Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent to proceed as if in morning business for 15 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, what is the regular order?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, this morning Senator Lieberman will be recognized to offer his alternative to S. 2, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Debate on this amendment is expected to consume the morning session. At 12:30 p.m., the Senate will recess until 2:15 p.m. to accommodate the weekly party conference luncheons. When the Senate reconvenes, it will proceed to a vote on the Gregg amendment regarding teacher quality. It is hoped that an agreement regarding the Lieberman amendment can be reached so that votes can be stacked to occur at 2:15 p.m. Following the disposition of the Lieberman amendment, the next two amendments in order are the Kennedy teacher quality amendment and the Jeffords-Stevens early childhood investment amendment. Prior to today's adjournment, the Senate is expected to begin consideration of the African trade-CBI conference report. I thank my colleagues for their attention.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, let me begin by saying I congratulate the Senator from Connecticut for bringing forward an amendment that has a lot of interesting, creative ideas, ideas that are attractive to myself and other Members on the other side of the aisle that find attractive the proposals presented; and the accountability proposals and the idea we should allow local communities and States to have more flexibility in the management of the funds which come from the Federal Government, with an expectation they produce a better level of achievement for their students. These are ideas which we think make sense. We have some reservations about some proposals within the amendment, but I hope we can work over time with the Senator from Connecticut and his cosponsors on his side of the aisle to evolve a bipartisan package. I think there is significant opportunity for that. I congratulate the Senator for his efforts. The amendment that was set aside, offered by Senator Lott, is called the Teachers' Bill of Rights. That amendment involves four items: First, a commitment that allows, under the underlying bill, S. 2, to make sure we use the dollars of the Teacher Empowerment Act, which is $2 billion, to hire high-quality teachers, teachers who have the qualifications to teach the subjects they are supposed to be teaching. In turn, it has accountability standards which we expect from the States for using the money to hire quality teachers, to show they have hired the quality teachers, and as a result student achievement has improved. The thrust is not directed at institutions or school systems but is directed at children and making sure children's achievement improves in the context of giving States more flexibility but expecting more accountability. This amendment tracks that proposal. It gives more dollars to the local districts and the States to hire quality teachers, but it expects the quality teachers to be able to show results. It specifically requires accountability in showing either student achievement is increasing or that the teachers who are teaching in the core curriculums they are assigned to--math teachers teaching math, for example--actually know the subject and are capable of teaching the subject to the children. In addition, the bill has an authorization of $50 million to encourage midcareer professionals to come into the teaching profession, a very important proposal that came forward with Senator Hutchison of Texas, Senator Frist, and Senator Crapo, a good idea that allows using dollars to attract folks who have gone through their professional career in the private sector and decided they wanted to give back a little bit to society and have decided to go into public education. This assists them in doing that. We are starting to attract a fair number of people from that career path. It is important to encourage. The fourth element of the Teachers' Bill of Rights is the very important proposal from Senator Coverdell limiting teacher liability as they pursue professional activities in teaching children. This is a problem for teachers. Most teachers say their big concern is they will get sued because a child is on the playground, gets injured, and they are held responsible. They are afraid of the impact on their family to have such a lawsuit occur. This is an attempt to try to mitigate that in a reasonable way. It is a good proposal. These are the four elements of the Teachers' Bill of Rights amendment. I hope my colleagues can support that amendment which is not overly controversial. It is a good proposal. Speaking about the general debate we have been involved in for the last week on the issue of ESEA, it has been an interesting and a very substantive debate. It has, however, involved clear distinctions on policy in how we approach the question of education in this country. On our side of the aisle, we believe very strongly that we should have an approach to elementary education that stresses the child and stresses the need for the child to do better, especially the low-income child, which is where the bill focuses. Third, it gives the State, the teachers, principals, and superintendents flexibility as they try to address that issue of how it gives low-income children a better education. Fourth, it expects academic accountability. We give flexibility to States and they have to produce academic accountability. Low-income children have to do better than in the past. We have spent, as I mentioned a number of times, over $130 billion in title I over the last 35 years. Yet the academics of our low-income children have actually gone down over that time period. As a result, we are seeing the gap widen between the non-low-income child and the low-income child in the school systems. The statistics are stark. The Senator from Connecticut cited a number of them. The most stark is that the average low-income child reads at two grade levels below their peers by the fourth grade; that difference expands as they move into high school years. We believe strongly there has to be a different approach. We have to allow the local school districts flexibility and expect academic achievement. On the other side of the aisle, I have been interested by the tenor of the debate. A large percentage of the positions taken on the other side have been to attack the idea of giving flexibility and power to the States, subject to accountability standards in the area of achievement. There has been a clear and aggressive response and attack coming from the other side of the aisle on the leaders of our States and our school districts across this country. It has been focused to a large extent on the Governors. There seems to be a deep suspicion on the other side of the aisle about Governors, which I find discouraging, having been a former Governor. I think there are about 12 or 16 of us in this room. I see one other former Governor in the room right now on the other side of the aisle. Here are some of the quotes from Members on the other side of the aisle about Governors or State leadership. Senator Wellstone: But honest-to-goodness, Washington, DC, and this Congress is the only place I've been where people say, ``Let's hear from the grassroots, the Governors are here.'' I mean, Governors are not what I know to be grassroots. Could be good Governors, bad Governors, average Governors. But my colleagues have a bit of tunnel vision here thinking that decentralization and grassroots is the Governors. Senator Kennedy on the issue of local control: What priority do these children get in terms of the States? They didn't get any priority when this bill was passed in 1965, even with requirements that the funds go down to the local community. This legislation is going to effectively give it to all of the States, as I mentioned. I think that is basically and fundamentally in error. As I mentioned, what are we trying to do? A little suspicious about what would happen if the money goes to the States. Senator Schumer: I understand the desire to keep schools locally controlled. But a block grant, a formula for waste, and much of it going to the Governors, so that money doesn't even trickle down. As an editorial comment, the evil Governors will get their hands on it. Senator Kennedy: We need a guarantee. We don't need a blank check. We want to make sure the money's going to go to where it's needed and not go to the Governors' pet programs and pet projects and pet leaders in the local communities and their States. Once again, the evil Governors strike. Senator Murray: The Republican approach would take the things that are working and turn them into block grants, and their block grant does not go to the classroom. It goes to the State legislatures and--it goes to the State legislatures and adds a new layer of bureaucracy between the education dollars and the students that is so important. There it is, the evil State legislatures. Senator Dodd: . . . What are we saying in this bill or trying to say is back in that community I won't be able to make it absolutely equal. But I would like to get some resources into that school. Now I've got to trust--trust your good Governors. Said with a bit of sarcasm, the Governors, once again, are being pointed out as being inappropriate sources to be trusted in our institutions. Senator Reid: What Republicans are saying essentially is let's give the money to the Governors; if they want to concentrate more efforts on low-income students, they can, but if they don't, they don't have to. The Governors are the force of evil, it appears, in the educational systems of America. It is very surprising language. I am tempted to say it is the Governors who actually have been doing the original thinking in the area of education. In fact, ironically, if you look at what has happened in education, you will see in the issue of class size reduction, which is such an important question we have debated on this floor, 22 States have implemented major class size reductions. In fact, most of those States implemented those projects before there was any class size initiative adopted at the Federal level. In the area of school accountability, 40 States have initiated report cards already. These have been initiated, I suspect, by the Governors in those States, as was the class size initiative, I suspect, initiated by the Governors in those States. In the area of charter schools, before there was any idea of a Federal charter school initiative, 2,000 charter schools had been initiated at the local and State level. Once again, it would be the Governors who initiated those charter schools; 2,000 of them have been initiated across this country. In fact, the National Educational Goals Panel, which is probably the most objective reviewer of what is happening in education, looking at it from a national perspective--they don't have too much of an agenda. They have a little agenda, but they have not too much, and the NEPA test is something that comes out of that agenda--said States such as North Carolina and Texas, which were cited by the Senator from Texas as States very effective in raising the scores of low-income students--they said in their studies they cannot attribute any gains to Federal activity. They attribute the gains to the fact that in the States, the local communities, the local policy has been the force for educational excellence. I am not here necessarily to defend, carte blanche, Governors, because I suspect Governors make mistakes. But Governors have as their primary responsibility the issue of education. A Governor is not going to stop halfway through the day, is not going to stop talking about education and suddenly go on to the African trade agreement and the Caribbean Basin agreement, which is exactly what we are going to do in a couple of hours. Then we are going to be on to an appropriations bill on military construction. Then we are going to be on to an appropriations bill on agriculture. Governors, for the most part, think about education probably 40 to 50 percent of their time. Why? Because 40 to 50 percent of the dollars that are spent at the State level in most States--not New Hampshire, ironically, but in most States--are education dollars. That is the biggest item in their budget, so they spend almost all their time on that issue. It is not as if they come to this issue as some sort of force for darkness. But if you listened to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you would think so. This bill gives more authority to the State Governors and to the local schools and to parents and to teachers--by the way, subject, however, to significant accountability-- and you would think the Governors were part of the Evil Empire, that they came from the dark side. Maybe you would think they are related to Darth Vader, if you listened to Senator Murray, Senator Reid, Senator Dodd, Senator Kennedy, Senator Wellstone, Senator Schumer. So I decided to make up a chart. It is very obvious to me, as I listen to the debate, the other side of the aisle has met the enemy and the enemy is the Governors. That is the problem with education according to the other side of the aisle. So I got pictures of all our Governors, our good Governors. I am sure they are all good Governors. A few of them are Democratic Governors. Surprisingly, a majority are Republican Governors. That was not the case when I was a Governor, but I am glad to see that is the case today. I am thinking to myself: All these good people, they are the enemy. I did not know that. Poor Governor Shaheen, she has some problems in New Hampshire, I have to admit. She is trying her best, but she has had some tough times. She got some tough cards dealt to her. But she is really interested in education. I know that. She is a Democratic Governor. I know some of our Republican Governors--John Roland, from Connecticut, he has dedicated an immense amount of thought and creativity to being a leader on education. I will bet there is not a Governor here, not one of these enemy Governors, who has not got a very creative idea on education moving in their State, an extremely creative idea, something we have not thought about here in the Federal Government but something that is actually producing academic achievement by the kids in that State, something that is actually producing results. That is an ironic concept for us in Washington. We don't necessarily work on results. We spent 35 years on title I, spending $130 billion. We did not care about results. We did not care if the kids did any better. We wanted to get them in the school systems, and that worked, but we didn't really care whether they did any better. So now we bring forward a bill which says we care about the kids and we want achievement, and how is it attacked? It is attacked on the grounds it is going to give more power to the Governors and the Governors are really not responsible people and should not be given that power. I have to say, I find that extremely disingenuous, just on the face of it. But I also find it inappropriate on the grounds that Governors really do care. They are pretty close to the people. They are elected just as we are. Some of them are elected more often than we are--in fact, I think most of them--so they are answerable to the people a few more times than we are. I do think this response, which is essentially: you can't do anything because it might be a block grant to the Governors, is inappropriate. By the way, nothing we have in here is really a block grant at all because there is tremendous accountability pressure. The fact is, we set this up as a cafeteria line so States can go through and pick out what program they think is going to work best for them. But that gives too much authority to the States, to choose something that might actually work, because the Governors cannot be trusted. This attack on this bill, which is quite honestly the gravamen of the opposition, is that we are taking the power out of Washington. Although I put it in humorous terms, that really is the gravamen of the opposition. We are taking the power out of Washington; we are taking the strings away from Washington; we are returning the authority back to people actually giving the education in expectation, with accountability standards, that we expect achievement. That is the difference here. There is a lobby in this city that wants to maintain control over these dollars at all costs, even if it means the dollars are not producing any results or any significant results that benefit the kids to whom they are directed. We have 35 years of record that show us these kids have lost out; we have lost generations of young children who were low-income, who were not able to pursue the American dream because they could not read and they could not write. We cannot tolerate that any longer. I believe, very strongly, we should give authority back to these folks subject to the conditionality that they produce achievement. That is a reasonable approach, in my opinion. I am interested that the other side has rejected this approach and basically looks at the Governors as the opposition. Another way you could look at this is, what do you get for Federal dollars that are controlled by the Federal Government versus what you get for State dollars controlled by State governments--these Governors, these people who do not know how to administer their programs and clearly are going to be inefficient? Let's look at it at the State levels. It takes 25 people in the State government in Georgia to administer $1 billion of Georgia's State money. It takes 116 people to administer the $1 billion that comes from the Federal Government--more than four times the number of people it takes to administer State dollars. That is people sitting at desks, answering mail, doing forms, who are not teaching, who are not helping kids get a better education but who are simply pushing paper through the system. It gets even worse for the State of Florida. For every $1 billion spent, it takes 46 State employees in Florida for Florida State dollars; for every $1 billion of Federal money spent, it takes 297 employees to manage that money--46 to 297. So these terribly inefficient folks who really should not be given the authority to manage the money because they really do not know what they are doing, at least with their dollars they appear to know what they are doing. They are getting their dollars out to the kids. Their dollars go to the classrooms. They don't end up in some room in some big building in Tallahassee for filling out forms. Most of the people in the big room in Tallahassee filling out forms are doing it to fulfill Federal responsibilities. You do not have to look at just Florida and Georgia. The commissioner of education in Colorado said the involvement of the Federal Government has served ``only to confuse almost everyone.'' Actually, he used the words ``nearly everyone.'' Lisa Graham Keegan, the superintendent of public education in Arizona: Every minute we spend making sure we're in compliance with all those pages of Federal regulations means one less minute we can spend to help teachers with professional development, improving curriculum, developing our own testing standards and insuring all the children are getting the help they need to succeed. That pretty much sums it up. I think there is a good case you could make, and I believe we have made it, that the States, local school districts, the principals, the teachers, and the parents are just as concerned about education as anybody in this room, and maybe even more so because they have actually got the kid in the school in which they have to invest. The case can also be made--and I think we have made it--that these dollars will be effectively and efficiently handled because they are going to be subject to conditions which are reasonable, which basically require academic achievement to improve amongst our low-income children. I believe the case can be made, looking at the statistics, that the States are already doing the job better than we are doing; that they are not absorbing huge amounts of the dollars in bureaucracy but, rather, are putting those dollars into the classroom, which is where they should end up. When I hear the other side talk about the poor suffering Governors as being the problem, I shake my head and think, what can they be thinking, because clearly they are inaccurate. I believe our approach to this bill is the right approach. Let's give the Governors, the local schools, parents, and teachers some flexibility, and let's expect them to produce results. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, is there a time allocation under this bill?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator for his generosity. They say they know so much more than the Governors, the boards of education, the principals, the superintendents, the teachers, and, most importantly, the parents. They say they can run the school systems from here in Washington. As I have said before, it is as if the folks on that side of the aisle want a string. They want to run a string out to every school system in America, every classroom in America, from the desks on the other side of the aisle. They want to have hundreds of thousands of strings running out, and they are going to pull the strings and tell America how to run their classrooms. It is an attitude which I cannot accept. It is an attitude which we have tried to avoid in this bill, by giving flexibility--subject to achievement, subject to accountability--to the local school districts. Mr. President, I yield the floor and yield back my time to the Senator from Vermont.

Mr. GREGG. I ask for an additional minute.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, the Senator from Washington has brought forward her amendment on class size on a number of occasions, and it has been well debated already. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle have expressed their view on it. But I do think there are still some points that need to be made. Of course, the fundamental problem is one of philosophy. The essential theme of the proposal is that Washington knows best. It is a top-down proposal, a straitjacket to the local school districts and to the States. It is a demand. If you, the States, want to have education dollars coming to you from Washington, then you, the States, must do exactly as we tell you here in Washington. Flexibility or ideas which you may want to pursue at the State level are stifled. This, of course, is different than the philosophy which we have proposed in our bill. Our bill, relative to teachers, says: Yes, if the local community feels it needs more teachers to reduce class size, it can hire teachers with the money to do that. But if the local community feels it needs to educate its teachers to do a better job, it can use the money to do that also. Or if it feels it has some teachers who are uniquely capable and need to be kept in the school system because there is a private sector demand for them that maybe will attract them out of the school system as a result of higher compensation in the private sector, then they can use the money to pay bonuses to assist keeping the teachers in the school system. It is an attempt to say to that local school district: Here is the money you can have available to you from the Federal Government to assist you with making classrooms work better relative to the teachers' involvement in the classroom. You make the decision--you, the local school district--as to whether you need a smaller student-teacher ratio, whether you need better teachers, better trained teachers, or whether you need to keep your best teachers in your school system. We in Washington do not know the answer to that question. That is the opposite view. I note, however, the problem we confront as a society is not necessarily that our classroom ratios are fundamentally out of skew. As some of my fellow colleagues have said, maybe it polls well to say, ``Class size, class size, class size, that's what improves education.'' But study after study has shown us that is not necessarily the case. Class size is not necessarily the driver of a quality education. In fact, if you look at it in historical perspective--people who look back on the old days as education working better in this country say in the 1960s or 1950s, you will see the class size ratio was really rather dramatically worse than it is today. In 1960, the class size ratio was 26 to 1 average in the nation. Today, for most States it is around 18 to 1. Or if you look at our fellow competitors in the international community such as Japan or Germany or China or Singapore, where their students are performing much better than our students in the area of math and science, those class size ratios are in the 50-to-1 regime. It is not necessarily the number of students in the classroom relative to the number of teachers. In fact, the study by the gentleman from Rochester which has been recited a number of times, Mr. Eric Hanushek, an economist at the University of Rochester, who looked at almost 300 different studies of the effect of class size on the academic achievement of students concluded it really was not class size that affected the students' achievement. It was--and this should not come as too big a surprise--it was the quality of the teacher. If one looks around the country today, one will notice, especially in our low-income school districts, that teaching quality is in question because many of the teachers are teaching out of their discipline. For example, we know that in the area of math, almost a third of our secondary teachers did not major in math and yet they are teaching math. They did not even minor in math. In the area of English, almost a fourth of our teachers did not major or minor in English, reading education, literature, speech, or journalism. The same statistics hold true for science and languages, in many instances. The fact is that our teachers have not been trained in the subjects which they are teaching. If a local school district knows that, then they are going to try to improve the teacher's ability to teach that subject. They do not think there has to be more teachers in the classroom; they think the teacher in the classroom has to know the subject better in the discipline they are teaching. Our bill gives that option to the local school district. It says they can improve the teacher's ability in that area of activity the teacher is teaching. That makes much more sense. We also know that a poor teacher teaching in a class does tremendous damage to students. In fact, arguably, a poor teacher in a class can do more damage to students than a good teacher in a class does good. Bill Saunders, who headed the Tennessee study, determined that 3 years of high-quality teaching versus 3 years of poor-quality teaching can mean the difference between a student being enrolled in remedial classes versus a student making it in honor classes. We know from a Dallas study that a low-quality teacher actually stunts the academic performance of the students in that classroom. So it is the quality of the teacher we should be stressing, as well as the ratio of teacher to student. The only thing that is stressed in the President's proposal, as brought forward by the Senator from Washington, is teacher-student ratio. There is no emphasis on quality at the level that gives the schools the flexibility they need to address quality. In fact, the whole program is a little skewed because, even relative to school districts, the program is designed not to reflect class size; it is designed more to reflect the level of income of the school system as to whether or not they qualify for the funds. There is a problem there. We also know in our high schools, where 40 percent of the students qualify for free lunches, that 40 percent of the classes are taught by unqualified math teachers. That is even a higher statistic than we see here. It means essentially that when one is in a low-income school district--and this chart shows that--they have even a higher likelihood of getting an unqualified teacher or at least a teacher who is not experienced or has not been trained in the area they are teaching. The green bar reflects school districts where more than 49 percent of the kids receive free lunches, and in those school districts 40 percent of the teachers do not have math as their primary area of qualification. Yet they are teaching math. Thirty-one percent of the teachers in English fall into that category; 20 percent of the science teachers fall into that category. We know from looking at what has been happening in the educational community, therefore, if we are concerned about low-income kids, we should not be so focused on class size as we should be on getting somebody teaching the math who actually understands math. Today, unfortunately, that is not the case. In the low-income high schools across this country, many of the teachers simply do not have the math background they need. What are we suggesting in our bill? Rather than saying to that high school, you must put the money into hiring a new teacher, we are suggesting the teachers they have maybe are not trained well enough in math, and if that is their decision, they can send them out to get better training or bring in people to help them get better training in that area. We also know putting in place a compulsory class size ratio can create significant negative, unintended consequences because that is exactly what happened in California. When California went down this route, they ended up getting a large number of unqualified teachers and teacher assistants teaching students. This was especially true in the rural and low-income school districts in California. As a result, we saw in California that they may have gotten better ratios, but they got poorer teachers. The only advantage to a poor teacher teaching a smaller class size is that fewer kids are subjected to that teacher. That is the only advantage of a reduced class size if a school has a poor teacher. It makes much more sense to follow the proposal we put forward, which is to give flexibility to the States as they address this issue. Another point that needs to be made is that almost 42 States today meet the ratios which the President is requesting, an 18-to-1 ratio. Forty-two States already have that ratio as an average across their school districts. Of course, the President's proposal, as brought forward by the Senator from Washington, will not allow an average to get out from underneath the requirements in their bill. Every school district must have an 18-to-1 ratio before they can get out from underneath using the money for the purposes of hiring a teacher to reduce the class size ratio. Even though the State, as a whole, may have reached 18 to 1, it does not matter. The fact is that most States in this country have reached the 18-to-1 ratio and, therefore, they probably have other things they would rather do with this money to assist the teachers they already have in place. Those other things include giving the teachers more opportunity to be better at the job they are doing, which should be our goal. In addition to allowing teachers to be better at the job they are doing, our bill allows the school districts to do other things with this money. This chart reflects that. Under current law, which this amendment is essentially an attempt to expand, we have $1.6 billion committed to basically two purposes: professional development for math and science teachers. That is the Eisenhower grant which is not actually involved in this amendment. Class size is this amendment. Under our bill, we take the Eisenhower grant and class size and we end up with $2 billion. We allow it to be used for a variety of areas where local school systems are in need of improving their educational and professional development for science, for math, for history, for English, and for reading; technology training for teachers; teacher mentoring, which is something that has worked very well, getting a high-quality teacher into a community of teachers and having that teacher pass on his or her knowledge; alternative certification, teacher recruitment, which is also critical in our society today, getting quality teachers into the profession; teacher retention, as I mentioned is important because of competition today; hiring special education teachers; or class size reduction. If the local school district comes to the conclusion that it needs more teachers to reduce the ratio of teachers to students, then there is absolutely no limitation in our bill on them. They can do exactly that. They can take all the money they receive under the TEA Act, Teacher Empowerment Act--which the amendment of the Senator from Washington would basically replace--they can take all the money, and they can use it for the purpose of reducing the student-teacher ratio. If they decide, as many school districts will--because you saw the statistics. It is not necessarily ratio relationships which develop quality teaching; it is more likely to be a quality teacher who delivers quality teaching. So many school districts are going to choose to make their teachers better. We are going to give them that opportunity, that flexibility to do that. Regrettably, the amendment of the Senator from Washington, which is essentially a restatement of the President's proposal, does not do that. I ask, How can there be resistance to a proposal which says, essentially: All right, school districts, if you want to reduce class size, you can use the money to do that. That is your choice. But, if, on the other hand, you have some other concerns that you, the principal, that you, the parent, that you, the teacher, that you, the community, believe is important to make that school work better relative to the teachers' ability to deliver a better education to the kids, then, in certain limited areas, you can pursue those opportunities. You can train teachers. You can make them better. You can keep teachers who are of high quality. How can you resist an idea which gives those options to the State? The only way you can resist that idea is if you do not have any confidence in the local schools and the people who are running those local schools. We have heard it again and again from the other side of the aisle that they do not trust the Governors--the Senator from Rhode Island essentially said that--that they do not trust the local school districts, that they do not trust the local teaching community, and that they do not trust the parents in those communities. Why? Because, according to the other side of the aisle, those folks failed with 93 percent of the money, and we in Washington had better tell them how to use the 7 percent we send them and manage the life of the local school district for them because they certainly cannot do it themselves, because there is some bureaucrat down here in downtown Washington, sitting in a building on the third floor in a room you cannot find, and I cannot find, who knows a heck of a lot better how to run Johnny Jones' educational opportunities up in New Hampshire than his parents in Epping, NH, his teacher, his principal, the school board in Epping, NH, or the Governor of New Hampshire. It is an attitude of complete arrogance, an attitude that says, we know so much more about education in Washington than the people who have dedicated their lives to this issue and more than the Governors, who, by the way, have the primary responsibility for education. They are not going to turn to the African trade bill tomorrow. They are going to be turning to education tomorrow. They work on it every day, not just one week out of every year.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I regret the Senator will not yield to debate this issue in a forum-like manner. Let me answer the question on my own time because I guess the Senator isn't making her point because she recognizes her point is inaccurate. If the language is as they stated, the school has the control over the dollars. The parent has the right to direct the school to pursue an assisted learning activity. But the child is in the public school and the public school controls the dollars for that assisted learning activity. The only difference between the present law and what this does relative to that assisted learning activity, in this case the parent gets involved. Under present law, the parent is not involved in the assisted learning activity. If they want to bring in the Sylvan Learning Center or any tutorial service to help the low-income child, they can do that, but the parent does not have the right to say do it or not do it. Under this proposal, the parent has the right to say, yes, please send my child to an assisted learning facility. The school, however, has the right to say they don't think that an assisted learning activity qualifies as being a quality educational activity and is applicable to this child's needs. If the school overrules it because they say that the assisted learning activity is not a qualified activity, then the parent can't direct the funds to go in that area. Essentially, what we are proposing is a system which already exists in Arizona--in fact, I think Seattle may have some form of this system--where parents actually get involved in the process of educating low-income kids. Parents actually have something to say about it. We all know from history and from study after study after study that pertinent for improving the quality of education of the child is parental involvement. We also know that the single biggest problem we have with low-income children is the fact that parents are not involved. This is an opportunity to draw the parent into the process and have the parent have a role in the process. That is very important. Equally important, this is an opportunity to make sure the dollars actually benefit the low-income child. Under the present law, there are lots of low-income children who don't get any benefit from the title I dollars, which are low-income dollars theoretically. Why is that? Because if a school does not have a threshold number of children, does not have the 35 percent, or in some States it is up to 65 percent of the kids in the school who qualify as low income, in other words, kids who meet the School Lunch Program, then no dollars go to that school. If you are a low-income child attending a school where you don't have 35 percent of the other kids in the school as low-income children, you don't get any title I assistance. Does that make any sense? Of course, it doesn't make any sense. We are saying, instead of having the dollars go to the school systems and to the administration and to the bureaucracy, let's have the dollars follow the child. Let's have the dollars actually follow the child to different public schools so every child who is a low-income child actually gets funded, actually gets dollars benefiting that child. That is a pretty good idea because that means we are actually going to point the dollars at the kids who we allegedly are trying to help, the low-income kids. The dollars never leave the public school system in the sense that all dollars must go to the public school. In other words, the parent does not have the control over those dollars. He doesn't get a check. If John Jones goes to public school A, the dollars go to public school A. If the parent says they don't think public school A is doing the best job for their child, and then moves John Jones to public school B, the dollars go to public school B. When John Jones gets to public school B, if the parent says they think John Jones needs some assisted learning outside of his schoolday--remember, his whole schoolday is dominated by the public school system and he cannot go to a private school with these dollars--then the dollars go to the assisted learning to the extent it is required in order to pay for that assisted learning subject to the public school system, and subject to the public school system saying that the assisted learning is actually something that is qualified and will do the job as they deem it appropriate, recognizing that under present law we already allow this to occur. We allow assisted learning which is a private activity. To characterize this as a voucher is an inexcusable attempt to try to stigmatize this with a term that is being used for the purposes of creating an irrational response from folks, especially teachers and the educational community. It is simply hyperbole for the purposes of trying to beat this for political reasons. It is not a substantive or an accurate response to what this proposal involves. Remember, this proposal--whether it is portability or whether it is the Senator from Washington's Straight A's proposal--is an option. No State has to pursue this. No community has to use this. If they decide to pursue this, if the State decides it wants to use portability, it is the educational community in that State that has come together, that has thought about the issue, that has said: Title I isn't working in its presents form; let's try a portability initiative. It will be the educators who write the portability initiative in the State and who apply for it. They will have the say in how it is structured. They don't have to do it if they don't want to do it. If the State of New Hampshire decides they like the way they are doing title I, they don't care about trying this new idea of portability or this Straight A's idea, they can walk away from the proposal. They don't have to do it. They can keep the law the way it is. Why is there such fear on the other side of the aisle of putting on the table a bunch of different options, having a cafeteria line that States and communities can go through? I don't understand it. They have been stratified, iced into the status quo, petrified into the status quo to the point they are not willing to adjust in any way or give the States any opportunity for adjustment. It is regrettable. It is regrettable because it means we basically, as we know for 35 years, are locking our low-income kids into generation after generation of failure. We know for a fact our low-income kids simply have not achieved. We ought to try some other ideas. We ought to let our States try some other ideas. There are a lot of States out there that want to try other ideas, and we should not lock them out of that opportunity with Federal dollars. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. If the Senator doesn't want me to clarify the point.

Mr. GREGG. No. The Senator is incorrect in her characterization. The family does not have possession of the funds. The funds go to the public school. The public school, at the request of the family, may then and should then take the money and use it to support that child in an additional learning activity. In other words, the child has to go to the public school. The child cannot go to a private school under portability and use funds for the purpose of going to a private school. The child must attend the public school. If they decide to do so under the plan as presented to the Secretary of Education, under their portability plan as designed by the public school system, the public school may use those dollars as it does today for the purpose of giving additional support to the low-income child in assisted learning.

Mr. GREGG. Is the Senator aware that under this proposal the dollars will still flow through the public school if it goes to a Sylvan Learning Center?

Mr. GREGG. If the Senator will yield for a question, is the Senator aware that under title I, if a public school wishes to contract with a private entity, such as a Sylvan Learning Center, it can do that?

Mr. GREGG. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. It makes that as clear as it is under present law relative to other title I moneys.

Mr. GREGG. Yes. I yield to the Senator from Maine for a question.

Mr. GREGG. I yield to the Senator from Maine for a question.

Mr. GREGG. No. Under no circumstance was portability ever represented as a voucher, or ever represented as a voucher in committee. What I said was Straight A's could have been used by a State to qualify that it had set up a voucher program such as Florida had. Yes, in those instances Straight A's could have been used. The Senator from Washington was making it very clear that is not going to happen.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, there have been a number of representations that have been inaccurate from the other side, and I regret that. I think that maybe they are concerned that the substance of this bill works so well, they have to mischaracterize the actual process in order to attack it. The representation that there are voucher proposals in this bill is inaccurate. The senior Senator from Washington has offered an amendment which would make this absolutely clear. He put the status of the Straight A's proposal in this bill in the same position as the present law under the ESEA of 1965, which law does not limit the ability to use the funds for public entities. So that law, as viewed, is a chilling event on school systems from using it for private entities which would create the voucher issue. The amendment of the senior Senator from Washington clarifies that point, which was a point raised in committee and which was the language reported out of committee. If a State such as Florida has a private voucher system--I guess the issue now is whether they have one or not-- those funds can be used in this manner. But as a practical matter, what the Senator from Washington is making clear is that they can't--that they will be subject to the chilling event that presently exists for any title I money. That chilling event has basically made it virtually impossible for vouchers to be used by any State. This was the concern of the Senator from Maine. That is why I have agreed wholeheartedly with the amendment of the Senator from Washington, as I believe we should not allow the bogeyman vouchers--it has been used as a bogeyman by the other side--to be used to try to undermine what is a really good idea, which is the concept of Straight A's. The basic theme of Straight A's doesn't need vouchers in order to work well, and we don't have to get in the voucher debate in order for Straight A's to work well. I am perfectly happy to have the voucher issue taken off the table. I don't think it was really on the table to begin with because I don't think many States have a system to make it available. But even if it was on the table, the Senator from Washington is taking it off the table. I heard about this attempt this morning from a number of people on a couple of talk shows. Representatives of the educational lobby are here in Washington in full charge against any idea of changing the status quo because they basically are the beneficiaries of the status quo. They are also trying to use the term ``vouchers'' to stigmatize this piece of legislation, which I suppose is the defense of folks who really can't defend their positions in opposition to this language on substance. The fact is that Straight A's, as put forward, is an optional program. It is up to each State whether they want to pursue it. If a State pursues Straight A's, the achievement obligations in the area of increasing the educational success of our low-income children is very strict. Straight A's is an attempt to give low-income children a better education and to require that better education actually be proved to have occurred, something that has not happened under title I over the last 35 years after $130 billion has been spent. Also, one of the Senators came out and said it is also about portability. There is no voucher program for portability. Portability is not a voucher program. All the money under portability stays with the public school systems. The public school systems write the check. The public school systems control the dollars. This is once again a bogeyman attempt to try to mischaracterize the bill and, as a result of using mischaracterization, to try to, therefore, tune up opposition to it. I think we ought to stick to the substance of the actual language versus those types of presentations which I don't think are constructive to the debate. I yield to the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I rise to respond to some of the points made by some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle during the debate yesterday because, unfortunately, they have attempted, I believe, to mischaracterize our bill as it comes forward. The reason for mischaracterizing it I don't understand. Maybe they are not fully informed about it or they simply believe the bill is so strong that they can't defend it when they talk about it in its real form; therefore, they must characterize it as a fantasy and then attack the fantasy as being inappropriate. Let's begin with the Senator from Massachusetts who came to the floor yesterday and said that the flexibility we are suggesting to the States will just revisit the situation where States were spending education dollars on things such as uniforms and tubas. I must say, I think the Senator from Massachusetts is in a time warp on this point. That happened back when tubas and uniforms were bought, and I think one or two schools actually did that. Title I was passed in 1965. That was 35 years ago. I think it is important that people catch up with today and the events of today. It is important that people catch up with the events of today and the educational system of today. We have had 35 years of title I, the proposal as structured by a Democratic Congress for the purpose of addressing the issue of education of low-income children. That Congress was controlled by the Democrats for the vast majority of those 35 years. What have we gotten as a result of that? We have spent $120 billion to $130 billion on title I, and the achievement level of low-income children has not improved; it has either decreased or it has stayed the same. We know low-income children in the fourth grade are reading at two grade levels lower than the other children in that grade level. We know the low-income children in our inner cities are reading at grade levels significantly lower, and some can't read at all as they head toward high school graduation. We know, for example, as this chart shows, that 70 percent-plus of our students in high-poverty schools are below the basic levels in reading, 60 percent-plus are below the basic levels in math, and almost 70 percent are below the basic levels in science. We know the program has not worked. Yet Members from the other side decide to stroll onto the floor and start citing problems from 30 years ago and acting as if they have corrected those problems over the last 35 years. They haven't corrected the problems in education. They have aggravated the problems in education. Generation after generation of children have been put through a system that has not allowed them to achieve. Low-income children have been denied the American dream because they haven't been educated to read and to write. They are complicit in this. They say the status quo works. They basically say they have the answers. Let me quote from the President on this point. I like to hold up these charts myself, and I can read them. This is from the Washington Post in which the President is quoted. He told the reporters the Federal money for new teachers does not belong to the States and local school districts. ``It is not their money,'' he said. That is the attitude on the other side, that it is not their money. Well, whose money is it? Where does this money come from? It is obviously the taxpayers' money, and it obviously is coming out of the local school districts and States. It comes to Washington. But for some reason, the mentality on the other side is that we then capture this money here in Washington, send it back to the States, and tell the States exactly what to do with it--categorical, targeted, and straitjacketed programs; programs after programs, regulations after regulations, 900 pages of new law. What do they get for it? What have we gotten for it after 35 years? Very little. Our low-income kids have gotten even less--virtually no improvement in their academic efforts. So the Members on the other side come to the floor and they say things such as, ``This money will be spent, once again, as it was 35 years ago, if flexibility is given to the States, on tubas and football uniforms.'' I guess they didn't read the bill because it is very specific. For the first time, we are expecting achievement in exchange for giving the States these flexibility opportunities with these funds. This bill, as a result of the Republican initiative, says there must be academic achievement. It must be provable. It must be academic achievement which can be shown to have occurred through tests that have been given at the local level. The academic achievement must occur amongst our low-income kids so they are not left behind. We are not suggesting dumbing down, as has occurred, regrettably, in too many school systems. We are not suggesting lowering the average so that it looks as if the low-income child is getting closer to the norm. No, we are saying low-income children's achievement must improve as a result of low-income kids actually doing better in math and science and reading in relationship to their peers. Equally important is that the achievement accountability standards in this bill are very specific in saying they will be disaggregated. What does that mean? That means they are not going to be able to hide the performance of low-income kids behind throwing them in with the average; you will have to look at groups on the basis of their abilities and their classification so we will know whether poor children from the inner city are actually improving in their educational efforts, and we won't have a poor child being claimed to have improved because he or she is put in a pool with kids who have higher incomes and who are attending different school systems. So we have very specific achievement requirements in this bill. You cannot, in any way, come down here and, in fairness, or with objectivity, or, in my opinion, with an accurate reading of our bill, claim this is the type of program that occurred 30 or 35 years ago and it is, therefore, not going to work today. This is entirely different. It is an attempt to acknowledge what study after study has shown. Study after study has shown it is not Federal programs and title I that have worked to help kids; local communities and States focusing on kids' education have helped kids. In those States that have actually seen an increase in the achievement levels of low-income kids, such as Texas and North Carolina, success has been specifically achieved because the local schools had flexibility and control over the State money. It wasn't because of Federal dollars. In fact, a NEPA study by the National Education Goals Panel reported that ``the study concludes that the most plausible explanation for test score gains are found in the policy environment established in each State''--not in any policies that came out of Washington. The point is this: The other side is trying to mislead us. It is making representations which are totally inaccurate on the issue of how these dollars, which are put into more flexible arenas such as Straight A's portability, will be used. There is specific accountability. Straight A's requires that States establish annual numeric goals for increasing the percentage of economically disadvantaged students, of minority students, and of students with limited English proficiency. It requires that those kids meet higher abilities of proficiency and that they advance in their ability in math, science, and English. This representation, which we have now heard for at least a day and we have heard in the press for numerous days, about the ability to just simply throw money in the school systems and allow them to spend it for whatever they want--tubas, footballs, or uniforms--is a fantasy being made by people who are living in a time warp, not only a time warp relevant to that fantasy, but it is a time warp about what is the proper way to approach education. They are unwilling to look at any change. They are so mired in the status quo that they are unwilling to consider any change--even one such as we put forward as an options approach versus an approach which requires the States to do something. We say the States should have the option to try these new ideas. We don't say they must try the ideas. Another area: There was a representation that Straight A's would end up undermining the ability of kids to achieve in the sense that the school will get the money, that the money won't flow to the low-income child, and that it will be used on some other activity within the school system. They are not talking here about tubas and uniforms. They are talking about another school activity which might end up benefiting the average-income student versus the low-income student. That may be. But the point is, of course, that at end of the day the school system must prove the academic achievement of the low-income child has increased to get the money. However they spend the money, the results of spending the money must be that the academic achievement of the low- income child must improve. This is the new trust we put into this bill. We are concerned about the achievement of the low-income child, and we are not willing to spend another 35 years throwing money at a problem and creating a status quo in education that loses another generation or two of kids. Senator Murray came to the floor. She said this is a block grant. First, it is not a block grant because it has all of the categorical programs still in place. The money flows into the States. The States still have the categorical programs. They can spend it on any one of those programs. But they will have the ability to move it amongst those programs. They have the accountability standard which we put in place. But, more important than that, she goes on and says block grant programs are always easy to cut and therefore we shouldn't do this because the programs might get cut and might end up reducing funding. I point out that it is this Republican Congress that has significantly increased funding for education over the last 4 years. We have increased Federal funding for K through 12 by 67 percent. That is a big improvement. Equally important, it is this administration--and specifically on the other side of the aisle--that has suggested cutting block grant programs. Title VI, which is the only true block grant under ESEA, has been put in for zeroing out and for cutting in every Clinton/Gore budget. That is a block grant program that has been proposed as zeroing out. There is a certain disingenuousness when Members on the other side of the aisle come down here and give us crocodile tears about cutting educational spending--especially block grant educational spending--when it is their side that has proposed time and time again in their budgets that we do exactly that. It is our side that has proposed and has succeeded in significantly increasing funding for the various functions of education--elementary and secondary specifically--and this bill does the same. It is an important debate we are pursuing right now because it is a debate over the fundamental question of how we improve education for our children, and specifically for our low-income children. It does none of us any good to have a mischaracterization and a misrepresentation of the proposals that are brought to the floor. Regrettably, the other side has participated in hyperbole of a rather aggressive nature. I suggest if they really wanted to debate the issue of education, they would turn from hyperbole to getting into substance. Explain to us why we shouldn't put pressure on the local school districts to require that low-income children succeed. Explain to us why we should not empower parents, teachers, principals, and school board members to make the decisions as to how to better educate low-income children. Explain to us why they believe--by ``they'' I mean the people here in Washington who represent the educational establishment in Washington-- they know more about educating a child, a low-income child specifically, in the town of Rye, or the town of Epping, or the town of Grantham, NH, than the people who spend their whole life in Rye, in Epping, and in Grantham, NH, working to educate that child, and the parents of that child who happen to be totally committed to its education. Why do we believe we know more and can do a better job? We have put forward a series of proposals which say to the States: You do not have to take any of them. You can continue this program called title I exactly as it is, if that is what you desire. But if you want to try something more creative, we are going to give you four or five really good options that have worked in other States such as Arizona, or in other cities such as Seattle. And you can undertake those proposals. But it is up to you to make that choice. The other side needs to come down here and explain to us substantively why it is inappropriate to give States those options when we don't deny that there is a chance to use title I. They refuse to do that. They refuse to address the substance of the issue. Instead, they use hyperbole and go back 56 years to find a problem that has no relationship to today. It is a meager response to this bill coming from the other side of the aisle. Regrettably, it does not do them a service and it doesn't do this debate a great deal of service. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Are we under time control?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. The Senator is absolutely correct. On a side point to which the Senator is making an excellent allusion, it is very hard to tie student-teacher ratio to improved student performance. Study after study has been done on this, and, as a matter of fact, the University of Rochester did a study of the studies done. There have been over 300 studies done on student-teacher ratio and whether or not that is a determinative event in the education of a child, whether the education of a child improves. At the 17-to-1 level, it really is not. The University of Rochester determined the most determinative event was the quality of the teacher; surprisingly enough, it was not the ratio of the students to the teacher. If there is a teacher of poor quality teaching 17 kids versus 26 kids, the only advantage is 9 kids are not getting a lousy education. This study found it was the quality of the teacher that was the determinative event, which brings us to our point. Under our proposal, we say to the local school districts: OK, if you need more teachers, if you want to reduce your classroom percentages, you can do that; you can use the money for that; but if you want to use it to improve your teachers' ability to teach, you can use it for that, too. Or if you have really good teachers and the marketplace is trying to attract them away from the school system--math and science teachers are in great demand in the private sector these days, as are a lot of teachers--then you can pay them a bonus to stay in the school system. We took the teacher size categorical straitjacket the President and Vice President Gore proposed, and we put that together with the Eisenhower teacher training program and created the Teacher Empowerment Act, which essentially says to local school districts: You have the flexibility to use this to improve your teachers in any of three different ways: Add more teachers if you want; give your teachers better educational skills; or pay teachers a little bonus or incentive to stay in the school and teach if they happen to be people you want to keep on board. That is a difference of approach and a philosophical difference. Those are four items that reflect the difference in our themes, and our themes, to reiterate, are these: We think, after 35 years, it is time we focus on the low-income kids and it is time we expect the schools in this country to deliver those low-income kids an education that is going to give them a shot at the American dream. Unfortunately, we have not done that as a society. The record is abysmal, and I have cited countless statistics to support that. What we expect is a program that is child centered, that is achievement oriented, that is flexible and has accountability. I again congratulate the chairman of the committee and members of the committee who worked so hard on this. I look forward to the continuation of this debate over the next couple of weeks. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Nationally, the average is 1 to 17.