[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 22270-22271]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          EDUCATION IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk 
about education. We will hear later tonight from the two presidential 
candidates a lot about education. We will have two very differing 
messages.
  George W. Bush, the Republican candidate, will talk about getting 
money to the classrooms, getting money to the school districts and 
requiring accountability, accountability that young people can read, 
that young people understand math, that young people understand science 
and English and reach certain levels of excellence.
  Then we will have the Gore plan that talks about, if you do what we 
want you to do, we will furnish some money. If you hire teachers, we 
will help you. If you do new school construction, and I would say also 
and if you are urban, we may help you. But it certainly will not be to 
the most of the hundreds of thousands of school districts in this 
country, only a few privileged few.
  Now, it is interesting as we listen to this debate that we keep it in 
perspective. The Federal Government claims that they provide seven 
percent of the basic education money from K-12, seven percent.
  Now I am going to give my colleagues the actual figures to 
Pennsylvania, the fifth largest State in the country, a sophisticated 
State, 3.3 percent of the money in school districts. Of the 530 school 
districts in Pennsylvania, 3.3 percent of their budget comes from the 
Federal Government.
  So the question I ask is, that is 47 percent of seven percent, so 
what happens to the 53 percent? Is it all chewed up in Federal and 
State and regional bureaucracies that we know are often funded by the 
Federal Government? If that is the case, then if we are going to impact 
education from Washington, we have to figure out how to get the money 
into the classroom.
  Last year and the year before, we had a program called Dollars to the 
Classroom that took a lot of programs and made it much easier for 
school districts to use them and get the money out to the school 
districts without all the bureaucratic work that is needed, without the 
grantsmen, without the consultants that you need to get Federal money.
  It is interesting for the American public to realize, Mr. Speaker, 
that one of my most suburban school districts gets just a little over 
one percent of its money from the Federal Government. Are we going to 
fix education in that community? I have dozens of school districts that 
get between one and two percent of their money from the Federal 
Government.
  Are we going to fix education there?
  We can help a little bit. We can guide a little bit. But if we are 
going to have Washington-based programs that they have to apply for 
that they have to meet all the requirements of, most smaller school 
districts will not even apply.
  I think it is important as we listen to this presidential debate that 
we talk about getting dollars to the classroom, that we require 
accountability, but not Federal bureaucracies in charge of our school 
districts.
  My colleagues, we cannot improve education by more Federal programs,

[[Page 22271]]

more Federal bureaucrats, more Federal rules and with only 47 percent 
of the Federal dollars reaching the classroom if Pennsylvania is like 
most States. And I believe that is probably the case in most States.
  So it is important that if we are going to really help education from 
Washington that we allow the local leaders, we make it easy to get the 
Federal dollars there. If they need maintenance, they can do 
maintenance. If they need teachers, they can hire teachers. If they 
need books, they can buy books. If they need computers, they can buy 
computers. Not Washington telling them, we will help you if you do what 
we think you should do.
  So I think it is very important as we listen to this Presidential 
debate that we realize that Washington cannot make our school districts 
better. We can only be a small player if we get the money to the school 
districts and we allow them to make the decisions that teachers and the 
administrators and the parents involved in their young people's 
education, that Washington does not have the answers, Washington will 
not make it better, it will make it more complicated, few dollars will 
reach the classroom.
  All these bureaucracies that are funded with that 53 percent do not 
teach a student, do not make a classroom better, do not make a school 
better, and does not help the role of education.
  So as I conclude my comments this evening, it is important that we 
get the money to the classroom, that we require accountability that 
students can read, they can do math, they can do science, and they know 
English. That will give them the basis for their life and will give 
them a good education.

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