[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18632-18633]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      EDUCATION FUNDING PRIORITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker I would like to take some time here this 
afternoon to talk about education in furtherance of the discussion we 
just had and the votes we have just had on the floor of the House of 
Representatives.
  In a time when education has risen to be the number one issue in all 
of the polls that we see across America, everyone is trying to take 
credit for what is happening in education, or to blame others. In 
reality, I do not think there is a man or woman on either side of this 
Chamber who would not want to, in some way, be able to help young 
people with education.
  Mr. Speaker, I like to believe very strongly that we on the 
Republican side have worked very, very hard to further this purpose, 
just as we did on the last vote, trying to take the same amount of 
money and giving flexibility to the States and local districts to make 
the decision about how to use the money and not mandate just school 
construction or just reduced class size.
  Similarly, we have been working very hard on the funding aspects of 
education. Indeed, as I indicated in our discussion earlier today, in 
the first 5 years of the last decade, with the Democrats in charge of 
the House of Representatives, the increase in funding for education was 
6 percent per year. Basically, it was 6 percent in the 5 years the 
Democrats were in charge of the House, and when the Republicans took 
over, the increase has been 8.2 percent a year. Anyone who knows 
anything about mathematics and takes that 2.2 percent additional 
increase each year realizes how many dollars that amounts to. So there 
has been no shirking of the responsibility of Republicans with respect 
to education.
  But I think just as important have been some of the issues that 
underlie this. We have been very determined to help children with 
disabilities, to help with IDEA, the individuals with disabilities 
education act. They need particular help because, in some cases, it is 
particularly expensive to help those young people be educated.
  We have been concerned about quality. We have talked about quality 
effectiveness and results in education. We have talked about better 
teaching. In our classrooms today, particularly today with the 
technology and some of the problems in society, we need teachers who 
are competent and who are well trained and, in particular, who know 
their subject matter. We need accountability. As we are deregulating 
more Federal education programs and providing more flexibility, which 
we have been doing, we must ensure that Federal education programs 
produce real accountable results.
  We believe in local control. Ultimately, we have to make that 
decision, be it Washington State or Washington, D.C. or Wilmington, 
Delaware or some place around the United States of America, we need to 
give them the flexibility to do what they have to do in order to 
educate. We need to get dollars to the classroom. We have been pushing 
very hard to make sure that the appropriations which are done here go 
into the classrooms to help the young people get educated.
  Basic academics is important. No more fads or self-esteem approaches, 
perhaps new math, open classrooms, some of the things which have failed

[[Page 18633]]

over the years. We need the basic academics, and we do need parental 
involvement and responsibility. I think all of us are aware that 
parents are often out of the house more because of the need for income, 
jobs, matters like that, but the bottom line is that we need to get 
parents as involved as we possibly can.

                              {time}  1430

  We have been working very hard in order to get that done, and we have 
been providing the funding for this, and I think that is a significant 
point that needs to be made.
  There are a lot of areas we have been involved in: the Charter School 
Expansion Act; some real opportunities to educate differently, perhaps 
better; prohibiting new Federal taxes, for example; dealing with the 
Teacher Empowerment Act and the Student Result Act. These are all areas 
of building for education for young people across America.
  But there are other areas as well, and some are not necessarily 
connected to what Republicans do. One is called Head Start. Head Start 
is a very significant program that helps young people who may need a 
particular start in education to get up to the starting line equal. I 
like to believe that every kid in kindergarten at the age of 5 is going 
to be equal at that point if we can possibly help with that.
  And Republicans have been leading the way over the last few years 
with Head Start. Funding for this program has expanded by 106 percent 
since 1995. That is a tremendous increase. That is a real commitment, 
to take all of those children who may come from families or 
circumstances where they need some extra help and provide that extra 
help to them.
  At the same time, we are talking again about quality and not just 
quantity, and we are saying that those people who are in these Head 
Start programs, that is teaching and running them, should have the 
background to do that. Hopefully, they will be teachers or people on 
their way to a teaching degree so that they will have the advantages of 
knowing exactly how they can handle children. So we are working on 
that. And now half the people teaching in Head Start have a college 
degree. There is a balance, I think, between quality and expansion, 
which is going on here; and we think that is important as well.
  We think quality child care is important also. A great sum of money 
has been spent with respect to the area of helping with our children. 
Again, children are the future. Children are a precious commodity that 
we have to pay a great deal of attention to as Members of the Congress 
of the United States of America.
  Literacy is also important. And under the tutelage of the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the retiring but extraordinarily 
talented chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, we 
have also addressed these issues. So there are many, many things which 
we have done with respect to education for which the Republican Party 
may take credit, as well as some Democrats may take credit.
  The bottom line is that we care a great deal about education. We have 
funded education and we want to make sure all those children have every 
opportunity possible.

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