[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 8975-8976]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                  NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Murray and I rise today to 
speak about our shared concerns with language included in this year's 
National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA.
  Section 578 of this year's National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, 
is an inappropriate place from which to impose mandates on nearly 
20,000 public elementary and secondary schools in 1,225 public school 
districts across the country.
  Legislative language is included in the NDAA this year that dictates 
disruptive policies on public schools that would create a complicated 
and confusing system where one school system follows established 
background checks under State or local law, while a neighboring county 
must now comply with a new unfunded Federal mandate. This language 
should not be included in the final version of this bill.
  The U.S. Senate takes seriously the goal of ensuring the safety of 
the more than 50 million children in our 100,000 public schools, 
including federally connected children. These issues have been and 
should be discussed, debated, and legislated within the appropriate 
committees of jurisdiction. Measures related to education are within 
the jurisdiction of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee under Rule XXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate, as well 
as within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Education and the 
Workforce under Rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives for 
the 114th Congress.
  So while it may be appropriate for the Armed Services Committee to 
dictate background check policies for the 172 schools operated by the 
Department of Defense, it is not appropriate to use the authorization 
bill for the Department of Defense to impose mandates on nearly 20,000 
public elementary and secondary schools in 1,225 public school 
districts across the country.
  These 20,000 public schools, out of 100,000 total, are being singled 
out because they receive ``Impact Aid'' funds from the Federal 
Government under title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Act, ESEA, of 1965. The purpose of the program is to ``fulfill the 
Federal responsibility to assist with the provision of educational 
services to federally connected children in a manner that promotes 
control by local educational agencies with little or no Federal or 
State involvement.''
  According to the Government Accountability Office, 46 States already 
require background checks of some kind for all public school employees, 
and 42 States have established professional standards or codes of 
conduct for school personnel. Section 578 of the NDAA would create 
confusion for all those States and localities, as they are forced to 
navigate two sets of potentially conflicting background checks 
policies.
  As chairman and ranking members of the Senate HELP Committee, Senator 
Murray and I worked tirelessly last year to pass a long-overdue 
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Our law, 
called the Every Student Succeeds Act, addressed the issue of 
background checks.
  I now want to yield to my colleague, Mrs. Murray, to speak on this 
issue.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank the Chairman of the HELP 
Committee, Senator Alexander, for his comments.
  I share his concerns that section 578 of the National Defense 
Authorization Act bill is not the right way to ensure students can 
learn in safe and secure school environments, and will impose unfair 
and unreasonable requirements on more than 1,200 schools districts 
across the country. Criminal background checks are a critically 
important means to ensure that students are safe in our schools, and 
that is why they are required in 46 States. But the language of section 
578 will force the 1,225 school districts that receive Impact Aid 
funds--and which are in almost every State--to have two separate 
criminal background check systems for different schools and different 
employees within a single school district. It is costly, duplicative, 
poorly conceived, and should not be part of a Defense authorization 
bill.
  In my State of Washington 628 schools, about a quarter of our public 
schools, receive Impact Aid funds and would be subject to a separate 
expensive set of background checks that differs from the background 
checks already conducted. In the chairman's State, 571 schools receive 
Impact Aid funds and would be subject to this different standard. It is 
fundamentally unfair and not beneficial to students to ask our schools 
and our school districts to assume the costs of these checks, which are 
similar to but not exactly the same as those already conducted in our 
States.
  Our highest priority is making sure students in schools across the 
country are protected. But I agree with the chairman that section 578 
of the National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, is not the right way 
to help schools effectively protect their students. As the Chairman 
already noted,

[[Page 8976]]

the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that 
occurred less than a year ago took a major step forward in protecting 
unsuspecting students and families from school employees suspected of 
abuse in previous positions. We incentivized schools and districts to 
report cases of suspected abuse to law enforcement and made it far more 
difficult for schools to quietly allow suspected abusers to seek 
employment in another State or school district. The amendment that 
provided those protections was adopted by a vote of 98-0.
  While this was an important step forward, I continue to look for ways 
to build on it and continue our work making sure students are being 
protected most effectively. Unfortunately, rather than taking the 
important step of extending similar protections for students to schools 
operated by the Department of Defense, the bill instead overrides a 
comprehensive Department of Defense criminal background check 
regulation that provides strong new protections to students and is less 
than a year old. NDAA section 578 imposes a background check system 
with serious problems on DOD schools and then further extends that 
problematic background check system to non-Department of Defense 
schools all over the country.
  Section 578 imposes a system of criminal background checks that 
prohibits people from working in any capacity in these schools if they 
have committed low-level offenses having nothing to do with violence or 
children. Unlike the laws in 29 States, as well as the new Department 
of Defense regulation, section 578 of the NDAA offers employees no way 
to demonstrate mitigating circumstances and requires that employees are 
terminated while appealing a finding, even though these records are 
often inaccurate or incomplete.
  Section 578 is unnecessary, expensive, unfairly creates competing 
background check systems in States across the county and, most 
importantly, is not the right way to ensure our schools are safe. This 
provision is not within the jurisdiction of the Armed Services 
Committee, and I join the chairman in his position that it should not 
be included in the final bill.
  Mr. President, I thank the Senator for engaging in the colloquy.

                          ____________________