Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Let us take a look at exactly what this bill does. What this bill does is, it amends title VI of the education block grant program to allow States and localities, if they choose, if they choose, they are not required to do anything, but if they believe it is the most appropriate thing and the most appropriate effort for their local community to improve schools, they may use these block grants for voluntary public, private, and parental choice programs. Other things that they can use title VI for are professional development, curriculum development, technology and computers, magnet schools. All this says is, if you and your community and your State believe this is what you want to do to help kids in your community, we are going to let you do it. Why do we think that this is the right approach? Over the last 12 months, we have gone to Milwaukee; New York; Chicago; California; Phoenix; Wilmington, Delaware; Milledgeville, Georgia; Cincinnati, Ohio; Louisville; Little Rock, Arkansas; Cleveland; Muskegon, Michigan; Des Moines. We have gone to these 13 different States, 14, 15 different field hearings, and in every field hearing we have heard exciting innovations at the local level about what people are trying to do to solve the education problems in their communities. In Milwaukee, in Cleveland, they have said, we really think a scholarship program and a scholarship effort is what is needed in our community. And wonderful things are happening. Is it a silver bullet? Is it going to work everywhere? No. But in these communities, it is these people have decided and they are having some wonderful success, and they want to be able to build off of that. We should let other States and other communities have the same opportunity. We need to give these other people and other States the opportunity to experiment to see whether this is one of those tools that will move this country forward. The focus is not on the system, but the people in these local communities are focused on the children because it is local people making decisions for their children. And my colleagues should listen to the parents. It is not only the letters that we get but the testimony that we get from parents coming in saying, help us and empower us to save our kids, and give us the control and the flexibility to do what we want to do in this community and not do what Washington is forcing us to do.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding time to me, and congratulate him on all the fine work we have done on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and also for really allowing our subcommittee to travel around the country over the last year and hear what is going on in education and the impact that the Federal Government is having. Let us take a brief look at exactly what this resolution is calling for. Number one, it asks to determine the extent to which the Federal elementary and secondary education dollars are currently reaching the classroom. It invites us to work together to remove the barriers that currently prevent a greater percentage of funds from reaching the classroom, from reaching our kids, and then work toward a goal of getting 90 cents of every Federal education dollar into the classroom. It simply states we should return a greater percentage of our Federal dollars back to the classroom, and that this is the most effective place and this is the place where we can have most of the leverage with our kids. Mr. Speaker, I am glad that my colleague, the gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink] is confident that we are doing a good job here in Washington. I wish she could have been with us more often as we went around the country and have visited 14 different States, have had hearings here in Washington, and there is a consistent message, whether it is Milwaukee, New York, Chicago, California, Phoenix, Wilmington, Georgia, Cincinnati, Louisville, Little Rock, Cleveland, Muskegon, Michigan. All of these people are telling us one consistent thing: paperwork, bureaucracy, and mandates from Washington are smothering creativity and effectiveness at the local level. They are not saying everything is fine, they are saying, we are being smothered by the paperwork. People at the State legislature are saying, we are being smothered by mandates that we need to pass on to the local school districts. No, when we take a look at it from a State level, when we take a look at it from a local level, no, everything is not fine with education and with Federal education dollars. We need more local parental control, we need a focus on more basic academics, and we need to get more dollars to the classroom. Instead of looking at the local level, I am disappointed that my colleague, the gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink] does not agree with our President. Our President recognizes that everything is not fine. In 1996, as we were moving out and spending more money on education, what did our President say? ``We cannot ask the American people to spend more on education until we do a better job with the money we've got now.'' The President recognizes we need to get more dollars into the classroom, the people at the local level recognize we need to get more money to the classroom. It is only a few here in the House of Representatives that believe that everything is fine and we do not need to change anything. No, we have a lot of work to do. We need to move forward. When we are getting somewhere between 50 to 65 cents of Federal dollars into the classroom, we know we can do better. What are people saying? Dr. Yvonne Chan, from a great charter school we visited in California, said ``Don't swamp us with the paperwork and we can have a lot more money going to the kids.'' This is a woman who saved $1 million out of her State budget and they are focusing it on the kids, and they are doing wonderful things in that charter school in that State. We have seen that around the country, States freeing up administrators, States freeing up teachers at the local level to focus on what needs to be done in the classroom. It is about time Washington decides that is the best place to go, that we start agreeing with the movements that are going on around the States to less mandates, more flexibility at the local level, and more dollars to the classroom.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Michigan?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Arizona?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think the gentleman brings up a very important point. Whether we are talking about dollars, which is what my colleague from California and I started talking about, whether we are talking about testing, whether we are talking about curriculum, we are talking about where is the focal point and where is the decision-making for education? Are we going to move it to bureaucrats here in Washington? That is exactly what has happened with this testing. We know that we lose somewhere between 40 and 50 cents of every dollar to bureaucrats here in Washington. Was that test written with the Governor of Colorado?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think this is really an important point, that what the gentleman is saying here, and this is one of the numbers we are trying to get a handle on and I thought it was closer to 60, either one of which is not very good. But what the gentleman is saying is the GAO study, our work on the committee says maybe it is 60 cents but for every dollar that comes out of our hometown that comes to Washington and then leaves here in the form of an education dollar, that of the dollar that comes here somewhere between 52 cents, 40 to 52 cents never leaves here. So a dollar that comes here; only between 48 cents and 60 cents actually gets back to what we have found is the most effective place for education, which is in the classroom with the teacher under parental and local control. That is the leverage point, that somewhere we lose almost half of every education dollar here in Washington. Next week, the gentleman from California is absolutely right, we are going to have that debate here on the floor where a resolution that says our vision for the future is that at most for every dollar that comes to Washington, only 10 cents stays here and 90 cents--well, actually only 10 cents is lost between Washington and the classroom, which means the State bureaucracies and that. We want to get 90 cents to the teacher who knows my child's name, and into the classroom where my child sits in the school that is run by the school board that we elect. That is where we want to get the money to.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Explain this. This is the guy that was part of the group that developed what may or may not be a national test, correct?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Has the gentleman from California Mr. Cunningham?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Think of that. Empowering parents and teachers and all of that, some people in this Washington establishment down the road believe that that is a radical idea.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. But good news on the direct loan program. Right? We had to shut it down this year because they cannot consolidate the loans. I did not bring it with me, oh, I do have it with me. A letter from 75 college students who want to consolidate their loans. What does this mean? It means they are going to take all of their loans that they have gotten for education and put it in one payment. A novel idea?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. No, I do not think so. What we have is we have a group of people here in Washington, and you have some other interesting statistics on tests, but the people here in Washington who developed the test that they expect to work in Holland, Michigan, that they expect to work in San Diego, that they expect to work in Fort Collins, is that where my colleague from Colorado is from? Close?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I would be more than willing to engage the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham], but only on one condition. The gentleman has got to get the name right. It is not ``HOCK-STRA'' it is ``Hoekstra.'' If the gentleman wants to start tonight and talk a little bit about education, that would be fine with me if he would like to go first.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. California?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank my colleagues for joining me.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Remember what this means. If we get 90 percent of the dollars to the local school district, instead of 50, that is about a 40 percent operating increase in local budget for every school district, without any new millage. It just says, you know, we have cut this money out and you are getting it, with no red tape. So I thank my colleagues for joining me in this special order. We have had a wonderful discussion and dialogue on education. The important thing, as my colleague, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg] keeps coming back to, we are going to be making a decision on this testing issue, which is a much bigger issue than testing. It is about who is controlling education, who is controlling curriculum, and who is controlling dollars and direction for our local schools. The House is firmly on record saying it has got to be parents, teachers, and local school boards. The other body is moving in the direction of Washington maybe knows best. That is the wrong direction to go.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I think he is a great student now and he is contributing in a very different way to this school. So everything is kind of coming together because we have that student in the right environment. It does not mean that the other school was a bad school, but we match the student with the environment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Rebuilding computers. They do not need a corporation to rebuild the computer and give it to the school. This kid, they give him, people drop stuff off and they give it to him and he fixes the stuff and he is a great student now.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. This kid was put into this environment where he was provided an opportunity to flourish. You know what his strength was? He developed a whole bunch of strengths. Do you know one of the things he is really contributing to the school is--

Mr. HOEKSTRA. You would love the story that our colleague from Arizona and I can share with you about the student at the charter school who was, I think, in his previous school had been labeled as a difficult student or whatever.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I think it is very interesting. I have learned a new term tonight. Instead of talking about stress or anxiety or whatever, psychic toll, only somebody who would be developing a national test could come up with psychic toll. I think it is about time we create some psychic toll on the other body before we end up really creating, we are going to have a test that does not work, and it will create a lot of stress and anxiety and a lot of wasted effort at the local level, because one more time, it is going to move more power away from that classroom to bureaucrats in Washington. The leverage point is the classroom, with the teacher that knows my kid's name. That is where the money needs to go, where the decision making needs to go, and we have got to get it there and move it away from Washington, and we need to move to my colleague from California.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will yield, one of the places we have had hearings this past year is we had hearings in the State of Delaware. Delaware is the size of one Congressional district. We have 16 in Michigan, 54 in California, or whatever it is, or 52. But in Delaware, the State of Delaware, they wanted to develop a statewide test, and they used the right process. They started with parents, teachers, local administrators, and it took them three years. They are now to the point where they believe they have a test that is testing the kind of skills that they believe need to be tested. They have got parental input. What happens when you take a test? They get a score. Who finds out about the score? The kids and parents. What happens if the test is not validated with the parents? They say this test is all wrong, and you end up wasting it. These guys here in the administration developed a national test with no involvement. They sat in an ivory tower somewhere and developed it in what, six or seven months, and they think they are going to apply it to Arizona, California, Michigan, New York, and what do you think the people in Colorado are going to say?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Absolutely. I am just trying to reinforce the point that we need to get the computers and technology in there. When it happens, the gentleman and I need somebody to fix our computers for us, and those kinds of things. These kids out there that are growing up with it, they can do wonderful things, the more technology we give them.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. We do not want to lose one child. We want to give every child the opportunity to develop their full skills.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. The real difference here is when you empower local communities and parents, the standards reflect community standards. When you empower bureaucrats here in Washington, you get an agenda from Washington that they are trying to impose on communities around the country. It is bottom up versus top down. We are in favor of bottom up.