[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8206-8207]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   RETURN SOVEREIGNTY BACK TO THE STATES, THE SCHOOL BOARD, AND THE 
                                PARENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, with the reauthorization of 
No Child Left Behind before us this year, we all have an obligation to 
consider reforms that both further education policy, and also maintain 
consistency with our constitutional duties.
  The Federal Government began its interference, if you will, in 
education through land grants, and over time has transformed into a 
bureaucracy that we see today. I would like to highlight some of the 
serious flaws in this tangled web we have weaved and pose a

[[Page 8207]]

question to my colleagues and our constituents as well. Are we better 
off today with the Federal Government's involvement in education as it 
has been over the years?
  Since 1965, American taxpayers have invested more than $778 billion 
on Federal programs for elementary and secondary education. The GAO, 
the Government Accountability Office, reported in 1994 that 13,400 
Federally funded full-time employees in State education agencies work 
to implement Federal education programs. That is three times the number 
then working at the Department of Education.
  The same report found that state education agencies are forced to 
reserve a far greater share of Federal and State funds for State-level 
use by a ratio of 4-1, due to the administrative and regulatory burden 
of Federal programs. And because it cost so much to allocate a Federal 
dollar than a State dollar, 41 percent of financial support and 
staffing of State education agencies was a product of Federal dollars 
and regulations. In other words, the Federal Government was the cause 
of 41 percent of the administrative burden at the State level, despite 
providing just 7 percent of overall education funding.
  Again, according to the GAO, the testing requirements alone for No 
Child Left Behind will cost the States about $1.9 billion between 2002 
and 2008. And that is if the State uses only multiple choice questions 
that can be scored in machines, as opposed to essays and what have you.
  According to the Office of Management and Budget, No Child Left 
Behind increased State and local governments' annual paperwork burden 
by 6,680,334 hours at an estimated cost of $141 million. So while No 
Child Left Behind advertises that it helps to attract and maintain 
highly qualified teachers, some States, in fact, have now responded to 
it by actually lowering their testing requirements for new teachers.
  Since the law enactment, Pennsylvania has dropped its testing after 
finding that too many middle school teachers had failed the test. In 
Maryland, New Hampshire and Virginia, they have made their basic skills 
test for teachers easier to pass now than before we had No Child Left 
Behind.
  In Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada and West Virginia, 
they, too, have lowered their requirements for teachers trained out of 
state. So what is happening is as State officials become more familiar 
with the No Child Left Behind statute and with U.S. Department of 
Education's interpretation of it, more States have rushed to lower 
their own standards. So by September 2004, 47 States had filed requests 
with the U.S. Department of Education to approve changes to their No 
Child Left Behind plans that would, in many cases, make it easier for 
them to show adequate yearly progress than before.
  Now, to address all this, in the near future, I will come back to the 
floor as I will be introducing legislation that will immediately cut 
both the financial and the regulatory strings between the Federal 
Government and the States that choose to opt out and relieve the 
Federal education system.
  How it will work is this: Under my proposal, States that elect to opt 
out of the Federal education funding system would be eligible to keep 
their own money, keep it in their own States through a mechanism, a 
Federal tax credit. It would be a refundable Federal tax credit, and it 
would be available to all the residents in that State that chose to opt 
out. Therefore, what we have here is not only would that State free 
itself up from the education regulations and all the costs I have just 
laid out here, but by taking this deduction, those residents in those 
States won't have to be taking money out of their pocket, sending it to 
Washington, Washington handling it for a while, and some of it coming 
back to their States. In effect, what will happen is you will not have 
to send your money to Washington at all.
  But the bottom line is this: We should not waste this unique 
opportunity that we have now, now that No Child Left Behind is coming 
up for reauthorization. We should use this as an opportunity to return 
sovereignty back to the States, and most importantly, back to the 
parents themselves.
  So Mr. Speaker, I will close on this to say I look forward to the 
time when all education decisions are returned back to the States, to 
the legislatures, to the local school board, and most importantly, to 
the parents themselves.

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