Thomas Carper

Mr. CARPER

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes in morning business.

Mr. CARPER. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, sometime later this afternoon we will take up legislation on which we have been working for the better part of the last month; that is, to define as best we can the role of the Federal Government with respect to public education in this country. There are a number of points about which Democrats and Republicans or independents disagree. There are also a number of areas around which we can rally and around which we can agree. I want to take just a moment to address some of those points. In this country, the role of the Federal Government for the last 30 or 36 years has been really to level the playing field for young people from especially disadvantaged backgrounds to make sure they have an opportunity to be successful when they walk into kindergarten at the age of 5. We do that through programs that provide nutritional support for children; programs to try to ensure that healthy babies are born; to try to ensure that children who can benefit from Head Start have a chance to be in that prekindergarten program; to try to ensure that children in the elementary years and beyond have the opportunity to get extra help in reading, if they need it; if they need extra help in mathematics, they will get that assistance, too; to try to ensure that we recruit some of the best and brightest young people to be our teachers; and to better ensure that not only do those teachers go to the wealthiest school districts in our country but they go to those districts in which the need is the greatest. The Federal Government has for almost four decades sought to ensure that all children who enter our schools, whether they are in Delaware or the other 49 States, have a real chance to be successful. There are 49 States in America today which have established rigorous academic standards, spelling out clearly what they expect students to know and be able to do. More than half the States today offer or require many of their students to take tests to measure the progress of those students towards their State's academic standards in math, science, English, social studies, or a variety of other subjects. Almost half the States in America today have worked to put into place accountability systems. By that, we simply mean consequences for students who do well or do not do well; for schools that do well or do not do well; for educators who do well or who do not do well. I think we agree here in our Nation's Capital between the Congress, across the aisle, and with the President that there is an important role for the Federal Government to play. We agree that it is important for the Federal Government to infuse more resources into our schools. We agree that it is appropriate that those schools adopt rigorous academic standards--not standards we set in Washington but standards adopted in the 50 States--in core academic subjects such as math, science, English, and social studies. We agree, first of all, on the idea of more resources. Some would have enormous resources and others more modest. We agree on the premise that more resources need to be invested. Second, we agree on the need to invest those resources with more flexibility for the States, with greater flexibility for school districts and the schools. This past week, during the recess, I was in several schools in Delaware. I will mention one of them, a little elementary school in the town of Seaford, DE, in the southwestern part of our State, roughly 100 miles from here--not even that as the crow flies. In meeting with the school principal and a number of the teachers, they have a host coordinator who helps students succeed. That is a person who coordinates the efforts of 50 mentors in that school. That is a person who is there as a paid staff member from the Delaware department of--we call it the kids department. It is the department that represents families and provides services to families. One of the things I heard in that visit is something I want to share with my colleagues today. This school takes money, raised by local school property taxes--they are local funds, and they receive State money and Federal money--and what they are about is trying to raise student achievement so that all the kids in that school will be able to read at grade level, write at grade level, do math at grade level, do science at grade level, or do better than that. I was struck when I heard how West Seaford Elementary is using extra time/money to be able to provide the resources and the help that kids need to read better or do math better. I was struck how they are using title I money with some of the flexibility legislation that this body gave them under the education flexibility legislation adopted roughly 2 years ago. I was struck to hear how the State's State employee from the kids department works at that school every day as the go-between for the school and a family or families in crisis. This is a family crisis therapist who knows the social service network and knows how to take a family and a child who is hurting and get them the help they need. The point I am trying to make is this--I have taken a long time to make it. When we set rigorous academic standards for schools--when we say to them: We expect you and your kids to reach those standards; we are going to give you more money--when we give them that money with more flexibility, we have a right to demand results. The States have a right to demand results. The school boards and the parents have a right to demand results. So what we have is a trilogy, if you will. There are more resources targeted to where they are needed, in programs that work. The money is given more flexibly to school districts which are empowered to use that money more flexibly, with literally teams of teachers, administrators, and parents deciding: Do we need another school counselor or do we need another reading specialist? Do we need to put a paraprofessional in a classroom, or a number of them? Or do we need to hire more teachers? Do we need to have a coordinator for a mentoring program or do we need to put that money into hiring a new science teacher? Those are the kinds of decisions where I think, more often than not, schools will make the right decision. We have to give them that flexibility. The fourth point on which I think we agree is that we should empower parents to have greater decisionmaking authority in the education of their children. There has been a lot of debate in this Chamber this year and in past years that part of what we ought to do is to give a voucher. They can take that voucher and send their children to a public, private, or parochial school. We are not going to do that this year. I understand it is being done on a limited demonstration basis, and it ought to continue in those places. There are other ways to empower parents to make choices for their children and they involve public schools. I want to mention two of them today. One of those is public school choice. The other is the establishment of charter schools. I will start with the charter schools first. Charter schools are public schools. Charter schools are not private schools. They are not parochial schools. Charter schools are public schools. They are public schools in my State and in 35 or so other States, where the faculty, the administration, and the parents have been uniquely empowered to harness the energy of that education staff, to harness the energy and creativity of the parents, the administrators, and the community, to raise the level of achievement for the students. They are given, in some cases, less money, at least for brick and mortar costs for their schools, than our other traditional public schools. In many States they are given roughly the same amount of money to educate each child, at least in operating funds, as other public schools enjoy. But some amazing things have happened in charter schools in my State. One of them has failed and was closed after 1 year. The rest have not. One of the schools, the charter school in Wilmington--the first charter school created with partnerships with a number of our major companies--has had the best high school results on the Delaware State tests of all 29 public high schools in our State for the last 2 or 3 years in a row. We measure student progress in reading, writing, and math. If you look at the percentage of students at the Wilmington charter school who have a disadvantaged background, who are eligible for free or reduced- price lunch, it is under 20 percent, maybe even under 10 percent. It is a relatively middle-class, upper middle-class school. It attracts students from throughout northern Delaware. There is another charter school in Wilmington, DE, in the middle of the projects called the East Side Charter School. The East Side Charter School does not have a 10 or 15 or 20 percent rate of poverty. Eighty- three percent of the students there are there on free or reduced-price lunches. It has the highest level of poverty of any school in our State. Yet the students who go to that school come early and they stay late. My sons will be finishing up their schooling this school year this coming Friday, June 8, a day to celebrate in our household. Over at the East Side Charter School they do not finish on June 8. They do not finish on June 18 or June 28. They will be going well into July. Kids going to East Side Charter School not only start early and go late but they have a longer school year. They also wear school uniforms. The children's parents are asked to sign something like a contract of mutual responsibility where they agree to be part of their child's education, to give something back in terms of parental voluntarism at that school during the course of the year. The teachers and the administrators are freed up to be creative and innovative in ways that sometimes do not occur in some of our traditional public schools. They work in teams in ways that do not always happen in other schools, public or private. Last year, when the State of Delaware gave its annual Delaware State math tests--we test kids in almost 200 public schools; testing them in reading, writing, and math--there was one public school in Delaware in which every child tested in math met or exceeded the State's standards in mathematics. It was the East Side Charter School. If, in the East Side Charter School, with the highest incidence of poverty in my little State, every child can meet or exceed our State's standards in math, we can educate every child in this country to meet their State's standards in math or reading or writing or other subjects. We have to be smart enough to invest the resources; we have to be smart enough to make sure that schools have the flexibility to use those resources; we have to demand results; and we have to empower parents and teachers to be creative and innovative. Not every parent in our State chooses for their child to go to a charter school. The number of charter schools is growing and is playing an important role in our State. Unfortunately, I would like to say, the charter schools in Delaware, and most other States, don't get the kind of capital support for brick and mortar for building a charter school or upgrading a charter school or renovating a charter school that inures to students in regular public schools. That is not the case. For those who have wanted to start a charter school in my State and in most States, they have to go out and borrow money, sometimes from a bank. Unlike a traditional public school which borrows money, the interest is tax free, which lowers the interest cost for those traditional public schools, when a charter school goes out and borrows money for its school, the interest on that loan is not tax free. The interest on that loan is taxable. The interest rate is higher. The State of Delaware issues bonds from time to time. We issue bonds not just for capital projects for the State, for roads and prisons and health facilities and other things, parks, but we also issue tax-exempt bonds to help raise the money for our public schools. The State of Delaware provides anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of the capital costs for building and renovating schools in my State. When a charter school wants to go out and raise the money for its brick and mortar needs, the State of Delaware doesn't issue bonds. It does not pay 60 percent or 80 percent or even 6 percent of the capital costs for the charter schools. The same is true in almost every other State where there is a charter school. Later during the course of the debate--not today but later this or next week--Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and I will offer an amendment that says, given the kinds of results we are seeing in charter schools in our States and other places, maybe there is an appropriate role for the Federal Government in leveling the playing field a little bit for capital costs for charter schools. The other topic I want to discuss is public school choice. We introduced, statewide in Delaware, public school choice 4 or 5 years ago. Today any parent can elect to send their child to a public school not on their feeder pattern. We choose the public schools that our two sons attend in Delaware. Other States are moving to public school choice as well. In S. 1, the legislation we will be taking up in a few minutes, there are real consequences for schools that fail to make significant improvement for all kinds of students: rich, poor, male, female, disabled, nondisabled. We expect real improvement, real progress toward the academic standards those States have adopted. For States where a school fails for 4 years in a row to make real progress toward their academic standards, there are consequences which include providing real public school choice with transportation for those children in that failing school, allowing that school to be turned into a charter school, turning that school over to the private sector or the State has to take over the operation of the school. Yet we don't provide anywhere in our legislation help to the States, advice or assistance, technical assistance or otherwise, on how, if you have never had an experience with public school choice, you all of a sudden put in place a public school choice system in your State. Or if you have never started charter schools or your charter schools are struggling to get started, how do you help them get up and running so they can mirror the success stories I have talked about here today in Delaware? Again, Senator Gregg and I will be offering an amendment later in the debate which would provide some help to States that haven't been thinking about public school choice but are going to have to under the legislation we are going to adopt and States that, frankly, haven't given any help on the brick and mortar capital side to charter schools. My State is as guilty as others that need to start doing that, particularly if we want to invest our money in what works. I will close with this: There are a lot of important issues we will consider, whether the Republicans are in the majority or the Democrats. The most important thing we are endeavoring to do in this country today is to raise the level of achievement of our students. Those kids in our schools will some day in many cases go on to college. In most cases they will go on to work. It is important that when they reach that college or when they reach the employer or employers for whom they will be working, they have the ability to read, the ability to write, to think, to do math, and to use technology so they and their employers can be successful, and they can have the kind of life they want for themselves and their families. It is not the role of the Federal Government to run our schools. That is the job of the local folks in the States and the schools and the school districts. Our job is to level the playing field. We have an opportunity, through the legislation we are again taking up this afternoon, to try to level that playing field a little bit and to invest the resources needed in our schools, particularly for kids struggling from disadvantaged backgrounds, to provide those resources more flexibly, to say, when we provide more money with greater flexibility, we want results; we are going to hold folks accountable for results, and finally, to say we want to give parents more authority, to empower parents to choose more often than not the public schools they attend. I will close with this: If I needed any proof that public school choice was going to work, I got it, literally, the week after I signed, as Governor of Delaware, public school choice legislation into law. I was in a forum where there were a number of school administrators talking amongst themselves. During the break, I overheard one school administrator say to another, about public school choice: If we don't offer what parents want for their kids, they will simply send their children to another school. I said to myself: He has it. In our State, if we are not offering in school A what parents want for their kids, if they are offering it in school B, the child can go to school B and the money follows the child. The State appropriation follows the child. It infuses competition and market forces into our schools and other schools attempting public school choice in ways we never imagined possible. That is the potential. That is the hope of part of what we are doing today, this week, and later this month. I ask my colleagues, as we address the consequences for schools going forward in the future, if we are serious about empowering them to do public school choice, if we are serious about making charter schools a reality, keep in mind the legislation and the amendment to be proposed by Senator Gregg and myself. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CARPER. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I move to waive the relevant section of the Congressional Budget Act for consideration of this amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CARPER. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, this bipartisan alternative reduces taxes by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years while making available $150 billion for underfunded education proposals that work. Our measure provides for modest reductions in each of the marginal tax rates while establishing retroactively a new 10-percent bracket. This amendment provides for estate tax relief but not for its elimination. We double the child credit and make it partially refundable. Unlike the committee bill, our proposal makes permanent the R&D credit. We extend popular expiring tax breaks and speed up marriage penalty relief. We provide greater AMT protection and fund a number of energy production and conservation incentives now, not later. I thank Senator Chafee for joining me in offering this comprehensive alternative. I yield to him.

Mr. CARPER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding. Later this evening, Senator Chafee and I will offer an amendment to the tax bill that we believe is consistent with the budget resolution that passed this Chamber roughly a month ago with 65 affirmative votes, including votes of 15 Democrats, including this Senator. That budget resolution provided for a tax cut over the next 10 years of about $1.2 trillion, and it also provided for an extra $300 billion above the baseline for educational programs, including Head Start, special education, title I, extra learning time programs. When the budget resolution came back to us from conference, the tax cut had grown larger by about $150 billion, and the education moneys we added were gone. Senator Chafee and I will offer this amendment in an effort to get us back to where we thought we ought to be and still believe we ought to be as a body and as a country, and that is to have a tax cut of $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years and provide an extra $150 billion above the baseline for education funding. I want to mention a couple provisions of the amendment. For example, we create a new 10-percent tax bracket that will be effective at the beginning of this year. We also cut marginal rates for each of the other tax brackets by 1 percent. The lowest rate of 15 percent would drop to 14 percent. The top rate of 39.6 would come down to 38.6. It is an incremental approach to tax cutting that I believe is more reasonable. We also anticipate further reductions later, but we visit with the new economic status a couple of years down the line and consider those further changes at that time. We further propose to take the marriage penalty relief this bill offers, to move it up in time, provide estate tax relief, doubling the estate tax exclusion, and then indexing it to the rate of inflation as we go forward. We double the child tax credit and make it partially refundable, provide a college tuition tax deduction of $5,000 per year, and take the retirement savings incentives that are in this bill and include those in our own amendment.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland. I voted for the original budget resolution a month or so ago. I did so because I believe we ought to cut taxes and cut marginal tax rates, eliminate the marriage penalty, and provide estate tax relief. I would like to see us increase the child tax credit. I also voted for a budget resolution that dramatically increased Federal funding for education. We are in the throes, last week and this week, of redefining the Federal role in education in this country. Part of that legislation says to States: We expect you to narrow the achievement gap for all your students over the next 10 years. We expect your students to perform at higher marks, making progress along the achievement path toward being able to read well and doing math well. If States, school districts, and schools do not measure up, under the accountability provisions of the education bill on which we are working, there is real accountability and real consequences for those schools that do not measure up, that do not make progress, and that do not narrow the achievement gap. Meanwhile, in our Nation's Capital, we fund one out of every three children for Head Start. We do not provide for the others. We fund one out of every three kids who are eligible for title I funding. These are kids who need extra help, especially in reading and math. For special ed students, we meet one-third of what we promised to fund. We are supposed to be providing 40 percent. We do about 13 percent. We are pretty good at thirds. We had hoped the budget resolution that came back to us would meet some of those shortcomings. It does not. Regrettably, there is not more money for Head Start, there is precious little more money for title I, and there is precious little more money to meet our obligations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. I cannot support this conference report on the budget resolution. I wish I could, but I cannot. This is what I fear we are going to end up doing. I fear we are going to end up cutting taxes more than we ought to and, in the end, come back and say we are spending more money than we can afford. We went down that path in 1981, and my fear is we are going to go right down that same path in 2001. We do not have to do it. The real tragedy is we could have had a broad bipartisan agreement on a tax cut of a trillion dollars. We could invest in education, defense, and needed investments in health care, and we could have had a bipartisan majority do that. My fear is we are, in the end, shortchanging the States, the schools, and the kids about whom we say we care so much. I wish it did not have to be this way. Unless we defeat this budget resolution tomorrow, it will be. I, again, thank the Senator from Maryland for yielding me this time.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I want to say a word about accountability and relate that to resources. In the measure we will be voting on and amending later today and for the next week or so, there is a full measure of accountability. I want to mention some of the provisions. If after 4 years a school has been unable to shed its label of a nonperforming school, a school is unable to meet its yearly progress goals, a student who is trapped in that school must be offered the chance to go to another public school. That school district must provide the transportation for that student. Under the accountability regimen that is part of this bill, after 4 years of failure by the school, either that school must simply be reconstituted and the administration and teachers let go, or largely replaced, or the school has to be turned over to the State or another entity. There is real accountability in this legislation. There ought to be. The question we need to consider is, Are we investing the resources that will enable that school and thousands of other schools falling short of the mark to help their kids meet the standards that have been set by the various States, particularly in reading and in math? Our role in the Federal Government--when I spoke yesterday I talked about our role--is to level the playing field for kids who come from a disadvantaged background. Part of that role is making sure that kids are healthy, born healthy, have enough to eat and nutritious food early in their lives, and to make sure they have access to health care so that when they are old enough to go to school, they are not already hopelessly behind. It goes beyond that. It is trying to make sure that there is adequate child care, as we push people off the welfare rolls, compel them to go to work, to make sure that those children of welfare parents have some decent child care so that they get that help when their brains are young and so much can be done to get them on the right path. Our role extends to Head Start. We don't begin to provide the Head Start funding that we have promised to provide. We just don't meet our obligation for 3- or 4-year-olds in this country. We leave it up to the States to try to make up the difference. States such as Delaware and Ohio do, but many do not. Until the adoption of an amendment earlier today on a voice vote for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, we simply didn't fund it. We met about a third of our obligation but not the rest. As we prepare to hold schools and school districts and States accountable for the children left behind today in failing schools, we have to make the appropriate investments. Whether it is Head Start, whether it is child care, whether it is individuals with disabilities, and whether it is children who are eligible for these title I programs, they actually work. To the extent that we can come closer to funding for every three kids, to make the program available for those three kids instead of, today, one out of three, we will enable those children to be successful and enable their schools to avoid being a failure. I thank the Senator for yielding.

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

Mr. CARPER. I also ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Vermont yield me several minutes of time.

Mr. CARPER. Terrific. I thank the Senator.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I serve today in the Senate, but for the last 8 years I served as the Governor of Delaware, and for several of those years as the vice chairman and chairman of the National Governors' Association. I sometimes still think a little bit as a Governor. On behalf of the Governors of this country in all 50 States, probably, I give a special thank you to those who made possible the adoption of an amendment in this Chamber today that would provide for full funding of IDEA, to meet the longstanding obligation from the Congress for programs throughout the country that are funded in this way. I cannot recall how many Governors' meetings I sat in where one Governor after another--Democrats and Republicans, from one end of the country to another--would say, if the Federal Government would simply meet its obligations under the Individuals With Disabilities Act, if they would only do that, we would be able to meet some of our other needs in our schools--whether the needs are small class sizes, extra learning time, or technology in our classrooms. The Federal obligation is that we would pay 40 percent of the cost of educating these children. Today we provide less than 15 percent of the cost of educating these children. We have taken an important step in the Senate toward meeting that obligation. But it is only one step. It needs to be followed by other steps when we go to conference with the House, to make sure that what emerges from that conference committee, and what we ultimately vote on, is a final compromise containing this provision. If we do that, then the Governors of those 50 States and the parents--parents of hundreds of thousands of children--and the teachers in our schools will stand up and applaud. I also say that as this bill comes to us today, I am encouraged. It is not a perfect bill, but it is one that offers the prospect of additional investments from the Federal Government for our schools. It offers that money with a bit more flexibility than is the case under current law. It makes it clear that we offer that additional money targeted where the needs are the greatest, but it offers that money more flexibly and demands results. As we look more closely at the accountability provisions in this legislation, once testing begins in earnest in the various States, in accordance with annual testing and in accordance with the standards adopted by the various States, there are consequences that come to bear for schools that do not make progress in accordance with the schedule agreed to, adopted by the individual States. If a school is not making progress in meeting its own stated goals by the end of the fourth year--if a school continues to fail its students--a number of things will happen. One is that those students in that failing school must be offered the right to go to another public school, where transportation will be provided by the school that is failing, by the school district that is failing, using up to 15 percent of their title I moneys. There are also three other things that must happen to that school that fails for the fourth year in a row. One, it has to be closed and reconstituted as a charter school, or, two, closed and reconstituted with a new administration and with a new faculty, or, three, turned over to the State or some profitable enterprise, commercial enterprise, to run the school--those three options. I simply remind my colleagues, as we move past the adoption of the funding for IDEA, we have to keep in mind the accountability provisions. We have focused on more money and more flexibility, and I support that. But on the accountability issue, if children are really going to have the ability to choose another public school, we have to make sure we include in this bill assistance to States and school districts across America to enable them to adopt public school choice statewide. It is not easy and it is not free. Secondly, if we are really serious about charter schools being a viable option for schools that fail 4 years in a row, we need to provide assistance, including brick-and-mortar assistance, so that those charter schools can be successful, so the kids going to those schools will have a fighting chance to get the kind of education they did not previously receive. I say to Senators Harkin and Hagel, who have worked for weeks on the legislation to increase IDEA funding and to make sure we meet our fair share of that burden, job well done. To the Senator from Vermont, the chairman of the committee, and to Senator Kennedy, who has been very supportive, I give my thanks as well. On behalf of all Governors who have sought this support, sought this day, this kind of victory, it is a day to salute and celebrate for their children, for their students, and all of America. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding the time.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, we would not have education flexibility in all 50 States were it not for the leadership that he provided in the Senate and the support of Senators Dodd and Kennedy and others. I thank him for the great work he does.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, my grandparents were born around the beginning of the 20th century and lived for much of the 20th century. In the early part of the last century, my grandparents and their generation--actually my parents and their generation--were able to find jobs and become employed not so much because of the strength of their minds but because of the strength of their backs. As we moved throughout the 20th century, the time came when more and more it was important that we knew how to read and how to write, knew how to do math and eventually to use technology, if we were going to get some of the better jobs available in our country. As we now move into the 21st century, that will be only more true. The last century has been called by some the American century. If the 21st century is to be another American century, it is important that our young people have the kind of skills that will enable our employers to be successful in an increasingly competitive world marketplace. I believe among the reasons we have been remarkably successful as a nation over the last century is that we have taken our core democratic values, our democratic principles, combined those with the free enterprise system, and added to that a belief in free public education now for just about everybody in our country. Blending those disparate elements together, we ended up with an economic engine, as we close one century and walk into the next, that is, frankly, unrivaled by any other on the face of the Earth. That was yesterday's news. The question is, How are we going to fare for the next 100 years? For the past decade or so, we have heard increasing cries of concern that too often the skills our young people are bringing out of the high schools from which they in many cases graduate are not preparing them for college, not preparing them adequately for the workforce. We have heard calls from all levels of government, particularly State and local, to do something about it. As a Governor for the last 8 years, I know full well we have done a lot more in the States than just wring our hands and cry in anguish. We have done a great deal to try to ensure that my children and the children of the generation of kids in school with them and those to follow, when they graduate with that diploma, will really mean something. It will mean that they do know how to read and understand what they have read, that they do know how to do math--in some cases pretty complex math--they know how to use technology, they know how to think, and they are prepared to go on to be successful in college and in the world and in life. Throughout the country over the last 7 years--maybe the last 8 years--States have been involved in adopting academic standards. What is an academic standard? It spells out in a State such as Delaware, or any other State, what we expect students to know and to be able to do, such as standards in math, science, English, social studies, and in other subject areas as well. If you look at the 49 States that have adopted standards, most of them spell out clearly what they expect their students to be able to do in math, science, English, and social studies. In recent years, maybe a bit more than half of our States have developed tests to measure student progress in the standards in math, science, English, and social studies that those States have adopted. They give those tests usually every year. In our State, it is annually in the spring, and it is given to students in grades 3, 5, 8 and 10. Now, almost half of the States have taken the next step toward developing accountability. What is accountability? There is a lot of confusion about what is accountability. Accountability says there ought to be consequences--some positive and some maybe not so positive--for students who fall short of the mark or for those who do well or for schools or districts that fall short or do well. There ought to be accountability for parents as well and also for politicians and for educators. As we take up the education debate in the Senate this week, we are literally trying to figure out what is the appropriate Federal role with respect to the education of our children. My boys play soccer in a YMCA rec league in Wilmington, DE. They play on a variety of fields around the city of Wilmington. One of the fields is a field that is not level. In fact, if I can use this folder as an example, about half of the game they are running downhill on this one field. Teams like to be running downhill. At the end of the first half, they switch and they have to go in the other direction. The team running downhill for the first half ends up having to run uphill for the rest of the game. A lot of kids in life don't have the luxury of changing sides of the field. For a lot of their lives, they play the game running uphill. The role of the Federal Government, for kids who spend a whole lot of their lives running uphill, is to try to level that playing field a little bit. For the kids born in tough situations, maybe with parents not engaged in their lives, or who don't value education, or maybe they don't even have parents, we must make sure those kids aren't hopelessly behind when they walk into kindergarten at age 5. If they are hopelessly behind and are coming from a real difficult situation in their home lives, they may need help to catch up with their other classmates. I don't think anybody in Washington expects the Federal Government to be the primary funder or mover and shaker in education in America. That is not our role. Our role is to try to level the playing field and to help ensure that States adopt academic standards for their students, and that not just some kids have a chance to meet the rigorous standards but that all kids have a chance to meet the standards their States have adopted. As we debate this issue this week, and perhaps next week as well, we are trying to figure out what can we do that is helpful, that builds on the reforms being adopted and implemented in the States. It does no harm; in fact, it does a lot of good. We have to consider that between 0 and age 5, kids will learn about half of what they know in their lives. If we waste the first 5 years, it is tough to get them back. We know that there is a lot more we can do in terms of parent training. A lot could be done in our States with respect to ensuring that healthier babies are born and raised. We can try to provide assistance with respect to quality child care and programs such as Head Start and make sure kids - and parents--are given a bit of a boost at the age of 3 or 4 and find themselves better prepared to be successful at the age of 5. Those are appropriate roles for the Federal Government. When kids walk into kindergarten at 5, what is an appropriate role? The Congress and the President have said it is to provide hope in smaller class sizes. We have also said it is important to provide extra learning time for kids who need extra time. We are joined in the Chamber by Senator Specter of Pennsylvania and Senator Graham from Florida. Senator Specter may be able to learn a little faster than the Senator from Delaware, but the Senator from Delaware can learn, too. I might just need some extra learning time. One of the things we have done in Delaware and in other States, through programs such as title 1, is we provide extra learning time for kids who need it to reach the academic standards that have been set. We also know that one of the best things that could happen to ensure that a kid is successful in school is to have a terrific teacher such as Mrs. Anderson, my first grade teacher, and Mrs. Swane, my fifth grade teacher--teachers who really make an impact. Mrs. Anderson helped me read at the age of 5 and 6 in my first grade class. We need teachers who love kids, who can teach and who know their stuff. One of the things that we can do at the Federal level, working with State and local school districts, is to help recruit the best and brightest to be teachers, to make sure they have the tools that will at least help them have a shot at being successful in the classroom and to ensure that their professional development continues. Another area where the Federal Government has been involved is in technology--trying to infuse technology into public school classrooms. Delaware was the first State to wire a public school classroom for access to the Internet. I think we have the best ratio of computers to kids in the country. We spend a lot of money to train teachers to use the technology effectively in the class, to integrate technology into their curriculum, to bring the outside world into the classroom and make the learning come alive. I am pleased that the legislation coming before us focuses, in part, on technology. One of the best things it does is to say we encourage teams in schools across America to figure out how to work at their schools, how they can incorporate technology into their curriculum. That is a perfectly appropriate role for us. Among the other things we can do is provide some help when students are disruptive. An amendment will be offered later this week by John Kerry and myself that will say if a school district wants to use some of the moneys in this legislation for establishing alternative schools for chronically disruptive students, they would have the ability to do so. Lastly, our legislation, in providing for accountability and consequences for schools that do well and those that don't do well, says we want to put schools on sort of a 10-year glidepath to making sure that all the students are able to come closer to meeting the standards set by their States, and each year that a school district fails to meet the State's own progress chart--imagine a stair step, if you will, of 10 steps. The first year that happens, the school gets some extra money for assistance. The second year, if they fall short, we provide more technical assistance. By the time the fourth year comes, we require that school district to institute public school choice to provide, for that child who is in a failing school, their parents an opportunity to send them to another public school that is not failing or to take advantage of extra learning time provided, in some cases, by a private vendor after school. We say if a school is failing after 4 years, that school has to be reconstituted as a charter school or turned over to a private sector vendor to run that school or simply the school is reconstituted with a new administration and new faculty. But while we call for some serious steps in our accountability plan in this legislation to require public school choice when schools are failing children in some cases, and to require as one of three options the establishment of charter schools, transforming existing schools into charter schools, those are options that cost money. One of the amendments that will be proposed by Senator Gregg, myself, and others is legislation saying if we are going to mandate public school choice, we need to provide assistance. If we are going to require, as one of the three options, turning a failing school into a charter school, we need to provide resources there as well. Let me close with this point as I approach the end of my 15 minutes. I honestly believe there is more before the legislation that we will be debating this week to unite us than divide us. Most Members, including Democrats and Republicans, and I believe this President, understands the need to invest more money in programs that work to raise student achievement, targeted to kids who need the help the most. I will not quarrel whether 10 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent increases, or more, are enough, but we all understand we need to invest more resources targeted to the kids who need it, in programs that work to raise student achievement. The second area where we are in agreement, generally, is that the money we provide from the Federal Government should be provided flexibly. We should not try to micromanage what is going on in the schools. We should say, here is the money to use; target it for kids who need it most. You figure how to best use it in your school and school district to help your kids. As we provide more money and we provide the money more flexibly, it is critically important we demand results, that we call for and require accountability. There have to be consequences. They do not have to be negative. There have to be consequences to make sure we are not throwing good money after bad money. We will debate a lot of issues in this Senate Chamber this year. For my money, I think for our taxpayers' money, this is maybe one of the most important issues we will consider. It will go probably as far in determining whether we will continue to be the superpower in the world we have today 100 years from now. All the rest that we do, we can debate and decide. I look forward to joining my colleagues in this debate, doing what is best for kids. The approach we take, I hope, is what I call the ``tough love'' approach, demonstrated when we took up welfare reform 5 years ago. A certain toughness in the approach was adopted and there is a lot of love and compassion, as well. There will be a similar approach. We will be successful and our children will be successful not just in this debate but in what follows. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

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

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes this afternoon to express my support for S. 350, the Brownfields Revitalization and Restoration Act. It is a bill which I hope we will vote to pass today and, hopefully, it will be enacted in the House as well. The bill before us this afternoon represents years of discussion, countless hearings and a genuine compromise. Some people in this Chamber have been part of those discussions and have worked hard to achieve this compromise. We have heard from others today who talked about the balance this bill represents and some of the compromises it contains. I want to focus in my remarks on what this bill means to our States, including the State I am privileged to represent, Delaware, where this legislation can make and will make a real and significant impact. This morning, I came to work by train, as I do most mornings. I caught the train in Wilmington and headed down to Washington. I looked out, as I often do, the left side of the train as we pulled out of the Amtrak station in Wilmington, and I looked over to an area that during World War II was a prime area for building ships, along the magnificent Christina River. Between roughly 1941 and 1945, some 10,000 men and women worked along the banks of the Christina River in Wilmington. They built all kinds of ships, destroyer escorts, troop landing ships, Liberty ships, and other vessels that really helped to win World War II. When the war was over in 1945, not surprisingly, all of those people were no longer needed. Eventually, within a few years after the end of the war, that vibrant shipbuilding community along the Christina folded up and all of those jobs, for the most part, went away. What had been a vibrant area with manufacturing vitality began to go to seed, and over the years it eventually turned into an abandoned wasteland. To be honest, as Delaware's Congressman during the late 1980s, as I rode that same Amtrak train to work, I looked out that window and said to myself, boy, this looks awful. And it did. Today it doesn't. Today, we have a river walk, we have a beautiful park, we have buildings that have been restored or are being restored, we have museums, restaurants, and places to shop. We have a stadium where one of the greatest minor league baseball teams in America plays, the Wilmington Blue Rocks. A couple years ago, as Delaware's Governor, I signed legislation that enabled us to go in and turn that industrial wasteland into the riverfront jewel that it is becoming today for the State of Delaware. We returned to productive use some land that had been forgotten and that in a way, served as a buffer to keep people away from the river. I want to thank several people, certainly our subcommittee chairman, the ranking Democrat, and Senator Chafee, who headed the subcommittee to develop this bill and nurtured it over the years. I thank Senator Smith, chairman of the committee, for his good work, and Senator Reid of Nevada, who has spent a fair amount of time in these vineyards in the last couple of years. As a freshman Senator who joined this important debate a little late, they were kind enough to work with me and teach me a thing or two about these issues and listen to my concerns and to reflect some of them in the final bill. I don't see my friend from Ohio on the floor, but I want to say a word about Senator Voinovich, who chaired the National Governors' Association during the time when I was its vice-chairman, and who has worked on this bill with me. We had the opportunity to work a little together on this legislation and he was instrumental in making a good bill even better. I am pleased to say to colleagues today and fellow Governors across the country that included in this bill is a provision that will go some distance toward ensuring that State certification of brownfields cleanup will actually result in the revitalization of thousands of underutilized sites in States across the country. I thank Senator Voinovich for his work on this, as well as the other members of our committee who have worked very hard and patiently over the last several months and years, and who didn't pass up the opportunity this year to make this bill the best it could be. I believe what we have today is a brownfields bill that moves EPA's existing program a significant step forward. This bill protects our environment and encourages businesses to reuse these sites. In my opinion, it just makes good sense. I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this bill. Before I yield, I want to say, in reflecting on my first roughly 3 months here as a Senator, I have had the opportunity to work in a bipartisan manner in the Chamber on a couple of major initiatives, such as bankruptcy reform, along with the Presiding Officer, who was instrumental in it; but the bill passed with 85 votes, with broad bipartisan support. There was also campaign finance reform, which enjoyed a lot of Democratic and Republican support as well. We had the budget resolution, which ended up enjoying a fair amount of Democratic support as well as Republican support, and today we have the brownfields legislation, which I believe will pass this Chamber with broad bipartisan support. I am encouraged at this degree of bipartisan support we have seen on these issues. Maybe we will somehow set the stage today for debate which is to begin maybe tomorrow or next week, and that is to bring up the education issues, to try to redefine the Federal role regarding the education of our children. Thank you, Mr. President. I surrender my time and I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, this budget resolution includes a proposal to require new Federal fees on State-chartered banks and bank holding companies. The amendment that I am offering with Senator Enzi would strike these unnecessary and inequitable fees from the budget. Currently, the exam fee structure for both federally and State- chartered banks is identical: federally chartered banks pay the Federal Government for their examinations, and State-chartered banks pay States for theirs. Charging State-chartered banks a fee on top of what they already pay does not increase safety and soundness or provide for additional exams. These fees only increase the Federal fisc at the expense of the State banking system. We have seen State-chartered banks be engines of innovation. As a former Governor, I believe this is one of the great values of our dual banking system. Under this system, States and the Federal Government independently charter and regulate financial institutions. A key benefit of our dual banking system is that it provides for innovations at both the State and Federal level. In fact, State initiatives have spurred most advances in U.S. bank products and services. Everything from checking accounts to adjustable-rate mortgages, from electronic funds transfers to the powers and structures endorsed by Gramm-Leach- Bliley, originated at the State level. State-chartered banks also play an important role in credit availability and economic development. Additional Federal fees for State banks would stifle the innovation taking place at the State level. The very innovation which benefits all consumers by providing competition and creativity in the marketplace. On seven prior occasions, Congress has wisely rejected these Federal fee proposals. Last week, the House refused to include these fees in its budget resolution. The Senate Banking Committee also opposed these fees in its views to the Budget Committee. In addition, the American Bankers Association, America's Community Bankers, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, the Independent Community Bankers of America, the Financial Services Roundtable, National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Governors Association all oppose these new fees on State-chartered institutions. I urge you to support the dual banking system and vote for this amendment to strike these harmful Federal fees.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, this is the week baseball season begins anew. I am in a little bit of a baseball mood this week, even this afternoon under bright, sunny skies in our Nation's Capital. We have been working on the budget resolution in the Senate Chamber for the better part of this week, and under the unanimous consent agreement we will wrap it up hopefully tomorrow afternoon. Using a baseball analogy, this is like the seventh inning stretch. I want to take the opportunity to reflect on what we have agreed to, not agreed to, and maybe some thoughts we can keep in mind over the next 24 hours or so. As we attempt to adopt, fashion, and agree on a blueprint for spending for our Nation, the thought that creeps into almost every aspect of our discussions is the economy, the shaky nature of the economy, the fragile nature of the economy, and to what extent tax cuts should play as we adopt this budget framework. There are a number of ways to stimulate the economy, as we all know. One of the ways that is going forward right now is the aggressive monetary policy launched by the Federal Reserve over the last couple of months which will add to the gross domestic product of our country, I am told, somewhere close to half a percentage point this year by virtue of lower interest rates. The Federal Reserve is expected to come back and consider by May 15 whether more interest rate relief is called for. My hope is they will do so, and maybe even before that time. Those interest rate reductions are already being felt in our economy as people refinance their homes, lower their mortgage rates, and take the moneys they are saving and spend it for other purposes. Another obvious way to stimulate the economy is through tax policy. I remind my colleagues as we consider a stimulus policy, trying to put some kind of rebates in place now, rate reductions, child credits, or marriage penalty relief, the actual impact we will have through tax policy is de minimis. Take $3 trillion out of the stock market, as we have seen over the last several months, and pump in $40 billion, $50 billion, $60 billion in tax policy and in reality it is not going to amount to too much. I hope we will continue our efforts over the next 24 hours--frankly, over the weeks to come--to adopt the best stimulus of all. The best stimulus we could send, not just to the markets but the American people, would be for us to actually agree on a tax policy, not just 51 Republicans with the Vice President casting the tie-breaking vote but for a number of Democrats and Republicans to agree on an incremental approach where we would be able to lower marginal rates, broadly but not as deeply as the President wants, or double the child credit and make it retroactive to the beginning of this year, or we might eliminate the marriage penalty effective the beginning of this year, and do it in a way to provide stimulus to our economy but also some assurance that the taxpayers are going to see long-term rate reduction, long-term relief. The President was in Delaware a couple days ago, and I talked with him about this. He said: My concern is, Tom, if we do not take a lot of money off the table now, we will spend the money. I reminded the President he plays an activist role in the appropriations process-- signing and vetoing appropriations bills, signing and vetoing enhancements to entitlement programs. In the end, while we are in the seventh inning stretch, the ball game is likely to go into extra innings, and the very best victory the American people can hope for is a bipartisan agreement for an incremental approach to tax cuts that includes restraint on spending and includes a consensus that one of the best things we can do is continue the good work we have begun on reducing our Nation's debt. I yield back my time.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I am very pleased to join today with my distinguished colleague from New Hampshire and a broad, bipartisan group of cosponsors to introduce the Empowering Parents Act of 2001. Senator Judd Gregg has been a consistent champion of charter schools and a passionate advocate of competition and choice in public education. I cannot imagine a better colleague to partner with on my first legislative initiative in the U.S. Senate. Like the Senator from New Hampshire, I come from a small State. Also like my friend from New Hampshire, I was once the governor of my small State. I think it is appropriate, that Senator Gregg and I have seen fit to team up so early in my tenure here in the Senate. During the fall campaign, I was fond of saying that we need more people in Washington who think and act like Governors. My years in the National Governors' Association taught me that Governors tend to be results- oriented and tend to have a healthy impatience for partisan bickering. We in this Chamber will always have our disagreements. Next week, for example, we are scheduled to begin debate on the budget and every expectation is that it will be a very partisan debate. That makes it all the more important, that we push forward in those areas where we're able to reach bipartisan agreement. The issue of vouchers is one on which we are unlikely to come to a consensus. Expanding the number of charter schools and broadening public school choice, however, is something that we can agree on, and we should. Charter schools and public school choice inject market forces into our schools. They empower parents to make choices to send their children to a variety of different schools. That means that schools which offer what students and parents want, be it foreign languages, more math and science, higher test scores, better discipline, those schools will be full. Schools which fail to listen to their customers, to parents and students, may see their student populations diminish until those schools change. At the same time, charter schools are public schools, held to high standards of public accountability. And unlike vouchers, public school choice preserves indeed, it helps to fulfill the promise of equal access upon which public education and the common school tradition have always been premised. In my State, we've enthusiastically embraced both the charter movement and public school choice. We introduced charter schools and statewide public school choice almost 5 years ago. A greater percentage of families exercise public school choice in Delaware today than in any other State in the Nation, and in the last year alone the number of Delaware students in charter schools has more than doubled. The evidence is that these reforms, together with high standards and broad- based educator accountability, are working to raise student achievement and to narrow the achievement gap between students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Students tested last spring, at every grade level tested and in each of our counties, made significant progress when measured against their peers throughout the country, as well as against Delaware's own academic standards. Let me tell you briefly, about one of the schools in my State that is helping to accomplish both of these goals, raising student achievement and closing the achievement gap. In Delaware, we have close to 200 public schools. Students in all of these schools take Delaware's State tests measuring what students know and can do in reading, writing, and math. We also measure our schools by the incidence of poverty, from highest to lowest. The school with the highest incidence of poverty in my State is the East Side Charter School in Wilmington, DE. The incidence of poverty there is over 80 percent. Its students are almost all minority. It is right in the center of the projects in Wilmington. In the first year after East Side Charter School opened its doors, almost none of its students met our State standards in math. Last spring, there was only one school in our State where every third grader who took our math test met or exceeded our standards. That school was the East Side Charter School. It's a remarkable story, and it has been possible because the East Side Charter School is a remarkable school. Kids can come early and stay late. They have a longer school year. They wear school uniforms. Parents have to sign something akin to a contract of mutual responsibility. Educators are given greater authority to innovate and initiate. With highly qualified and highly motivated teachers and with strong leadership from active citizens who want to make a positive difference for their community, the East Side Charter School has become a beacon of hope to parents and students in a neighborhood where you can no longer have a pizza or newspaper delivered to your door. It has provided parents in that community with an option for their children they might not otherwise have had. The legislation that Senator Gregg and I are introducing today aims to make similar options available in communities all across our country, particularly in low-income communities and communities with low-performing schools, just like Wilmington's East Side. It encourages States and local districts with low-performing schools to expand public school choice. It also eliminates many of the artificial barriers to charter school financing that have prevented the supply of new charter schools from keeping pace with the growing demand among parents and students. Language was inserted in the FY 2001 Labor-HHS appropriations bill giving students the right to transfer out of failing schools. Some similar provision will likely be included in any legislation we pass this year reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Unfortunately, the right to transfer out of a failing school will not by itself translate into a meaningful array of alternatives for parents. Nor, as far as I am concerned, will a $1,500 voucher, though I know there is some disagreement on this point even among supporters of this bill. In some high poverty school districts, there are no higher performing schools for students to transfer into. In other districts, administrative barriers or capacity constraints could well limit the choice provided to parents to a single alternative, which may or may not be the school that parents believe best meets their child's needs. Moreover, at least in my State--and I don't pretend to know the circumstances in other States--you can't get your kid in to get an education at the private or parochial schools for $1,500. Unless we help to establish new charter schools in communities with low-performing schools, and unless we provide encouragement to the States and local school districts that serve these communities to create broad and meaningful choice at the intra-district level and ideally at the inter-district level, the right to ``choice out'' of a failing school will be little more than an empty promise. The Empowering Parents Act aims to keep the promise by helping to ensure that parents are empowered with real choices for their children within the public school system. The Empowering Parents Act does three things. First, it provides $200 million in competitive grants to States and local districts with low- performing schools for the purpose of expanding public school choice. This will help to make the right to public school choice that we intend to make part of title I a meaningful right for parents with children trapped in failing schools. Second, the Empowering Parents Act expands the credit enhancement demonstration for charter schools that passed last year and also exempts all interest on charter school loans from federal taxes. This will leverage private financing to help charter schools finance start- up costs, as well as the costs associated with the acquisition and renovation of facilities, the most commonly cited barriers to the establishment of new charter schools. Third and finally, the Empowering Parents Act creates incentives for States to provide per pupil facilities funding programs for charter schools. According to a recent GAO report, ``Charter Schools; Limited Access to Facility Financing,'' the per pupil allocations that charter schools receive as public schools to educate public school students are frequently just a fraction of the amount that is provided annually to traditional public schools for operating expenses and thus provide none of the funding that traditional public schools receive for facility costs. Additionally, GAO reports that school districts that are allowed to share local facility financing with charter schools often do not. The result is that charter schools are forced to literally take money out of the classroom, dipping into funds meant to pay teachers and purchase textbooks, just so they can secure a roof over their students' heads. The Empowering Parents Act would provide matching grants to states to encourage them to level the playing field between charters and traditional public schools with respect to facility financing. Mr. President, the call for competition and choice among accountable public schools can be heard all across America. Just 7 years ago, there was only one charter school in existence in the entire nation. Today, 36 States and the District of Columbia have charter school laws, and there are over 350,000 students attending nearly 1,700 charter schools. As fast as the movement for charters and choice has grown, the reality is that the ideal of involved and empowered parents choosing a child's school from among a range of diverse but accountable public schools remains the exception rather than the rule in America. In fact, 7 out of 10 charter schools around the country have a waiting list of students they can't accommodate. The charters and choice movement is a grassroots movement, and thus, appropriately, most of action is taking place at the state and local level. There is an old saying, however, that you must lead, follow, or get out of the way. Charters and choice are sparking innovation in schools around the country, and there is a role for the Federal Government to play in spreading the synergy. A key role of the Federal Government in the area of education is to level the playing field for children that come from tough, disadvantaged backgrounds. We are committed in America to the principle that every child deserves a real chance to reach high standards of achievement. I have said often that we need to start our efforts to level the playing field by ensuring that every child enters kindergarten ready to learn, which means promoting early childhood education, beginning with full funding for Head Start. However, charter schools and public school choice should also play an integral part in our efforts to close the achievement gap, because whenever a child is left trapped in a failing school, it means that we have failed as a nation to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity for all and special privileges for none. Passing the Empowering Parents Act would represent a landmark federal commitment to parental involvement and parental empowerment in public education. It would send a clear message from coast to coast that we will no longer settle in America for a public education system that traps students in schools that fail to meet high standards. That's not a Democrat message. That's not a Republican message. That's a message of hope and opportunity, a message I believe Republicans and Democrats can embrace together. When Lynne Cheney visited Delaware in the heat of last fall's Presidential campaign to shine a national spotlight on the East Side Charter School, it was a great tribute to the tremendous accomplishments of the parents, teachers, and administrators who have poured their energy and creativity into that remarkable school. It was also a tribute, I believe, to our bipartisan spirit of cooperation in Delaware and to the progress that we can achieve when we work together--Republicans and Democrats, legislators and business leaders, parents and teachers. Our charters and choice legislation passed on consecutive days back in 1995. One bill was sponsored by a Republican, one by a Democrat. It was truly a bipartisan effort. That's the way we do things in Delaware. We work together. We get things done. It is this uncommon tradition of putting aside partisan differences and doing what is right for Delaware that has enabled our State to shine. And it is this same spirit of common-sense bipartisan that is needed in Washington if America is to embrace a new century strong and confident in our future. We will have plenty to fight about in this Chamber, this year and in the years to come. I suggest to my colleagues, let's take the opportunities we have to find common ground and to show the American people that we can work together to make a difference for communities and families across this country. As the broad bipartisan support for this legislation attests, the Empowering Parents Act provides us with an opportunity to govern in a positive, progressive, and bipartisan fashion. I ask my colleagues to join with Senator Gregg and myself to help pass the Empowering Parents Act, and thereby to register a win for bipartisanship and more importantly, a win for children trapped in schools that are failing to meet their potential or allow their students to reach their own potential. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I am very pleased to join today with my distinguished colleague from New Hampshire and a broad, bipartisan group of cosponsors to introduce the Empowering Parents Act of 2001. Senator Judd Gregg has been a consistent champion of charter schools and a passionate advocate of competition and choice in public education. I cannot imagine a better colleague to partner with on my first legislative initiative in the U.S. Senate. Like the Senator from New Hampshire, I come from a small State. Also like my friend from New Hampshire, I was once the governor of my small State. I think it is appropriate, that Senator Gregg and I have seen fit to team up so early in my tenure here in the Senate. During the fall campaign, I was fond of saying that we need more people in Washington who think and act like Governors. My years in the National Governors' Association taught me that Governors tend to be results- oriented and tend to have a healthy impatience for partisan bickering. We in this Chamber will always have our disagreements. Next week, for example, we are scheduled to begin debate on the budget and every expectation is that it will be a very partisan debate. That makes it all the more important, that we push forward in those areas where we're able to reach bipartisan agreement. The issue of vouchers is one on which we are unlikely to come to a consensus. Expanding the number of charter schools and broadening public school choice, however, is something that we can agree on, and we should. Charter schools and public school choice inject market forces into our schools. They empower parents to make choices to send their children to a variety of different schools. That means that schools which offer what students and parents want, be it foreign languages, more math and science, higher test scores, better discipline, those schools will be full. Schools which fail to listen to their customers, to parents and students, may see their student populations diminish until those schools change. At the same time, charter schools are public schools, held to high standards of public accountability. And unlike vouchers, public school choice preserves indeed, it helps to fulfill the promise of equal access upon which public education and the common school tradition have always been premised. In my State, we've enthusiastically embraced both the charter movement and public school choice. We introduced charter schools and statewide public school choice almost 5 years ago. A greater percentage of families exercise public school choice in Delaware today than in any other State in the Nation, and in the last year alone the number of Delaware students in charter schools has more than doubled. The evidence is that these reforms, together with high standards and broad- based educator accountability, are working to raise student achievement and to narrow the achievement gap between students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Students tested last spring, at every grade level tested and in each of our counties, made significant progress when measured against their peers throughout the country, as well as against Delaware's own academic standards. Let me tell you briefly, about one of the schools in my State that is helping to accomplish both of these goals, raising student achievement and closing the achievement gap. In Delaware, we have close to 200 public schools. Students in all of these schools take Delaware's State tests measuring what students know and can do in reading, writing, and math. We also measure our schools by the incidence of poverty, from highest to lowest. The school with the highest incidence of poverty in my State is the East Side Charter School in Wilmington, DE. The incidence of poverty there is over 80 percent. Its students are almost all minority. It is right in the center of the projects in Wilmington. In the first year after East Side Charter School opened its doors, almost none of its students met our State standards in math. Last spring, there was only one school in our State where every third grader who took our math test met or exceeded our standards. That school was the East Side Charter School. It's a remarkable story, and it has been possible because the East Side Charter School is a remarkable school. Kids can come early and stay late. They have a longer school year. They wear school uniforms. Parents have to sign something akin to a contract of mutual responsibility. Educators are given greater authority to innovate and initiate. With highly qualified and highly motivated teachers and with strong leadership from active citizens who want to make a positive difference for their community, the East Side Charter School has become a beacon of hope to parents and students in a neighborhood where you can no longer have a pizza or newspaper delivered to your door. It has provided parents in that community with an option for their children they might not otherwise have had. The legislation that Senator Gregg and I are introducing today aims to make similar options available in communities all across our country, particularly in low-income communities and communities with low-performing schools, just like Wilmington's East Side. It encourages States and local districts with low-performing schools to expand public school choice. It also eliminates many of the artificial barriers to charter school financing that have prevented the supply of new charter schools from keeping pace with the growing demand among parents and students. Language was inserted in the FY 2001 Labor-HHS appropriations bill giving students the right to transfer out of failing schools. Some similar provision will likely be included in any legislation we pass this year reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Unfortunately, the right to transfer out of a failing school will not by itself translate into a meaningful array of alternatives for parents. Nor, as far as I am concerned, will a $1,500 voucher, though I know there is some disagreement on this point even among supporters of this bill. In some high poverty school districts, there are no higher performing schools for students to transfer into. In other districts, administrative barriers or capacity constraints could well limit the choice provided to parents to a single alternative, which may or may not be the school that parents believe best meets their child's needs. Moreover, at least in my State--and I don't pretend to know the circumstances in other States--you can't get your kid in to get an education at the private or parochial schools for $1,500. Unless we help to establish new charter schools in communities with low-performing schools, and unless we provide encouragement to the States and local school districts that serve these communities to create broad and meaningful choice at the intra-district level and ideally at the inter-district level, the right to ``choice out'' of a failing school will be little more than an empty promise. The Empowering Parents Act aims to keep the promise by helping to ensure that parents are empowered with real choices for their children within the public school system. The Empowering Parents Act does three things. First, it provides $200 million in competitive grants to States and local districts with low- performing schools for the purpose of expanding public school choice. This will help to make the right to public school choice that we intend to make part of title I a meaningful right for parents with children trapped in failing schools. Second, the Empowering Parents Act expands the credit enhancement demonstration for charter schools that passed last year and also exempts all interest on charter school loans from federal taxes. This will leverage private financing to help charter schools finance start- up costs, as well as the costs associated with the acquisition and renovation of facilities, the most commonly cited barriers to the establishment of new charter schools. Third and finally, the Empowering Parents Act creates incentives for States to provide per pupil facilities funding programs for charter schools. According to a recent GAO report, ``Charter Schools; Limited Access to Facility Financing,'' the per pupil allocations that charter schools receive as public schools to educate public school students are frequently just a fraction of the amount that is provided annually to traditional public schools for operating expenses and thus provide none of the funding that traditional public schools receive for facility costs. Additionally, GAO reports that school districts that are allowed to share local facility financing with charter schools often do not. The result is that charter schools are forced to literally take money out of the classroom, dipping into funds meant to pay teachers and purchase textbooks, just so they can secure a roof over their students' heads. The Empowering Parents Act would provide matching grants to states to encourage them to level the playing field between charters and traditional public schools with respect to facility financing. Mr. President, the call for competition and choice among accountable public schools can be heard all across America. Just 7 years ago, there was only one charter school in existence in the entire nation. Today, 36 States and the District of Columbia have charter school laws, and there are over 350,000 students attending nearly 1,700 charter schools. As fast as the movement for charters and choice has grown, the reality is that the ideal of involved and empowered parents choosing a child's school from among a range of diverse but accountable public schools remains the exception rather than the rule in America. In fact, 7 out of 10 charter schools around the country have a waiting list of students they can't accommodate. The charters and choice movement is a grassroots movement, and thus, appropriately, most of action is taking place at the state and local level. There is an old saying, however, that you must lead, follow, or get out of the way. Charters and choice are sparking innovation in schools around the country, and there is a role for the Federal Government to play in spreading the synergy. A key role of the Federal Government in the area of education is to level the playing field for children that come from tough, disadvantaged backgrounds. We are committed in America to the principle that every child deserves a real chance to reach high standards of achievement. I have said often that we need to start our efforts to level the playing field by ensuring that every child enters kindergarten ready to learn, which means promoting early childhood education, beginning with full funding for Head Start. However, charter schools and public school choice should also play an integral part in our efforts to close the achievement gap, because whenever a child is left trapped in a failing school, it means that we have failed as a nation to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity for all and special privileges for none. Passing the Empowering Parents Act would represent a landmark federal commitment to parental involvement and parental empowerment in public education. It would send a clear message from coast to coast that we will no longer settle in America for a public education system that traps students in schools that fail to meet high standards. That's not a Democrat message. That's not a Republican message. That's a message of hope and opportunity, a message I believe Republicans and Democrats can embrace together. When Lynne Cheney visited Delaware in the heat of last fall's Presidential campaign to shine a national spotlight on the East Side Charter School, it was a great tribute to the tremendous accomplishments of the parents, teachers, and administrators who have poured their energy and creativity into that remarkable school. It was also a tribute, I believe, to our bipartisan spirit of cooperation in Delaware and to the progress that we can achieve when we work together--Republicans and Democrats, legislators and business leaders, parents and teachers. Our charters and choice legislation passed on consecutive days back in 1995. One bill was sponsored by a Republican, one by a Democrat. It was truly a bipartisan effort. That's the way we do things in Delaware. We work together. We get things done. It is this uncommon tradition of putting aside partisan differences and doing what is right for Delaware that has enabled our State to shine. And it is this same spirit of common-sense bipartisan that is needed in Washington if America is to embrace a new century strong and confident in our future. We will have plenty to fight about in this Chamber, this year and in the years to come. I suggest to my colleagues, let's take the opportunities we have to find common ground and to show the American people that we can work together to make a difference for communities and families across this country. As the broad bipartisan support for this legislation attests, the Empowering Parents Act provides us with an opportunity to govern in a positive, progressive, and bipartisan fashion. I ask my colleagues to join with Senator Gregg and myself to help pass the Empowering Parents Act, and thereby to register a win for bipartisanship and more importantly, a win for children trapped in schools that are failing to meet their potential or allow their students to reach their own potential. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 minute to engage in a colloquy with Mr. Leahy and Mr. Sessions.