[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17872-17873]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           THE SENATE AGENDA

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we also recognize that there are issues that 
need to be discussed as to what is going on with the media. That is why 
this legislation is important. The problem is there are other matters 
dealing with children we have totally ignored this year. For example, 
we have spent, this year, 6 days of debate on the ESEA.
  As I have said, we do not apologize for the work we have done on 
tobacco. What has happened has been revolutionary as a result of the 
minority speaking out against the problems of tobacco. We do not 
apologize for that. Of course, we have called attention to it.
  We have also called attention to the fact that we believe our 
children need more attention. On February 3 of this year, the majority 
said education will be a ``high priority'' in this Congress.
  I regret to say instead of making education a central issue, and even 
a high priority, we have had only 6 days of debate on education this 
entire year on the Senate floor. There is not a more important issue 
that we can talk about on the Senate floor, bar none, than educating 
our children. Having 6 days of debate on the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act in this Congress over a 2-year period does not indicate 
to me this is a ``high priority.''
  We have about 15 days left in this Congress. We still have 11 
appropriations bills to do. We have a minimum wage bill to complete. We 
have the Patients' Bill of Rights bill to complete. We have 
prescription drug benefits to address. We have issues dealing with gun 
safety, bankruptcy reform--the list of things we have not done is 
unending.
  I believe to bring up, as was done by the majority today, this issue 
dealing with media, when right now Senator McCain and others are 
listening to testimony of Senator Joe Lieberman as to what he believes 
should be done in this regard. We know this is an artificial effort by 
the majority to focus on this issue. There is no intention to bring 
this up for debate. That is why the unanimous consent request given was 
so restricted that they would allow one amendment for 30 minutes. I 
think it is obvious this was only an effort to bring up an issue and 
talk about what they cannot get done.
  Remember, the majority controls what goes on here on the floor. It is 
very obvious to me one thing the majority does not want to go on is a 
debate about education.
  The Elementary and Secondary Education Act is an act that was part of 
President Johnson's war on poverty. It has been a successful program. 
Title I, the largest program in the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Act, was intended to help educational challenges facing high-poverty 
communities by targeting extra resources to school districts and 
schools with the highest concentrations of poverty. What it has done 
for children who could not read is remarkable. We have a lot more to do 
because Title I, which relates to teaching kids who have fallen behind 
how to read, has been so underfunded. Where it has been funded, it has 
done remarkably well.
  We want this program to continue. In 1994, the Democratic-led 
Congress and the Clinton-Gore administration worked together to enact 
far-reaching reauthorization of Title I. We want to continue this, set 
high standards, and close the achievement gap. We want to do something 
about class size reduction. We want to hire more teachers. There are 
all kinds of studies that show if teachers have fewer children to 
teach, the kids do better, but we do not need studies to prove that.
  Common sense dictates if a teacher has fewer children to teach, she 
is going to do a better job of teaching those children. That is what 
this legislation is about: Simple common sense; that is, if you have 
fewer children to teach, the kids are going to do better. We want to do 
that. We want to have class size reduction.
  It is very clear one of the reasons we have such a high dropout rate 
is because of the fact children are in classes that are so big and 
schools that are so big.
  I did an open school forum in Las Vegas during the August recess. Las 
Vegas is the sixth largest school district in America with 230,000 
children. It was interesting. The new superintendent of schools, Carlos 
Garcia, who came from Fresno, said that if a child is not reading up to 
standard in the third grade, that kid is a good candidate for being a 
high school dropout. We need to make sure the children in third grade 
can read. That is what this is all about. That is why we need to 
reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. That is why we 
need to have fewer kids for each teacher to teach. That is what we are 
trying to do. That is why Senator Murray has worked so hard on her 
Class Size Reduction Act.
  Unfortunately, our friends on the other side of the aisle reject our 
class size reduction program by failing to provide a separate dedicated 
funding stream. What we have done as a result of the intervention of 
the Clinton-Gore administration is force at year end in the omnibus 
bill more money for teachers. As a result of that, we have hired almost 
30,000 new teachers so far under this program, directly benefiting over 
1.5 million children. It has been proven, if you have smaller class 
sizes, these kids outperform students in larger classes. It helps 
teachers, and it helps the students. I repeat, our friends on the other 
side of the aisle reject this.
  I want to talk about something very important to me, and that is high 
school dropouts. I mentioned briefly that if a kid cannot read in third 
grade,

[[Page 17873]]

he or she is a good candidate to be a high school dropout.
  Three thousand children drop out of school every day, 500,000 a year. 
We would be so much better off if we could do something to keep 500 of 
those children in school every day, or 200 of those children. We would 
only have 2,800 dropping out of school every day.
  We have worked on this. Senator Bingaman and I have a dropout 
prevention bill which supports local school development and programs 
for the prevention of dropouts. We successfully included $10 million in 
funding for dropout prevention in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. We 
hope that stays in conference. The conference has not been held, of 
course, as has conferences for most appropriations bills not been held. 
I hope money will stay in there. It is a few dollars. We need a lot 
more money. If we are going to have an attack on keeping kids in 
school, if we are going to have lower dropouts, we need to have in the 
Department of Education a dropout czar, somebody in charge of making 
sure there are programs throughout America to keep kids in school.
  We need to focus on education. We are not going to in this Congress. 
That is gone. We need to work on school modernization, support for 
disadvantaged children, afterschool opportunities. It is clear--and 
Senator Boxer has worked very hard on afterschool programs--that if we 
can keep kids occupied after school, they are simply not going to get 
involved in things they should not do. This has been proven and shown 
to be accurate. We need more money in afterschool programs. Senator 
Bingaman has worked hard on school accountability. We support funding 
accountability provisions for failing schools; for example, putting a 
qualified teacher in every classroom within 4 years of this 
legislation.
  The record should be replete with the fact that this year this 
Congress has spent 6 days of debate on the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act. That is pathetic. We are concerned about children. We 
should be able to debate the issue. We offered that this bill be 
handled in the regular course of business. Request after request has 
been rejected. That is too bad.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired. The Senator 
from Oregon is recognized for 9 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, I was not intending to speak on 
education, but I want to respond to my friend from Nevada. I am a 
junior Member of this body, but the perception of what has gone on here 
with respect to education is utterly different than my observation.
  My observation is that this side of the aisle is anxious to talk 
about education, not just to throw more resources at the status quo, 
not to put up roadblocks to real reform but to truly find out ways to 
make Washington less of a burden upon local education.
  I have yet to go into a school district in Oregon and ask, ``Where 
are your problems?'' and they don't tell me it usually has to do with 
some Federal mandate. The truth is, what we are trying to do is empower 
local folks who understand about educating children and to lower the 
burden of Washington.
  This idea of 100,000 teachers is great, but everyone should 
understand that is about sloganeering; that is about TV ads. That has 
nothing to do with educating kids. The truth is, we need an awful lot 
more than 100,000 teachers; We need 1 million teachers; but we ought to 
trust people locally to be able to make that judgment whether to build 
a school or to hire a teacher. We should not tie their hands. That is 
what has gone on, and the record should reflect that as well. This 
Republican is prepared to vote for a lot more resources, but he thinks 
we owe it to the parents of this country to give them reform as well.
  Mr. President, I came here in morning business to try to interject 
myself into the debate on PNTR.
  Mr. REID. Would my friend yield for a simple question?
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. I yield to my friend from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. I have the greatest respect for the Senator from Oregon, 
but I would just a question. I think what the Senator says is right. I 
think we need reform. But doesn't he think we should have the ability 
to debate it on the Senate floor? How are we going to get it otherwise?
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. I say to the Senator, I do think we should 
debate it longer than we have. I grant you that. What I have observed, 
as a junior Member, however, is that every time we go to focus on 
amendments, we can't get time agreements. We can't get agreements on 
some reasonable amount of time. Look, I have already taken all the gun 
votes. I will take them. I am for background checks. I am for things 
that will protect kids in the classroom. But I do not know why I should 
be asked to vote on them two and three and four times.
  How many times do you need a vote to run a political ad against me? 
The truth is, I have taken the votes. Let's get on to debating 
education. We have done the gun debate.
  Mr. REID. I just briefly say to my friend, we have stated publicly on 
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act we would have as few as 
eight amendments, with an hour time limit on each one of them, equally 
divided. And we haven't been able to get that agreement. That seems 
fair to me.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. It seems fair to me, I say to the Senator. I 
will certainly encourage my leadership to accede to that. What I am 
afraid of is the comment I read in USA Today, where Senator Daschle 
said: We are not interested in getting anything done. We are interested 
in obstructing this place and creating a train wreck because we think 
that is good politics. That really concerns me.
  I have to tell you, I am always optimistic, but I am discouraged by 
the windup scene I am seeing develop here. We owe the American people 
something better than this. I think we need to get on to some reforms. 
I, for one, am committed to a generous and bipartisan effort in that 
regard.

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