[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 24357]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            EDUCATION ACHIEVEMENTS OF CLINTON ADMINISTRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Speaker, there is much good news in higher 
education this year, and we should take a few moments in the House of 
Representatives to take notice of it.
  Education Secretary Dick Riley appeared today before the last 
Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing of the 106th Congress. 
Although the stated purpose of the hearing was a sad commentary on 
presidential politics, it was an excellent opportunity to highlight the 
educational achievements of the past 8 years under Secretary Riley. He 
has been a true friend to all American children during his tenure, and 
especially to the Hispanic community, as no other Education Secretary 
before him.
  On behalf of all American children, I want to commend Secretary Riley 
for his tireless dedication to improving both education programs and 
the Education Department. I know I for one have greatly enjoyed the 
opportunity to work with such a great and inspirational figure.
  I am very glad to have worked with Secretary Riley personally, who 
visited my district twice over the past 4 years. It has afforded us 
both valuable experience because each time he has had the opportunity 
to witness the beneficial impact of Federal programs such as the E-
Rate, bilingual education, or Gear-up in my south Texas congressional 
district.
  For example, we have reaped a great benefit from the $75 million 
given to date to the Region One Education Service Center, which 
overseas 38 school districts in south Texas, serving 298,000 students, 
95 percent of whom are Hispanic.
  I know each time he visited he raised the morale of our students, 
strengthening the appreciation for education among Hispanic, low-
income, and extremely motivated and bright students.
  While many of the Department's achievements were noted in his 
testimony, there are others worthy of note here tonight. For example, 
$18 billion has been added to the annual Federal education spending 
since 1995. Math SAT scores are at an all-time high. NAEP, the National 
Assessment of Education Progress, reading achievement scores have 
significantly improved in all grades tested, and ACT scores increased 
from 1992 to 1999. Better still, the numbers of females and minorities 
taking the ACT test increased five-fold.
  Secretary Riley is the undisputed champion of minority education. 
Under his tenure, the Department of Education has helped more than 200 
colleges and universities, middle and high schools form Gear-up 
partnerships to help 480,000 students and their families to attend 
college. Many of the beneficiaries are minority students.
  The Department of Education has also been an avid partner in 
implementing the Hispanic Education Action Plan, or HEAP, as we call 
it. It was started in 1994. These are among the exemplary programs that 
assist a great number of minority students and their families in 
districts such as mine in south Texas, the third poorest metropolitan 
statistical area in the Nation.
  The Department's accomplishments included in the Secretary's 
testimony are sharply contrasted by a Rand report released yesterday on 
public education in my home State of Texas. The Rand report raises 
serious questions about the purported test score gains in our State 
standards test, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, commonly 
referred to as TAAS.
  In particular, this report finds that results on TAAS, collected by 
Governor Bush's State Education Agency, and other standardized tests 
such as NAEP tell very different stories. Rand is by all accounts an 
unbiased, well-respected research organization. So when their reports 
state that alleged minority students' gains are illusory, we must take 
notice.
  The report goes on to observe that ``evidence regarding the validity 
of score gains on the TAAS can be obtained by investigating the degree 
to which these gains are also present on other measures of these same 
general skills.'' So how did they measure up?
  Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude and say that it is vital to remember 
that the true education reform is slow and steady and based on 
empirical and unbiased data as Secretary Riley and the rest of the 
Department employees have done.

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