[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18622-18631]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 4577, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, 
    HEALTH, AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2001

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees, 
pursuant to clause 7(c) of House rule XXII.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gillmor). The Clerk will report the 
motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Obey moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the bill, H.R. 4577, be instructed to insist on the 
     highest funding level possible for the Department of 
     Education; and to insist on disagreeing with provisions in 
     the Senate amendment which denies the President's request for 
     dedicated resources to reduce class sizes in the early grades 
     and for local school construction and, instead, broadly 
     expands the title VI Education Block Grant with limited 
     accountability in the use of funds.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois will state his 
parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, under the House rules, is it permissible to 
divide a motion to instruct? Because we would agree with part of this, 
that is the funding level for education, but the rest of it we do not 
agree with. Is it possible to divide a motion of this type?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Would the gentleman from Illinois specify 
how he would like the question divided?
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that it be divided after the 
line 4, the word ``education, semicolon,'' and so that we would 
consider the highest funding level possible in one segment and then 
there would be a separate motion for the rest of it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would advise the gentleman that as 
a 20-day motion under clause 7(c) of rule XXII, the motion is 
grammatically and substantively divisible under the precedents and that 
at the end of the debate the Chair will put the question on the 
divisible portions.
  Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 8 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here on this motion today in large part because 
yesterday a motion to instruct conferees on this bill was made on that 
side of the aisle and I indicated that if we were going to get into the 
business of instructing conferees then we would have a significant 
number of motions on our own on this side.

                              {time}  1245

  I do not particularly enjoy this process, but I do not think we can 
sit by while the guns are being fired by only one side on an issue as 
important as education, for instance.
  I am also disappointed, frankly, because I understood that the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), our good friend, was going 
to offer a motion which would have instructed the House to support the 
idea of making major appropriations to Title VI for the purpose of 
providing funding to local school districts, which they could use with 
great flexibility. Let me state, if that motion had been offered, I 
would have voted for it.
  My position on this, and I think the vast majority of people on this 
side of the aisle feel the same way, is that we are for all of the 
money that we can get into education and get back to local school 
districts. We think that is the number one priority facing the country. 
However, we believe that there ought to be accountability in the way 
that money is used, and we believe that whatever funds are provided 
from such a block grant, for instance, should be provided in addition 
to the funds that are provided to meet national priority needs, not as 
a substitute for funds which are provided for those priority needs.
  There is a second reason that we are here, because I think we need to 
clarify what it is that both parties are trying to do in the conference 
on the Labor, Health and Education appropriation bill. To explain that, 
I need to put it in context.
  Mr. Speaker, 5 years ago, the majority party, when they took over 
control of this House, produced a budget which, among other things, 
tried to cut the Education budget 20 percent below the budget of the 
previous year; they tried to eliminate the Department of Education, and 
they felt so strongly about it that they were willing to see the 
government shut down in order to force their budget priorities on the 
President. They did not exactly win that argument, and they certainly 
did not win the political argument associated with it. So they slowly 
but surely have backed off that proposition, but they continue at every 
opportunity to show their basic antagonism toward initiatives made by 
the President to strengthen education.
  The latest evidence of that is the fact that in the bill which moved 
out of the House, they made very large cuts in the President's 
education budget. They cut some $400 million out of after-school 
funding that the President had proposed. They cut $1.3 billion out of 
school modernization, they cut $1.7 billion out of the President's 
class size initiative, and instead tried to fold that money into a 
block grant arrangement under which a major ability to achieve 
accountability is lost. That is one of the places where we part 
company.
  The majority now, in conference, has chosen to add about $5.5 billion 
of their priorities back into the Labor, Health, Education bill, but so 
far, there appears to be no room in the inn for our priorities or the 
President's priorities.
  I want to make it clear. We do not believe that providing flexible 
funding to school districts is automatically opposed to the idea of 
providing specific funding for specific purposes to local districts. We 
think we ought to do both; and, in fact, we have provided that we do 
both, by supporting significant funding for Title VI. But we want to 
make it clear. We are for the President's efforts to provide $1.7 
billion for his class-size reduction program. We are for the 
President's efforts to provide $1.3 billion in assistance to local 
school districts to renovate ancient, outmoded and dangerous buildings. 
I just had one closed in my district last week by the State Department 
of Public Construction, for instance; and we are for some other things.
  The majority party has increased funding for special education by a 
significant amount, and yet the bill does not fully reflect the amount 
for special education that this House indicated it wanted to see when 
on May 3, it passed the authorization. So we believe that

[[Page 18623]]

there ought to be a substantial increase in special education funding 
above the amount provided in the House bill. We also believe that since 
we are providing huge amounts of money to Colombia for drug 
interdiction, we also ought to have a significant increase of well over 
$200 million in funding for drug treatment slots here at home.
  We also believe that we ought to substantially increase Pell Grant 
funding above the amount provided by either the administration or the 
majority party in its budget so far.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply note that the problem we face is that 
under the newest of proposals raised by the majority party on how to 
deal with the surplus, they indicate that there would be about $28 
billion on the table that could be used for a variety of purposes. So 
far, it appears that they intend to use $2 billion of that in the 
Energy and Water bill; it appears that the interior bill is going to 
come back to the House $3 billion to $4 billion above the level that it 
was when it passed the House originally, yet we are told that none of 
that money should be, none of that $28 billion should be devoted to 
increases in education above the amount stipulated by the majority 
party. We do not agree with that.
  Mr. Speaker, we think, therefore, that this motion is proper in both 
of its aspects. We simply ask that the conferees provide the highest 
funding level possible for the Department of Education, and we also ask 
that we disagree with the provisions in the Senate amendment which 
would fund the flexible money that goes back to school districts in the 
form of block grants at the expense of the President's two initiatives 
on school modernization and on class-size reduction. We are perfectly 
willing to see an increase in Title VI, provided that we have adequate 
accountability for those funds, but not at the expense of the 
President's priorities.
  Mr. Speaker, we believe this country is healthy enough and prosperous 
enough to fund both the majority party's priorities and ours and the 
President's, and that is the purpose of this motion to instruct today.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) very cleverly 
writes a motion, the first part of which says that the House should 
insist on the highest funding level possible for the Department of 
Education. Certainly, all of us agree with that, proposition. Then adds 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), adds provisions that he knows 
we disagree with dealing with control by Washington over the 
expenditure of funds by local school districts.
  I am pleased that the Chair has told us that we can divide this 
question. If we look at what we have done on education in our tentative 
conference report, and we have completed the conference and have the 
report but have not filed it, we are already $600 million in funding 
for the Department of Education above the President's budget. We have 
$600 million more than the President committed to providing adequate 
resources for education. We have plussed up important accounts, making 
a Federal commitment to education that is far greater than the the 
President of the United States submitted to the Congress earlier this 
year.
  Look at the accounts. In education technology, we are ahead of the 
President. In education for the disadvantaged, a $9 billion account, we 
are ahead of the President. Impact Aid: the President has attempted 
every time he has offered a budget to cut that responsibility of the 
Federal Government; we have increased it. We are $258 million ahead of 
the President's request on Impact Aid, which is important in many 
school districts impacted by the Federal presence.
  Special education: We have increased this account. In fact, we have, 
doubled, this account in the last 6 years. Our increase this year is $1 
billion more than the President asked for. Education for the homeless: 
We are ahead of the President. Rehabilitation services: We are ahead of 
the President. Vocational and adult education: We are ahead of the 
President. Student financial assistance: $300 million ahead of the 
President, and we have increased Pell Grants far more than the 
President asked for, because we know that young people in America need 
this help to get a higher education. Historically Black Colleges and 
Universities: We are substantially ahead of the President. Hispanic-
serving institutions: We are substantially ahead of the President. The 
TRIO program: Another program like special education and Pell Grants, 
where every year we have been substantially ahead of the President's 
budget, providing more money than he asked for in this fiscal year. 
Higher education: Ahead of the President.
  So, Mr. Speaker, in program after program, especially those programs 
that are important to those most at risk in our society where they need 
the resources to get ahead educationally, we are substantially ahead of 
the President of the United States.
  So, do we disagree with the first part of this motion to instruct 
saying that we should fund it at the highest possible level? Absolutely 
not. We are already way ahead of the President of the United States in 
our commitment to education.
  The second part of the motion deals with fundamental differences 
between the two parties. And here, yes, we definitely do disagree. Who 
should be responsible for making education decisions? Washington, D.C., 
which is what they want, or local school districts, which is what we 
want. Now, the gentleman from Wisconsin talks about this in terms of 
accountability. Do not be fooled. This is not accountability, this is 
who controls where the money is spent. It means accountability to 
Washington, not accountability to the local taxpayers who provide most 
of the funding for education in our country. So do not be fooled by the 
word accountability; it is controll by Washington that the gentleman is 
proposing, and do we disagree with that? Absolutely, we disagree with 
that.
  On school construction. The conference agreement puts $3.1 billion 
into Title VI, the block grant that allows local school districts the 
discretion to spend these funds according to what they believe are 
their needs. They may use it for school construction, reducing class 
size, professional development, or what their needs are. Should they be 
forced to use this money for school construction when they do not need 
it? Of course not. But it should be available to them for training 
teachers or reducing class size or doing other things that they know 
very well, much better than Washington, what the needs may be.
  The President's approach wants Washington control, it ignores local 
flexibility in favor of a one-size-fits-all approach dictated by the 
Federal Government. We think that is wrong. We think most Members in 
this body think that is wrong. We very much oppose the gentleman's 
motion in that part of it that deals with this philosophical, 
difference between Democrats and Republicans.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman just said that obviously all of us on the 
House floor agree with the first part of the motion that asks the 
conferees to fund education at the highest possible level. But, in 
fact, the conferees yesterday repeated early and often the fact that 
they were not willing to go one dime above the level now contained in 
their bill for the Labor, Health, and Education budget.
  It is true that our friends have now, belatedly, after 5 years of 
trying to savage the education programs, it is true that at this point 
they are above the President on some aspects of the education budget. 
But that is largely due to the additions in Pell Grants and the 
additions in special education, both of which we support on this side 
of the aisle. We have no quarrel with that. We believe that this 
country is wealthy enough that there ought to be room enough for both 
Republican priorities and Democratic priorities when it comes to 
education.

[[Page 18624]]

  When it comes to the disadvantaged, for instance, the fact is that 
the majority party is $85 million in total below the President's budget 
for Title I, and within that reduced number they have eliminated the 
President's request for $250 million to use to fix schools that are in 
the most trouble and are failing. On vocational education they are 
above the President on State grants, but they are $200 million below 
the President on voc-ed tech prep programs. And the list can go on and 
on.
  When we cut through it all, the fact is very simple: we are asking 
the majority to put at least $3 billion in additional funding for 
education into the Labor-HHS bill. If Members are for that, then vote 
for this motion. If my colleagues are not for it, and they vote for 
this motion, they will be walking both sides of the street. If we are 
for adding that $3 billion, then we do not need any more motions to 
instruct. Just bring out the conference report, and we will have a bill 
that can fly through both Houses, if we deal with some of the other 
problems that have to be fixed in the Labor Department and in the HHS 
Department.
  So when we cut through it all, in the end, what counts is whether or 
not we will bring to this floor a bill which in the area of education 
will provide $3 billion above the level that has been provided up to 
this point. That is what this argument is about, and that is what we 
are going to continue to fight for.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I would inquire of the Chair how much time 
remains on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gillmor). The gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Porter) has 24 minutes and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) 
has 19 minutes.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the distinguished chairman of the 
Committee on Education and the Workforce.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, what I learned more than anything else in 
the 20 years I sat in the minority on the Committee on Education and 
the Workforce, and even I am reminded today as the chairman of that 
committee, the approach that we took all those years positively did not 
help children, and that is what this is all about.
  We sat there year after year after year and we said, if we just had 
one more program, if we just had another billion dollars, if we could 
just cover another 100,000 children, everything would be better. And 
what are the results? Well, the results are that the achievement gap 
has grown. It has not decreased at all. Because over and over again we 
said we have the programs, from Washington, D.C. One size will fit all. 
We know better than anybody else.
  But, more importantly, what we did was we took all of the money and 
divided it up over and over and over again, because we kept adding new 
programs. So now we are down to the point where they do not have enough 
money to do anything worthwhile unless they commingle funds. And what 
were our auditors doing during this time? The auditors did not ask 
whether it is a quality program; they did not say is this program 
succeeding. What they said was, ``If you commingle one penny, you have 
had it. Boy, we will be down your throat.'' So a local district, who 
could take a couple small programs and make them into a worthwhile 
program, could not do it. So as I said, the achievement gap just gets 
wider.
  I pleaded with the President over and over again to not put the cart 
before the horse. When he came up with the magnificent idea that we 
need a national test, I said, ``Mr. President, first of all you have to 
set the higher standards; then you have to prepare the teacher to teach 
to the higher standards; then you have to test the teacher to see 
whether they are ready to teach to the higher standards; and then, 
after they teach the higher standards, then you test the child. Because 
before that, all you will be doing is telling, for $100 million, 50 
percent of the youngsters one more time that they are not doing well. 
That is all they have ever heard.''
  Then he came up with the sexy eye-catching idea that we need 100,000 
teachers to reduce class size in the early grades. Well, anybody knows 
if we can reduce class size in the early grades, and we have a 
competent, quality teacher in the classroom, that is a plus. The 
problem is, as I reminded him over and over again, if we do not have a 
quality teacher to put in that classroom, then we have done nothing 
except spend money and make it even worse for the children because now 
they do not even have a quality teacher.
  So we allowed him to have a third of those. And what happened when we 
did that? Thirty-some percent of all of those first teachers had no 
qualifications whatsoever. So now in the place where we need them the 
most, real rural America and center city America, they ended up having 
to put someone in that classroom, and the children most in need got 
anything but a quality teacher. That is a tragedy. And that is what 
happens when we dictate from here.
  I kept telling him over and over again, ``Do you realize that in some 
of those districts they may have some teachers that are fairly good; 
that if they had the opportunity to better prepare those teachers, they 
would have a quality teacher in the classroom?'' But, no, we had to do 
something that appeared sexy. And, of course, when we look at it, we 
are looking at 15,000 school districts. We are looking at a million 
classrooms, and we are talking about 100,000 teachers. Again, the cart 
before the horse.
  When I became the chairman, I said, we have to do better. These 
children are not achieving. We are not closing the achievement gap. So 
we said let us do everything based on seven major principles: quality; 
better teaching; local control; accountability, but the accountability 
is to the children, the accountability is to the parents; more dollars 
to the classroom, basic academics; and more parental involvement and 
responsibility.
  What we will do if we go this route that is being suggested, however, 
is that now we will backtrack. And now we will be down to the business 
where there is a one-size-fits-all from Washington, D.C. After all, We 
know what is better than anybody else. We will let the parents out of 
this whole equation; we will forget the children in this whole equation 
because, as I said, more programs, more dollars have not closed that 
achievement gap. It has been spread so thinly that we have not been 
able to do anything about quality.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  The previous speaker just said that the answer to everything is 
teacher quality. If that is the case, I would like to know why the 
majority party cut the President's teacher quality initiatives by $527 
million below his request.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Wicker), a valued member of the Subcommittee on Labor, 
Health and Human Services, and Education of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the strongest of 
terms to reject the Obey approach to education. And I want to make two 
quick points and then a larger point.
  The first point I would make is to reiterate what my chairman, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), said. When our friends on the 
Democratic side say accountability, they really mean Federal control. 
They really mean the absence of local flexibility. And, in my opinion, 
they mean the absence of accountability to the schoolchildren and to 
the parents. That is my first point.
  The second point, and it needs to be understood over and over, not 
only by the Members in this room but by the American public, is that we 
have increased the President's education budget in this conference 
report. We are over $600 million higher than the President's request on 
education. Now, that is point number two.
  Point number three comes down to what we are really talking about. It 
is a difference in philosophy between the two political parties on the 
very important issue of education, and that is the questsion, do we 
insist on the President's request for his program on school 
construction?

[[Page 18625]]

  Now, there is not a soul within the sound of my voice who would not 
like for us to have better schools and better school buildings and 
better school facilities. We are all for that. The question is how do 
we do it. I say we send Federal education dollars to the local school 
districts on programs that we know will work, that are proven already 
to have worked, and we free up money on the local level for local 
schools to do what they have always done in school construction, and 
that is to make school construction decisions themselves. That is the 
Republican approach.
  The approach that is being urged on us today is to say that, although 
the President has signed seven straight appropriation bills with regard 
to education, in this, the 8th year of his term, we must insist, before 
we can pass the bill, before we can get out of this town at the end of 
the fiscal year, we must insist on a new Federal program to build 
school buildings at the local level, something that we have never done.
  Now, listen to me. This bill would provide $1.3 billion in school 
construction and start us on the slippery slope of spending billions 
and billions and billions of dollars. There is no telling where it 
would end on school construction. We are told now that the needs 
currently for school construction are $254 billion. This proposal would 
fund less than one-half of 1 percent, approximately, of the total 
needs. Ten times that amount would only give us 5 percent. Where will 
it end?
  My colleagues, please think before we enter into this vast and 
expensive new Federal program.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I again yield myself 30 seconds.
  The gentleman has just denounced the idea of having a Federal school 
construction program. I would point out the Republican chairman of the 
authorizing committee has introduced his own school construction 
program which at least matches the President's in size. Why can we not 
simply fund it, since apparently the need is recognized on both sides 
of the aisle?
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) has 
16\1/2\ minutes and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 18 
minutes.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), a member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and 
Human Services, and Education.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been on this subcommittee for many years. In 
1983, Terrell Bell, then the Secretary of Education, issued a report. 
That report was entitled: A Nation at Risk. It said that we were at 
risk of becoming a Nation of mediocrity because our educational system 
was not keeping apace. The response of the Reagan administration was to 
send down a budget which had the largest cut in education funding at 
the national level to that date in history.
  Now, that budget that Ronald Reagan sent down was not passed. It was 
increased substantially. But me thinks the chairman protests too much 
in saying we are all for the first sentence, that we want to spend more 
for education. It is useful, I think, to remember a little bit of the 
history of why we are here and why this motion, we think, is necessary.
  First of all, when we passed the House bill, we were $3 billion less 
than the Senate bill on education, $3 billion less.

                              {time}  1315

  So that, when the House took its action, all of this euphoria about 
spending more on education was not present. But we have had a lot of 
policies, Mr. Speaker, since then about what the American public care 
about. We have had a lot of debate between the Presidential candidates, 
and everybody is falling all over themselves to be for education.
  So what do we see between then and now, between the passage of a 
Republican budget that provided little funds for education and today? 
Well, we see a $3.7 billion increase, notwithstanding the fact that we 
Democrats stood on the floor when this bill passed and we opposed its 
passage, of course, and said we needed more money.
  Oh, no, it is fine. This is just a first inning in any event. We have 
been just at the first inning in about 13 bills, which is why we are 
stuck in the mud because this process has not been real.
  Well, my colleagues are starting to get real. We understand that, 
because November 7 footsteps are heard loud in these Chambers and the 
American public's voice is heard louder as the days go by.
  I rise in support of this motion. I believe that the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Porter) our distinguished chairman who we are going to 
lament will not be here next month to help us work on these issues 
because he cares about these issues.
  But I think we need this motion because we need to say we want to go 
to those figures in our conference. The conference has not really been 
a real conference. The reason it has not been a very real conference is 
because the dollars that the Republicans say are available for these 
bills keeps moving, it keeps moving as their political antenna quivers. 
And every time they got a little quiver, there is a little more money 
and they add it to the bills, which they should have done, of course, 
on substance, not on politics, on the concern that the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) says about children.
  Now, the second part of this motion is a critically important part. I 
have had this discussion with one of the Members of the United States 
Senate. He says local control. I am for local control, but I am for 
accountability for the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) when I go 
home and say, we took your money and here is how we spent it, not the 
school boards spent it, but this is what I said was a priority, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  I believe that there is a critical need in this country, as the 
President believes, for us to help with school construction. Because we 
know that schools are falling down, we know there are not enough 
classrooms, we know that there are some schools that are not safe for 
our kids to be in. So the President of the United States has proposed, 
and I support, saying we are going to give some money for school 
construction, not to build new pools in schools, not to have new 
football programs, etcetera, etcetera. That is not my responsibility. 
If the locals want to do it, they spend, as all of us know, 93 percent 
on education. We spend 7.
  But I believe that school construction is critically important if we 
are going to have more classrooms. Because, in order to have more 
smaller classes, we have got to have more classrooms; and in order to 
have more classrooms, we have got to have more teachers. So the 
President proposes that we have a program for more teachers, as well.
  The Republicans made a deal last year when they passed the omnibus 
appropriations bill that they were for that and they said they were for 
that. Now, maybe they were for it because that is the only way the bill 
would get passed, but notwithstanding the fact we had an agreement that 
that would happen. That is what this motion to instruct is all about, 
both ends of it, more money.
  Now, yes, I agree, we seem to be moving in that direction because 
they added not only $3.7 billion from the House bill, they added $8 
billion in total to the House bill. Eight billion dollars they have 
added to the House bill. We are glad they are getting there because the 
children of America, the families of America need this investment.
  I am prepared it take the responsibility for more classrooms, more 
teachers, and to assist with school construction. I think that is my 
responsibility, and I am prepared to stand up for it and vote for it.
  So when they tell me, Mr. Speaker, that they want local control, I 
want local control. But when they say that we should not make 
determinations on specific needs, I think they are wrong. That is our 
responsibility.

[[Page 18626]]

  I urge passage of this motion to instruct.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say to the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) that the money for school 
construction is in the bill. It is in Title VI. It can be used, almost 
all of it, actually a lot more than the President put, $2.7 billion of 
Title VI can be used for school construction under the bill as it is 
drawn.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PORTER. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, am I also correct, I ask the chairman, that 
not a penny of it needs to be spent on school construction?
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I will tell the 
gentleman that that is a decision for the local school boards and he 
does not respect it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. 
Castle) the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Early 
Childhood, Youth, and Families of the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just like to straighten out a few facts here. It 
is correct that the Federal Government only applies about 7 percent of 
the total financing of all K-12 education in the United States of 
America. But here is something else which is a fact. This is an 
absolute fact.
  In the first 5 years of the last decades, while the Democrats were in 
charge of the Congress of the United States of America and there was a 
Republican President and then a Democratic President, the increase for 
funding in education in the very budget that we are talking about here 
was 6 percent per year.
  In the last 5 years, not including this year, while Republicans have 
been in charge of the funding mechanism for education in the United 
States of America, the increase has been, on average, 8.2 percent per 
year, a difference of 2.2 percent.
  So I just want to put that little argument to rest. We are also ahead 
of the President's budget as far as this year is concerned.
  The real argument here is not funding. We could argue, for example, 
that we should help our children with disabilities, something that this 
Congress has many, many years through Democrats and even a little bit 
under the Republicans, but particularly the Democrats, has ignored, 11 
percent of what should be a 40-percent commitment for example.
  We could argue that we need to help with construction. Indeed, $1.7 
billion on a bill that is probably at least $400 billion, some say 300, 
some say 500, let us round it off to $400 billion, does not even begin 
to make a dent. That will still be done at the State and local level.
  So I have no problem with the additional funding. I have always 
supported the Federal role. I have always supported the Department of 
Education. I have always supported the increases in terms of the 
funding. But we passed last year an Education Flexibility Act to allow 
our local and State educational entities to be able to make decisions 
with respect to Federal funding and what they were going to do with it.
  We clearly demonstrated here, Republicans and Democrats alike I might 
add, we demonstrated that we wanted them to make a decision. We have in 
Title VI basically a flexible instrument, if you will, to help with 
education funding. And they can use Title VI, which truly is a block 
grant with very few limitations on it, right in line with education 
flexibility, they can use that for a variety of things.
  They can use it to reduce class size. That is hire more teachers, 
which the President wants to do and the Democrats want to do, I want to 
do, and I think Republicans want to do on this side. They can use it 
for school construction. Maybe that is needed someplace. Maybe it is 
not needed other places. Remember, some places do not need school 
construction, they need other things. Perhaps they need technology or 
they want more professional development of their teachers or they want 
to deal with problems of transportation or a variety of problems that 
comes with education naturally depending on where they are in the 
country. We want to give them that flexibility.
  We are not arguing about the money here at all on this floor today. 
We are arguing about the direction of the money. Should the Federal 
Government direct it for just class size reduction and for the issue of 
construction.
  So my view is that we should support that aspect of it which 
increases the funding and we should listen to our local people because 
they are the ones that say that they want the flexibility to be able to 
spend the money to help all children.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Speaker, the fact is that in fiscal year 1996, the Republican 
majority tried to cut $5 billion, 19 percent, out of the President's 
education request. The following year they tried to cut $2.8 billion 
out of the President's request, 11 percent. The following year they got 
religion and they only tried to cut $191 million, or 1 percent, out of 
the President's education budget. The following year they tried to cut 
$662 million out of the President's budget. Last year they tried to cut 
$1.4 billion out of the President's education budget. And this year 
they have been trying to cut $2.9 billion out of the President's budget 
on the bill that left the House.
  Now, the only reason that the final numbers wind up looking as good 
as the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) has indicated is because 
the majority party got beat for 5 straight years in negotiations and we 
were able to get that money restored.
  Since they want to brag about how ineffective they have been, go 
ahead, but that does not impress anybody very much.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer), a member of the Committee on 
Education and the Workforce.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, the fact that education spending has grown so much under 
Republican leadership of Congress is a fact that exercises my Democrat 
friends, I know. I want my colleagues to know that it is a fact that 
exercises some of us Republican Members, too.
  But what this debate really is about is just what the maker of the 
motion stated in his opening remarks, and that is that the motion was 
made because there was another motion made yesterday to which he 
objected and because that motion was accepted he decided to offer this 
one.
  As a parent of five children who rely on public education for hope 
and opportunity, that kind of political gamesmanship breaks my heart, 
Mr. Speaker.
  I hope that the children of America and those kids who are in school 
who count on us to focus in a serious way on education can see this 
silly amendment defeated for its purposes, for its intent, and for the 
fallacies that it contains. And there are several. It is a very 
confining amendment that restricts school board members and States as 
to how they can spend Federal education dollars.
  So if they are in the business, Mr. Speaker, of constraining and 
restricting and narrowing the scope for these Federal dollars, then 
this is an amendment for them. But for the rest of us who hope that 
these dollars can be spent on the priorities that exist in schools 
across the country, this would be an amendment to oppose.
  Now, as a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, I 
have had the opportunity to travel around the country and visit schools 
from coast to coast. I have visited hundreds of them in my own 
congressional district. I can tell my colleagues that every school 
board member and every teacher has a hope and a dream for their 
children that are in their jurisdiction that they can create schools 
that allow these children to thrive and succeed in an American society.
  But the challenges that face each school is different. In some 
schools in

[[Page 18627]]

my district, transportation is the top priority need. In others it 
might be technology. And in others it might be teacher pay, it might be 
class size reduction, it might be buying new buildings and repairing 
the buildings that exist. But it is not the same priority across the 
country.
  We can all identify districts that have needs in school construction. 
But some districts in America have gone to their local voters and 
raised the mill levy to fix their schools. Some schools around the 
country have gone to their local voters and persuaded them to spend 
more through property taxes or sales taxes or income taxes to reduce 
class size.
  What does this amendment say to them? It says that their local 
efforts to deal with these responsibilities locally are going to be 
ignored because we are going to now take their income taxes that come 
to Washington and we are going to spend then somewhere else on other 
districts that have not identified school construction as the highest 
priority.
  We should reject this amendment and this suggestion because of the 
confining, restraining nature it entails, chop out the red tape that 
accompanies Federal funds, and provide real liberty and freedom to 
American schools.

                              {time}  1330

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong 
support of this motion to instruct. I want to associate myself with the 
remarks of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman 
from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) on this matter. We know very well why the 
increased moneys in education have been put there, because of the 
insistence of the minority in Congress and the insistence of President 
Clinton in the negotiations. And each and every time they have made 
these terribly inadequate bills that have been reported out of this 
House better.
  But let us understand something. The Obey amendment is about whether 
or not we are going to meet our commitment to the children of this 
Nation. Yes, some of the money is targeted, but how do you think those 
school buildings got in the condition they are in today? Because of the 
neglect of the local school boards and others. What we are suggesting 
is that the Federal Government ought to make an effort, because the 
children who are doing the poorest most likely are in the poorest 
condition schools. We ought to try to target some effort so that those 
local communities could fix up those schools and make them appropriate 
for the education of our young children.
  To sit here and suggest that somehow local school superintendents and 
others cannot move around Federal money, then you ought to get yourself 
a new superintendent because restraints are minimal. Most 
superintendents will tell you the problem is with the State Department 
of Education, not with the Federal Department of Education.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gillmor). The Chair would request 
Members from both sides who have been frequently going over the time 
limit to attempt to stay within the time yielded to them for debate.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his inquiry.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I had not expected this many people to want to 
participate in debate. I am now getting a lot of additional requests 
that we had not expected. Could I persuade the majority party to agree 
to a unanimous consent request to add 10 minutes to each side?
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I would object to the request. We have had 
ample notice of the amount of time, and the gentleman and I have an 
important meeting we have to go to as well.
  Mr. OBEY. I would just note that we had thought that the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) was going to be offering his motion 
which had been noticed, and we had expected that there would be two 
hours of debate on it.
  Mr. PORTER. I would again inquire of the Chair the time remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Each side has 10 minutes.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Isakson), a distinguished member of the Committee on 
Education and the Workforce.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois not 
only for the time he has given me but also for the great work he and 
the ranking member have done in providing more funds for education in 
this year's budget. But I rise specifically to answer rhetorical 
questions that have been asked and gone unanswered. My good friend from 
Wisconsin, with whom we both share a mutual excellent friend and our 
chancellor at our university system in Georgia, being the man that I 
know he is, wants answers to those questions. I want him to listen 
closely.
  When you say that we cut money out of teacher training, the truth of 
the matter is that last year's settlement of the 100,000 teachers was 
our recommendation. Yes, we will hire 100,000 teachers if they are 
certified; and if they are not, local systems have the ability to use 
the money to train teachers that are already teaching and are not 
certified. That is the problem in America. But the political promise 
that we were going to hire 100,000 teachers, which sounds good, is not 
a promise on which can be delivered. So we turned that money into 
workable money to train teachers.
  The second question, I too am a coauthor of that bill on school 
construction. And so everyone knows the clear difference in our 
proposal and that which is proposed by the President, our proposal was 
to use a fixed amount of money to fund the unfunded mandates of the 
Federal Government in asbestos removal, IDA classroom conformity and 
things like that which is a finite number. The President's $1.3 billion 
proposal is less than .3 percent of the unmet need in classrooms in the 
United States of America. It exceeds the surplus in the fiscal year 
2000 budget. And worst of all, it is a promise to the American people 
we cannot keep. It was the President himself who in 1994 and 1995, and 
I am sorry I do not have my notes in front of me, struck $200 million 
in classroom construction because he said we could never start funding 
classrooms in this country. You pass a bill with the promise that you 
are going to build schools in local districts, and you will never pass 
another bond issue; and you will never pass another local sales tax, 
and America's needs for schools will skyrocket.
  The gentleman from Maryland talked about wanting to build schools 
back home. His State's unfunded school construction locally exceeds the 
amount of money that the President wants to put in for the entire 
United States of America. We Republicans and the Democrats are for our 
children. We want them to have the best of everything. But what we need 
to do is recognize where our priorities are, and ours should be in 
flexibility at the local level. It should be in accountability, and it 
should be giving credit where credit is due. I give the gentleman from 
Wisconsin his credit. He has done a lot towards education in this 
country. But so too has the gentleman from Illinois and those others of 
us who are working to enrich our children without offering a false 
political promise that we could never meet. The good appropriator that 
he is would never want to promise spending more money than the surplus 
we have just to make people think we are going to build the schools 
America needs. Americans are through local bond issues, through local 
referendums and through commitment. We do not have enough money to do 
it, and I believe the gentleman knows it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  The position of the majority party has been that while there is $28 
billion in money on the table to allocate under their budget proposal, 
that not one additional dime should go to education. That is crazy.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to simply say to 
the gentleman from Wisconsin, he is fighting a battle on a budget which 
he well

[[Page 18628]]

knows as an appropriator does not allocate funds to anything. All it 
does is give the overall spending figure. The rest of it is all 
advisory, and it means nothing to anybody. It never has and he knows 
it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. Is the gentleman 
denying that yesterday Senator Specter told us in conference that your 
leadership said that we could not go one dime above the education bill 
that you had already put together? Is the gentleman denying that?
  Mr. PORTER. Yes. The gentleman mistook who said what. I think it was 
his leadership that said that to him.
  Mr. OBEY. Well, the last time I looked, his leadership was 
Republican.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Obey amendment and 
in opposition to what appears to be the Republican education plan that 
is going to be put before us because the Republican plan fails the test 
of some common sense conservative ideas. If you want to reduce crime in 
this country, you ought to know that a lot of juvenile crime is 
committed after school. But the Republican plan would deprive 1.6 
million children of after-school programs. If you want economic growth 
in this country, you understand that a good labor force is the key to 
economic growth. Many of our citizens do not speak English as their 
primary language. But the Republican plan cuts 15 percent from 
bilingual education.
  If you want money for school construction, and it is true that the 
Republican plan apparently would put $1.3 billion in, but it says to 
the local districts, spend the $1.3 billion as you see fit. We believe 
that money should be spent for the purposes for which it was intended. 
And when we put $1.75 billion forward to hire new quality teachers to 
reduce class sizes, we believe the money should be spent for the 
purposes for which it was intended, a common sense conservative 
principle.
  The watchword of the day is compassionate conservatism. The 
Republican plan is neither compassionate nor conservative.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana 
(Mr. Roemer).
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from the State of 
Wisconsin for yielding me this time. It has been said that, quote, 
``Our children are our message to the future that we may never see.'' 
We should not be arguing so much about this spending level or that 
spending level rather than the priority of working in a bipartisan way 
to help in education for our children, to help the quality of teachers, 
which is one of the most important issues we face.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis) and I have a bill in that 
would help bring more teachers into the teaching profession that is 
nowhere to be found on the floor today, to try to help designate 
smaller class size, local control but smaller class size so that 
teachers are not overwhelmed with 26 kids but may have 16, 17 or 18 
kids to try to again give local control over targeted resources in 
title I to help the most vulnerable kids.
  I offered an amendment a year ago that got 39 Republican votes to 
increase funds for title I. Where is that bill today? Where is that 
money to help kids today? Our children are our message to the future.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Wu).
  Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, while we are debating the great issues of 
education, I just want to recall a visit to Reedville Elementary School 
in Aloha, Oregon, where the class size initiative is working exactly as 
intended. There were 54 kids in the first-year class elementary school. 
Because of the Federal class size reduction initiative, instead of two 
classes of 27 kids, there were three classes of 18 kids. In Reedville 
in Aloha, Oregon, this program has made a difference. Let us keep it 
alive. Let us keep it going.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the distinguished minority leader.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support this Obey 
motion, and I hope that there will be bipartisan support for this 
motion. We need to help more local districts deal with their desire to 
try to get to smaller class sizes. That, I think, is a goal that all of 
us can agree on. We know that smaller class size yields better academic 
results. We know why smaller class size works. It works for a simple 
reason. Parents spend one-third less time with children today than they 
did 20 years ago. Family life has changed in America. People have more 
jobs, more hours, more single-parent families, more traffic jams, more 
time commuting, more time away from home. And even when we are at home 
with kids, sometimes we do not communicate with them the way we once 
did. And the one institution in our society that has the ability to 
help families fill in some of these holes is the schools.
  Now, we also know that in today's world with children having less 
time with parents, it means they need more supervision and more 
attention from teachers.

                              {time}  1345

  But it is one thing to teach 30 kids or 35 kids when I grew up in the 
1950s, and it is a very different thing to be teaching 30 or 35 kids 
today who have the chance to spend much less time with their parents.
  Now, frankly, if we could have agreed on putting more dollars into 
this effort and left it kind of flexible as to what local districts 
would do, I think we could work that out. But I hope Members on both 
sides of the aisle in a bipartisan way will vote for this motion.
  It makes sense, because it is reaching the right goal. The passion of 
this House must be helping parents carry out their most important 
responsibility, and that is raising our children to be productive law-
abiding citizens. And class size, we know from experience, is the best 
way to do that.
  We are willing to talk about other variations on the theme. We are 
willing to talk about flexibility, but we simply must in this 
appropriation budget process put the right amount of dollars and the 
right amount of effort behind America's most pressing and important 
need, and that is, making sure our classroom size is consistent with 
every child in this society being a productive law-abiding citizen.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to vote 
enthusiastically for the Obey motion.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I might say to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Gephardt) that I think he has just sung our song. We have the money in 
the account under Title VI, the education block grant, to provide for 
class size reduction. We have the money in the account to provide for 
school construction. There is money for teacher training. There is 
money for education technology.
  The only difference here is that we do not make the local school 
districts spend it for what Washington thinks it ought to be spent for, 
we let local school districts make this decision because they know 
their needs far better than we do.
  The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the minority leader, just 
talked about flexibility, that is exactly what we are doing. We are 
providing the resources and saying to the local school districts, you 
make this decision; we are not going to make it in the Department of 
Education down on Independence Avenue. You are going to make the 
decision because you know best what your needs are.
  The commitment for these needs is there. The flexibility is in the 
conference report. The motion would simply say do not give the local 
school districts flexibility, make sure that the control remains in 
Washington. That is why we ought to oppose this motion.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Green).
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Obey 
motion. The Labor, HHS Education bill should provide the highest level 
of funding possible for the Department of Education.

[[Page 18629]]

We have flexibility under current law for school districts to do what 
we want, what we do not want is to have local school districts take 
Federal money and put Astro turf on the football field instead of 
providing for kids in those classrooms.
  My wife is a high school algebra teacher. I trust my local school 
districts. But I also know that if we tax folks, we ought to know where 
the money is going and not just send a blank check home. In Texas, 76 
percent of our schools need repairs just to reach ``good'' condition, 
46 percent need repairs and building features such as plumbing, air 
conditioning, heating and cooling, 60 percent have at least one 
environmental problem. That is why we have need to provide as high a 
funding as the Obey motion calls for the Department of Education.
  Over the next decade, we will see our schools grow even more and 
more. We have to provide the funding through this motion and not just 
send a blank check to everybody in the country.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of weeks ago, I had an 
opportunity of traveling around my congressional district visiting many 
schools and getting into a lot of technology classrooms that our kids 
are using, but I also used that as an opportunity to release a study 
that I had conducted in the congressional district in regards to where 
we were on class size reduction. And the study actually showed that in 
western Wisconsin we are doing a pretty good job and the results are 
showing with enhanced student performance.
  But as I talked to the administrators and teachers and parents, they 
were asking for the creation of more partnerships and more dedicated 
revenue streams for class size reduction. In Wisconsin, we have 
something called revenue caps that prevents our local school districts 
from increasing revenue spending on priority areas and education.
  One of the sources of funding that they are looking to more and more 
as a result of this policy is a revenue stream from Washington, and 
that is why I think the Obey amendment being offered here today is very 
important, and I encourage my colleagues to support it.
  Schools throughout my home-State of Wisconsin are tapping every 
resource available to reduce class size. School districts are also 
struggling to maintain and build the facilities necessary to offer a 
quality learning environment.
  Class size reduction efforts at the local, State and Federal levels 
are proving effective at improving academic achievement. Schools across 
Wisconsin have been taking advantage of both the State class size 
reduction program, known as SAGE, and the Federal Class Size Reduction 
program to hire new teachers and provide professional development 
opportunities for their staffs.
  We in Congress must remain committed to these priorities to ensure 
that all of our students benefit from the enhanced learning environment 
smaller classes and modern buildings offer. These efforts must not be 
considered short-term fixes, but long-term commitments.
  But we should be committed to providing critical resources to 
particular areas and students in need. The role of Federal Government 
in education has always been to help those children with the most need 
and to address problems of national significance. At this point in 
time, simply increasing Federal block grants at the expense of proven, 
needed programs does away with that focus and simply reduces the role 
of the Federal Government to that of a new stream of revenue for 
Governors unwilling to tackle education issues directly through State 
funding.
  Everyone's talking about education this election season. And I 
believe I hear candidates from both the Democratic and Republican 
parties talking about the need for greater accountability. Yet, more 
open-ended block grants are not going to advance accountability.
  I'm all for local control of schools, but let's be honest; the level 
of funding we provide, while critical to many individual students and 
local schools in need, does not circumvent local control over their 
schools. But by targeting funds to those most in need and projects of 
most critical need we will continue the commitment to education we all 
claim to have.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) has 
5 minutes, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 2 minutes.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have only 1 remaining speaker, and I 
understand I have the right to close.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to reiterate that the issue here is not 
about money. We are substantially above the President in most education 
accounts. We are, overall, $600 million ahead of the President's 
requests for the Department of Education's funding in the conference 
report. We are substantially ahead of the President, a billion dollars 
ahead of the President, in special education. We are ahead of the 
President in student financial assistance. We are ahead in Pell Grants. 
We are ahead in TRIO, higher education, Historically Black Colleges and 
Universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, education technology, 
education for the disadvantaged, impact aid, education for homeless, 
rehabilitation services.
  We are ahead of the President in many of the important educational 
accounts, and overall we are over half a billion dollars ahead of the 
President in our commitment to funding of education. The real argument 
here is on flexibility or control.
  Republicans insist that the local school districts that are in our 
society be charged with the responsibility for educating our kids, 
together with the States, 95 percent of the expenditures are State and 
local money, they ought to control how the money is spent. The 
Democrats on the other hand insist that Washington can make that 
decision for them and not want accountability. That is a nice word, it 
is control.
  It is saying Washington is going to tell you how this money is going 
to be spent and you have to spend it that way. We put the money in; the 
money is there. It is there for class size reduction. It is there for 
school construction. It is there for teacher training, but the control 
is not there, the control is left where it should be with those who are 
accountable for educating our kids, the local school districts.
  Mr. Speaker, we think that is the way to go. There is a profound 
philosophical difference here, and this motion does define that 
difference. If Members want local control, vote against the motion. If 
Members want local control, vote against the motion. If Members want 
control by Washington, vote for it. I would urge Members to vote no.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.
  Mr. Speaker, no one is against districts having flexibility, but I 
would point out that under Title VI, which they want to expend without 
any strings whatsoever, audits discovered that one State used those 
funds to purchase an automobile for the State department of education; 
another State used it to pay their entire State education printing bill 
at the expense of the Federal Government; a third State used these 
funds for a banquet related to an entirely different program; another 
State used them for graduate classes taken by an employee of the State 
education agency. That points out for the need for accountability.
  Mr. Speaker, 93 percent of the money spent at the local level is 
under control of local, State, or local and State school agencies; that 
will remain under local control. We are talking about whether we ought 
to have some ability to target the remaining 7 percent which comes from 
the Federal Government. We think we should.
  The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) says this is not about 
money. That is absolutely not true. We want at least $3 billion more in 
that bill for education, for school modernization, for class size 
reduction, for afterschool programs, for Pell Grant increases, for 
special education increases and a number of others that we outlined.
  This asks two things: It asks, first of all, that we fund education 
at the highest possible level. It means we should

[[Page 18630]]

take some of that $28 billion in new money on the table and use it for 
education.
  The majority party has told us in conference we cannot use a dime of 
that additional money for education; that puts education last rather 
than first as a national priority. That is backwards. The second thing 
we say is whatever amount of money you provide for local flexibility, 
do not use it as an excuse to gut our efforts to strengthen efforts to 
provide modern school buildings and smaller class size.
  This country is wise enough and wealthy enough to do both.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Mr. Obey's motion because 
it seeks to ensure that H.R. 4577 includes dedicated funding to address 
two critical needs of our public schools.
  First, the motion seeks to preserve the Clinton/Clay class size 
reduction initiative, which is intended to eliminate overcrowded 
classrooms and boost student achievement.
  Thus far, the class size initiative has enabled communities to hire 
nearly 30,000 teachers for the current school year, providing smaller 
classes in the early grades to an estimated 1.7 million children. 
President Clinton has proposed spending an additional $1.75 billion in 
FY 2001, which would allow support for almost 50,000 teachers.
  We should fully fund the President's request, and also provide a 
long-term authorization to ensure that the benefits of smaller classes, 
led by highly qualified teachers, are extended to even more school 
districts and students.
  Mr. Speaker, I also support Mr. Obey's motion because it would ensure 
H.R. 4577 includes funding to build and modernize 6,000 schools 
nationwide.
  Today, over 28,000 public schools, have inadequate heating and 
cooling systems. Over 23,000 have inadequate plumbing, and more than 
20,000 schools have leaking roofs. In addition, 2,400 new public 
schools will be needed by the year 2003 to accommodate rising 
enrollments and relieve overcrowding.
  Mr. Speaker, if we fail to invest sufficient Federal resources in 
reducing class sizes and building better public schools, we will fail 
to give the help that is most needed to the students they serve.
  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Mr. Obey's 
motion to instruct conferees to provide the ``highest funding level 
possible'' for the Education Department which is embodied in H.R. 4577, 
the Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill. 
The education of our nation's children is an issue of paramount 
concern. As Members of the House of Representatives we need to be 
committed to ensuring that all children are being educated in a safe 
and clean environment that is conducive to learning. We know, however, 
that in many school districts all across the country this is not the 
case. Students are being educated in dilapidated school facilities with 
severely overcrowded classrooms. We should support the Administration's 
request for dedicated funds to reduce class sizes in early grades and 
for local school construction.
  Research and common sense suggest that smaller classes offer teachers 
the chance to devote more time to each student which improves their 
ability to learn. A 1998 U.S. Department of Education report, 
``Reducing Class Size: What Do We Know?'' indicates that reducing class 
size is related to increased student learning. Other studies have shown 
that smaller class sizes result in increased student achievement, a 
reduction in discipline problems and increased instructional time for 
teachers. In addition, smaller classes have been shown to be most 
important in early grades, and for disadvantaged and minority students.
  Under the leadership of the Administration's Class-Size Reduction 
Initiative, a number of states have already implemented class size 
reduction programs. The state of California, which I represent, began 
its Class Size Reduction Program in 1996, giving money to school 
districts for the purpose of reducing the student/teacher ratio to 20 
to 1 in kindergarten through third grade. The goal of the K-3 Class 
Size Reduction Program was to increase student achievement, 
particularly in reading and mathematics, by decreasing the class size 
to 20 or fewer students per certified teacher. The program has been a 
great success as over 90 percent of the state's schools are 
participating in the class-size reduction program, academic achievement 
is up and the state has dedicated a record amount of money for teacher 
recruitment and school construction. Similar results are being 
experienced all across the country and serve as a testament to the 
importance of promoting smaller class sizes.
  Smaller classes require larger, modern facilities. The motion to 
instruct conferees offered by my colleague, Congressman Obey, 
recognizes that federal funds need to be targeted toward school 
construction if we are to meet the needs of students across the nation. 
Communities across the country are struggling to address critical needs 
to renovate exiting schools and build new ones, School construction and 
modernization are necessary to accommodate rising student enrollments, 
to help reduce class sizes and to make sure schools are accessible to 
all students. According to the General Accounting Office, two-thirds of 
America's schools are in need of extensive repair and replacement of 
major structures. The state of California has estimated $22 billion in 
school infrastructure and modernization needs. I have walked through 
school facilities with leaking roofs, splintered chairs, and walls with 
severe water damage. This is unacceptable. America's students deserve 
better, and I congratulate Mr. Obey for working diligently to ensure 
that they get better.
  I strongly support Mr. Obey's motion to instruct because it focuses 
on the need to provide students with the best possible learning 
environment which consists of smaller classes in safe school buildings, 
that are conductive to learning.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. A division of the question has been 
demanded.
  The Chair will first put the question on the portion of the motion 
through the semicolon. The Chair will then put the question on the 
remaining portion.
  Without objection, an electronic vote on the second portion may be a 
5-minute vote, if following a 15-minute vote on the first portion.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the first portion of 
the divided question.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Obey moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the bill, H.R. 4577, be instructed to insist on the 
     highest funding level possible for the Department of 
     Education;

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the first portion of the 
divided motion offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  The first portion of the motion was agreed to.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the second portion of 
the divided question.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Obey moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the bill, H.R. 4577, be instructed to insist on 
     disagreeing with provisions in the Senate amendment which 
     denies the President's request for dedicated resources to 
     reduce class sizes in the early grades and for local school 
     construction and, instead, broadly expands the Title VI 
     Education Block Grant with limited accountability in the use 
     of funds.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the second portion of the 
divided motion offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 222, 
nays 201, not voting 10, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 484]

                               YEAS--222

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Edwards

[[Page 18631]]


     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill (IN)
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Holt
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, E.B.
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Larson
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Ney
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Phelps
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Quinn
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Salmon
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Scott
     Serrano
     Shaw
     Sherman
     Sherwood
     Shows
     Sisisky
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                               NAYS--201

     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bereuter
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kasich
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuykendall
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     Martinez
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Myrick
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Ose
     Oxley
     Packard
     Paul
     Pease
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Radanovich
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaffer
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Toomey
     Traficant
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Burton
     Campbell
     Hilliard
     Jones (OH)
     Klink
     Lazio
     McIntosh
     Nethercutt
     Sabo
     Vento

                              {time}  1421

  Messrs. CHABOT, GUTKNECHT, GILCHREST, PICKERING, WELLER, YOUNG of 
Alaska and METCALF changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Messrs. SNYDER, GILMAN, BARCIA, GALLEGLY and ADERHOLT changed their 
vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the second portion of the divided motion to instruct was agreed 
to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gillmor). Without objection, two motions 
to reconsider are laid on the table.
  There was no objection.

                          ____________________