[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10641-10659]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    EVERY CHILD ACHIEVES ACT OF 2015

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to the consideration of S. 1177, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1177) to reauthorize the Elementary and 
     Secondary Education Act of 1965 to ensure that every child 
     achieves.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if I could gain the attention of the 
Democratic leader for just a moment, before he leaves the floor. In a 
few moments, the Senator from Washington and I will make our opening 
statements on our proposed committee legislation to fix No Child Left 
Behind, but before we do that, I want to first express my appreciation 
to the majority leader for his putting it on the floor, bringing it up. 
I know the majority leader has a variety of other options, and he is 
giving us a chance to take our bill, which we will be describing in a 
few minutes, and put it on the floor.
  I also want to acknowledge and thank the Democratic leader because he 
has allowed the bill to come to the floor without delay so that we can 
move to the bill and allow Senators to begin to vote on it. We hope to 
begin having those votes tomorrow morning.
  We have a good example of cooperation here with the majority leader 
bringing the bill to the floor, a unanimous bill by the committee. 
Senator Murray, a member of the Democratic leadership, played a major 
role in the legislation. In fact, it was her advice that I took which 
caused us I think to have success in the committee by presenting a 
bipartisan bill. But I specifically want to thank Senator Reid for his 
attitude on the bill. I think that will create the environment in which 
we will have to frankly work through some contentious issues. This is 
not an issue-free piece of legislation. We are 7 years overdue. It 
should have been passed in the last two Congresses. But we have made a 
good start.
  I thank both leaders for giving Senator Murray and me a chance to try 
to work in the next few days with other Senators to continue the 
amendment process, allow Senators to have their say, get a result, and 
work with the House to send a bill to the President that he is willing 
to sign.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, my friend from Tennessee is an expert in 
education. Not only was he the Governor of the great State of 
Tennessee, he was also the Secretary of Education. He knows education. 
And he has a good partner to work with, Patty Murray. The senior 
Senator from Washington is a legislator first class, and the work they 
have done as leaders of this important committee has been very, very 
good.
  I appreciate the kind words of my friend from Tennessee, but this is 
an example of what I talked about a few minutes ago. We are not 
treating Republicans the way they have treated us. I repeat, every 
piece of legislation I brought to the floor we had to file a motion to 
proceed on--with extremely rare exception, everything. We wasted months 
going through this senseless 2 days, 30 hours, and on and on with all 
the time spent on this. It was an effort to embarrass President Obama, 
and they did their best to do that. But as cynical as it was, it helped 
them in the 2014 elections, and I acknowledge that, and that is too 
bad. But it is too bad we had to go through all that because it has 
really hurt the country.
  I say to my friend, I have great respect for this man from Tennessee. 
He is a good legislator, and I look forward to moving forward on this 
important piece of legislation involving elementary and secondary 
education. We have to do a better job, and I think there are no two 
better qualified people than the two managers of this bill to 
accomplish that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Democratic leader. Senator 
Murray and I will make our opening statements, but I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, we begin debate today on a bill to fix 
the problems with No Child Left Behind, the Federal law that has been 
causing confusion and anxiety in 100,000 public schools in our country.
  This week, Newsweek magazine called this the ``law that everyone 
wants to fix.'' There is a broad consensus about that, and, remarkably, 
there is a broad consensus about how to fix it. This is the consensus: 
that we should continue the law's important measurements of students' 
academic progress but restore to States, school districts, classroom 
teachers, and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about 
the results of those tests. In my view, this change should produce 
fewer tests and more appropriate ways to measure student achievement. 
We believe this is the most effective path toward higher standards, 
better teaching, and real accountability.
  Our Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--the Senate's 
education committee--obviously believes that too. The committee 
reported the bill unanimously. Senator McConnell, the majority leader, 
noted earlier that committee has on it some of the Senate's most 
liberal Democrats and several of the Senate's most conservative 
Republicans. It was a surprise to many people that the committee 
reported it unanimously. But the committee understood that this was a 
problem we needed to solve and that we had a fair and open process, 
everyone had a chance to participate, and that the bill was good enough 
to come to the floor, where we could continue to work on it.
  Not only is there a consensus about how to fix it within the U.S. 
Senate committee on education, there is outside of the Senate. This 
bipartisan bill, which has come to the Senate floor, has been supported 
by teachers, by school boards, by school superintendents, by chief 
State school officers, and by Governors.
  The Presiding Officer is a former Governor, as am I. Both of us would 
have to go back a long time to remember something that was supported as 
enthusiastically by both the National Governors Association and the 
major teachers unions, but this bipartisan proposal is.
  Earlier I thanked the majority leader, Senator McConnell, for putting 
the bill on the floor. That may seem like a small matter for those not 
involved in the Senate, but it is a big matter. He has a pretty big 
list of bipartisan legislation that is important to this country's 
future, and he could have chosen any of those to bring to the floor. 
But he saw the importance of education to our country and that we not 
only need a strong national defense, but we need to be strong at home.
  So we are going to be dealing with legislation that affects 100,000 
public schools, 50 million children, 3\1/2\ million teachers. It may 
not be big news every day in Washington, DC, but it sure is in 
Nashville, TN, in Maryville, TN, in Washington State, and in North 
Dakota.
  If you go home, you hear quite a bit about Common Core. You hear 
quite a bit about the national school board. You hear quite a bit about 
whether the standards we have for our children are enough to help them 
get a job and to help them succeed in the world we

[[Page 10642]]

have. So I thank the majority leader for putting it on the floor.
  As I said before, I thank the Democratic leader, Senator Reid. He has 
allowed the bill to come to the floor as rapidly as it could. There 
have been no delaying tactics whatsoever. We didn't have to have a 
motion to proceed and a cloture vote. I am grateful for that because 
that means we can work with other Senators and put this bill into shape 
and give more people a chance to have their say on behalf of their 
constituents at home.
  I want to give my special thanks at the outset--and I probably will 
again during this debate more than once--to the Senator from Washington 
State, Mrs. Patty Murray. She is a good partner to have in this, and I 
am glad I took her advice in dealing with this bill. I knew we had a 
problem because we tried in the last two Congresses to solve this 
problem, and we absolutely failed. We are 7 years overdue. But Senator 
Murray made the suggestion that she and I try to work together to 
create a bipartisan product that we could present to the committee and 
then work from that. I took that advice, and it turned out to be 
excellent advice. Her ability to be a forceful advocate for her 
positions but at the same time command respect within her caucus and 
among people around the country who know her and to make this work is a 
principal reason, if not the main reason, we had a unanimous report 
from the education committee. So I am grateful to her for that.
  If you are a busy parent of one of the 50 million children attending 
public school today, you may not know your child has been going to 
school for the last 7 years under a broken and expired Federal 
education law. You may not know that the U.S. Department of Education 
is practically running your child's school, if you live in one of 42 
States operating under waivers. You may have heard your child's teacher 
complain about how little flexibility he or she has to help your child 
and to innovate in the classroom, and you have probably seen your 
child's frustration at the number of tests he or she is taking.
  You have no doubt heard of the frustration of other parents and 
teachers about Common Core, the academic standard most States have 
adopted. In 2009, the Department of Education created a $4.4 billion 
pot of money that States competed for. This was called Race to the Top. 
States got extra points for adopting Common Core. Race to the Top 
caused 30 States plus Washington, DC, to adopt Common Core so they 
could include that in their application.
  Then along came the phenomenon of waivers, because we in Congress had 
failed to act since 2007. The original No Child Left Behind bill passed 
in 2001 became unworkable. It established a goal that by 2014 all of 
our children in 100,000 public schools would be proficient in math and 
science. We got to 2014--or were getting there--and the children 
weren't proficient. So all the schools--almost all our public schools--
were labeled as failing. So to avoid that bizarre result the Secretary 
issued waivers. But at the same time he issued some requirements about 
what you had to do to get a waiver if you were the State of North 
Dakota or Tennessee or some other State.
  So you are likely to have heard from teachers and school board 
members frustrated about the narrow definitions from Washington about 
exactly how to evaluate teachers and what to do about low performing 
schools. Those requirements came with the waivers.
  You may be frustrated that your child doesn't have more options for 
school than the nearest public school. I believe this bill will end 
many of those frustrations. It will restore responsibility to States 
for deciding what academic standards to use and will restore 
responsibility to teachers to do what they do best, and that is to help 
your child learn what they need to know and be able to do.
  It will stop the trend of taking too many tests by restoring to 
States the responsibility for deciding how to use Federal test scores 
in measuring school achievement. It will help States expand and 
replicate their best charter schools so more parents will have a choice 
of schools.
  The Senate education committee adopted 29 amendments during its 
debate on the bill. Already Senator Murray and I are working with 
Democratic and Republican Senators on adopting a large number of other 
amendments. In fact, I will have a substitute amendment for our bill to 
offer a little later this afternoon that will include a number of those 
amendments, and we expect there to be a robust discussion and debate 
and votes on the Senate floor.
  Now, just for some context about the debate we are having, when we 
talk about fixing No Child Left Behind, here is what we are talking 
about. We are talking about reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act. We are talking about the spending in that act of about 
$23 billion, which the Federal Government distributes to States through 
the law's nine titles. The biggest title is what we call title I. It 
spends about $14.5 billion specifically to help low-income students.
  Now, the $23 billion that is spent through this bill we are debating 
is a lot of money, but it is only about 4 percent of the total amount 
this Nation spends each year on kindergarten through 12th grade public 
education. The Federal Government contributes another 4 or 5 percent to 
K-through-12 education through various programs. But the rest of the 
money, about 90 percent, comes from State and local governments.
  Why No Child Left Behind must be fixed: The problems have been 
created by a combination of Presidential action--but let us not forget 
our own responsibility and our own fault for this problem. That is 
called congressional inaction. So it is the combination of Presidential 
action and congressional inaction that has led us to a situation where 
we have a bill described by a major news magazine as ``the education 
law that everybody wants to fix.''
  It started in 2001, when President George W. Bush and Congress 
enacted a bill called No Child Left Behind, which requires a total of 
17 tests between reading and math and science during a child's 
elementary and secondary education. The results of these tests must be 
disaggregated and reported according to race, ethnicity, gender, 
disability, and other measures so parents, teachers, and the community 
can see which children are being left behind.
  In other words, a typical third grader would have two tests, one in 
reading and one in math. Each test should last about 2 hours. Then that 
test for that school would be reported to the public, and you would 
break it down according to the groups I just mentioned, and we could 
see if any group of children in any community is being left behind.
  That wasn't all the law did. The law also created Federal standards--
created here in Washington--for whether a school is succeeding or 
failing, what a State or school district must do about that failure, 
and whether a teacher was highly qualified to teach in a classroom. 
Those are Washington, DC, definitions.
  If fixing No Child Left Behind were a standardized test, Congress 
would have earned a failing grade for each of the last 7 years because 
No Child Left Behind expired in 2007. We have been unable to agree on 
how to reauthorize it. As a result, the law's original requirements 
stayed in place and gradually became unworkable. As I mentioned 
earlier, this would have caused all of America's public schools--almost 
all of them--to be classified as failing schools under the terms of the 
law.
  The reason for that was the law set up as a goal that by 2014 all 
children would be proficient in reading and mathematics. That sounded 
like a fair enough goal to have when you are looking at it from 2001. 
But the closer we got to 2014--even by some of the lowest and easiest 
definitions of proficiencies established by States--it was clear that 
most children and most schools wouldn't reach that goal. So President 
Obama's Education Secretary offered waivers from the terms of the law, 
and today 42 States operate their public schools under the terms of 
those waivers from the original provisions of No Child Left Behind.
  But instead of just saying yes or no, here is a waiver, each of those 
waivers

[[Page 10643]]

contains some requirements. The Secretary really had the State over a 
barrel. He said: If you want a waiver from these unworkable provisions, 
you are going to have to do a few things. One is to adopt certain 
academic standards. That turned out to be, in most cases, Common Core. 
One was to take prescribed steps to help failing schools. Another was 
to evaluate teachers in a defined way.
  There was so much new Federal control of local schools over the last 
several years that this has produced a backlash against Common Core 
academic standards, a backlash against teacher evaluation, and against 
tests in general. Governors and chief State school officers complain 
about Federal overreach. Infuriated teachers say the U.S. Department of 
Education has become a national human resources department or, in 
effect, a national school board.
  This doesn't just come from Republicans. This comes from Democratic 
chief State school officers who have come to my office and who have 
come to Senator Murray's office and have said: Please give us more 
flexibility. We are with the children. We are in our States. We think 
we know what to do.
  They say it in different ways maybe if they are Republicans or 
Democrats, but they all basically have said the same thing, which is 
why we have this consensus, at least so far on how to fix this 
legislation, this law that everybody wants to fix.
  So what is this remarkable consensus on how to fix the law? Here are 
nine things the bill does. No. 1, it strengthens State and local 
control. The bill gives responsibility for creating what we call 
accountability systems to States. Now, ``accountability systems'' 
simply means who is in charge of making sure the job gets done. Well, 
that goes to States, working with school districts, with teachers and 
with others to make sure all students are learning and preparing for 
success. The accountability systems will be State designed. They will 
meet minimum Federal parameters, including ensuring that all students 
and subgroups of students are included in the accountability system.
  Disaggregating student achievement data--those are the tests I talked 
about earlier. In establishing challenging academic standards for all 
students, the Federal Government is prohibited from determining or 
approving State standards. So if you are in Alaska, Tennessee or 
Washington, the Federal Government says if you want the Federal money, 
you have to have challenging standards and you have to have a test of 
those standards. But those are your standards, and those are your 
tests. You need to publicize them so the world can know how kids in 
schools are doing, but the Secretary in Washington is specifically 
prohibited by this proposal of ours from determining or approving those 
standards.
  No. 2, our legislation would end the Common Core mandate. The bill 
affirms that States may decide for themselves what academic standards 
they will adopt without interference from Washington, DC.
  I mentioned a little earlier how the $4.4 billion pot of money caused 
as many as 30 States to immediately say: Yes, we will adopt Common 
Core. Now, maybe they were going to do it anyway, and we can talk about 
that more in just a minute, but that is what it did.
  The Federal Government may not, under our proposal, mandate or 
incentivize States to adopt or maintain any particular set of 
standards, including Common Core. States will be free to decide what 
academic standards they will maintain in their States. If they want 
Common Core, they can have Common Core. If they want half of Common 
Core, they can have half of it. If they want uncommon core, States can 
have that. They simply have to have standards, and the Secretary is 
prohibited from telling them what those standards are.
  No. 3, the bill would end the Secretary's waivers. The waiver 
provision was a small part of the original bill in 2001. I doubt if 
those who passed it ever expected it would be used the way it has been 
used by the current Secretary. The bill prohibits the Secretary, 
though, from mandating additional requirements for States or school 
districts seeking waivers from Federal law.
  In other words, if I come as Governor of Tennessee to the Secretary 
of Education and say: I would like to have a waiver. He can say yes or 
he can say no, but he can't say: Well, you can get a waiver if you will 
evaluate teachers this way, adopt these standards, and fix these 
performing schools in that way. That is up to the State. The bill 
limits the Secretary's authority to disapprove a waiver request as 
well.
  No. 4, the bill maintains important information for parents, 
teachers, and communities. No issue has stirred as much controversy in 
our discussion as testing. No Child Left Behind required students to 
take 17 standardized tests over the course of their kindergarten 
through 12th grade education, and it attached high stakes for schools, 
school districts, and States to the results. As we studied the problem, 
as we listened to teachers and Governors and people of both political 
parties, it became obvious to us that it wasn't so much those 17 
federally required tests but the stakes attached to them.
  A third grader, for example, is required to take only one test in 
math and one test in reading. The testimony of the Denver school 
superintendent was that each of those tests takes about 2 hours. If you 
take two tests in the third grade and two in the fourth grade--and 
those are the tests that are publicized so people can tell whether the 
school is succeeding or the child is succeeding or children are being 
left behind--that is not very much time out of the school year. But the 
accountability system for what to do about the test results contributed 
to the exploding number of State and local tests. Many of them were 
given to prepare students for the high-stakes Federal tests.
  Our proposal maintains the federally required two annual tests in 
reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, as well 
as science tests given three times between grades 3 and 12.
  These important measures of student achievement need to be reported 
publicly so parents can know how their child is performing. It is 
important the results be disaggregated so we know if any particular 
group of students is being ignored or left behind. It can also help 
teachers support students who are struggling to meet State standards.
  We have included in our proposal before the Senate an amendment from 
Senator Collins and Senator Sanders for a pilot program which would 
allow States additional flexibility to experiment with innovative 
assessment systems--meaning tests--that might replace the kind of 
standardize tests used today. It is important to point out that the 
Federal requirement isn't for a particular test. It simply says the 
State has to have one and the State has to publicize it in a special 
way.
  No. 5, our proposal ends Federal test-based accountability. We 
discovered that the problem is the Federal Government's accountability 
system for what to do about the results of these tests, which has 
contributed to the exploding number of State and local tests. Said 
another way, it is the ``made in Washington'' decision about what a 
qualified teacher is, how to evaluate a teacher, and what is adequate 
yearly progress in a school. All of that is what seems to have caused 
the exploding number of tests we have heard about so much.
  To give an example, in testimony it was said to us that Fort Myers, 
FL, had 183 tests for children in the kindergarten through 12th grade 
career of a child. We know only 17 of those are Federal tests under No 
Child Left Behind. So where are the rest of the tests coming from? They 
are State and local tests. Once the spotlight was shown on Fort Myers, 
FL, and their 183 tests, it became clear it wasn't No Child Left Behind 
causing that--or at least it wasn't Federal tests but State and local 
tests that were causing this. Then the number of tests quickly went 
down.
  Because of this, our proposal ends the high-stakes Federal test-based 
accountability system of No Child Left Behind and restores the 
accountability system to State and local responsibility to hold schools 
and teachers accountable.

[[Page 10644]]

  Teachers are in the assessment business. They said to us: Look, there 
are many different types of tests and assessments. We do this all the 
time. We have pop quizzes, we have end-of-the-year tests, we have 
standardized tests, we have multiple choice tests, and we have open-
ended questions. We need to be deciding what those assessments should 
be, and we need to be deciding what weight each of those has in 
deciding how this child is doing or how this school is doing or how 
this group of children are doing. So they don't really object to having 
a standardized test as one of the measurements. What they object to is 
having a single standardized test--set in Washington, DC--count for so 
much and to pretend that here we can make a decision about what may be 
going on in native schools in Alaska or the mountains of Tennessee or 
schools in Harlem.
  States must include these standardized tests in their accountability 
system, but States will determine the weight of these tests. States 
will also be required to include graduation rates, another measure of 
academic success for elementary schools, English proficiency for 
English learners, and one other State-determined measure of school 
success or student support.
  States may also include other measures of student and school 
performance in their accountability systems in order to provide 
teachers, parents, and other stakeholders with a more accurate 
determination of school performance.
  State accountability systems must meet limited Federal guidelines, 
including challenging academic standards for all students, but the 
Federal Government is prohibited in this proposal from determining or 
approving State standards. So whether a State adopts common core or any 
other academic standard is entirely the State's decision.
  This transfer of responsibility for determining what to do about the 
results of tests is why we believe our proposal will result in fewer 
and more appropriate testing for children.
  There are three more things that our proposal does. No. 6, it 
strengthens the charter school program. The bill provides grants to 
State entities and charter management organizations to start new 
charter schools and to replicate or expand high-quality charter 
schools, including by developing facilities, preparing and hiring 
teachers, and providing transportation. It also provides incentives for 
States to adopt stronger charter school authorizing practices, 
increases charter school transparency so we can know what is going on, 
and improves community engagement in the operation of charter schools.
  Charter schools are public schools. I remember in 1992, when I was 
Education Secretary, the last thing I did was that I wrote a letter to 
all the school superintendents in the country in all the different 
school districts--I guess there are 14,000 or 15,000--and asked them to 
consider creating in their school district one of the new start-from-
scratch schools that had been created in the State of Minnesota by the 
Democratic-Farmer-Labor government. There were 10 of them, and they 
called them charter schools. Those were the first 10 charter schools.
  There are 6,700 charter schools today. About 6 percent of all public 
school students go to charter schools. Charter schools, in my view, are 
nothing more than public schools in which teachers have the freedom to 
give children what those children need, and parents have the freedom to 
choose the school that their child attends. I think any teacher would 
much prefer to have that sort of arrangement and that sort of freedom--
freedom from State regulations, freedom from Federal regulations, 
freedom from some union rules--so they can provide for the children who 
come to that school and who choose to go to that school the kind of 
education those children deserve.
  No. 7, our proposal would help States fix the lowest performing 
schools. The bill includes Federal grants to States and school 
districts to help improve low-performing schools identified by State 
accountability systems. School districts will be responsible for 
designing evidence-based interventions for low-performing schools with 
technical assistance from the States. The Federal Government is 
prohibited from mandating, prescribing or defining the specific steps 
school districts and States must take to improve these schools.
  Why would one do that? Let me give an example of what goes on today. 
Under the waiver requirements, if you have a low-performing school, you 
have to identify a certain number. That is prescribed by Washington. 
Then you have six ways you can fix the school. I insisted a couple of 
years ago that we add a seventh. Showing my old Governor biases, I 
said: Let's allow a State to come up with a seventh way of improving a 
low-performing school, and that would be whatever the Governor thinks 
would be the best way to do it. That was adopted by the Congress. About 
12 months later, out came a regulation from the U.S. Department of 
Education defining, limiting, and explaining what a Governor could do 
about it.
  The whole purpose of the exercise was to get rid of that sort of 
instruction from here and to recognize that Governors themselves might 
feel like their principal responsibility might be to improve a low-
performing schools. I always did when I was there. And I, with all 
respect, didn't really need advice from Washington, DC, about how to do 
it.
  No. 8, it helps States support teachers. The bill provides resources 
to States and school districts to implement activities to support 
teachers, principals, and other educators, including through high-
quality induction programs for new teachers and ongoing rigorous 
professional development opportunities. The bill allows--but doesn't 
require--States to develop and implement teacher evaluation systems.
  I know I am using some of my own experiences here, but that is how I 
have learned. I believe that teacher evaluation is the holy grail of 
public education. Parents are more important than teachers, but I have 
yet to figure out how to pass a better parents law.
  Most of the evidence we know about shows that the single most 
important way to help a child succeed is to put that child in the 
presence of a really exceptional teacher. So in 1984, Tennessee became 
the first State to pay teachers more for teaching well. That included a 
1\1/2\-year brawl with the National Education Association, which 
objected to it.
  President Reagan was President then. He came to Tennessee not to tell 
us to do it and not with any Federal dollars but just to say this is 
important to do and this is good to do. That helped me greatly in 
passing it in the legislature, which was Democratic at the time, and 
this kind of leadership began the process across the country that has 
spread--the evaluation of teachers--to identify the better teachers, to 
encourage them, to reward them, and to try to keep them in the teaching 
profession.
  It was assumed when I came here that because I was so involved in 
teacher evaluation, I would want to come to Washington and say: OK, now 
everybody has to do what Tennessee did. But I have done just the 
reverse. The last thing we needed in Tennessee when we were trying to 
do teacher evaluation in a fair way was Washington looking over our 
shoulder, making it more difficult and complicated.
  Evaluating good teachers, particularly rewarding outstanding 
teaching, is not easy to do. It sounds simple, but it is hard. It needs 
something teachers can buy into that may be different in Alaska and 
Tennessee and Washington, and it needs to respect what the 
circumstances are in each place. The goal is to reward outstanding 
teachers and make teaching more professional and to recognize that 
excellent teachers of math have great opportunities at IBM or some 
other company. I want to encourage that. This does that, but it doesn't 
mandate it from Washington.
  No. 9, finally, this helps States improve the fragmentation of early 
childhood programs. I suspect we will hear a lot about this from 
Senator Murray because we heard a great deal about it in the committee 
from her. She is a preschool teacher. Her mother was as well. I think 
one of the things Senator Murray learned as a preschool teacher

[[Page 10645]]

was how to work well with others, which is what 5-year-olds learn. She 
is a passionate advocate for early childhood education--more than we 
have in this bill. But we have an important step forward in this bill, 
in my opinion, that Senator Murray and Senator Isakson offered as an 
amendment. It was approved by the committee.
  It will provide competitive planning grants to help States expand 
quality early childhood education by addressing the fragmentation of 
spending of Federal dollars currently through early childhood education 
programs. We spend about $8 billion on Head Start. We spend about 
another $6 billion or $7 billion on child development block grants. 
That total amount of money is as much money as we spend in the entire 
title I program for kindergarten through the 12th grade. We spend 
another $8 billion or $10 billion throughout different parts of the 
Federal Government for early childhood education. Then there is State 
funding for early childhood education. Then there is local funding. 
Then there is private funding.
  For example, the testimony from the superintendent of education from 
Louisiana was that, as much as more money, what would help create more 
educational opportunities for children ages 2, 3, and 4, is for States 
and local governments to be able to spend the money we are already 
spending more effectively. He said: There are too many silos. You can't 
use the Head Start money in conjunction with this money or that money 
or in conjunction with this money. This proposal in our bill would be a 
step toward helping States use Federal dollars more effectively in 
early childhood education.
  Finally, I said earlier that if fixing No Child Left Behind was a 
standardized test, Congress would have earned a failing grade for the 
last 7 years. In each of the last two Congresses, the Senate committee 
that Senator Murray and I head produced bills to fix No Child Left 
Behind. But these bills divided our committee along party lines. Even 
so, two Congresses ago, Senator Enzi, Senator Kirk, and I voted with 
the Democratic majority to report a bill out of committee so that the 
full Senate could act.
  In the last Congress, the committee majority passed a partisan bill 
without any Republican votes, but I committed to support Chairman 
Harkin in taking the bill to the floor if there would be an open 
amendment process.
  Unfortunately, these bills never reached the floor. We needed, 
obviously, to do something different, which is where Senator Murray's 
leadership became so important. She suggested the way that we 
proceeded, which allowed us to create a bridge across the partisan 
divide so that we could recommend to the full committee a bipartisan 
solution upon which they could build and upon which the full Senate 
could build.
  I accepted her suggestion, and I have repeatedly thanked her for it. 
She and I have listened carefully to our Senate colleagues, to 
teachers, principals, Governors, chief State school officers, students 
and parents, and to the business and civil rights communities, and we 
have listened to each other. I am grateful that the majority leader has 
put the bill on the floor and that the Democratic leader has allowed it 
to come to the floor expeditiously.
  Senators with amendments will have a chance to have a vote on those 
amendments. Already in our Senate education committee, we considered 58 
amendments, and we have adopted 29. We have had a fair and open 
process, which I believe is the main reason the committee vote was 
unanimous.
  I would like to say this: Senator Murray and I have exercised 
restraint. Neither of us has insisted on forcing into the bill every 
proposal about which we feel strongly. We know that to get a result we 
have to achieve consensus. We know that in the Senate, ``consensus'' 
means at least 60 votes. We know that if we succeed here, we will have 
to deal with our friends in the House of Representatives. After that, 
if we want a result, which we do, we want the President's signature. We 
want to fix No Child Left Behind--not just make a political statement.
  The only major objection to this bill that I have heard is one from 
some groups that believe the path to higher standards, the path to 
better teaching, and the path to real accountability is through 
Washington, DC, instead of State by State.
  I would like to offer three reasons why I think this is wrong and why 
I believe our consensus to restore decisions to those closest to the 
children is right.
  No. 1, States are better prepared today to set higher standards, to 
evaluate teachers, to develop good assessments, and to develop good 
accountability systems than they were when No Child Left Behind passed 
in 2001. President Bush and President Obama can take some credit for 
that and should.
  No. 2, the national school board--as I call it--which has been 
created over the last 10 years as we move more and more responsibility 
from States to Washington, DC, has created a backlash. It has made it 
harder to have higher standards. It has made it harder to evaluate 
teachers. It has showed conclusively that the better path to higher 
standards, better teaching, and accountability is through the States 
and not through Washington.
  No. 3, most Americans understand that you don't get wiser and more 
caring simply by getting on a plane and flying to Washington. In fact, 
the people closer to the children are usually better equipped to make 
decisions about their well-being.
  I have, principally because of age, a long view of this whole 
process. States are better prepared today than they used to be. I was 
Governor when Terrel Bell, President Reagan's Education Secretary in 
1983, issued ``A Nation at Risk,'' saying that our schools were in such 
a shape that if a foreign country had done that to our country, we 
would have considered it an act of war.
  I worked together with other Governors--the Governors who were 
elected adjacent to me, especially Governor Clinton, Governor Riley, 
and Governor Graham--and the National Governors Association. In 1985 
and 1986, Governor Clinton and I caused all of the Governors to work on 
something we called ``Time for Results'' to begin to move State by 
State toward more achievement for our students. Then in 1989, President 
George H. W. Bush called the Governors together to a summit and set 
national education goals.
  That never happened before in our country. It may sound like an easy 
thing to do, to say let's have goals of all children being proficient 
in math, science, English, history, and geography. But just to pick 
those subjects was a controversial topic. Just to spend that time on it 
was a great step forward.
  Then ``America 2000'' in 1991 and 1992, when I was Education 
Secretary, was the way to reach the goals. That is where we began to 
see this debate again. Is the best way to do it State by State, 
community by community or is the best way to do it through Washington, 
DC? President George H. W. Bush believed the best way to do it was 
State by State, community by community. He advocated voluntary national 
standards, but they were voluntary. He advocated voluntary national 
tests, but they were voluntary. He advocated accountability systems, 
but they were voluntary as well. He advocated more choices for parents 
of low-income children and an expansion of charter schools.
  What the Governors have done since that time is worked together State 
by State to create our standards, better tests, and better 
accountability systems. The Governors have also agreed that States 
would take the so-called NAEP test, the National Assessment of 
Educational Progress, which is a sample test. Not all students take it. 
But it keeps the Governor of Tennessee from setting a low standard, 
which we once did so we looked good when we achieved that standard. Now 
we can know whether Alaska and Tennessee are really comparable because 
that test is public and we take it.
  The second point I made about this was about the backlash. It may 
seem counterintuitive to say that it is harder to create higher 
standards because of the Common Core debate, but you

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would understand it pretty well if you ran for the Senate in a 
Republican primary or even in a general election, which I did last 
year. Common Core was an issue both in the primary and in the general 
election. What I said was this: Wait a minute; I think Washington 
should stay entirely out of it. But people were so upset with Common 
Core, not really so much because of what is in it but because 
Washington was requiring it or at least it seemed to them that it was 
Washington taking over local schools.
  The truth of the matter was that Common Core began with Bill Bennett, 
a former Education Secretary and a leading conservative, when he was 
head of the National Endowment for the Humanities here in Washington, 
DC. He sponsored research by E.D. Hirsch in Virginia, who wanted to put 
more rigor in academic curriculum.
  When the first President Bush called the Governors together and said 
we want to set these high goals and Governors begin to talk about what 
the standards for the proposed goals are, Governors began to work 
together on something called Achieve. There were some who said: Let's 
have Washington do it.
  But the Governor said: No, you stay out of it; we will do it 
together.
  It was out of this that the Common Core academic standards came 
together. It was basically a bunch of conservative Governors working 
together to add rigor to the system. But what spoiled it was that 
Washington's involvement in it in the 1990s created this enormous 
backlash and now Governors are backpedaling. At a time when, for 
example, in our State we have advanced manufacturing coming in and 
workers need to know a lot in order to get a job, we are arguing about 
whether to have high standards because of the backlash against Common 
Core. We need to get Washington out of the Common Core debate and let 
Tennessee and every other State make their own decisions about what 
their academic standards should be. Then, if you don't like what your 
child is learning, you can go talk to your Governor or your legislature 
and they have 100 percent of the authority to decide whether that is 
good or whether that is bad.
  Then there is teacher evaluation. As I said, I spent a lot of time on 
that in the 1980s and since. It is hard to do. It is hard enough to do 
without adding a new element, and the new element is the highly 
prescriptive method that is defined from Washington about how to do a 
teacher evaluation. That produced a backlash.
  Teachers unions are up in arms. When they are up in arms, that makes 
it harder to put in a teacher evaluation system. If you believe, as I 
do, that high standards and teacher evaluation are the underpinnings of 
a great education system and are the way that you help children learn 
what they need to know and are able to do, you do not want to create a 
backlash to those efforts by insisting on prescriptive definitions from 
Washington, DC.
  Finally, it is a strange idea, as I mentioned earlier as well, to 
suggest that those of us who fly from Knoxville to Washington--or 
Senator Murray flies a long way each week and goes all the way to the 
West Coast and back, but almost all of us go home almost every 
weekend--get that much smarter and that much wiser on the plane flying 
here. I may get a little less smart and a little less wise on the plane 
flight here. It doesn't help me to know any more about what is going on 
in the Tennessee mountains or the native areas of Alaska or in eastern 
Washington State by being here in Washington, DC.
  We spend 4 percent of the Nation's education dollars through this 
bill we are debating today. I think we have a right to ask: How are 
these children doing? Take a test, report the results, and let us see 
if children are being left behind. But we shouldn't presume then to 
say: Here then is what you ought to do about it. We are going to decide 
who is succeeding, who is failing, what the right way to fix that is. 
We can't do that with 50 million children, 100,000 schools, and 3.5 
million teachers. All those are better done by men and women who are 
closer to the children.
  One of the most eloquent statements of what I just said came from 
Carol Burris, New York's 2013 High School Principal of the Year. She 
wrote us after we began work on our proposal and put it online and this 
is what she said:

       Remember that the American public school system was built 
     on the belief that local communities cherish their children 
     and have the right and responsibility, within sensible 
     limits, to determine how they are schooled.
       While the federal government has a very special role in 
     ensuring that our students do not experience discrimination 
     based on who they are or what their disability might be, 
     Congress is not a National School Board.

  That is the principal of the year in New York State saying that.
  She went on to say:

       Although our locally elected school boards may not be 
     perfect, they represent one of the purest forms of democracy 
     that we have. Bad ideas in the small do damage in the small 
     and are easily corrected. Bad ideas at the federal level 
     result in massive failure and are far harder to fix.

  That is advice from the New York Principal of the Year. In other 
words, our well-intentioned guidance from Washington is usually not as 
effective as a decision made in the home, classroom, and community by 
those closest to the children.
  What we heard over and over from Democrats as well as Republicans was 
that while continuing measurements of academic progress are important 
in holding schools and teachers accountable, we should respect the 
judgments of those closest to the children and leave to them most 
decisions about how to help 3.4 million teachers help
50 million children in 100,000 public schools.
  A little humility on our part is an important part of the recipe for 
a successful fix of No Child Left Behind. I look forward to this 
debate. I particularly look forward to fixing this law that everybody 
seems to agree has to be fixed, and that most people seem to agree on 
how to fix it.
  If Senators were in a classroom, none of us would expect to receive a 
passing grade for unfinished work. Seven years is long enough to 
continue fixing No Child Left Behind.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator 
from New Jersey, Mr. Booker, follow my remarks on the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, since our Nation's founding, the idea of 
a strong public education for every child has been a part of the fabric 
of America because when all students have the chance to learn, we 
strengthen our future workforce, our country grows stronger, and we 
empower the next generation of Americans to lead the world. A good 
education can provide a ticket to the middle class, so improving 
education is an important part of what it means to grow our economy 
from the middle out, not from the top down.
  Today marks the first day of debate on our bipartisan bill to 
strengthen our education system by reauthorizing the Nation's K-12 
education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA. 
This work is a chance to recommit ourselves to the promise of a quality 
education. For every child, it is an opportunity to finally fix the 
current law, No Child Left Behind.
  I have been very proud to partner with the senior Senator from 
Tennessee throughout this process, and I commend Chairman Alexander for 
working with me to create this bipartisan bill and for passing the 
Every Child Achieves Act through the education committee with unanimous 
support.
  I think it is important at the onset to discuss why we need to fix 
the current law. I also would like to lay out what we accomplished in 
the Every Child Achieves Act and go through how I think we can best 
strengthen this bill and pass it through the Senate with bipartisan 
support.
  I wish to acknowledge my committee members as well. This bill is 
better

[[Page 10647]]

thanks to their hard work and commitment to their priorities and their 
communities.
  Nearly everyone agrees that No Child Left Behind is badly broken. For 
one, the current law required States to set standards for schools but 
then didn't give the schools the resources they needed to meet those 
standards. Second, across the country we are still seeing inequality in 
education, where some schools simply don't offer the same opportunities 
as others, and some schools still have very large achievement gaps.
  I have seen firsthand how this law is not working for my home State 
of Washington. No Child Left Behind has become so unworkable that the 
Obama administration began issuing waivers to exempt States from the 
law's requirements. Washington State had received a waiver but lost it 
last year, and now most of the schools in my State are categorized as 
failing.
  A few months back, I stood here on the Senate floor and told the 
story of a mom from Shoreline, WA. Her name is Lillian. Last year her 
son was going into the fourth grade in the same school district where I 
once served as a school board member. Lillian's son had a learning 
disability. With the help of teachers and specialists at his elementary 
school, he showed great signs of progress. But then Lillian got a 
letter in the mail 2 weeks before school started, and that letter 
described her son's school as failing. That left her worried about the 
kind of education her son was getting, and she said it gave her a wave 
of uncertainty over the coming school year.
  I have traveled around Washington State over the past decade and I 
have heard from a lot of my constituents, from teachers in the 
classrooms, to moms at the grocery stores, to tech company CEOs. They 
all have the same message: We need to fix the No Child Left Behind law. 
I was very glad that earlier this year we got to work on a bipartisan 
basis to find common ground to do just that, and I remain convinced 
that the only way to advance a bill to fix this broken law is with a 
bipartisan approach. Students, teachers, and parents are counting on us 
to do this, and now it is time to take the next step as we debate the 
Every Child Achieves Act here on the Senate floor.
  This bill is a strong step in the right direction to finally fixing 
No Child Left Behind and making sure all of our students have access to 
a high-quality public education. It addresses the high-stakes testing. 
I have heard from parent after parent, teacher after teacher in 
Washington State that students are taking too many tests. The current 
law overemphasized test scores to measure how students are doing in 
school. Our bill will give flexibility to States to use multiple 
measures--not just a single test score--to determine how well a school 
is performing. The bill will create a pilot program for States to 
design new assessments, and that will provide our States with a lot of 
flexibility for innovation. Those steps will reduce the pressure on our 
students, our teachers, and our parents so they can focus less on test 
prep and more on learning.
  The bill eliminates the one-size-fits-all provisions of No Child Left 
Behind that have been so damaging to our schools districts. Instead, 
the bill allows our communities, parents, and teachers to work together 
to improve schools and to ensure that every child receives a well-
rounded education.
  The bill maintains Federal protections to help students graduate from 
high school college- and career-ready. The bill also requires States to 
identify schools that do need improvement.
  When the education committee debated the bill, I was also proud, as 
the Senator from Tennessee mentioned, to work on a bipartisan amendment 
with Senator Isakson to expand and improve early learning programs. As 
a former preschool teacher, I have seen the kind of transformation 
early learning can inspire in a child, so I am proud that this bill 
will help us expand access to high-quality early childhood education so 
more of our kids can start kindergarten ready to learn.
  There are a few key ways that I want to continue to improve this 
bill. First of all, I believe we should strengthen the accountability 
requirements in the bill. Too many schools have failed too many of our 
children for too many years. When we don't hold the schools and States 
accountable for educating every child, it is the kids from our low-
income backgrounds, kids with disabilities, kids who are learning 
English, and kids of color who too often do fall through the cracks. 
Before No Child Left Behind, it was easy for schools to overlook the 
performance of these vulnerable groups of students. Before 2002, as 
long as the school's overall performance was OK, it didn't matter if 
students of color or students from low-income backgrounds struggled to 
make progress year after year. The overall average of all students 
allowed achievement gaps to be swept under the rug even as some 
students fell further and further behind. We cannot go back to those 
days, and we can't backtrack on holding our schools accountable for 
helping all of our students learn.
  States should still be required to identify the schools that are 
struggling the most so they can get the help and resources they need to 
improve. States need to identify the schools where some groups of 
students aren't making enough progress. These schools should get the 
support and locally designed interventions they need to better serve 
their students. Let's remember that holding States accountable for all 
students will only work if schools get the resources they need to 
promote students' success.
  Unfortunately, some schools simply don't provide the same educational 
opportunities as others. Oftentimes students of color don't even have 
the option to take an AP course or use up-to-date technology in the 
classroom. African-American and Latino students are significantly less 
likely to attend a high school that offers advanced math or art 
classes, and, on average, kids from low-income neighborhoods don't have 
access to qualified and experienced teachers like students from 
wealthier neighborhoods often do. A ZIP Code should never determine a 
student's academic success. We need to make sure all students have 
equitable resources.
  In the 1800s, Horace Mann, who is often called the father of American 
education, worked to make it universal and free for all. He famously 
said: ``Education . . . is the great equalizer.'' I believe that is 
true but only if we continue to hold ourselves accountable for 
providing educational opportunities to all students. The Every Child 
Achieves Act takes some very important steps to do that. As we debate 
this bill, I hope we can build on the progress and continue to move in 
the right direction.
  I do believe there are important ways we should be able to work 
together to improve the bill, but there are other ideas out there that 
may derail any chance of passing this bill and fixing No Child Left 
Behind. I know some of my Republican colleagues are interested in 
making title I funding ``portable.'' That name sounds innocuous enough, 
but that proposal would allow funds to be taken away from schools that 
need the help the most, and it would defy the original purpose of our 
Federal K-12 education law. ESEA was meant to help level the playing 
field for students growing up in poverty. Efforts to backtrack on our 
country's commitment to target funds to the highest needs schools and 
instead give funding away to our more affluent schools is a nonstarter.
  Others are interested in voucherizing the public school system. That 
would undermine the basic goals of public education by allowing funding 
designated for the most average students to flow out of the public 
school system and into mostly unaccountable private schools. Vouchers 
are unacceptable to me and would jeopardize our bipartisan work.
  I am looking forward to our debate to make this bill even better. 
Half a century ago President Lyndon Johnson directed Congress to 
improve education for our Nation's students. In January of 1965, in 
what would be just months before signing the original ESEA into law, 
President Johnson said that when

[[Page 10648]]

it comes to education, ``nothing matters more to the future of our 
country,'' and that remains true today. The future of our country 
hinges on our students' ability to one day lead the world, and a high-
quality education for every student is one of the best investments our 
country can make to ensure we have broad-based and long-term economic 
growth.
  Finishing this process we are working on today and getting a bill 
signed into law isn't going to be easy. Nothing in Congress ever is. 
But students, parents, teachers, and communities across our country, 
including in my home State of Washington, are looking to us here in 
Congress to fix this broken law. We cannot let them down.
  We need to work across the aisle to help our students and our schools 
and our teachers get some much needed relief from No Child Left Behind. 
We need to give our States flexibility while strengthening 
accountability and resource equity. We need to work together to 
reaffirm our Nation's commitment to ensuring that all students have 
access to a quality education regardless of where they live or how they 
learn or how much money their parents make. By doing so, we will help 
our Nation grow stronger for generations to come.
  I again thank the Senator from Tennessee for his tremendous 
leadership in getting us to this point and for working with us to make 
sure we get this bill to the President and signed into law so that we 
can all go home and say we fixed a badly broken law.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the 
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I rise 
today with the understanding that I have been a Senator for just a 
short while--about 19 months--and with the knowledge that I stand in a 
body full of champions for our Nation's kids. I am proud of the 
conversations I have had on both sides of the political aisle and see 
the earnestness and hard work to ensure that America is a place where 
all children can thrive.
  I wish to give a special thanks to Senators Alexander and Murray, the 
chairman and ranking member of the Senate HELP Committee. They have 
worked tirelessly in an effort to expand educational opportunities for 
children, and I have no doubt that they have already made lasting 
contributions to the lives of our children. In addition to that, they 
have taken a flawed legislative reality in No Child Left Behind and 
have already made significant strides in improving it. It should be 
applauded. They have done good work. In a nation that has been overcome 
with test craziness, they lowered those ridiculous bars and barriers 
that are being put up at the local level to achieving high education.
  I am proud to see a bipartisan consensus forming to correct the ills 
of No Child Left Behind which have been foisted upon school districts 
all over our country and which have made the quest for educational 
excellence more difficult, not easier or more empowering.
  I say all of that, but I must also say that I am here because there 
is an enormous amount of work still to do. This body must confront the 
dark places in our country where the ideals of the American educational 
system and where the dream of this country of equal access to 
opportunity is being failed. We have work to do. There is a moral 
urgency in this country, and that is what I am worried about today.
  It is deeply disconcerting to me that I cannot stand in the well of 
the Senate before you today and say that a child born in any ZIP Code 
in America will have access to a quality education and an equal shot in 
this Nation at learning the skills they need to make the most out of 
their lives, to contribute to our country, and to live their American 
dream.
  It is troubling that I cannot stand here in the well of this 
auspicious body and say that we are leading our peers around the globe 
when it comes to the number of our kids--percentage of the population--
who graduate from high school ready to succeed as part of the global 
economy.
  It is shameful and ignominious that I cannot stand here today and say 
that we are doing everything we can to ensure that all of our students 
can succeed and that we are holding those schools that are performing 
the worst in our Nation--those schools that often deal with the poorest 
of our country, the most marginalized of our country--that we are doing 
everything we can to serve them.
  There should be standards to which we hold ourselves accountable. For 
this Senator, it is this America where children are still struggling 
for the basic foundations of our ideals that concerns me.
  It was back in 1967 at Stanford University--my alma mater--that 
Martin Luther King stood and gave a speech about the other America. 
Sadly, we are a nation that still reflects these words from decades 
ago. He talked about a great America where children have quality 
schools, quality housing, and opportunities to succeed. That is the 
majority of our Nation. It makes us all proud and honored to serve this 
country that is an example to the globe of what is possible in a 
vibrant and strong democracy. But in that speech, Martin Luther King 
also talks about the other America. It is in this America, he said, 
that people are poor by the millions. ``They find themselves perishing 
on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material 
prosperity,'' King said.
  He said:

       In a sense, the greatest tragedy of this other America is 
     what it does to little children. Little children in this 
     other America are forced to grow up with clouds of 
     inferiority forming every day in their little mental skies. 
     And as we look at this other America, we see it as an arena 
     of blasted hopes and shattered dreams.

  He details this other America by saying that ``many people of various 
backgrounds live in this other America. Some are Mexican-Americans, 
some are Puerto Ricans, some are Indians.'' Millions of them are White. 
``But probably the largest group in this other America in proportion to 
its size in the population is the American Negro.''
  We are moving now on education legislation, but let's tell the truth 
of what is happening in this other America--that there is still a dark 
underside where lack of achievement and lack of opportunity in this 
other America must be addressed.
  I have visited schools all over New Jersey. We are a State that is 
the envy of America in the quality of our schools. We have reached 
heights of educational attainment, and New Jersey youngsters go to 
great, prestigious universities all over our State and our country. I 
am proud that we are one of the greatest education States in America. 
But I also know that even New Jersey has some schools--particularly in 
vulnerable places of high poverty--that fail to serve the genius of our 
children.
  I have also had the privilege to travel our Nation, having been 
invited to speak in cities from coast to coast, and, like New Jersey, I 
see signs of hope and signs of promise. I see kids going to schools in 
the toughest neighborhoods, but those schools are more than schools--
they are cathedrals of learning that serve their genius. Yet I am still 
told by parents from New Jersey and in our Nation, who look me in the 
eye and know their schools are failing their kids--they don't need 
reports from any government body to let them know their kids are not 
getting the education they deserve and to know the even more painful 
truth that their children, should they not get the education they 
deserve, will have options for themselves that are lost and constricted 
in this greatly global economy we have.
  I worry that if we put legislation forward which does not keep those 
children in the center of our hearts and our minds, the consequences of 
dashing those dreams are great for our Nation.
  When I was a child, I heard this poem by Langston Hughes:

     What happens to a dream deferred?
     Does it dry up
     like a raisin in the sun?
     Or fester like a sore--
     And then run?
     Does it stink like rotten meat?
     Or crust and sugar over--
     like a syrupy sweet?
     Maybe it just sags

[[Page 10649]]

     like a heavy load.
     Or does it explode?

  In our country, people who are in environments with schools that fail 
the genius of our kids witness the disastrous manifestation of that 
failure on a daily basis. We now know that in America, a young Black 
boy who does not graduate from high school has a 70 percent chance, 
without that diploma, of ending up in jail by his midthirties. We now 
know that in our prisons in this Nation, 67 percent of inmates are high 
school dropouts. We know that the national average spent for a student 
in our country is $12,643. Yet, somehow we allow funds to drain from 
the National treasure that are the kids in our schools, by spending 
almost $29,000, on average, to keep one person behind bars in federal 
prison.
  If we deny poor children a quality education, there will be 
disastrous consequences. We now know that in our Nation, if you are 
born in poverty, you have a 9-percent chance of going to college. I 
will repeat that. If you are born in poverty, you have a 9-percent 
chance of going to college and graduating. This is unacceptable.
  We cannot design legislation in this body that does not stand up to 
this reality. Indeed, the legislation we are passing now has its roots 
in its initial focus on the disadvantaged.
  Fifty years ago this past April, President Lyndon B. Johnson sat in 
front of what once was a one-room schoolhouse in Texas, next to a woman 
named Kate Deadrich Loney, and signed into law the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act. It had a purpose to it. It had a mission.
  Sitting next to his former teacher and in front of his former school, 
President Lyndon Johnson signed the law and said that this law 
``represents a major commitment of the federal government to quality 
and equality in the schooling that we offer our young people. By 
passing this bill, we bridge the gap between helplessness and hope for 
more than five million educationally deprived children.''
  That is not all he mentioned, but he specifically focused on those 
disadvantaged children--those 5 million in our Nation--who were not 
getting access to the American ideal, the American dream. Their dream 
was to be deferred or stolen or denied.
  Today in America, 6 percent of high schools fail to graduate one-
third of their students. We must do better by them. It is this issue in 
our country that we have to recognize.
  As stated in President Johnson's words, the Federal Government's role 
in education has been that of a bridge between helplessness and hope, 
one that identifies the needs of the underserved and the most 
vulnerable students and the schools that are not serving them. Since 
1965, the Federal Government has done a good job of playing a critical 
role in advancing equality and greater educational opportunity so that 
more children are included. The creation of Pell grants, title IX, and 
the first Education for All Handicapped Children Act are great strides 
our Nation has taken in being that bridge from helplessness to hope.
  The reauthorization of the critical legislation that first 
established that ``bridge'' has taken different forms over the past 50 
years. In certain instances, as in the case of No Child Left Behind, it 
took a step too far. That is why this Senator praises Senator Alexander 
and Senator Murray for beginning to correct the inadequacies and 
deficiencies and harm that bill has done.
  When it comes to reauthorization of the ESEA, we cannot allow for an 
overly prescriptive No Child Left Behind bill. We cannot afford to go 
back to that era. We must change. However, we cannot allow the pendulum 
to swing so far that we abdicate our responsibility to make sure every 
student--to make sure the students in that other America are being 
served by a quality school.
  It is not overly prescriptive to ask schools that are failing to 
graduate a large share of their students to do something differently. 
It is not overly prescriptive to ask schools--these 6 percent of our 
schools that are dropout factories in our Nation--to make changes to 
honor the children, their beauty, their dignity, and their potential. 
And it is certainly not asking too much that we who are putting 
hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Government into a 
system--that there is some accountability for these dropout factors.
  This body should be a steward of taxpayer dollars. Congress has a 
role when it comes to the investments we make in housing, when it comes 
to the investments we make in infrastructure, and when it comes to 
defense dollars, to make sure these dollars are serving the purpose to 
which they are extended--to make sure these investments produce returns 
for taxpayers. Today, the Federal Government and this body still have 
that critical role to play when it comes to making sure all American 
children have access to a quality education.
  The status quo is unacceptable. Too many of our children are still 
stuck in failing schools--schools that are so bad that they put 
thousands of children into that world where they do not have a chance 
at a college education or even getting a high school degree. The 
students succeeding in our country's quality schools will have the 
opportunity to become the next generation of teachers, mayors, police, 
firefighters, doctors, and Senators. They will lead the globe. This is 
what I am proud of as an American. The students in our country's 
failing schools deserve to have that same opportunity.
  I know this from traveling our country and traveling our State: that 
prodigy isn't bounded by geography and that genius is equally 
distributed in our country. Talent is as concentrated in one ZIP Code 
as it is in another. There are as many geniuses in Camden as there are 
in Princeton. The next Einstein or Gates or Hemingway is as likely to 
be growing up in Newark as they are in the Upper East Side of 
Manhattan. I have seen schools flourish in poor neighborhoods. I have 
seen great schools meet incredible challenges and succeed in educating 
our kids. We know it is possible, and we should expect better than we 
are seeing now.
  Our moral test is whether we will be able to attain success 
everywhere it might be found, whether we will be able to nurture the 
genius in all of our kids. We owe it to every child in America to 
ensure that every door is open for them to demand better. We need to 
demand better for our kids. We need to keep them front and center as we 
consider this bill on the floor.
  I want to conclude by saying that we cannot succeed as a nation, in 
an increasingly global competitive environment, if we leave genius on 
the sidelines. Our educational determination to help those children is 
not simply about them, it is about us. It is about whether we will get 
the full bounty of the strength and potential of our Nation or if we 
will cast many aside into those dark places, into that other America.
  We cannot now be damned by the self-defeating stakes of low 
expectations for ourselves and all of our children. Kids who languish 
in this other America because of a lack of compassion and support and 
investment cannot afford to have less accountability for their success.
  I know as we debate this bill there will be resistance to the idea 
that those failing most, those stuck in dropout factories, those in the 
other America don't deserve levels of accountability. But I know that 
if we focus on those children, to keep them at the center of our 
thoughts, as was done by President Johnson when this bill originated, I 
know we can be the America we want to be, a nation that when our 
children put their hands on their hearts and say those words, ``liberty 
and justice for all,'' that they are real, indeed, for all children.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                           Amendment No. 2089

       (Purpose: In the nature of a substitute)

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I call up the Alexander-Murray 
substitute amendment No. 2089.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Alexander] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2089.


[[Page 10650]]

  Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.


           Work in the Senate and Nuclear Agreement With Iran

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, last week I had a chance to travel the 
State of Texas. Of course, the Presiding Officer can imagine, I had a 
chance to move around the State to listen to what people were saying 
and, frankly, to tell them what it is we have done on their behalf in 
the Senate so far this year. By and large, I heard that folks are happy 
to see the Senate back to work, under new management, and getting 
things done that they elected us to do.
  I spent a good amount of time out in West Texas and in the panhandle 
and had a chance to speak to a number of farmers and ranchers in that 
part of the State. They are, frankly, very pleased to hear that they 
will soon have access to new markets in Asia now that the trade 
promotion authority bill has been passed and is the law of the land, 
and we are currently in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-
Pacific Partnership.
  The trade promotion authority, of course, passed last month and was 
signed by the President, and it represents a true bipartisan 
accomplishment between Congress and the President. While it is true 
that I disagree with the President more often than I agree with him, in 
this case we can both agree that opening new markets for our farmers, 
ranchers, and our small business people is good for our States and good 
for the country.
  Getting Texas beef, cattle, cotton, and other goods to new markets 
translates into better jobs, better wages, and a better economic 
climate for hard-working Texans. But of course passing the trade 
promotion authority legislation is just one example of what this 
Chamber has accomplished so far this year. Under new leadership, the 
Senate has made tremendous progress from what this Senate used to be. 
We have seen the return to regular order, functioning as a deliberate 
body that considers a wide range of legislation to benefit the everyday 
lives of the American people.
  I think pointing out that we voted on more than 130 amendments, 
compared to just the 15 that were voted on last year, is a great 
indicator that this Chamber is actually back working the way it should. 
The good news is, whether you are in the majority or the minority, 
everyone is getting a chance to participate in this process, and 
regular voting on amendments brought by any of our Members is now 
typical and not the exception to the rule.
  I mention we passed the trade legislation, but overall the Senate has 
passed more than 40 bipartisan bills. We have seen 22 of those already 
signed into law by President Obama. So the American people let their 
voices be heard last November 4. They sent us here to do their work. 
This week, we will take up another important piece of legislation. We 
will take up an education bill that will ultimately give school 
districts in Texas and across the country more flexibility and more 
power to make the best choices for their students.
  I know the HELP Committee--the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions 
Committee--the committee of jurisdiction in education matters, has 
worked hard under the leadership of Chairman Alexander and Ranking 
Member Murray. They brought this bill to the floor with a unanimous 
vote in the committee. So I and others look forward to an open 
amendment process and a vigorous debate over our Nation's education 
priorities and the important role the States play and local control 
plays in making sure all students have access to educational 
opportunities.
  Later this week, we will likely have a chance to reconcile the 
language between the House and the Senate version of the Defense 
authorization bill, a bill that will help equip our Armed Forces with 
the resources and give them the authorities they need to keep our 
country safe. Of course, the Senate will also continue discussions on 
how to responsibly address the challenges facing the highway trust fund 
and find a way forward for our transportation networks.
  I remain optimistic that this Chamber can ultimately take up 
appropriations bills that are needed to fund our troops on the 
battlefield and care for our veterans upon their return. Last month, 
our Democratic friends laid out a strategy, something they called the 
filibuster summer, saying unless they get 100 percent of what they 
want, that they are not going to allow the Senate to proceed to 
consider these appropriations bills.
  Well, I would like to just remind them there is a lot of work we have 
to do that needs to be done, and if we could just get back in the 
spirit of this bipartisan cooperation, everybody can let their voice be 
heard and their vote will count, but pure partisanship will not get the 
job done. The many Texans I spoke to back home want this spirit of 
diligent, focused work to continue. They certainly want to see us 
provide the resources to our troops that they need to carry out their 
mission. So while we have a strong track record so far in the 114th 
Congress, we still have a lot of work to do. I hope my friends across 
the aisle will continue to work with us on behalf of the people who 
sent us here.
  Separately, I know my colleagues and I are anxiously awaiting the 
news of the final outcome of Secretary Kerry's ongoing negotiations 
regarding Iran and its nuclear aspirations. As we all know, earlier 
this year, Congress passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which 
guarantees that Congress, on behalf of the American people, will have 
time to study, scrutinize, debate, and then ultimately vote on whether 
we approve or disapprove of the negotiated deal between Secretary Kerry 
and the administration and Tehran.
  If the President reaches a deal with Iran by Thursday, then Congress 
will have up to 30 days to review it and then to vote on whether to 
approve it. As I have said all along, I have grave concerns about how 
the President has been negotiating with one of our foremost 
adversaries, a country that constantly threatens the American people 
and our allies and has done nothing to garner our trust or respect.
  The broad outlines of the deal--of the potential deal--we have seen 
reported in the press don't look particularly promising. It seems to 
get actually worse by the day. So I strongly encourage the President 
and Secretary Kerry to remember that if you want a deal badly enough, 
that is exactly what you are going to get is a bad deal. So ``any deal 
at any cost'' is not the mantra of the American people who are 
understandably very wary of any agreement with Iran.
  But, fortunately, the Senate has proved we will not stand by and 
watch the President as he makes far-reaching agreements without the 
consent of the American people through their elected representatives. 
So I look forward to working with my colleagues to give very careful 
scrutiny, certainly the sort of scrutiny this proposed deal deserves, 
to make sure our country's best interests are protected. If this deal 
does not protect our national security and the security of the region 
and our allies, Congress may have no other choice than to vote it down 
by passing a resolution of disapproval.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ayotte). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of an 
amendment I have filed to the Every Child Achieves Act that will be 
brought up, I believe, later today. In the spirit of my friend the 
Senator from Texas I am glad he has joined me on this amendment. I know 
as we get into this terribly important education bill, I want to 
commend Senator Alexander, Senator Murray for their leadership in 
bringing it to the floor and trying to wrestle through the right 
balance of between Federal, State, and local partnerships in education. 
I look forward to being a part of that debate.
  While we will spend hours on the floor of the Senate debating issues 
around accountability and assessment,

[[Page 10651]]

terribly important issues, there is one issue I believe all of us in 
this body can agree upon, to make certain we ensure that all dollars 
that are spent on education are spent appropriately and in an efficient 
way and that most of those dollars end up in the classroom.
  This was a conversation I started when I was Governor of Virginia. 
When I looked around at the Commonwealth of Virginia, where we spend 
close to $9 billion a year on public education, I realized that many of 
the same debates we are having in the Chamber we were having in 
Virginia at that time. But again, one area where there was complete 
agreement was to make sure those dollars spent on education were spent 
efficiently.
  Too often school divisions, quite honestly, didn't know how to spend 
using best practices in terms of bus routes, energy usage, back-office 
staffing. How do you make sure you can take best practices around--I 
mentioned this was being done in Virginia, from around the State--and 
make sure those dollars were better spent, more efficiently, in the 
classroom.
  Well, we looked around the country and we actually found a program in 
Texas--again, why I am so grateful my friend the Senator from Texas, 
Mr. Cornyn, has joined me on this amendment. We put in place a program 
to bring better accountability to our school divisions.
  As I mentioned, too many school divisions don't have the ability to 
assess whether they are spending operational funds in the smartest way. 
My amendment helps school districts figure out how to be thoughtful 
about their operations budget, which again allows them to put more 
money back into their classrooms. I mentioned this was an initiative I 
started as Governor back in 2003 in Virginia.
  I mentioned as well that Virginia was spending a combined $9 billion 
in local, State, and Federal support for public schools. I felt it was 
very important we make sure that as much of those resources were spent 
in classroom instruction and not in back-office administrative 
functions. So, in Virginia, we asked our Department of Planning and 
Budget to design a school efficiency review program. Our public school 
divisions actually volunteered--a local school superintendent actually 
volunteered to work with the State Department of Education. It took 
some level of trust, but they volunteered to undergo a review of their 
noninstructional functions, things like human resources, purchasing, 
facilities, transportation, and food service.
  So we launched this program, and over a decade reviews have been 
conducted in 41 localities around the Commonwealth, in rural, suburban, 
and urban districts. Over the course of the history of this program, 
Virginia's program has identified $45 million in annual potential 
savings. In Virginia, each review cost an average of about $110,000 and 
produced an average annual savings of $1.1 million, a return in 
investment of nearly 9-to-1, a return that allowed these dollars to be 
more valuably spent on instruction.
  These reviews recommend commonsense steps: software programs to 
improve bus transportation routes, enterprise-wide facilities 
management, best practices in purchasing and personnel, and smart, 
responsible steps to conserve limited resources and direct those 
savings into the classroom.
  As I mentioned, we initially borrowed this concept from Texas. Since 
that time, additional States, including Oklahoma, Minnesota, New York, 
Kansas, and Arizona, have implemented similar programs.
  This commonsense best practice should be available to school 
districts nationwide. That is why I am proud, along with Senator 
Cornyn, to offer an amendment that will allow States to use their title 
IX consolidated administrative funds to pay for fiscal support teams. 
This proposal will empower localities with the information they need to 
better allocate limited resources so they get a maximum impact in the 
classroom. I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
support it. I believe this amendment will be brought up later by either 
Senator Murray or Senator Alexander, and I look forward to its 
consideration tomorrow.
  I yield the floor.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Ms. Warren pertaining to the introduction of S. 1709 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements of Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Ms. WARREN. I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise today as the Senate begins its 
consideration of the Every Child Achieves Act under the leadership of 
Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray--two great leaders who 
have done a great job on this bill. The HELP Committee, under their 
leadership, has produced a truly bipartisan effort to find solutions to 
the seemingly intractable problems facing our educational system. I 
commend our distinguished chairman and ranking member for their 
leadership and their commitment to prioritizing concrete results over 
partisan grandstanding.
  While the nature of compromise means that this bill may not be 
perfect in each Senator's eyes, it represents an opportunity for 
meaningful reform for America's schools, and I urge my colleagues to 
support its swift passage.
  Ensuring that every child has access to a high-quality education is a 
top priority shared by all Republicans and Democrats alike. In 2001, I 
joined 86 of my colleagues in supporting No Child Left Behind to 
address the shortcomings of our educational system. Despite the best of 
intentions, No Child Left Behind fell short of true success. Its 
testing requirements hamper learning by compelling students to take 
test after test to satisfy the law's various requirements. Its focus on 
metrics incentivizes schools to report higher graduation rates even if 
that means pushing out failing students unprepared for the working 
world. Because of these and other unintended consequences, of course, 
the current law is in desperate need of reform.
  With the Every Child Achieves Act, Congress now has an opportunity to 
correct the shortcomings of No Child Left Behind. Instead of setting 
artificial and unattainable requirements, the new legislation allows 
States to set their own standards for success. It defers to local 
leaders to formulate goals that are realistic and effective for their 
districts. It puts parents and teachers in the driver's seat, not 
Washington bureaucrats.
  For years, States have sought relief from burdensome Federal mandates 
in education, and many States find themselves in untenable positions 
thanks to Federal law. For example, my home State of Utah has struggled 
in the past few years with an impossible decision--either ask for a 
continuation of Department of Education waiver mandates or fall back on 
unattainable No Child Left Behind requirements and risk losing crucial 
Federal funding all together.
  Under this new bill, States will continue to develop their own 
standards and will establish their own accountability systems linked to 
these standards. States will also be able to say what they want their 
accountability systems to measure and will be able to determine how 
well their students are doing based on a variety of important metrics. 
Maintaining the Federal requirement for statewide annual testing is 
necessary to ensure transparency on school performance and to set a bar 
by which States can measure themselves in a comparable fashion.
  My colleagues and I were able to make significant improvements to 
this

[[Page 10652]]

legislation through the committee and the committee's process. I was 
especially pleased to see two amendments I care deeply about adopted by 
voice vote during the committee markup: the Innovative Technology 
Expands Children's Horizons--or I-TECH--Program and the Education 
Innovation and Research Program.
  Senator Baldwin and I worked closely to develop I-TECH to ensure that 
technology in the classroom is coupled with teacher support to give 
students access to a wide range of personalized learning opportunities. 
By intertwining technology and traditional teaching methods, we can 
tailor each student's educational journey to his or her individual 
needs and learning style to boost achievement.
  With the Education Innovation and Research Program, Senator Bennet 
and I created a flexible funding stream that would allow schools, 
districts, nonprofits, and small businesses to develop proposals based 
on the specific needs of students and the community. Funding for that 
program will be awarded based on an initial evidence-based proposal, 
with continued funding tied to demonstrated successful outcomes flowing 
from the project. It is time we start looking at new ways of investing 
in education, much like we do in other realms. Money should not be tied 
to what the U.S. Senate or the Federal Department of Education thinks 
is a good prescriptive idea. It should be tied to local innovation and 
clear outcomes.
  Senator Bennet and I have expounded on that idea by pushing for Pay 
for Success Initiatives in the underlying bill, as well as in the 
amendment process on the floor. Pay for Success allows the government 
to pay only for programs that actually achieve meaningful results. I 
have offered an amendment to allow funding from the early childhood 
program to be used in this manner.
  My home State of Utah has the first-ever Pay for Success Program 
designed to expand access to early childhood education for at-risk 
children. The Utah High Quality Preschool Program delivers a high-
impact, targeted curriculum that increases school readiness and 
academic performance among 3- and 4-year-olds. As children enter 
kindergarten better prepared, fewer students will need to use special 
education and remedial services in kindergarten through 12th grade, 
allowing schools and States to save money. We should build on this 
success and empower other States to do the same.
  In addition to these cost-saving programs, technology will also 
improve the quality of education in our country, but advancements in 
technology must come side-by-side with a conversation on how best to 
protect our children's privacy. Education technology is a multibillion 
dollar industry, and it is important to balance the needs for 
innovation and expansion in schools with reasonable privacy safeguards.
  To that end, I joined with the senior Senator from Massachusetts in 
filing an amendment to this legislation to create a structured 
commission to study important aspects of the convoluted world of 
student privacy. The primary law governing this realm--the Family 
Educational Rights and Privacy Act--was last updated in 2001. Since 
Congress last acted in this area, there have been significant changes 
in the way student information is stored and how outside parties use 
that information. These changes have led to the introduction of 
numerous proposals to update this outdated law.
  The amendment Senator Markey and I have introduced strengthens 
student privacy by requiring a commission to report to Congress on the 
current mechanisms for transparency, parental involvement, research 
usage, and third-party vendor usage of student information. The 
Commission will also be tasked with providing suggestions for 
improvement. This process will allow privacy experts, parents, school 
leaders, and the technology industry to provide us with a clear 
consensus on how best to protect personal data while not hampering 
development in schools or access to the important data we garner from 
aggregated student information.
  In addition to protecting student privacy, I have introduced another 
amendment crucial to ensuring success in all schools nationwide. The 
Every Child Achieves Act asks States to identify low-performing schools 
and to allow localities to intervene in these schools. One of the 
greatest tools Congress could give localities in this process would be 
the power to renegotiate contracts and to reallocate money and policies 
in more effective ways. Under my amendment, many failing schools would 
be permitted to ask relief from contracts from vendors and unions, 
among others. These schools would also be able to renegotiate the terms 
of these contracts.
  Currently, school funding is trapped in a cobweb of unwieldy and 
complicated vendor contracts and collective bargaining agreements. Old, 
automatically renewing contracts with janitorial services, 
transportation vendors, teachers unions, and testing companies 
represent massive locked-in expenditures. Education leaders need 
flexibility to enable failing schools to get a fresh start--the same 
opportunity available to successful charter and private schools. Right 
now, local leaders' budgets and staffing decisions are largely shaped 
by forces beyond their control. My amendment will encourage more 
commonsense change from the Federal level to empower localities to act 
in the best interest of the students they serve.
  The bill we are now considering will make significant improvements to 
the quality of education in this country and the ability of our 
students to compete in a global economy once they enter the workforce. 
I strongly urge my colleagues to support these efforts, and I again 
express my congratulations and my support to the distinguished chairman 
and ranking member on this committee, Senator Alexander and Senator 
Murray, who have done a really good job in the best interests of 
children all over this society.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Utah for his 
remarks and his contribution to the committee's legislation. He is a 
former chairman of the Senate's education committee--we call it the 
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--and his contributions 
in this legislation on early childhood education and other matters are 
awfully important, and I thank him for his work.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, let me just state that this legislation 
before us is of vital national importance, and I would like to commend 
Chairman Alexander and Senator Murray for their commitment to an open 
and inclusive debate. They and their staffs have been unfailingly 
responsive, helpful, and thoughtful throughout the process. I was a 
long-standing member of the education committee, having served on the 
Education and Labor Committee in the other body, and on the Health, 
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for 14 years in this body. And 
I have had the privilege of working with my colleagues over the last 
two reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
  So, again, I must commend Senators Alexander and Murray for the 
extraordinary work they have done and also my colleague Senator 
Whitehouse, who has been a major contributor to this effort. I am 
hopeful and confident, because of the leadership of Senators Alexander 
and Murray, that we will reach a strong bipartisan outcome on this very 
important piece of legislation.
  I appreciate the opportunity to continue to work with the committee 
on issues that are very important. The fair and equitable access to the 
core resources for learning, access to effective school library 
programs, professional development for teachers and principals, family 
engagement, and environmental education are all topics I think are 
critical, and I am very appreciative my colleagues also thought they 
were important and gave them very thorough and very fair consideration.

[[Page 10653]]

  I am convinced, if you provide the resources, if you support teachers 
and principals and you engage families, students will thrive. This 
legislation reflects that perspective, and I appreciate that very much.
  Our challenges and our responsibilities are to create and support 
learning environments that enable young people to hone their talents, 
discover their skills, and pursue their passions. In some respects, 
education is about finding a child's talent--letting them find their 
talent. If you do that, then stand back, they will do wonderful things 
for themselves, their communities, and this Nation.
  In fact, our Nation is very much dependent upon education to achieve 
our noblest ideals. As we create educational opportunities for all, we 
fulfill the basic aspiration of this country. While we know we still 
have work to do, I am very pleased at the work that has been done so 
far by the committee.
  We are closing the gaps in high school graduation between minority 
and other students--majority students--but college education gaps are 
widening, and that is something that must be addressed. The debate we 
begin today is vital because the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
is not just about elementary schools and high schools, it is about 
preparing young people for what comes next--for college, postsecondary 
education, for careers, and for contributions to their communities. We 
have to start at the beginning to get it right in the middle and in the 
end. Again, Senators Alexander and Murray have brought this 
perspective, this bipartisan approach, and I commend them for it.
  This bill is an improvement over current law. The Every Child 
Achieves Act maintains the critical transparency and high expectations 
for all students that were the hallmarks of the No Child Left Behind 
Act. It does so while updating the parts of the law that have become 
unworkable and counterproductive, such as the overly prescriptive 
approach to school improvement and corrective action.
  I am pleased the Every Child Achieves Act continues Federal support 
in key areas for building strong and successful schools, including 
investments in literacy and school library programs, for professional 
development to strengthen educator effectiveness, and family engagement 
in education. From the beginning, access to effective school library 
programs was a critical part of the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Act. The results from a recent National Center for Education Statistics 
survey shows there are still gaps in access to school libraries.
  Effective school library programs are essential supports for 
educational success. Multiple education and literacy studies have 
produced clear evidence that school libraries staffed by qualified 
librarians have a positive impact on student achievement.
  Now, Senator Cochran and I introduced the Strengthening Kids' 
Interest in Learning and Libraries--SKILLS--Act to ensure that school 
libraries continue to be a part of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act. The Every Child Achieves Act recognizes this need by 
including an authorization to provide funds to high-need school 
districts to support effective school library programs.
  Soon we will be voting on an amendment that Senator Cochran and I are 
offering to further integrate school library programs into the core 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act formula grant programs. I 
encourage all our colleagues to vote yes on this bipartisan amendment 
that will support student learning.
  I am also pleased that the Every Child Achieves Act recognizes the 
importance of ensuring that disadvantaged children have access to books 
in their homes from a very early age. Literacy skills are the 
foundation for success in school and in life. Developing and building 
these skills begins at home, with parents as the first teachers.
  Senator Grassley and I introduced the Prescribe A Book Act to help 
address this issue, and the Every Child Achieves Act includes some key 
provisions from this legislation.
  We also know teachers and principals are two of the most important 
in-school factors related to school achievement. It is essential that 
teachers, principals, and other educators have a comprehensive system 
that supports their professional growth and development starting on day 
one and continuing throughout their careers.
  Senator Casey and I introduced the Better Education Support and 
Training Act to create such a system. Once again, I am extraordinarily 
pleased that the Every Child Achieves Act includes many of the 
provisions of that legislation, particularly the focus on equitable 
access to experienced and effective educators.
  I remain concerned, however, that the failure to define an 
``inexperienced teacher'' will mask inequities and will limit the 
usefulness of the reporting for parents and communities. I hope we can 
clarify this issue as we proceed forward.
  Family engagement is another critical area this bill addresses. I 
hope we will be able to strengthen these provisions by increasing the 
resources that school districts dedicate to meaningful, evidence-based 
family engagement activities and by providing a statewide system of 
technical assistance that supports these efforts.
  I have been working with Senators Coons and Bennet on amendments that 
make these additions to the bill based on the Family Engagement and 
Education Act that I introduced with Senators Coons and Whitehouse in 
the past two Congresses.
  Most fundamental to the question of whether we move closer to 
achieving our ideals for educational equity and excellence is 
resources. The grand bargain of the No Child Left Behind Act was 
greater accountability coupled with greater resources. We have fallen 
short on accountability for resources. The authorized level for title I 
for fiscal year 2007 was $25 billion. That is in the No Child Left 
Behind Act. Today, we are nowhere near that level--at only $14.4 
billion.
  We need to be just as concerned about opportunity gaps as we are 
about achievement gaps, and that is why the first bill I introduced 
this Congress was the Core Opportunity Resources for Equity and 
Excellence--CORE--Act to establish an accountability mechanism for 
resource equity. We must look to hold our educational system 
accountable for both results and for resources.
  The Every Child Achieves Act includes some of what I proposed in the 
CORE Act by bringing some long-overdue transparency to resource equity, 
requiring States to report on key measures of school quality beyond 
student achievement on statewide assessments, including student access 
to experienced and effective educators, access to rigorous and advanced 
course work, availability of career and technical educational 
opportunities, and safe and healthy school learning environments.
  However, transparency alone is not enough. I am pleased to be working 
with Senators Kirk, Baldwin, and Brown on the opportunity dashboard of 
core resources amendment, which will add further provisions from the 
CORE Act; namely, some accountability for action on disparities in 
access to critical educational resources.
  With more than one in five school-aged children living in families in 
poverty and roughly half of our public school students eligible for 
free or reduced-price lunches, we cannot afford nor should we tolerate 
a public education system that fails to provide resources and 
opportunities for the children who need them the most.
  Again, I thank Chairman Alexander and Senator Murray for bringing 
this bill before us so thoughtfully, so carefully, and with so much 
effort and expertise, and their staffs also. I hope we can work 
together on this amendment to improve an already excellent bill.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I simply wish to acknowledge the 
contributions of the Senator from Rhode Island. He may not officially 
be on the committee, but he stays actively interested in all of the 
education issues. He

[[Page 10654]]

has made important contributions to the pending legislation in support 
of libraries, and we are working with him on a number of matters, 
including risk sharing and higher education. So I thank the Senator 
from Rhode Island for his leadership and his continued interest in 
better schools and better colleges and universities.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.


       Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act

  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I rise to speak on S. 474, the 
Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act.
  This is a bipartisan bill that Senator Joe Manchin and I introduced 
some time ago. We have been working on this for a while now, and we 
intend to offer this legislation as an amendment to the pending 
legislation, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act.
  This is a commonsense bill, designed simply to protect children from 
child molesters and predators--predators who infiltrate our schools 
because they know that is where the kids are.
  The vast overwhelming majority of school employees, we all know, are 
people who care very much about kids. It would never occur to them in a 
million years to do anything to harm the children in their care. But 
the fact is there are pedophiles in our society--there are predators in 
our society--and they do in fact look to find opportunities where they 
will find their prey. So we need protections against these people as 
they try to infiltrate our schools. These are protections I have been 
fighting for, for some time now, and I am not going to stop until we 
get this done.
  There are lots of reasons to have this fight. For me, as for so many 
people, it is personal. I have three young children. They are 15, 13, 
and 5 years old. When I send my kids to school in the morning and watch 
my children get on the schoolbus, I have every right to know I am 
sending my children somewhere where they can be safe, where they can be 
cared for, where they can be in the safest possible environment, and 
every other parent deserves that too--every parent across Pennsylvania, 
every parent across America.
  Unfortunately, too many children and too many families have 
discovered this is not always the case. The horrific story which 
brought my attention to this cause and my passion for this was the 
story about a little boy named Jeremy Bell.
  The story begins in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. One of the 
schoolteachers was molesting boys. He was a serial pedophile. He raped 
a boy. The school officials discovered what was going on. They brought 
it to the attention of law enforcement, but law enforcement authorities 
never had enough strong evidence to make a successful criminal case. 
The school decided they would dismiss the teacher for sexually abusing 
students. But, appallingly, the school also helped this teacher get a 
new job in West Virginia, where he became a teacher, in part because he 
got a letter of recommendation from the school that knew he was preying 
on their students. But they wanted him to be someone else's problem, so 
they gave him a letter of recommendation.
  He went to a new school in a nearby State. Eventually, he became a 
principal. Along the way, of course, he continued his ways, culminating 
in the rape and murder of a 12-year-old boy named Jeremy Bell. Justice 
did finally catch up with that monster. He is now in jail serving a 
life sentence for the murder of Jeremy Bell, but for Jeremy Bell that 
justice came too late.
  We would like to think this is a bizarre and isolated event that 
could never happen again. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Last 
year alone, there were 459 school employees arrested across America for 
sexual misconduct with the children they are supposed to be taking care 
of--459--and those were the ones where there was enough of a case that 
the arrest was actually made. It is more than one per day. Twenty-six 
of them were in my State of Pennsylvania.
  Sadly, we are halfway through 2015 now, and we are doing even worse. 
In the first half of 2015, there have been 265 such arrests. We are on 
pace to have well over 500 school employees across America arrested for 
sexual misconduct with the children they are supposed to be taking care 
of.
  Every single one of these stories has a terrible tragedy at the 
center: a little girl whose sexual abuse began at age 10 and only ended 
when at 17 years old she found herself pregnant with the teacher's 
child, a teacher's aide who raped a young, mentally disabled boy in his 
care, a kindergarten teacher who kept a child in during recess, then 
forced her to perform sexual acts on him.
  This is hard stuff to talk about, but that doesn't make it go away. I 
think we need to confront it, and the cases are too many to ignore.
  Senator Manchin and I decided it is time for Congress to act, to do 
something to make it more difficult for these predators to carry out 
these appalling acts, so we introduced the Protecting Students Act. It 
has two important goals, two protections, designed to prevent convicted 
sex offenders from infiltrating our country's schools. The first is a 
standard background check process that will catch those who have been 
convicted. The second feature in our legislation would end this 
terrible practice we saw in the Jeremy Bell case--the practice of a 
school knowingly helping a child molester find employment in a new 
school, a practice called passing the trash.
  Now, both of these provisions, both of these ideas have very broad 
bipartisan support. The House of Representatives unanimously passed a 
bill including both protections last Congress, and just last fall 
Congress voted 523 to 1--both Houses combined voted unanimously, with 
only one dissenting voice--for even more expansive background check 
language enacted in the Child Care Development Block Grant that we all 
voted for, 523 to 1.
  In addition, Senator Manchin's and my legislation, the Protecting 
Students Act, has been endorsed by numerous organizations in various 
categories.
  First, child protection groups: National Children's Alliance, which 
oversees the Nation's Children's Advocacy Centers, the National Center 
for Missing and Exploited Children, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against 
Rape, the Children's Defense Fund, the Pennsylvania Partnerships for 
Children. Law enforcement organizations overwhelmingly support our 
legislation: the National Association of Police Organizations, the 
Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. Prosecutors support 
Senator Manchin's and my bill. The Association of Prosecuting Attorneys 
and the National District Attorneys Association have both endorsed the 
bill. The medical professionals at the American Academy of Pediatrics 
and the Pennsylvania School Board Association, they all have endorsed 
this legislation, and they have said it has two essential features, two 
ways in which we would be protecting our kids.
  The first is the criminal background check. Let me be clear. Every 
State in the Union performs some kind of background check already. That 
is true. That is a fact. The problem is that many of them are woefully 
inadequate. For instance, several States fail to check all the school 
workers. They check teachers, for instance, but not nonteachers, and 
others will check certain criminal databases, but they won't check 
others, and so they miss convictions.
  Our legislation, Protecting Students Act, requires that if a school 
wants to accept Federal funds, it has to perform background checks on 
all adult workers who have unsupervised access to children. That would 
be both new hires and existing employees.
  Many States have only recently adopted background check policies. 
Many employees were hired before they put the background check policies 
in place, so many of these employees were never subject to a background 
check.
  Consider the case of 64-year-old William Vahey, who taught for 
decades across America and across the globe at some of the world's most 
elite schools. He would give his young students Oreo cookies laced with 
narcotics. While the boys slept, the teacher molested them

[[Page 10655]]

and photographed them. Scores of children were sexually abused. This 
teacher had been convicted for sexual abuse of children in California 
when he was in his twenties, but he was hired before many States had 
background check requirements, and therefore he was grandfathered into 
the system. The Protecting Students Act ensures that convicted sex 
offenders like William Vahey will be discovered and they will not be 
hired.
  It also would include contractors. There are 12 States that don't 
require background checks for contractors at all. This fact recently 
gave Montana parents a rude awakening.
  An audit of Montana's busdrivers found that 123 drivers had criminal 
histories, including 1 driver whose conviction landed him on the Sexual 
and Violent Offender Registry and 1 with an outstanding arrest warrant.
  Running checks is really only helpful if the checks are thorough 
enough to find all convictions. So our legislation would require the 
four major databases to be checked: the FBI fingerprint check in the 
National Crime Information Center database, the National Sex Offender 
Registry, the State criminal registry, and State child abuse and 
neglect registries. These background check requirements constitute the 
first part of our bill. As I said, this was passed unanimously in the 
House. I wouldn't think this would be controversial.
  The second part of our bill is equally important, and that is the 
part which precludes passing the trash. It addresses the terrible acts 
that led to and made it possible for little Jeremy Bell to be raped and 
murdered. What this provision says is that if a school wishes to 
receive Federal funds, the school may not knowingly help a child 
molester obtain a new teaching job. I would think this would not be 
controversial. The practice, as I alluded to before, has become so 
common, sadly, that it has its own moniker. It is called passing the 
trash. It has become all too prevalent.
  I see that the Senator from Tennessee would like to address the body.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Will the Senator yield----
  Mr. TOOMEY. I will.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. For the purpose of allowing me consent to take up 
several amendments, including Senator Toomey's amendment, which he has 
worked on so hard for a long period of time and he and I have 
discussed? This will take about 60 seconds, if he permits this. Senator 
Murray is here.
  I thank the Senator for his indulgence.
  I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be offered by 
the two bill managers or their designees in the following order: 
Fischer, No. 2079; Peters, No. 2095; Rounds, No. 2078; Reed, No. 2085; 
and Warner, No. 2086.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 2079 to Amendment No. 2089

  Mr. ALEXANDER. On behalf of Senator Fischer, I call up amendment No. 
2079 and ask unanimous consent that it be reported by number.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk shall report the 
amendment by number.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Alexander], for Mrs. 
     Fischer, proposes an amendment numbered 2079 to amendment No. 
     2089.

  The amendment is as follows:

           (Purpose: To ensure local governance of education)

       On page 800, between lines 17 and 18, insert the following:

     SEC. 9115A. LOCAL GOVERNANCE.

       Subpart 2 of part F of title IX (20 U.S.C. 7901 et seq.), 
     as amended by sections 4001(3), 9114, and 9115, and 
     redesignated by section 9106(1), is further amended by adding 
     at the end the following:

     ``SEC. 9540. LOCAL GOVERNANCE.

       ``(a) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in this Act shall be 
     construed to allow the Secretary to--
       ``(1) exercise any governance or authority over school 
     administration, including the development and expenditure of 
     school budgets, unless otherwise authorized under this Act;
       ``(2) issue any regulation without first complying with the 
     rulemaking requirements of section 553 of title 5, United 
     States Code; or
       ``(3) issue any non-regulatory guidance without first, to 
     the extent feasible, considering input from stakeholders.
       ``(b) Authority Under Other Law.--Nothing in subsection (a) 
     shall be construed to affect any authority the Secretary has 
     under any other Federal law.''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.


                Amendment No. 2095 to Amendment No. 2089

  Mrs. MURRAY. On behalf of Senator Peters, I call up amendment No. 
2095 and ask unanimous consent that it be reported by number.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk shall report the 
amendment by number.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray], for Mr. Peters, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 2095 to amendment No. 2089.

  The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To allow local educational agencies to use parent and family 
          engagement funds for financial literacy activities)

       On page 172, line 25, insert ``financial literacy 
     activities and'' before ``adult education''.


                Amendment No. 2078 to Amendment No. 2089

  Mr. ALEXANDER. On behalf of Senator Rounds, I call up amendment No. 
2078 and ask unanimous consent that it be reported by number.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk shall report the 
amendment by number.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Alexander], for Mr. Rounds, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 2078 to amendment No. 2089.

  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To require the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of 
  the Interior to conduct a study regarding elementary and secondary 
         education in rural or poverty areas of Indian country)

       On page 723, after line 23, insert the following:

     SEC. 7006. REPORT ON ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION IN 
                   RURAL OR POVERTY AREAS OF INDIAN COUNTRY.

       (a) In General.--By not later than 90 days after the date 
     of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Education, in 
     collaboration with the Secretary of the Interior, shall 
     conduct a study regarding elementary and secondary education 
     in rural or poverty areas of Indian country.
       (b) Report.--By not later than 270 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Education, in 
     collaboration with the Secretary of the Interior, shall 
     prepare and submit to Congress a report on the study 
     described in subsection (a) that--
       (1) includes the findings of the study;
       (2) identifies barriers to autonomy that Indian tribes have 
     within elementary schools and secondary schools funded or 
     operated by the Bureau of Indian Education;
       (3) identifies recruitment and retention options for highly 
     effective teachers and school administrators for elementary 
     school and secondary schools in rural or poverty areas of 
     Indian country;
       (4) identifies the limitations in funding sources and 
     flexibility for such schools; and
       (5) provides strategies on how to increase high school 
     graduation rates in such schools, in order to increase the 
     high school graduation rate for students at such schools.
       (c) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) ESEA definitions.--The terms ``elementary school'', 
     ``high school'', and ``secondary school'' shall have the 
     meanings given the terms in section 9101 of the Elementary 
     and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7801).
       (2) Indian country.--The term ``Indian country'' has the 
     meaning given the term in section 1151 of title 18, United 
     States Code.
       (3) Indian tribe.--The term ``Indian tribe'' has the 
     meaning given the term in section 4 of the Indian Self-
     Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. 450b).


                Amendment No. 2085 to Amendment No. 2089

  Mrs. MURRAY. On behalf of Senator Reed, I call up amendment No. 2085 
and ask unanimous consent that it be reported by number.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk shall report the 
amendment by number.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray], for Mr. Reed, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 2085 to amendment No. 2089.

  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 
   regarding school librarians and effective school library programs)

       On page 69, after line 25, insert the following:
         ``(ii) assist local educational agencies in developing 
     effective school library programs

[[Page 10656]]

     to provide students an opportunity to develop digital 
     literacy skills and to help ensure that all students graduate 
     from high school prepared for postsecondary education or the 
     workforce without the need for remediation; and''.
       On page 107, between lines 17 and 18, insert the following:
       ``(B) assist schools in developing effective school library 
     programs to provide students an opportunity to develop 
     digital literacy skills and to help ensure that all students 
     graduate from high school prepared for postsecondary 
     education or the workforce without the need for remediation; 
     and''.
       On page 282, strike lines 18 and 19 and insert the 
     following:
       ``(xiii) Supporting the instructional services provided by 
     effective school library programs.''.
       On page 305, strike lines 14 and 15 and insert the 
     following:

       ``(M) supporting the instructional services provided by 
     effective school library programs;''.

       On page 364, line 9, insert ``school librarians,'' after 
     ``personnel,''.
       On page 365, line 10, insert ``school librarians,'' after 
     ``support personnel,''.
       On page 771, lines 12 and 13, strike ``and speech language 
     pathologists,'' and insert ``, speech language pathologists, 
     and school librarians''.


                Amendment No. 2086 to Amendment No. 2089

  Mrs. MURRAY. On behalf of Senator Warner, I call up amendment No. 
2086 and ask unanimous consent that it be reported by number.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk shall report the 
amendment by number.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray], for Mr. Warner, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 2086 to amendment No. 2089.

  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To enable the use of certain State and local administrative 
                    funds for fiscal support teams)

       On page 772, after line 23, insert the following:

     SEC. _____. CONSOLIDATION OF STATE ADMINISTRATIVE FUNDS FOR 
                   ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION PROGRAMS.

       Section 9201(b)(2) (20 U.S.C. 7821 (b)(2)) is amended--
       (1) in subparagraph (G), by striking ``and'' after the 
     semicolon;
       (2) in subparagraph (H), by striking the period and 
     inserting ``; and''; and
       (3) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(I) implementation of fiscal support teams that provide 
     technical fiscal support assistance, which shall include 
     evaluating fiscal, administrative, and staffing functions, 
     and any other key operational function.''.

     SEC. ____. CONSOLIDATION OF FUNDS FOR LOCAL ADMINISTRATION.

       Section 9203(d) (20 U.S.C. 7823(d)) is amended to read as 
     follows:
       ``(d) Uses of Administrative Funds.--
       ``(1) In general.--A local educational agency that 
     consolidates administrative funds under this section may use 
     the consolidated funds for the administration of the programs 
     and for uses, at the school district and school levels, 
     comparable to those described in section 9201(b)(2).
       ``(2) Fiscal support teams.--A local educational agency 
     that uses funds as described in 9201(b)(2)(I) may contribute 
     State or local funds to expand the reach of such support 
     without violating any supplement, not supplant requirement of 
     any program contributing administrative funds.''.

  Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for 
Senator Toomey to offer amendment No. 2094 to background checks during 
today's session of the Senate, with side-by-sides by each bill manager, 
if applicable, and that no second-degree amendments be in order to the 
Toomey or side-by-side amendments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Chair and the Senator 
from Pennsylvania. I interrupted his remarks, but I thought it was 
important to make sure that the full Senate consented to an ability to 
deal with an issue he has worked on for so long.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I am claiming my time. I want to thank 
Senator Alexander for the sincere effort we have been engaged in for 
some time to find our common ground on this. I appreciate his 
constructive efforts. I know they are continuing, and I hope we will be 
able to reach an agreement on this. I thank the Senator.


       Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act

  I was talking about the second part of our legislation. The first 
part is requiring background check standards that would actually work. 
The second part is a provision that would forbid this terrible practice 
known as passing the trash. When we hear the idea that a school, a 
principal, a superintendent or a school district would knowingly and 
willfully recommend for hire a known predator, it strikes us as so 
morally repulsive that we think this couldn't really seriously happen 
except in the most bizarre and unusual circumstances. I wish that were 
the case. It is not the case. The fact is it happens.
  Let me give you an example. In February, WUSA News 9 reported some 
really shocking news on the public school system of Montgomery County, 
Maryland. Since 2011, 21 Montgomery County public school workers have 
been investigated for child sexual abuse or exploitation. The news 
station learned that the Montgomery County school system ``keeps a 
`confidential database' of personnel who demonstrate `inappropriate or 
suspicious behavior' toward children--a watch list of suspected abusers 
who are working in area schools.''
  WUSA 9 learned that the school system has a record of passing the 
trash. For example, elementary school teacher Daniel Picca abused 
children for 17 years. The school system knew. What did they do? The 
teacher was punished. You know what his punishment was? It was to 
assign him to another school again and again--17 years of passing a 
known child molester from one elementary school to another.
  This is appalling. This has to stop. It has to stop now. The Federal 
Government can play a role in stopping it. Frankly, only the Federal 
Government can play a role because sometimes the passing the trash 
occurs across State lines, as in the case of Jeremy Bell.
  Or, for example, more recently, a Las Vegas, NV, kindergarten teacher 
was arrested for kidnapping a 16-year-old girl and infecting her with a 
sexually transmitted disease. That same teacher had molested six 
children, all fourth and fifth graders, several years before while 
working as a teacher in Los Angeles, CA. The Los Angeles school 
district knew about these allegations. In fact, in 2009 the school 
district recommended settling a lawsuit--a suit that alleged that the 
teacher had molested the children. The school district wanted to 
settle.
  When this teacher came across the State lines to Nevada to work, the 
Nevada school district specifically asked if there had been any 
criminal concerns regarding the teacher. The Los Angeles school 
district not only hid the truth, not only hid what they knew about this 
molester, but it provided three references for the teacher.
  For those folks who suggest that States can solve this problem on 
their own, I have a question: What in the world can Nevada do about the 
behavior that is occurring in California? Since when can the laws of 
one State reach into and be enforced in another State?
  I know the answer. It can't. It doesn't work. The only way to deal 
with this cross-border abuse, this horrendous abuse of kids, is with 
Federal legislation.
  The Toomey-Manchin bill that we are going to be offering as an 
amendment to this underlying legislation has a simple proposition: If a 
school district wants to take Federal tax dollars, it can't use that 
money to hire convicted sexual offenders of kids.
  Is that really unreasonable? Is that really too much to ask? To 
accomplish that, the school district has to perform a criminal 
background check on those workers who have unsupervised access to 
children. The school district must prevent passing the trash. That has 
to be illegal. It has to be illegal to knowingly and willfully 
recommend for hire a pedophile who is molesting children. There is no 
one who can stand here and tell me these protections against child 
sexual predators are not urgently needed--not when more than one person 
is being arrested every day across America for committing sexual crimes 
against children and the rate at which these people are being arrested 
is accelerating.

[[Page 10657]]

  What is more urgent than that? The Protecting Students Act has 
overwhelming bipartisan support. As I said earlier, the House passed 
this legislation unanimously last Congress--unanimously. How many 
things can pass the House unanimously? This did. The entire Congress, 
the House and Senate together, adopted that virtually identical 
background check requirements be imposed for kids at daycares, younger 
children, by a vote of 523 to 1.
  We have already vetted this. We have already been down this road. 
This body and the House have expressed their support for this. I would 
remind my colleagues that the Protecting Students Act has been endorsed 
by many, many groups. I rattled off several of them: Child protection 
groups, law enforcement groups, prosecutors, the medical professionals 
at the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Pennsylvania School 
Board Association. The Toomey-Manchin proposal is the only proposal 
that is endorsed by these groups.
  We know there are going to be alternatives. There are going to be 
side-by-sides. Those alternatives do not have the endorsements of these 
organizations, for reasons that we may need to elaborate on later.
  Finally, there are 459 arrests--more than one a day. Every single one 
of those represents a tragedy--a childhood that has been shattered, a 
family that has been torn by grief, by self-blame, by betrayal. The 
numbers aren't staying the same. The numbers are growing. The problem 
is getting worse.
  How many more arrests do we need before the Senate decides that it is 
time that we do our part to protect these kids? Children of America 
have waited long enough, and I say no more waiting--no more passing 
child molesters into new schools so they can find new victims, no more 
defenseless children such as Jeremy Bell falling victim to a known 
child predator, no more excuses for not enacting a bill that the House 
of Representatives has passed unanimously over a year ago.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Protecting Students from Sexual 
and Violent Predators Act and to vote aye when I offer it as an 
amendment this week.


                Amendment No. 2094 to Amendment No. 2089

  Madam President, I ask to set aside the pending amendment in order to 
call up amendment No. 2094.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Toomey] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2094 to amendment No. 2089.

  Mr. TOOMEY. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

  (Purpose: To protect our children from convicted pedophiles, child 
 molesters, and other sex offenders infiltrating our schools and from 
schools ``passing the trash''--helping pedophiles obtain jobs at other 
                                schools)

       At the end of title IX, add the following:

     SEC. ____. PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM CHILDREN FROM CONVICTED 
                   PEDOPHILES, CHILD MOLESTERS, AND OTHER SEX 
                   OFFENDERS.

       Title IX (20 U.S.C. 7801 et seq.), as amended by this 
     title, is further amended by adding at the end the following:

              ``PART H--SCHOOL EMPLOYEE BACKGROUND CHECKS

     ``SEC. 9651. SHORT TITLE.

       ``This part may be cited as the `Protecting Students from 
     Sexual and Violent Predators Act'.

     ``SEC. 9652. DEFINITION OF SCHOOL EMPLOYEE.

       ``In this part, the term `school employee' means--
       ``(1) a person who--
       ``(A) is an employee of, or is seeking employment with, an 
     elementary school, secondary school, local educational 
     agency, or State educational agency, that receives funds 
     under this Act; and
       ``(B) as a result of such employment, has (or will have) a 
     job duty that results in unsupervised access to elementary 
     school or secondary school students; or
       ``(2) a person, or an employee of a person, who--
       ``(A) has a contract or agreement to provide services with 
     an elementary school, secondary school, local educational 
     agency, or State educational agency, that receives funds 
     under this Act; and
       ``(B) as a result of such contract or agreement, the person 
     or employee, respectively, has a job duty that results in 
     unsupervised access to elementary school or secondary school 
     students.

     ``SEC. 9653. BACKGROUND CHECKS.

       ``(a) Background Checks.--Not later than 2 years after the 
     date of enactment of the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015, 
     each State educational agency, or each local educational 
     agency in any case where State law designates a local 
     educational agency to carry out the requirements of this 
     part, that receives funds under this Act shall, as a 
     condition of receiving such funds, have in effect policies 
     and procedures that--
       ``(1) require that a criminal background check be conducted 
     for each school employee that includes--
       ``(A) a search of the State criminal registry or repository 
     of the State in which the school employee resides;
       ``(B) a search of State-based child abuse and neglect 
     registries and databases of the State in which the school 
     employee resides;
       ``(C) a Federal Bureau of Investigation fingerprint check 
     using the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification 
     System; and
       ``(D) a search of the National Sex Offender Registry 
     established under section 119 of the Adam Walsh Child 
     Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (42 U.S.C. 16919);
       ``(2) prohibit the employment of a school employee as a 
     school employee if such employee--
       ``(A) refuses to consent to a criminal background check 
     under paragraph (1);
       ``(B) makes a false statement in connection with such 
     criminal background check;
       ``(C) has been convicted of a felony consisting of--
       ``(i) murder;
       ``(ii) child abuse or neglect;
       ``(iii) a crime against children, including child 
     pornography;
       ``(iv) spousal abuse;
       ``(v) a crime involving rape or sexual assault;
       ``(vi) kidnapping;
       ``(vii) arson; or
       ``(viii) physical assault, battery, or a drug-related 
     offense, committed on or after the date that is 5 years 
     before the date of such employee's criminal background check 
     under paragraph (1); or
       ``(D) has been convicted of any other crime that is a 
     violent or sexual crime against a minor;
       ``(3) require that each criminal background check conducted 
     under paragraph (1) be periodically repeated or updated in 
     accordance with State law or the policies of local 
     educational agencies served by the State educational agency;
       ``(4) upon request, provide each school employee who has 
     had a criminal background check under paragraph (1) with a 
     copy of the results of the criminal background check;
       ``(5) provide for a timely process, by which a school 
     employee may appeal, but which does not permit the employee 
     to be employed as a school employee during such appeal, the 
     results of a criminal background check conducted under 
     paragraph (1) which prohibit the employee from being employed 
     as a school employee under paragraph (2) to--
       ``(A) challenge the accuracy or completeness of the 
     information produced by such criminal background check; and
       ``(B) establish or reestablish eligibility to be hired or 
     reinstated as a school employee by demonstrating that the 
     information is materially inaccurate or incomplete, and has 
     been corrected;
       ``(6) ensure that such policies and procedures are 
     published on the website of the State educational agency and 
     the website of each local educational agency served by the 
     State educational agency; and
       ``(7) allow a local educational agency to share the results 
     of a school employee's criminal background check recently 
     conducted under paragraph (1) with another local educational 
     agency that is considering such school employee for 
     employment as a school employee.
       ``(b) Fees for Background Checks.--
       ``(1) Charging of fees.--The Attorney General, attorney 
     general of a State, or other State law enforcement official 
     may charge reasonable fees for conducting a criminal 
     background check under subsection (a)(1), but such fees shall 
     not exceed the actual costs for the processing and 
     administration of the criminal background check.
       ``(2) Administrative funds.--A local educational agency or 
     State educational agency may use administrative funds 
     received under this Act to pay any reasonable fees charged 
     for conducting such criminal background check.

    ``PART I--BAN ON AIDING AND ABETTING CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE THROUGH 
                          `PASSING THE TRASH'

     ``SEC. 9661. BAN ON AIDING AND ABETTING CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE 
                   THROUGH `PASSING THE TRASH'.

       ``Each State or State educational agency, or each local 
     educational agency in any case where State law designates a 
     local educational agency to carry out the requirements of 
     this part, that receives funds under this Act shall, as a 
     condition of receiving such funds, have in effect laws, 
     regulations, or policies and procedures that prohibit any

[[Page 10658]]

     agency or person from transferring, or facilitating the 
     transfer of, any school employee if the agency or person 
     knows, or recklessly disregards information showing, that 
     such school employee engaged in sexual misconduct with a 
     minor in violation of law.''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.


                   Nomination of Kara Farnandez Stoll

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, today, we are finally, finally going to 
vote on the nomination of Kara Farnandez Stoll to serve as a judge on 
the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She is 
superbly qualified, and once confirmed, she will be the first woman of 
color to serve on the Federal Circuit.
  She has the strong endorsement of the non-partisan Hispanic National 
Bar Association as well as from the Federal Circuit Bar Association, 
and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. In its letter 
of support to the Judiciary Committee, the Hispanic National Bar 
Association, HNBA, wrote that their due diligence has confirmed that 
Ms. Farnandez Stoll ``maintains the highest ethical and professional 
standards. She is also competent and hardworking. Her litigation 
experience, commitment to public service, and temperament make her an 
ideal candidate for a court appointment.'' I could not agree more. So 
why did it take so long for the Republican leadership to schedule a 
confirmation vote for this uncontroversial, highly qualified, and 
historic nominee?
  The President nominated Ms. Farnandez Stoll last year--nearly 8 
months ago. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously reported her 
nomination to the full Senate more than 2 months ago. There is no good 
reason why her confirmation vote has been stalled over and over again.
  Unfortunately, the Republican majority's treatment of Ms. Farnandez 
Stoll's nomination is more pattern than aberration. Six months into 
this new Republican-led Congress that was supposed to move forward on 
things and the Senate has only confirmed a handful of judges. In fact, 
it has been more than 6 weeks since a vote was even scheduled by the 
majority leader for a single judicial nominee. This glacial pace of 
confirmations is a dereliction of the Senate's constitutional duty to 
provide advice and consent on judicial nominees. Many are concerned 
that such treatment threatens the functioning of our independent 
judiciary.
  We have 11 other consensus judicial nominations pending on the Senate 
Executive Calendar in addition to Ms. Farnandez Stoll. No one can 
credibly claim that the majority's slow pace in scheduling confirmation 
votes is due to a lack of nominees. This group includes another nominee 
who has received the strong support of the HNBA--Armando Bonilla--one 
of five pending nominees to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, CFC. Like 
Ms. Farnandez Stoll, Mr. Bonilla's confirmation will be an historic 
milestone--when confirmed he will be the first Hispanic judge to hold a 
seat on the CFC.
  In less than 48 hours, the Judiciary Committee is expected to report 
out another HNBA-endorsed nominee, Luis Felipe Restrepo, who will fill 
a judicial emergency vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third 
Circuit. Judge Restrepo was unanimously confirmed 2 years ago by the 
Senate to serve as a district court judge in Pennsylvania. I have heard 
no objection to his nomination, yet it took 7 months just to get him a 
hearing. Once confirmed, Judge Restrepo will be the first Hispanic 
judge from Pennsylvania to ever serve on this court and only the second 
Hispanic judge to serve on the Third Circuit.
  If Senate Republicans had an issue with any of the pending nominees 
or if they sought time to debate them on the floor, some of the delay 
might be understandable. But no Senator has spoken in opposition to any 
of the pending nominees. In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee 
reported all 11 of them by voice vote. Instead of receiving timely 
consideration of their nominations, however, these uncontroversial 
nominees have not been treated fairly by the Senate majority.
  There is a different way to lead. In the last 2 years of George W. 
Bush's term, Democrats came into the majority. Some thought we would 
slow up his judges. We did not. I served as chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee during those last 2 years of President George W. Bush's 
administration and we confirmed 68 district and circuit court judges 
during that time. In fact, by this time in the seventh year of the Bush 
administration, the Democratically controlled Senate had confirmed 21 
judges--including 18 district and 3 circuit court judges. Compare that 
to this seventh year of the Obama administration under Republican 
control, in which the Senate has thus far confirmed just four district 
court judges this year. Just four. Now this is outrageous. It hurts. It 
politicizes the Federal bench. It hurts the rules of law in this 
country.
  So under a Democratic majority with a Republican President, we 
confirmed five times more judges than the Senate Republican majority 
has allowed under their control of the Senate for a Democratic 
President. The disparity of treatment is clear, and it is wrong. 
Incidentally, that is the same way we did it when Democrats took over 
control of the Senate during the last 2 years of President Reagan's 
term. We moved judges at a much faster pace than anything Republicans 
have allowed us to do under President Obama. This is wrong. This is 
petty partisanship that hurts our independent judiciary. We are not 
asking for anything special but we are saying it would be nice if 
Republicans treated Democrats the same way we treated them.
  We should also not forget the rising number of judicial vacancies in 
our Federal courts. At the start of this Congress, there were 44 
vacancies, including 12 vacancies deemed ``judicial emergencies'' by 
the nonpartisan Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That number 
has climbed to 63 vacancies, including 27 ``judicial emergency'' 
vacancies on our district and circuit courts. The vast majority of 
these vacancies are concentrated in States with at least one Republican 
home State Senator. Of particularly concern are four circuit court 
``judicial emergency'' vacancies: two in Texas, one in Alabama, and one 
in Kentucky. Each vacancy has been left open for well over a year, 
including one in Texas that has remained vacant for almost 3 years.
  All Senators know that it is our constitutional duty to provide 
advice and consent on judicial nominees. When it comes to filling 
vacancies on the Federal courts in our State, we have unique insight 
into our States' legal communities to share with the President before 
he makes a nomination. Americans expect us to do our jobs and in the 
Senate that includes ensuring their access to the Federal courts. I 
urge all Senators to work with the President to fill the growing number 
of judicial vacancies in their States.
  We will at least make some small progress today as we finally take up 
Ms. Farnandez Stoll's nomination. Her extensive experience on issues 
that come before the Federal Circuit will serve the court well. She is 
currently a partner at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett and 
Dunner, a law firm specializing in intellectual property law. Ms. 
Farnandez Stoll also teaches as an adjunct professor at George Mason 
University Law School. Before practicing law, Ms. Farnandez Stoll was a 
patent examiner in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Ms. Farnandez 
Stoll received her B.S. in electrical engineering from Michigan State 
University in 1991 and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law School 
in 1997. Upon graduating from law school, she served as a law clerk to 
Federal Circuit Judge Alvin Schall. I trust that her background and the 
reputation she has earned in the legal community will serve her well as 
she begins this new chapter.
  I congratulate Ms. Farnandez Stoll on what I expect will be her 
successful, albeit long overdue, confirmation. I urge the Senate 
leadership to act responsibly by scheduling votes for the other 11 
uncontroversial judicial nominees still pending on the Executive 
Calendar.
  I yield the floor.

[[Page 10659]]



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