Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Over 600. We counted them. Across the government, there were over, I think, 650 different education programs, and you say, Why?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. No. We don't trust them.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. So what we do is we tell Ypsilanti, we tell Midland, we tell Traverse City, At least a portion of the money that you get from Washington, you will all run it the same way. And it is kind of like, Wow----

Mr. HOEKSTRA. These are three very, very different communities with very different needs and challenges right now. Why are we trying to put them all into one straitjacket? Don't we really trust the local officials? And, more importantly, are you telling us you don't trust local parents to take ownership over their schools? Dick Armey, our former colleague, used to say, The people that I want running my schools are the people who know the names of my kids. That is the local folks.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It paints a picture. Because if you come to Washington and you ask, Do you know the kids in the fifth grade at South Middle School or West Middle School? And it is kind of like, What town? Well, in Holland. No, I don't. And they have gone through consolidation and all of that. The names of the schools aren't that important. What is important is, Do you know the names of the kids at Muskegon Heights? in Bay City? in Mackinaw? And the answer will be, No. As a matter of fact, I can't even find some of those places on the map if I have to look, is what you will get from the Education Department. I have always wanted to go to the Education Department and start with the Secretary, say, Mr. Secretary, what State are you from? Well, I know he is from Illinois. He is from Chicago. He is not far from Michigan. He actually probably understands the Midwest and he understands large, urban school districts. Okay. Do you have anybody in your office, the secretariat or whatever that is from Michigan? No, I don't think so. Then you go to the undersecretaries. And, Do you have anybody that is from Michigan? How far do I have to go down before I find somebody in the position of authority that is maybe from my State that may have a little bit of understanding of my State? Now, we have over 9 million people living in Michigan, so that person might understand a piece of Michigan but not the whole State. And then you kind of go through and say, I wonder how long it would take me to find somebody from the Second Congressional District. Then, I wonder how long it would take me to find somebody from my hometown who understands that right now the community is facing a $2 million shortfall, that we have got issues with our public schools. The public schools are asking for a $70 million bond issue, and that they would understand the challenges. I don't think I will find anybody from Holland. To Washington, our kids are a number at best. In Holland, it is ``Aaron.'' They know the names of the kids.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I can tell you, we worked with the NEA, the National Education Association. We worked with them, Barney Frank and I. Barney Frank, one of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, we fought this issue, and he came at it from a very different standpoint than where I did.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. We came at it from the right and the left. But we came together because we both saw the inherent problems with this bill, and we had an amendment that we were hoping that if the NEA, if the National Education Association had joined with us and supported it, I think we would have passed our amendment and we would have a very different No Child Left Behind framework than what we have today. But they were kind of neutral. They didn't take a position, which also tells something to our constituents: If you are not involved in the process, someone else will decide the future for you. What the NEA found out is that they didn't participate actively in fighting this bill. And now, I just talked to a group of students, I think it was Monday morning, or they were at one of the lunches. There were 18 students there. They were there with their teacher. They were advanced AP students, out of school. They were there at lunch in Wayland, Michigan. I said, I voted against No Child Left Behind. And that always surprises a lot of the teachers in my district, because they thought that I was just lockstep with the President. Of course Hoekstra voted with the President. No, I voted against the bill. And the loudest applause comes from the NEA member, the teacher, because he has seen what it has done to his local schools. And we have just gone through, and we are in the process of duplicating exactly what happened with No Child Left Behind with this new program called Race to the Top. What does Race to the Top do? In Michigan--and I just kind of laid back a little. If people asked me, I would say, If I were you, I wouldn't go for the money. But the State went for the money because you had to do some reforms. The reforms were good. But if the reforms were good, we should have done them anyway. We should not have waited for Washington to bribe us to do this, because now that we are involved in this Race to the Top process, we are also finding out, well, this is No Child Left Behind all over again. Because what Race to the Top does is the same thing as No Child Left Behind. It promised a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And now local school districts are starting to take a look at this and they are saying, This isn't so good. No one told us that we are going to get X amount of dollars, but that to implement the mandates that come with Race to the Top it is going to cost us more than X. So, actually, we are going to get this Federal money and we are going to get the mandates that come along with it, and now to implement these mandates it is going to cost us extra money to do it when we are already being squeezed. Sounds like No Child Left Behind. Sounds like health care.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is kind of like Charlie Brown. How many times are you going to pull the football away?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. And what you will see again is the States becoming incubators of ideas. Missouri or Michigan, we will compete, and you will get some great ideas, we will get some great ideas. You will have some bad ideas and we will have some bad ideas. We will try them. Some things will work, some things will not. And then we will be looking around at the other States and saying, Hey, what are you doing that works? And when we find something that says, Your community is not exactly like ours, but if we kind of take what you have done, there is a lot of good stuff there, and if we put that into place in Grand Rapids, with a few tweaks, we think that is going to help us; we think that is going to help make our schools in Grand Rapids better.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. The other thing that we will see is we will see that at a State level you can respond. When something doesn't work, you change it. You and I are both very familiar that there is a key component of No Child Left Behind that does not work. What is it? It says we are going to measure this year's first grade class and their performance, and we are going to compare it to last year's first grade class and their performance. I say, well, you know, this could be 27 kids and this could be 27 kids, but they may be very, very different kids. And as a matter of fact, I was looking at that. And right after No Child Left Behind passed, I went to one of my schools, because they invited me to come in. And I knew where the school was, and I thought that this was in a relatively stable neighborhood. And they were explaining to me some of their issues. And they said Congressman, you know, we don't even have these 27 kids all year. We have 27 kids when we begin the year, we have 27 kids in this class when we end the year, but there may be 20 to 25 kids that have come in and out of this class. And you kind of look at them and say I thought this was a pretty stable neighborhood. They said you don't understand. We have got these types of things in the neighborhood, and this is a very transient population.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Right. But the standard has been in place for 8 years. Everybody knows it is wrong and it doesn't work. Technology has moved to the point where it says we can track Johnny individually. And if he moves from one school to another, we can track his specific performance. We ought to be tracking the specific performance of every kid in the classroom versus a group of kids that is in and out and all of that. But after 8 years, what is the measurement? The same one that passed in 2001 that everybody agrees doesn't work. But it is what, it is implemented in all 50 States, and it is the criteria that determines whether you are a good school or you are--only Washington can use these terms--a failing school. For the teachers that are in this school that have a 70 percent turnover of kids in their classroom during the year, you know, they may not measure up very well to the arbitrary standards that were put in place here in Washington, D.C., but they may be some of our most committed and talented teachers because they are dealing with different kids in the classroom. You know, every couple of weeks a new child comes in, a couple leave, and it is like, wow, this kid has different skills than the two that have left. I have got to figure out exactly, you know, is this kid excelling in math? You know, he has got great math skills, but I got to help him in reading. You know, you got to do a whole assessment. But the current model doesn't allow for those kinds of differences.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Absolutely. What you want to have happen is you and I both want accountability. But as technology changes, and as teaching changes, and as practices in the classroom changes, you know, I want Missouri developing an accountability model, I want Michigan developing an accountability model, I want Illinois developing an accountability model. And then every year I want to get together and say, you know, here is what is working for us, but we got some problems in this area. We just don't appear to be getting it right. What are you doing? And then Missouri may come back and say, well, you know, we had those same kinds of issues 3 years ago, and here is what we did, and this appears to make our accountability system better. But you know, here is where we are running into a problem right now. So you have that learning going on, and then you get together and you say, you know, well, what is the best way to put in performance pay for teachers? How do you recognize the differences in a classroom where you begin the year with 27 kids in the classroom and at the end of the year they have the same 27 kids? You know, how do you measure teachers' performance in a classroom like that versus the teacher who is in a classroom where they have got the 70 percent turnover? You can't treat them the same. You can't have the same kind of measurement. You know, how do you deal with that? That is the kind of ingenuity and creativity that we need to be seeing going on across the country. Someone sent me an email message tonight talking about the video learning, the high-tech learning and those types of things. And there are people that are experimenting with that at higher level, at the community colleges, our high schools and all that. You know, it is like somebody ought to really try that and see what works. Do a little experimentation.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. And I am not saying that bonuses for teachers are the way to go. But we ought to be working with teachers, with parents, and with others to have these laboratories around the country. And that doesn't mean that every class is a laboratory and you are trying the whole thing brand new. It means what you are saying is every year, every month, every week we are going to be focused on having continuous improvement. That if we can learn from other States, if we can learn from other schools, if we can learn from other countries we are always going to be on the cutting edge of improving our schools. Right now where are we? Where do our superintendents look? Where do our State education bureaucrats look? Now they have to look to some old bill that was passed in 2001 that tells them how to run their schools. You won't find that in business anymore. You won't find businesses operating on a model that was in place in 2001. If they were still operating in the same practices, the same technology and all of these kinds of things that they were operating on in 2001, guess what, in 2010 they would be out of business. They could no longer compete. So whether it is education, whether it is infrastructure, you know, the whole gamut. You want to do the same thing with job training. You know, as a starter, I have got bills to do this. It is kind of like highway money goes back to the States, the gas tax money. It doesn't need to come here. Send a penny out of every dollar, let the 435 of us here fight over one penny of gas tax, not a dollar of gas tax. All right. Then same thing with K-12 education. Send us the money back. We will get 35 cents more of every dollar to put into the classroom. And then it is really a win-win. You know, send me 90 cents of every education dollar. You save 10 percent, I get 25 cents more going into the classroom. It is a win for all of us. Get rid of the bureaucracy and the paperwork. Put the emphasis on the kids. And then do it with job training. I have got bills on all three of those areas. And the bottom line is if you don't do it, recall.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Absolutely. You know, because you take a look at a State like Michigan, and I think it is probably the same in Missouri, and you take a look at the State and you say, well, my State this year is starting the year off with--or they are looking at their next budget year and they are saying we are going to have somewhere between a $1.2 and a $1.4 billion deficit for the next budget year, which they got to get done later this calendar year. And you look at it and say, well, you got a $47 billion budget. You know, finding $1.2, finding $1.4 billion in savings, you know, 2, 3 percent? That shouldn't be that hard. And then you start looking at the reality and say, well, out of that $47 billion, 19 of it is direct money from Washington, D.C. All right. Well, that is off the table. Then you take a look at it and say, well, but you know, with that highway money we get that is part of that $19 billion, it requires that we have the State match. And this money that we got for K-12, you know, that comes from No Child Left Behind, it controls some of the spending of the rest of the budget. And you start looking at it and saying, well, now all of a sudden I have got a $1.2 or $1.4 billion deficit and I have got maybe $10, $11 billion that I can work with. And it is like, no, there are efficiencies that we can find in all of those areas if that money never left the State and we were given the authority. Because you know, the other thing that we talk about, the money comes from Washington, but what then happens? That is not the end of the line. If the money comes from Washington, then--actually, Washington collects the money.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. You and I paid it and our constituents paid it. All right. And it is gone. It comes to this place here. We then decide what we are going to do with it. Now, if our people in our communities or our States want to get the money back, a lot of times what do they have to do? What do they have? All of my school districts have what they call grant writers, somebody they pay $30 to $35,000 to, and there is a very good performance measure.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. You know, we are paying you $35,000 a year. If you get $36,000 in grants coming back to the school district, you have been a good investment. So they have to apply for the money. And they may not get it. But you know, a lot of times it is a competition to get the money. So a lot of the application money is wasted. The money then comes back to the State, goes to our local schools, we lose 35 percent. Once it is in the classroom, once it is being built to build a turtle fence or build a bike overpass that we don't need, then we have to send a report back to Washington telling them what we did with the money. I have always wanted to find the person who reads it. Okay. Does anybody really read the report? And then every once in a while, and perhaps too often, you will find the next thing. You will find the auditor going back to a local school district or a local government agency and say, ``Prove it. Prove that you spent the money the way that you applied for it and the way that you developed and moved it forward.''

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Actually, we don't have the same kind of problems. Our problems are much more severe than anybody else's. We lead the country in unemployment. And we have done that for a number of years. I think the last unemployment number in Michigan was 14.8 percent. But for the last 12 to 18 months we've been in the 14, 15 percent unemployment. Well above any other State. That really doesn't include the people that have stopped working. It doesn't include the people that are underemployed. It also doesn't include the number of people-- when I come here to Washington every week, I'm always amazed by the number of people who are on the plane, or as I'm talking to the people in my district, the number of people who I run into and say, Pete, I'm in Michigan. I'm committed to Michigan. But I'm gone 2 weeks at a time from my wife and my kids because the only place I can find a job is somewhere else. I'm working somewhere other than Michigan. Some of them stay because they're so committed. Others stay because, obviously, in a State that has declining population, by definition you have a housing surplus, meaning that it's hard for them to sell their homes. The vision that we have for Michigan is to bring Michigan back. Michigan is a great State. Missouri is a great State. This is a great country. I think you and I are committed to believing that with the right kind of leadership either at the Federal level or at the State level, there's no reason we ought to be enduring 10 percent at a national level or 15 percent at a State level. Go back to the principles that we employed back in 1994. It's accountability back to the people. That's what the Contract with America was all about. I tried to get recall as part of the Contract with America. I wish we had. I wish voters today had the opportunity to recall their representatives and their senators. But what we did in 1995 and 1996, we didn't increase spending, we didn't do a stimulus bill like that, we didn't do cap-and-trade, we didn't do health care. We didn't do all these massive government spending programs. We basically froze spending. We cut taxes. We reformed government. We reformed welfare. And we did it with a Republican Congress and a Democrat President. We were able to focus on what the American people wanted, what they needed, and we had an era of prosperity that helped a lot of people. But the formula is simple: Give more money back to the American people, reform government, and control spending.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I don't think people are tone deaf. I think people in the State sense that----

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Just like the gentleman demonstrated in Massachusetts, the people are not tone deaf. They think we are. And they know Washington is.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Gentleman, that's the problem down here. Washington, D.C., as an institution has become tone deaf. And you've got solutions. You know what the solutions are. You can fix the problem in Michigan, you can fix the problem in Missouri. It's as simple as what JFK did, what Ronald Reagan did, what Bush did, and that is get off the spending, get off the taxing, and give the American public a chance.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Here's how we start our op-ed. I like our title. Of course, I helped write it. We call it ``Storming the Castle.'' On January 19, the people of Massachusetts stormed the castle of the political elite and toppled it to the ground. After months of abuse and neglect and being shut out of the lofty parapets of the U.S. Senate, they took a stand and sent a strong, undeniable message to the Democrat-controlled castle of American politics. Enough is enough. I think that sums it all up. That's where the American people are today. That's where grassroots America is today. That's where they were in 1993 and 1994. In 1993 and 1994, they got involved. When I meet with these folks, I do ask them the question: How different would this country be today if the involvement that we saw in 1993 and 1994, the insightful, knowledgeable involvement--I mean these people understand the issues. They know where they want to go. If that involvement we saw in 1993 and 1994, and the involvement that we're seeing in 2009 and 2010, how different would this country have been if they had stayed involved through that whole timeframe? And that's partly our responsibility by not motivating them enough and inviting them into the process. But if they would been involved in the process, we wouldn't be talking about whether we should be passing legislation or passing a constitutional amendment that would give them the authority to recall their Federal elected officials. We'd already have it. It would now be working its way through the States. I think it's so healthy to have these people involved in the process and involved in a knowledgeable way, because they do recognize that if they don't show up, someone else will run this country. They recognize that government is run by those who show up on election day.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank my colleague, Congressman Akin. This is a time where we've got the great State of Michigan, the great State of Missouri, the Show-Me State. It's now time for this Congress to show the people of Missouri, to show the people of America, and to show the people of Michigan where we're headed. And if we don't do it, guess what? They will show us on election day. And they will storm the castle by saying, Enough is enough. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I rise here today to recognize the retirement of Dawn Phillips-Hertz. Dawn has served as General Counsel to the Michigan Press Association for nearly 30 years, offering free legal advice to anybody from the more than 300 newspapers in Michigan, including those located within Michigan's Second Congressional District. Journalists throughout the state admired her for gracefully offering a hotline to answer tough questions with thoughtful and accurate answers to any number of open government questions. She was committed to the cause of freedom of the press, and was a staunch advocate and aggressive defender of it. Her knowledge of the Freedom of Information Act and all laws pertaining to open government meetings helped countless reporters, editors and publishers to fulfill their duty of providing citizens with information necessary for them to know the activities of their elected representatives and other government officials. She helped countless editors and reporters from committing troublesome mistakes whenever it was necessary, fully understanding at times intense deadline pressure. She also helped elected officials understand potential pitfalls in introducing or voting upon legislation that would impact the public's right to know. Madam Speaker, I congratulate Ms. Phillips-Hertz on her retirement following a successful career in supporting journalism endeavors in Michigan.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank my colleague for yielding. Madam Speaker, today, I met Theresa. Theresa had a sign that read: I love my country. On the other side, it read: My future. Her brother, Xavier, had a sign that read: Give me liberty, not debt. If we pass Pelosi health care tonight, tomorrow morning, we will still all love our country; but we will have jeopardized Theresa's future. A bailout, a stimulus, cap-and-trade, and Pelosi health care have jeopardized her future. For Xavier, we will have given him debt: another $1.2 trillion on top of the $1.4 trillion we gave him last year. I will vote ``no'' because I believe that that's the vote that says: I love my country. I will vote ``no'' because I believe that that is the vote that preserves our future. I will vote ``no'' because I know that that will preserve Xavier's liberty and not give him more debt. With that, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.