[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 23414-23424]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 2765, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2765) making appropriations for the Government 
     of the District of Columbia and other activities chargeable 
     in whole or in part against the revenues of said District for 
     the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and for other 
     purposes.

  Pending:

       DeWine/Landrieu Amendment No. 1783, in the nature of a 
     substitute.

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, we made very good progress yesterday on 
the District of Columbia bill. We were able to approve a very 
constructive amendment by my colleague and friend from California. 
Senator Feinstein brought to the floor an amendment that brought about 
more accountability in regard to the section of the bill having to do 
with the scholarship provision. We did make very good progress. As the 
majority leader said, we have the opportunity to keep this bill moving 
forward. We have the opportunity today for Members to come to the floor 
and discuss the bill. We will have the opportunity all day Monday for 
Members to come to the floor to offer amendments. We are certainly 
going to be open for business Monday for Members to come to the Chamber 
and offer amendments.
  I know my colleague from Illinois was on the floor and talked about 
offering an amendment to strike the scholarship provision. He certainly 
has the

[[Page 23415]]

opportunity to do so, and we can have a very rigorous debate. We 
started that discussion yesterday, and we can continue it. We hope we 
can get a vote at some point on that issue.
  My friend and colleague, the ranking member on the committee, has had 
some suggestions. I assume those will become an amendment at some 
point. We had a good debate last night, along with our colleague from 
Delaware. They have some ideas that will become a part of an amendment 
at some point, we assume. We can debate that.
  There is good opportunity for good debate. I encourage my colleagues 
to get those into the form of an amendment, get down here, and let's 
debate it and move this bill forward.
  This is a good bill. This is a bill my colleague from Louisiana and I 
have worked long and hard on.
  As we discussed yesterday, it is a bill that is focused to a large 
extent on the children of the District of Columbia. It has a provision 
I take a lot of pride in, and I know my colleague takes a lot of pride 
in, and it has to do with foster care. We have heard the horror 
stories, and we have read the excellent series of articles that 
appeared in the Washington Post--very frightening and troubling 
articles that the Post has run over a series of months about the 
horrible situation in the foster care system in the District of 
Columbia. Children have been neglected and abused; they have not been 
taken care of.
  This bill says, for the first time, that the Federal Government and 
this Senate intend to try to do something about it. Senator Landrieu 
and I held hearings. We brought in experts from across the country, 
brought in experts from the District of Columbia. We brought everybody 
together and said, OK, what is the problem? They told us some of the 
problems, and we got experts from outside the District who told us of 
some of the problems as they perceived them. We took that advice and 
came up with three or four ideas--not our ideas but the experts' 
ideas--and we put them together in this bill and provided a significant 
amount of money. That is what is in the bill. So we have the Federal 
Government taking some responsibility in this area and beginning to 
move forward.
  It is our intention with this bill that this will be the first step. 
Senator Landrieu and I have pledged, as long as we have anything to do 
with this bill--which I imagine will be for the next several years--
that we will move forward to try to help these foster care children. So 
this is something of which Members of this body can be very proud.
  This bill also continues our efforts to deal with the homeland 
security problems. Since September 11, we have become even more aware 
of the unique security needs of the District of Columbia. We are a 
target; we understand that. My colleague in the chair well knows about 
this, as the chairman of the committee has been very cognizant of this 
and helped us to deal with these problems in the District of Columbia 
as we have worked with the Mayor. This bill continues to try to address 
these problems.
  Thirdly, the bill also addressed some of the long-term infrastructure 
problems of the District of Columbia. These are issues that are not 
very glitzy or exciting but what we have to deal with in the long-term. 
So this is a strong bill, a more reasoned bill, a bill within budget, 
but it is a bill of which we all can be very proud.
  Let me turn to the fourth item which is, frankly, the only 
contentious issue in this bill, the scholarship program. I believe it 
is a very well-balanced, well-thought-out section of the bill. It is 
something that Senator Feinstein, as we discussed yesterday, has been 
so very helpful in crafting. As I said yesterday, she went so far to 
help improve the language. The bill in front of us today, frankly, is a 
better bill because of what my colleague from California, Senator 
Feinstein, has contributed in her suggestions. She came to Senator 
Gregg and to me and to the chairman and said she had some suggestions 
that would improve the constitutionality, allow the Mayor to be much 
more involved, and would make the system much more accountable so we 
can measure how well the children are doing, and we incorporated those 
changes.
  Then, yesterday, she had an additional amendment that provided for 
testing being the same for the children who would be in the program as 
children not in the program. We adopted that by voice vote yesterday. 
So she has been a great trigger to this bill, and this scholarship 
program will be a lot better because of what she has done.
  As I was saying, it is a very balanced program. It is a program, as 
we talked about yesterday, that was designed--and I think this is 
significant and we need to keep it in mind--not by us but by the Mayor 
of the District of Columbia. If anybody has any doubts about this, they 
can just go ask the Mayor. The Mayor is the one who designed this 
program. The Mayor said: Give me more help with public schools. So we 
said, yes--with $13 million more for the public schools.
  The Mayor said: Give me more help with the charter schools. The Mayor 
has been working to expand the charter schools. My colleague from 
Louisiana has been very helpful in this regard. She has taken the 
charter schools on as something in which she has been very much 
involved. We have done that with this bill with $13 million more to 
expand the charter schools. It will allow for the creation of three or 
four or five more charter schools in the District of Columbia.
  The third prong the Mayor outlined was this: He said give me some 
help to create these new scholarships for children, and they and their 
families will have choice. That is what the bill provides: money for 
public schools, money for charter schools, and money for the new 
scholarships for the parents to go out and choose schools--private 
schools--if that is what they want to do. Again, this is what the bill 
does: $13 million for public schools, $13 million for charter schools, 
and $13 million for the choice to go out on these scholarships and 
choose the private schools. It is a well-balanced approach, designed by 
the Mayor, by the people of the District of Columbia.
  Mr. President, this is a well-developed bill, a well-designed bill. I 
think it is something of which we can all be very proud. So I encourage 
my colleagues to come down to the floor today and debate this bill, and 
then as we begin this process today and continue the process on Monday, 
come to the floor on Monday and offer these amendments so that we can 
proceed. We got a great start with the adoption of the Feinstein 
amendment yesterday. We now need to move forward and continue the 
process. I thank the Chair. I know my colleague from Louisiana wants to 
discuss this bill.
  At this point, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). The Senator from Louisiana is 
recognized.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I want to begin by commending, as I have 
often, my colleague from Ohio for his leadership on this issue. It has 
been a joy and a privilege to work with him as we have alternated the 
chairmanship of this very important committee for this region and this 
Nation and, obviously, for the residents of the District itself. It has 
been a real joy to work with him. We have found a tremendous amount of 
common ground in the course of these few years, and I think we have 
made a lot of progress in some of the most complex challenges here in 
the District. He noted this morning the challenge, still, with the 
foster care system and its weaknesses, and he outlined how this 
committee and this Congress has worked in partnership, very closely, 
with all the city leaders to recognize the problems, admit them, and 
begin to put in the resources and the management changes necessary to 
make that child welfare system much better and, hopefully, a model for 
the Nation.
  I am proud to have worked with him, along with other Senators. 
Senator Durbin is one, along with Senator Hutchison from Texas and 
others, who worked on some initial foundation work on restoring fiscal 
discipline, if you will, and fiscal health to the District. That is 
another accomplishment of which we can be very proud, both on the 
Democratic and Republican sides.

[[Page 23416]]

  So as my colleague from Ohio has said, there is a lot to be proud of 
in this bill. There is a tremendous amount of progress that has been 
made, and we will continue to find common ground where we can. But 
there is one area of this bill where we are struggling to find common 
ground, and I am not sure we will be able to because principles are 
very important in terms of education reform and accountability.
  I want to start this discussion this morning on that proposal by 
sharing an article that I read in the paper this morning on a 
completely different subject, but I think it makes the point very well.
  We woke up this morning to read a headline in the New York Times on 
the front page. The headline says: ``Dogged Engineer Pressed NASA on 
Shuttle, but Rebuffs Were Constant.''
  I submit this article for the Record because it is lengthy and it is 
very detailed, but it is excellent. I ask unanimous consent to print 
the article in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 26, 2003]

           Dogged Engineer's Effort To Assess Shuttle Damage

                   (By James Glanz and John Schwartz)

       Houston.--Over and over, a projector at one end of a long, 
     pale-blue conference room in Building 13 of the Johnson Space 
     Center showed a piece of whitish foam breaking away from the 
     space shuttle Columbia's fuel tank and bursting like 
     fireworks as it struck the left wing.
       In twos and threes, engineers at the other end of the 
     cluttered room drifted away from their meeting and watched 
     the repetitive, almost hypnotic images with deep puzzlement: 
     because of the camera angle, no one could tell exactly where 
     the foam had hit.
       It was Tuesday, Jan. 21, five days after the foam had 
     broken loose during liftoff, and some 30 engineers from the 
     National Aeronautics and Space Administration and its 
     aerospace contractors were having the first formal meeting to 
     assess potential damage when it struck the wing.
       Virtually every one of the participants--those in the room 
     and some linked by teleconference--agreed that the space 
     agency should immediately get images of the impact area, 
     perhaps by requesting them from American spy satellites or 
     powerful telescopes on the ground.
       They elected one of their number, a soft-spoken NASA 
     engineer, Rodney Rocha, to convey the idea to the shuttle 
     mission managers.
       Mr. Rocha said he tried at least half a dozen times to get 
     the space agency to make the requests. There were two similar 
     efforts by other engineers. All were turned aside, Mr. Rocha 
     (pronounced ROE-cha) said a manager told him that he refused 
     to be a ``Chicken Little.''
       The Columbia's flight director, LeRoy Cain, wrote a curt e-
     mail message that concluded, ``I consider it to be a dead 
     issue.''
       New interviews and newly revealed e-mail sent during the 
     fatal Columbia mission show that the engineers' desire for 
     outside help in getting a look at the shuttle's wing was more 
     intense and widespread than what was described in the Aug. 26 
     final report of the board investigating the Feb. 1 accident, 
     which killed all seven astronauts aboard.
       The new information makes it clear that the failure to 
     follow up on the request for outside imagery, the first step 
     in discovering the damage and perhaps mounting a rescue 
     effort, did not simply fall through bureaucratic cracks but 
     was actively, even hotly resisted by mission managers.
       The report did not seek to lay blame on individual managers 
     but focused on physical causes of the accident and the 
     ``broken safety culture'' within NASA that allowed risks to 
     be underplayed. But Congress has opened several lines of 
     inquiry into the mission, and holding individuals accountable 
     is part of the agenda.
       In interviews with numerous engineers, most of whom have 
     not spoken publicly until now, the discord between NASA's 
     engineers and managers stands out in stark relief.
       Mr. Rocha, who has emerged as a central figure in the 16 
     days of the Columbia's fight, was a natural choice of his 
     fellow engineers as a go-between on the initial picture 
     request. He had already sent an e-mail message to the shuttle 
     engineering office asking if the astronauts could visually 
     inspect the impact area through a small window on the side of 
     the craft. And as Mr. Rocha was chief engineer in Johnson 
     Space Center's structural engineering division and a man with 
     a reputation for precision and integrity, his words were 
     likely to carry great weight.
       ``I said, `Yes, I'll give it a try,''' he recalled in mid-
     September, in the course of five hours of recent interviews 
     at a hotel near the space center.
       In its report, the independent Columbia Accident 
     Investigation Board spoke of Mr. Rocha, 52, as a kind of NASA 
     Everyman--a typical engineer who suspected that all was not 
     well with the Columbia but could not save it.
       ``He's an average guy as far as personality, but as far as 
     his engineering skills, he's a very, very detail-oriented 
     guy,'' said Dan Diggins, who did many of the interviews for 
     the report's chapter on the space agency's decision-making 
     during the flight and wrote that chapter's first draft before 
     it was reworked and approved by the board. Never in hours of 
     interviews did Mr. Diggins find a contradiction between Mr. 
     Rocha's statements and facts established by other means, he 
     said.
       Mr. Rocha's experience provides perhaps the clearest and 
     most harrowing view of a NASA safety culture that, the board 
     says must be fixed if the remaining shuttles are to continue 
     flying.


                        early love with shuttle

       Alan Rodney Rocha loved the Columbia long before it was 
     lost. In August 1978, as a young NASA engineer, he took his 
     first business trip for the agency to Palmdale, Calif., where 
     the still unfinished Columbia sat in a hangar among the 
     Joshua trees, awaiting its first mission.
       Working from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. each night, he had the job of 
     climbing into the orbiter's wheel well, through the fuselage 
     and among the labyrinth of tubes, wires, struts and 
     partitions in the right wing, to check that each of 200 
     strain gauges were just where the plans said they should be. 
     And the Columbia took its place in his heart.
       ``I felt so privileged to be there,'' he said. The Columbia 
     took its maiden flight in 1981; five years later its sister 
     vessel the Challenger was lost with its crew of seven when O-
     ring seals in one of the solid rocket boosters failed in the 
     launching, severing a strut connecting the booster to the 
     shuttle's external fuel tank.
       For Mr. Rocha, the Columbia disaster began on the eve of 
     its final liftoff. That afternoon, he and other engineers 
     were stunned to learn of new tests at a NASA laboratory 
     showing that a ring attaching the rocket boosters to the 
     external tank had not met minimum strength requirements. As 
     he watched, managers hastily considered the problem at a 
     prelaunching meeting beginning at 12:10 a.m. on Jan. 16.
       Instead of halting the launching on the spot, Mr. Rocha 
     said, the shuttle manager, Linda Ham, granted a temporary 
     waiver that reduced the strength requirements, on the basis 
     of data that the investigation board later found to be 
     flawed. Mr. Rocha would draw on an old rocketry term--
     ``launch fever''--to describe what had happened at the 
     meeting.
       The launching went ahead that Thursday morning. The ring 
     held, but an unrelated problem turned up when insulating foam 
     tore away from an attachment to the external tank 81.7 
     seconds after liftoff and struck the orbiter's left wing.
       Mr. Rocha said that when he learned of the foam strike in a 
     phone call on Friday afternoon, he gasped. All weekend he 
     watched the video loop showing the strike, and at 11:24 p.m. 
     on Sunday, he sent an e-mail message to the manager of the 
     shuttle engineering office, Paul Shack, suggesting that the 
     astronauts simply take a look at the impact area.
       Mr. Shack never responded. But by Tuesday afternoon, Mr. 
     Rocha was showing the loop to the so-called debris assessment 
     team at the meeting in Building 13, where he had his own 
     office. As arresting as the images were, the team agreed, 
     they were too sketchy to draw conclusions without new images.
       To engineers familiar with the situation, the request was 
     an easy call. ``We all had an intense interest in getting 
     photos,'' said Steven Rickman, a NASA engineer whose staff 
     members served on the assessment team. ``As engineers they're 
     always going to want more information.''
       In his second e-mail appeal for satellite imagery, Mr. 
     Rocha wrote in boldface to Mr. Shack and other managers, 
     ``Can we petition (beg) for outside agency assistance?''
       But Mr. Rocha did not know that the strange politics of the 
     NASA culture had already been set in motion. Calvin 
     Schomburg, a veteran engineer who was regarded as an expert 
     on the shuttle's thermal protection system--though his 
     expertise was in heat-resisting tiles, not the reinforced 
     carbon-carbon that protected the wings' leading edges--had 
     been reassuring shuttle managers, Mr. Diggins said. Mr. 
     Schomburg either ``sought them out or the managers sought him 
     out to ask his opinion,'' Mr. Diggins said.
       Whether because of Mr. Schomburg's influence or because 
     managers simply had no intention of taking the extraordinary 
     step of asking another agency to obtain images, Mr. Rocha's 
     request soon found its way into a bureaucratic dead end.
       On Wednesday, an official Mr. Schomburg had spoken to--Ms. 
     Ham, the chairwoman of the mission management team--canceled 
     Mr. Rocha's request and two similar requests from other 
     engineers associated with the mission, according to the 
     investigation board. Late that day, Mr. Shack informed Mr. 
     Rocha of management's decision not to seek images.
       Astonished, Mr. Rocha sent an e-mail message asking why. 
     Receiving no answer, he

[[Page 23417]]

     phoned Mr. Shack, who said, ``I'm not going to be Chicken 
     Little about this,'' Mr. Rocha recalled.
       ``Chicken Little?'' Mr. Rocha said he shouted back. ``The 
     program is acting like an ostrich with its head in the 
     sand.''
       Mr. Shack, Mr. Schomburg and Ms. Ham declined to comment 
     for this article or did not respond to detailed requests for 
     interviews relayed through the space agency's public affairs 
     office.
       On the day he talked with Mr. Shack, Mr. Rocha wrote an 
     anguished e-mail message that began, ``In my humble technical 
     opinion, this is the wrong (and bordering on irresponsible) 
     answer.'' He said his finger hovered over the ``send'' key, 
     but he did not push the button. Instead, he showed the draft 
     message to a colleague, Carlisle Campbell, an engineer.
       ``I said, `Rodney, that's a significant document,''' Mr. 
     Campbell said in an interview. ``I probably got more 
     concerned or angry than he did at the time. We could not 
     believe what was going on.''
       But Mr. Rocha still decided he should push his concerns 
     through official channels. Engineers were often told not to 
     send messages much higher than their own rung in the ladder, 
     he said.


                        taking the issue higher

       The next day, Mr. Rocha spoke with Barbara Conte, a worker 
     in mission operations, about spy telescopes. In a written 
     response to reports' questions, Ms. Conte said her colleague 
     ``was more keyed-up and troubled than I had ever previously 
     encountered him.''
       That day, she and another NASA employee, Gregory Oliver, 
     took the issue to Mr. Cain, the Columbia's flight director 
     for landing, at an unrelated meeting.
       ``We informed LeRoy of the concern from Rodney'' and 
     offered to help arrange an observation by military 
     satellites, Mr. Oliver wrote on March 6--a month after the 
     accident--in a previously unreleased e-mail chronology of 
     shuttle events. The message continued, ``LeRoy said he would 
     go talk to Linda Ham and get back to us.''
       About two hours later, at 12:07 p.m. that day, Mr. Cain 
     sent out his own e-mail message saying he had spoken with 
     management officials, who had no interest in obtaining the 
     images. Therefore, Mr. Cain wrote, ``I consider it to be a 
     dead issue.''
       It was not over for Mr. Rocha, though. On Thursday 
     afternoon, Jan. 23, he encountered Mr. Schomburg, the expert 
     on the heat-resisting tiles, on the sixth floor of Building 
     1, where most of the managers had offices. They sat down in 
     the anteroom of an office and began arguing about the need 
     for imaging, said Mr. Rocha and the investigative board's 
     report.
       Mr. Schomburg insisted that because smaller pieces of foam 
     had broken off and struck shuttles on previous flights 
     without dire consequences, the latest strike would require 
     nothing more than a refurbishment after the Columbia landed. 
     Mr. Rocha maintained that the damage could be severe enough 
     to allow hot gases to burn through the wing on re-entry and 
     threaten the craft.
       As their voices rose, Mr. Rocha recalled, Mr. Schomburg 
     thrust out an index finger and said, ``Well, if it's that 
     bad, there's not a damn thing we can do about it.''
       On Jan. 24, eight days into the mission, engineers and 
     managers held a series of meetings in which the debris strike 
     was discussed. At a 7 a.m. meeting, Boeing engineers 
     presented their analysis, which they said showed that the 
     shuttle probably took the hit without experiencing fatal 
     damage.
       Those results were hastily carried into the 8 a.m. meeting 
     of the mission management team, led by Ms. Ham. When a NASA 
     engineer presented the results of the Boeing analysis and 
     then began to discuss the lingering areas of uncertainty, Ms. 
     Ham cut him off and the meeting moved along. The wing 
     discussion does not even appear in the official minutes.
       Mr. Diggings, the accident board investigator, said it 
     should not be surprising that such a critical issue received 
     short shrift. A mission management meeting, he said, is 
     simply ``an official pro forma meeting to get it on the 
     record.'' The decision to do nothing more, he said, had long 
     been made.
       By then, Mr. Rocha said, he decided to go along. ``I lost 
     the steam, the power drive to have a fight, because I just 
     wasn't being supported,'' he said. ``And I had faith in the 
     abilities of our team.''
       He waited through the weekend until the Boeing engineers 
     closed out the last bit of their analysis, and on Sunday, 
     Jan. 26, he wrote a congratulatory e-mail message to 
     colleagues, saying the full analysis showed no ``safety of 
     flight'' risk. ``This very serious case could not be ruled 
     out and it was a very good thing we carried it through to a 
     finish,'' he wrote.
       But his anxiety quickly spiked again. He slept poorly. Mr. 
     Diggins said, ``I think that what was gnawing away at him was 
     that he didn't have enough engineering data to settle the 
     question he had in his mind.'' With days to go in the 
     mission, Mr. Rocha continued to discuss the possibility of 
     damage with Mr. Campbell, the expert in landing gear.
       ``He started coming by my desk every day,'' Mr. Campbell 
     recalled. ``He was trying to be proper and go through his 
     management,'' he said, but ``he was too nice about it, 
     because he's a gentleman; he didn't get nasty about the 
     problem.''


                        Being There for Re-entry

       On Feb. 1, the last day of the Columbia's flight, Mr. Rocha 
     rose before dawn. He wanted to be in the mission evaluation 
     room, an engineering monitoring center on the first floor of 
     NASA's Building 30, by 6:45 a.m., well before the shuttle 
     fired its rockets to drop out of orbit. Normally, he would 
     just watch the landing on NASA-TV, the space agency's 
     channel, but he said he wanted to see the data from the wing 
     sensors.
       The room was jammed with people and computers. There was a 
     pervasively upbeat mood.
       Before long, things began to go wrong--and in the ways that 
     Mr. Rocha had feared. The scrolling numbers giving 
     temperature readings for the left and right wings began to 
     diverge. Then, at 7:54 a.m., four temperature sensors on the 
     left wing's wheel well failed.
       In fact, the hole that the foam had punched into the wing 
     16 days before had been allowing the superheated gases of 
     reentry to torch through the structure for some several 
     minutes, and observers on the ground had already seen bright 
     flashes and pieces shedding from the damaged craft.
       As the number of alarming sensor readings quickly mounted, 
     ``I started getting the sick feeling,'' Mr. Rocha said, 
     pointing to his stomach. He looked up from the fog of fear 
     and saw another engineer, Joyce Seriale-Grush, in tears. He 
     approached her and she said, ``We've lost communication with 
     the crew.''
       Mr. Rocha did the only thing he could think of: He called 
     his wife. ``I want you to say some prayers for us right 
     now,'' he said. ``Things aren't good.'' Finally, they got 
     word that observers on the ground had seen the shuttle break 
     up over Texas.
       Emergency plans came out of binders; engineers locked their 
     doors to outsiders and began to store data from the flight 
     for the inevitable investigation. Frank Benz, the Johnson 
     Space Center director of engineering, and his assistant, 
     Laurie Hansen, came in. Mr. Rocha recalled that Ms. Hansen, 
     trying to console him, said, ``Oh, Rodney, we lost people, 
     and there's probably nothing we could have done.''
       For the third time in two weeks, Mr. Rocha raised his voice 
     to a colleague. ``I've been hearing that all week,'' he 
     snapped. ``We don't know that.''
       He was instantly ashamed, he said, and thought, ``I'm being 
     rude.''


                      troubled sleep, late thanks

       The next days passed in a blur. Mr. Rocha was assigned to 
     the team to investigate the mission. At the same time, he was 
     working with the team that was looking into the attachment 
     ring problem that nearly scuttled the mission the night 
     before liftoff, while handling his other duties.
       At one point he got to ask Ralph Roe, a shuttle manager, 
     why the photo request had been denied. He got no direct 
     answer, he recalled. Instead, Mr. Roe replied: ``I'd do 
     anything now to get a photo. I'd take a million photos.''
       Mr. Rocha's sleep was still troubled--now, by nightmares, 
     he said, describing some: he was in the shuttle as it broke 
     up; his relatives were on the shuttle; ``Columbia has 
     miraculously been reassembled, and we're looking at the 
     wiring and it's got rats in there.''
       Since the accident, Mr. Rocha said, engineers and other 
     colleagues have thanked him enthusiastically for speaking up, 
     saying things like, ``I can't imagine what it was like to be 
     in your shoes.'' His immediate supervisor has been supportive 
     as well, he said. But from management, he said: ``Silence. No 
     talk. No reference to it. Nothing.''
       Except, that is, from the highest-up higher-up. One day Mr. 
     Rocha read an interview with the NASA administrator, Sean 
     O'Keefe, who wondered aloud why engineers had not raised the 
     alarm through the agency's safety reporting system. This 
     time, Mr. Rocha broke the rules: he wrote an e-mail message 
     directly to Mr. O'Keefe, saying he would be happy to explain 
     what really happened.
       Within a day, he heard from Mr. O'Keefe, who then 
     dispatched the NASA general counsel, Paul G. Pastorek, to 
     interview him and report back. In a recent interview, Mr. 
     O'Keefe said Mr. Rocha's experience underscored the need to 
     seek the dissenting viewpoint and ask, ``Are we talking 
     ourselves into this answer?''
       NASA, following the board's recommendation, has reached 
     agreements with outside agencies to take images during every 
     flight. And 11 of the 15 top shuttle managers have been 
     reassigned, including Ms. Ham, or have retired.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, my point is, as we seek the truth in 
what happened with the tragedy of the crash of the shuttle, we will 
have to explore the tragedy in detail, and if we continue to press and 
focus on the details, the truth will emerge. If we continue to focus on 
the details and take the time, the truth will emerge, and when the 
truth emerges, if the truth is allowed to emerge, then the appropriate 
actions can be taken.
  NASA, of course, says that safety is their highest priority. There is 
not a

[[Page 23418]]

person I know who ever worked for NASA or who works for NASA today or 
who will work for NASA in the future who does not believe that safety 
is important.
  When we explore the details, as this article does beautifully, we 
will be able to say: They say that, but what do they really mean? They 
say safety is important, but when this engineer--I believe his name is 
Mr. Rocha, and they go through in detail about his pleas that went 
unheard, his sterling reputation that was pushed aside by others who 
were basically ready to launch. We will find the truth.
  The same is going to be true in this debate with the District of 
Columbia on this scholarship voucher program because the details of it 
are very important. The details will show us the truth about what 
happened.
  I wish to begin by saying that my colleague from Ohio is correct in 
the sense that the Mayor does support this three-pronged approach. He 
is correct. But the way we got to this point I wish to share with my 
colleagues this morning.
  The President offered earlier in the year in his State of the Union 
Address a choice initiative. The President, in his budget, basically 
said: Despite the fact I am not going to fully fund Leave No Child 
Behind, I am not going to fund it at the authorized level as promised 
and implied, instead, I am going to offer--his budget shows--a $75 
million voucher initiative for the country, and it is going to be put--
the budget showed and the administration said--in the Health and Human 
Services appropriations bill. That is how this whole issue began.
  The administration said one thing, but I want to focus on what the 
budget actually showed. The budget that was laid down showed: We are 
not going to fully fund Leave No Child Behind, but this administration 
wants to fund a choice program for the Nation and they want to fund 
that through the Health and Human Services appropriations bill.
  The Health and Human Services appropriations bill is chaired by the 
Senator from Iowa and the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Harkin and Mr. 
Specter. They together, and their staffs, basically sent word back that 
we would not have a voucher proposal in their bill. There was 
bipartisan agreement: We do not want vouchers in this bill. We do not 
want to support Federal vouchers. And so it was removed from that bill.
  It managed to find its way into the DC appropriations bill because 
this bill, for better or worse, is sometimes the bill that is used to 
make political points instead of good public policy.
  That is what the record will reflect. That is the truth, and I will 
submit for the Record those details as this debate goes forward.
  The voucher program finds its way into the DC appropriations bill, of 
which committee I am the ranking member.
  When the proponents of vouchers say this was the Mayor's idea, I have 
to comment on this for a moment. The Mayor will be able to express 
publicly, as he has, his position and can respond in any way, but the 
Mayor said--and I say this as respectfully as I can, and I think he has 
said this publicly--that he at no time went to the White House to ask 
for a voucher program. He did not say: I need money for my schools and 
I am convinced the voucher program will work and I would like vouchers 
for the District.
  What happened was, this money was drifting in the budget, finding its 
way to DC, being pushed to DC by proponents of vouchers, and the Mayor 
was given a very difficult choice, which any mayor would be tempted to 
take, which was: Mr. Mayor, we have some money. Your school system 
needs help, and we are happy to give you some money, but--but--we need 
you to agree to a voucher component.
  The Mayor, for whom I have the greatest respect for many reasons--
one, because he is an out-of-the-box thinker, he is innovative, he is 
gutsy, he is smart, he is honest--had a very difficult choice. As I 
have told him, if I were the Mayor, I am not sure I would have made a 
different choice than he did. But because we are Senators and not 
mayors, we have a respectfully different perspective.
  He said: I will take the money. I will take the $40 million. I have 
schools that have leaky roofs. I have schools that have no computers. I 
have children in my schools who haven't had gym classes in 10 years. I 
have an obesity problem. I have children who can play music but they 
have no instruments. I have children who will be great in science 
except they have no microscopes. And I have children who can learn but 
I have 40 kids in a class and I need more teachers. If I were the 
Mayor, I would have taken the money, but I am not the Mayor.
  The Mayor was forced to make a pretty difficult decision driven by 
voucher proponents who will not give up on the vouchers. Even though we 
passed Leave No Child Behind, there is a determined group of people who 
will not give up on vouchers. The Mayor, as best as he could--and he 
has my respect and admiration--at least took a really rotten proposal 
and crafted a three-pronged approach and said: OK, let's present it: a 
third for charter schools, a third for public schools, and the 
transitional schools, the great reforms that are underway, and, all 
right, I will take a third for vouchers. Then it went forth: This is 
the Mayor's proposal; this is what the Mayor has asked.
  I hope the truth has been spoken, and if any of my colleagues want to 
debate those points or submit for the Record a different view or a 
different story, please do. But that is how we got to this point.
  Every time we get on this subject, the proponents want to say this 
was the Mayor's idea and the Mayor is a Democrat; he is an African-
American Democrat; this was his idea. I want to be clear for the 
record, this was not the Mayor's idea. This was the President's idea, 
the administration's idea laid down in a budget, rejected by the 
Republican chairman and a Democratic ranking member of the Health and 
Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, that has made its way to 
the DC Appropriations Subcommittee, and then was modified to become the 
issue we are discussing today.
  The Mayor, from his perspective, I could argue, made the best choice 
for his city, but that might not be the choice the Senate needs to 
make, for obvious reasons.
  One of those obvious reasons, to anybody with an open mind, is that 
we should not, as a Senate or Congress, at this critical time in the 
funding history of education reform, in any way send any signal to any 
city that they cannot get money from Washington, they cannot get new 
money from Washington, unless they take a voucher program.
  They keep saying this is new money. One could argue that, but let's 
just take it as new money. The only way someone can get money is if 
they enter into a voucher proposal. It should be obvious to people who 
are following this debate that that would be an inappropriate signal, 
and a dangerous signal, to send out as States, cities, counties, and 
parishes, as in the State of Louisiana, are struggling with making 
decisions about how can we get more money for these reforms, where 
should we allocate them. They have flexibility now.
  Let me say on that point that voucher proponents do not want to 
listen to what the truth is. They do not want to listen, but this is 
the truth: Under the historic bipartisan bill that, if implemented, 
funded, and followed, can improve schools in America, under title I 
dollars, under tutorial services that are in that bill, communities 
today can craft private school vouchers or choice in their local 
jurisdictions. It is not done because there are very serious and 
reasonable people on both sides of the debate, but local jurisdictions 
can do that now. The question is, Should the Federal Government have 
basically a mandate for vouchers over, for instance, charter schools, 
transitional public schools, public contract schools, or other kinds of 
newly innovative reforms? The answer is obviously no.
  So when Senator Carper and I offered the amendment to the other side 
saying, look, we just cannot support a

[[Page 23419]]

Federal mandate for vouchers--although we as cosponsors of this 
important and significant legislation understand where the Mayor is 
coming from--would you please remove the Federal mandate, we were told 
no.
  There is a reason: Because the voucher proponents want a Federal 
preference for vouchers. But they will not get it in the long run. They 
may have the power now to get it in the short run, but they will not 
get it in the long run because the people of the United States do not 
want a Federal mandate for vouchers. Particularly, the people of the 
United States--Republicans and Democrats, Independents, Black, White, 
Hispanic, and Asian--who support the new reforms in education do not 
think vouchers are a superior method to charter schools, to public 
school innovation, to accountability, and that was a great victory 
that, in my opinion, they are not willing to undo.
  Another part I wish to speak about this morning is the evaluation 
component. The reason Senator Carper and others have argued with the 
vouchers-always-only-and-forever crowd, basically, is that if a 
scholarship program is going to be offered, recognizing that there is a 
tremendous amount of opposition to it on legitimate constitutional 
grounds--separation of church and state--but if one could manage to get 
through those very important issues, one of the key reasons for moving 
in this direction would be to demonstrate definitively whether this 
works.
  Why is this important? Because those of us who are trying to find the 
ways to bring excellence to education through a public system with as 
much choice as possible, to every child, regardless of the kind of 
family or resources to which they are born, we believe strongly that 
this Nation can and should--and if it stays the path--do what no other 
nation has ever done in the world, and that is a belief that every 
child can learn if we provide resources for every child to learn, 
whether they are blind, deaf, in a wheelchair, have some disease, or 
they were born with incomplete mental capacity. This Nation believes no 
child should be left behind.
  For 200 years, we have struggled through segregation times, through 
slavery times, through lots of times to reach that goal. We are making 
progress on that goal. Are there lots of problems? Yes, there are lots 
of problems, but we are making progress.
  Those of us over the decades, way before we were in this Senate, who 
fought--and some in some instances died--over this principle continue 
to work today. So those of us who are committed to keeping our eyes on 
the prize--and the prize is excellence in education for every child and 
equity and equality, without pulling the children from the top down but 
by pushing all the children up--keep our eyes on that prize.
  People ask me: Why, Senator, do you feel so strongly about this 
evaluation component? It is because I think there would be some good 
reason--actually, I would argue to my colleagues who are opposed to 
vouchers, and I respect them all for their very strong views, that if 
they were going to do a scholarship program, one value for the Nation 
would be to have a demonstration project that could show once and for 
all, to those who think vouchers are the greatest thing since sliced 
bread and to those who think it is the worst thing since the Devil 
himself, to come together and have the data and reason together and say 
it either worked or it did not work.
  So when Senator Carper submitted our amendment and we said, all 
right, we are reluctant, but if we could do this, this evaluation has 
to be tight--Milwaukee has had this for 13 years. I will be submitting 
for the Record constant referrals to that written by almost every 
objective newspaper in the country. There are some that are not, but 
most newspapers are objective. Most of the newspapers, whether they are 
conservative or liberal--I am not talking about very partisan papers--
state it is inconclusive because there is no evaluation component. So 
we put one in our proposal that requires full and independent 
evaluation for the scholarship program that would include, amongst 
other things, a comparison of the academic achievements of scholarship 
students in high-performing schools and nonscholarship students 
attending high-performing public or charter schools.
  Let me repeat that it would require a full and independent evaluation 
for the scholarship programs that would include, among other things, a 
comparison of the academic achievement of scholarship recipients in 
high-performing private schools and nonscholarship students attending 
high-performing public or charter schools, because that is what we do 
not know.
  Let me explain what we do know. We do know if you take a poor child 
out of a school that is mismanaged and underresourced and put that 
child in a private school that is better managed and better resourced, 
that child will do better. It does not take a genius to know that. 
Anybody knows that. We don't need a study. We don't need a thing. We 
know it.
  I will tell you what we don't know. What we don't know is, if you 
take a poor child and put that child in a high-performing or moderately 
performing private school, and then you take that same poor child and 
put that child in a high or moderately performing public school or a 
public charter school or public contract school, does that child do 
better or worse? That is what we need to know because what we need to 
know is does the scholarship itself make a difference? Does the 
scholarship, the act of giving the scholarship to the parent and the 
choice and the freedom, make a difference when all other things are 
controlled? Nobody in America or the world knows that.
  So Senator Carper and I said we would like to know that. We would be 
willing, maybe, to put this debate to rest once and for all if we could 
commit to a rigorous evaluation by outside experts who are not from the 
Democratic spin room or the Republican spin room. Then maybe we could 
be for this. They said no.
  Let me go to two more points, briefly. I see my colleague from South 
Dakota is here and he probably wants to speak on this, or perhaps other 
subjects, but there are two issues I want to hit before we move to 
something else.
  Last night several of my colleagues came to the floor and argued for 
vouchers on the basis that we do this for higher education and we have 
one of the finest higher education systems in the world. And they are 
right. We are proud of our system of higher education. It has been 
developed over hundreds of years. People from all over the world want 
to come to use our higher education system. Even given some of its 
weaknesses, it is a pretty remarkable institution we have created.
  But there is a fundamental difference between higher education and 
elementary and secondary education that cannot be ignored. It is one of 
the details that is very important to understand. Higher education is 
not mandatory in the United States. If you want to go, you can go. If 
you don't want to go, you do not have to go. But elementary and 
secondary education is basically mandatory in the United States. 
Children have to go to school. There are some exceptions for children 
in home schooling, which I actually support. Some people don't, but I 
think home schoolers do a beautiful job over time, as long as they are 
held accountable, and that is true in some States. But education in 
this country is mandatory; at least we have to offer it. It has to be 
universally offered.
  In America today, even considering how great our higher education 
system is, only 20 percent of adults have college degrees. In African-
American or Hispanic populations, that may be down to 10 or 15 percent. 
Maybe the national average is about 20 or 25.
  We would like 100 percent of children to have a high school degree. 
They can drop out, but our goal as a Nation is 100 percent to have a 
high school degree. So the systems in their essence are different.
  I will say maybe the word mandatory is a little strong. It is a goal 
of the United States to have 100 percent of our population to have a 
high school degree.

[[Page 23420]]

  So you cannot compare these systems. While choice, as I said, is 
desirable, with the freedom like we have in the higher education 
system, because we do not have a policy that says we want to provide 16 
years mandatory through college, then the freedoms that can exist in 
higher education are very different than what the public could support 
or afford for elementary and secondary education.
  I wanted to get that statement on the record.
  I see my colleague from South Dakota who wants to speak as in morning 
business. I will resume the discussion of Leave No Child Behind and the 
scholarship tuition debate when he has concluded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. JOHNSON. I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. JOHNSON. I thank my colleague from Louisiana for her 
extraordinary leadership on education issues. I do not want to take 
long on another topic.
  (The remarks of Mr. Johnson are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, back to the budget of the District of 
Columbia, earlier this morning it was said by our friends on the other 
side of the aisle that perhaps we should just have a debate today and 
Monday and move off of this bill, indicating a permanent move off of 
this bill.
  I argue there is certainly a way, if this body desires--and I hope 
they would continue this very important debate--to figure out a way to 
spend some quality time debating this proposal. There are many 
concerned Members on both sides, I am certain, based on the level of 
intensity and the discussions at the committee level.
  Since I was chair or ranking member of those committees, I was on the 
front row for those debates. I am confident there are Members on both 
sides who want some time to talk about this issue and to debate it in 
full. There is no reason that could not continue for weeks, as we take 
up other matters and move decisively based on agreements that can be 
reached.
  As the ranking member, I go on record to both Republican and 
Democratic leadership, it would be my strong suggestion we continue to 
debate this issue. The details are extremely important for the Nation 
to grasp so we can move on to education reform.
  There was debate earlier regarding the District of Columbia. A lot 
has been said about the Mayor's position. Yesterday, Mayor Williams was 
in the Senate. He has been a tireless advocate for school reform in the 
District. He should be commended.
  I will read the Mayor's own words regarding his position. I believe 
his position has been misconstrued by opponents of vouchers. His words 
will clarify his position, so I will read into the Record this morning 
the Mayor's comments before the Governmental Affairs Committee in the 
House of Representatives.
  He says:

       Along with city council education committee chair Kevin 
     Chavous [who is another very strong and respected leader in 
     the city for education reform] and board of education 
     president Peggy Cooper Cafritz [who also has done an 
     excellent job of leading reforms in the school district in 
     Washington, DC] I support a 3-sector approach that would 
     focus new Federal resources towards increasing the 
     availability of quality education options for district 
     students and families.

  He says, I repeat, ``I support a 3-sector approach . . . ''
  It does not say: ``I support a voucher-only approach.''
  He says:

       I support a three-sector approach that would focus new 
     Federal resources towards increasing the availability of 
     quality education options for District students and families. 
     This strategy would require a significant and ongoing 
     investment toward the following: One, the development of a 
     Federally funded scholarship program for students to attend 
     nonpublic schools; two--

  And this a detail that is extremely important that has been 
overlooked by some and undercut by others--

     a permanent and predictable support for the District of 
     Columbia's public schools--

  ``permanent and predictable support for the District of Columbia's 
public schools''--

     targeted at leadership and instructional excellence and 
     student achievement; and, three, a fiscally sound and 
     comprehensive approach to the acquisition and renovation of 
     charter school facilities.

  This is the Mayor's position.
  He goes on:

       Why a three-sector approach? The most compelling reasons 
     focus on fairness, the legacy of Federal/District relations, 
     and a strong sense that choice means the most when a number 
     of quality educational options is maximized. Specifically, I 
     mean that while DCPS faces considerable administrative and 
     operational challenges that transcend any particular funding 
     level, our public schools are paying the price of a legacy of 
     disinvestment and crumbling school buildings, many 
     constructed originally by the Federal Government. While 
     bearing the cost associated with both the local school 
     districts and a state system, the city has the tax base of 
     neither. As the recent GAO report documented, the city needs 
     ongoing assistance from the Federal Government in addressing 
     the structural imbalance.

  So let me take the Mayor's words, the Mayor's position, to make some 
points.
  First of all, this statement should make it clear that the Mayor 
himself and Councilman Chavous and education President Peggy Cooper 
Cafritz have soundly rejected the vouchers-only approach. Yet to this 
day, on the floor of the Senate, at this hour--we have now been 
debating this issue on and off over the last several months; not 
publicly in this Chamber, but this debate has been raging in 
committees, in conference rooms, and meetings all over America--we have 
not had a definitive statement from this administration that they, too, 
reject the vouchers-only approach and that they will protect the three-
pronged approach through this process.
  Let me repeat, the administration has not, to my knowledge--if they 
have, please, someone, send me a letter or a telegram or an e-mail that 
would say: Senator, you are wrong. The administration only supports a 
three-sector approach, we will commit to that and make that possible by 
using the power of the White House--which is considerable--to ensure 
that happens.
  In fact, one of the reasons I am particularly puzzled is because 
yesterday the administration released a statement of policy. For every 
bill, as we all know, when we are debating bills, which is appropriate, 
the administration says to Congress: These are the things I like about 
your bill. These are the things I do not like about the bill. And as 
the system goes, if we do not get a little bit more in line, usually, 
with what the administration wants--whether they are Republican or 
Democratic Presidents--sometimes they will veto what we do. That is 
process. So it is important to hear from the administration about what 
they are thinking so we can decide if we are willing to risk a veto. So 
we like to get these statements. It is helpful to this process.
  I hold in my hand the President's statement, and I am going to submit 
it again for the Record:

       The administration is pleased the committee bill included 
     $13 million for the President's school choice initiative 
     fund. This innovative reform will increase the capacity of 
     the District to provide parents, particularly low-income 
     parents, with more options for obtaining a quality education 
     for their children who are trapped in low-performing schools. 
     The administration appreciates the committee's support for 
     strengthening the District's school system and strongly urges 
     the Senate to retain this initiative.

  Now, unless I missed a paragraph--and I don't think I did, because it 
is only two pages long, and the others go on to other issues--there is 
nothing here on the three-sector approach. There is no charter school 
language. There is no public school initiative language.
  So in one hand I have the Mayor's comments, which speak of a three-
sector approach, and in the other hand I have the administration's 
comments. That is why Senator Carper and I laid down an amendment to 
try to clarify this issue. To date, it has not been clarified.
  In all fairness to my colleague from Ohio, he did say last night--and 
I believe what he said is true--that a clarifying statement is on its 
way. Perhaps

[[Page 23421]]

it is here and it just has not reached me. If it is, I will be happy to 
submit that for the Record at any time anyone can produce it for me. 
But I do not have it, and neither does my staff. So that is an 
important point to clarify. Maybe that will be clarified as this debate 
goes on.
  The other part of the Mayor's comments that I think sheds a lot of 
light on the detail of what this argument is about, and I actually 
agree with the Mayor--not all Democrats do--but I agree with him when 
he says: ``a strong sense that choice means the most when the number of 
quality educational options is maximized.''
  Now, let me put a few things on the record that the proponents of 
vouchers-only want to continue to say that is fundamentally untrue. It 
is just untrue. What they say is, families in the District of Columbia 
have no choice. It is my understanding--and I am going to submit it for 
the Record because if I am wrong I would like to be corrected--that 
recently--I am not sure on what day or year--but in the last few years, 
under the District's reform initiatives, there is districtwide choice 
in public schools.
  Not every jurisdiction in America has districtwide choice, but it is 
my understanding--and I think I am correct--that in the District of 
Columbia--unlike New York City or San Francisco or even New Orleans, 
which I am more familiar with, or Baton Rouge or Shreveport, which I am 
more familiar with, those cities being in Louisiana--there is 
widespread choice. Parents can move from school to school with greater 
ease. That is a very important component.
  Also, it is my understanding that there are more charter schools in 
the District of Columbia than any other jurisdiction per capita in the 
Nation, with 14,000 out of the 67,000 children enrolled in public 
charter schools, and there are waiting lists for charter schools.
  But the problem is, there has been limited money in the Federal 
budget. Basically, there has been limited money for charter schools, so 
there is a waiting list of children to get into quality charter 
schools. Because the funding has been short on the Federal level, and 
perhaps maybe short on the local level, we cannot create more charter 
schools.
  But the answer for the proponents of vouchers is, we are not going to 
give additional money for charter schools. We are just going to lay 
down a voucher-only proposal. Clearly, the Mayor said that would not be 
his position.
  And finally, the Mayor says in his statement:

       The city needs ongoing assistance from the Federal 
     Government to address the structural imbalance.

  So here is really the big picture that is quite troubling. This 
administration, instead of coming to the District of Columbia initially 
and saying, ``We want to help you fund your reform efforts that are 
underway. We want to really encourage you in terms of your charter 
schools. We recognize your structural deficit, and we want to help with 
your structural deficit,'' instead of saying, ``We acknowledge that 
your public schools need some additional resources,'' the 
administration and the House--I should say specifically the House 
Republican leadership--has not offered anything in the budget toward 
those ends.
  They have offered kind words. They have offered comments. But they 
haven't offered anything in the budget--which is the only thing you can 
take to the bank, the only thing you can count on--to the District. 
They have offered a $10 million, now $13 million, voucher only--not 
just voucher only to go to kids, children in failing schools, they want 
to have a voucher program for children to go to any school.
  Some of us wanted to work with the other side of the aisle and did 
work with this administration to pass Leave No Child Behind that 
allowed great flexibility at the local level, that encouraged and 
pushed for more choice within the constitutional limits, and that 
suggested front and foremost that quality was not only important for 
the student and parents but for the taxpayers who are picking up this 
tab. And it is a big lift for taxpayers all over this Nation, not just 
to help the District with its funding and the taxpayers here. But 
taxpayers all over this Nation pay a lot of money in property taxes and 
in sales taxes and in other fees associated with supporting schools. 
The taxpayers deserve to know if that money is resulting in a quality 
product. The mayor acknowledges that.
  Unfortunately, the proposal, in its detail--not what is said about it 
but in its detail--gives no assurance for quality. There is no 
evaluation component that is rigorous enough. There is a modest 
evaluation component. But because it lacks rigor, there is no quality 
control in the current proposal, which is one of the reasons the 
mayor's position is actually, when read and understood, quite different 
from the voucher proposal, at least seemingly from the administration, 
based on their own statement, and definitely from the House Republican 
leadership.
  I would like to read Chairman Davis's comments into the Record. He 
said:

       Some are making a mountain out of a molehill over the fact 
     that this legislation authorizes funding for school choice 
     but not enhanced funding for DC public schools or charter 
     schools. The reason for this is simple. This bill deals with 
     authorization for a new and historic program. Authorization 
     for spending on DC public schools and charter schools already 
     exists. The debate will be over how low and how high that 
     spending should be.

  That is what Representative Davis said. But what the Mayor says is 
different. What the Mayor says is that this strategy ``would require a 
significant and ongoing investment that is permanent and predictable.'' 
These are two very different positions.
  Again, the Mayor of the District of Columbia:

       We need a three-sector approach with predictable and 
     permanent support.

  This is the House leadership approach: Some people are making a 
mountain out of a molehill. We don't really have to authorize any new, 
predictable, permanent funding--I am paraphrasing--for public schools 
and charter schools because they already exist. This debate will be 
simply how high or how low that spending should be.
  One of the problems Senator Carper and I have, and it is a 
significant problem, is in recognizing this disparity. We went to our 
friends on the other side and said: These are totally different 
positions. I know what you are saying, but these are different 
positions. Can you clarify that for us? We would be willing, if you all 
would admit or agree, to not a $40 million new authorization but a $200 
million authorization over 5 years. It is not just $40 million for 1 
year. And the only permanent part of that $40 million is the voucher 
component. We said: If you want to do a 5-year program, we could even 
agree if you would say we are going to do $200 million over 5 years, 
$40 million a year for 5 years--a third, a third, and a third--so that 
we would have for 5 years a predictable source of Federal revenue that, 
no matter what happened, no matter what the underlying budgets did, no 
matter how big the deficit got, no matter how tough the war turned out 
to be, at least this demonstration project would be $200 million--a 
third for public schools, a third for charter schools, and a third for 
this new voucher program. But at the end of 5 years, we would have 
accomplished one great thing, and that would be a definitive answer as 
to whether or not scholarships work, because for the greatest school 
system in the world today, our future depends on knowing that.
  The rhetoric is so high on both sides, with some people saying, you 
will never fix public schools if you don't have vouchers, and some 
people saying, if you go to vouchers, you will wreck the system. Those 
of us who are interested in school reform and quality and the truth 
would be interested in funding a predictable $200 million Federal 
demonstration project in a city such as this, where the Mayor is 
supportive and several key leaders, but, let me be quick to say, in a 
city that has voted against vouchers and in a city with equally 
respectful leaders on the other side.

[[Page 23422]]

  But our colleagues said no because they are not, to my knowledge or 
my view, the proponents--again, this is not my colleague from Ohio but 
the proponents of vouchers only, and there are some--are evidently only 
interested in this $10 million voucher program for the District, even 
in a district where the people are on record in the last referendum as 
voting 81 percent against vouchers. That remains a point of contention.
  Let me move now to a discussion about charter schools for a moment. I 
will submit some more items for the Record.
  There has been no disagreement between Senator DeWine and me, as the 
chairman and ranking member of this committee. Again, without his 
support, this would not be possible. The Senator from Illinois, Mr. 
Durbin, the Senator from Texas, Mrs. Hutchison--of course, they speak 
for themselves--have been leaders for charter schools as well. Without 
their support, the District would not be in the enviable place it is 
today; that is, having more students per capita having options for 
charter schools. So far, this very worthy and worthwhile experiment 
seems to be working. Most of the charter schools are doing a very good 
job.
  In 2001, because rigorous evaluation components are in place, 99 
percent of the students in the Oyster School--this is a very exciting 
initiative underway in the District, a bilingual, very cutting edge 
charter school in the Nation--are performing above basic in math and 
100 percent are performing above basic in reading. This is just one 
example of one of the 41 charter schools that are operating in the 
District. It is a pre-K through sixth grade school; 362 students are 
attending. The students-for-teacher ratio is 11.7 students for every 
teacher, which is excellent. They are in the District of Columbia 
public schools. You can get other information from their Web page, but 
they have 17 percent African-American, 1 percent American-Indian, 3 
percent Asian, 52 percent Hispanic, and 27 percent White students.
  The details of this and the reports look excellent. This is happening 
all over the United States of America. This Congress has come to a 
point to say let's push the envelope, let's open up choice, let's 
create new charters, but let's do it in the public realm; and when we 
are spending public dollars, let's have accountability and have reports 
like this so the parents know, the students know, and the taxpayers 
know where we are getting the money we are spending.
  I could not be more complimentary or excited about the fact that in 
our budget Senator DeWine and I have every year tried to do what we 
could to support this wonderful effort underway by adding some money. 
It hasn't been a huge amount because our budget is tight and we have 
limits. But in each of the budgets, we have tried to put in some money 
for the charter school effort. So we are not just saying we think 
charter schools are good; Senator DeWine and I are saying not only do 
we think the effort is good, but it is worthy of our support. We put 
our money where our mouth is, and we will continue to do that. If we 
can get general agreement from others to do that, perhaps we could make 
some progress.
  Another charter school called the Tree of Life Charter School says 
the results were quite impressive for a second-year school. Most 
significant is the fact that 88 percent of the school students improved 
in reading. This represents the largest percentage of students showing 
positive gain among all charter schools this year. More than half of 
the students improved in math. Students showed good progress in 
performance levels, with 75 percent of the students performing at basic 
or above in math and 72 percent at basic or above in reading.
  It should be noted that the majority, 91 percent of the school's 
population, is low income. The Tree of Life Charter School is another 
example of what is working in the District and what we as the Congress 
should continue to fund in a predictable and dependable way.
  Again, that is what is missing in this proposal today. There is, in 
the underlying bill, money for charter schools, money for public 
schools, and money for vouchers. But there is no agreement, no 
commitment, and there are no solid statements that have been made or 
arrangements that have been made--which can be made--to indicate that 
the funding for charter schools would even happen next year. I realize 
that appropriations are annual. I understand that. But I also realize 
when this Federal Government wants to make a point about making sure 
that funding could be dependable, there are ways that can be done; it 
has been done in the past and it can be done now.
  So I, for one, would be open to a limited, carefully crafted 
opportunity for children in failing schools to go to private schools, 
if there are seats available and if there is a proper evaluation. I 
find it extremely disconcerting that in this proposal there is not a 
similar commitment to charter schools and, as a result, at this point 
it is one of the reasons I am unable to support the proposal. There are 
many other reasons.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham of South Carolina). Without 
objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, it is a real pleasure for me to rise on 
the subject of opportunity scholarships for kids in the District of 
Columbia. Before I make my statement, I am going to ask that a couple 
of items be printed in the Record. My good friend and colleague from 
Louisiana, I understand, has suggested that the administration does not 
or may not support those aspects of this bill which provide funds for 
DC public schools directly or for charter schools.
  I have a letter signed by the Secretary of Education. I ask unanimous 
consent that the letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                   The Secretary of Education,

                               Washington, DC, September 26, 2003.
     Hon. Mike DeWine,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator DeWine: I am writing today to express my 
     strong support for the District of Columbia education 
     improvement initiative that is contained in the DC 
     appropriations bill now pending before the Senate.
       Debate in the Senate this week has highlighted the fact 
     that excellence in education is critical to the future of the 
     District's school children and to the economic and social 
     vitality of DC as a whole. Yet the DC public school system 
     has not yet taken the steps needed to reform its operations 
     and raise student achievement to the level required. That is 
     why we need a package of reforms that both improves DC public 
     schools and gives parents and students additional educational 
     options, including the option to attend charter schools and 
     private schools. The appropriations bill now before the 
     Senate would do just that.
       The bill includes a three-pronged initiative to: (1) 
     improve DC public schools that serve predominantly children 
     from low-income families; (2) create new charter schools and 
     ensure that DC charter schools have adequate facilities; and 
     (3) provide scholarships to a limited number of DC children 
     so that they can attend private schools in the District. Each 
     of these three elements of the initiative is critical and 
     each must be retained in the final bill.
       The debate in the Senate has clarified many facts about the 
     scholarship component of the program, which I know is the 
     most controversial. It has shown that Mayor Williams and 
     other leaders of the District are fully supportive of the 
     entire initiative, including the scholarship program; it is 
     what they want and need. It has shown that the scholarship 
     program would be carefully evaluated, so that we know if a 
     program like this can be successful in raising student 
     achievement. And Senators have reiterated forcefully that the 
     entire, three-pronged initiative represents new money for the 
     District. It is simply untrue to state that any of it would 
     take money from DC public schools, and it would be tragic if 
     any of this assistance were denied to DC residents at this 
     point.
       I hope this letter conveys the commitment that the 
     Administration feels, and that I personally feel, toward this 
     very important initiative. If my staff or I can be of any 
     assistance to you in enacting this program, please let me 
     know immediately.
           Sincerely,
                                                        Rod Paige.

[[Page 23423]]


  Mr. TALENT. In relevant part, it refers to the three funding 
initiatives in the bill, and then says each of these three elements of 
the initiative is critical and each must be retained in the final bill. 
That is on behalf of the administration. I think that makes clear the 
administration is strongly supportive of all three aspects of this 
measure and feels they are a package, and I think that is true. That is 
how all of us who support this measure feel.
  I know suggestions have been made with regard to Mayor Williams' 
support of this measure, that it was somehow foisted upon him by 
somebody or some group.
  I refer the Senate to an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, and I 
also ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 3, 2003]

               Washington's Children Deserve More Choices

  (By Anthony A. Williams, Kevin P. Chavous and Peggy Cooper Cafritz)

       For those of us involved every day in urban education, 
     there are some staggering realities that keep us awake at 
     night. Every child who graduates without basic skills--or who 
     drops out altogether--is on a potential pathway to public 
     assistance, to being alienated from the full benefits of 
     participation in society or, worse, to a life in the criminal 
     justice system. The D.C. appropriations bill before Congress 
     would provide $40 million in new funding for K-12 education 
     in the District to be divided among public schools, public 
     charter schools and scholarships for private and parochial 
     schools. We think that this is an appropriate investment by 
     the federal government in the children of the nation's 
     capital. Without the resources ordinarily provided by a 
     state, the District is more challenged than other cities in 
     its efforts to adequately fund public education and foster 
     innovative reform.
       Our children have endured decades of neglect in public 
     education. But there is hope. We have a reconfigured school 
     board and a respected superintendent who have begun needed 
     reforms. Fifteen ``transformation schools'' have been 
     reconstituted from top to bottom--new principles, new staff 
     and extra resources. In addition, we have the country's most 
     robust charter school movement with 40 schools educating 16 
     percent of our children.
       But despite these underpinnings, parents still want more 
     choices. At town hall meetings, community picnics, hearings 
     and PTA meetings, we hear the same complaints: ``I can't find 
     the right setting for my child'' or ``My child is not 
     flourishing in this environment.''
       Despite steady reform, change cannot occur rapidly enough 
     to provide relief to all public schools. As elected leaders, 
     we cannot tell parents who yearn for an opportunity for their 
     children to delay the same fulfillment we can provide our own 
     children. This is especially so when we have extra assets in 
     our midst: openings in non-public schools. Obviously, the 
     issue of whether federal funds should be allocated to private 
     schools is enormously difficult, but it is an issues that has 
     been settled by the Supreme Court.
       We are not advocating a national voucher policy. We, as 
     local leaders, are simply imploring Congress to embrace our 
     efforts to help our long-neglected student population with 
     every available tool. We believe the current proposal 
     adequately addresses legitimate concerns about 
     constitutionality, separation of church and state, 
     accountability, selection of students and other issues. We 
     have worked closely with the Bush administration and with 
     congressional leaders in developing our proposal. Students 
     receiving scholarships will be randomly selected and must 
     fall within certain family income parameters. Participating 
     schools will be monitored by local authorities and the U.S. 
     Department of Education. And our public schools will not be 
     penalized financially for the loss of students to private or 
     parochial schools. The notion that this ``school improvement 
     imitative'' is being imposed on us from on high belies the 
     reality that this three-sector approach was conceived by us--
     D.C. officials duly elected by local citizens.
       No one should argue that private-school scholarships are a 
     panacea. Most students in the District will remain in our 
     public schools, and nothing will deter us from our commitment 
     to improve those schools. But we trust that, given additional 
     options, D.C. parents will exercise sound judgment in 
     selecting the right setting for their children. We are 
     confident that the proposed legislation will allow us to 
     evaluate the effect of school choice on youngsters whose 
     parents opt for it.
       Funding for the initiative is correctly placed in the D.C. 
     appropriations bill and is not in competition with other 
     federal education priorities. This is a welcome partnership 
     between the District and Congress. The discussion should not 
     be burdened with agendas and ideologies unrelated to the best 
     interest of the school children in our city.

  Mr. TALENT. It is written by the Mayor, along with Councilman Chavous 
and the President of the District of Columbia Board of Education, in 
which they go into their reasons for supporting this measure. It is a 
rather passionate explanation of why they believe this measure is so 
important; in fact, not just important but absolutely necessary to 
thousands of kids in the District of Columbia who otherwise would have 
little hope of getting a good education.
  That is the feeling I have noticed in all of us who have encountered 
this issue over time feel. I encountered the issue of opportunity 
scholarships for kids when I first started working on community 
renewal, which is what our little group used to call urban renewal, and 
as some people call it. I got involved in that in the mid-1990s. As 
part of that involvement, I toured a lot of places in Missouri and in 
the country where people were revitalizing their neighborhoods. They 
were doing it by adopting the kind of measures that brought small 
business investment in their neighborhoods, working with the police and 
community policing, working with local organizations on substance abuse 
programs and on home ownership. It was all tremendously inspiring.
  I ended up filing the Community Renewal Act first in 1995 on the 
House side with then-Congressman J.C. Watts and Congressman Floyd 
Flake. Subsequently, a Senate bill was filed by then-Senator Abraham 
and my good friend from Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman. We were all 
involved in this and believed in it passionately.
  I remember I was in Indianapolis talking to some residents about 
their community renewal efforts. They brought up the whole subject of 
opportunity scholarships, or school choice, or whatever one wants to 
call it. This was a depressed urban area like many parts of the 
District of Columbia, and they said we have to have good local schools 
because it does not do any good for us to get jobs and safety on the 
streets and the other things that are vital to community renewal if we 
do not have good local schools because, what happens is people get jobs 
and then they leave. They do not stay because they have to have a good 
education for their kids.
  I got involved with this issue at the time, and in the bill we filed 
we had a little piece of it that was simply directed to opportunity 
scholarships for the urban poor for kids going to failing schools. I 
remember we introduced it at a press conference, and the press asked: 
Is this just something you are doing to try to help the Catholic 
Schools? That was one of the charges: They said this is something the 
Catholic Church is doing to help its schools.
  Spence Abraham thought about it, and he started to answer it. Then he 
looked at the five of us standing there and he said: Wait a minute. 
Jim, what denomination are you?
  I said: I am a Presbyterian.
  He said: J.C., you are a Baptist youth pastor, are you not?
  J.C. Watts said: Yes.
  Then he asked former Congressman Floyd Flake: You are a pastor in the 
AME Church?
  Floyd said: Yes.
  Then he turned to Senator Lieberman: Joe, of course, you are an 
Orthodox Jew.
  Joe said: Yes.
  And he said: I am Greek Orthodox.
  We are doing this as part of a conspiracy by the Catholic Church to 
get money into those schools? Those Catholics play a pretty deep game.
  For the next few years, we debated that measure and eventually passed 
the Community Renewal Act without the opportunity scholarship part of 
it.
  The point I am trying to make is, I have been back and forth for 
years now with all of the arguments, pro and con, on this. I have heard 
them all. I have participated in them all, in the House, and then in a 
race for Governor in Missouri in the year 2000, then in the race for 
the Senate in the year 2002. It is not that those arguments are not 
important, because they are. They have usually been argued with great 
eloquence. They have been on the floor this morning. They were 
yesterday, and I was listening to some of them on both sides

[[Page 23424]]

and appreciating the eloquence and vigor with which they argued.
  But I am at the point where I have to ask myself, what difference do 
those arguments really make in the face of the brute reality that every 
day thousands of kids in the District of Columbia get up and go to 
school where their parents and they know they are not safe, they will 
not learn, and it is not going to change? That is the position real 
people are in every day. They do not have any other options. That is 
the reality.
  I think of this more and more from the standpoint of the parents, 
because I have talked to a lot of them over the years. I have three 
kids. They are 13 and 11 and 7. You will not be surprised to find out 
that my wife and I spend a lot of time talking about the education of 
these kids, trying to make the same decisions parents all over the 
country have to make about education: Which first grade teacher would 
be better for the 7-year-old? We spend a lot of time talking about that 
one. What kind of electives should the 7th grader take, now that he can 
finally take electives? Should he be in the public presentation class 
or Spanish or what? We talk about this, and these decisions are very 
important to our kids. These kinds of decisions for our kids might make 
a difference in terms of how far they go in life. It might make a 
difference in terms of how successful they are in life, so we spend an 
awful lot of time on it.
  But I am going to tell you these parents I talk to about this issue, 
they are not making those kinds of decisions. Those are not the kinds 
of things they are debating. When I talk to them, there is a sense of 
urgency and sometimes a sense of panic in their eyes because they know 
a lot more is at stake than which teacher their kid is going to get in 
first grade. They know what is at stake for their kids may be not how 
successful they are in life or how far they go in life but whether they 
have a real shot at it at all. This is the difference between a good 
education and not a good education when you are trying to raise kids on 
your own in these neighborhoods and you don't have any help from 
anybody else anyway. That is why they feel this sense of panic, because 
they are looking at their kids and they know, if something is not done 
quickly--and it is not going to be done in the traditional system--if 
something is not done quickly for their kids, they are looking at kids 
who, if they are trapped in that school for their whole educational 
career, are a whole lot more likely to end up by the time they are 25 
years old in a gang or on drugs or in jail or wounded or maybe dead. 
That is what these parents are thinking. That is why this bill is 
important to them.
  We ought to give them a chance. That is for all they are asking. They 
have been looking for this kind of relief for years. The House has 
voted it for years. The Senate has voted on it. The idea that this is 
something new this President has presented is just not correct. There 
are a bunch of us who have been involved in it one way or another for a 
whole lot of years. Now we actually have a chance to pass it. Now we 
have a chance to give these parents and their kids some options, and we 
just ought to do it.
  The upside for these families is tremendous. The downside is just not 
that great. If it doesn't offer them a better education, they will not 
take advantage of these scholarships and the money will revert--I guess 
to the District of Columbia. Or does it revert to the Treasury? To the 
District of Columbia.
  OK, the arguments against it. I guess the argument--I had not heard 
this but I suppose it could happen--the District of Columbia voted 
against vouchers 20 years ago. It was 20 years ago.
  The argument I hear a lot, that opportunity scholarships or school 
choice will hurt the public schools.
  This is kind of ironic and I have discussed this with parents. Of 
course, everybody else in the country, except these, usually, single 
moms in these neighborhoods, has school choice. Talk to somebody in the 
realtor business if you do not believe that. When people buy a house 
someplace what do they ask about? They ask about the schools, don't 
they? Because, for the average person in this country, if your school 
is a school where you think your kid is missing out, it is not a 
marginal question. If that school is really failing your kid, for 
whatever reason, you are going to do one of three things. You are going 
to move, you are going to put your kid in a private school or a 
different school of some kind, or--and this is an increasing number of 
people--you are home schooling your kids. You are going to do 
something.
  But these moms can't do that because they don't have the money to 
move, they don't have the money to put their kids in a private school, 
and they are working, so they don't have the time to stay home and home 
school. So they are stuck.
  Everybody else in the country has this kind of opportunity and that 
has not hurt the public schools. This is a country that believes in, 
and is enriched by, diversity, by people having different opportunities 
and different choices. Everybody has it except them. They think that 
argument is quite ironic.
  The argument against this, that it will cost the public schools 
money--Mr. President, do words have meaning? It gives the public 
schools more money, $13 million more than they would otherwise get. If 
the scholarships don't work, they will get more. The $13 million will 
revert to the Treasury and we can give that to them as well.
  I have already gone over the argument that it was foisted on the 
Mayor. It wasn't. Boy, if it is, he is doing a pretty good job dealing 
with something that was foisted on him. I saw him down here in the 
Senate the other day.
  I don't like to burden the Senate too much with my speeches. It is 
only when I have dealt with something for a while where I feel strongly 
about something. I do about this issue. I appreciate the opportunity to 
talk and I appreciate the passion and the sincerity of those who oppose 
this.
  I would like to reach out and say to folks, let's try this year. I 
think it is going to work. These parents think it is going to work. We 
had 10,000 people line up in 1997 for 1,000 part-time scholarships. 
Let's give these kids a chance. I think we will be glad we did, if we 
will vote this in.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.

                          ____________________