Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time be evenly charged against the two sides, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, if I could ask the Senator, does his amendment contain a cap as to each case? Is he saying that each capital case will be limited to a certain amount that can be spent on the defense attorney?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me just state my understanding of this. When I was in private practice--and I don't pretend to know the details of all the circumstances the Senator from Oklahoma is talking about, but when I was court appointed to handle a case, I was expected, through that hourly fee that was granted to me, to cover all of my costs, which meant the costs of my office, costs of my assistants, the costs of everything. Frankly, the hourly fee I got for court-appointed work was substantially less than the hourly fee I got for any other work. And I assume that is still the case. So I think to make the comparison he is making and say the U.S. attorney gets $118,000 and the court-appointed attorney gets $125 per hour, and that we should try to make a comparison there, I think it is really very much apples to tangerines because, in fact, the U.S. attorney has a tremendous office arrangement, with support of all kinds, in addition to his salary, whereas the court-appointed attorney gets none of that.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Is my understanding correct that for fiscal year 1999 the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee did not identify individual programs and funding amounts for discretionary grants for bus and bus facilities, but that the conference with the other body may present an opportunity to identify individual projects and funding amounts? If that is indeed the case, can the citizens of Northern New Mexico count on the Senators' efforts to identify $10 million to purchase the needed buses and bus facilities to allow the Park and Ride program to continue beyond the first year?

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Senators for their consideration. construction of the new castle county airport control tower

Mr. BINGAMAN. I know the Senators are aware that, at my request, last year the subcommittee provided $1.5 million to the state to begin full- time transit service in Northern New Mexico this fall using leased buses and borrowed facilities. Is the Ranking Member also aware that the commitment of the local governments to the program has also been demonstrated by individual contributions of $100,000 each from the City of Santa Fe, Santa Fe County, Los Alamos County, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory?

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise to make a few remarks regarding a bill I am introducing today, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Improvement Act. Mr. President, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act or RECA was originally enacted as a means of compensating thousands of individuals who suffered from exposure to radiation as a result of the federal government's nuclear testing program and federal uranium mining activities. While the government can never fully compensate for the loss of a life or the reduction in the quality of life, RECA serves as a cornerstone for the national apology Congress extended in 1990 to the victims of the radiation tragedies. In keeping with the spirit of that apology, the legislation I introduce today will further correct existing injustices and provide compensation for those whose lives and health were sacrificed as part of our nation's effort to win the Cold War. In 1990, I was pleased to have been a sponsor of the RECA legislation here in the Senate. I was very optimistic that after years of waiting, some degree of redress would be given to the thousands of miners in my state of New Mexico. I chaired the Senate oversight hearing on this issue in Shiprock, N.M. for the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee in 1993 and began to hear of changes that were necessary. To that end, I worked to facilitate changes in the regulatory and administrative areas. Unfortunately, I have heard from many of my constituents that the program still does not work as intended. I have received compelling letters of need from constituents telling me how RECA needs to be amended. The letters come from widows unable to access the current compensation. Miners and millers tied to oxygen tanks, in respiratory distress or dying from cancer write to tell me how they have been denied compensation under the current act. Family members write of the pain of fathers who worked in the mills. They recount how their fathers came home covered in the ``yellow cake'' of uranium oxide that was floating in the air of the mills. The story of their father's cancers and painful breathing are vivid in these letters and yet the current act does not address their needs. Mr. President, the bill I introduce today will address the issues they raise in their sometimes angry and often tear stained letters. Their points are backed by others as well. In fact, the bill incorporates findings by the prestigious Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) which has, since 1990, enlarged scientific evidence about radiogenic cancers and the health effects of radiation exposures. In other words, because of their good work, we know more now than we did in 1990 and we need to make sure the compensation we provide keeps pace with our medical knowledge. Other amendments will, in essence, adopt and incorporate into RECA the recommendations made in October 1995 by the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. This blue-ribbon committee determined that U.S. uranium miners were used as subjects of an experiment which had tragic results. It used this language to condemn the ethical outcome of this study: The grave injustice that the government did to the uranium miners, by failing to take action to control the hazard and by failing to warn the miners of the hazard, should not be compounded by unreasonable barriers to receiving the compensation the miners deserve for the wrongs and harms inflicted upon them as they served their country. Mr. President, I would like to cite several of the key provisions in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Improvement Act. Currently RECA covers those exposed to radiation released in underground uranium mines that were providing uranium for the primary use and benefit of the nuclear weapons program of the U.S. government. The bill would make all uranium workers eligible for compensation including above ground miners, millers, and transport workers. RECA currently covers individual termed ``downwinders'' who were in the areas of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona affected by atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1950's. This bill expands the geographical area eligible for compensation to include the Navajo Reservation. In addition, the bill expands the compensable diseases for the downwind population by adding salivary gland, urinary bladder, brain, colon, and ovarian cancers. Currently, the law has disproportionately high levels of radiation exposure requirements for miners to qualify for compensation as compared to the ``downwinders.'' My legislation would set a standard of proof for uranium workers that is more realistic given the availability of mining and mill data. The bill also removes the provision that only permits a claim for respiratory disease if the uranium mining occurred on a reservation. Thus, the bill will allow for further filing of a claim by those miners, millers, and transport workers who did not have a work history on a reservation. In addition, the bill would change the current law so that requirements for written medical documentation is updated to allow for use of high resolution CAT scans and allow for written diagnoses by physician in either the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Indian Health Service to be considered conclusive. In 1990, we joined together in a bipartisan, bicameral effort and assured passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Now, either years later, I put forward this comprehensive amendment to RECA to correct some omissions, make RECA consistent with current medical knowledge, and to address what have become administrative horror stories for the claimants. I look forward to the debate in the Senate on this issue and hope that we can move to amend the current statue to ensure our original intent . . . fair and rapid compensation to those who served so well. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the Radiation Improvement Compensation Act printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise to make a few remarks regarding a bill I am introducing today, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Improvement Act. Mr. President, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act or RECA was originally enacted as a means of compensating thousands of individuals who suffered from exposure to radiation as a result of the federal government's nuclear testing program and federal uranium mining activities. While the government can never fully compensate for the loss of a life or the reduction in the quality of life, RECA serves as a cornerstone for the national apology Congress extended in 1990 to the victims of the radiation tragedies. In keeping with the spirit of that apology, the legislation I introduce today will further correct existing injustices and provide compensation for those whose lives and health were sacrificed as part of our nation's effort to win the Cold War. In 1990, I was pleased to have been a sponsor of the RECA legislation here in the Senate. I was very optimistic that after years of waiting, some degree of redress would be given to the thousands of miners in my state of New Mexico. I chaired the Senate oversight hearing on this issue in Shiprock, N.M. for the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee in 1993 and began to hear of changes that were necessary. To that end, I worked to facilitate changes in the regulatory and administrative areas. Unfortunately, I have heard from many of my constituents that the program still does not work as intended. I have received compelling letters of need from constituents telling me how RECA needs to be amended. The letters come from widows unable to access the current compensation. Miners and millers tied to oxygen tanks, in respiratory distress or dying from cancer write to tell me how they have been denied compensation under the current act. Family members write of the pain of fathers who worked in the mills. They recount how their fathers came home covered in the ``yellow cake'' of uranium oxide that was floating in the air of the mills. The story of their father's cancers and painful breathing are vivid in these letters and yet the current act does not address their needs. Mr. President, the bill I introduce today will address the issues they raise in their sometimes angry and often tear stained letters. Their points are backed by others as well. In fact, the bill incorporates findings by the prestigious Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) which has, since 1990, enlarged scientific evidence about radiogenic cancers and the health effects of radiation exposures. In other words, because of their good work, we know more now than we did in 1990 and we need to make sure the compensation we provide keeps pace with our medical knowledge. Other amendments will, in essence, adopt and incorporate into RECA the recommendations made in October 1995 by the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. This blue-ribbon committee determined that U.S. uranium miners were used as subjects of an experiment which had tragic results. It used this language to condemn the ethical outcome of this study: The grave injustice that the government did to the uranium miners, by failing to take action to control the hazard and by failing to warn the miners of the hazard, should not be compounded by unreasonable barriers to receiving the compensation the miners deserve for the wrongs and harms inflicted upon them as they served their country. Mr. President, I would like to cite several of the key provisions in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Improvement Act. Currently RECA covers those exposed to radiation released in underground uranium mines that were providing uranium for the primary use and benefit of the nuclear weapons program of the U.S. government. The bill would make all uranium workers eligible for compensation including above ground miners, millers, and transport workers. RECA currently covers individual termed ``downwinders'' who were in the areas of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona affected by atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1950's. This bill expands the geographical area eligible for compensation to include the Navajo Reservation. In addition, the bill expands the compensable diseases for the downwind population by adding salivary gland, urinary bladder, brain, colon, and ovarian cancers. Currently, the law has disproportionately high levels of radiation exposure requirements for miners to qualify for compensation as compared to the ``downwinders.'' My legislation would set a standard of proof for uranium workers that is more realistic given the availability of mining and mill data. The bill also removes the provision that only permits a claim for respiratory disease if the uranium mining occurred on a reservation. Thus, the bill will allow for further filing of a claim by those miners, millers, and transport workers who did not have a work history on a reservation. In addition, the bill would change the current law so that requirements for written medical documentation is updated to allow for use of high resolution CAT scans and allow for written diagnoses by physician in either the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Indian Health Service to be considered conclusive. In 1990, we joined together in a bipartisan, bicameral effort and assured passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Now, either years later, I put forward this comprehensive amendment to RECA to correct some omissions, make RECA consistent with current medical knowledge, and to address what have become administrative horror stories for the claimants. I look forward to the debate in the Senate on this issue and hope that we can move to amend the current statue to ensure our original intent . . . fair and rapid compensation to those who served so well. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the Radiation Improvement Compensation Act printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I have spoken here many times in the past expressing strong support on the issues of pension reform and pension portability, and I would like to do so again today. I believe that the accumulation and availability of retirement savings is one of the most significant issues we face in our new economy. Yet while much of the current debate is focused on the viability of the Social Security system--and rightly so--we must not forget that this is only part of the administrative mechanisms we have in place that allow people to move from job to job and take care of their families. As my good friend and colleague from Vermont has already outlined in detail the specifics involved in our Retirement Portability Account bill, I will limit my own comments at this time to some issues I consider to be of special importance. Currently, employers and employees face three specific problems as individuals attempt to take their retirement funds with them as they change jobs over their career. The first problem is the specialized rules that have been established for the various kinds of accounts now available to employees. 401(k) plans for the private sector, 403(b) plans for non-profit organizations, 457 plans for state and local government employees, and so on all possess unique characteristics that are beneficial to individual employers and employees, but also make administrative compatibility between the plans problematic. The second problem concerns control of the funds accumulated by the employee, that is who is responsible for the paperwork as employees change jobs. This has been one of the foremost concerns of small business owners as they create accounts for a highly-mobile workforce. The third problem involves the ability of employees to ``park'' their accumulated funds somewhere until they have a new retirement plan. Here, the key has been to find a convenient way to use so-called ``conduit IRA's'' as a transfer mechanism into which funds can be transferred on their way to a different retirement savings plan. The Retirement Account Portability bill offered by Senator Jeffords and I has been developed to remedy these problems and more. This bill-- a companion bill to the bipartisan bill introduced by our House colleagues, Representatives Earl Pomeroy and Jim Kolbe--is designed to accomplish two very specific and very important goals. First, the bill will begin the removal of the all too numerous and overly complex barriers that prevent employees from taking their retirement savings with them as they switch jobs. By both eliminating the redtape in the IRS Tax Code that unduly compartmentalizes various plan options and enhancing the effectiveness of conduit IRA's, it will allow individuals to roll their accumulated funds over into accounts at their current place of employment. This offers two tangible outcomes. First, it allows employees to keep track of their savings in an efficient manner. Second, it alleviates the burden placed on employers in terms of tracking and managing accounts of individuals that have moved on to other jobs. Based on discussions with my constituents, these represent dramatic improvements to current law, and, most significantly, allows individuals the opportunity to take advantage of the best investment options available to them. The second goal of the bill is, in my view, equally important. As you know, I believe that an internationally competitive economy entails first and foremost an effective diffusion of knowledge between firms and within regions. In the most dynamic regions in our country--Silicon Valley, Route 128, the Research Triangle--this is accomplished primarily by the movement of individuals from firm to firm and the iterative and cumulative interaction that results. This activity should be encouraged in every way possible, and the elimination of restrictions that prevent pension portability will assist in this effort. In conclusion, let me say that I consider this bill to be an initial but very important step to where we want to go in this country in terms of our savings policy. Our overarching goal is to increase the financial security of all Americans and create an economic environment where each and every individual can prosper. I would like to thank Senator Jeffords on the effort he has expended in crafting this bill, and I look forward to working with him in the future on ever more effective legislation.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I want to commend Senators Bond and Mikulski for their hard work in bringing this appropriations bill to floor. I realize it is a difficult task to accommodate so many members' requests, and I appreciate their efforts. I do want to bring to their attention, however, a project I believe is very worthy of funding. It is a multi-purpose in Shiprock, New Mexico, which is on the Navajo Indian Reservation. The center would primarily be for Navajo youth. I know the Senator from Maryland is well aware that juvenile crime, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and unemployment are very serious problems on the Navajo reservation. There is a desperate need to get these problems under control and give youth a meaningful alternative. This multi- purpose Center will do exactly that.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Senator from Maryland for her commitment to help address the desperate situation facing many of these Navajo youth, and I look forward to working with her.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Rena Subotnik, a fellow in my office, be allowed floor privileges during the pendency of this bill.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am not certain that a half hour on my side will be adequate. I have two other speakers in addition to myself. I would like to allow each of them to speak first. I don't expect that it will take much more than that on my side.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment is intended to improve the academic preparation of our teachers. This is an area of great concern all around the country. The amendment says to States: You should require an academic major for the people you are training to teach in high schools--that in addition to the education course they take, they should have an academic major. Mr. President, 32 States already have in place this requirement. What we are saying is that over the next 3 years each State should be able to adopt a plan to get to this same point. It will substantially improve the preparation of teachers at the high school level. It has been shown to do that in the States that have adopted it. I believe this would be a very good policy for us to adopt as part of this bill. I urge my colleagues to take this opportunity. It will be 6 years, again, before we pass a reauthorization of the Higher Ed Act and we need to get on with the business of improving teaching in this country. This amendment will help to do that.

Mr. BINGAMAN. In response to that question, I would say the amendment by its own language says the requirement doesn't take effect for 3 years. There is a period of time in which to adjust the language if we were to adopt the amendment. There is plenty of time to adjust it if it is onerous on a particular State. Of course, I would not want to withdraw the amendment because, quite frankly, I think we have a tendency--every 6 years when we get to this thing, the education schools around the country lobby heavily against any change in the law or in the requirements imposed on them. We will be here in the year 2004--at least some of you will be here in the year 2004--once again trying to decide whether it is appropriate to require anything of these schools. I do not want to withdraw the amendment. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Are you asking me or the Senator from Connecticut?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me just respond to the various points that have been made, and then I will yield the floor and we can get on to other business. I gather that it is not possible, because of the arrangements that have been previously made with some Senators, to go ahead with the vote. So it is going to be stacked for later. Let me just respond to a couple points that have been made. The notion that we are trying to micromanage by putting this requirement in Federal law, I do not think is accurate. We are saying, look, we give the States $1.8 billion to support these education training programs. Is it too much to ask that the education training programs that are being supported with this $1.8 billion provide academic instruction to the people who they are going to turn out to teach in our high schools? Is that too much to ask? I mean, we are not asking that that be done for the elementary schools. Fine, you can continue to turn out people for the elementary schools who take nothing but education courses. We are not trying to interfere with that. But if you are going to teach at the high school level, you ought to take some kind of academic training. That is what this amendment provides. The notion that this is overreaching by the Federal Government, the Senator from Indiana saying this violates the spirit or the policy that established the Department of Education, we have done the same thing with student loan default rates. We set it up with standards that need to be met. We have substantially reduced student loan default rates because of what we have done in that area. We say here, fine, if you do not want the $1.8 billion, then do anything you want. If you want the $1.8 billion, then we will give you 3 years in which to figure out how to begin providing academic instruction to the people who are going to teach in the high schools. I am in an awkward position here. Most of the people who have spoken against this amendment are from States that already require what the amendment is intended to require. I am from a State that does not require what the amendment is intended to require, and I think we should. I think the State of New Mexico ought to require that anyone who is going into high school teaching have a major in some academic subject, not necessarily the one they wind up teaching in but in some academic subject. I appreciate the concern of the Senator from Massachusetts and everyone else. They are genuinely concerned about what will happen to the 18 States. I represent one of the 18 States. I tell you what I think will happen to the 18 States. I think they will propose a little stiffer requirements. They will do a better job of teaching the teachers who are going into our schools. And I think the students of the country will benefit from that. I think this is a responsible thing to do. I hope very much Members will support the amendment.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this Higher Education Act that we are engaged in discussing and debating here is a very important act. We only get around to it every 6 years, so this is not a subject like a lot of subjects around here that come up every year and we go through a dog and pony show here on the Senate floor. This issue comes up once every 6 years. The last time we reauthorized the Higher Education Act was in 1992. The next time we are expected to reauthorize the Higher Education Act will be 2004. So it is important that we get it right and do it right this year. I join with others who have spoken in congratulating Senator Jeffords and Senator Kennedy for the leadership they have provided. We have a bipartisan bill. There are a number of incentives in this bill to streamline and strengthen the ways in which we deal with the issue of higher education in the country and the ways that we license and place teachers, including several provisions that I have recommended. But there is some unfinished business, Mr. President, and that is what my amendment tries to address. Let me go on and describe a little of the background before I describe the amendment itself. Teaching, of course, is our largest profession. We have close to 3 million people employed in teaching. To maintain and even increase the supply of teachers, the teacher preparation programs need to generate thousands of teaching candidates every year as we move ahead. The Federal Government is a major support for the students who go through these training programs. We provide $1.8 billion in student loans. Yet, we all know that the quality of these programs, in many cases, is inadequate, and we need to question this large Federal investment when we look at the quality of some of the teaching programs we are supporting. How is it that some universities can condone a rate of only 40 percent of their teacher education students passing licensing exams? How do I, as a Senator, explain to my constituents the investment of Federal tax dollars going to these institutions when they fail to prepare students to meet the exams that the States themselves are providing for people who want to teach? For this reason, I propose an amendment to the Higher Education Act to require accountability on the part of education schools and the universities that house those education schools. The amendment requires that States develop criteria to identify low-performing teacher preparation programs, including a State-determined pass rate on State licensing exams. It also proposes that States make a public list of the teacher preparation programs that meet the criteria for being labeled low performing; that States develop a list of suggested ways in which local teacher preparation programs can improve; and, finally, after a 4-year period--4 years into this 6-year reauthorization bill--if the State removed its approval from a teacher preparation program that the State itself felt had not made adequate improvement, then the Federal Government would support the State by withholding Federal funds from that program as well. That is what I have proposed. The education school accountability amendment was designed to ensure that teaching candidates have the baseline knowledge that they need before they go into the classroom. The amendment included a section on reporting. States and institutions would collect and publish the information needed by potential students to make informed decisions about enrollment in teacher preparation programs. I must say, Mr. President, that we have been able to work out a provision on accountability of schools of education, which is being included in the managers' amendment, which I think is a substantial step forward. It does not include many of the provisions I had urged, unfortunately. And I must say that I have been baffled by the response of the higher education community to this effort to impose a little more accountability for low-performing teacher preparation institutions--those institutions existing nearly in every State. In all the literature that has been distributed by that community in response to this amendment and the amendment Congressman Miller offered on the House side, I have not seen any attempt by the higher education community to take any responsibility or come up with any suggestions for how to deal with the problem, which we know is a real one. The entire substance of their argument was one that they opposed interference by the Government; they certainly didn't want the Federal Government involving itself in the role of the States, and they didn't want the States involving themselves in higher education programs any more than they presently do. Basically, they were saying that the higher education programs need to be left as they are, in spite of the problems that clearly exist. Most troubling to me was the lack of willingness even to report pass rates of teacher preparation programs. In a letter dated June 9, the American Council on Education indicated that reporting is too burdensome--the reporting that we were urging be accomplished. I don't really understand why it is possible for law schools and medical schools to publish their student pass rates, but not schools of education. Obviously, the question needs to be raised and answered: Is there something to hide? Is there some information they don't want out? I fear that that may be the case. Together we can help the colleges and universities to raise the status of teacher education to ensure that students enrolling in teacher education programs get the return on their investment that they expect and deserve. But we can't forget that the most important constituency for us to be concerned about is the children who are going to be served by the graduates of these education schools. I think we can make real progress if we impose some accountability there. Mr. President, the amendment that I have offered and sent to the desk is in addition to what has been agreed to in the managers' amendment. I commend the managers of the bill for agreeing to what I have already described. But the amendment that I am proposing says if you are training people to teach at the high school level--just at the high school level, not the elementary school level--if you are training people to teach at the high school level, give those people an academic major. Give them any education courses you want. Certainly courses in methods and courses in technique are fine, but don't turn out people to teach in our high schools who have only taken education courses. We are not saying that you have to have a major in the academic subject in which you wind up teaching. We are not putting in any kind of requirement like that in the law, only that you have to have some kind of academic major. This is not, let me make it very clear, Mr. President, an amendment which intends to bash teachers. It is just the opposite. The amendment is intended to support the good teachers we have in our education system today, to give them more good teachers to work with them in improving education. In my State we have many extremely well-qualified and committed teachers who do a wonderful job for very little pay. In my own family, both my parents devoted their careers to teaching. My sister is a teacher. I am a great believer in the value of good teachers. I believe the amendment I have offered will strengthen our ability to turn out good teachers and have those teachers in the classroom. We give a lot of speeches here about accountability. We need to make people more accountable. We need to make government more accountable. We need to make the institutions of government more accountable. I agree with all of that. The amendment I sent to the desk tries to do that very thing. It says to the schools that are training our teachers--give the new teachers that are coming out a good academic background. The problem has been discussed extensively. There has been a great deal of publicity about the recent testing that has occurred in Massachusetts, of course, and the inadequate percentage of people there who are able to pass the exam, the people who are getting ready to go into teaching. Similar problems exist in other States. The simple fact is you cannot teach something if you do not understand it. You have to have more than technique in order to be a good teacher. You have to also know the subject matter. You have to have good academic skills provided to the teachers or else the students cannot be expected to have good academic skills themselves. According to a recently completed analysis of State level student achievement data, students in States with more teachers holding certification plus a major in their field do significantly better on the national assessment of educational progress on reading and math exams than in States where this requirement is not available. Students of teachers who completed undergraduate activity majors and appropriate professional course- work achieve better than peers their own age whose teachers completed education majors. That is true no matter how poor the students are, no matter what their ethnicity, no matter whether English is their first language or their second language. Mr. President, let me start with two charts that I want to call to people's attention. This first chart makes the obvious point that there are 32 States that require teachers to complete an academic major for high school teaching, 30 that explicitly require that you have an academic major if you go into high school teaching, two others that require the equivalent of that. If any Senator wants to know whether his or her State already has this requirement in State law, they need to look at this chart. We have tried to provide copies of it. I am told we are not able to put copies on the Republican side of the aisle because there is some kind of a breakdown in our efforts to be bipartisan around here and we are only able to give them to the Democrats. But the chart is here. If anyone is willing to walk across the aisle, I would like to show them the chart. It is the same on both sides of the aisle. It makes the point, very clearly, that 32 States are now requiring the exact thing that we are trying to get done through this amendment. I have been asked to break the discussion so that the Senator from Iowa may speak. Privileges of the Floor

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me make another point--that requiring an academic major saves money. Let me show this second chart which makes this point, I think, very graphically. This chart makes the point that entry and retention rates of teachers of teacher preparation programs that allow beginning teachers to complete a major in their subject and require a firm grounding in teaching skills is substantially higher than those programs, the traditional programs, that only have education courses in them. For every 100 candidates who are just in teacher education, 3 years after they complete their education only 28 of the 100 are still in teaching. We are training 72 of the people out of those 100 candidates in teacher education who don't stay in teaching more than 3 years. Those are the programs where they don't have an academic major. In the case where they do have an academic major, if you start with 100 candidates, after 3 years 75 of those candidates are still in teaching. Mr. President, it is clear to me that this is a good deal for the taxpayer to give these people an academic background, keep them in teaching, and don't wind up spending a lot of money to train people who are going to drop out of the teaching profession very quickly. So I think it is very important that we try to do this. Teachers with academic majors feel significantly better, are better prepared for their work, and they are significantly more likely to enter teaching following their preparation. Over 90 percent do enter teaching following their preparation, and they are much more likely to remain in the profession for more years. The Higher Education Act, which we are considering on the floor, encourages State and higher education institutions to implement an academic major requirement. But it does not make it a priority for deciding who gets funding. Given the evidence that directly links the acquisition of a major with student achievement, we are arguing with this amendment that the language of the bill should provide that those States that do not require a major for high school teachers would be required to develop a plan for implementation of that kind of requirement over the next 3 years. Requiring a major will help raise standards for entrance into the teaching profession. According to a recent study by the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, in the field of math, only 35 percent of women attending a major in education scored in the top two of the five proficiency levels in the subject. Male education majors are almost three times as likely to be below the lowest level of reading proficiency as their peers going into other majors. Professional organizations are weighing in on this issue in favor of what we are proposing in this amendment. The October 1997 Conference of the National Council of History Education conferees recommended that the colleges' education faculty be given the authority to reduce the number of generic methods courses in order to present team-taught courses with subject matter of scholars and seasoned teachers from the field. The National Science Teachers Association supports all efforts that encourage science teachers to major in the subject that they plan to teach and at the same time receive a teaching credential. If we expect higher standards of our students, as we all do, we need to provide them with teachers who have the content area preparation to help them meet those standards. That is an impossible task when 39.5 percent of science teachers do not even hold a minor in the subject that they are teaching. Thirty- four percent of math teachers and 25 percent of English teachers were similarly teaching outside their field. In many high-poverty schools, the percentage of out-of-field teachers can rise above 50 percent. Increasing the number of teachers with an academic major is one way to alleviate the problem. We owe our children a quality education, a quality teacher in every classroom, and this higher education amendment is a place to start in that effort. This bill, as I indicated earlier, only comes up once every 6 years. It is important, I believe, that we take this action tonight before we complete action on the bill. It is not enough to say we are going to study this for another 6 years. Either we believe that upgrading the quality of teaching is important or we do not. Let's not put off action until we are well into the next century. This is a chance to quit cursing the dark and to light a single candle. I do not think people who decide they should vote against this amendment should spend the next 6 years complaining about the poor quality of teaching in our schools. This is a chance to deal with that poor quality of teaching in a concrete way, and I hope people will support the amendment. Let me defer. I see my colleague and cosponsor, Senator Cochran from Mississippi, has risen to speak. Let me yield the floor so he can do so, Mr. President. Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would respond in the same way I would respond to the Senator from Connecticut. The basis for the list is Education Week, which published this based on interviews which they did with departments of education around the country last September. I do not know the detail of the department of education's requirements there in Indiana, any more than I know the detail of the department of education requirements in Connecticut.