Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I know there is a unanimous consent agreement pending for a vote to occur at 5:30, so my statement on the amendment will be interrupted at 5:30--if I go on that long--for the vote at that time. Mr. President, our children deserve the best when it comes to education--all children; not just a few but all. It is not right that some kids get the best in schooling and the best of teachers and the best of school buildings and other kids are put into rundown, dilapidated, old buildings that are not even safe as far as fire and safety codes go. Children deserve modern school buildings with access to technology. They deserve small classes so they can get the teacher's attention when they need extra help. It is not just our kids who deserve this, it is the future of our country that deserves this, cries out for it, demands it. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. This is a picture of a modern elementary school classroom. This is Cleveland Elementary in Elkhart, IN. If I am not mistaken, there are 17 or 18 kids in this well-lit, well-appointed, roomy classroom. That is what a modern school ought to look like. That is sort of what we think about as an elementary school in all of our minds. This is what we conjure up. We conjure up a nice, well-ordered classroom with a class small enough for the teacher to pay attention. Or how about this? This is South Lawrence East School in Lawrence, MA. There are 12, maybe 13 kids here. This is the library and media center. Now how about that as the kind of an ideal library and media center for all of our elementary schools around the country? I ask any parent: Wouldn't you like to have your child go to this school? Wouldn't that be wonderful, to think that your kid was in a school like this every day with the latest technology, all hooked up to the Internet? That would be nice. I am afraid most schools look like this. That is not bad. That is not a dilapidated school. The average school building in the United States is 42 years old. This is where most of our kids go to elementary schools. They are over 50 years old. They have air-conditioners sticking out of the windows. This was added later because the schools were not air-conditioned in those days. Many of them have roofs that leak and are kind of rundown schools. It is a national disgrace that the nicest places our children see are shopping malls, sports arenas, and movie theaters, and the most rundown place they see is the public school. What kind of a signal are we sending them about the value we place on them and their education and their future? How can we prepare kids for the 21st century in schools that don't even make the grade in the 20th century? The American Society of Civil Engineers recently issued a report card for America's infrastructure. This is their report card. As we can see, the condition of our national infrastructure is poor. All of them are poor: energy, waterways, solid waste, wastewater, drinking water, airports, bridges, roads--all in pretty bad shape. This is the second time they put out this report. The lowest grade of all goes, once again to public schools. Seventy-five percent of our Nation's school buildings are inadequate. The average cost of capital investments needed to upgrade and replace our schools is $3,800 per student. Since 1998, the total need has increased from $112 billion to $127 billion. That is just to bring the existing public schools, elementary and secondary schools we have in America, up to fire and safety code and to upgrade them in terms of the latest technology. It does not refer to the amount of money we are going to need to build the new school buildings. That is going to require a lot more money in the future. Right now we have an all-time high of $53.2 million. This will grow. Over the next 10 years, it is going to be necessary to build an additional 6,000 schools. That number is not even reflected here. This $127 billion is needed now to repair and modernize existing schools. I have been advocating this for about a decade now, starting back in 1991, that the Federal Government begin to meet some of its responsibilities. All one has to do is read Jonathan Kozol's book ``Savage Inequalities'' to understand why it is necessary for the Federal Government to be involved. A little history may be in order. I always ask the question: Where does it say in the Constitution of the United States that our public school system in America has to be based on property taxes? You will look in vain, and you won't find it anywhere in the Constitution. Why is that the basis of funding for our public schools? The reason is, in the early days of the founding of our Republic, it was decided we would have free public education for everyone. At that time it was free public education for white males, but with the adoption of the Bill of Rights and with the ensuing concept that we are all one Nation, we broadened that to women and minorities and everyone else. Really, we have ingrained this idea of free public education for all. But at that time we didn't have income taxes. We didn't have corporate taxes. We didn't have all these kinds of taxes. All we had were property taxes and excise taxes. So to fund the public schools, the only tax base they had to go to was the property taxes people paid. Thus the whole system sort of built up over the centuries that way. It literally was not until 1865, under Republican President Abraham Lincoln, that the Federal Government got involved in public education. That was with the passage of the Morell Act that set up the land grant colleges of the United States. That was the first time the Federal Government really got involved at all in public education. Then for about 100 years, the Federal Government was involved only on that level, through land grant colleges, through some research, and with the adoption of the GI bill after World War II, mostly focused at higher education from the Federal Government standpoint. Then, with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the progeny of which we are now debating, the Federal Government got involved with trying to equalize a little bit the great disparities in education to meet the needs of lower income students, special needs students, and to help the States and local governments meet their constitutional requirement that if they did indeed provide a free public education, they couldn't discriminate. Again, no State in this Union has to provide a free public education to the kids in the State. But if they do, if a State decides to provide a free public education, then the Constitution kicks in and says: You can't have a free public education for whites but not for African Americans, for men but not for women, for Catholics but not Jews, Protestants but not Catholics. It has to be free for everyone. Of course, as my dear friend and colleague from Vermont knows, this was later expanded under a couple of court cases in the early 1970s to also say that you can't discriminate on the basis of disability. Kids with disabilities under our Constitution also must receive a free, appropriate public education. Since 1965, the Federal Government has been providing support and funds for elementary and secondary education. Thus, that is the bill we are debating. As we have looked at the concept of what the Federal Government ought to do in terms of helping elementary and secondary education, we have title I programs. We had the Eisenhower math and science programs and a variety of different efforts where we have come in and targeted the funds to address a national need, whether it was a lack of science or math, under the Eisenhower math and science program, to try to help needy students who perhaps did not have any early childhood education or support, and title I programs, remedial math programs, to get these kids to catch up, get ready to learn. That is what these were all designed to do. I forgot to mention one other aspect of our involvement in elementary and secondary education, and that was the free school lunch program, and later, the school breakfast program; both targeted not only nutritional needs but were to help kids learn better in school. I have been advocating for a long time--at least since I read Jonathan Kozol's book ``Savage Inequality''--that the Federal Government needs to be involved in helping to rebuild and modernize our public schools. Why? In many areas you have poor schools, and the property-tax payers are overburdened as it is. We need to help them build these schools. It is a national problem, not just local. So I believe this is a proper role for the Federal Government. As I said, I have been advocating this for over a decade. In fiscal year 1995, I did secure $100 million in the appropriations bill as sort of a downpayment to get us started on this. I was disappointed when those funds were later rescinded. But, then, as the years went by, we made real progress, and last year we passed a $1.2 billion initiative to make emergency repairs to our schools. This was a bipartisan agreement, hammered out with Congressmen Goodling, Porter, and Obey on the House side, and Senators Jeffords, Specter, myself, and the White House, who all got involved in that and we hammered out this agreement. That was passed last year. That money is now going out to the States. In about 2 months, that $1.2 billion will be made available to the States on the basis of the incidence of poverty, basically following the title I program. So those States with a high incidence of poverty tend to get more of the money. This is a busy chart, but it shows you the distribution on July 1 for school renovation grants. It goes from California, with $138 million; New York gets $105 million; North Carolina gets $21 million; North Dakota gets $5 million; Ohio gets $37 million; Pennsylvania, also another big player in this, gets $44 million; Texas gets $94.9 million to help modernize and rebuild its schools; Louisiana gets $24.9 million; Vermont gets $5.4 million, about the same as Iowa, which gets $6.4 million. So this money is all contributed on the basis of the incidence of poverty as to the population in those States. We can't solve the whole problem in one year. This will make a difference, but the bill before us eliminates this program at a critical time, just when it is getting off the ground, the first year. We will get the money out to the States; they will be able to use some of this to get up to fire and safety code in some schools and modernize some schools, and this bill will pull the rug out from underneath them. We must continue this program to repair and renovate our Nation's public schools. That is why I am proposing this amendment on behalf of myself and Senators Kerry, Levin, Reid of Nevada, Biden, Corzine, Johnson, Cantwell, Torricelli, Bingaman, Clinton, and Dodd. They are the cosponsors. This amendment reauthorizes the school renovation program that we created last year and increases the authorization level from $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion. The amendment continues to split between school modernization and the needs of kids with disabilities under IDEA, which we negotiated in last year's bill. Seventy-five percent of the funds will finance urgent repairs, such as fixing a leaky roof, replacing faulty wiring, or making repairs to bring schools up to local safety and fire codes. That is 75 percent of the $1.6 billion. The remaining funding will support activities related to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, part B, or for technology activities related to school construction. The need to help schools make these repairs is clear. The Healthy Schools Network has reported many problems around the Nation. Several parents complain that their children were getting sick at a large city school near Albany, NY. The county inspected the school and found unsafe levels of lead and mold in the school. The school has not been able to correct the problem, citing a lack of funding for repairs. But the children continue to go to that school. A child in North Carolina missed several days of school suffering from headaches and stomach aches. During summer break, the child's illness abated. But when school started and they came back, he got sick again. The child attends class in an old trailer that has poor ventilation and bad odor problems. In Southern California, a teacher was forced to quit teaching after she suffered hearing and voice loss from, again, lack of proper ventilation and mold in her fourth grade classroom. A Virginia parent said her son felt sick at school and was doing very poorly. An inspection of the classroom found nonfunctioning ventilators, water stains, mold in the ceiling tiles. Leaky roofs, peeling lead paint, poor plumbing, not meeting fire and safety codes aren't just an inconvenience, they are a hazard to our children. In my State of Iowa, the State fire marshal reported that fires in Iowa schools have increased fivefold over the past several years, from an average of 20 per year in the previous decades to over 100 per year in just the last decade. I asked why that was. Well, the schools are getting older, the wiring is in disrepair, and thus the fires are started. What happens is they don't have proper wiring, and maybe they put more things in the classroom, and they expand the number of plugs going in the sockets, and they overload the circuits and fires start. So there is a clear need to help school districts improve the condition of their schools to ensure the health and safety and education of our children. States and local communities are struggling to renovate existing schools and build new ones to alleviate overcrowding. School construction modernization is necessary to equip classrooms for the 21st century and improve learning conditions, end overcrowding, and make smaller classes possible. Our school buildings are wearing out. Nearly three-quarters of all public schools in America were built before 1970; 74 percent were built before 1970. In fact, almost 1 out of every 3 schools in America was built before World War II, in the last century. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, when a school is between 20 and 30 years old, frequent replacement of equipment is necessary. When a school is between 30 and 40 years old, all of the original equipment should have been replaced, including the roof and the electrical system. After 40 years of age, a school building begins to deteriorate rapidly, and most schools are abandoned after 60 years. Yet before World War II, over 60 years ago--and 1 out of 3 schools functioning today were built over 60 years ago--the average school building was 42 years old, as I noted. Technology is placing new demands on schools. As a result of the increased use of technology, many schools must install new wiring, new telephone wires, new electrical systems, and the demand for the Internet is at an all-time high. But in the Nation's poorest schools, only about a third have Internet access. The need to modernize our Nation's public schools is clear, and yet the Federal Government lags in helping our local school districts address this critical problem. Because of increasing enrollments and aging buildings, local and State expenditures for school construction have increased dramatically--by 39 percent from 1990 to 1997. Let me repeat that. Local and State expenditures for school construction has gone up 39 percent from 1990 to 1997. However, this still has not been sufficient to address the need. Those taxes come from property-tax payers which--not in every case but in most cases--is one of the most unfair, unsound ways of taxing to raise money for our public schools. Again, if you live in an area where there is high income and pay high property taxes, you have good schools. If you live in an area that is low income with low property taxes, you have poorer schools. Is that any way to run the educational system of America based upon property taxes or where you live? If you are lucky and are born in suburban Northern Virginia, you have great public schools, but if you are born in southern Maryland or maybe even in the southern part of Iowa--I can speak about my own State--where we have low property values, a lack of a good property tax base, you simply do not have the good schools that you need. This amendment will help school districts make the urgent repairs needed to make schools safer for our children, but we have to do more. Some buildings have simply outlived their usefulness. As I mentioned, we have to build an additional 6,000 schools in the next decade. We are not even talking about that here. In the near future, the Senate will act on a tax bill. I will be working with my colleagues, Senator Kerry and others, to provide school modernization tax credits to help underwrite the nearly $25 billion of new school facilities that are needed. Mr. President, you might ask: Will this approach work? It will work. We have had an experiment going on in Iowa. We are in the third year of a school modernization demonstration project. Over the past 3 years, $28 million in Federal funds have gone to my State of Iowa to rebuild and modernize schools to bring our schools up to safety and fire codes, to make sure these schools are meeting the needs of the 21st century. Twenty-eight million dollars have gone to Iowa, but it has leveraged $311 million in repair and new construction projects. For every dollar the Federal Government has invested in Iowa, it has leveraged over $10 of State spending to help repair our schools. The Iowa construction grant program shows what can happen if we put this money out nationally. If we put this money out nationally, the $1.2 billion that we did last year, I guarantee it is going to leverage money all over this country to rebuild and modernize our schools. That is why with $1.2 billion, I would be shocked if we come in at less than $7 billion or $8 billion of additional money leveraged in the States to meet this requirement. That is what this amendment is all about.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am introducing today legislation designed to address the extensive problems that have been caused by the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether, MTBE, to make appropriate revisions to the reformulated gasoline, RFG, program in the Clean Air Act, and to increase greatly the use of renewable motor vehicle fuels. The bill is similar to legislation I introduced in the previous Congress. We have to get MTBE out of our gasoline. This is absolutely clear. Even in Iowa, where we are not required to have oxygenated fuels or RFG, a recent survey found a surprising level of water contamination with MTBE. So my legislation requires a phased reduction in the use of MTBE in motor fuel and then a prohibition of MTBE in fuel or fuel additives beginning three years after enactment. My legislation recognizes the benefits that have been provided by the oxygen content requirement in the reformulated gasoline program. Oxygen added to gasoline reduces emissions of carbon monoxide, toxic compounds and fine particulate matter. So my legislation continues the oxygen content requirement, but it would allow, in certain circumstances upon a proper showing, averaging of the oxygen content requirement over a period of time up to a year. The legislation also ensures that all health benefits of the reformulated gasoline program are maintained and improved, and includes very strong provisions to ensure that there is no backsliding in air quality and health benefits from cleaner burning reformulated gasoline. The petroleum companies would also be prohibited from taking the pollutants from gasoline in some areas and putting them back into gasoline in other areas of the country that are not subject to the more stringent air quality standards. Those are referred to as the anti- dumping protections. My bill places tighter restrictions on highly polluting aromatic and olefin content of reformulated gasoline. My legislation also recognizes the important role of renewable fuels in improving our environment, building energy security for out nation, and increasing farm income, economic growth and job creation, especially in rural areas. The legislation creates a national renewable content requirement for motor vehicle fuel. The requirement would not be a mandate that any particular user of gasoline or diesel fuel has to use the renewable fuel, but it would require the petroleum industry to ensure that renewable fuels make up a certain minimum percentage of the total U.S. supply of motor vehicle fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel. By 2011, that percentage would be about 5 percent on a volume basis, 3.3 percent based on energy content or approximately 10 billion gallons based on current estimates of gasoline and diesel consumption. Overall, this legislation will get MTBE out of gasoline, maintain and improve the air quality and health benefits of the reformulated gasoline program and the Clean Air Act, and put our nation on a solid path toward greater use of renewable fuels. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I understand I have been yielded 12\1/2\ minutes. I thank the Senator from North Dakota for yielding me some time to speak on this budget. I guess you could sum up this budget in very few words. It is bad for what ails us in this country. It is bad for our people. It is bad for our future. It is bad for our kids, and especially bad for our elderly. Hubert Humphrey, one of my great political heroes, once said that the moral test of government is how the government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick and the needy. Let's be clear: This conference report flunks the moral test of government. It turns its back on far too many of these Americans. And to the extent that it implements the Bush tax proposal, it basically says: If you earn $1 million a year, if you are very secure, we are going to help you get wealthier. But if you are in the dawn of life and you are a child, perhaps, who needs some help because you are in the lower socioeconomic strata of America, if you are poor, sick, elderly, if you are one of the baby boomers getting ready to go on Medicare, well, they are telling you, so long, sucker, we will see you later. That is what this budget to the extent that we stick to the President's plan, says. I think stacking the deck even more against those who already have the deck stacked against them, through no fault of their own, is not the purpose of government. It is not why I came here, and I don't think that is what we ought to be about. I hope we will see a strong shift from this Bush budget. This budget was fashioned under a plan to make room for huge tax cuts that to far to large an extent go to the wealthiest. In my saying these things, you might say that is just rhetoric. I am just saying those things. I am a Democrat, and the people who put this together are Republicans, so I am just saying these things. But let's look at the facts. Don't accept what I say, look at the facts. This Senate, by a majority vote, said that we wanted to cut the Bush tax proposal by $225 billion and put that into education. That was the amendment this Senator offered, and it was adopted by the Senate. Senator Jeffords and Senator Breaux offered an amendment that also put $70 billion into education over the next 10 years. Well, that adds up to almost $300 billion--$295 billion--and that was in the Senate-passed budget. The House of Representatives had only provided $21.3 billion for education over those next 10 years. That was what President Bush wanted, $21.3 billion. Well, now, you would think that, since we passed $225 billion over 10 years and the House passed $21.3 billion, they would compromise somewhere. Well, they compromised all right--at zero. Not only did they take out the $225 billion over 10 years under my amendment to zero, they took out the Jeffords-Breaux amendment of $70 billion down to zero, and the Bush plan of $21.3 billion. They say they put it in a contingency fund. Good luck in getting anything out of that contingency fund. Why do I say that? Because also last week the Senate passed, on a bipartisan vote, a unanimous vote--a voice vote, and no one objected to it--we appropriated for the next 10 years about $181 billion to fully fund the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, to move towards and meet our obligation of 40 percent of the average per pupil expenditure for IDEA over 10 years. A welcome sigh of relief echoed from our local school districts and our State boards of education. Finally, the Federal Government was going to provide this money for special education. We just did that last week here in the education bill that is in front of us. But this budget, with its projected contingency fund, is not going to allow us to meet our obligations in other areas. This is kind of a busy chart. But what this chart really points out is that if we pass this budget as it is presented to us, doing the things that are talked about, we are going to raid Social Security and we are going to raid Medicare. The facts are here. If we take the final conference and look out over the next 10 years to what we are going to spend on defense--we are not going to cut defense; let's not kid anybody around here. We are not going to cut defense below this. The alternative minimum tax is going to be paid by an ever growing number of people exasperated lowering the top tax rates, creating a pressure to change the AMT. Look at special education that we passed last week, which is mandatory. It is mandatory spending. We have to spend this money if we are to meet a commitment that this Senate has voted without objection to finally meet. Think about the emergencies that will occur. We always have to come up with additional money for emergencies. Then there are the interest payments we have to make. So when you add all of this up, they gave us a $504 billion surplus in this budget--they say. OK, it looks like a nice little slush fund we can use for all these things, but when you add up all of the mandatory things we are going to be spending over 10 years, it comes to a deficit of minus $552 billion. So that means in order to make up this deficit in each of these years, we are going to have to take money out of Medicare for the first 3 years and then, from year 4 on, both Medicare and Social Security. Again, this is not rhetoric; the numbers are there. What the House of Representatives gave us, what they voted on in the House of Representatives--every Congressman and Congresswoman who voted for that budget voted to raid Medicare and to raid Social Security over the next 10 years. Make no mistake about it. That is what they did, and that is what we have in front of us here. So if you vote for this budget, you are voting to take money out of Medicare and you are voting to take money out of Social Security, to pay for what? The House has already passed a set of tax cuts that dramatically favor tax break that goes to the wealthiest in our society. President Bush is always talking about waitresses and the people working out there and how they need a tax break, too. Here is a letter which appeared in the Des Moines Register on May 3. It was written by Deb Stehr of Lake View, IA. She is a waitress. She wrote this. The headline is ``Bush's Tax Cut Won't Help This Waitress Mom.'' I ask unanimous consent that this entire letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Fifteen minutes, maybe.

Mr. HARKIN. That is fine.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first I thank my friend and my colleague on the Education Committee, Senator Murray from Washington, for always being in the forefront of this battle to make sure our class sizes are small enough so the kids can learn and teachers can teach. Truly, as I traveled around my State and traveled around the country, visiting different schools in different areas, Senator Murray's name has become synonymous with the nationwide drive to get smaller class sizes for all of our kids in elementary school. So I congratulate her for being our champion on perhaps one of the most important steps we can take to ensure success in school. To hear tell from the administration and from President Bush, some would have you believe the most important thing we could do is test, test, test, year after year, as the most important way to assure success in school. I strongly agree with the need to demand greater accountability but if a teacher has 25, 28, 30 or more kids in a classroom, I don't care how many times you test them--you can test them every month, you can take their temperature every month--you are cheating those kids and you are cheating the teacher because that teacher simply cannot give the kind of hands-on instruction that the teacher needs to give to individual students. So the most important thing is not testing. I will say more about that later. The most important thing is to get the kids early in life. I know Senator Murray was a preschool teacher. It is the most important job she has ever had in her life, I would say. It is more important than even being a Senator, as a matter of fact. And by serving on the school board, she brings the hands-on knowledge about education that so many of us probably lack. I never taught school, and I have never been on a school board, so I put great weight and great credence on the positions taken by Senator Murray when it comes to issues of elementary and secondary education. I think Senator Murray has eloquently stated--not just eloquently but backed with the data and the facts--that smaller class sizes lead to better student performance and a healthier atmosphere in our schools. It reduces violence in our schools. When kids are not crowded together, when they have some space and they have that one-on-one with the teacher, their frustration level decreases and they can better learn and better associate with their peers. In the debate we are going to have on elementary and secondary education, we are all going to have important amendments. I am going to have one on school construction, to help our schools meet that need. But really, when you think about what we need in the earliest years-- kindergarten, first, second, third grade--this amendment, I submit, is the single most important. You can have the most modern classrooms in the world; you can have the best buildings; you can be wired for the Internet; you can have all this great stuff; but if you have one teacher teaching 30 kids, it doesn't mean a thing. So this really is the hub around which the rest of this is all spinning. I have seen with my own eyes what has happened in the last couple of years in my State of Iowa with class size reduction. When you talk with teachers who have had 25, 28 students and they now have 18--I talked to one teacher in Iowa who had 15 students in a first grade class. She thought she had died and gone to heaven. She said: This is why I became a teacher. When I went through college and I got into student teaching, I remember I was in classrooms with 28 or 30 kids. I got out of college and I remember--the first class she told me about, I forget the exact number but it was 25, 26, 27, 28 kids. Now she has 15. She says now she can teach as she was taught in college. You could just see it on her face, just how she felt about her job. You could see it in the kids' faces, too. I will have more to say about that in a second. This is what we are talking about. This is a picture that says it all. It is a modern classroom. It is well lit, well structured. There is plenty of work space. There are 18 kids. This is the Cleveland Elementary School in Elkhart, IN. That is the kind of classroom a teacher needs, to be able to give the kind of personal attention that a student needs. That is what we are talking about, that kind of classroom. The Class Size Reduction Program has been a great success. Since 1999 when Senator Murray first started this effort, more than 29,000 teachers have been hired and more than 1.7 million children are benefiting because they are in smaller classes. Yet the bill we have-- and I might say the budget we are going to be voting on tomorrow--will not allow us to continue this program. This is not the time to abandon the national commitment we have had in the past to reduce class size across America. As I said, we have the data. We have the research. It has confirmed what we intuitively already knew, what students knew, what teachers knew: smaller classes boost student achievement. They get better grades. We also know that minority students especially perform better than their peers in larger classes. The news release was put out on August 6 about Project STAR, the Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio. It is a Tennessee study. It tracked the progress of 11,600 elementary school students and their teachers comparing those who were randomly assigned to smaller classes--13 to 17 students for grades K-3--with those randomly assigned to larger class sizes--22 to 25 pupils--or regular size classes with a teacher's aide. All the students were in regular-sized classes from the fourth grade on. So, again, they compared the students in the smaller class sizes, 13 to 17 students, with students who were in classes that had 22 to 25 students. What they found was smaller classes have a greater effect on African-American students than white students. While students were in smaller classes, the black-white gap in achievement fell by 38 percent. That is significant, 38 percent. And it remained 15 percent smaller after the students returned to normal-sized classes after the fourth grade. While they were in kindergarten through third grade, the gap between the score achievement results for students between black and white increased by 38 percent. Even when, in fourth grade, they went into regular size and bigger classes, it was 15-percent smaller than for those who were never in smaller classes. Again, what we all know is if you get to them early in life and you give them good instruction and good teaching and good support, it carries on. If you cheat them out of that early in life, that also carries on. How many times do we have to learn around here that patching, fixing, and mending will get you a little bit, but to do it right in the first place in kindergarten, first, second, third and, I submit, even in preschool, means you don't have to patch and fix and mend and repair later on, and you are much further ahead. That is what this study shows. This was not just a small study; this was 11,600 students. The study says that smaller pupil-teacher ratios can account for almost all of the narrowing of the black-white gap since 1971 as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam. The study says smaller classes increased the likelihood that black students who take the ACT or the SAT college entrance exams grew from 3l.8 percent to 41.3 percent, a sharper increase than among white students, which grew from 44.7 percent to 46.4. If all students were assigned to a small class, the authors of the study wrote, the black- white gap in taking a college entrance exam would fall by an estimated 60 percent. Think about that. If all students were assigned--they are extrapolating, I know. We have the study of 11,600. If you extrapolated that out, the black-white gap in taking college entrance exams would close by an estimated 60 percent. When we talk about not leaving kids behind, let's face it. What are we talking about? Under the Bush budget that we see coming down the pike and we will be voting on tomorrow, he says leave no kid in the suburbs behind. Leave no kid behind who has well-heeled parents, or parents who are Senators, Congressmen, Presidents, or CEOs of major oil companies, or law firms. Let's face it. We have good public schools. We are talking about the kids who have bad schools and poorly trained teachers. Yes, we are talking mostly about minority students. As we talk about trying to leave no kid behind, we should be talking about not leaving behind those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder. That is really what we are talking about. You don't leave those at the top of the ladder behind. They are never left behind. We make a good living here. Our kids are never left behind. The sons and daughters of CEOs, of corporation lawyers and lawyers downtown and college teachers are never left behind. The sons and daughters of those who are new Americans, many of them immigrants who come to this country, and the African Americans who have been denied the opportunities for education in our country for as long as they have been here on our shores--and that goes back 400 years--is what we are really talking about, not leaving kids behind who are at the bottom rungs of the ladder. If that is what we are talking about, then we need smaller class sizes because the study shows they are the ones who benefit the most. Everyone benefits for smaller class size. Don't get me wrong. But those who are minority students who come from the low socioeconomic strata of America are the ones who benefit the most. The teen birth rate for those assigned to smaller classes is one- third less among white females and 40 percent lower for black teenage males. Crime: Conviction rates were 20 percent lower for black males who were in smaller classes than their peers who were in regular size classes. Perhaps these aren't statistically absolute, but statistically they show trends and what happens when you have smaller classes. Again, we are talking about not leaving any student behind. This is really the hub of it. There is the center of the universe. A lot of it is spinning around out there in terms of having better schools and better trained teachers, better equipment, wired to the Internet, accountability, and testing. All of that is sort of spinning around out there. But in the center of all of it is how many kids per teacher are in these earlier classes. You can have the best trained teacher in the world. If you put him or her in a class of 30 kids and they can't teach well, those kids are going to be cheated. This is really the amendment to say whether or not we really care about leaving any children behind. As I said earlier, I have visited many schools in my State in the last couple of years since we started the class size reduction program. The enthusiasm and the support among the teachers, the principals, and parents is incalculable. Time after time they were saying, thank you; it is about time we were doing this. Last month I held two appropriations field hearings in Iowa. I heard from a lot of people about all aspects of elementary and secondary education. But I think the most poignant testimony had to do with class size reduction. Jolene Franken, president of the Iowa State Education Association, has 30 years of teaching experience in Iowa elementary schools. This is what she told me: Try teaching 30 students versus 20 students and see how much individual help you can give to students. . . . In order for teachers to do their best, they must know their students' needs, learning styles, strengths and weaknesses--these things are impossible with large class sizes. Sherry Brown, Cedar Falls, testified on behalf of the Iowa PTA. She said: The advantages of small class-sizes in the early grades on overall academic achievement are well documented, but the advantages also include improved parent involvement. When teachers have fewer students, they have fewer parents with which to communicate and are able to confer with them more frequently. Maybe that is something some of us haven't thought about. After what Sherry said, I thought about it. It stands to reason that we want parents more involved with their kids' education. A lot of that has to do with the teacher talking to these parents and getting the parents involved. When you have a huge class and 60 parents, it is very hard to communicate with all of them. Cut that down by a third or more. Then you can see what Sherry Brown was talking about. They can talk to the parents more frequently. During a visit to Starry Elementary School in Marion a while back, I spoke with Reggie Long, a first grade teacher for 30 years. She told me she really appreciated the smaller classes. She said: It's nice because I can give individual attention to the kids. We just give them so much academically now. If you don't give them individual help, they can't succeed and we can't succeed as teachers. The superintendent of the school district said: The key to effective teaching is getting to know the students and parents. William Jacobson said that it is easier when teachers have fewer students in their classes. Two years ago, Angie Borgmeyer, a teacher in Indianola--my home county--had 27 students in her second grade class. I visited her last year, and because of class size reduction, she was down to 21 students. She thought it was still too many, but she said 27 was way too many. She said: It's very difficult with that many students. When you're trying to teach them to read and give them basic arithmetic, you need to be able to do it in a small group and give them individual attention. She pleaded with us to continue the program because her goal was to get down to 18 students, where she believes she could really then fulfill her obligation and her commitment to being the best teacher possible. The Class Size Reduction Program is simple. It is flexible. It is popular. So I, for one, cannot understand why we are having a problem. Is it budgeted? It can't be the budget. The budget has $400 billion in some contingency fund--$400 billion--for the next 10 years. So it can't be a budgetary matter. We have a surplus out there. We are going to give tax breaks, they tell me, to a lot of people. People who make over $1 million a year are going to get tax breaks. So this is not a budget item. It is not that we do not have the money to do this. We do. It is a matter of priorities. That is all it is, a matter of priorities: what do we want to do? Last week, with the help of Senator Jeffords, Senator Murray, Senator Hagel, and others on both sides of the aisle, we adopted an amendment that appropriated $181 billion for special education over the next 10 years to help us meet our goal of providing at least 40 percent of the average per pupil expenditure. We did that. And there is money to do that. So it seems to me that, again, in our actions we could ask: Is that a priority? Yes, it is. Certainly it is a priority. A few minutes ago I said that perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of smaller class sizes are our minority students. I take it back. I misspoke. The biggest beneficiaries of smaller class sizes are our students with disabilities--our kids who have special needs, who no longer are warehoused and pushed into institutions but are now living with their families and are going to their neighborhood schools with their friends and their neighbors, but they have special needs. They may be physically disabled. They may be mentally disabled or a combination of both. But would anyone stand in this Chamber and say it is time to turn the clock back? That those kids should not be in the classroom? That we ought to go back to the old days that I know a lot of us remember, when kids with disabilities were sent across the State to some institution, deprived of the support of their families, deprived of their friends and their neighbors, simply because they had one disability or another? I bet there isn't one Senator who would stand in this Chamber and advocate that. I do not think there are too many people in this country who would advocate that. We have come too far. We know that both the kids with the disabilities and the kids without the disabilities benefit from this interaction in our classrooms. We have seen it. We know it. The kids without disabilities become more sensitized. They become more understanding. As I have said many times in dealing with this issue of education and disability, when you put such kids together early on, then the fact that they are going to later associate in the workplace with someone who has a disability is no big deal. When we first passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, more and more people with disabilities started getting into the workplace. I spoke in this Chamber many times and said: I know what people are saying. They are uncomfortable around people with disabilities. They don't know what to do. They don't know how to act. I have always said: Just be yourself. You'll be far ahead. But I understand that. To break down that feeling of being uncomfortable or not being able to associate with people who have disabilities, put all children in school together. Let them play together. Let them grow up together. They will find that it is no big deal. So it helps kids with disabilities and kids without disabilities. It helps all of society. What am I getting to in talking about this? I guess what I am getting to is that we put all this money into special education, to help our local school districts meet their obligations to educate kids with disabilities, but the biggest beneficiaries of small class size, I would submit, are those kids with disabilities. If you have a big class, how much attention is that student with special needs going to get? If you have a smaller class, the teacher can pay more attention to both the minority students and the kids with disabilities. So I correct what I said. I think the biggest beneficiaries of smaller class size maybe are not minority students but kids with disabilities. It seems to me, if we want to back up what we did last week, in providing the funds for special education, this is the amendment with which to do it, to make sure we have smaller class size. Maybe this isn't the time, but I am constrained, nonetheless, to talk a little about an issue because it is going to come up--I anticipate that it will come up--and that is the whole issue of discipline and discipline in our schools. It is a major issue. I am not in any way denigrating it nor saying the problem isn't there, that it does not exist. Of course it does. Any of us who have put kids through school know that it is an issue. But time and time again, when I have looked at the issue of discipline, especially when it concerns children with disabilities, who are under an individual education program, an IEP--which qualifies them under the IDEA program--most often, the discipline problem arises out of the frustration that this young person with the disability has because their special needs are not being attended. I remember a classic case one time where we had a deaf child, a deaf student, in a classroom and they were using visual aids, television. The kids would watch television as part of their learning program. I don't know whether it was ``Sesame Street'' or whatever. I am not certain what the program was. After a few days of this, the student who was deaf began to act up and throw things, hit other kids, became disruptive. What was the first impulse of the teacher? Get that kid out of class. The kid is becoming disruptive; I can't handle him. They pointed out that the reason the kid was disruptive was because he didn't understand what was going on on the television--they didn't have closed captioning--because he had been deaf since birth. He had trouble speaking. So he was acting out his frustration by being disruptive in school. But when they fixed the problem, they put in closed captioning, it was amazing; the discipline problem went away. You are going to hear more about this issue of discipline. Keep in mind how frustrated and angry some of these kids who have special needs and disabilities got, and they are not being supported so that they can get an appropriate education. Again, I come back to my point. If we have smaller class size, the teacher can pay more attention to the student with special needs. Any way you measure it, I believe this amendment before us now is the key to having healthier, happier, more productive students, students who will go on to achieve more. The idea that somehow if we are going to test later on--we are going to test from the third to the eighth grade--we are going to test every year now, that somehow this is going to make them better students, there is a place for testing--but not without the support of the funding for it, though--if you don't have smaller class size, this testing isn't going to mean a thing. That is why we have to adopt this amendment. I don't suppose the camera can pick these up. I had some other items here that were sent to me. Here are some second grade kids in McKinley School in Des Moines who made some posters for me, talking about how they felt with smaller class size. Here is one that said: ``There are more books and time to spend with adults.'' That is a second grader who wrote that. Here is another one. I like this one. These kids are all standing in line to go into the library, and this student said: ``It takes less time to do things.'' Smaller class size means they don't have to stand in line so long to get their books. This is looking at it through the eyes of second graders who have seen what it means to be in smaller classes. I like this one. This is Chelsea. Chelsea says: ``There is more space in my classroom.'' The kids aren't crowded together. Think what it means to a child to have a little bit of space; they are not all crowded together. It means a lot to us, too. Here is another one. This is Miguel Gonzalez. He says: ``We are not crowded.'' And you can see all the kids are happy. They all have smiling faces. This is from Tony. Tony says: ``More books so I can learn easier, from the library.'' I assume he means he can get more books so he can learn easier because it is not so crowded. He is reading a book about space, he wrote there. That is a second grade kid. Here is one; this is Gentrie. Gentrie says: ``I can spend more time with the teacher.'' Here is the teacher saying, ``Hello, Gentrie.'' And here is Gentrie saying, ``Let's talk.'' A second grade kid, through this picture, says: ``Hello, Gentrie.'' She says, ``Let's talk.'' With smaller class size, Gentrie can talk to her teacher. That kind of sums it up in terms of the Murray amendment and what it means. We are going to have a budget conference report, I guess, tomorrow. We put $320 billion into that budget. Senator Jeffords and others, Senator Specter, Senator Chafee, had all voted to put more money into education. We had over $300 billion that we put in for education over the next 10 years. The Bush budget had $21.3 billion for 10 years. We said that is not enough. So we boosted that to $320 billion over 10 years. The House, interestingly enough, had passed the budget with the President's figure of $21.3 billion in education over the next 10 years, an increase. Usually when we pass something here and they pass something different in the House, we go to conference and compromise somewhere between the two. We passed a $320 billion increase in education over 10 years; the House passed a $21.3 billion increase over 10 years. You would have thought that maybe we would have a compromise somewhere in the middle. The conference report has come back with has a zero increase for education. They didn't even take President Bush's $21.3 billion, as meager and penny pinching as that was. They zeroed it out. So the money we put in for education, the budget conference that we will consider later this week a zero increase, zero. What they did was they took all the money and put it in a contingency fund, $400 billion in a contingency fund for 10 years. That pot of money can be used for anything, as I understand it. It can be used for anything we spend money on. So that means education is sort of put down on the level with everything else. It is not that important. We will just put it down with everything else. But this Senate, last week, said education was more important; that it deserved to be increased by over $300 billion over the next 10 years. Later in the week we will have a budget conference report that says: No, not only will we not even put in the President's $21.3 billion increase; we will put in a zero increase for 10 years. That is why I believe it is so important for us to have a strong vote on the Murray amendment for class size reduction. Once again, we have to tell those budget negotiators that what they did is totally inadequate, if we are really going to meet the needs of education over the next 10 years. That is why I am hopeful we can have a good, strong vote on the Murray amendment. We know the figures. We know the facts. We have the studies. We know what smaller class size means. If we just stop and think to ourselves, think about our own educations and our backgrounds, it is just common sense. We really don't need a lot of study. Sometimes just good old-fashioned common sense tells us what we ought to do, that a smaller class is going to mean more individual attention. As Gentrie said, she would talk to her teacher more. Teachers can talk to parents more. Common sense says we have to do it. We have to have smaller class size. I guess the second question is, Can we afford to do it? Well, when you have $400 billion sitting in a contingency fund, nonallocated, for 10 years, I say yes, we can. We were talking about $1.6 billion last year. This amendment is $2.4 billion. Let's see, if I am not mistaken, that would be about one-half of 1 percent, roughly, of what is in that contingency fund. Can we say we can't use some of that money to reduce class size? I think we have to follow common sense around here and recognize that, yes, we have the resources; yes, we are a rich enough country; yes, we have the money to do this; and we ought to do what is right. We ought to adopt the Murray amendment and continue what we have done for the last couple of years, which is working. We know it is working. The parents love it, as do students and teachers. We know it is going to benefit the kids of America. Why stop now? I think the answer is, don't stop it now; keep it going. Keep reducing class size. Let our teachers teach the way they want to teach and our students learn the way they want to learn, in close relationships. We will have healthier and better schools in the future for America. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, there is an amendment at the desk in behalf of myself, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Jeffords, Mr. Kennedy, and others. I ask unanimous consent to send a modification to of the amendment to the desk.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first, I wish to thank my colleagues, particularly Senator Hagel, for working so hard to come to an agreement on this important bipartisan amendment. We have had some good give and take on a lot of issues, especially on this one. I believe we have produced a proposal that is good for our future, good for our kids, and good for our taxpayers. This amendment is really quite simple and straightforward. It says that the Federal Government is finally going to meet its full commitment which we set in 1975. In fact, I remember it well. Senator Jeffords, the chair of the health committee in the Senate, and I were freshmen in the House that year. Both of us were interested in education, especially in issues that dealt with people with disabilities. In 1975, when IDEA was passed in the House and Senate, there was an agreement made by the negotiators on the understanding that this would cost our local school districts more resources in the future. The negotiators agreed that the Federal Government's goal would be to provide at least 40 percent of the average per-pupil expenditure in each local education area. There was no timeframe put on it. So, for 25 years after 1975, we continued to put more and more money into IDEA but never getting close to fully funding it, which would have been 40 percent of the average per-pupil expenditure. The amendment that we have at the desk says we are going to put our money where our mouth is. We are finally going to be full partners with State and local governments. This amendment fully funds the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It appropriates funds for the next 10 years, gradually rising so that within 6 years we are at the level projected to equal 40 percent of the average per pupil cost. That is what was promised. That is what this amendment will deliver, plain and simple. Let me clarify what the amendment does not do. This amendment does not create a new entitlement program. It provides advanced appropriations for the next 10 years. That amount would be set in law. It does not create an uncontrolled tap on the Treasury, so that whatever the 40 percent costs are we would match. If we did that, the incentive would be to shift costs from other education programs into IDEA, and the costs would then likely skyrocket. We don't want that. Our amendment does not allow for that. As Senator Hagel and so many of us have said so many times, this is not a partisan issue. Both sides have worked diligently over the years to ensure that children with disabilities and their families get a fair shake in life, and especially get a fair shake in our educational system. This really is a win-win-win amendment. With this advanced appropriation, students with disabilities will get the public education they have a constitutional right to receive. Second, school districts will be able to provide these services without cutting into their general education budgets. And in cases where all of the IDEA-eligible kids are getting the services they are entitled to, property taxpayers will get relief. Here are some of the specifics of our amendment. First, our amendment would set in law appropriations levels for IDEA, an increase in roughly $2.35 billion increments annually over the next 6 years. Currently, the State grant program within IDEA receives $6.34 billion a year. This is about 15 percent of what we should be doing under IDEA. In other words, we want to be at 40 percent. This is only about 15 percent of that full funding. Under our amendment, by 2007 we will meet the goal of 40 percent by appropriating just a little over $20 billion--$20 billion with a ``b''. Second, our amendment strikes an appropriate balance between the needs of our students with disabilities and the needs of our State and local governments. Students will get a free and appropriate public education, and local schools will be able to deliver these services without breaking the bank of the local tax base which they have. Under our amendment, States could use 55 percent of the increased funds. That could be used for local purposes or for whatever purpose they want. Furthermore, if a local school district can show that they are indeed meeting 100 percent of the needs of their students with disabilities, they can use 100 percent of the increase we are giving them for other purposes. We did not want an anomaly where if a school district was, in fact, meeting all of the needs and services for students with disabilities, we would then give them all of their money and they would use this money for student disabilities when they don't have any. If they are meeting 100 percent of their needs, why should they get more money to use for that specific purpose? Our amendment says if that is the case, and they can show that, then all of the increases that would accrue under their local State agency to a local school district they could use for other purposes. Also, our amendment provides a new measure to ensure that kids are being served appropriately. Another section of the amendment says that the Secretary can look at a school district and, if there is clear evidence that they are not meeting 100 percent of the needs of their students with disabilities, these increases then have to go to meet that 100 percent of need. This provides a good balance. It allows those local school districts that are doing a great job--there are a lot of them who are meeting all of the needs of kids with disabilities--they can use this money for other purposes. It provides the Secretary with the ability to go in and say, No, you are not. In certain areas where they are not meeting their constitutional requirements--and there are a lot of cases that do--they have to use these increases for that purpose. There has been a lot of talk about Federal mandates. Every year since I have been in the Senate--that is going on 17 years now--I have come to the floor to talk about IDEA and to talk about the fact that while we should fulfill our 40 percent requirement or sort of a guarantee of 40 percent that we put out there 26 years ago, the provision of services to kids with disabilities is not a Federal mandate. It is a constitutional mandate. Two landmark Federal district court cases--PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and another case, Mills v. Board of Education of the District of Columbia--established that children with disabilities have a constitutional right to a free, appropriate public education. Again, there is nowhere in the Constitution of the United States says that a State--any State--has to provide a free public education to any of its kids. Nowhere in the Constitution is that mandated. What the Constitution does say, however, under its equal protection laws, is that if a State does provide a free public education, it cannot discriminate and say, OK, we will just educate white males. It cannot say, we will just educate whites but not blacks. It cannot say, we will educate people of one religion over another. If they are going to provide a free public education, States cannot discriminate on the basis of race, sex, creed, or national origin. And with the two cases in the early 1970s that I mentioned, States cannot discriminate on the basis of disability. So a child with a disability in America--in Illinois, Iowa, or Nebraska--has a constitutional right to a free and appropriate public education. In response to those two cases, in 1975 Congress enacted the Education of Handicapped Children Act, which later became IDEA. It was to help the States meet their constitutional obligations. So even if we did not have this, States would still have to provide the funds. But since I believe, and I think many of my colleagues believe, that the education of children with disabilities is a national problem, that we at the Federal level ought to at least live up to what we said 26 years ago and provide at least 40 percent of the average per-pupil expenditure for children with disabilities. Again, that is what this amendment does. It does it over the next 6 years, so that by the year 2007, fully 32 years later, Congress will finally live up to its promise to our States and local education agencies. Congress enacted Public Law 94-142 for two reasons, first, to establish a consistent policy on what it means to provide a free and appropriate public education to kids with disabilities; and, second, to provide Federal funding to help States meet their constitutional obligations. Finally, the Supreme Court's decision regarding Garret Frey of Cedar Rapids, IA, underscores the need for Congress to help school districts with the financial costs of educating children with disabilities. While the excess costs of educating some children with disabilities is minimal, the excess costs of educating other children with disabilities, such as Garret, can be very great. We need to help school districts meet these challenges. Earlier this year, I heard from the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Chambers of Commerce that more IDEA dollars will help them continue to deliver high-quality educational services to every child in their school districts. I have heard from parents in Iowa that their kids need more qualified interpreters for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Our school districts and our families need better mental health services and better behavioral assessments of children. Our amendment would let these folks do it all because, over the next 10 years, my State of Iowa, I figured out, under this amendment, would receive over $1 billion in new money. Again, there are so many families out there where both parents are working. They may be low income families. They may have a child with a disability, and all they want for that child--a child they love, as we all love our children--is to make sure that child is not discriminated against, that child gets the support services he or she needs to be as successful in life as their capabilities will allow. I have heard so many times about how kids in classes, who may have a disability--sometimes we hear this old saw about how they act up and become disruptive. Consider if you were like my brother, who was deaf, and you were in a classroom with a TV monitor but did not have closed- captions, and you were not provided an interpreter. After a while would you get pretty frustrated. Sometimes, because you cannot speak well, and you cannot hear, maybe you would act out a little bit of your frustrations. What happens then? Maybe they would expel you--all for the lack of the needed services to provide that free and appropriate public education. I must say, my heart goes out to many school teachers in this country, especially in elementary schools. A lot of them have large classes. I have seen as many as 28 to 30 in a class. Teachers are trying to do the best they can to provide instruction to these kids. They may have a couple kids with disabilities. These teachers are not trained to handle kids with disabilities. They have never been trained to do that. They are not experts in behavioral assessments. They might not have had any kind of mental health training. They probably have had no training at all for any one particular disability or another. So I feel sorry for these teachers because they want to teach these kids. They may have a big class to teach, and yet they are not getting the supportive services they need to ensure that kids with disabilities get a good education. That is what we hope this amendment will do, to begin to provide the funding, so that school districts can provide the supportive services, so that our teachers are not frustrated, and so that children will not act out their frustrations because they are disabled and are not getting the support and the kind of services they need. That is what this amendment is all about. Over the past 6 years, as ranking member on the appropriation subcommittee, I have worked with my chairman, Senator Specter, and many others in the Senate, to improve IDEA funding through the normal appropriations process. I think we have done quite well. On a bipartisan basis, we have been able to almost triple IDEA appropriations in the last 6 years. I thank Senator Specter for his leadership in this area. So we are now up to 15 percent of the funding formula. But that is still not adequate. That is why this amendment is so necessary. Yes, we can go by, year after year, trying to get some money out of the discretionary pot. But then that is always a battle. It is always a battle. With this amendment, we will not have to fight that battle every year. Let me make very clear what this amendment does. This amendment appropriates the money that is necessary to get us to that 40 percent level. This is not an authorization amendment, my friends. This amendment appropriates the money. And it does it over a 6-year period of time. I will read the words. The amendment says: Funding. For the purposes of carrying out this part, there are authorized to be appropriated, and there are appropriated--so this amendment isn't just a lot of rhetoric. This amendment isn't just a lot of flowery speeches about how we are going to help our States. This does it. This puts our money where maybe our rhetoric has been in the past. It puts in the money. It lists right in the amendment the amount of moneys that will be appropriated next year, and every year thereafter, until the year 2011. It sets forth those sums. By the year 2007, we will be at approximately $21 billion per year or at 40 percent of the average per pupil expenditure. That is why this amendment is so critical. Now we can say to our States and our local school districts that it isn't just the promise that next year we will try to do better, next year we will try to do a little bit more, and yet every year they see that promise is unfulfilled. This amendment actually means the money is going to be there. For kids with disabilities, IDEA is a downpayment on the American dream. If we want adults with disabilities to succeed in the workplace, we have to first help them succeed in school. Now we have this amendment that will do that. I ask unanimous consent that Senators Stabenow, Dodd, Reed of Rhode Island, Wellstone, and Levin be added as cosponsors of the amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Once again, I thank Senator Hagel for working so closely on this amendment to make sure we had one that really did what we wanted it to do and did it in a cost-conscious and fiscally responsible manner, to make sure we address what is the need out there, the need of kids with disabilities who are not getting served, and to help our local school districts that are meeting that need to be able to use this money to help out their hard- pressed property tax payers. I thank Senator Hagel for his strong work on this amendment; Senator Jeffords, for his many years of support both on the authorizing side and on the appropriations side for kids with disabilities; Senator Kennedy, for his stalwart leadership in all aspects of trying to make life more fair for people with disabilities; Senator Dodd, who, again, has worked hard on these issues through all the years; and my other colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Through all the years, while we may have had disagreements on one little aspect of this, I have found generally on both sides of the aisle a lot of goodwill to try to reach some consensus on how we fulfill the constitutional mandate of providing our kids with disabilities a free and appropriate public education. We have, indeed, come a long way since I first came here in 1975, with the passage of IDEA, then, later on, the Americans with Disabilities Act, early intervention programs and now, finally, the fulfillment of the promise we made 26 years ago that the Federal Government would provide the lion's share of funding to our States and local school districts so our constitutional mandate could be fulfilled. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I understand all time has expired on our amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded back on the Harkin-Hagel amendment that is now at the desk, and I ask consent that the question be put to the Senate regarding that amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes, I will modify the request accordingly.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to congratulate Ed Hill, the new president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, IBEW, on his election. You know, when I think about all the hard work and long hours presidents Hill and Barry have put in over the years, I am reminded of a story that one of my heroes, the great Hubert H. Humphrey liked to tell. It was Humphrey's 65th birthday, and he was celebrating with his grandchildren. One of the grandkids looked up and said, ``Grandpa, how long have you been a Democrat?'' Humphrey thought about that for a moment, and replied, ``Well, I've been a Democrat for 70 years.'' His grandson said, ``Grandpa, how could you have been a Democrat for 70 years when you're only 65 years old?'' ``Easy,'' Humphrey answered, ``I've put in a lot of overtime.'' Well, Ed Hill has put in a lot of overtime on behalf of the IBEW and on behalf of all Americans. You know, I like to tell people you go to any town in America rural or urban, big or small and you will see the IBEW's work on display. Whether it is lighting our homes, or heating our schools, or bringing the Internet to our libraries, it is clear that the IBEW's work is critical to our families and our economy. Ed Hill hails from Beaver County, PA, and he is got a long history with the IBEW. Ed joined IBEW Local 712 in his hometown back in 1956 and worked his way up to business manager in 1970. He became part of the IBEW staff in 1982, and, by 1994, he was a vice president in charge of operations in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware. In 1997, Ed became the IBEW's second highest-ranking officer, and he worked hard to bring the latest technology to IBEW's operations. He also spent long hours building the membership of IBEW-COPE to record levels and making new strides in grassroots activism and communications. For over 100 years, the IBEW has been a leader in the union movement in America. Whether they were providing energy to our war efforts during World War II, creating one of the best apprenticeship programs around, or providing workers with the cutting edge skills they need to keep up with current electricity needs--IBEW was always ahead of the times. I know that Ed Hill will continue this proud tradition. I thank him for his dedication and commitment, and I look forward to working with him in the coming years.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I compliment my dear friend and colleague from Minnesota. There is no one who fights harder for education with more courage, compassion and conviction than Senator Wellstone from Minnesota. He comes from a background of having been an educator and in education for most of his life before coming to the Senate. Senator Wellstone is right. We are about to embark upon a lot of rhetoric. We are going to talk about reforming education, saving education in America, but without the resources it will just be empty rhetoric, one more time. We have to review where we have been on this bill. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act expired 2 years ago. Why are we on it now 2 years later? The other side wouldn't let us pass it last year. They blocked it. And now there is this rush to get it through. I am all in favor of passing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As I understand it, the bill here is the one passed by committee. I understand they are working on another bill. We have not seen it yet and they will drop it sometime after we vote for cloture. I make the point that Senator Wellstone so eloquently made. This is an authorization bill. We can say all these flowery things about saving education, having testing and all that sort of stuff, but if we don't have the resources to back it, we are fooling the American people one more time. Where are the resources for this bill? The National Association of State Boards of Education said the testing requirements in this bill could cost, as Senator Wellstone said, anywhere from $2 billion to $7 billion over 4 years. Where are the resources to pay for that? Are we going to dump it on our property taxpayers one more time? Testing every year means raising property taxes to pay for it. That is basically what we are going to say, unless we have the resources. I have not seen this administration willing to come forward with an agreement to say, we will back X amount of resources to fulfill these mandates we are about to put on the States, one more time. The other side is always talking about unfunded mandates. This is going to be another unfunded mandate. Do the testing. Then raise the property taxes to pay for it. I don't know about other states, but in my State of Iowa we are paying enough property taxes as it is. Do we have the resources? That is the next question. Right now, of every Federal dollar we spend in discretionary spending of hard-earned tax dollars, 2 cents goes for education. Two cents out of every dollar we spend goes for education. Again, do we have the resources? It depends on your priorities whether or not we have the resources. Here is the President's tax cut plan. For the wealthiest 1 percent--I am not talking about middle-class tax cuts; I am talking about for the wealthiest 1 percent--$697 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent; $21.3 billion for education. We have the resources. Don't kid yourself. It depends on what you want to do with them. If you want to give it in tax cuts to the wealthiest, you will support the Bush tax cut. If you want to do education, we will have some amendments on the floor when we consider this bill. The real battle will come on appropriations, on whether or not we will have the amount of money in the appropriations bill to pay for all this testing and everything else that we say we love so much. I remind Senators, a few weeks ago we passed an amendment, 53-47, to take $250 billion and put it in education over 10 years, compared with the President's request of $21.3 billion. What we voted on a few weeks ago by a vote of 53-47 will have the resources to pay for the testing. It will have the resources to fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It will have the resources to fully fund title I programs and the resources to reach down also for things that are not in this bill, such as Head Start. Second, there are three items that no one is discussing that we will have to belly up to the bar on and vote: No. 1, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Are we willing to fully fund it or not? Second, school construction. Are we going to help prepare the leaky roofs and bring schools into the 21st century? Third, are we going to continue to reduce class sizes so our teachers can teach, so the kids can pass these tests that we are going to foist upon them? Senator Wellstone is right. We need a commitment on resources, not just the rhetoric. When this bill is considered, we will have amendments. But keep in mind the real test is going to come on whether or not the Appropriations Committee will be supported by this administration to come up with the money to fund the rhetoric that we will hear a lot in the next few days in the Senate.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Yes, I agree with the Senator from North Dakota that a portion of the funding provided by my amendment should be used to help close the gap between the level of funding authorized by the Tribally Controlled College and University Assistance Act and the level of funding the colleges are currently receiving. I believe the funding in my amendment is sufficient to meet the needs of the tribal colleges and universities as well as the other educational needs throughout the country.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes, I agree with the Senator from North Dakota. The Federal Government provides the core operating funds for the tribal colleges and universities. Without this funding, many of them would have to close their doors.

Mr. HARKIN. The Senator from North Dakota is correct. Although annual appropriations for tribal colleges have increased in recent years, the per Indian student funding is still less than two-thirds the level authorized by law and significantly lower than the public support given to mainstream community students.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments today to honor Dennis H. Blome for his outstanding work as United States Marshal for the Northern District of Iowa. Before he even set foot in the U.S. Marshal's office, Dennis Blome had already distinguished himself with over two decades of dedicated law enforcement service. During these years, he took on just about every position in the field of law enforcement, and he performed them all with diligence, passion and honor. Dennis started out as a Deputy in the Linn County Sheriff's Office in 1971. He then took on the positions of Jail Officer, dispatcher and patrolman before becoming First Deputy for Sheriff Walter H. Grant. And he later served as Jail Administrator, Sergeant, Lieutenant and head of Detectives for the Sheriff's Office. In 1984, Dennis was elected as Sheriff, and he took the lead in helping build a new jail and provide critically needed training for jail personnel throughout Iowa. He was also an enthusiastic member of the legislative Committee of the Iowa State Sheriffs' and Deputies' Association and of the National Sheriffs' Association. Dennis' passion for learning and taking on new challenges led him to continue his education at the FBI National Academy, the National Institute of Corrections and Mount Mercy College where he got his BA degree in Criminal Justice and Psychology. He also took advantage of special training seminars through the National Sheriffs' Conference and the International Chiefs of Police. Dennis' extensive job experience and solid education served him well when he was appointed as United States Marshal for the Northern District of Iowa back in 1994. He focused his boundless energy on a number of projects, most notably, that of strengthening security in our courthouses. Today, thanks to Dennis, our courthouses in Cedar Rapids and Sioux City have interior and exterior camera systems as well as recording systems and multiple monitoring systems. But even more important than what Dennis accomplished is how he accomplished it. Dennis never considered any job to be ``beneath'' him. He was always willing to pitch in whether it meant being present in court, transporting prisoners or doing anything else necessary to keep the agency in good running order. His humility and commitment to his work made him a popular leader. Dennis Blome embodies all of the highest ideals of public service. He's served our state with honor and loyalty for thirty years, and it is my pleasure to offer my deepest gratitude for his considerable contributions.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, Phylliss Henry has been a pioneer in my home State of Iowa, shattering glass ceilings, blazing a bold new trail for women in law enforcement, and reaching out to help others follow after her. Her tireless work to stamp out crime and to bring women to the table in law enforcement have made a lasting impact on our state. Back in 1972, Phylliss became the first woman ever to receive a law enforcement degree from Des Moines Area Community College. She was then hired as the first female patrol officer in the Des Moines Department, and she remained the only female patrol officer until 1977. She later became a Sergeant with the Special Crime Unit and with the Communication Section where she helped with minority recruitment and acted as a role model for other women in law enforcement. Phylliss then made the courageous decision to continue and expand her education, and she focused her energy on obtaining a Bachelor of General Studies degree in 1984, an MA in Communications Studies in 1986, and a PhD in Communication Research in 1988, all from the University of Iowa. In December of 1990, she became the Support Services Manager of the Iowa State University Department of Public Safety. As in all her previous positions, she took the job to a new level, creating new crime prevention, security and assault awareness programs. In 1994, Phylliss' outstanding record led to her appointment as a United States Marshal, the first woman ever to hold this position in the state of Iowa, and for seven years, she served with distinction. She was instrumental in leading building renovations projects in Des Moines and Davenport and in helping to finish up the Court Annex Building. She also led the initiatives to bring Iowa Communication Network access to the district. And she was a one-woman army when it came to getting funding for critical projects in the district and to stretching every dollar to its limits. In a few years, she was able to automate the entire district with limited funding. And during a time when the district was being hit hard by increases in prisoner populations and decreases in bed space, she obtained a State of Iowa contract and greatly reduced the crisis need for federal prison beds. In addition, throughout her career, Phylliss has never been content to use her energy only in the workplace. She has contributed to organizations ranging from the Young Women's Resource Center, the International and Iowa Associations of Women Police, Children and Families of Iowa and many more. She even managed to find the time to co-found the Iowa Association of Women Police. She has been honored by groups ranging from the Greater Des Moines YWCA to the Des Moines Metro Women's Network to the International Association of Women police and more. And it is my pleasure to add myself to that list and offer my deepest gratitude for her long and distinguished record of service to our State.