--would be 
pending were we to get back to the elementary and secondary education 
bill.
  We believe the success of the STAR Program in Tennessee and also in 
the State of Wisconsin demonstrates the importance of smaller 
classrooms. Also, all of the various studies have shown quite clearly 
the importance of having well-trained teachers.
  We can learn from States that have moved ahead in providing adequate 
compensation of teachers, such as Connecticut, North Carolina, and 
other States, and that have shown that when you have teachers who are 
well trained and well paid, you get an enhanced academic achievement 
for these students.
  We support afterschool programs--they have a tremendous impact on 
helping children to enhance their academic achievement.
  We should also make college more accessible to every qualified 
student through GEAR UP and college tuition help, the excellent 
proposal that has been advanced by Vice President Gore to provide a tax 
deduction for tuition for children, for parents whose children are 
going on to college.
  Also, in the area of skills training, we tried to address that in an 
amendment. We actually were able to get a majority in the Senate to 
support the restoring of a training program, but we have been unable to 
get that implemented because there was a point of order made against 
it. We had to amend a bill which did not make it possible for us to 
carry that forward into a conference.
  All of these are matters of enormous importance. We have been 
impressed--I have--by the debate and discussion at the national level 
about the Vice President's proposal to understand that learning has to 
be a continuum and that skills training has to be a continuum.
  I often am reminded of the fact that when I first was elected to the 
Senate, we had a very efficient shipyard down in Fall River, MA. The 
workers who worked there, their fathers worked there, their 
grandfathers worked there. More often than not, the sons wanted to work 
there. But there has been a change. That yard has been closed. Now what 
we find out is--not only there but across my own State of Massachusetts 
and across the country--everyone who enters the job market is going to 
have, on average, seven different jobs over the course of their 
lifetime.
  We have to be able to have continuing education and training programs 
accessible and available to young and old alike, so that people are 
going to be able to upgrade their skills. That is enormously important. 
It is enormously important not only to the young, but it is enormously 
important to communities such as mine, Massachusetts, where we have an 
older workforce--we have a transition from a lot of the older 
industries into newer kinds of industries--and where the real 
difference is in the development of skills.
  We would have the opportunity to address many of those issues I have 
very briefly mentioned in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 
We certainly would be able to address universal preschool, the issues 
of qualified teachers, and the importance of skills training that is 
going to be school based. We could address modern and safe schools. We 
would be able to address afterschool opportunities, smaller class 
sizes, and the higher education issues.
  Lifelong training would perhaps not be exactly targeted in those 
programs, but we will have an opportunity to address that, I believe, 
in the final budget negotiations that are going to be taking place 
between the two Houses, and with the appropriations. Being able to have 
a clear indication about where we in the Congress stand on these issues 
could be enormously instructive in terms of allocating scarce 
resources.
  I just want to say, we are continually frustrated that we have not 
been able to get this matter back up in the Senate for debate. We note 
that we were on a two-track agenda just last week, where we did the 
trade issues during the day and the appropriations in the evening. We 
would like to suggest that we could do the trade issues, as they are 
going along, but we are prepared to move ahead to consider the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the evenings. We could 
consider it this week, next week, until we have reached a conclusion to 
it. We recognize the importance of it.
  If we are looking around for priorities--we heard last week about the 
importance of a lockbox; and we ought to certainly address that issue 
before we adjourn--but I daresay for most families, this week is 
education week as their children go back to school. They want to know 
what they might be able to expect from the Congress, what kind of 
partnership should they be able to expect, and we should not just give 
them silence, which we effectively are giving them.
  I welcome the fact that this week we are having Vice President Gore 
speak on the various aspects of education for a series of days in 
different parts of the country. I would like to see a national debate 
on education. I would like to see him out there speaking about it. I 
would like to have seen Governor Bush speaking about it. I would like 
to see the engagement of their ideas in the forums of their debates. 
But we ought to be discussing these issues here on the floor of the 
Senate. That is something I think is of importance.
  Every day we let this go by, every day that we refuse to bring this 
up, I think we are denying the American people the kind of debate on an 
issue they care about, which they deserve. We hear both of the 
candidates talk about education. Let the record just demonstrate that 
we, on our side, want to get back and debate this issue. We want to 
take action on it. We are prepared to go forward on it. We do not need 
phone calls from the Vice President on this. We are prepared to go 
ahead--and go ahead today, tonight, any other time, on it.
  We wish the Governor would call the Republican leadership and say: 
Look, I am interested in the education issues as well. Why don't you go 
ahead and have a good debate on that issue and in the Senate. Let me 
tell you what my positions are. Let's have a debate. Let's let the 
American people understand. Let's give them a window into this 
discussion, which is so important for families in this country. Let's 
not exclude them.
  I can imagine, as the Vice President is going around talking about 
education, there are going to be people saying: What is happening in 
the Congress? I hope he understands that we, on this side, are prepared 
to have these matters debated, discussed, and resolved. We wish we 
could join with our colleagues on the other side to do so.
  Historically, the issues on education have never been really 
partisan. We have some differences in terms of accountability, which 
the Vice President strongly supports. But we believe we ought to be 
able to have a debate and discussion in the Senate on this issue. We 
think we are denying the American people the opportunity.
  So I would invite the Governor to contact the Republican leadership 
here and say: If you are really interested in education, let's bring 
the elementary and secondary education bill back to the floor. Let's 
debate it.

[[Page 17578]]

  We are glad to consider it in the evening time. We have now just 
about a month left in this session of the Senate. We ought to be 
resolving the issues on education, on the Patients' Bill of Rights, on 
prescription drugs, and on the increase in the minimum wage. If we did 
those four, if we took care of those four issues, I think we could say 
that this was a Congress of considerable achievement and considerable 
accomplishment.
  Those are central, focused issues about which both of the candidates 
are talking. But they are speaking all over the country; they are not 
speaking to us here in the Senate. We have no debate on minimum wage. 
We are not getting back to the minimum wage or prescription drugs. We 
aren't getting back to education.
  Since we are not going to be able to do that and have it rescheduled, 
we are going to have to take whatever steps we possibly can on whatever 
bills that are going to come up in the remaining days. We want to do 
this well. We want to do it with the understanding of the leadership on 
both sides. But if we are not going to be able to get focus and 
attention on these issues, then we are going to have to take whatever 
opportunity we have, on any of the measures that are coming down the 
line, in trying to press the people's business in the form of 
education. And that I commit we will do.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I know my colleague from Maine wants 5 
minutes to respond. I ask unanimous consent that after my colleague 
from Maine speaks, my colleague from California have 5 minutes as in 
morning business, and that I then be able to introduce the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, first, I thank my friend and colleague 
from Minnesota for his usual graciousness in allowing me to respond to 
the comments made by my friend from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy.
  Let's look at the facts. My colleagues on this side of the aisle have 
repeatedly said that the reauthorization of the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act is our top priority. We produced a very good 
bill from the HELP Committee on which the Presiding Officer serves so 
ably. We produced a bill that provides a substantial increase in 
Federal funding for education to help improve education and the lives 
of children all over this Nation.
  We also adopted an important, innovative, new approach, one that 
recognizes that Washington is not the fount of all wisdom when it comes 
to educational policy. We recognize that schools have different needs, 
that some need new computers. Others need to hire new math teachers. 
Still others need to concentrate on providing more programs for gifted 
and talented students. Schools have different needs. They want to 
tailor their policies to the needs of the local community.
  That is what our bill would do. It would give schools more 
flexibility in spending Federal dollars while holding them accountable 
for what counts; that is, results, improved student achievement. We 
want to get away from the Washington-knows-best approach and let local 
school boards, teachers, and parents make the decisions about what 
their children best need.
  Unfortunately, our efforts were derailed by our colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle who insisted on weighing down the education 
bill with issues completely unrelated to education. The majority 
leader, Senator Lott, has tried repeatedly to get a unanimous consent 
agreement that would allow us to return to the education bill that both 
sides agree is so important. Unfortunately, the latest effort was once 
again met with demands for unrelated, nongermane amendments that would 
sink our ability to produce this important legislation this year.
  Those are the facts. Our side stands ready to return to the ESEA 
bill. We believe that is an extremely important priority. We are very 
proud of the bill we have produced. We believe it would make a real 
difference in the lives of American children. We would like to go 
forward. Unfortunately, we have been met with obstacle after obstacle 
from our colleagues on Senator Kennedy's side of the aisle.
  That is unfortunate. But the American people deserve to know why we 
have been unable to complete our work in this very important arena.
  I yield the floor and again thank my colleague from Minnesota for his 
graciousness.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I add my thanks to my fine colleague for allowing me 
to have this 5 minutes.
  I say to my dear friend from Maine that we all seem to be saying we 
want to bring up the ESEA so we can debate education. Yet the format 
under which we would be going back to this bill would be a closed 
format. Those of us who think it is important, for example, that there 
be school safety, that we be allowed to offer sensible gun laws so we 
can, in fact, keep these guns away from these kids wouldn't be able to 
do it. We could not offer an amendment on school modernization. We 
could not offer an amendment to expand afterschool opportunities, 
smaller class sizes, more qualified teachers, and accountability for 
results.
  When you say you want to discuss education, yet you shut out the 
ability for those of us on this side to offer these amendments that, by 
the way, many people in the country support by majorities of 80 
percent, it seems to me you are not offering anything at all.
  The interesting point is that my friends on the other side say: Well, 
you are just trying to delay things. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. In 1994, Phil Gramm on your side offered a gun amendment on the 
ESEA. All we are asking for is the opportunity to debate this and 
debate it so that it is relevant to the American people.

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