[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 25331]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         DEMOCRATS DEMONSTRATE SERIOUS COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to address this issue 
earlier today, but I came over and after the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) spoke just a minute ago, I felt it incumbent 
to do so. I too was a classroom teacher. I taught for 9 years, I say to 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 2 more than he did, and I have lived 
in those classrooms and even had the experiences of the roof falling 
in, only this was not a roof, it was only a blind that fell and cut my 
face. We had to evacuate students from classrooms in my building 
because the walls leaked so badly that the kids could not sit in there 
because there was so much water.
  Granted, that was a couple of decades back. I thought we had pretty 
much addressed all of that stuff.
  Interestingly enough, my daughter today teaches sixth grade math, in 
Beaumont, Texas, the same school district in which I taught. She has 
children who do not have chairs in her classroom. They will fix it. 
They are in portable buildings right now. They are making the repairs 
in the regular school building.
  The problem is that so many school districts do not have the ability 
to take care of these problems today, and it is incumbent upon this 
United States House of Representatives to try to help create the type 
of innovative financing to help school districts take care of 
themselves at home. In our State, there is a limit on how much one can 
raise in property taxes from a property taxpayer.
  I was a county school tax assessor collector also for a while 
following the time that I taught, and I know that they have difficulty 
raising those dollars. I know what it is like to be a taxpayer, a 
property taxpayer at home and not be able to pay or afford to pay all 
of the taxes that we have to try to accomplish the many things that we 
have to do within our schools to keep our children learning and give 
them the opportunity to be good productive citizens and not end up 
either victimizing somebody or being victims themselves or going to 
jail.
  Mr. Speaker, we have not made the right commitment, and that is what 
this debate is all about. Obviously, we all want to see our schools 
better. When are we going to make it the priority and do it? Our 
colleagues on the Republican side clearly have not done that.
  Our own State of Texas has a plan in the Republican platform for its 
State to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. That to me does not 
speak to a commitment to make education better in this country.
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. LAMPSON. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, I too listened to the other speaker and I 
too am I classroom teacher. I taught for 9 years, middle school math, 
in a very poor, rural area.
  Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, that is what my daughter teaches.
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, I too worked in one of those places that 
nobody wants to talk about, those portables. But I say to the 
gentleman, I am tired of hearing on this floor about how we controlled 
the House and we controlled the Senate for those first 2 years with the 
presidency. We were paying down a debt. There was no money. There could 
be no discussion about these issues. And on top of that, we had our 
States, because at that time I was in the State Senate in the 1980s, 
and this country was going through a recession. There was no money in 
the States to deal with these problems. So these things just went up 
and up and up.
  Now, they want to come and say well, you did not do anything about 
it. Well, this is the first time we have had any surpluses to even be 
able to talk about it, and now what we are trying to talk about is $25 
billion to do school construction, and the rest of the K through 3 
program where we have been putting teachers.
  I am also tired of hearing about how we are taking this away from the 
local level, it is their issue, they ought to be able to control it. 
Ask them to go look in their State legislatures. How many of them have 
adopted the goal to make K through 3 education top priority in reducing 
class size? How many States in this country are doing after-school 
programs? How many of these? In fact, just 2 years ago, when this whole 
school construction came up, our State legislature was having to call a 
special session to deal with the issue of school construction.
  Yes, we are talking about it now because we have an opportunity to 
talk about it.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me this time.
  Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the gentlewoman's 
comments.
  It is clear, there is a difference in commitment to this issue. The 
Democrats indeed want to attempt to make a real difference, and I hope 
that instead of asking, as the gentlewoman well stated, instead of 
asking the question, where were you while we were in control, well, why 
has there not been some commitment, some effort to truly explain what 
the Republican commitment is while they have been in control of this 
House of Representatives in the last several years. I think we are 
doing so, and we are doing so in a responsible manner; and I hope that 
with our continued push that we will achieve that.

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