Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me first just respond to a couple of points that were made by the Senator from Tennessee. He says we made huge progress. That is not what the people in my State believe. That is not what the school administrators and students and parents in my State believe. The Department of Education report that just came out this year indicates their conclusion is that there has been no overall progress in lowering dropout rates during the last 10 years. That is the decade during which we were supposed to be moving up to 90 percent of all of our students completing high school before they left school. In 1989, when the Governors and President Bush met in Charlottesville, the goal was set at 90 percent. It was 86 percent then. It is today 86 percent, according to the National Education Goals Panel. In the last 10 years there has been no progress, in spite of the fact that we have had this national goal. Another part of the goal, in addition to getting 90 percent of our students to complete high school, was to eliminate the disparity in the different groups in our society so that you didn't have such a large dropout problem among one group--in this case, the Hispanic students-- and such a disparity between the problem with that group and other groups. Clearly, those disparities have not been eliminated. The problem is very much with us. It needs attention, and it is every bit as serious now as it was in 1989 when we established the national goal of getting to 90 percent. The Senator from Tennessee says we have too many programs already. I point out that my friend and colleague from Georgia is getting ready to offer another proposal here. We seem to have a double standard. When the proposed new programs are brought up on that side of the aisle, they are acceptable; when they are brought up on our side of the aisle, there are too many programs. The reality is that there are no programs--there is no Federal money focused on dealing with this problem of dropout prevention. That is one reason we have never dealt with it. It is not on the national agenda, it is not on the agenda of the Department of Education, and, frankly, it is not on the agenda of most of our States and school districts, and it needs to be. Mr. President, if we are going to make progress on this, at some stage we are going to have to quit coming up with excuses. The title of a report that came out this year was ``No More Excuses.'' To my mind, that sums it up well. Let's get on with dealing with this problem.

Mr. BINGAMAN. You are planning to yield back your time?

Mr. BINGAMAN. I would like to have the opportunity to summarize my arguments at the end. If the opponents would go ahead and complete their opposition, I prefer that.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, as I indicated, I will reserve the remainder of my time until after the opponents have spoken.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes of that time and reserve the rest so that I can use the remainder to summarize after the opponents have spoken. But let me just go into this a little more in depth. I appreciate the strong support of the Senator from Nevada. What this amendment tries to do is to begin to focus our attention as a nation on what I see as a very, very serious problem in our educational system. And that is the problem that many, many of our students are not ever completing their high school education, in some cases are not completing their middle school education. These students are leaving the schools in large numbers, and we as a society are having to make accommodation to the fact that we have large numbers of young uneducated people coming into the work force. So what we are trying to do is to begin the process of focusing attention on it, begin the process of reversing this trend. Let me show a few charts here, Mr. President, just to make the points. This first chart is called ``Event Dropout Rates for Grades 10 through 12, Ages 15 through 24, By Race and Ethnicity.'' And this is the period 1972 through October of 1995. You can see on this chart that for the white non-Hispanic students, although they have had the lowest annual dropout rate of any group, that dropout rate has been increasing, not decreasing, in recent years. So this is a problem that affects everybody. The non-Hispanic black students--that is this green line--it has been coming down somewhat. The general trend is down. But it also is quite high and is not near where it should be. Of course, the red line--which is the line that represents the Hispanic students in our school system--it is by far the highest of these lines and shows the seriousness of the problem. Dropout rates have not declined in recent years. This is not a problem that is fixing itself; this is a problem that needs additional attention. Dropout rates are particularly adverse among the Hispanic population. Let me show another chart here, Mr. President. You can see this is called ``The Status Dropout Rate.'' That indicates, rather than an annual rate, this is how many of our students have left school essentially before they graduate. You can see that this red line-- representing the Hispanic students in our school system--it is consistently over 30 percent. We essentially are losing a third of the Hispanic students in our school system before they complete high school under the present circumstance. There was recently a report done called the ``Hispanic Dropout Project Report, No More Excuses.'' That report makes the case very convincingly that new strategies are needed, new efforts are needed, to deal with this problem. Let me show one other chart here, just because I know every Senator here is concerned about his or her State in particular. This is a listing of the dropout counts and annual rates for States by State, starting with the State with the highest dropout rate. Unfortunately-- and this, I am sure, is one of the reasons that the Senator from Nevada is so concerned about this issue--Nevada, according to this, had the highest dropout rate in 1993-94. Next was Georgia, the manager's State, that had an 8.7 percent dropout rate. And third was New Mexico, my own State, with an 8 percent dropout rate. That means, every year, 8 percent of the students in the school system drop out. So over the period of 4 years of high school and even some part of middle school, we lose more than 30 percent in many of our schools. These are crucial issues in my State. I run into this problem as I go around my State talking to parents, talking to school administrators, talking to teachers, talking to the students themselves. It is time for the country to act. It is not enough to just say, ``This can get handled by the larger issues. We don't need to make special efforts with regard to this. It will take care of itself. As the general educational system improves, maybe this problem will go away too.'' That is not an adequate answer. We need to do better than that. The simple truth is that too many of our schools are not meeting the academic, the vocational, or the other needs of students. Students are leaving those schools. They are bored with the watered down, repetitive courses, and in many cases they are alienated by the very size of the schools.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Yes, Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment is being offered on behalf of myself, Senator Reid, Senator Feinstein and Senator Chafee. What I would like to do is very briefly describe what the amendment is and then yield to my colleague from Nevada for his comments. Then I will come back and make further statements in behalf of the amendment. The first obvious point is that there is a serious, pervasive dropout problem in our Nation's schools. I see this in my State every day. I am sure each Senator who has visited schools in his or her State sees the same problem. Over half a million students drop out of school each year before they complete high school, and they are joining a group of almost 4 million young adults who have neither graduated nor are getting a GED in lieu of graduation. The second point is that dropout rates are disproportionately high among low-income and minority students. That is just a fact, which we will get into more in the discussion in the minutes ahead. The third point is that the cost of this dropout crisis far exceeds the cost of preventing it. There may be some who suggest that my amendment, by proposing to spend as much as $150 million a year, is going to bust the budget. I suggest that we are spending more on the problem of unemployment, on welfare, on juvenile crime, on the incarceration of the 4 million undereducated young people than we are proposing in this amendment as a solution to the problem. The fourth point is that there is no Federal funding targeted to help middle and high schools deal with this problem today. The amendment would allow over 2,000 of the schools with the highest dropout rates in each State to compete for $50,000 restructuring grants. That is what we are talking about, very small amounts of money that would help these schools to begin the restructuring process to deal with the dropout problem. The fifth point is that the amendment does not add a new Federal education program. Instead, it replaces an unfunded dropout demonstration program from the 1994 Improving America's Schools Act. Sixth, this amendment would provide funding to every State. It would allow local schools to determine what dropout prevention method works best for them. We are not dictating the course or the steps each school should take, but we are trying to assist them in beginning to take the steps to deal with the problem. Finally, reducing dropout rates needs to be a bipartisan national education goal. It was identified as such in 1989. When President Bush met with all 50 Governors in Charlottesville, it was the second education goal we identified: At least 90 percent of our students would complete high school, would graduate. We have never had a serious effort to reach that goal. It is time we did. This amendment begins to move us in that direction. Before I go on to any further discussion, I yield to my colleague, Senator Reid, who has been a leader on this issue.

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

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

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, last November, 5 months ago, we worked out a bipartisan compromise. It received 87 votes here. It called for the National Academy of Sciences to do a study about the possibility of linking various State tests and commercial tests and called on this National Assessment Governing Board, an independent board, to go ahead and develop some test questions. And essentially it set up a procedure we could look at. It also prohibited the use of any funds for field testing or pilot testing, anything in this fiscal year. This amendment would gut all of that, would say the National Academy needs to stop in its tracks, it cannot complete its work. It would say that the National Assessment Board has to stop what it is doing and breach its contract. Later this year, in the appropriations cycle, we should revisit this issue and decide at that point whether to allow field testing. But we should not be prohibiting continued study of the issue and development of questions by the National Board at this point. So I urge colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, most of the teachers in today's public schools became educators before the era of personal computers really began and was established. To address the skills of the next generation of teachers, 32 states require a course in education technology as part of the teacher preparation curriculum. 18 states have not yet incorporated such a requirement. New Mexico teachers must have just one education technology course before they are certified, and some universities such as New Mexico State University and Eastern are taking the lead in integrating technology into their education school programs. Yet, the majority of New Mexico's current teachers received their training before the start of the computer era in the mid-1980's and the new regulations do not address their training needs. Nationwide, although 98 percent of schools are equipped with computers to some degree, 90 percent of new teachers, even after a single course, do not feel prepared to use technology in the classroom. Clearly, more skill development needs to take place to increase the comfort teachers feel with technology. Most of the roughly $6 million in New Mexico state and federal funding for education technology has been used to purchase and install equipment rather than to train teachers to use new technology. Tremendous resources have been invested in hardware and installing the mechanism for access to the Internet. Sixty five percent of schools nationwide have at least some connection to the Internet, yet only 13 percent of schools have Internet training for teachers, and only 20 percent of teachers say that they readily use the Internet to help with their instruction. With a teaching load of 80 students and an average salary of $29,600, most New Mexican teachers cannot afford to pay for their own training or take the summer off to learn how to use computers. Although we have seen significant progress over the last few years in Federal support for technology and the use of technology in education, the one great deficiency is the preparation teachers need to use technology effectively. This legislation will help to correct the problem by supporting educators' pursuit of training and expertise. I thank Senator Levin for sponsoring this legislation as an amendment to the Coverdell bill, and I'm proud to serve as a cosponsor on it.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Kennedy's amendment to the Coverdell bill, which would provide loan forgiveness to teachers in high need areas and subjects. Attracting well qualified teachers through the use of loan forgiveness is a terrific idea and one that I've introduced and supported in the context of the reauthorized Higher Education Act. Loan forgiveness for teachers ensures that teachers are not saddled by excessive debt during their first crucial years of teaching. Just two days ago, a new report from the American Federation of Teachers on teacher salaries showed that, in part due to the low unemployment and tight labor market of recent months, teacher salaries are falling behind wages for other occupations and will make it even harder for schools to find qualified candidates. Given all the other jobs that may be available, we as a nation have a serious problem in recruiting strong candidates for teaching. Clearly, loan forgiveness needs to be part of a comprehensive strategy to raise the quality of teachers and attract the best candidates to the classroom. To help attract more teachers, this amendment proposes to provide up to $8,000 in loan forgiveness to teachers in high need areas or subjects, as determined by local school districts. While I strongly support the amendment and its intention, there are two issues that are worth raising. One is that the criteria for eligibility are too broad, especially given the amount of money associated with the legislation. More importantly, however, the amendment does not address the basic issue of teacher quality outlined in the findings that preface the legislation. I believe that, in order to be qualified to teach a subject area, particularly on the secondary level, a teacher should have a major in that subject or a related field. According to a recently completed analysis of state-level student achievement data, states with more teachers holding full certification plus a major in their field do significantly better on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading and math examinations. Students of teachers who completed undergraduate academic majors and appropriate professional coursework achieve better than age peers whose teachers completed education majors, no matter how poor, what their ethnicity, or whether English is a second language. For these reasons, I am glad to be working with Senator Kennedy on efforts to raise the quality of teaching in our classrooms and reduce the financial burden on those who have entered this essential profession. If we expect higher standards from students, we need to provide them with teachers who have the documented content area preparation to help them meet those standards.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment is co-sponsored by myself, Senator Gramm of Texas, and Senator Lieberman. It expresses the sense of the Senate in favor of a basic principle that is widely supported in this body. That principle is that we should seek to double the Federal investment in civilian research and development over the next 10 years. This principle is contained in legislation co-sponsored by us, the chairman of the Budget Committee, and about 10 other Senators.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, the amendment I am offering with Senator Lieberman expresses the sense of the Senate that the next budget submission by the President, and the next Congressional budget resolution, should reclassify all civilian research and development activities within the Federal government, now scattered among 12 separate budget functions in the Budget Resolution, into one budget function--Function 250. Function 250, entitled ``General Science, Space, and Technology,'' currently is comprised of funding for the National Science Foundation, NASA, and some R&D programs at the Department of Energy. The purpose of the functional analysis in the Budget Resolution is to provide the Congress with insight into important crosscutting themes in the budget. When it comes to the federal investment on R&D, though, the current functional analysis in the Budget Resolution fails. It does not facilitate any sort of cross-cutting discussion about the size and direction of Federally supported science and technology research. In fact, our current budget function structure hides more than half of the Federal investment in civilian R&D. According to data from the Office of Management and Budget, in addition to the agencies and programs currently in Function 250, 20 other civilian departments and agencies have research and development programs of consequence. My amendment would address this problem by providing more transparency to our support of Federal R&D. No funds or programs would be shifted among agencies. But the President's next budget proposal would highlight where in each agency R&D was being supported. If the President were to implement the suggestion in this amendment, I believe that it would have the following beneficial effects. No. 1, when all civilian R&D is placed into one budget function, it will become much easier for the Congress to examine the entire Federal R&D portfolio. Questions of balance, coverage, and emphasis within that portfolio will become easier to ask when the whole picture can be seen more easily. No. 2, the proposed change in my amendment will facilitate the ability of each authorizing committee to review the Federally supported R&D under its jurisdiction, as one element in preparing its views and estimates for the Budget Committee. The amendment will also allow committees such as the Committee on the Budget or the Committee on Appropriations to conduct a global review of federal R&D early in the budget/appropriations process. The National Academy of Sciences has recommended that such a global look at R&D take place annually in Congress in its 1995 report, Allocating Federal Funds for Science and Technology. The Academy stated that the ``Congress should create a process that examines the entire [federal science and technology] budget before the total federal budget is dis agggregated into allocations to appropriations committees and subcommittees.'' This amendment would facilitate the implementation of this idea, which has broad support in the scientific and technical community. No. 3, placing civilian R&D at mission agencies into Function 250 will reflect the reality that all Federal research and development, regardless of sponsoring agency, is interrelated. All Federal R&D, regardless of sponsoring agency, can and does make essential contributions to the general fund of knowledge. These are realities that are well known to the scientific and technical community. In the words of former IBM Vice President Lewis Branscomb, ``One cannot distinguish in any meaningful way `basic' from `applied research' by observing what a scientist is doing.'' No. 4, placing civilian R&D at mission agencies into Function 250 will elevate the prominence of R&D supported by those agencies in future budget and policy discussions. I believe that this amendment will result in a valuable contribution to our institutional ability to understand and manage one of the most important parts of the Federal budget I urge the adoption of both amendments. amendment no. 2236

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, before I give my few comments here in support of the amendment of the Senator from Illinois, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order that I send an amendment to the desk and then have that laid aside and then return to the amendment of the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I, first, say that putting together a budget resolution is a very complex, difficult process. I commend those who have worked on this, particularly my colleague from New Mexico for bringing in a budget resolution that is within the constraints of the balanced budget agreement. I think that is certainly progress and is to be commended. I am, however, troubled by many aspects of it. One aspect is that which is intended to be dealt with by this amendment by the Senator from Illinois. I fear this budget does not reflect the forward-looking perspective that prepares us for the world that we are facing in the 21st century. I do not think anyone would dispute the paramount importance of education, of research, and of a safe, healthy start for our children. The importance of those items, in my view, are not reflected in this budget. They are not given the priority they should be given in this budget. Let me give a few examples. In the area of education, and, of course, the Senator from Illinois was talking about this general area of education, the President has proposed at least $1.6 billion more than the Republican budget in 1999 for the budget functions that include education, training, and social services. The Republican budget does not increase Federal spending by 1 cent over last year's balanced budget amendment in that regard. More specifically, the President and the Senate Democrats have put forth some very significant education proposals, one of which is this amendment by the Senator from Illinois. The Republican budget does not give the same priority to those concerns. The Democratic alternative and this amendment propose to help communities to renovate and build school facilities, including BIA schools, which are very important in my home State of New Mexico. The Republican budget essentially ignores this request. The Democratic proposal provides for the hiring and training of 100,000 new teachers, which is projected to reduce the average class size in grades 1 through 3 from 22 students in a class to 18 students in a class. Again, the Republican budget ignores that proposal. In addition, the Republicans claim they are providing an increase of $2.5 billion over the freeze level during this 5-year period for the Individuals with Disabilities Act. It turns out that this funding does not keep pace with inflation. While this resolution proposes to increase money for one type of block grant, the simple fact is that spending is cut significantly overall and that means that very important programs will have to be cut. Some of those programs--we are not clear as to which ones yet, of course, since that is not specified in the resolution--but some of those might include title I for disadvantaged children, Head Start, training and technology for teachers, and teacher quality. The resolution also gives short shrift to child care, and again Senator Dodd from Connecticut offered an amendment that I support in that regard. With regard to tobacco, I am tremendously concerned that the budget as presently written precludes any meaningful consideration of programs to reduce teen smoking. While I strongly agree with the chairman of the Budget Committee that we must do something to fix our Medicare Program, I believe we do not need to do so at the expense of the current and future health needs of our children. I commend our colleagues for the hard work that has gone into this resolution, but I do differ with my Republican colleagues about the ways in which we allocate spending in this bill. We are entering the 21st century as a strong and vibrant and growing economy, but we will only remain that way if we invest in the future and ensure that every American has the opportunity to take advantage of that growth. The way we do this is to focus on these areas of priority--education, training, and the needs of working families. I hope we can adopt some amendments to this resolution that will allow us to do that more effectively. I yield the floor. Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with and the amendment be set aside and we return to the amendment of the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily laid aside.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment tries to deal, at least in part--and clearly it is only in part--with a very serious problem that has been brought to our attention, tragically, in the last few days, and that is the problem of violence in our schools. The occupant of the chair is painfully aware of this, as we all are, by virtue of the fact that this latest tragedy occurred in his home State of Arkansas. What we have tried to do is take provisions I have been working on in the nature of a ``safe schools security act'' and put those in amendment form to add to this legislation pending here today. I believe it is going to be acceptable to all Senators for us to go ahead in this manner. Let me explain the problem, as all of us know the problem exists. Obviously, there is no way to teach a student if a student feels threatened or if there is an unsafe condition in the school. Unfortunately, we have unsafe conditions and threatening conditions in too many of our schools today. The Department of Education recently released a study that tried to look at the incidence of school violence and school crime. The study shows that 10 percent of schools surveyed had at least one serious violent crime occur in that school during the 1996-97 school year. In the case of violent crimes--obviously, I am talking about murder, rape, sexual battery, suicide, physical attacks with a weapon, or robbery of a student or adult--these are the types of crimes that we know are committed throughout our society, but, clearly, we need to provide special attention to see that these crimes are not committed in our schools. The study went on to point out that approximately 4,000 incidents of rape and other types of sexual battery occurred in our public schools across the country during the 1996-97 school year. There were 11,000 incidents of physical attacks or fights in which weapons were used and approximately 7,000 robberies that occurred in schools in that same year. These statistics are frightening. They underscore a problem that I think we all know exists. One part of the solution, Mr. President-- again, I emphasize that this is only part--is to make better use in our schools of security technology. We have tremendous expertise in this country on the issue of technology to improve security. In our own National Laboratories in New Mexico, we have spent a great deal of time and resources working on this issue. I know other institutions around the country have as well. They have learned a great deal about how to maintain security, how to reduce the possibility of crime or illegal activity in a facility. And some of those lessons--not all--can be used effectively in our schools. We need to use this expertise to try to improve the way our schools function, to try to make available to our schools the new technology that has been developed. Already, Sandia National Laboratory in my State has an initiative in this regard. Two years ago, Sandia began a pilot project in the Belen High School in New Mexico whereby the security experts at Sandia implemented a security regimen and installed a variety of security technology in that high school. Sandia is the first to admit that they know very little about how to run a public school, and Belen was ready to admit they lacked expertise in the subject of security. Nevertheless, the two institutions got together. Sandia and Belen High School officials changed the way the school functioned by utilizing a comprehensive security design and technology. The results have been impressive. Since this pilot project was implemented at the school, on-campus violence is down 75 percent; truancy is down 30 percent; theft of vehicles parked in the school parking lot is down 80 percent; vandalism is down 75 percent. These statistics, I think, make the point that there is information here and there are lessons here that can be learned and can be put to valuable use in our schools. This technology is not cheap. Our schools are already strapped for adequate resources in a variety of ways. But I believe, with the right kind of technical assistance and technology, we can help the schools to help themselves to provide safer environments for our children. That is the purpose of the amendment that we are offering today. I hope very much that this is accepted. We need to take advantage of the lessons we have learned in other areas to try to assist our schools as well. Mr. President, I hope that over the remainder of this Congress we can identify other initiatives that we can take to improve security in our schools in addition to this. But this is one concrete step we can take. I hope very much that my colleagues will agree to this amendment and that it can be added to this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this amendment. Anyone familiar with New Mexico, which has an economy which is heavily dependent on production of oil from marginal wells, knows that the recent historic lows for the price of oil have posed an economic threat to families and communities as dire as any natural disaster. In this context, the concept of having the Federal government dumping nearly 20 million barrels of oil onto the market, equivalent to selling nearly 100,000 barrels per day for the remainder of the fiscal year, is ludicrous. Senator Murkowski and I worked hard to prevent the Interior Appropriations bill from selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the first place. We found an offset that would have worked, and that the Senate accepted, but which was dropped in conference. Today, we have a second chance to end this unwise and economically devastating sale. I fully support the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote for it. Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.

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