[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 23331]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                               EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the Congress 
education agenda, or lack of one.
  Two months ago, the Nation's schools opened their doors to the 
largest number of students in history. Yet, the Nation began the 2000-
2001 academic year facing a national education crisis.
  Our teachers and students are struggling to teach and learn in 
underfunded, inadequate, substandard, and crowded conditions. The 
average American school building is now more than 40 years old, and the 
estimated price tag to bring our schools into good condition is $127 
billion.
  Many of our Nation's communities, like my own, are working to build 
and modernize schools, but they lack or have very limited funding.
  Our President has proposed a school construction tax credit to help 
communities build and modernize 6,000 schools, and grants and loans for 
emergency repairs to nearly 5,000 schools a year for 5 years. This 
school construction relief has bipartisan support in the House of 
Representatives, and needs to be voted on.
  Mr. Speaker, there is also substantial support in the House of 
Representatives for H.R. 4094, the Rangel-Johnson bill, which would 
amend the Tax Code to provide incentives for school construction and 
modernization. It has more than 225 cosponsors. I ask my colleagues to 
include the provisions of that bill in the final agreement, as well.
  But school modernization and reconstruction is only a beginning. Mr. 
Speaker, in the district of the Virgin Islands, which I represent, just 
under 3,000 members of the American Federation of Teachers are in the 
fifth day of a strike for retroactive wages and better working 
conditions.
  When our teachers strike, our students suffer. We need the Federal 
government to help us in many areas so we can better address our 
teachers' very valid concerns and their long overdue salary increases.
  We in the Congressional Black Caucus have an important education 
agenda. We are calling for a public school emergency recovery program, 
which comprehensively addresses the needs of our poorest and most needy 
schools. It will cost $10 billion of the surplus.
  The schools in my and other districts need this help. It is more 
important than a tax break for the richest 1 percent in our country, 
and it is a much better and more effective way to address the needs of 
education than our vouchers, which at best is a risky deflection of 
funding from public schools, where most of our Nation's children are 
educated.
  Mr. Speaker, my daughter Rabiah is a second grade teacher at Barnard 
School here in the District, a school that would benefit from the CBC's 
proposed initiative. This week, she and other teachers are being sent 
home. She had 22 students in her class. Barnard School and many others 
need more teachers, not less, to meet the needs of their children.
  The time has come for us to send a message across the Nation that our 
children are a priority and that we value and will invest in the 
education that they receive. We need to pass a budget that reflects 
investment in school modernization, that addresses the needs of our 
teachers by creating smaller classes, by increasing opportunities for 
training, by giving them more support staffing and programs, and by 
providing incentives to keep good teachers in our classrooms.
  I urge our leadership to follow the will of the majority of the 
Members of this House by bringing to the floor and passing an education 
budget that fully responds to the real education needs of all segments 
of our Nation.

                              {time}  1930

  I echo the President's call for continued work to strengthen 
accountability and raise test scores; to turn around failing schools or 
shut them down or put them under new management; to expand after school 
programs and college opportunities for young people; and to ensure a 
qualified teacher in every class.
  Mr. Speaker, as we come to the end of this session of Congress, we 
will be saying good-bye to several of our colleagues. One of them is a 
steadfast champion of education as well as labor, the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Clay). As he leaves the House after his years of 
distinguished service, he leaves us in this country an outstanding 
legacy which includes enacting legislation to strengthen Head Start, 
elementary and secondary education programs, and college financial aid 
programs, as well as many other mainstays of American education.
  I can think of no more fitting tribute to his service than passing 
landmark funding for this Nation's public schools and creating the 
Congressional Black Caucus' public school emergency recovery program.
  Mr. Speaker, the outcome of our end-of-the-term negotiations this 
year must begin with an education budget that ensures a 21st century 
education for each and every one of our Nation's children, truly 
leaving not one of them behind.

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