[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 10945]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         EDUCATION AND LITERACY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Clarke) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I am here, along with my good 
friend and colleague, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Scott), to 
address a national crisis that's facing us today.
  Too many of our young African American and Hispanic men cannot read. 
They're dropping out of school and they're ending up in prison. Without 
the skills to be able to get a job, many of these young men may lose 
hope and they resort to crime.
  I personally understand, to a certain degree, what these young men 
are going through. I lost hope myself in my early twenties.
  Raised as a single child, my parents were deceased by the time I was 
19. I dropped out of school, ended up being unemployed, and resorted to 
food stamps. My food stamps were ultimately cut off. At that time, I 
felt I would never make it in life, and I gave up.
  Now, several factors intervened to help save me. One was my 
godmother, Octavia Lyons. She wasn't a college graduate and she wasn't 
a professional woman. She was a domestic cleaning lady like my mother, 
and she was raised and educated in segregated Mobile, Alabama. She 
understood the value of working and the value of education, and she 
demanded that I do something with my life.

                              {time}  1030

  The other factor that motivated me directly to go to school, again, 
was the fact that I was able to go to the Detroit Public Library. I 
caught the bus. And I started reading books on visual artists, and it 
inspired me to go back to school to study fine arts again. But the 
point is, I had the ability to read--and reading helped save my life.
  I want to now yield to my good friend, Representative Scott, the 
gentleman from South Carolina.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Thank you, Congressman Clarke.
  Let me just thank Mr. Clarke for focusing on the issue of education 
and, specifically, the issue of literacy. I will say that as a kid 
growing up in a single-parent household myself, living in poverty, I 
did not value education as a youngster. And so by the time I was in 
high school, I was flunking out. I failed the ninth grade. I failed 
world geography, civics, Spanish, and English. When you fail Spanish 
and English, they don't consider you bilingual. They may call you ``bi-
ignorant.''
  And that's where I found myself, because I had lost hope in life. I 
had a mother who believed strongly in the power of education. And 
because of her discipline, her involvement, and her focus, I found the 
path back towards prosperity, which started with education. And as 
chairman of the county council a few years ago, I recognized that the 
incarcerated population of Charleston County was highly represented by 
young people, mostly men, who were functionally illiterate, coming from 
single-parent households and living in poverty, as I did.
  So the value of education cannot be overemphasized enough, and the 
necessity of public-private partnerships to address this issue is an 
absolute necessity because our Nation faces a crisis.
  Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. Thank you, Representative Scott.
  To the American people, we want to show that even though this 
Congress many times is divided based on ideology and party, he and I--
I'm one of the most liberal Members of this House and my friend, the 
gentleman from South Carolina, is one of the most conservative--both 
agree we've got to address this national crisis. We've got to save the 
lives of our young black and Hispanic men. And by doing so, we're going 
to help strengthen our economy and help create jobs. This is a national 
call to action for all of us in government, schools, libraries, 
business, and our charities and our families, to all work together to 
help educate our young men on the value of reading and to teach them to 
read.
  I yield to my friend from South Carolina.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Clarke, I would say that without any 
question the issue of education is not an African American issue; it's 
not an Hispanic issue. It is an American issue. It is an American 
tradition that for all access in this Nation, the power of freedom 
comes from the power of education. And we stand here together as one of 
the more conservative Members of the House and certainly one of the 
more liberal Members of the House focusing on the same problem. We may 
not even agree on all the paths to solving this problem, but we can 
agree on the necessity of addressing the issue of literacy. And if we 
can work together finding paths for the American people to focus their 
attention, finding paths for Congress to focus our attention, we find 
paths to the solution.
  Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. I agree, my brother. I'm going to work with 
you on this.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Thank you, Mr. Clarke.
  Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. Thank you.

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