[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 400-402]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EDUCATION FUNDING

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to address again an issue I 
addressed yesterday on the floor relative to the funding and the 
activity under the No Child Left Behind legislation which is landmark 
legislation we passed a year ago which the President of the United 
States signed and which was a bipartisan effort.
  After I spoke yesterday, a couple of Senators came down to the 
Chamber and addressed the issue but, once again, misrepresented the 
facts. I think it is important, therefore, to restate what the facts 
are and go through some of the history and also review in more depth a 
letter which was sent by Senator Kennedy and Senator Miller to the 
Department of Education, which letter, in my opinion, is off base and 
inaccurate.
  To begin with, the No Child Left Behind bill is landmark legislation, 
the purpose of which is to give parents of low-income children and low-
income children an opportunity to participate in the American dream by 
assuring they get a decent education and have a chance to learn what 
they need to learn to be competitive with their peers, especially as 
they proceed through the early years of education.
  It is a bill that ties four different elements to it.
  No. 1, the purpose is to obviously give low-income children a better 
educational opportunity through a process of giving the local school 
districts flexibility over how they deal with the rules under title I, 
which is the low-income child education part of the Federal law.
  No. 2, there is an initiative in this bill to make sure that low-
income children are reaching the standards of their peers through 
putting in place a testing regime which basically sets up 
accountability and to establish that children of all ethnic groups in 
the same classroom are learning at a level which is necessary for them 
to move on so that the children are not being warehoused, are not 
simply being passed through the system--as we discovered, 
unfortunately, was happening for years and, at the end of their 
educational experience in public schools, they really did not know 
enough to compete in America and to have a successful life.
  No. 3, if a child was found to be in a school that simply was not 
working, was not educating that child, there are certain rules put into 
the bill which empower the parent to take some action so they can get 
their child the educational assistance they need, such as public school 
choice, such as getting tutorial support outside the school. And if the 
school continued not to work, then the public school system was given a 
lot of funds and resources to correct that problem.
  No. 4, there was a significant amount of Federal dollars--a dramatic 
increase in Federal funding--that was put into local schools for the 
purpose of addressing this bill. That is what I want to talk about 
today because, once again, that was misrepresented on this floor.
  The amount of funding which President Bush has put into the new bill 
represents the most historic increase in the educational funding in the 
history of Federal funding. It has been a 132-percent increase in 
funding. We have seen a 132-percent increase in funding in education 
over the last 6 years, and that compares to a 48-percent increase in 
Defense, or a 96-percent increase in Health and Human Services. It is a 
dramatic increase in educational funding.
  One might say that ties to the Clinton years, too. Yes, it does, but 
if we look at what President Bush has done in his first year in office, 
he increased funding in education by approximately $20 billion over the 
last year of the Clinton administration. That is a dramatic increase, a 
50-percent increase almost in funding over the last year of the Clinton 
administration.
  The request of the President for new funding in areas of, for 
example, special education, was historic compared to President Clinton 
who essentially requested no increases in special education until his 
last year, this being a chart showing President Clinton's request. The 
red represents the $1 billion increase in special education funding 
that President Bush requested and received in his first year, and the 
$1 billion increase in special education funding which President Bush 
requested on top of that $1 billion in the coming year.
  If one looks at the history of the commitment of this President to 
educational funding, it dwarfs--dwarfs--the commitment made by the 
Clinton administration. For example, if one looks at the 7 years of 
increases in educational funding under the Clinton administration, they 
are almost 25-percent less than the increases which President Bush has 
put into educational funding in just 2 years. He has not only made this 
type of a commitment in 2 years, but he has already stated that he 
intends to increase title I funding by another $1 billion this year. He 
has asked for that, and I expect we are going to see the same type of 
dramatic increase in special education funding and across the board.
  This letter was sent by Senator Kennedy and Senator Miller to 
Secretary Paige, and it outlined their concerns with the No Child Left 
Behind legislation. I think it is important to respond to this because 
this letter was truly an inaccurate letter. It began--and I heard 
Senator Harkin yesterday parroting this position--by saying that the 
President has cut No Child Left Behind spending. That is absolutely 
inaccurate. Not only has he not cut it, he has increased that specific 
account, title I, by over $4 billion since he has been President.
  How do they define it as a cut? There is one program--one program--
that they did not fund. It was a $90 million program called the Fund 
for Improvement of Education. Because they did not fund that one 
program, that is a cut in the minds of Senator Harkin and Senator 
Kennedy. That is a very interesting way to account. If you increase 
spending in one year by $1 billion, but as part of that $1-billion 
increase you eliminate a program worth $90 million, you have cut 
spending, according to Senator Kennedy and Senator Harkin. That is a 
truly unique way to look at the way math is done. I think maybe they 
should go back and do math in the third grade and see if they pass the 
test

[[Page 401]]

which we are going to try to make sure kids have to pass to be 
competent in the third grade.
  Clearly, if the funds have been increased by $1 billion, you have not 
cut the program. If you have eliminated an earmarked program--which is 
not working to begin with and which has virtually no purpose other than 
to fund special interest activity--which is worth $90 million, but at 
the same time you have increased funding over $1 billion in that 
account, you have not cut the program; you have improved the program 
and you have made sure that billion dollars is going to be spent much 
more effectively. What do we do with the $90 million they eliminated? 
We sent it back to the towns, the cities, and let the teachers and 
principals and the school boards decide how to spend that money rather 
than have it be a categorical program. That representation in the 
letter was specious.
  The letter goes on to say the bill is filled with an unfunded mandate 
to build schools and hire highly qualified teachers to comply with the 
bill's public school choice capacity requirements. But that is not the 
case. It should be noted that in 1995 Congress prohibited unfunded 
mandates. With regard to school construction, the Department of 
Education has never required districts to build new schools. Of course, 
it has not required that in order to accommodate the No Child Left 
Behind law.
  Furthermore, the Department is still waiting for the States to draw 
down $900 million in school construction renovation money that was 
passed in the year 2001. So the money is still sitting there and has 
not even been spent.
  With regard to the new teacher requirement, which simply says the 
teachers have to be highly qualified teachers, that is not a mandate. 
In fact, what this bill does is dramatically increase and has 
dramatically increased the funding for teacher training and for teacher 
pay and for teacher support. A $742 million increase in one year. Three 
billion dollars is now going out to the States to assist them with 
teacher training, teacher qualification, and teacher support.
  What we did in this bill which is unique and special and is going to 
help the local school, instead of having a whole set of categorical 
programs, one of which says you must have this number of teachers in 
your schoolroom depending on this number of kids, instead of telling 
schools that is how they have to educate their children, we said we are 
going to take all this money, this $3 billion--we have increased it now 
by $742 million--and we will put it together in a pool and we will say 
to you, the principal, you tell us how you can use this to improve your 
teachers. If you need more teachers in the classroom, if you need to 
hire more teachers, you can use the money for that. If you have really 
good teachers you want to keep in your classroom, you can pay them 
more. If you have teachers who need technical support, computers, 
whatever, in their classroom to help them, you can use it that way. If 
you have teachers who need a little extra help, a little extra 
education, or want that to improve themselves, you can use it that way. 
We gave the flexibility to local school districts to make the decisions 
as to how they were going to use this money to improve their teachers 
so all the teachers would be of high quality.
  But that does not satisfy the Senator from Iowa or the Senator from 
Massachusetts. They want that categorical program which says with this 
money you have to hire this number of teachers if you have this number 
of students. That was rejected in No Child Left Behind. You cannot come 
around the corner now and say you have to do it now because that is not 
the law anymore. Therefore, you cannot claim there is an unfunded 
mandate.
  Let's remember, this President has increased funding for teachers by 
35 percent over what the Clinton administration funded.
  The letter also says the final regulations established an incentive 
for schools to focus on test scores while ignoring high school dropout 
rates, thereby jeopardizing the law's accountability provisions. 
Nothing could be further from the truth. The regulations are actually 
stronger than the statute. The statute was unclear on graduation rates 
and the regulations state even if all children are doing well in 
school, if the dropout rates are high, the school is still identified 
as being in need of improvement, a tougher standard than what we passed 
in the Congress.
  The letter also criticizes the Department for not allowing teachers 
who are alternatively certified or working on becoming alternatively 
certified to be counted as highly qualified. This is a perfect example 
of how my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do the teachers 
union bidding by trying to prevent individuals who do not go through 
the traditional teacher certification process, which is dominated by, 
unfortunately, union rules which sometimes have no relevance to 
capacity to teach. It restricts those people from being hired. They do 
not want competition. They do not want teachers coming in from the 
Teach for America Program or other programs and encourage professionals 
from other fields to move into the teaching arena. This bill, No Child 
Left Behind, encourages drawing into our school systems people who are 
qualified but are not necessarily professional teachers--going to the 
military services, for example, to get people out of the Army and the 
Armed Forces into teaching. And as I said, Teach for America. That 
language was a strong addition to the bill, not a weakening of the 
bill.
  The letter also states that the No Child Left Behind prohibited norm-
reference tests which measures students' achievements against that of 
their peers. This is patently false. Patently false. The House bill 
originally had that language; this language was dropped. It is another 
example, as is the example that I pointed out prior, of using the old 
law of the way things used to be to attack the new law, the way things 
are and the way things are improving.
  The letter also claims the Department allowed States to use a 
patchwork of local tests to meet the new annual testing requirements, 
making it possible to measure whether achievement gaps are closed. The 
Department has made it crystal clear if you use local tests they have 
to be comparable tests. That is the way it should be. There is no 
reason to deny school districts from using local tests. If they put 
together a plan which makes it clear that those local tests are 
comparable, of course we should let them use local tests. That is 
called flexibility. As long as there is a way to compare them and the 
Department has said that is a commitment, that is something a State has 
to do in deciding their plan.
  And let's remember here, one of the States that has met the test of 
putting forward an accountability system that will work happens to be 
Massachusetts. Massachusetts has proved you can do it. As has New York. 
As has Indiana. As has Ohio. Big States. States with lots of kids in 
their system. Their plans have been approved, ahead of schedule, that 
they can meet the tests of this bill.
  And what is the purpose of this bill? Remember, the purpose of the 
bill is to make sure kids learn. These people who put these plans 
together are excited about the fact they now have a law they can follow 
which allows them to make sure that kids do learn. All the teachers in 
this country, all teachers, that is their purpose. They are altruistic 
people because they want to help kids learn. Now we put in place a 
system to help them find out whether the kids are meeting those 
standards and whether they are learning. These States which have 
already come up and put forward plans and initiatives which work under 
the bill are reflecting the energy out there to do good under this 
bill, and yet we get a letter like this which is basically trying to 
undermine the bill.
  Last point. This letter engaged in a bit of what I call revisionist 
history when it claims No Child Left Behind allows Federal educational 
programs to directly fund religious organizations and to permit 
organizations to discriminate based on religion. After many hours of 
negotiation--I was there; Senator Kennedy was there; Senator Miller was 
there--and I am

[[Page 402]]

very surprised to see this language in this letter. We reached a 
bipartisan agreement to be silent. That is to allow current law to 
operate on the issue of the Civil Rights Act. Title VII of the Civil 
Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, religion, 
national origin and employment, except with regard to employment by 
religious institutions. We did not nor did we intend to reverse this 
precedent. To claim otherwise is simply to ridicule the process we went 
through for months and misrepresents the outcome of the process which 
we resolved over those months.
  What my colleagues are asking for in this letter is to have the 
Department of Education pile more and more regulations onto the States 
and the local communities as they try to come into compliance and make 
the No Child Left Behind bill work. That is just the opposite of our 
goal. Our goal was to free up the local communities in the States to 
give them the opportunity to use their energy, their creativity, and 
their individuality to address this very serious problem we have in 
America, which is that so many kids, especially low-income kids, are 
not being educated well enough to participate in American society.
  We don't want to go back to the old way where there were strings 
running from every desk in this Chamber out to every school district. 
We were saying: You must do this or we are going to pull that string 
and jerk you around. We want to go to the new way, which says: We are 
going to give you flexibility; we are going to give you money; we are 
going to empower parents to know what is going on. But at the end of 
the day we are going to expect accountability; we are going to expect 
results; we are going to expect these kids actually are learning.
  We are going to test them. The tests will be designed by local folks, 
but we are going to expect them to learn to the standards the local 
folks design. It is a reasonable bill. It is going to help a lot of 
kids in America. And it is unfortunate there appears to be this 
orchestrated effort to undermine it.
  It is extremely unfortunate that we hear, again and again, 
misrepresentations on the floor of this Senate about how much money is 
committed to it and about the commitment of this President to funding 
education.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to 
speak for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized without objection.

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