[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11000-11001]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                             OPPOSE H.R. 5

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in 
opposition to the current version of H.R. 5, the House Republican bill 
which seeks to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 
and encourage my colleagues to adopt the Democratic substitute offered 
by Ranking Member Bobby Scott.
  Let me start by reading you a quote that truly strikes me as telling 
of where we have come from and where we find ourselves today. On May 
22, 1964, at the University of Michigan, President Lyndon Baines 
Johnson remarked:

       In many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula 
     are outdated. Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid, 
     and many of our paid teachers are underqualified. So we must 
     give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. 
     Poverty is not a bar for learning, and learning must often 
     escape from poverty.

  President Johnson went on to say:

       But more classrooms and more teachers are just not enough. 
     We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence 
     as it grows in size. This means better training for our 
     teachers. It means preparing our youth to enjoy their hours 
     of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means 
     exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to 
     stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation.

  Let's just take a moment to let that sink in.
  Those were words read in 1964, during President Johnson's Great 
Society Speech. Almost every single point in President Johnson's 
remarks has direct import of the perils our education system faces 
today.
  Teachers are still underpaid, and in so many areas, underqualified. 
Classroom sizes are increasing, and the quality of education is 
continuing to deteriorate.
  Hunger and poverty continue to afflict our inner-city students in an 
alarmingly disproportionate rate, and disparity of resources and access 
to a quality education seems, at times, to continue expanding. The 
achievement gap between our most impoverished students remains 
inextricably tied to the wealth gap, and the numbers are discouraging.
  Instead of moving forward by improving on and implementing lessons 
learned from the failed policies of No Child Left Behind, H.R. 5 guts 
the core intent of the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
of 1965.
  H.R. 5 is like a blast from the past and fails our students and their 
families in a myriad of ways. Among some of the most egregious 
provisions in this proposed iteration of ESEA, H.R. 5 includes the 
concept of portability for title I funds.
  Sold and messaged as a promotion of choice, portability instead 
adversely affects students who are in schools and

[[Page 11001]]

districts with the highest concentration of poverty and need. In short, 
portability is a ruse, one that takes resources from, rather than gives 
to our most underserved and needy children.
  Additionally, as the ranking member of the Science, Space, and 
Technology Committee, and a longtime advocate of STEM--science, 
technology, mathematics, and engineering--education, I was alarmed by 
the utter and complete exclusion of any reference to STEM education 
within this base text.
  We should be retooling our education system to fit the needs of our 
ever-evolving globalized economy, not running back to the factory-style 
education that doesn't provide our children with the skills they need 
to compete.
  Education is the ladder to opportunity and central to keeping alive 
the American Dream. We must fight to ensure that every single child, 
regardless of their background, is given the opportunity to reach their 
God-given potential.
  No matter what race--Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, or Native 
American--rich, poor, immigrant or not, we must remain steadfast in our 
dedication to equality and the equity of opportunity.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to take this bill back to the drawing 
board and make sure that education in America is reflective of our 
principles as a nation. I urge my colleagues to make sure that we 
protect the American Dream and keep America the land of equal 
opportunity.
  If you work hard and play by the rules, everyone deserves a fair shot 
and a fair shake at a fulfilling life. The ZIP Code you grow up in 
should not determine the life you live.

                          ____________________