John Boehner

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) on his amendment. No one in America wants their child to go to a bad school. We know the difficulties of building new school buildings across the country are very different. In our home State of Ohio, the State government was never involved in the building of school buildings until recently. As the gentleman knows, in Ohio, the State government now has a pool of funds to help needy districts build the school buildings they need. I and many of our colleagues have believed for some time that allowing school construction to remain the purview of local school districts and States is the appropriate role for them and not the appropriate role for us.

Mr. BOEHNER. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the author of the amendment, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant), has a very good amendment. We certainly do not have any problem with it. Certainly I support the buy-American amendments that the gentleman from Ohio has offered over the years. To the extent some money in this bill could be used for school construction, I certainly do not have any problem with the gentleman's amendment and will accept it. Mr. Chairman, on an unrelated issue I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition not otherwise taken.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague for yielding. I congratulate the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin) for his amendment, and thank him for his willingness to work with Members on both sides of the aisle to bring about an amendment that gets us to truly objective tests, that provides safeguards to make all of us as policymakers more comfortable with the steps we are taking in this bill.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment that we have before us reinstates the private school choice provisions into the bill, and I think will help rescue children who are trapped in chronically failing schools. I would like to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) for sponsoring this amendment with me. This issue is about fairness. It is about equity. It is about providing a safety valve for disadvantaged students. Mr. Chairman, under H.R. 1, the bill expands choices for parents, but we need to expand it even further by giving parents the option of private school choice in cases where their children are trapped in failing schools. This was part of the President's original plan and, while far from the only part, it is a very important part. The amendment would restore all the private school choice provisions that were struck in the bill in committee, except for the demonstration program. Specifically, the amendment would restore private school choice as an option for disadvantaged students who have attended failing schools for at least 3 years. It would restore private school choice as a local use of funds under title IV of the Innovative Education Grants for Disadvantaged Students. It restores private school choice for students who are stuck in unsafe schools and where there are no other public schools to which they could transfer. And, it restores private school choice for students who have been victims of crime on school premises and where there are no other public schools to which they could transfer. Mr. Chairman, I think it is common knowledge that we already have school choice in this country, except for poor children. Suburban parents, including many members of this body, are more likely to have the financial means to send their children to private schools, but low- income parents cannot afford this option. While we would continue to deny parents with children in failing schools the opportunity that Members of Congress enjoy, I just do not know. We are told that providing poor children a way out of failing schools will siphon away money from the public school system. Quite frankly, I do not think this argument holds water. Mr. Chairman, a couple of years ago, Matthew Miller, writing for the Atlantic Monthly, asked Bob Chase, who is the president of the National Education Association, if the NEA would support vouchers in exchange for tripling per-pupil spending for inner city kids, and guess what? Jay said, ``no.'' This is not about money, even assuming, which we should not, that spending more money automatically increases student achievement. This is about an education bureaucracy that is resistant to change and mired in habit. This about powerful lobbies that refuse to accept any change in the status quo. Where it has been tried, school choice works. Harvard University's Jay Green found that Florida students' test scores have improved across the board since the implementation of Florida's A-Plus program, similar to the plan that we would see in this amendment. And a September 1999 report conducted by the Indiana Center for Evaluation found that participants in Cleveland's scholarship program scored up to 5 percentile points higher than their public school counterparts in language and science assessments. Disadvantaged students have the most to gain from school choice. Consider the characteristics from those who benefit from Milwaukee's Parental School Choice plan: Fifty-four percent receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children money, they come from families with an average income of $11,600; 76 percent come from single-parent homes, and more than 96 percent are from ethnic minorities. Mr. Chairman, this is a good amendment. These are good provisions. They will help parents and they will help children stuck in failing schools.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) for bringing this amendment to the floor. As many of the members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce know, there was great interest in dealing with this subject in the Committee on Education and the Workforce. At my request, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) saved this amendment for today's debate, and we did not engage in this fight in the committee process. Mr. Chairman, we all know that IDEA was an important step in terms of allowing more of our children to receive the same educational opportunities as those without disabilities. But we all know and we have all heard from every one of our superintendents and school board members that there have been significant problems. Many of us believe that there is a two-tier policy in many of our schools when it comes to the possession of a weapon, the possession of drugs, or the commission of an aggravated assault against other students, against teachers, and school personnel when it comes to IDEA students. Mr. Chairman, I think the amendment that the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) brings makes it very clear that the policies that would be appropriate in a school for non-DEA students ought to apply to IDEA students as well in these three particular areas. Most people around America would say this makes common sense and we ought to do it, and we ought to support the gentleman's amendment. Mr. Chairman, having said that, we all know there are other issues having to deal with IDEA, and that bill is up for reauthorization next year. It likely will be a rather contentious debate in the Committee on Education and the Workforce and on the floor. By and large, we would like to leave most of these issues until next year. Mr. Chairman, I think the amendment, though, is a commonsense amendment. We ought to support it.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I think that the amendment offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers) is a very good amendment. The gentleman from Michigan, during his years in the State senate, authored the college tuition savings program in Michigan. I think his ongoing efforts here as a new Member of this body to encourage the Secretary, to the extent practicable, to promote these programs is of great benefit for the American people. We all know that the cost of going to college continues to rise; and we believe by the end of this year, some 48 States will have such programs. We want to make sure that they are working well and provide the avenue by which many more of our middle- and lower-income students will be able to attend an ongoing college, university or some type of training program once they graduate from high school. Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment. The gentleman should be congratulated.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to discuss this important issue with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup), and the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek). In April, I visited a demonstration project at Independence Elementary School in Liberty Township, Ohio, which is in my district. Independence Elementary is successfully utilizing the host reading program that promotes the practices recommended by the National Reading Panel and the National Research Council. The host model utilizes about 60 mentors, age 16 to 84, to tutor approximately 50 first-through-third graders at the school in one-on-one sessions. The host reading program, which is supported by Governor Taft, funds the host programs in Ohio. In fact, the Governor and Mrs. Taft both are volunteers for this program, and I think it is a very worthy endeavor. I think that the efforts by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup), and the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek) are certainly in order.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume and wish to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup). Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me thank the gentlewoman from Florida for her amendment to a program that was put in the bill in committee by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne). The gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), as we all know, had a very successful career in winning three national championships during his years as coach of Nebraska. During his years, though, in Nebraska, he was very involved in mentoring programs of many sorts and brought an amendment to the committee and added to this bill a mentoring program that I think will be very helpful to all of the disparate and independent mentoring programs that are going on around the country. I think the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek) is very well done because in many high schools around the country today we have mentoring programs where older young adults in schools are working with their peers. I know in my own local high school at home, they have a peer-counseling program, peer-mentoring program that I think has been very successful. So I would encourage my colleagues to support the gentlewoman's amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time not otherwise taken in opposition to this.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, let me thank my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan, for offering the amendment. I do understand the concern of some on each side of the aisle over giving local districts more flexibility, but let us go and look at why we have this in the bill today. As was pointed out, we make sure that the money gets to the schools under the targeting that is already in the bill. Then we make sure that under Title I, which is the largest chunk of money, that we could transfer money into title 1 but could not transfer any money out of it. Secondly, we also wall off, under the current bill, the bilingual education money and programs. So we are talking about basically four funding streams that we are giving local districts, every local district, the opportunity to move at least half of the money in those four funding streams between programs or into Title I. The amendment before us says, let us allow a local district to transfer up to 75 percent of the funds, again, just among those four funding streams. Why do we want to give districts this flexibility? Because we have teacher and professional development monies, we have technology money, we have an innovative grant program, and we have to spend the money today in those particular funding streams. Under the 50 percent local flexibility, we have some ability to transfer, but I think the amendment offered by the gentleman from Michigan is a good one. It says we can do 75 percent. Why is this good? Because let us say that we want to put computers in every classroom, so we can take the technology money and do that, but if we do not have teachers who are equipped to teach their students how to use the computers, maybe the first step ought to be to do the teacher training and the professional development. What in fact that would do, we might want to be able to transfer money out of technology into the teacher training part to make sure that they are trained before we get the equipment. This kind of local flexibility we think will produce much better results.

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, although I do not oppose the amendment, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his contribution on the technology assistance for local schools. The amendment brought to us by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) would increase local flexibility for how they can use the technology money. I think it is a valuable addition, and urge Members to adopt it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), I think that a motion to recommit that would bring an additional $2 billion worth of authorization to this bill, a 10 percent increase over the current level in the bill, is unwise. Mr. Speaker, when we talk about school construction and the need for school buildings in America, the gentleman from New Jersey and the gentleman from New York could be no more right. There is a great need. But we all know that school construction has been a province of State and local governments since our inception. As a matter of fact, State governments over the last 10 years or so have increased funding for school construction by some 39 percent, and today every State has a huge budget surplus. In my own State, Ohio, from a State standpoint, never got involved in school construction until the last several years, and the State has been helping low-income districts in my State to provide this. But I do not think that at this point in time we ought to do this. Here is one big reason: All of the programs that we have agreed to and the funding levels that we have agreed to in the base bill are there. If we expect to work with our appropriators to get most of those authorizations funded, the last thing we want to do is to open it up for more disparate funding. We have a serious education proposal on the floor which has been put together on a bipartisan basis. Let us reserve the precious funds that we can get out of the appropriation process to fund that program to ensure that it works. Where does that money go? It goes to low-income schools and high-poverty students who need this money the most. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson) who has worked on this proposal in the past.

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), a member of the committee.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, let me thank my colleague from Ohio and congratulate him on this amendment, along with his partner, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle). Now, our friends across the aisle, who we have worked closely with through this whole process, are right, they do not like this, and it is why we do not have Straight A's in the bill, that is why we do not have 50 States, and that is why we do not have seven States. Now we are down to 100 school districts in America as a demonstration project for one reason, to let innovation shine. Now, I think all my colleagues understand that title I is protected under this demonstration project. Bilingual education programs are protected. All of the targeting of resources going to school districts is protected. All of the accountability standards that we have in our bill still exist. But what it does say is that for 100 districts in America, two in every State, we are going to give them an opportunity, if they would like, in exchange for a higher accountability standard, to have more increased flexibility. Now, think about this for a moment. What happened in American industry over the last 15 years? They began to empower their workers, and as they began to empower their workers, guess what happened? We got all kinds of new productivity in the economy. Every good company in America today does everything they can to empower every one of their workers. What we are saying with this amendment is let us empower 100 school districts in America to bring to Washington their best innovative ideas about how they can better educate the children in their school district in exchange for more flexibility and more accountability. I think this is an opportunity to try. This is not the camel's nose under the tent. This is an opportunity to say let us see what is happening in America. Let us give them an opportunity to see how high they can set the bar and to see what they can accomplish. It is a good amendment and it deserves our support.

Mr. BOEHNER. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, during further consideration of the bill, H.R. 1, pursuant to House Resolution 143, amendment numbered 3 in House Report 107-69 may be offered out of the specified order and immediately following amendment numbered 5.