Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I send up my amendment No. 656.

Mr. GREGG. I take that representation from the Democratic leader that I would be the next Republican amendment in order, or one of them. Recognizing his credibility on that point, I will accept that.

Mr. GREGG. That is, quite obviously, my concern.

Mr. GREGG. We will have an opportunity to debate the amendment at some point?

Mr. GREGG. I would like to get it in the queue, and I would like to be recognized for an hour at some point, and I don't have to have the preferential status in order to accomplish that. I would be willing to work out a way to accomplish that.

Mr. GREGG. If the Senator would allow me to suggest, the way to resolve this would be to amend the unanimous consent request so that we could return to my amendment at some point during the furtherance of debate for a period of an hour equally divided, and then I would waive my rights that the Senator wishes to have waived. (Mr. ALLEN assumed the chair.)

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, as I understand it, reserving the right to object, my amendment would then be the pending amendment. At some time I would have the right to return to my 2 hours of debate on the amendment, but I would not ask for consent for people to set it aside. Mr. BAUCUS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GREGG. I object.

Mr. GREGG. I object.

Mr. GREGG. I object.

Mr. GREGG. I withdraw my request. I don't want to prejudice either side as to their time, 9 minutes and 7 minutes that I know is going to be consumed with brilliance.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent to set aside this amendment, reserving the time in its present position, so I may call up my amendment and speak to it for 5 minutes and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 15, 2001, at 2:30 p.m., in open and closed sessions to receive testimony on the Department of Energy's defense nuclear nonproliferation programs, in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2002 and the future years defense program.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 15, 2001, at 10 a.m., to hold a closed hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Tuesday, May 15, 2001, at 2 p.m., in Dirksen 226.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the sessions of the Senate on Tuesday, May 15, 2001, at 10 a.m., for a hearing regarding the Financial Outlook of the United States Postal Service.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 15, 2001, to mark up the Taxpayer Relief Act.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet on Tuesday, May 15, 2001, at 2:30 p.m., to receive testimony on the FY02 budget and priorities of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 15, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct an oversight hearing. The committee will consider national energy policy with respect to Federal, State, and local impediments to the siting of energy infrastructure.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 15, 2001, to conduct a hearing on the nomination of Mr. Alphonso R. Jackson, of Texas, to be Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Mr. Richard A. Hauser, of Maryland, to be General Counsel of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Mr. John Charles Weicher, of the District of Columbia, to be Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and serve as the Federal Housing Commissioner; and the Honorable Romolo A. Bernardi, of New York, to be Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Community Planning and Development. The committee will also vote on the nomination of Mr. John E. Robson, of California, to be President of the Export-Import Bank; Mr. Peter R. Fisher, of New Jersey, to be Under Secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance; and Mr. James J. Jochum, of Virginia, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I have spoken at some length prior to this time on my concern for the Murray amendment. I know it is well directed and well intentioned, but it fails to appreciate the fact that local schools have a variety of needs for their teachers. Some schools need more teachers, so they want to hire them. Some need better qualified teachers, so they will want to improve the ability of the teachers who are in the classroom. Some may have high-quality teachers they want to keep in the classroom but are being attracted to some other private sector activity or public sector activity, so they need to pay the teachers more. Some classrooms just need more technical support to assist the teacher or teaching aids such as computers or some sort of monitor capability that allows the student to interface with the teacher in a way that the teacher can guide them. We don't know the answer to which one of those teacher tools are needed, whether it is more teachers, better teachers, better paid teachers, or better support for teachers. Therefore, this bill addresses the issue by giving the local school districts the option of choosing, of taking the teacher money and the Eisenhower grant money, merging it and saying to local schools: You make the decision on teachers, if the money must be spent on teachers. You make the decision as to how you can best improve your classrooms. You, the principal, the family, the parents who participate in the PTA, or the school boards, the actual teachers make the decisions, rather than creating an arbitrary program which says every school in America needs to have more teachers, when that is not necessarily the case. In fact, 48 to 46 States--something like that--44 States already have teacher ratios of 18 to 1 on average in their States. As a practical matter, a lot of States already meet the criteria for which the original concept of this bill was set up. What those States need is better teachers, better trained teachers, maybe teachers who are better paid, and keeping teachers in the classroom. There was one thing said by the Senator from Rhode Island with which I agree. He said most parents are going to choose a school that has better teachers or smaller class size or better facilities. Unfortunately, the other side of the aisle isn't interested in allowing choice in the classroom. They have been resisting choice since the debate started. There will be an opportunity to set up a demonstration program which will allow 3 States and 10 school districts to apply to use choice as an option so that parents can choose as to whether or not they want to stay in that school that is working or maybe a school that is failing, but in any event, whether they want to stay in a school or whether they want to move to another school. We have in this bill something called supplemental services which says to parents, if your child is in a failed school, after 3 years you can go out and get tutorial support for your student. But if your child is in a failed school and that school has failed for 3 years, you should have some other choice--if you want to be able to take your child and move them to another school, a private school, if that is what you want as your option. That is what happens in Philadelphia. It is what is happening in Arizona and Florida. It is what is happening in a number of areas across the country where schools are consistently poor, consistently failing, which are not educating the children, where when you send your child off to school in the morning, you don't know whether they are going to be beaten up or subjected to some sort of exposure to drug sales or whether they are going to learn anything. A parent should not be put in that position. Remember, it is interesting what we are talking about now. We are not talking about wealthy parents or even moderate-income parents. In those instances, most of those parents, if they have decided to choose--and many of them have by physically living in a different area than they otherwise might, than in an urban area, for example--those parents will make the choice. We are talking basically about low-income parents in urban areas and specifically single moms with children. Those are the people we have trapped in schools that fail year after year after year. We say to that parent: I am sorry; your kid is never going to be given a chance in America because we are never going to educate your child. We are never going to give your child an opportunity to be educated. We are always going to send them to a class where we know that class is not working, a school that we know has failed for 3, 4, 5 years. We are not going to give you any options or any opportunities for choice. I was interested to see that the Washington Post, which isn't necessarily a conservative newspaper, has come out very strongly in two editorials in the last 2 weeks saying: Let's at least try a demonstration program on the issue of choice, on the issue of portability. Let's pick a few districts across the country where people are locked into schools that are failing, especially low-income parents, and give those parents some other opportunities. When the Senator from Rhode Island talks about giving choices, yes, I am for choice. I am for saying to schools that have for 2, 3, 4 years not met the grade and their children are locked in those schools on a path which means they cannot participate in the American dream because they are not learning: You have to straighten up. You have to do a better job or else the parents or the kids are going to get some options that are real. They are going to be able to take their kids and put them in schools where they are actually learning something. That is a big issue. Back on the issue of class size, this bill as it is presently structured addresses that issue. It addresses it with flexibility. It makes a decision on whether or not a new teacher should be hired to the local school district. But it gives the local school district the discretion that if it does not need new teachers but, rather, needs to pay teachers more or improve the quality of teachers or give teachers technical support, they can do that instead. I just don't understand the philosophy of a Government that says we in Washington know how to run the local schools. I don't understand that. That is essentially what this amendment does. It says if you want the money, you are going to have to hire more teachers; we in Washington know you have to have more teachers. A lot of school districts in the country don't need more teachers; they need better teachers. By adding more teachers, you end up with worse teachers. The California experience is exactly that. They dramatically increased the number of teachers. They went from 1,000 unaccredited teachers to 12,000 unaccredited teachers, which meant 12,000 teachers who may not know how to teach because they were not accredited and who may not even know the subject matter they are teaching were added to the classrooms. So reducing class size didn't help those kids. All it did was mean fewer kids got poorer teachers. Good teachers in the classroom is the key--a quality teacher, not necessarily class size. That has been shown in study after study. As a practical matter, this is too much a one-size-fits-all amendment. This is that stovepipe approach that says we in Washington know how to run you, the local school district, versus saying to the local district: If you need more teachers, you can hire them--which is what our bill says--and if you need better teachers, you can try to improve teachers' ability. If you need to pay your best teachers more, you can do that. If you need to support teachers, use the money that way. It is a much more logical and flexible approach which addresses the needs of school districts in a much more practical way rather than simply command and control from here in Washington. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. I yield the Senator another 2 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. The Rand study came out after Professor Hanushek completed his study in Rochester. The Rand study has been referred to by the Senator from Massachusetts. I think it is important to note that what the Rand study concluded was that class size might impact student performance but it was the most expensive way to accomplish it; that, in fact, you got much more benefit from the dollars spent if you improved the teacher quality, if you improved the resources of the teacher, in most instances. That was the specific conclusion of the Rand study. In fact, the average cost per pupil for reducing class size to 17 students, under the Rand study, was found to be $450 per student in a high-poverty district, whereas the same academic aims could be achieved with the average cost of $90 per pupil by providing increased resources and improving the capability of the teacher to teach. The point, of course, of the underlying bill, which the Senator is trying to amend, is that we give that flexibility to the local school districts. We say to the local school districts: If you need to hire more teachers, you can. But if you think you want to improve the support facilities for the teachers, you can do that, or if you want to improve their talents, you can do that. We are giving that option to the State and local school districts to decide which is the most efficient, effective and cost-effective way to do this.